The gods know I tried to be a “good” person and it nearly killed me.  It definitely left me psychologically disabled.  Yes, literally, disabled.  I can’t function in society.  I can’t hold down a job.  I have extreme difficulty making and maintaining friends.  And even small amounts of stress can cause physiological problems like migraines and stomach issues.  Some days, I can almost function normally, but sometimes just leaving the house to run errands is more than I can handle.  So… see what trying to be a “good” person has done to me.  Nevertheless,  there is a part of me that still tries to be “good”.  Stuff that is programmed into you with your baby food isn’t gotten rid of that easily.  I still automatically put other’s needs before my own.  Although now “others” is limited to people I actually care for.  My husband for example…

First, I need to explain something about my view of money.  I inherited some money from my parents when they died.  It’s how I’ve survived since I can’t hold down a job.  I’ve learned to live VERY frugally.  When I finally gave up on trying to hold down a job (I tried various sorts of jobs for over 10 years, never keeping a single one for more than a few months.  Most didn’t last more than 3 weeks.), I decided that I would just live as frugally as possible, and when I ran out of money, I would simply kill myself.  At the time, I didn’t have a husband or any really close friends, so my death wouldn’t really cause anyone a problem.  (See, even when considering suicide, I have to make sure that I’m not causing anyone else any inconvenience.  To this day, I only have one close friend beside my husband and I think she would feel more guilty at not saving me rather than sad at the loss of a friend.)  So… for many years, I equated spending money with impending death.  I was VERY frugal.

To continue…  My husband is horse mad.  I like horses, but I’m not horse mad.  But my husband has always wanted a horse and his own ranch to ride his horse around on.  And he is an experienced software engineer, so you would think that he makes good money and wouldn’t have to worry too much about job security.  So I was willing to spend a good chunk of MY money to put a down payment on twenty acres of land so that we could build a house and a barn and live my husband’s dream.  I was also planning to use the money from the sale of MY house(best money I ever spent) to pay off most of the construction loan for building the new house.  It seemed like a good plan.  However…

My husband decided he wanted his own horse now rather than later.  And since, I thought that we were doing well enough financially, I went along with him.  We ended up saving a very nice horse that had been badly neglected.  We only paid $20 to buy the horse, but we’ve since spent close to ten thousand on vet bills, boarding fees, tack and various horse related things.  My husband was in charge of these things and he was the one who paid the credit card(I take care of the mortgage, insurance, property taxes, etc…), so I didn’t realize how much money he’d been spending.  He’d also been spending a lot on fast food and such.  And just recently, he confessed to me that we had built up a huge amount of credit card debt.

Now, I’d already been living fairly frugally because I knew that building our new house was going to be very expensive. (and because I will probably always be frugal.)  And even though I knew that my husband wasn’t living all that frugally, I thought that it was okay.  Since he was the one making the money, he should be allowed to spend a little more of it.  (Although I had been trying for months to convince him to spend less on fast food.)  I figured that it wouldn’t be much longer until we could build our new home, sell my house, and things would be a bit easier financially.  Now, I realize that it will be years before we get ourselves enough out of debt to even consider trying to get  a construction loan.  All my living frugally has accomplished was to let my husband take longer before telling me how bad our credit card debt was.  Now I have to live even more frugally.  And I have to be the dominant one(the nagging wife, which I DON’T want to be) and insist that my husband learn how to live frugally (which admittedly he seems to finally be beginning– just beginning– to understand).

So… my dream… My husband and I were at some sort of get together in an outdoor restaurant.  I let everyone get their food before me and when I got to the counter, the serving girl told me they were out of brisket,  all they had left was some bread.  So, even though I was disappointed, I took the bread and ate it while everyone else, including my husband, enjoyed their brisket.  Then it was time for desert.  My friend D had brought some strawberries, vanilla cream and cake.  I let D and my husband get their desert, and when I got to the counter, guess what… All they had left was a few little pieces of strawberry, no cream, no cake.  And I had really wanted some vanilla cream.  I lost it.  I screamed and threw my purse across the courtyard.  My husband, holding his VERY LARGE serving of desert in his hand came over, patted my shoulder and said,”It will be okay.” and went back to eating his desert.  I got even more angry and grabbed my purse strap and threw it over the wall surrounding the courtyard where everyone was eating.  Then knowing that even though I was infuriated, I needed to get my purse back (because no one else was going to do it), I left the courtyard to find my way around the wall and get my purse.  My husband actually followed me out, but instead of trying to go find my purse, he just wanted to get in his car and go home.  I ran away from him and made my way through a crowded department store to the back alley behind the wall and started looking for my purse all by myself.  I searched for hours, but never found it.

It’s not exactly difficult to understand this dream.  I let my husband have everything he wants even though it means that there is nothing left for me.  And when it becomes apparent that there is real financial difficulty, my husband just states that,”It will be okay” without actually trying to fix anything.  I’m the only one that understands that there is a real problem and that just going on with our life as usual isn’t going to solve anything.  I’m the one digging through the back alleys trying to salvage our finances, while hubby goes home to watch tv and play on his computer.

It’s not a very nice dream.  And probably not entirely fair to my husband.  He is much younger than me and basically went from living with his parents to living with me.  He has had neither the time nor the experience to learn as much about finances as I have.  But that doesn’t make me feel any better, and although it explains things, it doesn’t fix them.  And I’m just tired of denying myself and excusing him from his mistakes.

I’m tired of being “good”.

I was heart-broken.  I tried to stay upbeat on the 2.5 hour drive home.  But the minute I got home, I crawled into bed and went to sleep to try and escape the pain.  I woke up later that night.  My husband knew I was upset and did his best to convince me that it wasn’t anything that I did wrong that made M say that we shouldn’t buy the horse.  But I’m still convinced that if I hadn’t been so nervous and had ridden better, that maybe, just maybe, she would have said okay.  I don’t know.  I know that if the horse does find a kind, loving new owner who is more experienced and can finish his training properly that he’ll turn out better than if I bought him and tried to finish his training myself.  But what if someone who doesn’t realize what a sweet sensitive guy he is buys him and finishes his training using harsh methods and destroys his sweet spirit?  Maybe he’ll be better trained, but will he be better off than with someone who loves him and cherishes his sweet personality even if she can’t really train him properly?  I don’t know.  I just know that I am going to be depressed and worried about him for a long while.

Fortunately, I’m beginning to feel better. I’m starting a new project with MK-O and that is giving me a nice distraction from my depression.  Mark Kanemura and the Markers have been a wonderful distraction these past few months.  Distraction is the best way that I’ve found to deal with my depression.  If I am distracted enough, I don’t notice how I’m feeling (or not feeling as the case may be).  I use books to distract me most of the time. (I should add a recommended books page to this blog.)  But my cats are also a good distraction.  One of them, NiNi, loves to play fetch and I almost always enjoy playing it with her.  The almost referring to when she has tried to play fetch with me while I’m asleep.  (Imagine waking up because a cat keeps dropping little paper balls on your face.  Not fun.)

My donkeys are also a good distraction.  Working with them and training them is always rewarding.  Although I was very embarrassed when Marie (the jenny) misbehaved for the new farrier.  She just doesn’t trust strangers and he didn’t spend enough time letting her get to know him before starting work on her hooves.  Considering she was pretty much feral the first seven years of her life, the fact that she now lets strangers handle her at all is pretty good.  I’ve worked so hard to tame and train her, and she behaves so well for me, that I am always a little disappointed when she doesn’t behave as well for others.

Tessla was a little startled when they just came up to him and grabbed his foot and started work on it, but he settled down in just a few seconds and was a perfect gentleman the rest of the time.  The next time the farrier comes, I’m going to try and persuade the farrier and his assistant that it would save time in the long run if they would just spend a little more time making friends with my donkeys before starting to work on them.  Unfortunately, it will be several years before Tessla will be old enough, and hopefully big enough, to train to ride.  And Kanemura is one year younger(actually 13 months) so it will be even longer for him.  Marie is too small to ride, but I’m thinking about trying to train her to drive.  Of course, none of my friends drive so I still won’t exactly fit in.  Also, finding a donkey cart won’t be nearly as easy as buying a saddle, and transporting a cart to various locations is a lot harder than transporting a saddle.  But it would be fun to drive a cute little donkey cart around.  We’ll see what happens.

Well, my husband is home from checking on his horse at the barn where he is boarded, and my husband is the best distraction of all.  So I will get off the computer and let him distract me.

I haven’t worn blue since I can remember.  I don’t own a single blue piece of clothing.  And I absolutely refuse to wear blue.  My blue-phobia was recently brought to my attention while in the process of designing a t-shirt with someone that would be screen printed and sold to various people.  She originally wanted to use blue ink for the design and I convinced her to use purple instead. I couldn’t explain why I absolutely refused to create something that had blue on it.  But I knew that if I did the shirt with blue ink that I would never wear it.

Last night I had a dream that I was wearing a blue shirt and I couldn’t get it off.  I had to keep wearing it.  I woke up very shaky and upset.  Why would wearing a blue shirt make me so upset?

I think I finally figured it out.  Blue = depressed. Duh! *slaps hand to head*

But even though I think I now understand my blue-phobia, I still refuse to wear blue.

I want to.  But I’m afraid that when I meet all these people in person that they wouldn’t like me.  That I would make them feel uncomfortable around me.  It’s not that I have really obvious social problems, I don’t drool and tear my hair or anything (or hold my hands on my thighs and make popping noises like that guy on Boston Legal).  But because of my lack of social skills and my mild agoraphobia, my behavior around people is just slightly “off”.  I don’t think that most people even consciously realize why they don’t like being around me because they don’t consciously notice my off-ness, but they notice it subconsciously and it makes them want to stay away from me.  If I noticed that happening, it would probably trigger my depression and anxiety to kick into overdrive.  And then, of course, my behavior would become even more “off” and people would want to avoid me even more, and I would get even more anxious and depressed, and…

It could become a real nightmare.

But maybe that wouldn’t happen.  Maybe I’d be having “good” days, and I’d do well enough that I wouldn’t make people uncomfortable around me.  Maybe I’d even make a new friend or two.  And maybe I’d get to meet Mark again, and maybe he’d even remember me and give me hugs and tell me he actually uses the stuff I gave him.  Maybe I would have a wonderful time.  Maybe.

It’s a lot of money to spend on a maybe.

I’m afraid that I gave my husband quite a scare though.  He knew that I’d been feeling bad, and when he saw that post, I think he was afraid that I was… well… He called me, but I had written and posted that just in time to leave for therapy.  (Actually, I don’t think that I would have been able to make it to therapy if I hadn’t written that.) So when he called home, I wasn’t there to answer, and when he called my cell phone, it was still set on vibrate from when he dragged me to vote, and I didn’t hear it while I was driving.  When I got to therapy, I set my purse down on the couch next to me and felt the phone vibrating.  I realized who it must be(he’s pretty much the only one who calls me), so I apologized to my therapist and checked to see what calls I’d missed. He’d called me three times, so I called him back immediately.  Poor Ryan, he sounded  a bit frantic when he answered.  I told him that I was at therapy and he was relieved.  He later told me he was actually preparing to leave work to come home and check on me when I finally called him.  I feel bad about having scared him.  But a part of me is gratified that he cared enough about me to be so upset.

I had a good therapy session.  Normally, when I’m feeling as bad as I was yesterday, I can’t even make it to therapy.  Being able to let my therapist see me when I was in that bad a shape, let her help me more.  Of course,  now she wants to put me back on meds…  I’ve been on and off meds since I was in junior high.  I’m afraid that I don’t really have much faith in them actually helping me.  But I suppose it can’t hurt to give them another try.  Oh well… as they say,”Better living through chemistry.”

I took an overdose of the pain pills that the doctors had sent me home with.  It hadn’t been an easy birth.  Twenty-seven hours of labor, severe tearing through to the rectum and my right hip was partially dislocated because of the size of the baby’s head.  I was in a lot of physical pain as well as emotional pain.  After I took the pills, it was so peaceful.  I lay on my bed feeling the pain fade and my thoughts float away.  My cats (I only had two at the time) jumped up on the bed and curled up next to me like they did whenever I went to sleep.  Their presence was very comforting.  But it reminded me that if I died, they would be stuck in the house with no one to care for them for who knows how long.  It could be weeks or months before anyone discovered that I was dead, and they could die without water or food.  So I called an ex-roommate (just a roommate, not a relationship) to ask him to take care of the cats.  My brain was already pretty messed up by the pain pills, and I guess I wasn’t very coherent.  The ex-roommate somehow figured out what was happening and called 911.

I lay there in bed and gradually everything just faded away.  I couldn’t feel or see anything anymore when the paramedics showed up. I could still hear though.  And I could hear them talking about me.  I know they checked my eyes, but I couldn’t see the light that they shined in them.  I could tell from the sounds that they had put me on a gurney and rolled me out to ambulance, but I couldn’t feel any of it happening.  I could only hear.  At one point I heard a female voice yell,”We’re losing her! We’re losing her!” I could somehow sense my life force leave my extremities and gather in my chest in a very specific spot between my heart and my throat.  I felt warm and peaceful.  Like being held in the arms of someone who loves you.  And something told me I had to make a choice.  That if I wanted to, I could let go and I would die.  But that if I didn’t really want to die, then I had to accept the pain in order to remain in the world of the living.  I didn’t want to accept the pain, but I didn’t really want to die either.  I just wanted the pain to stop.

I don’t know why in that moment, I made the choice I made.  I think part of me must have still had hope that I could find some happiness in life.  And I have had happy moments since then.  But there are times when I wonder what it would have been like to have made the other choice.  I remember how warm and peaceful it felt on the edge of death.  And I long to feel that warmth and peace again.

Practicality… bleh…

I suffer from severe depression and anxiety.  My symptoms are bad enough that I’ve never been able to hold down a job for more than a few months, most don’t last more than a few weeks.  Unless you count grad school as a job.  I suppose since they paid me to teach a couple of classes each semester that it counts, so I’ll need to modify that previous statement.  It’s bad enough that, except for grad school, I’ve never been able to hold down a job…  You get the idea.

I recently discovered that talking about my feelings and experiences on forums actually made me feel better sometimes.  I didn’t want to keep bringing people down on the forums, so I decided to start a blog.  Anyone who comes here to read these posts is doing so of their own free choice.  They can’t blame me for boring them or bringing them down.

Anyway, I’m actually pretty tired now.  I’ve been up all night.  So that’s it for my first post.  Hopefully, they’ll be more interesting occasionally.  Though most of them will probably just be me whining about my feelings.  I’ve given fair warning.  If you don’t like hearing me whine, don’t read my blog.  If you do read my blog, feel free to post positive and/or neutral comments.  Negative comments will simply be ignored and/or deleted.