Kindle 3 and other ramblings

And now for something completely different.  Kindle number 3 arrived and seems OK so far.  I’ve gotten the unable to connect error message a few times and thought that this one is messed up, too, but I did a soft boot (which is when you hold down the alt,shift and r keys) and it seemed to fix the problem.

I will not be quick to proclaim the problem solved.  I thought number 2 was fine until the next day, too.

I’ve had some pretty stubborn insomnia, even with heavy duty meds.  And sweats, bad night sweats.  So I’ve been watching a lot of old movies.  Being it’s Halloween, I’m watching old  horror movies on AMC and TMC and it’s entertaining.

I saw Peter Lorre, famous for this line…“Alive, I tell you it’s alive” in “The Beast With 5 Fingers” this morning.  My sons saw a bit of the movie and got a chuckle from it.  How times change…

It’s funny, I’ve heard him imitated many times but had never seen him before.  My sister can do a good Peter Lorre…

I saw the second half of Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte last week. Between that movie and “Whatever Happened To Baby  Jane” I’m curious to read up on Bette Davis, to see what made her tick…Vincent Price and Sebastien Cabot, who I know as Mr. French from “A Family Affair,” were on some horror show tonight  but I didn’t get a chance to finish watching it.

drive

Withdrawal continues.  The emotional volitility is easing, but not gone.  My t has been pressuring me to apply for a job, so I did it today.  I’m pessimistic about my chances, but I did it.

I’m feeling so alienated from my family, by that I mean my family of origin.  I’ve been pushing them away, along with everyone else, and now I find myself feeling so alone, without a tribe, without roots.  It hurts.  It really hurts.  My kids don’t have those rich roots that close families have to anchor them and it’s my fault.

I feel nothing but rejection and unworthiness. I don’t want to pass this shit on to my kids.  I shouldn’t have had kids.

I drove tonight.  I ran to the store for a baby card, my nephew and his wife had their first baby last weekend.  It was late.  My DH didn’t even know that I had gone.  I didn’t want to go home so I drove for 3 hours. I got home at 2:00 am.

But driving was nice and relaxing.  I drove on a highway that I’ve been on all of my life, the highway that brings me to my grandparents.  It’s a main road around here, so unfortunately it also has bad memories attached to it, it is a road that was taken by my abuser during a time of sexual abuse.

So lots of memories, some good, some bad.  Flashbacks.  Good music, oldies, classic rock. NPR.  Driving on the highway with no traffic, listening to the sound of the tires on the cracks on the road like rhythmic, beating drums was mesmerizing, it took me away from myself for a time.  Sometimes I wish I could just drive and never stop, drive off into eternity…drive to the end…

This impulsivity can be bad.  No one knew that I was even gone.  I didn’t take my cell.  I was quite a ways away from home.  If something had happened, I left myself without any way of getting help.  I’ve done this before.  I drove for 8 hours that time.   I would drive close to home and I just couldn’t make myself go home, so I kept driving.  It was so hard to drive home.  It was hard to come back to the darkness, but I couldn’t find the light.

Drive, The Cars

Who’s gonna tell you when,
It’s too late,
Who’s gonna tell you things,
Aren’t so great.

You cant go on, thinkin’,
Nothings’ wrong, whoa ho…,
Who’s gonna drive you home,
tonight.?

Who’s gonna pick you up,
When You fall?
Who’s gonna hang it up,
When you call?

Who’s gonna pay attention,
To your dreams?
And who’s gonna plug their ears,
When you scream?

You can’t go on, thinkin’
Nothings wrong, whoa ho…,
(who’s gonna drive you)
(who’s gonna drive you)
Who’s gonna drive you home, tonight?
(who’s gonna drive you home)

(bye baby)
(bye baby)
(bye baby)
(bye baby)

Who’s gonna hold you down,
When you shake?
Who’s gonna come around,
When you break?

You can’t go on, thinkin’,
Nothin’s wrong, whoa ho…,
(Who’s gonna drive you)
(who’s gonna drive you)
Who’s gonna drive you home, tonight?
(who’s gonna drive you home)

Ho…, you know you can’t go on, thinkin’,
Nothin’s wrong,
(Who’s gonna drive you)
(Who’s gonna drive you home)
Who’s gonna drive you home, tonight?

(bye baby)
(bye baby)
(bye baby)

digging out

Withdrawing from Pristiq is more of an emotional hell than physical.  Effexor was physically hell to withdraw from, I don’t remember if I crashed emotionally, it was a long time ago.

Today started out bad.  I couldn’t sleep last night.  When I finally crawled out of bed today, I was MAD.  At the world.  The anger was so intense and it alternated with deep sadness.

I’m able to make the decision to give DBT and therapy my best shot today.  I’m able to see how making changes in my behaviors, even small changes, can make a big difference in my emotional state.

I’m willing to take a look at using holistic methods in treating the depression, especially since I have been treatment resistant for the most part.  Perhaps herbal supplements, vitamin/mineral supplements, diet, exercize, discipline in wake/sleep cycles.

I had really hoped that I would find a magic pill, something to take the edge off so I could do the work required to get out of this hole.  Maybe my magic bullet will be something else.  Who knows.

dark days ahead

I’m going off the Pristiq after spending the last few weeks contemplating suicide and hiding out in my room. I feel awful today.  Pristiq has a withdrawal syndrome associated with  it.  So far, I have the chills and mild brain zaps, though nothing like it was with Effexor, but every time I move my eyes I get another zap. It’s rather annoying, it zaps through my tongue as well.  I wonder what in the hell it’s doing to my brain. Is it possible that all the damn meds have fucked up my brain beyond recovery?  That I will always be this way?

Emotionally I’m not doing well.  I feel incredible, deep sadness today.  I’ve been trying to remind myself that this is caused by the Pristiq withdrawal and depression, that it will pass. I keep my kids in mind.  I keep them in my heart.

But my thoughts keep turning dark, and I entertain the thought of ending my life.  I read books about people experiencing death, to see what happens when you die.  I find myself so conflicted, I find myself mourning the life that I haven’t lived.  I feel hopeless.

My therapist told me today that DBT is not anti-suicide therapy.  I don’t know what he meant by that.  I said that I knew that.

I was reading about David Foster Wallace today on the blog Furious Seasons.  Very interesting comments. These comments in particular caught my eye:

The word ’suicide’ does conjure futility, hopelessness, anger, irresponsibility, incompetence. We should, as advocates, peer into this definition and challenge it.

Perhaps DFW fought his good fight, did everything he could to make his life extend, and then made a decision based on experience and his inner strength to end his life.

quote: david foster wallace — Rolling Stone, Oct. 30, 2008:

You are the sickness yourself….You realize all this…when you look at the black hole and it’s wearing your face.That’s when the Bad Thing just absolutely eats you up, or rather when you just eat yourself up. When you kill yourself.All this business about people committing suicide when they’re “severely depressed;” we say “Holy cow, we must do something to stop them from killing themselves!” That’s wrong. Because all these people have, you see, by this time already killed themselves, where they “commit suicide,” they’re just being orderly.”

When I think of suicide, I do not think failure.  I do not think weakness, selfishness, I don’t think “what a waste”.  When I think of suicide, I feel sadness that it took death to end suffering, just like I am sad when someone dies of any other cause.  Suicide is nothing other than an end of suffering.  I highly doubt that the decision to suicide is ever taken lightly.  It takes great courage to even seriously contemplate suicide.  When living gets so painful, when hope is lost, when there aren’t any more answers and you get tired of fighting, ending suffering is an act of desperation, yes, but it is also a final act of compassion to the sufferer, in my opinion.  I don’t think badly of anyone who ran out of hope, and lost the fight.

So why am I talking about this?  These last few weeks I’ve been giving a lot of thought as to this cross-roads that I seem to have found myself.

I’ve wasted my life.  I am in  my early 40’s and I’ve not lived.  I’ve kept myself isolated and alone.  I’m tired of fighting.  I’m afraid of change. I’m tired of being alone.  I can’t do this anymore.

But I have to try, for my kids, I have to try.  I have to hang on until my youngest are out on their own.  I wonder if I can hang on.

I skipped DBT and therapy last week.  I lied to my t about the drinking.  I fessed up today, told him the whole ugly story.  Told him about abusing some drugs.  Told him that I basically fell apart and isolated myself in my misery and had a hard time finding my way out.

He told me that he can’t help me if I don’t let him.  That’s true.  I try to sit in my shit without bothering other people. He told me that he isn’t giving up on me.  He told me I have to stop lying and that I have to stop the drinking and abusing other drugs.

So this risk of getting out there, giving DBT and therapy my best shot scares the shit out of me.  I’m alone in this, always alone.  I’m tired of failing.

Do I keep trying, or do I give up?  That is what’s been on my mind these last few weeks.  Do I have it in me to try again?  I don’t know.

But I’ll give it another week.  I’ll do my homework.  I’ll try. My therapist says that he doesn’t believe or like the words “try” and “can’t.”  You can probably guess that I used both words tonight.  But what other way can I put it.  I’m going to do what I can, I guess.

In therapy, more of the ancient past came out.  Times of my dad going off on me, dragging me out of my room by the hair, beating my head on a door, smacking my face, over and over again.  My sister trying to get him off, my mom paralyzed by fear.  Him abusing our dogs.

Why? Why did that come out?  I’m too old to be excavating the past. I’m over that.

Anyway, this week is Relationship Effectiveness or whatever the hell they call it.  DEAR MAN and GIVE.  I don’t feel like doing either DEAR MAN or GIVE, but it will be a distraction at least.

and on to Kindle number 3…

The new Kindle arrived…and promptly crapped out.  The wireless “whispernet” would not connect and the Kindle itself would freeze every time I turned the wireless on, which then caused the Kindle to try and connect to the whispernet thingie.

Another call to customer service, formatting the thing was attempted, no go.  So they are sending out yet another Kindle.

I loved my Kindle when I worked.  I’ve read mostly good things about it.  I’ll give it another chance, and Amazon’s customer service has been nothing but helpful to me.

it’s here!

As Amazon promised, my new Kindle arrived today!  I’ve already downloaded all of the unread books on it and it works just fine!  Now I only have to repackage the broken one in the same box and bring it to UPS with the prepaid postage label and I’m done.

I decided to forget knitting the shawl and crochet it instead.  Too much frustration for me right now.

I went to a Halloween store for my sons costume.   He wants to be the Grim Reaper, so I picked up a Grim Reaper costume for him.  I hated that store.  Strobe lights, “fart” pouches that people kept breaking open, loud music and it was crowded. I hate crowds and chaos.

My sister is a Gramma!  Her son and daughter in law had a baby girl!  She is on cloud nine.  My mother informed me that she is so glad that the baby is a girl because she didn’t like the name they picked out for a boy.  She didn’t like what I picked out for my sons names, either, and they are traditional names.

My mother visited with my 90 year old gramma in the nursing home who informed her that my Uncle is now a condom hauler.

He drives semi for a modular home builder.  Perhaps modular home translated into condominium in her mind, and that became condom?   It was pretty funny.  Good thing mom heard it and not me because I think I would have laughed out loud with that one!

knitting…grumble, grumble

I’m attempting to knit a very easy prayer shawl for myself.  I’ve ripped the damn thing 3 times and I’ve only gotten 3 inches done on large needles, size 11’s!  Now I remember why I prefer to crochet…

The pattern is so easy, cast on 54 or any other multiple of 3, then knit 3, pearl 3 across.  Turn and continue in whatever way it is that you don’t get ribbing, knit the knit and pearl the pearl I think it is?

And I keep screwing up!  I’m using Homespun yarn (Lion brand I think?).  I absolutely hate crocheting with it, the stupid little loose fibers bind up on me and it frustrating, I decided to try it with this and I’m still getting a lot of tangles from the loose fibers and that unstretchable string thing running through the yarn…

I can’t tell what I’ve knit last when I put it down.  I can’t tell a knit from a pearl unless I’ve just completed the stitch.  I should know this, but I don’t.  I don’t know how to fix a dropped stitch.  I don’t know how to rip back to a mistake and put the loops back on the needle the right way. arrgh.

I’m not sure if I’m going to plug away at it until I can do it without screwing up or if I’ll give up and get a huge crochet hook and crochet it instead.

I have been successful knitting the dishcloths.  The easy pattern where you knit on the bias, starting with knit 4, increasing each row across, then decrease across until you get to 4 stitches on the needle.  That one I can do.  The shawl is darn near as easy.  Why can’t I do the shawl?

support

Being a mom of a son who faces difficult challenges daily breaks my heart at times.  And I feel so alone in this, so very alone.

I shared with my sister that my son got an invitation to a Halloween party, my sister who knows that my son has Asperger’s and has trouble fitting in, my sister who tells me that she will support me and my son in any way that she can.

She blew me off.

I tried to explain why this is a big deal.  She couldn’t have cared less.

This sister has asked me how she can help.  Offered to help in any way she could. This sister claims that she understands.  She doesn’t.

Helping to her means voicing her support but that’s as far as it goes. She wont even try and put herself in my shoes, in my son’s shoes.

She just doesn’t get it.  She never will.  She will never understand how one invitation can mean the world to a kid who has gotten very few, and how it can open a can of worms in the  Mom who grieves the invitations never received, who has watched as her child endures rejection, loneliness and sometimes the brunt of his peers taunts.

She just doesn’t get it and she doesn’t want to get it. And I am so alone in this.

exploring spirit

I’m rediscovering my spiritual side after years of turning away from god.  I find myself more open to exploration at this time in my life.

That said, I wanted to share some thoughts here, I’m going out on a limb and it’s a bit scary.  This is probably an obvious observation, or it may make no sense to anyone but myself, but I wanted to put it here anyway.

I watched a PBS show featuring a potter the other day.  The guy is from my state, did a 1 year apprenticeship in Japan and has worked as a potter ever since.  Of course, I can’t remember his name…

What really stood out to me is the analogy of the potter and the clay of the Bible.  I’d always stopped the analogy at the molding part of the deal, for example, God as potter who molds us into serviceable vessels for his glory.  I had never taken the imagery further than that before.

The potter in the show built an enormous kiln.  It is huge.  I know nothing about potters and kilns or clay for that matter, but this was a barn sized, wood fired kiln. The potter only used local products, including wood from the area for his kiln.

When it came time to fire the pottery, the potter had to devote a huge amount of time, labor, worry and angst in getting the fire just right.  He had lots of volunteers who came daily to help build the fire, keep it stoked, help with the labor.  And this was no easy task.  It was dirty, dangerous, hot and filthy work.

I believe this firing lasted 3 days, I could be wrong about that, and the fire had to be tended to and watched very closely.  The huge batch of pottery could be ruined very easily.  On the other hand, the fire leaves marks on the pottery, sometimes with beautiful results, different colors and patterns from flash burns and flame patterns and temperature fluctuations.

At one point, the potter had to take out a piece of pottery and basically sacrifice it, to see how the firing process was working with the batch in order to gauge the amount of time left in the kiln. When the results were to his liking, he estimated when the firing could end.

It seemed to me that the ending point was very crucial to the end product.  It seemed as if the potter was more focused and serious as the burning time came to a close.  There was lots of work to be done, and many people needed to be part of the process, due to the sheer size of the kiln.  The final stoking, to the end of the process was a somber, serious event.

When the firing was done, the potter held a celebration of thanks, for the process, for the efforts of the volunteers, for a successful product.

It never occurred to me that God would be so intimately involved gathering the clay, in gathering the wood, building the kiln, blessing the process every step of the way. I get the shaping and molding, but gave no thought about gathering the right kind of clay for the job, for example porcelain clay as opposed to other types of clay. (I didn’t even know there were different types of clay)

It never occurred to me that God as Potter would be so intimately involved with the firing, the test, the scarring and flash burns, the color changes and patterns that take place on the pottery from the flame.

The tremendous heat, the danger, that the potter had to endure when he stoked the fire in the kiln, the sweat on his brow, the endless watching and waiting and the triumphant shout when it was done.

That God would be so intimately involved in the toil, the angst, the seriousness of the fire.  That God would need helpers (angels? other people? events?) in order for the final product to be successful.

I had never thought of it that way before, that God actually stokes the fire, adding more wood, that God would be watching the trials, the fires we endure but are necessary, that God would be monitoring the scars and flash burns that add beauty to the piece, that it is an obvious labor of love for the potter and his volunteers.

I’m still chewing on the idea.  Maybe I’m being dumb, I don’t know.  I’m sure others have seen this before.

crocheting for Christmas

My DH is a carpenter, and work has s-l-o-w-e-d down.  So for Christmas I’m going to do some crocheting, maybe a little knitting as well.

I’m a beginning knitter but I’ve crocheted for many years.  I’m not the best at completing projects, though.  I found a pattern for a crocheted nylon kitchen scrubby that will be easy and quick and cheap, and I have an easy pattern for knitted dishcloths using worsted weight cotton, kitchen cotton is what I think they call it.

I’ve also got a pattern for a prayer shawl.  Our house is old and drafty so I’m going to try and knit this one for myself.  If it goes well, I may knit some of these for gifts as well.

Maybe some cookies and fudge to round out the gifts.  I have a good fudge recipe that I got off the Internet a few years ago and I really like it.

I’m hoping that the things that I make will be put to use.  I remember getting some knitted/crocheted items from my grandmother as gifts when I was a kid and wasn’t too enthused about them…I wish I could have appreciated the time and effort that she put into making them at the time.  I always thanked her and was gracious to her face, and I feel bad about how unappreciative I was then.