Squared Peg, Round world

So many things i'm supposed to be doing, so little energy

noreply@blogger.com (Peggy H) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 02:46:00 +0000

It's finals time, it's the holidays, i'm supposed to be dilligent with my diet and blood sugar so I can get surgery soon.

All i want to do is sleep. It's not that I could care less, it all stays there in my mind and I feel more guilty as each day goes by. I think I may be slipping into a major depressive episode - I've slep a lot this weekend. Maybe I am in one - just not sleeping 24/7.

I miss people - it's the holidays and I miss my boys, my dad, and my friend Barb.

The girls' dad must've quit his job - we've stopped getting child support, and we're kind of dependant on it. I've missed school a couple times last week because I didn't have gas money, and I had put a deposite down for all of us to go to a play in Milwaukee with the drama club, and we couldn't go and i've chumped out on my obligations. And what about Christmas pressents for the kids? I should have expected this from him and feel foolish that I didn't.

I'm just filled with so much sadness, and don't know where to put it. :(

I just wanna go home, and I don't even know what that means.

I'm thinking about moving to Wausau

noreply@blogger.com (Peggy H) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 19:37:00 +0000

Maybe moving there over winterim. I have fears about it, but mostly just want to go. I don't know though - there's pro's and cons.

Pros

I'd be closer to school -less time, wear on my car, etc.
the kids aren't doing well in school here - none of them.
No guarantee they'd do better there, but there's a chance
We'd be moved before it was getting close to time for my surgery

Cons

The boys and girls club there doesn't take 1st graders so I don't know what i'd do with him.
I'm in a lease here
i'm worried about mold in the older houses that i could aford to rent. Collin & I have asthma.
This place is new
How am *I* going to move all this stuff???

I guess I mostly feel too tired to move? How sad. :(

It's almost 6 AM

noreply@blogger.com (Peggy H) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 12:15:00 +0000

... and I haven't been to sleep yet. My head doesn't feel sleepy but my body feels exhausted. I've taken 3 mg of clonazapam to no avail. We had a haried day today, and a gut wrenching heart-break one too. Before I even got up for the day I found that my kids had head-lice, which is just fucking crazy. The oldest had them the worste, and how does that happen? I thought we were long past this misserable stage in life.

I tried to call brian several times over an hour period and couldn't get through. His boss just kept saying that he was with customers. i was hessitant to say that it was an emergency, but it kinda was. He needed to be checked and he needed to help. lice is an incredible about of work - it's exhausting. I used to run myself ragged when the kids would come home with lice from their dad's when they were little. EVERYTHING has to be washed and you learn a new appreciation for the term "Nit-picking". So, went to the store to get supplies, and stopped at brian's work to talk to him since I couldn't get through on the phone.

I'm not exactly sure what I expected of him but it wasn't the flippant attitude I got along with an offer of money, which I now wish i'd accepted. I was mortified, and knew I couldn't do it all myself like I used to, and he just went back to work and came home 3-4 hours later. He helped then and i'm greatful but when I left his work, I cried for a good long time. My heard felt broken. I realize that I have been deciding whether or not to leave him and when, but I still aknowledge that I love him. He's just gotten so cold hearted that I don't think he could possibly love me, and that hurts!

We have more work to do tomorrow (uhh today) - we got everything vaccuumed and the bedding all washed and dried, but there's bags full of clothing to wash, and we have to go out into the sunlight to look for more nits. My oldest swears that lice is one of the 7 plagues, and she's serious - i'm tempted to agree. Hang on to your boots, the end is near.

It looks like i'm heading into a manic episode - I hope it's a "mini". How could my husband just leave me flopping in the wind like this when i'm still so fragile?? I was bed bound in a depressive episode for nearly 2 years, and only just recently got up! 'So here, handle this alone ... no problem'

Uhg - now i'm crying again. Stupid men

On growing up, among other things

noreply@blogger.com (Peggy H) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 05:32:00 +0000

I'm going to be asking my husband for a divorce. I've already asked several times, but the next day, or as soon as I ask him to do something for me, whichever comes first, he forgets that I asked and carries on as though it was just a fluke in the night by some crazed woman. I guess that I'm going to have to talk about with him with a therapist or something, I'm just not sure. I'm also not sure whether to press the point now or wait until after the Holidays. I mean, it's not like there's someone else waiting for me, nor do I think that he's suddenly going start trying to make things work between now and then. So, is it better to wait, or just rip it off like a band aid and go on?

I want things to remain amicable with us and I'm sure they can.  I love Brian. He's never beat any of us, starved us, sexually assaulted us, or any of the horrifying things we went through with my first husband. I guess that's why I've flip flopped back and forth between wanting a divorce and wanting to stick it out. You don't leave a perfectly good man, but I'm not happy with him. He is emotionally unavailable and immature. Brian is younger than I am by 14 years. When we met I had a ton of baggage and he was the sympathetic ear that I needed at the time. Emotionally, we were the same age. I've since gone through some horrifying events, and am trying to recover from them, and realize that I've grown and want to grow more, but he seems stuck. Now being around him is hindering my own growth process because he's still that co-dependant little boy that I met.

I don't think that he can grow while with me either. Our relationship has turned into one very similar to the one between he and his mother, Especially after I got sick, and needed to be taken care of more. I almost think that I got sick and had to be cared for more because I was trying to get something out of him that I knew he would give. He was happy (underneath the ignoring and becoming more and more unavailable) to give it because it was familiar territory for him.

So, here we are, after having gone through all that we've gone through and I'm ready to move on, take care of myself, become in independant, and I don't feel that I can while in this relationship. I also would love to see Brian make his mistakes and take the consequences of them, and learn from them. I also think he'd be much better off with a younger woman. Yeah, I know it's not going to be that easy and it's going to hurt, and I'm going to cry, and I'm going to feel guilty both for leaving him and for splitting up our son's family. I just don't see how this is doing anyone any good.

There's this pattern now that goes a lot like the evening went when I got home.   Ours was the only piece of side-walk not shoveled and I almost fell on my ass when I got home. Brian seemed confused about the whole notion. I've been in a ton of pain all day and I asked him this morning when I left to call and make me a chiropractic appointment for tomorrow evening. He had some time before work, and i'm overly dependant on him.

So, I asked when my appointment was and there wasn't one, and I had to decide if I was going to pick a fight about it or just shut up. I chose the latter. No point in fighting about it anymore. I was hurt and angry and I had the same thoughts go through my head as I have every other day: "I need to just do everything by myself."   Well, guess what, I can't. Not only am I stuck in this pattern but Brian lives as though no-one else lives here and we all have to clean up after him and remind him to take care of himself. It's physically and emotionally taxing, and I don't know how I could do that and break that pattern and do everything myself too.

I'm ready to be on my own, and i'm really ready to find out who I am and what I enjoy. I'm ready to heal and be a healthy person. I crave that, and nead that!

Wish me luck

This shit is crazy

noreply@blogger.com (Peggy H) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 00:29:00 +0000

We've moved now and started school. It's nothing like we hoped for, my family feels like it's falling apart, and I want to fall apart. I feel like i'm held together by some sort of goo, and I wish it would go away and just let me be irresponsible and go back to bed - like I was before. I hate this, i hate the anxiety, the crying, the fear, the feeling like i'm not good enough in any part of my life. Just let me go away! I can't not be good enough if i never get out of bed. My kids are misserable, my marriage sucks - I can only pretent everything is alright for just so long before reality comes up and bites my ass.

There's no reprive, no break, no time when everything isn't hell and high water. STOP! Just stop it! Stop fighting, and misbehaving, and being irresponsible. Stop giving me more to do and more to think about when I havin't finished doing and thinking what you told me to do and think about before!

I think i'm going to have to quit school. If I can't find any ballance, then I just don't need to be there. Ironically, it's the only damned thing I enjoy. It's not going to keep my kids out of trouble, and it's not going to save my life. Marshfield clinic denied me for bariatric surgery - just as well, I wasn't happy with them. I'm going throu Aspirus in Wausau now and I have a ton of things to do to be ready for surgery and be approved, and my family is just spinning out the drama like cable TV!

Really? Can't my family even cut me some slack? Stop it! I just got up and out.

Fears & Dreams

noreply@blogger.com (Peggy H) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 12:22:00 +0000

Fears vs. Dreams from To Write Love on Her Arms. on Vimeo.

My biggest fear right now is that i'll never be able to come back, that i'll never find my true self. My biggest dream is getting my surgery and being so much healthier because of it - maybe even not have diabetes, and then be able to go on with my life - move ahead, go to school.

I know the story i'm living - it doesn't have very much life in it. Every bit of life that i live is like heroic event in my life. Even grocery shopping. Depression and pain have me so crippled that I barely live.

Resolved a couple things.

noreply@blogger.com (Peggy H) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 12:03:00 +0000

I forgot to post last week that i made up with my therapist. It was so foreign to me that she wanted to make things right between us. I was just starting this manic episode when this all happened, and I didn't exactly approach things in an even toned assertive way, but she said she heard the hurt in my voice and wanted to talk. I went in and we talked, and it's all better now. She's on vacation right now, and i'm anxious for her to get back!

Brian took the girls' friend home yesterday and I had a talk with the them and they appologised to one another and I hope things are OK. They seem to be back to normal for now. That girl doesn't have anyone good to take care of her and it breaks my heart, and i want to just take care of her. But, I am just in no emotional condition to take on the extra responsibility. I don't think my girls are either - they just don't even know how to deal with all of that conflict. In a way i'm proud of how my daughters have turned out... Yeah, we have to work on conflict resolution - who doesn't? But, they don't know how to deel with it because they don't have to deel with it, and for that - I am proud.

All that we've been through (and it's been a lot - i'm sure things will come out later on in this blog) and with me trying to deel with bi-polar and physical pain, and my past... and my children don't have to deel with conflict. *high five* ;)

I got myself into a load of shit on Facebook.

noreply@blogger.com (Peggy H) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 11:36:00 +0000

It really hurts me bad because the woman involved and I were kind of friends and she knows things about me that the average person doesn't. It was in this thread about this woman who cut off a man's penis. But her prior posts were al about how nasty women are to men and it made my stomach swirl.

Cheryle Herman-Perez posted this article with the statement "Just how violent are men?" A friend of hers, Steve longden, who has " Jesus loves you, but I think you're a CUNT" as one of his interests. *eye roll* jumped in on me too.

They made me cry. I've decided to take a break from facebook - i'm in no condition to go through this right now. That man even called me a nutcase.

Fuck You Cheryle for jumping me when I was vulnerable, and fuck you Steve for just being another abusive twit.

Update - I reported their posts to Facebook. It only feels a little bit better though.

There's crows outside my window

noreply@blogger.com (Peggy H) — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 20:17:00 +0000

I usually am lulled to sleep at night by the haunting song of the loon, but this afternoon there's crows out there - I wonder what died? Makes me kinda sick and sad all at once.

I just woke up and could probably sleep more but i'm going to try and stay awake. I was woken up by screaming and slamming. My oldest had a friend over and things went sour between them and the second daughter and it's all far too messy for me to try and figure out. It makes me sad. My oldest started screaming at her sister sometime after I had this last break and started to go Manic. I was screaming and yelling at my husband and I guess she took it as the OK to start screaming too? I worry about it - so many things go through my head about this. Brian is taking the other girl home and i'm going to give this a bit of time to heal over before I start talking about it with them.

I told the girls that stress in the house was going to make my condition worse and they seemed to immediately start acting out. wtf? Right now though, i'm more concerned about them and the dynamic of the home as a whole than I am about that. I don't feel aggressive or agitated anymore - I am sad though - kind of feel like hiding. I'm horrified and ashamed of the things I did while on that manic high (Amitryptaline induced) and I'm afraid that the damage may be irreversible. It's times like these that make you wonder what the hell you're fighting for - if the damage is going to happen anyhow, why am I doing this?

A Hard Days Night

noreply@blogger.com (Peggy H) — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 05:58:00 +0000

It's 12:30 in the morning and i'm not close to sleepy. I had a very rough few days - I was taking Amitrptyline for sleep at the beginning of a manic episode and the med actually threw me into a full blown manic episode. I hadn't felt that bad since I quit smoking 4 years ago. I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I felt like I was pleading with my husband for help but now that I look back I don't so much think I was - I voiced the fact that I wasn't doing well, and that I neaded him, but didn't tell him what I needed.

Thursday morning I had a blood draw to have my Lithium levels tested and then needed to go to Rhinelander to the Phychiatric nurse to discuss meds. I was a fucking mess. I was afraid i'd get lost on the way there, my anxiety levels were at the top and I was just messed up. Brian left for work and it tottally set me off. I went to his work, made some sort of a scene, and then I keyed his truck, and dumped water all over the seat. He didn't come home right away and I was worried that he was making a police report so when i was getting ready to go to my appointment, i packed a bag for jail. lol

The doctor figured out what the problem was, took me off of those, raised my Lithium and told me to take some Clonazapam to relax. I slept well last night, but today has been a little rough - not bad but I feel restless and not sleepy. My diet went to shit when my head did, but I was able to climb back on the wagon today.

I have a bit of a weird rash that i'm concerned about. it isn't all over my body and not particularily itchy, but it's sure ugly. After having survived the Lamactil Rash, I'm scared of rashes when i'm taking new meds. Hopefully it goes away - I've taken 3 different meds since this Manic episode began and two of those we know weren't well tollerated - maybe one of those caused it?

I feel so out of sorts and disconected from my life. I don't know where anything is, not interacting with my children very much, and I panick a lot when I can't find stuff. Just kind of "out of control". It's hard to take care of yourself when things are like this.

Trust your gut, Peggy

noreply@blogger.com (Peggy H) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 20:33:00 +0000

I have sort of trained myself to always trust my gut, but when you feel like you're in the midst of a serious mental challenge, does that hold true? I have been diagnosed bi-polar. The person that diagnosed me went on later to seriously breach my trust by pretending she didn't prescribe me the mood stabilizing drug, Lamotrigine, after i had a very serious allergic reaction to it. She even removed it from my Marshfield Clinic records so that my primary didn't know what I was reacting too - I had to get the bottle. I do rather believe that I do have bi-polar disorder and wondered if I had it long before I had the diagnosis put on my medical records. The mental health care in this country is barbaric and sickening.   That's worth saying again.

The Mental Health care in this country is barbaric and sickening. The care givers are much like your worst primary care doctor experience, and then some worse. When they are caring for someone who is mentally ill they don't have to take responsibility for any of their actions or words because ... well, you're mentally ill, and the system can reduce you to having the credibility of an untreated schizophrenic that's wandering the streets with a shopping cart and talking to yourself. In other words, your complaints are easily written off as conspiracy theories or a paranoia.

I find myself in another place where my trust has been breached and I honestly don't know what to do about it. It seems that it would be simple to just quit going. My issue is with a therapist, so It's not like she's in charge of medicating me.

I guess the problem is that I am trying very hard to get Gastric Bi-pass surgery. I am diabetic, take a LOT of insulin, and am having some irreversible diabetic side effects and I'm scared. Rightly so. My father was also a brittle diabetic who's disease was a bad as mine when he was much much older than I am now, and he died at a relatively young 72 years old. I'm 42, I have children - the youngest being 6 years old, and I really need to be around for them. As things stand with the medical issues and the mental health issues, I am not nearly as active in my life or theirs as I'd like to be.

I tried to start walking for health. Just walking. I wore my diabetic inserts in some athletic shoes and my feet blistered and bled inside the blisters and I didn't feel anything happening on my left foot. My right foot has a congenital deformity and you'd think that it would be the first affected by diabetic nerve damage, but no ... it's the good foot.   I went to my primary doctor immediately and she put something called an Unna Boot on both of my feet - it's a medicated wrap that's messy and gross, but boy did it ever do wonders! My blisters never broke open so I didn't have to take antibiotics, and these Unna Boots just made the blisters go down and heel like magic. I wore them for two rounds of 3 days and my feet heeled up nicely. They are still tender. The dead skin is peeling off in different phases (almost all of the skin on the bottom of both feet was affected) and the skin underneath is all new and tender and walking has been a challenge.

I recently bought new shoes (I also ordered new diabetic shoes, but it will be a while before they come in) , and I believe that they will be the best shoes for my feet but there is a breaking in phase that has been difficult to tolerate on top of everything else going on with my feet! So, I can't really even plan on a long shopping trip - right now I'm happy to get up and walk around or run an errand. Certainly not the most healthful way for a diabetic to live.

Wow, I started reading something and came back to this - and I sure did write too much about my particular diabetic situation. LOL - Back to Gastric Bi-pass.   I'm having trouble getting the requirements met for the surgery, but I obviously need it very much. I'm too young to be this sick, and it's far beyond the possibility of healing myself through diet and exercise. I can do the best that I can do, but I find myself wondering what the point is when things keep happening with my body to throw me back in bed. Feeling kinda discouraged and have a sense of disparity.

One of the requirements for Gastric Bi-Pass is meeting with a dietitian for either 3 or 6 months depending on your insurance. I had this nasty nasty dietitian, Diane Johnson from the Marshfield Clinic, Minocqua. This woman lacks any bit of compassion or empathy. She got me started thinking about bi-pass, told me it would save my life and that my diabetic symptoms would go away or nearly go away before I even lost a pound after surgery.   She set me up with these goals each month and I met them all and then at the end on my last visit - told me that I didn't meet the requirements for the surgery. I questioned her about why and she kept flip flopping around - giving wild answers that didn't make sense and then wrote a report for my medical file with marshfield that painted me as someone who just couldn't succeed at weight loss with surgery because I didn't meet her requirements. *DING!* Requirements that I was never told about, mind you. My husband was with me through most of those visits, and backs up my side of things.

I then met with a psychiatrist in Marshfield that works with the bi-pass team. He said he was glad that I had come in and that he heard my side of things with Diane.

I also started therapy at Northland Counseling in Eagle River. My visit with Diane was a very traumatic event in my life, but not the only one and I felt I needed help working through the stressers in my life.
Backing up a couple months - I had gone to a sleep study, and had to have a c-pap machine. The insurance required me to become "compliant" with the machine within 90 days. I put the machine on my face every single night that it was in my possession, save 15 days when I was on vacation and forgot a major part of the machine when I packed up, and when I was having stomach problems (which happens to me more than others because of the illness and the medications I take) and didn't want to wake up vomiting into a face mask.   When I wore the machine, I would frequently wake up with it on my forehead and it had shut itself off. By the end of my time with the machine, I was up to 5 hours a night with it on - which is where I was supposed to be, but when I took the machine in to be read ... I hadn't been up to that 5 hours a night for long enough, and it averaged everything out, and the woman at the durable medical place said "You had 90 days to become compliant but didn't" as blunt as that and she took the machine! I don't think my face mask fit right - every time I turned my head, it went *woooosh!* in a leak. Surely other people must have a better fit - you can't just not move during sleep - that's ridiculous.

So, then I go back to the Psychiatrist in Marshfield and he says that he had just gotten an e-mail from the bi-pass team leader that morning pointing out the big fat "NON COMPLIANT" on my record regarding the c-pap machine *DING!*, and that they were planning on removing me from the program. Having your sleep apnea fully treated before surgery is becoming the norm, and this team has to follow all of the rules to keep their certification as ... something that I don't remember, but it means they are good standard gastric bi-pass surgery center and most insurance will pay them.

I explained to the Psychiatrist about my c-pap experience and after I've had SO MUCH negative feedback lately with regards to doing things "right", I fully expected and prepared to storm out and tell him to fuck off, because I'd really had just about enough at that point. But, he wasn't negative at all. He said he was going to recommend that I stay active in the bi-pass program and that it seemed like people wanted me to fit into this little box and that I just didn't fit there - no matter how hard I tried. He acknowledged that i was trying very hard and I felt SO MUCH better after meeting with him!

I feel like i finally have advocate in this process! I am feeling very anxious about getting this surgery ASAP because I've had so much irreversible diabetic damage over the last year, and I really need a quick fix right now. It's rather frustrating.

So, back to the therapist. My teen daughter also sees her. This therapist has acknowledged repeatedly that my daughter and I are very very close. She talked about how refreshing it was to see a girl that loved her mother so much, and said it was like we really had something special, like we share a soul. I agree. She asked me to come to the next visit with my daughter because she was having a hard time cracking her hard exterior, and needed some help and because she trusts me so much, then I would be able to help.

We met last Friday. My daughter and I were sitting on this love seat together and the therapist brought up this dream that my daughter told her about - a recurring nightmare where my youngest son was in some sort of dangerous situation and she was frozen and unable to help him.   She had also told her this story about her putting him to sleep. The therapist apparent inferred from that that my girl at the ripe old age of 9 had too much responsibility regarding her little brother. She leaned in to her, kind of turning her back to me, like she was trying to get in between us and said "That was too much to be put on you." I tried to speak up but was told to be quiet and "just be with what I was feeling about what was going on." My daughter was very confused. My daughter NEVER told her that she had too much responsibility as a child, but the therapist insisted she was trying to help me understand what my daughter felt. I put my arm across my daughter, you know - like you put your arm across your car passenger when you slam on the breaks, like you're going to be able to hold them back. I wasn't trying to hold my girl back - I was had taken a protective stance.

After my daughter left, i tried to explain reality to the therapist and she refused to listen to me and never apologised for making the wrong assumption nor for the inappropriate statement to my girl. Then she stopped the conversation with telling me that if I didn't feel that she was an appropriate counselor for my girl, then I could take her somewhere else, and that was it - done.

I have been abused almost all of my life and I felt this extreme urge to apologise to her because it was obvious that I had angered her. Everything about her body language and tone was screaming at me, and I was so so uncomfortable. I was very proud of myself that I didn't apologise, but i did go on with our session as normal and I wish that I hadn't continued to give her sensitive information about me.

My ex-husband brainwashed my children to the extreme. We are in Wisconsin because he isn't here and I had to get my daughters away before he convinced them that i was the anti-christ. My older sons already believe that about me. It was 6 months after we left the state he lives in that some of the things my daughters believed about me came out. They were spending uninterrupted time with me and were seeing that I wasn't like what they thought. He didn't do it with blatant statements that could easily be discredited. He did it with little inferences here and there - very similar to what my therapist did last Friday with my daughter.

It's obvious that I can't go back to her, and I signed an OK for that Psychiatrist in the bi-pass group to speak with her. See the dilemma? Now I'm leaving therapy! *DING!*

I'm very frustrated and very concerned about what's going to happen next. I have been put on the wait list to go in and see the sleep apnea doctor ASAP - I called them and explained that I was doing so much better in the end but then they took it away, and they are going to get me in to discuss my next move. I see the Psychiatrist in Marshfield again on Friday, and I did a no call, no show with the Eagle River counselor today. *sigh*

I have an appointment next week with a Psychiatrist to discuss medications for Bi-Polar disorder, and I guess I'll ask for a recommendation for a good therapist. I suppose all I can do is explain to the Marshfield guy that we had a conflict of interest, and that I'm going to ask for a recommendation for someone new. ? Wish me luck!

New to Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Peggy H) — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 06:17:00 +0000

Well, here I am. LOL I'm not certain what to say on my first post.