The Easter Candy

I was looking for something
In that junkpile I call my bedroom
And looky what I found!!!
Some old Easter candy and
it was in perfect condition

I should know I ate 6 Reese's eggs
One after the other and
I knew I had to find a good place
To hide them because
I'm not supposed to eat any

What to do what to do
I wanted to have my candy and
eat it too but next week
I have to face Mr Scale
and the Frown-faced Dietician

Mr Scale and the Dietician won
I bagged up the candy and
set it aside for some kids
I tied the bag real tight
and hung it on the kitchen chair

Later The Person With The Kids
came and got my Easter candy
And I said what a good girl I am
But the Chocolate Devil inside
laughed at me and said

WHY DID YOU NOT SAVE THE
EASTER REECE'S CHOCOLATE EGGS
Dummy????
But he doesn't have to face
The Dietician and Mr Scale


But I do!!!!

Linda Barnard 8-10



Easter candy

Isolating Myself

When I was in Partial Hospital the staff there kept emphasising how we are not supposed to Isolate Ourselves, it was something to be fought against. At least there was a roomful of us that knew what Isolating Yourself meant. In that way I miss Partial Hospital because there I was one among many. Now I am the only one (in my family) and nobody understands me.

People all the time say how happy I am, that they would have never guessed I had a mental problem. That is because I am a master at The Mask. The group at Partial Hospital knew what that was too. It's when you put the best face on things that you can, and hide what's going on underneith. It's what some people mean when they say "leave your problems outside the door when you go to work"

I started to grow A Mask when I was young. I learned very early not to let people know how I was REALLY feeling after I kept getting beat up in elementary school. You learn real early to say what people want to hear. You learn real early to put yourself in other people's footsteps and react to whatever it is they are feeling.

It's like a clown. Laughing on the outside and crying on the inside.

When depression overtakes me, it's not like I wake up one morning and decide, ok, I'm depressed. This means I stay in the house today and withdraw from people. It's more a very slow going down hill, very gradual, and by the time you realise maybe you should tell your med nurse what's going on, it's got you in it's grip.

So here I sit. The car goes nowhere. Nobody understands why I am as I am. Husband keeps bitching about the house, all the things I am not doing, and how I stay chained to the computer all day and all night. But if I ask him to pick something up for me, cash my cheque or whatever he becomes An Enabler. Of course there's a trade. He knows all about my money while I know nothing about his, except he keeps bitching about having to pay all the bills.

It's far easier to communicate with the world through a computer monitor. So when they say, "I love my computer because all my friends are in it" that describes me.

I'll emerge from my shell when I feel like it, or the meds begin to work, whatever comes first

More Tired and Vague than ever

I don't know if this little bit of extra pill along with my other pills is supposed to make a difference but if it has, it is a step backward. I am sleepy and feel very vague. I know there are things I have to do, such as check to see if I have any appointments and look and see who I owe money to (not that they will get it, but I should be interested enough to know who is after the few pesos that I might have).

Nothing really matters. I never did want to go out but now I have to worry if I will fall asleep at the wheel long enough to hit somebody. I always put on my seat belt just in case anyway. This is not a good thing but I wish I could pay for somebody else to run my life until I struggle out of this hole I am in.

Thank God I am not a social person or have public obligations to follow through with. The person whose services I would like to afford to run my life would just have to call up everybody and say Linda ain't gonna be there, or do this or that, or even show up to answer my front door. Maybe I have to wait a little longer and give this additional medicine to work, I don't know.

There's one strange thing though. For some reason I am getting on my bike and riding it for 1/2 hour. Yesterday I did this twice. It is useless because while I start every day with good intentions about eating less food, it all seems to fall apart after 12 noon. I don't know why I do this. Most of the time I feel sick to my stomach and wish I never saw whatever it was I ate at all.

Small example last night why was I driven to eat not one, but 2 hamburger buns with jam before going to sleep. Mind you the jam was low calories but that isn't the point. I felt sick after I ate them.

I think I will take my am meds and get on my bike. If I fall asleep and end up on the floor at least I tried

I Need To Get My Ass In Gear But Don't Know How

For those of you who object to all the time I spend on line consider this: If I wasn't upright playing games I would be fast asleep in bed. That's what I used to do before I had a computer to use.

Right now, there are two things I need to do. I need to get up and take my am pills and I have to call Walmart because I have 4 Rx's running very low and all of them need the doctor's say-so. You'd think I'd get moving but I keep putting these things off.

I also need to get a shower and get out of these clothes I have been in for the third day going now. I know. I'm such a nasty person and I agree with you, People who don't have chronic depression find it very hard to understand how it is I can sit here and write a blog entry, or play the clown on fb and yet have nothing left over for real life.

I started taking an additional pill last week but it hasn't cut in yet, that I can see. I wonder if it will take the 4-6 weeks to get in my system. Sometimes I strike it lucky and get almost an immediate result.

It would be so easy just to go to sleep, wake up, take more Xanax, sleep and so forth. Believe it or not I did a lot of living like that before I changed Lamictal for the Tegretol that zoned me out so terribly I couldn't even finish a sentence and forgot words and just lived to sleep. I managed to work full time though and I don't know how.

I remembered one morning making 6am and it was lightly snowing and dark and I was the only one in the road, down by the intersection of Tiogue and Arnold road. The light changed and I almost struck a car which was coming the opposite way that I never even saw. The car turned and went down Sandy Bottom Road and in my rear view mirror I noticed red and blue lights in the distance.

I almost had a head-on with a police car. He went his way and I went mine. Thank your Mr. Unknown Policeman for not pursuing this matter further, and I hope you had a nice fresh cup of coffee and an extra-big donut for your good deed

A Pair Of Sneakers and Some Old Slippers

Yes that's all I own for my feet. The sneakers are Vans so they were a good brand to start with but with wearing them everywhere they are all beat-up looking. My slippers are blue and a couple of years old. Now and then I put them in a mesh bag and throw them in the washer. Now how did I get in such a sad state of affairs shoe-wise and what am I gonna do about it. My Vans are regular canvas covered and with the kind of rain we are having today, they will be soaked through if I had to go out.

It's not that I don't like shoes. I see beautiful shoes that I'd like to wear any time I look at a catalogue or flyer. Everybody I know has plenty of shoes filling up their closets. My daughter has plenty of shoes but my feet are too large and I can't wear a heel. But she has nice flip-flops and I know she would donate some to my cause if I could wear them.

Meanwhile I see lots of shoes and clothes going to Goodwill and I am stuck with one pair of sneakers and a pair of old house shoes. I could go to Walmart when I get my cheque and buy myself another pair of sneakers. It's just getting up there. Just thinking of getting dressed, driving the couple of miles and going in that place defeats me. Go ahead and laugh.

Maybe I have just one pair of sneakers because I hate shopping for the same old ugly shoes. I can't even get anything with any kind of heel. I spent $65 online and got a good pair of suppportive sandals with a slope. Not a heel, but the back maybe an inch high when the front was 1/2 inch. I COULDN'T EVEN WEAR THOSE. I ended up giving them away, nothing wrong with them, brand new because I couldn't stand up in them for long, much less walk.

Pathetic, isn't it

A Few lbs Stands Between Me and My Lap-band Surgery

I wish I could say that my mood is a little better but I don't feel too sharp. It's just the same-old same-old. I am trying to cut down on my food intake because when I visited the Dietician on Monday I was 269lbs. Before that I was 261, and the first appointment I was 256. What am I trying to prove to myself. Until I can prove that I can lose some weight, turn this gaining around, then I can't have my surgery done. In other words I will have to "stay after school in detention" until I get it right and can go home.

Maybe subconsciously I am shooting myself in the foot, I don't know. I want to get this operation done, give me something to work for and a new look at life and a chance to unload 100+ lbs and get on with life. I told the Dietician I just want the weight gone, I don't care about how beautiful I would look but I am sick of being in pain with my back and legs.

Right now I am having no problems but then I am not doing anything at the moment. I have clothes to wash and by the time I am done with the laundromat I'll be hurting again. Plus when I work this weekend I'll have to take the Naproxen (not that it helps much) and by Sunday night my stomach will be bothering me again. I know the answer to all this. Have some weight gone by the time I see that Dietician again.

Sometimes we are our own worst enemy. Sometimes we hold ourselves back without even knowing it. They are not gonna give me the green light until I get this last stretch of the race done. I passed my heart, endoscopy, they know I have sleep apnea and no gall bladder. I have to try.

No matter how much I have to put up with around here I have to somehow get past that and allow other people to help me save my own life. My bike is here. My excuse is my left knee pains me to ride. I'll have to suck it up and get on with it. I have to try harder. Nobody can get to the finish line but me.

I have cut back on the emotional eating but I can do better. I have tried to keep a food diary of sorts. But I don't think it will be enough and I have to try harder. No matter how miserable my life is I have to struggle to the finish line any way I can

Take Little Steps

From years of experience of having major depression I know that it is far better to take a very little step ahead, than not trying at all. This morning I took a series of little steps. My back is killing me now so I am taking a breather and telling myself I will get up by 1pm at the latest to finish.

........I wiped down the counter

........cleaned the crap out of the litter box and put more litter in

.........swept around the kitchen, nothing major at all. I started just to pick up the torn Equal packets I saw near the the counter and rather than bend down and kill my back I just took the broom out and ended up just passing it around the kitchen floor

.........then began a massive struggle. I hate making beds with a passion, would rather clean the toilet as change the sheets

..........first of all I had to find some sheets. The bedroom needs a long-overdue clean-out and to tackle that would be so far above me now (but I have done it in the past)

..........in the closet I found plenty of winter sheets and blankets and what-have-you. Finally after 10 minutes of digging I found a top sheet and a bottom sheet and some pillowcases

...........Then I had to strip the damn bed *puff puff panic attacks back killing me* and I turned over one of my foam little mattresses, left the second one had no strength left

..........These little 2-3 inch toppers are heaven-sent. I have two and my back doesn't ache like if I was sleeping on just the regular mattress and box spring

.........After all that I am taking a break, sitting here and telling the world how lazy I am


Other steps I want to accomplish is make that stupid bed and get a shower
The worst 2 things I left until last:

CHECK MY DEBIT CARD BALANCE
CALL THE PHARMACY FOR AN Rx

These are worst of all, and I don't even have to speak to a human, the Lady Phone Robot deals with them. I just have to dial and make my way through a maze of menus. I'm worn out, I want to go to bed.

Even tho it isn't even made up yet

I took a shower yesterday

Yeah I know, who cares and what about today's shower????

When you are depressed
You lose more and more of yourself every day
You don't want to come out of your house
Pretty soon you won't come out of your room
the one that the computer is in, yeah right

The kitchen is the place
Where you stalk calorie-laden junk food
People hide the Reeses's Peanut Butter cups
In the freezer, they think they are clever
I find everything, it calls my name!!!!

Jokes on me, when I returned to the freezer
They were all gone and I can't find them
I don't like Dum-Dums so much
But they are sweet, and when I am depressed
Sugar helps, yeah helps me feel more depressed lol

I took a shower yesterday
Even washed my hair, very big project
What an effort it is to even groom yourself
When you are depressed you don't care
Need new meds, gotta face life again

Won't somebody help me....

Linda Barnard, 8/2012

Flatline Friday

Feels like I am floating around without an anchor. I see things but don't do anything about them, and some of these things are big enough to fall over.

Partial Hospital is way gone in the rear-view mirror. I got a questionnaire from the Insurance with 14 questions to rate my experience. I maybe crazy but not dumb. Everything got the highest rating. Insurance companies will do anything not to have to pay for mental health costs. They want to know that their money was well spent. Bastards

Good news Blue Cross will pay for a portion of my Abilify. Even tho I can't afford $70/mo along with my other medical expenses that's far better than $575/mo. Husband mad and pissed that another pill is added to my personal pharmacy, less money I can give him. He is way bent out of shape and feels like he is treated like "a used rubber" by everybody in the house. (His term for being stuck with all of the bills while everybody else has a good time spending all their money to themselves) Amanda said yesterday somebody told her that Abilify was addictive and that their husband was stuck in the Crazy House because it messed up his mind so much.

3 different reactions. Meanwhile I am here, sitting in the clothes I sat in yesterday with dirty teeth, wondering through the house for food that isn't there. I should have put the bread in the fridge. In this heat if you don't it goes mouldy.

I just ate some cantaloupe I found in the fridge. That tasted mouldy too for some reason. It was a perfectly good melon which was bought yesterday, nothing at all wrong with it.

There is food if I would cook. Plenty of eggs in the fridge and stuff like that if I ever felt ambitious. I haven't been ambitious in over 5 years. I hate cooking. Gene cooks supper I would be just as happy with a muffin or other junk food. That's all I feel like eating.

My cat is lying on the tile floor on her back with all four paws in the air. When my grandson shows up she will vanish for hours. Clever cat

I Feel No Different After Attending Partial Hospital :(

I know this is an awful thing to say because I should have taken something away from my experience. Last week for the first few days when everything was new it was something different but I guess over the weekend I went downhill. Yesterday was my last day and I just drifted through and got discharged and that was that.

Maybe I missed the ones that were struggling along with me and one by one they finished their 5 days and left. But you know if I met all of them right now for breakfast I think we would all stare at each other and the only thing in common would be the few days we spent in the day hospital of the Crazy House.

I must be real low because I was treated very well and learned a lot and it was nice to be where I was the normal one with my mental illness rather than the odd person out in regular life. I felt accepted there but on Monday I knew it wasn't all about me any more and it was time to move on. The new ones needed encouragement I wasn't able to give. I told my psych that I felt like I was in high school and my exams were done, nothing else to do so why show up any more.

He understood. What would I have to gain by starting a whole new week over and I could have if I wanted to. But it was time to move on. Maybe when I feel better I can really appreciate what I learned and apply it all to my life. A lot of it I already knew because I am very good in The School of Hard Knocks.

I think it's time to shift around my meds again. I need to climb out of this hole I am in and start to struggle again, maybe go forwards instead of standing still or worse, go backwards any more.

I hate being mentally ill. I accepted long ago that there would be medication all my life to take and I accepted my prognosis. I feel nothing, lets see what Patti can do for me tomorrow