On Feeling Like a Lump of Crazy...I Mean Lazy

I don't feel like writing today, which is exactly why I'm sitting at my computer, banging away on the keys. I haven't felt like writing all week. Since my appointment a week ago Tuesday, I haven't felt like doing anything. I've had a hard time convincing myself to take a shower or brush my teeth. I haven't made phone calls for my brother's business. I haven't even listened to the voicemail. I cook dinner and clean the kitchen, and I take care of my two animals, but the only other productive things I have done all week are 1. Clean my bedroom and 2. Go to my PCP.

About my PCP visit:  Since my blood work came back as negative for rheumatoid arthritis, we've been at a kind of loss as to why my leg joints hurt so much, especially my knees. We thought maybe it was because I have gained so much weight over the last couple years. I used to walk a lot. Now, I have a hard time walking around the store. The doctor wanted me to try walking around the block several times a week. Well, not long after he asked me to do this, I ended up in Seattle. I actually spent a lot of time walking, and I realized something. I quit walking a lot when my knees started hurting (hips, too), not the other way around, and my feet swell up like crazy when I walk a lot. I decided to do some research about foot problems affecting leg joints. This is what I found: my flat feet may be causing all of the problems.

Yes, I have flat feet. I have had flat feet, or nearly flat feet, for probably 25 years. In fact, when I started having ankle problems in Basic Training, I was nearly kicked out because of my almost flat feet. They kept me in the Air Force, but my feet got worse. Working as a pharmacy tech required I stand all day, every day in horrible shoes. I got orthopedic insoles made, but they didn't help. I left the Air Force before anything else could be done. Flash forward 20 years and I have now spent more than half of my adult life working jobs in which I stood or walked all day: waitressing, pharmacy tech, teacher, sales clerk. Soooooo, now my feet are in terrible shape.

I stopped taking walks a while back, which is one of the few forms of exercise I actually enjoy, because it hurt my knees and hips so much. Then my weight rose, which put more pressure on my feet, which caused me to compensate with my knees and hips, which made me not want to walk because of the pain, which made me gain more weight...and on and on. It turned into a cycle that feeds itself. My doctor and I have decided it is now time to consult a podiatrist. My hope is that he will be able to fix my feet by having me wear special shoes. I will then be able to start walking again. The pounds will roll off. My knees and hips will recover. And my brain will start to feel better because of the fresh air and new healthy body! That's the hope. The reality will probably be that my feet aren't what's actually causing my joint problem, and I'll need to get a referral for the orthopedist, who also won't be able to help. (Yes, that is a defeatist attitude, but have you been reading my blog? I'm not really an optimistic person. Working on it, but not there yet.) I'll let you know whether the hope comes true in about three weeks. That's when my podiatrist appointment is.

So, now I'm going to talk about cleaning my room. Why is this such a big deal? Well, it hasn't been cleaned since my hysterectomy last October. The sheets have been changed, and the trash has been taken out, but that's about it. (And the trash wasn't taken out as much as it should have been.) Needless to say, it was a mess. At first, I wasn't physically able to clean it. Then, once I was allowed to start lifting things, I just didn't have the energy to do it. I guess that's when my current depression spell really started kicking my ass. I saw the mess, was disgusted by the mess, but still let the mess hang out and watch Netflix with me. Even after I started leaving my room, the mess stayed were it was. My skin would crawl when I thought of spending time in my room to do anything, even to sleep. But I didn't clean it, and I forced myself to be there.

Why did I force myself to be in my sty of a bedroom to watch T.V., crochet, and sleep? Because I'm a pig and pigs live in sties. This is what my brain tells me every day. This is what my disease is telling my brain to tell me every day. It makes me cry that I can't fight back when it says this. I try. I tell it to stop, out loud. Really. Out Loud. It doesn't work. Every day my brain calls me names like lazy and pig and stupid and useless and worthless and ugly and fat and know-it-all and loser and and and and.... By allowing myself to live in filth I acknowledged that I didn't deserve to live better. That's why I forced myself to stay in a dirty room. But why didn't I just clean it up?

Because I was scared. I was afraid that if I cleaned my room and got my stuff in order, it would be easier for me to give up. When I go, I don't want my family to have to deal with the disorder that is my life. So, if I clean up my room, it's one less thing for them to do. After what happened to my uncle's family when they tried to get into his computer and accounts without his passwords, I thought maybe I should write down all of my accounts and their passwords for my family. But this will remove another barrier to my leaving. Every time I think about organizing and cleaning, I get anxious and have to stop. I'm afraid that once I get everything in its proper place and all of my affairs are ordered, I'll just stop existing. Every day I wish to die. Every day I stay here. I'm afraid that one day I won't. That's why it's a big deal that I cleaned my room. 

Individual Therapy Session...1

My uncle is dying. My mother called while I was in group this morning, but I didn't answer. When I called her back once I got in my car she told me. I guess he had texted her earlier and told her that she, my father, and my grandmother shouldn't wait until May to visit. As innocuous as it sounds, for my uncle to have said this was tantamount to him saying, "Hey, sis. I haven't got long, and I really want to see you and mom before I die." She and my grandmother are going to fly out of Colorado Springs on Saturday. My dad doesn't like to fly anymore, so he'll drive out to Washington after he drops them off at the airport. He's asked me if I want to drive with him. Now I have to decide whether I want to road trip with my dad or stay home, safe in my nest. *I wrote this paragraph on March 23rd. Uncle John died in the ICU on March 28th, about 11 hours after my father and I got there.*

My uncle died 3 weeks ago today. It feels weird to be writing that. I thought I would feel sadder about it. Don't get me wrong, I feel sad when I think about him, but I just don't think about him very often. It's probably because I'm not used to thinking about him. He lived half a country away, and I had other stuff to think about. In fact, pretty much the only time I thought about him before was when I was on Facebook and saw something he posted. He liked to post political articles. Since we have similar politics, I read most of them. He also liked to post funny memes and puns. They made me laugh. And he liked to post about his family. I liked those posts, too.

So you see, I'm not really used to thinking about him now that he's gone, either. Accept... Accept when I see a political post I know he would have given a thumbs up to. Accept when I see my aunt or cousins post a memory of him, or a copy of the obituary, or picture, or a request for prayers. They're really hurting, right now. I wish I could be there for them, but I'm here. All I can do is write encouraging messages to them or post some sort of sympathetic smiley on what they have shared. It feels inadequate.

It feels wrong to be writing this post, too. I mean, this blog is about me: my feelings, my illness, my therapy, my experience. I feel selfish thinking and writing about me while my family in Washington has to go through what they are going through. I'm beginning to wonder, though, if that isn't the crux of my problems. Guilt over what I perceive as being selfish.

*   *   *

I had my first individual therapy session today. My therapist's name is Meredith. She seems like a lovely, young lady, and I think I'm going to be able to work with her. This first session was just a get-to-know-you meeting, but I still learned a little about myself. While we were talking, I heard myself talking about how I take care of others. Meredith even asked me when, recently, have I felt like I'm "better," and I said, "When I'm helping someone." Now, this isn't a bad thing, but what I realized is that I feel I NEED to help or take care of others or I'm not a good person. I feel guilty when I do things for myself, like buy books or get a manicure or talk about me. I feel selfish and uncharitable when I complain in my head about what someone else is doing, or not doing. I feel ungrateful when I have bad thoughts about family members. I feel like a horrible, horrible person when I focus on me instead of others. Needless to say, this is going to make therapy very challenging for me.

Something else that is going to make therapy a challenge for me is patience. I don't have any when it concerns myself. I need to be better NOW. As unreasonable as this is, I need it. I need to stop feeling out of control. I need to stop feeling guilty. I need to start liking myself. Having the patience to wait for therapy to help me fix all this is going to be the hardest thing I'll ever do. Waiting is going to be torture, the kind of torture you get in a Soviet GULAG. (And now I feel bad about comparing my "pain" to that of the victims of torture and the Soviet regime. No, really. That's not a joke. I thought about deleting the sentence, but I need you to see how I think, to understand that EVERYTHING I do and think makes me feel guilty! I would ask you to pray for me, but as a Deist, I don't believe in prayer. Of course, if it will make you feel better, pray away. *sigh*)

Meredith has asked that I write in a journal daily before I go to bed to try to get the bad thoughts out of my head before sleep. She also wants me to include the good things that happened to me that day. I'm not much for pen and paper. (*gasp* a writer who doesn't like pen and paper?) My thoughts tend to swirl around and out so quickly, I find that trying to write them down makes me forget half of what I wanted to say. Since I type more quickly than I write, a keyboard is much more handy. No computer in the bedroom, though. I guess I'll have to try to think slowly. (And now I have guilt because, even though I didn't write down all the political jokes that popped into my head after writing this sentence, I thought them, and that's bad enough. Oy, this is gonna be a lot of work.)

The last thing I did before my session ended was ask if I could stop going to group therapy. Meredith said that was fine. I told her I didn't think I was ready to be sharing in a group setting, yet. I love Connie, but I'm just not comfortable with everyone else. I then asked Meredith to tell Connie that she wasn't the cause of me leaving. Thus proving that one session is definitely not enough for me to stop placing the needs and feelings of others above my own. I'll find that balance eventually. I have to.

I am now very tired and in pain. Before I can go off on a tangent about my pain, though, I'm going to stop writing. Instead, I will get some dinner and go watch season 2 of Turn. (Yes, the whole season. It's that good.)