More About Structure, And Another Gluten Warning

As hesitant as I was to attempt to add structure to my life, it’s turning out to not be as difficult as I feared it would be.  I think the key is to add new things one at a time, with some time in between to adjust.  Well, there seem to be several keys, but that’s a big one.

Someone recently gave me a Palm Pilot.  I resisted initially, thinking that if I can’t seem to make a paper organizer or an online task list work, I wouldn’t be any more likely to make proper use of a Palm.  I was wrong!  It’s amazing.  It fits right into the way my mind works, somehow.  It syncs with the software on my computer and fits right into my purse.  I keep my task list on it (a very long end ever-growing list of every little thing I would otherwise forget to do).  I look at the “Today” view of my task list so that it isn’t overwhelming, seeing all those things I have to do, and it feels like those things I have to do in the day in question are in more manageable chunks.  I’ve been learning how easily overwhelmed I am, and now that I realize that about myself, I can structure (there’s that word again) things so that I don’t shut down when contemplating the enormity of everything.

I keep my shopping list on the Palm, too, with items divided by store, and I just delete them from the list as I go, and then add new items as I think of them.  No little scraps of paper in my purse, and no need to carry a little spiral notebook or start new lists as the old ones get all scratched out, anymore.  I have items in my Office Documents like my list of the supplements I take, which includes brand names, dosages, and prices, so that when I need to buy more I remember which ones to buy; and various gluten-free product, company, and ingredient lists.

I have the little folding keyboard that goes with it, too, and I can use that to work on my NaNoWriMo novel if my laptop doesn’t work and I’m at a write-in.  I won’t be able to write on it in the program I usually use (though I did message the software’s author to ask if he would write a version for Palm for next year), but I could write in Word and then transfer it when I get home.  (My laptop is very old and cantankerous and I’m not sure how much I can count on it to work on any given day.)  The Palm has wifi, and that is awesome, since the wifi on my laptop hasn’t worked for a long time.  I’ll be able to update my NaNo word counts even if I’m not home.

End of commercial for Palm.  For now. 

And other news in the Tampalama Adds Structure To Her Life Saga:

When trying to figure out a glutening not long ago, SS said maybe I should keep a food diary.  I groaned.  I hate keeping food diaries.  But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized how it could have come in handy, had I been keeping one during the last few glutenings.

Yesterday morning, we were talking about the last time I was glutened and neither of us could remember what had caused it, even though I’d figured it out at the time it happened.  I finally remembered.  It was the WalMart Great Value brand corn tortillas I’d bought a few months ago.  The package says “gluten free” on it, but I noticed the day I bought it that it was the last of the old packaging design, and all the packages with the new design had a shared equipment warning.  I debated about buying it, wondering if they changed the gluten info when they switched to the new packaging because they had discovered it was mislabeled earlier due to the shared equipment situation or if they actually had changed where and  how they were made at the same time they changed the labels.  I took the chance and bought them and used them a few times.  That was during a time when I was being glutened in more than one way (also, a store brand acidophilus I was using at the time seems to not be gluten free).  I hung onto the tortillas, though, and gave them a try again Sunday night, just to test, and I reacted.  That was the glutening we couldn’t remember the source of, yesterday.  And that was what convinced me to start a food log.

I created a new blog and made it private (the whole world doesn’t care or need to know what I eat).  I’m keeping the entries simple, with a list of what I eat each day.  I don’t bother with measurements and such because it isn’t a weight loss food diary.  I make notes about things that might or might not be pertinent later, like which Dunkin Donuts location I got my coffee from the last two mornings.  I made categories for the two major reactions I have to gluten (abdominal pain/gas, and bleeding, usually two to three days later).  I made categories for the types of foods I’m eating, as well, just in case that might spotlight any other trends (i.e. I’ve suspected for some time that I also have a problem with dairy, but I’m not ready to come completely out of denial about it.  Many gluten intolerant people also cannot digest casein, a protein in milk.  I generally only react with digestive symptoms to dairy products when I’ve been glutened, but I always seem to become congested and sinusy after I eat cheese.)  I had to laugh this morning when, just beginning today’s entry, my category cloud showed “coffee” in huge letters.  At that point, it was the only category that had more than one entry in it.

I’m including a section in each day’s entry for soaps, lotions, detergents, etc., which I’ll just paste in from the day before and only change when I change brands.  I’ll make notes of anything unusual that happens, like the times I have opened a file folder of paperwork from Boss and had a half-cup of bread crumbs fall out onto me (I spoke with him about it, explaining what crumbs can do and asking for his help since I was trying to rule out as much as possible in my attempt to figure out how I was being glutened, and he said he will be more careful about eating lunch near the paperwork he is working on).  I have a section in every entry where I’ll go back in and make a note if I have any reaction, and I’ll put it into the appropriate reaction category.  Eventually, I should be able to pin down what causes the mystery reactions I have sometimes.

Speaking of mystery glutenings, I have another entry in my drafts folder that will be published soon . . .

And speaking of WalMart (as in the mention of the Great Value brand corn tortillas, above), I was looking at their gluten free products on their web site (a search feature I had touted in a previous entry) and was still very impressed with it . . . until I got several pages into the list and saw Goldfish crackers, fudge brownie ice cream, and bread.  Wheat bread, yes.  In the gluten free search results.  So, I have to add a warning here, to anyone who took my advice and went to look at the list: Be careful!  Take nothing for granted!  And always read labels before you buy, because even if something was gluten free last time  you bought it, it may not be anymore.

More soon.

–

Feeling Crappy, Screwups, and Decisions

1.  Feeling Crappy

Turns out, I didn’t have a hangover the other day.  It was the beginning of my PMDD/Migraine/Depression/Misery Days.  At least they don’t drag on for as long as they used to.  There’s that.  It was particularly rough this time, though, and the inner critic really capitalized on the opportunity to run rampant.  I remind myself that it has been far worse in the past, but it’s still so hard to get through when it’s happening in the moment.  Things are getting back to normal now, since some time Thursday.  Phew.

I have noticed that during Hormone Hell Week (hereafter to be affectionately known as HHW), I am far more likely to misunderstand things people say, or to misread their energy.  It occurred to me the other day that a situation with my therapist that happened back in August, where I completely misread and misunderstood her and more or less mentally “checked out” from the whole process for a little while, probably happened during HHW.  I looked back on my calendar this morning, and sure enough, it was smack-dab at the beginning of HHW for that month.  Going back through emails to my therapist in the few days around that time, I can really see how I was melting down.

So, I have added a recurring reminder to myself in my calendar, to appear every fourth Monday: “HHW – Don’t let it get to you.”

*  *  *

2. Screwups

So, I went to the doctor’s office Wednesday (my GP’s office), intending to talk to the nurse practitioner about trying some ADD medication.  I’d already spoken with my therapist about it, signed a release, and she’d faxed the information to the doctor’s office last week.

When the nurse (or medical assistant?  I’m not sure) called me back (almost a half hour after my appointment time, although it’s common for that office to be running behind), I noticed she was new and I took an immediate (and at first, unexplained) dislike to her.  I smiled anyway and tried not to let it show, aware that I’ve been tense and hormonal for days.

I got on the scale, and while I was standing there waiting for her to move the little slidey-things and find out my weight, she was reading a note on my record.

I see you called in recently asking for a prescription for Yaz.”

“Yes, that was taken care of.”

“The doctor isn’t going to prescribe Yaz for you.”

“He already did.  It’s taken care of.”

(This was almost four weeks ago, when my prescription had run out and I’d had to cancel my annual gynecologist appointments a few times because of other issues, and the gynecologist wouldn’t call in another refill because she hadn’t seen me.  I asked my GP to call it in once, which he did, and then I saw the gynecologist last week.)

“He won’t do it again.”

“It’s ok.  I don’t need him to.”

“Yaz is dangerous.  There are problems with it.”

“L (who has worked there for years and years) called me last week and we talked about it.  I’m aware of the issues.”

“The doctor won’t prescribe that for you.”

“I don’t need him to!”

Why wouldn’t she mind her own business?

Then we went into the exam room and did the whole checking-blood-pressure and going-over-my-records thing.

“Is this a follow-up?”

“It was supposed to be, but I didn’t do my blood work yet.  I kept the appointment because I want to talk to her about ADD medications.  My therapist faxed over the information on Friday.”

Nurse-Or-Medical-Assistant rolled her eyes and said, sardonically, “She probably didn’t do it.”

“She did.”

Don’t'choo be talking bad about my therapist.  My hackles were up.

She searched my record on the laptop.

“Who was supposed to fax it?”

“My therapist.”

I told her my therapist’s name, and spelled it.  Twice.

“The cardiologist?”

“No.”

Seriously?  Did she really ask me that?

“Who was supposed to send it?”

“My therapist.”

I spelled her name again.

“And what was she supposed to send?”

“An ADD assessment and the release I signed.”

There’s nothing here.  She didn’t send it.”

“She sent it.  But if you don’t have it, there really is no need for me to stay today, since I didn’t have the blood work done yet.”

“Well, let me go check.”

She left the room.  I waited, and steamed, and finally decided she had five more minutes and I was going to leave, when she came back in (now more than an hour after my scheduled appointment time) and told me that they had received the fax but didn’t know where it was.

I stood up to leave.

“Wait.  Don’t you want to talk to her anyway?”

“About what?  Without that fax, there’s nothing to talk about.”

“Why don’t you just talk to her anyway?”

She’s not going to prescribe me amphetamines based on my saying I want them!

I left.

Oh well.  I had some reservations, anyway, about ADD medications, because I’ve already had problems with medications that affect neurotransmitter levels, and because of some other possibly illogical “terrors” that have arisen around the whole topic (“What if I don’t really have ADD?  What if I’m just lazy?”, or “What if the things that appear to be ADD symptoms are really just the cognitive symptoms of Fibromyalgia / Chronic Fatigue?”, and, “What if the meds make me feel crazy or out of control?”)  So it wasn’t terribly difficult for me to just walk way and drop the whole idea of meds anyway.

I do feel a little sad, though.  I had begun to imagine less noise in my head.  Being able to grasp and focus on what is important and needs my attention at the moment, rather than ruminating about things that just aren’t important right then and don’t necessarily even serve a useful purpose at all.  I’d begun imagining what it might be like to be able to stay on task more easily at work.  My job isn’t ideal for someone with ADD.  There are a lot of interruptions, often layering over one other, and while I multi task pretty well during the higher-intensity moments of being interrupted by more than one person who thinks their problem or issue is the most important thing in the world at the time, it’s the getting-back-to-whatever-I-was-doing-before that is so hard.  And with each new interruption, the getting-back is harder and harder, until I finally just sit and stare.  I had anticipated that becoming easier.

And reading.  I so miss reading for pleasure, and being able to follow the plot of a novel without re-reading the same sentence or paragraph multiple times, and being able to remember which character is which, so that the next time they appear in a scene, I remember how they fit into the story.  I miss that.

I’m leaning toward asking my therapist if she can recommend a psychiatrist.  If there is one she recommends who is also on my insurance plan, I might make an appointment to talk about the meds.  After doing some further research to find out if maybe, by altering the amino acids I take to keep my neurotransmitter levels where they should be, and by not taking ADD meds every single day, I could avoid the sort of neurotransmitter damage I experienced before.  I think the ideal scenario would be to find a psychiatrist who incorporates a bit more of a holistic approach into their work, and perhaps would be willing to order tests to monitor my NT levels once or twice a year.  Other than my PMDD times, I seem to be in a really good place right now, so I would think that whatever my levels are during my non-PMDD weeks would be a good base line to go by.

Just thinking.

*  *  *

3. Decisions

PMDD time is a bad time for me to make decisions, and ironically it’s also a time when I keep ruminating about decisions I shouldn’t be making at the time, but can’t seem to let go of.

One of those is whether or not to do NaNoWriMo this year.

On the one hand, I participated for the past five years.  This will be number six, if I do it.  It’s become such a big part of my fall.  I’ve loved writing for most of my life and it’s fun to prepare for NaNo, making notes and brainstorming with Sister to come up with the framework of a story.  It’s fun to plan what kinds of snacks I’ll have available while I write, and it’s fun to go to write-ins and enjoy the social aspects of the whole thing.

On the other hand, I have a lot of other things going on this year.  My older nephew is getting married in November (my younger nephew just got married in September).  I’ve been working on my clutter problem and preparing for a very special visit in December.  This last week or so, I’ve been pulled away from decluttering because I’ve been working on getting my taxes filed, since the extension I filed for back in April will expire on the 15th, and then I spent a few days in “dialed-down” mode because I didn’t feel capable of much other than dragging myself into work and home again.  In order to completely immerse myself in NaNo, I’d like to have the decluttering done by the end of October, and I’m just not sure I can do that.

I also have this other pressure-feeling this year, that since I finally won last year, I have to win again this year.

I did decide that if I do NaNo this year, though, I’d rather not continue on to the third novel in the series I’ve been working on, simply because without having finished either of the first two, it becomes more and more difficult to keep starting the next ones.  I’d really like to finish one or both of the first two before moving along to the third, even though I have notes and a basic outline and time line for the entire series.

I decided I’d like to do something completely different this time, if I decide to do it.  I thought about it, came up with a couple very loose starter-thoughts, brainstormed with Sister (who, on hearing my first loose starter-thought, said, “And then what?”, and I said, “That’s all I have so far.”), then brainstormed some more with SS, then with Sister again, and then even more by myself, and . . . I think I’ve got it.  It’s an exciting concept, to be done in a somewhat unusual way.  It’s getting more and more exciting, the more I work on my notes and the more thinking I do about the plots and each character’s individual story.

And that, I believe, means I’ve made a decision.

–

Rambling Thoughts About Climbing Back On The IF Wagon

I’m working back toward the anti-inflammation diet again.  I’d gotten away from it, after the two or three weeks or so in June and July that I did really well (I don’t actually remember when I let it go by the wayside; I just stopped writing about it at some point, just as I did in January when I was trying to lose weight).  Money was an issue the week I gave up, and I couldn’t afford the right foods to continue properly.  By that time, though, I’d already begun the process of letting go of it gradually, first eating some of the inflammatory foods I’d been craving, justifying it to myself by thinking the anti-inflammatory foods I was still eating would make up for it.  I knew about that tendency in myself, to justify, yet the Inner Enabler (I don’t know if that’s an actual psychological term or not, but it seems to fit) can effectively wipe that knowledge from accessible memory and make it seem like it makes sense in the moment.

“I’ll just have one.”

“I’ll just have a few.”

“Well, half the package is already gone.  I’ll just finish it so I won’t have any more left to tempt me and I’ll start again tomorrow.”

“It could be worse.  I could have eaten (fill in the blank with something worse).”

My sister and I once developed an entire diet plan called the It Could Be Worse Diet.  It works like this: Whatever you want to eat, just think of something worse that you could be eating but aren’t.  (“I want a big bowl of ice cream, but I won’t eat the whole container!”, “I want a second donut, but it could be worse; I could eat the whole dozen.”  ”This burger and fries has to be better than eating an entire pizza.”)  Bingo.  Your Inner Enabler is happy, you get your comfort food, and all feels right with the world.  Granted, you won’t lose much weight,  but it kept us amused for a while.

My food addiction is making it so difficult to eat the way I know I need to.  The other day, while walking through the grocery store and picking out healthy items, I fought tears, facing that I would be giving up my comfort foods again.  It felt something like walking a tight rope without a net, a comparison I have made to the fighting of fears in a few areas of my life.

In the last month or two, I’ve been feeling the effects of the inflammation growing steadily worse again.  The knees, the hip, the back pain (especially after sleeping for any length of time over about five hours).  Then, last week, my left shoulder started to hurt again and got worse every day, and finally my jaw started hurting again by about Thursday.  I was afraid the stabbing headache pains would be next, so that was why I went to the store and bought a supply of some of the easier anti-inflammatory foods to incorporate back into my diet: tuna, sardines, sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, salad greens, avocado, V-8 juice, baby carrots.  I still had frozen strawberries, which, along with cantaloupe, I hadn’t actually stopped eating regularly since doing this in June and July.  I still have some frozen Brussels sprouts and some frozen spinach.  I’ll pick up almonds the next time I go to the store, and olive oil for cooking.  Maybe a jar of olives.  According to the book I have, one jumbo green olive is worth 8 IF (Inflammation Factor) points.  Two tablespoons of chopped raw onion is worth 52.  A quarter cup chopped red bell pepper is 45.  So, adding those things (and counting out maybe five jumbo olives) to a salad would add 137 points to a salad eaten with dinner, and will add a whole lot of flavor, as well.  If I include raw kale in the salad, that can really boost the IF ratings even more.  (A quarter cup is worth 128 points, according to nutritiondata.com [the book doesn't list raw kale, only cooked].)

I’ve been in the habit of looking up foods either on the Nutrition Data web site or in the book when certain ones are listed in one place but not the other.  Sometimes I look things up in both places, and sometimes I can’t find specific listings anywhere.  There are a few things I am finding extremely difficult and frustrating.  One is when the web site and the book contradict one another.  Another is when I can’t find something anywhere.  And yet another is not knowing how to figure out packaged foods or gluten-free foods that aren’t on either list or show the IF Rating as N/A on the web site.  So I do the best I can and hope I’m right, and that if I’m wrong, I’ve done well enough with the rest of my day to make up for it.  I’ll just continue to hope that the concept of IF Ratings catches on and becomes something that more people will want to pay attention to, and that that may mean more access to information about more foods in the future.

I think the most astounding thing I noticed last time I did this was that I was suddenly able to sleep through an entire night without waking up with back pain.  For years, I felt I had a choice: either get enough sleep to function on all cylinders or be able to stand upright and walk in the morning.  I’d had no idea that it was any longer an option, at my weight and age and without buying a new bed, to have both.  But eating anti-inflammatorily (I still like that phrase, even if I did make it up) made it possible.  And, of course, it went back to the way it was before, when I stopped.  Because a decent night’s sleep is imperative for so many things, including ADD, fibromyalgia, and depression, and because allowing those things to be any more out of control than they already are (especially the ADD) could very well cost me my job, I’ve come to the conclusion that avoiding inflammatory foods is something I’m going to have to do.  (I’ve decided to talk with my GP about trying ADD medication when I see him in October, but even if I  find a medication I like and it helps a lot, proper sleep is still vital.)

I read an article yesterday that said:

The fatty tissues of the body secrete hormones that regulate the immune system and inflammation, but in the case of an overweight individual this can become out of control. Three of the hormones that play a role in metabolism are leptin, resistin and adiponectin.

• Leptin is involved in appetite control.
• Resistin is a hormone that increases insulin resistance.
• Adiponectin lowers the blood sugar by making your body more insulin sensitive.

The fact that it is the fatty tissue that produces these hormones makes the fat self regulating, as the hormones should act to bring the increased fat under control. Bodies with more fat will produce more leptin bringing the appetite under control. However in cases where the body is inflamed there is often a problem with leptin resistance, and the self regulation of fat does not occur. Leptin resistance is where to body stops responding to the appetite controlling effects of the hormone.

In addition to these metabolism regulating hormones your fatty tissue also produces chemicals that cause inflammation and this can make the problem of leptin resistance worse. This is why obesity can cause an increase of these inflammatory chemicals which in turn inhibit the correct balancing function of the weight controlling hormones. This results in a vicious circle of weight gain causing inflammation which inhibits hormone function thereby causing further weight gain.

And this drives home the point that I not only need to avoid inflammatory foods; I need to lose weight as well.  I suppose that saying “I’m not doing this to lose weight, but to feel better, and the fact that I’ll end up losing weight anyway is just a bonus” is becoming less effective at distracting my fears.  Fooling myself into thinking I can skirt around the Inner Enabler unnoticed isn’t going to work anymore, either.

I suppose it’s wake-up time.

–

The UPS Guy and Dick Clark

There are a few different regular UPS drivers who deliver to the office where I work.  One of them is a guy who used to be the regular UPS guy for the place I worked back in the mid-to-late-80’s.  I don’t think he remembers me from back then because I’m quite a bit older now, but I remember him because he hasn’t changed a bit.  Seriously.  Like the way Dick Clark didn’t change for so many years.  It’s almost creepy.

When he delivered a package yesterday, I got to thinking about just how many years ago it was that he used to deliver to the other office, and how much has changed.  Twenty years ago, in 1989, I was 25.

In 1989:

• My hair was still dark even without my dying it.
• I weighed (muffled, unintelligible word) pounds less than I do now.  I wasn’t “thin”, but I weighed a whole lot less.
• I had no arthritis and no symptoms of fibromyalgia (other than depression, which is related, but then again, is related to everything I deal with).
• I was able to sit with my foot under me in my chair at work.
• I still smoked.
• My migraines hadn’t started yet.
• I had a lot of sinus trouble.
• I wore aqua-colored contact lenses, which prompted a lot of compliments, but I always felt I was cheating, since the compliments weren’t for my real eye color, and I went back to clear lenses.
• I used to occasionally wear heels to work, but I never got the hang of walking in them, so I eventually blamed my height (I was about 5′11″ at the time) and quit trying to wear them.
• I wore makeup at least a few times a week then.
• I smoked pot.  A lot.
• I had been in love with my best friend for five years and finally admitted it.
• I came out.
• I still had my small, old, black and white TV from when I was a teenager, but it never bothered me that I couldn’t watch TV in color.  Even though it seemed to bother my friends.
• I was still years away from knowing what gluten was, let alone that I shouldn’t eat it.
• I ate a lot of Whoppers back then.
• Burger King Whoppers, not the malted milk balls, although those are also a no-no on a gluten free diet.
• I’d felt the loss of a pet, a year or so before that, when I had to have my beloved cat, Indigo, put to sleep.
• I didn’t know, yet, what it felt like to have a relationship, or a breakup.
• My parents were still young and the looming reality that I will have to say goodbye to them one day was not part of my daily ruminations yet.
• I had no idea that within a year, I would begin a relationship that would change the lives of everyone in my immediate family, in ways I would not have believed, had I been given a glimpse into the future.
• I’d been in counseling before (may have even been in counseling that year) but I’d never stuck around long enough to call it therapy, or to make the kind of progress I’ve made this last year.
• I did not know that I had Adult ADD.
• I thought I knew what fatigue was then.  I had no idea it could get so much worse.
• I thought I had a clutter problem then.  See second sentence of the point above.
• I’d heard of Microsoft Windows but had never seen a computer with it installed.
• My niece and nephews were all under seven.  They’re all grown up now, and have spouses or fiances; the boys both have either children or a child on the way.
• I didn’t know any of my three closest local friends yet.  I have been getting back in touch with some of my older friends on facebook lately, though, which is nice, but I’m not in touch with the two friends I was the closest with, back then.
• I thought I would never lose touch with many of the people who were in my life at the time.
• I had no idea that SS existed, or that my life wouldn’t begin to be lived with the depth of feeling that I’m seeing is possible until my hair turned silver.

Yes.  A lot has changed.

I should ask the UPS Guy how many things have changed in his life.

–

Mmmm . . . Coffee

I took this photo on my dining room table back in, oh, I think it was 2004.  At the time, I had an online diary on another site, and I built my template design around the coffee theme.  I played with the photo in Photo Shop and came up with 16 different versions of the photo.  Some of them were particularly fun.

As you may have guessed, I love my coffee.

I used to enjoy flavored coffees and grinding the beans myself, but I’ve gotten now where I just really like my Breakfast Blend better than any special flavor.  I never bought a new coffee grinder after I went gluten free, and I haven’t really missed it.

I love coffee for its ability to help fight migraines.  I love it for its comforting aspects.  I love coffee for the way it can temporarily quiet the cacophony of thoughts that are so often present in my head.

Someone told me recently that it’s pretty common for people with ADD to find coffee calming.  I hadn’t thought of it before, but coffee does calm me down.  I don’t recall a time in my life when I would say I actually felt any increase in physical energy from caffeine or sugar or any of those things that give people energy boosts.  What caffeine usually does for me (although it can aggravate palpations if I’m already having them and I drink too much caffeine) is quiet my thoughts and help me relax and focus.  Not “relax” in a falling-asleep sort of way (although I did fall asleep right after I drank my first cup of coffee as a kid; that’s been a humorous memory ever since), but more like “relax” in a “stop ruminating and take a breath” sort of way.  And while it doesn’t fix all of my focus problems, it does help, most of the time.

But for those who do get the energy boost or jitters from coffee, you may find humor in these:

I also found this interesting article about a study that showed that caffeine helps to improve memory (something also mentioned in the blog post I linked to, above, about coffee and ADD/ADHD, as well as several other health benefits) and might actually help to reverse symptoms of Alzeheimer’s.

The research, published online in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, found that for mice with the rodent equivalent of Alzheimer’s disease, consuming the caffeine-spiked drinking water resulted in a 50 percent reduction in the levels of a protein in the brain that is a key aspect of the disease, according to an article in The Mirror.

In a partial old entry rerun, this is part of an entry from November of 2004, from my old diary, about two dreams I’d had.  I came across it last week while I was looking for something else, and it cracked me up.  I’d forgotten about it.  The first dream sort of relates to the coffee theme:

I had a couple weird dreams last night. First, I was at work and was making a cup of coffee and saw some worms in my coffee cup. On closer inspection, two of them were having sex. It was funny because they looked like tiny little people with slimy worm bodies and worm heads, and they were just going at it. I suggested to one of the guys that maybe we should keep them and see if they have worm-babies. Then the alarm went off and I hit the snooze button, and proceeded to have a dream about weevils in food. Weird. I have no earthly clue what that could mean psychologically. I’m not sure I’d want to know the significance of copulating worms in my coffee cup. Gives new meaning to the phrase, “I need my f-ing coffee!”

And that need for coffee brings us to humor about caffeine addiction:

Here is a cute cartoon, especially if you are a therpy client.

And finally, just for the awwww factor, I leave you with this . . .

Mercury In Retrograde

So, I saw on Friday that Mercury is in retrograde from 9/6/09 – 9/29/09 (or 9/7/09 – 9/30/09, according to another site).  My initial reaction: “Well, no sh*t.  That was obvious without looking it up.”

Some exerpts from an article on Astrology Zone that I found interesting:

At several points throughout the year most of us will be bombarded with the maddening effects of Mercury in retrograde. Mercury is a planet which governs all transportation and communication issues. Mercury is not an emotional planet, but rather a highly objective, truth-seeking one. It rules intelligence, education and truth. When it is in retrograde, some of its power is held back.

When Mercury starts turning in an apparent backward motion, we will start to feel the effects of this event days or even as far as two weeks earlier. When the planet normalizes we will see the tempo of events pick up in our lives as the planet becomes “stationary” and then speeds forward.

Gemini and Virgo are signs ruled by Mercury, so if you are one of those born during those months, you will be complaining especially loudly. . .

I’m a Gemini, and I’d never given any thought to Virgo also being ruled by Mercury, but I have to laugh, because my rising sign is Virgo.  I wonder if that makes me even more apt to feel the effects of Mercury Retrograde.

What happens when Mercury retrogrades? You miss appointments, your computer equipment crashes, checks get lost, you find the car you just purchased during Mercury retrograde is a lemon. . . All machinery and things with moving parts–such as computers, VCRs, camera equipment, garbage disposals, and so forth, will reveal any weak links now. It is critical that you back up your data system and be more careful and vigilant than ever. Projects will demand more time and money than anticipated this month. . .

Things get lost when Mercury messes us up. Take NOTHING for granted. . .

. . . try not to start new things. If you have to start a job during a Mercury retrograde period know that the nature of the job is likely to change dramatically over time. Perhaps the person you report to will leave, or your responsibilities will be very different from what you thought they would be. Or your company won’t be ready to take you on, and you won’t have much to do until things are reorganized. But remember, if this was a position that you tried for in the past, then you’ve got the vibes working for you rather than against you.

The first clue that Mercury might be retrograde was the number of misunderstood communications with the wedding last weekend.

Then, there is my VCR situation of late.  It began days ago, when my one-dollar-yard-sale VCR that I bought when my older one stopped working began to eat tapes.  I managed to get the tapes out (it ate two before I was convinced it wasn’t a one-time fluke) and I wound the pulled-out and wrinkled tape back into the cartridge with a fork (hey, I was eating dinner at the time and it was handy), but of course I realized I shouldn’t use that VCR anymore.  Then the fun began.  Someone Special loaned me her VCR, and when I hooked it up, I couldn’t get the picture to stop rolling and messing up (or at times, going completely blank).  This was both while watching the TV through the VCR and while watching a tape.  We concluded that something must be wrong with that VCR and I called Mom and Dad to ask if I could borrow theirs until I can get a new one.  (Money is always so tight that even a VCR purchase is a big deal that has to be planned for.)

Well, I got Mom and Dad’s VCR home Thursday night and tried to hook it up (the same exact way I had it hooked up the last time I borrowed it, mind you) and I couldn’t tune in any channels with it.

I’m going to cut this story short and leave out the part about the huge temper flareups I went through that night, and jump right to the part about how I lost my pliers.  I had them, and then I couldn’t find them, and whatever happened in between was a blur.  I needed them in order to disconnect what I’d done and try it again with different cables, so I wasted . . . gosh, it must have been close to an hour but it felt like two . . . doing nothing but going in circles, looking for the stupid pliers.  They turned up back against the wall, under a table, where I’d evidently flung them in frustration.  Ok, so, pliers located, I went to work.  And still couldn’t get it right.  I was on the phone with Someone Special when I said something to the effect of, “Well, I’ll try using those red, yellow, and white plugs instead, but I need my flashlight to see where they plug in.  Crap.  Where’s my flashlight?  I just had it . . .”  I still laugh as I remember SS saying, “Oh, no.  No, no no.”  (She was laughing, too.)

It didn’t matter.  I found the flashlight, but nothing I tried got the VCR working.  I gave up, finally, and went to bed.

Friday morning, I went in to work, put coffee and water into the coffee maker, flipped the switch, and nothing happened.  *Sigh*

Remembering how, Thursday, Boss was having trouble with his cell phone, his computer, his email (no matter what computer he was on) and something else (I don’t remember what, now), and Mom telling me about how, when she was baking last weekend, both her can opener and her timer broke within minutes of one another, it dawned on me that our friend Mercury was likely in retrograde, so I looked it up.  And it is.

But it isn’t all bad.  There are some positive aspects, as well.

More exerpts from the Astrology Zone article:

Why would the Universe give us Mercury retrograde? Because to move forward it is sometimes necessary to backtrack and reconfigure our paths in life. It is important to reconsider, repair, reflect, and reconnect. Mercury forces us to slow down and fix what’s broken, and in so doing, rethink things. It also gives us time to get to projects we have put on the back-burner.

Some activities are lucky or actually improve when Mercury retrogrades. You are likely to bump into old friends that you haven’t seen in years. Adopted children tend to find their birth parents during Mercury retrograde periods, or people locate their long lost siblings. Prosecutors often find clues to crimes that had previously remained unsolved for years. (Although sometimes the reverse is true–there is a greater danger, or example, that police can bungle evidence during a Mercury retrograde period, for clear thinking doesn’t come easy for any of us then.) Mail that went astray weeks or even years ago shows up during Mercury retrograde. Some things that were lost reappear.

Now is also a good time to dress old wounds, clean up relationships or to simply bury the hatchet. Some people have great breakthroughs in psychotherapy during a Mercury retrograde period. For salesman, it is a positive time to backtrack over previous contacts rather than call on new ones. It is a perfect time to schedule work on projects that you haven’t had time to do and you’ve let pile up. Bring your resume or portfolio up to date, and clean out your closets. Take time to paint the house. Clear your decks.

I also really enjoyed an article by Ron Archer, that looks at Mercury Retrograde from a mindfulness perspective.  I’m quoting the entire text of the article because all of it applies to some of what is on my mind lately:

“The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

It’s Saturday morning and I just completed my “weekly review.” For those not familiar with the popular “Getting Things Done” book and methodolgy, the weekly review is part of an overall system for managing projects and tasks.

David Allen, who created this system, also practices karate. At the beginning of the book David uses a phrase from martial arts: “mind like water.” He says to imagine throwing a pebble into a still pond. The water ripples appropriately to the weight and mass of the pebble, and then returns to calm. David advocates his GTD system so that we too can have a mind like water- calm, responding to inputs appropriately- not overreacting or underreacting- and then returning to a state of calm. It’s really about developing a state of mindfulness.

Wikipedia defines mindfulness as:
Mindfulness is calm awareness of one’s body functions, feelings, content of consciousness, or consciousness itself. Mindfulness plays a central role in the teaching of the Buddha where it is affirmed that “correct” or “right” mindfulness is the critical factor in the path to liberation and subsequent enlightenment.

In astrology the planet Mercury is a symbol for our mind, ideas, and communication and learning styles. Mercury is never more than 28 degrees away from the Sun, symbolizng how closely our mind relfects our true inner selves.

About thee times a year the universe gives us the opportunity to become more mindful when Mercury turns retrograde. This means that from our perspective on Earth Mercury appears to move backwards. This is only an optical illusion caused by where the two planets are in their yearly orbits.

The effects of this phenomena include minor mishaps with communication, transportation, and paperwork- all things that are under Mercury’s domain. For example, losing your keys, dealing with a computer crash, or misreading important contracts are more likely during the retrograde periods.

All of these annoyances are really symptoms of a mind that’s moving too fast and in too many directions. When Mercury turns retrograde it’s time to do all of the “re-” words: reconsider, review, rehearse, and remind. It’s a time to revisit where we’ve been, realign with our goals, and recommit to what’s important.

The phrase “a mind that’s moving too fast and in too many directions” makes me think of ADD.  It’s funny, because I was wondering the other day if people with ADD tend to feel the effects of Mercury Retrograde particularly strongly.  I love the “mind like water” concept.  I’m going to do some more reading on that.

Mercury will be retrograde from September 7, 2009 to September 30, 2009. During that time it will move from 6 degrees Libra back to 21 degrees Virgo, where it was in mid-August. Think back (re-member!) to mid-August. It’s time to review what was happening then, re-engage with something that was left unfinished, and revitalize it.

Moving from Libra back into Virgo describes a period when our focus will return from socializing back to working; from compromising back to discerning; from expressing back to analyzing. Virgo energy wants to plan, order, and schedule. With Mercury moving back to this sign it’s time for us to look for things in our life that need to be replanned, reordered, and rescheduled.

During the rerograde period Mercury will make a couple of stressful contacts to other planets. On September 17th Mercury will be challenged by Pluto. On this day we may be forced to face some news or facts that we’d rather avoid. Chances are it’s something that we avoided back in August and now we have to reconsider it. Around the 23rd Mercury will join up with Saturn and oppose Uranus. We’ll have to decide whether to cling to the past or accept a new idea, plan, or proposition. No need to rush into making your choice; Mercury will pass back over this spot in early October after it begins moving direct again.

The lesson of Mercury retrograde is to simply be more mindful- stop and think. Don’t be afraid to sign a contract; read it twice and make sure you understand what it contains. Don’t worry about losing your keys; look where you’re putting them. Don’t fret about a computer crash; back up your computer now.

Mercury retrograde periods are good times for doing lots of things that require you to go back over something. For example, editing a paper or manuscript, cleaning out files and closets, renewing subscriptions, licenses or registrations, or reconnecting with old friends. Give yourself permission over the next three weeks to slow down, clean up loose ends, and develop a mind like water. Namaste‘

I’ve blogged before about my clutter problem, and this weekend I actually made the first chunk of noticable progress that I’ve made in months.  It felt great, to finally make the shift from being overwhelmed by it to actually digging in and making a difference I can see.  Because doing this represents so much more to me than simply cleaning up a mess, it sort of represents a life-changing turning point, something I’ve experienced several of, lately.  I plan to be blogging some more about that in the next day or two, but my goal is to have dug myself out from under by mid-October.  Starting this during this particular time may be even better timing than I’d realized.

And an update: Last night, I tried one more time to get Mom and Dad’s VCR to pull in the cable signal because I was really tired of not being able to record my soap, and I discovered that if I tipped it slightly, the signal came in.  If I laid it flat, it lost it again.  Tipped: good.  Flat: bad.  So, for now, it’s sitting in a box where it can remain tipped until Dad and I have a chance to open it up and tighten whatever is loose.  Problem temproarily solved.  Someone Special said on chat this morning: “Sometimes things don’t work the way they are…so you have to tilt…shift…change perspective…”  Kinda profound.

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Photo Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

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Like Dominoes

I truly didn’t believe there could be anyone out there who was this perfectly suited for me.  I mean, what were that chances of that?  In every relationship, there are compatibilities and there are differences.  There are the things that work out easily and the obstacles to overcome.  In each of my past relationships, there were those issues that I had to ask myself if I were willing to accept and work with, and I’m sure each of the people I had relationships with had to ask themselves similar questions about me.  In each case, the final answer was “no”.

Fast forward through several years of my being unwilling to trust again or allow myself to be vulnerable; my shutting down of so many parts of myself connected to the passion and joie de vivre that I’m rediscovering now; the unraveling, layer by layer, of the health issues I’ve been dealing with and what works to lessen the symptoms of each; two-plus years of therapy; and my beginning to pay attention to and appreciate those things that bring me bliss . . . and like dominoes, everything else fell into place.

One night, while having a great visit with my friend RB, I brought up the topic of asking the Universe for what one wants.  We talked about how some people make a list of all the qualities they would want in a mate and put it out there for the Universe to find that person.  I was actually joking when I said that if I were to want someone in my life (and I quickly qualified that I did not, although that may have been the moment I peeled the very tiniest tip off of the corner of my anti-relationship resolve), I would want someone like a physicist (because I figured a physicist would be willing to ponder with me about the sorts of things I like to ponder about; the things that cause most people to look at me with an amused or bemused or bored expression, like time travel and multiple universes and astral projection and energy fields).  I added that I would prefer a person with Celiacs as well, so that gluten and the sharing of a kitchen would not be an issue.  We then began to build (in a joking way) on what other qualities this Celiac Physicist Person would possess.

I went home and began to compose a list (complete with a disclaimer at the top, saying that I wasn’t actually ready to ask for this person, just in case the Universe was reading over my shoulder).  I wound up with 58 carefully thought-out items on my list.  Items such as “Is a good communicator”, “Is a night owl like me”, “Understands therapy”, “Appreciates compromise on both our parts”, “Understands ADD but does not have it”, “Understands fibromyalgia but does not have it”, “Respects boundaries”, “Is not controlling or manipulative”, “Level of mental health, self awareness, and personal growth is compatible with mine”, “Spiritual / religious views are compatible with mine”, “Moral values are compatible with mine”, “Political views are compatible with mine”, “Sense of humor is compatible with mine”, along with many items that were more personal.  Many of the items on my list came from what I learned was wrong for me in previous relationships, but many also came from what I learned had been right.  I used the phrase “compatible with mine” to indicate that I wouldn’t want to be with someone who was “just like me” in too many ways, but that it’s possible to hold differing but compatible views, opinions, and qualities, and often those things tend to allow one to enhance or balance the other.

Well, I wrote my list and then put it away.  I figured if I ever reached the point of really wanting someone in my life, I would get it back out and dust it off then, and polish it, before putting the request out there.

But the Universe was evidently reading over my shoulder.  And it turned out that I already knew this person, who is not a physicist and does not have Celiacs.  She does, however, ponder things the way I do (and even on similar or compatible topics as the ones I love to ponder), and she has decided to become completely gluten free, for me.  That touches me so deeply, the way she so matter-of-factly and willingly decided to do that.  For us.

I’ve always believed (with the exception of those times when I was too emotionally constricted and cut-off from my feelings to believe in anything) that things happen for a reason, and at the time they are supposed to happen.  This certainly feels destined or fated, and I would not have been ready for this six months, or three months, or even three weeks, before the time when it began to develop to beyond-friendship feelings.

Even though I’m not normally one to quote biblical verses, I keep hearing, in my mind, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, American Standard version).

Celiac City

It’s not a real place.  It’s just a concept, based on my assertion that I must live in a bubble to feel completely safe from gluten.

I wondered, last night, what it might be like if masses of people with Celiac’s / Coeliac’s and Gluten Intolerance (and our gluten free partners and family members, or anyone who avoids gluten due to ADD/ADHD, autism, or Parkinson’s Disease) were to move to a centralized place and start our own city.

This thought came to me while discussing how wonderful it would be if someone opened a completely gluten-free fast food restaurant, with some newly perfected soft-bread rolls for the hamburgers; rolls that tasted as good as the gluten ones that all the other fast food places have now.  This would be a place where the Gluten Intolerant could feel safe going through a drive-through and picking up a quick burger and fries when pressed for time or simply satisfying a craving.  The convenience of running through a drive-through is something I would never take for granted again, were I to have that option again in the future.  But I realized that the percentage of the general population who would frequent an all gluten-free fast food establishment, which would entail paying more for a meal than at a regular fast food place, since gluten free food is more expensive to produce, most likely wouldn’t be great enough to make the business profitable enough to pursue.

“However,” I thought, “In a completely gluten free city, everything would be safe!”

Just imagine:  No gluteny crumbs sticking to the grocery store’s checkout stand conveyor belt.  No worries about cross-contamination from babies eating zweiback toast while riding in the grocery cart and dribbling on the handle bar.  Being able to go to buffet restaurants, or eat at the salad bar.  Company picnics with coworkers!  Sharing lunch room or break room facilities with coworkers without fear!  Covered dish neighborhood parties!  Safe holiday dinners!

I know.  It would be extremely inconvenient if one’s extended family did not live gluten free and would have to travel very far to visit.  And what would the rules be about what visitors from Outside The Bubble could bring in with them?  Would there be a checkpoint at the entrance to the city?  X-ray machines, looking for smuggled-in contraband Oreos in an Outsider’s luggage, intended to be a covert bedtime snack when nobody was looking?  What about visitors traveling with pets and bringing in their pet’s food, which may not be gluten free?  Or Heaven forbid, what if they packed their favorite non-gf skin creams or cosmetics and then hugged and kissed residents Within The Bubble?

What would the penalty be for attempting to bring in banned items?  It could get nasty.

Well, it seemed like a good idea, before I thought it through . . .

The Daily Meme – Wednesday Media Mix

I stumbled on this site this morning, and it looks like it could be fun.  On the Wednesday list is the Wednesday Media Mix at My Digital Ghost, and I decided to do today’s.

Play along! Either answer in the comments or post a link to your blog entry.

Today’s theme is comfort.

[Listen] What is the most comforting album that you have?

[Watch] Which movie(s) gives you the best kind of warm fuzzies inside?

[Read] Which books have given you a sense of comfort while reading them? (If you want, explain why.)

Here goes:

[Listen] What is the most comforting album that you have?

It’s probably Dan Fogelberg and Tim Weisberg’s “Twin Sons of Different Mothers”.  It’s from 1978.  I used to listen to it a lot in the ’80’s.  My then-brother-in-law used to refer to it as one of his Sunday morning albums, and it really is perfect for weekends at home, puttering or writing or cleaning house, or even just relaxing and drinking morning coffee.  I recently bought a CD copy since I no longer have a turntable and my older copy is on vinyl.

[Watch] Which movie(s) gives you the best kind of warm fuzzies inside?

That would be The Breakfast Club.  I have always been drawn to stories that bring in a group of people with different personalities or backgrounds and show what draws them together, sometimes in otherwise unlikely ways.  I’m not sure if it’s the story line of The Breakfast Club that gives me warm fuzzies or if it’s just the number of times I have seen it and the comfortable and timeless familiarity of it.

But then, there is also Sleepless in Seattle . . .

[Read] Which books have given you a sense of comfort while reading them? (If you want, explain why.)

This one is a little harder . . . and again, I’m going back almost 25 years.  The book actually came out 33 years ago, in 1976, but I read it in the mid-’80’s.  It’s Kinflicks, by Lisa Alther, and it was life-changing for me at the time, in that it helped me to recognize some aspects of myself I’d not understood before.  I went on to read it several times, although it has been years since my last reading, and I still have my original copy, now tattered and yellowed, on my bookshelf.  I have had so much trouble with reading and retention in the last several years, from the ADD, I suppose.  Reading in and of itself used to be such a comforting experience, and I miss being able to sit and become absorbed in a story for hours, losing total track of time in the real world.  It’s been so long since I have been able to do that, and these days it’s so hard to finish a book at all.  I’ve been seriously considering talking to my doctor about trying some ADD medication, for work, mainly.  But if I could regain that ability to read the way I used to . . .  that would be an amazingly wonderful bonus.  And maybe I’d even read Kinflicks again, just for old-time’s sake.

Cleaning Up The Chaos

I started this entry back in January and it’s been sitting in my drafts since then.  I finally wrote another entry that touched on the topic, so I guess I’ve “broken the ice” of discussing this publicly, although this is still really, really hard to admit.  There are a lot of other things that most people would probably consider far more personal than this that I would be more comfortable writing about on the Internet (and actually have written about in the past, on my old online diary, though those entries are password-protected now).  I’m willing to write about this here for two reasons:  It might help someone else who has similar issues, and it will probably be healthy for me and may even help me to stop feeling so ashamed.

I’ve been feeling for years as if I’m really only capable of either holding down a job or handling the rest of my life.  The last time I was organized in my personal life was in 1994, when I was laid off from the job I had at the time and was out of work for a few months.  Since then, it seems that my energy (physical and mental) has been able to go into only one part of my life or the other, and in the last several years most of it has gone to trying to hold down my job and not screw up.  When my focus is on work, I tend to be clueless when I get home.  I look around me and see things that need to be done, but I just can’t seem to get from the point of recognizing it through the planning stage to the doing stage.  Likewise, if I focus on personal things that need done, they are still on my mind at work and all I can seem to think about at work is what I would be doing if I were at home.

But I’m learning.  One step at a time.

I wrote an entry in my old online diary, back in September of 2003:

One night, I was watching “Oprah After the Show” on Oxygen, and I missed the beginning but she was talking about “the papers” – these papers she has in a room in her house that I guess are all over the floor or something, and she was trying to figure out what was symbolized by her inability to deal with them (they were talking about people’s strange habits and quirks and the underlying reasons for why we do what we do).  She said she would go into the room, all ready to tackle it and take care of it, only to look around and then leave, closing the door behind her.  This made me laugh and also made me feel better.  See, as I was watching this show, I was sitting at my desk in my office at home, surrounded by a sea of papers, boxes, and assorted crap that is never where it’s supposed to be.  For the most part, I am not much of a self-starter.  In fact, the more I have to do, the harder it seems to be to get started.  Once I start, I’m ok (for a while), but I can sit and look around at everything that needs done and whatever synapses have to fire in my brain to make me get off my ass and get started just don’t fire.  The night before last, though, I found the office floor, and I had forgotten what a nice big room it is.  I separated some of the papers into separate boxes based on where they go and what they pertain to, with one box for stuff to shred. What was left, I put into another box to sort through this week.  If doing that removed the intimidation factor, I may actually get them sorted out AND maybe, just maybe, have my files reorganized by the end of September.  I wonder if Oprah ever figured out what the papers mean to her.  I don’t know what mine mean, but it doesn’t matter — I just want to get it together.

I actually never finished that project.  It snowballed into the one I’m dealing with now, six years later.  A few times during 2004 and 2005, I had things looking neater, but they still weren’t organized; I had simply scooped up everything that didn’t belong where it was and shoved it into boxes that I hid away somewhere, so that I could have company over without being ashamed.  Then came 2006 and I haven’t even done the “fake neat” thing since.

It must have been around the end of 2005 or the beginning of 2006 that I began to systematically shut down parts of myself.  2006 was a particularly rough year, during which most of what was wrong in my life reached its peak.  It was the year before I finally figured out my gluten intolerance and those symptoms were at a high point; I was a few years into premenipause; my antidepressants had stopped working after taking them for an extended number of years and not knowing that this could eventually happen over time, and I was still fumbling in my attempts at what to do about it; my PMDD had not yet been diagnosed or treated; I was not in therapy yet, so many older issues I’d been carrying with me for years were still problems I didn’t have clear understanding of or solutions for; and I didn’t know I had ADD.  My physical, emotional, and mental symptoms were all sort of jumbled together and it was impossible, at that time, to determine what was causing which symptoms, and everything I tried seemed to help for a short time and then stop helping, as I was not yet anywhere near close to seeing the full picture.  To top it off, in 2006, I got involved in a relationship I was not healthy enough to begin, and for other reasons, neither was he, but neither of us realized it.  The failure of that relationship felt like a “final straw” to me, and sealed my conviction to never again open myself up like that; to never make myself that vulnerable again or let anyone become that close to me again.

Looking back, I can understand why I shut down.  I don’t actually think I had much choice.

I’m opening up again, though, bit by bit.  It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it started, this re-opening.  I suppose there was a lot of behind-the-scenes changing going on all along, since I started therapy, and since I began to find various answers to the various physical and mental symptoms that have been problematic for so long.  I’m sure it was all leading up to this, but it began to become aparent to me in the last few months.

. . . And it is allowing normal to want to return.

I remember feeling normal.  It feels like part of another lifetime, to me, but I remember it, and occasionally I get hits of it, out of the blue, when something reminds me what it felt like.  In fact, it has been happening more and more lately, as I have opened up in other ways.  I may suddenly remember a day when I had a friend over and I’ll feel how calm I was and how spacious the apartment felt because the clutter and chaos was not there.  Sometimes I get a sudden sensory memory of an unidentified fall day, when I would have had the windows open, and I can feel and smell the cool breeze as I aired out the apartment, and again, I can feel the spaciousness in the apartment.  Memory-moments like that make me want to feel normal again.  I want to feel as if I am in control of my environment.  I realize that in fact I have been all along; it’s just that I’ve been using inaction to control it and keep it small and fortress-like, rather than using action to control it and make it feel welcoming and pleasant and free, so that I can invite friends and family over for something as simple (to most people) as coffee and a visit.

In the last two-plus years of therapy, we’ve gone over this many times, and I’ve tried to figure out the psychological reason(s) for my chaos at home.  I’ve come up with so many plausible reasons, and I think that all of them play a part in it. ADD; ingrained resistance to structure and routine that began with perceptioins gleaned from having been bullied; paralyzing obsessive indecision; hermit-dom and the completely illogical but still strangely irresistible obsessive-type thought that, somehow, if I get everything in order, I’ll have no way to stop the throngs of people from inviting themselves in  (I don’t even think I know throngs of people).  One day a few months ago, I cleared my front hallway, allowing me to walk through without stepping over anything or feeling like I was running an obstacle course, and out of nowhere, I was hit with this halting “Wait a minute” kind of feeling that went with the thought, “What if I forget what it felt like?”  After I thought that, I realized I’d had that same thought a lot of times before, when I’ve made a little bit of progress. I didn’t (and still don’t) understand why it would be so important to me, at that point (just barely clearing one little spot) to worry that I might forget how it felt to have so much stuff in my way all the time.  I can understand feeling that way after cleaning the whole apartment and not wanting to slip back into old ways by forgetting how awful it feels.  But this felt like I was purposely keeping it that way, so I won’t forget what it feels like, and that doesn’t make any sense.  It feels horrible.  Why would I want to keep feeling that way?  And why wouldn’t I remember how it felt, when I’m still perfectly able to remember what “normal(-ish)” felt like, prior to 2006, in its absense?

I recently began to talk with my therapist about obsessive thoughts, and I’m beginning to see how many of the items in the previous paragraph fit into that category.  I’ll write more about that in a future entry.

For now, though, I’m just going to say that opening myself up again has led to the beginnings of a beautiful new relationship and a whole new reason to finally dig myself out of the chaos and allow myself to start feeling normal again . . . this is my project for September, and a good topic to blog about for NaBloPoMo.  It is even fitting that the theme for the month is “beautiful”.