Suicidal Ideation

In light of the death of Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade, I want to speak for a minute about depression and suicidal ideation (SI). I feel like I say this a lot but I don't remember a time that I wasn't friends with the prick SI. I am not talking about casual thoughts of "dammit, I wish I was dead" because of some minor inconvenience, upset, or other drama that life brings. You know, at least that is what I imagine happens to people when something happens, hell, now that I think about it, other people might just go "eh, that is life" and move the fuck on. That isn't how my thoughts work. Let me explain how my brain works. I will be doing anything, I mean hell, I could be happy as hell and out of nowhere my brain will go "hey you fucking useless bitch, you know what you should do? Kill yourself." Now before you think...wow, she hears voices. It isn't voices, it is more of a feeling, more of my inner voice. And bam I am off and running through all the things that suck about myself. It is not a very good time and definitely not for the amateur. I have years of experience at self-loathing and SI so I can deal with it. You know, as much as a person can deal with these kinds of thoughts.

Now, here's where things get dark and it is your chance to not read any further. There has been a few times in my life that my SI was just the random thought but a few years ago I hit rock bottom. Being a stubborn asshole and a survivor saved me during these times. I have been at work and the overwhelming urge to die, not to hurt myself, but to be dead has overcome me. To the point that it scared me. This is when I sought help. I lost myself for a real long time after Tony died, I had surgery, and I lost my job at the BC. Too many changes in too short of a time. Now those were some dark ass times. I kept on keeping on but I was so damn angry and so hurt that I barely could function. Now, here I am crying, which is OK but I don't want to die. I might be killing myself slowly with my food addiction but that is a different tale for a different day. I could write more but it is a bit more painful than I thought to talk about this stuff.

What I want is for the reader to know there is hope. Please, please, get help. You are worthy. There is help out there. Trust the process. There is so much shame and stigma that surrounds mental illness and it is a damn shame because people aren't getting the help they need. Think about this, if you were diabetic, had high blood pressure, cancer, or needed surgery, you would seek medical assistance. You would take medication (ok, I know from working in the medical field, I am making a lot of assumptions, just go with it) and you would address the medical issue. So, why wouldn't you do a bit of self love and take care of your mental health? Reach out, get help, and remember you are not alone.

The dirty secret no one talks about...mental illness

Now, I know those of you that are reading that title and know me are saying "dirty secret, eh?" this bitch is batshit crazy. And I am OK with that, my therapist, probably not so much. This is some thoughts I wrote approximately 2 years ago when I in earnest started therapy; Depression. Major depressive disorder. PTSD. Delayed grieving. Anxiety. All fun labels. Add on morbid obesity and you have me in a nutshell. I am trying to look my depression in the face, deal with the pain and get the fuck over it. I am so tired of being sad that my sad is tired of being sad. That, my friends, is a mouthful. I want to give a million excuses why I am depressed but in all honesty, believe it or not, it is an illness. It has it's causes and it's treatment. Currently, I am in treatment. I hate admitting it but I have been so sad for so damn long that it was time. So, I have been seeing a counselor. I am still unsure what I think about the whole thing. She is nice enough and seems intelligent. My first two attempts at counseling were less than successful. One was crazier than I  and the other wasn't the brightest light bulb in the box and well, how can you help me, if I am smarter than you. Well, with the counselor I am seeing a psychiatrist so I can be medicated for your safety. I do horribly with any kind of medications. I don't like the side effects when the dose is changed I get all weird for a few weeks. It is has been a trial. I mentioned the the Dr. that I didn't feel worse but not better by any means and I wanted to know what a realistic expectation would be. Am I going to feel better or be happy because in my mind happy is the goal. Seems legit to me. I am taking meds, seeing the counselor and I have prayed for happiness all of my life. The response the Dr. gives me. Well, it was less than encouraging. His response "Baseline, expect to be baseline". I don't remember ever feeling good and you are telling me I'll never feel good? That I can just expect to be Meh, for the rest of my life. Umm, thanks. Now, I wrote a few more less than stellar thoughts after this garbage but it really didn't make sense nor do I want to revisit that trash.

Where do I stand now? Well, I am currently on my 400,000 medication trial and have yet found something that works for me. Without the medication the suicidal ideation returns and I am real ready to leave this world yet. I still have all kinds of shit to fuck up still. I mean life isn't done being amused with me. And I need more tattoos before I kick the bucket. Plus, I booked a fucking cruise to Alaska. Let that shit sink in. This chick, who hates leaving the house is going on a bucket list, OMG, I am going to Alaska cruise. I am so excited this will be the best trip ever. Now, am I fixed? No, but am I working on things. Also, no. I kid. While I think I am not working hard enough because I still refuse to change my diet and exercise, I am working on healthy boundaries and only surrounding myself with those that bring me happiness. It is hard. Being happy and healthy isn't easy. The "stinking thinking" as Deb (therapist) calls it sneaks back in often. Deb is my fourth therapist. She is a grief specialist and she is brilliant. I would love to be like Deb one of these days. She has helped me more than everyone else combined. Now in the medication world, I am not doing well. I am on another trial of medications and not doing well with them. I was manic (read happy) and wanted to do ALL THE THINGS. After a person has been sad for a very long time and not wanting to do anything, this is actually a miserable feeling.

Let me explain. I have sadness, I get it. We love each other. He wraps his strong arms around me and pulls me into bed with him and we snuggle. He understands me and I understand him. Hate, loathing, disgust, and sadness, oh they are my friends. Now this bitch happiness comes along and I am all freaking confused. What the hell do I do with all this energy and happy feelings? How do I deal with wanting to be social, friendly, and wanting to leave the house and have people come to the house!!!!  So, I promptly called the psychiatrist and was like, OH HELL NO. I can't have these feelings. So, I have temporarily stopped one new medication. The one that probably is working. Being crazy is fun, I joke a lot, but it isn't. This is miserable and embarrassing.

For example my poor extra mother Kimmy, who is the best person ever, wants to come to the house and fix up my kitchen. My depression and anxiety is a hard stop on that. Now, she could come over and I would feed her and play games but fix my kitchen? Even though I want it to be pretty the thought of her coming over and changing my kitchen makes me physically ill. It makes the cycle of self-loathing, hate, sadness, anxiety, and feeling of failure overwhelm me. I know I have hurt her feelings and for that I am sad but I literally can not deal with the thought of that big of change happening right now. It terrifies me. And how do you explain to someone that you can't. Just can't. No real reason just can't?

But on the upside of all this mess, I have made a good boundry for me with a family member that needed to go. It feels bad to an extent but it needed to happen for my sanity and health.

What I will say about all this rambling? I can't help that I am chemically imbalanced. I don't like it. I don't like feeling this way and being who I am. But I am me.

Pictures

So it has been awhile since I have blogged. I have nothing but excuses and the main one is social media but that is a story for another day. Today, I have something weighing heavy on my mind and heart and I need to get it out. Recently, someone posted pictures of my mother on Facebook, stating they missed her. These photos were from a time my mother was in their life. These pictures took the breath out of me and I cried for awhile. I have been "in my head" since the pictures were posted. This person might remember that that spent with my mother as a good time in their life. My mom could be a lot of fun, if she wasn't your mother. She was pretty, funny, personable but she was an alcoholic and a drug addict. Saying those things and seeing them in black and white are two very different things and it hurts to see it.

These photos were taken during a really bad time in my life. A time that I have never really recovered from, in all honestly. My mom left me to go take care of someone else's children. I was 16ish years old. I needed my mother. To be honest, I hadn't had her that long at that point. I lived with my grandparents until I was 11 or 12, so at the most I had my mom be my mother for only a brief 4 or 5 years and after her divorce, she moved in with another man and took care of his kids. Again, my mother chose someone other than me. This was a very hard time in my life. My friends went through their own things but my worries were different. Food was an issue, whenever mom would remember, she would stop by and give me money for groceries. Thankfully, I was dating Tony and ate at his house a lot. His mom probably wasn't real impressed by that fact because I was a teen girl with a hearty appetite. Sometimes, the electric would get turned off or mom would leave my sisters with me and I couldn't go to school. I dunno, I struggled a lot during that time. It messes with your head to have your mother leave. She took my sisters but their care was half-ass. The kids that mom was caring for were a pretty wild bunch and they would lock my sisters outside when they got home from school, until my mom got home from work (when she did work), so they could party and be with their boyfriends. There were times I would go over to check on my sisters and these girls was supposed to be babysitting and they would still be laid up in the bed with their boyfriends and the little kids would not be fed. Not a good time for us.

I am sure, if you could talk to my mother, she would have a whole different story to tell about this time. In fact, I know she did. She blamed me for leaving me. I am still a bit unsure how it was my fault other than I existed. My dad and extra mom wanted me to go live with them but I could not fathom leaving Tony and even more than that being the fat girl at a new high school. I don't know that I would have survived it. And, I guess, I just wanted my mom to do the right thing. I thought she would come back and care for me. But that never happened.

It is weird to think that someones good memories are one of the shittiest times in someone else life.

I am?

Sigh. So much has happened and changed in the last 16 months that I am not even sure I know where to start or if I should even bother starting. I have lost so much that is me that I don't know who I am anymore. And I don't know where to start to rebuild myself.
Tony, my spouse of 20 years, my support, friend and foe died 10/28/13. And along with him a lot of my identity. No longer am I allowed to call myself "wife". I used to fuss because everyone around the AC knew me as "Tony's wife". No name, ever. No separate existence. Just "Tony's wife". Used to make me so mad because dammit, I am a person. I am one-of-a-kind just like the rest of you fuckers. I am Angie. I am. I am. I am "Tony's wife". Damn. Ah, but they don't tell you after your spouse dies that you are no longer allowed to call yourself a wife. You become a widow. I even wrote about it. Now, I am not ashamed because I am a widow. I fulfilled my vows. Till death, bitches. I roll hardcore. But after about a year, I started figuring out, not everyone likes the word widow. It makes them uncomfortable. It makes them look away. Or even worse it makes them look at me with pity. I don't need their pity or your pity or anyone's pity. I do need some understanding, however. See, I haven't been this person before. I haven't been this widow. I have only been "Tony's wife" and I lost that title when he died. Now, when I fill out forms, I am not allowed to choose married. Most forms don't even have the choice widowed, oddly enough. Like it's not a word or a thing. Either you are married or not married or don't fucking exist in this damn world. I usually still choose Mrs. because dammit that is what I am. I am a Mrs. I am too old to be a Ms. and I don't have a ding-a-ling so I am no Mr. I gave up my Ms. at a very young age. I don't identify with a Ms. But even then I think people believe I am mistaken because I have to choose single on the rest of the paper so I end up being Ms. in the end. And I don't even want to talk about emergency contact information. People, the struggle is real. The first time I went to the Dr and had to change my emergency contact I cried. Now, I am usually numb and can save my tears until I am alone. Tony promised me when I got old and had to go the the home he wouldn't let them tuck my feet in or feed me foods I didn't like and make them understand I am a night owl and like to sleep late. I like a fan for noise and all the lights out. He promised me those things. But, well, that's just not how life worked out. He also promised me he wouldn't leave me but I am pretty sure he didn't have much control over leaving.

I had a vertical sleeve gastrectomy in the last part of June. I had decided it was time to do something about my weight. I had gotten so big that I couldn't really do anything. Walking killed me. Sitting killed me and it was time. So, I chose to remove my stomach. Well, I lost that identity too. I no longer can eat and eat and eat until I die. Well, most foods I can't eat and eat and eat. There are those few foods I can hoover up a good amount. But I lost my fat girl status I thought. But then maybe I didn't. I just traded it in. I am an oxymoron. I am a fat girl that can't eat. I am an anomaly. I'm still grossly over-weight and I can't freakin' eat. I snack and graze a lot because I make all the healthy choices. But eating, nope. On a good meal I can eat 1/4-3/4 a taco. Or about 3/4 a hamburger bun with soft meat on it. Hard, heavy meat about 1/2 a burger. Sometimes, I can eat a decent portion of food. I eat more like an average sized girl but I am still fat. I lost the ability to comfort eat. I am 127 lbs down. I lost the oslen twins. It's hard for me not to compare my journy to everyone elses. Today I read about one of the girls that had lost 200 lbs in 7 months. I want that kind of weight loss. 200 lbs and I would be close to my goal. Sigh.

And in Sept my hospital closed. 10 years of work and it closed. 10 years of laughter and tears, gone. Gone in 2.5 hours and I haven't recovered. A lot of my friends haven't either. I mean we have new jobs or other jobs but that feeling, that loss, well. We still struggle. We loved that stupid hospital. Our hospital that was, what we thought, too dumb to die.

I have a lot of good things in my life. In July, I started seeing someone and eventually it turned into tender feelings and from there love. So, now I am a girlfriend. Haven't been one of those in a long time, really, never, ever. It's a learning experience for sure. Tony took the lead when we dated. He had dated a lot prior to me and knew what he was doing. So, I just followed his lead. Now, well, Robbie and I just kind of fumble along and hope for the best.
I am a new employee with a nice new job but I haven't been new in a long time. It's hard to be new and not be new at the same time. When I was new at my hospital I was still young and eager. Now I am sad and have my own ways of doing things. My confidence is shaken and I am having growing pains. I don't know the inside jokes and who works well with who. Mostly, my new job has been a blessing. I needed a job and it's basically a place that I am used to working. It's small and I already know some of the staff and patients but it is still new. And I am trying hard to find myself.

So, now I struggle with who I am. Who is this Angie person. What does she like, dislike and want to do with her life? No clue. None. Do I like skulls and metal-ish type music? Am I really a gamer and a nerd or just a poser? I have no clue really. None. Am I still a nurse now that my hospital closed? Am I still a fat girl if I can't eat? Who am I?

Witch's Brew

AS I sit here crying and wondering where I went wrong in life, I stopped crying and started thinking why do I feel that I went wrong in life. I mean is that a thing? I'm not saying I have never made any bad choices, lied, hurt someone or any of the things that make "bad" people "bad" in societies mind. But I don't know why I feel the need to blame the bad in my life or the wrong in my life on Karma or a vengeful God or myself and my wrongness.


It's weird thought process really. Hell, if I get a  zit on my nose, it's Karma because last week I was snarky about a co-workers less than perfect skin. My best example would be, ummm, I was not a very nice person in my early 20's and made lots and lots of bad, bad decisions. Rash decisions for that matter. Bad decisions in the fact that they were harmful to my already delicate self-esteem and worth. Well, after several of these bad, bad decisions, I had the red-blotch of whoredom on my face. I kind of just accepted the blotch as punishment for being less than perfect and pissing Karma off. Well, that was fucking stupid. I carried this stupid red blotchy bullshit on my face probably for a year until I finally went to the Dermatologist who was like ummm that is stress induced and caused by an addiction to steroid cream (which I was using by the vat on my face). He gave me some cream and in a few weeks, my face was all back to normal. I didn't even see Karma in his office.


I wonder sometimes how I got to this belief. Why when something bad happens it is automatically Karma, God's pissed off or bad luck. When in reality it is just life. Sometimes life is good. Things are grand and should be enjoyed but in my case they aren't because I am always waiting for the bad Karma, the bad luck, the bad and bad and bad. It ruins the good. And life is so good sometimes. So very good.

Chuck it in the bucket

Well, life has been so weird right now that I would need a huge fuck it bucket to chuck all that is fuck-it worthy. It's not terrible awful like things have been in the past just annoying as shit awful and I just love to be annoyed.


I finally took a huge leap and decided to do something about my weight besides letting it slowly kill me. Now I am flipping out because well, slow suicide by fat was the only real plan I have ever had in life. Stuffing down my feelings with food has been my way of life since I was old enough to start saying I'm hungry and want more. My depression and my fat are best of friends. My weight keeps life at a short, fat, arm length. Not letting anyone or anything close enough to hurt me. Well, at least that is what I think happens. But in fact I still get very hurt and still don't understand humans or life or anything but hurt.


What will I do without fat to hide behind? I don't fucking know. I really don't know. I am really good at avoiding life and being overly passive so I will probably lose some weight, figure out how to cheat the system and cling to my old habits because change is so painful. Being fat is the only thing I know, my only coping mechanism. And there are times that I think it is my only choice.


I have such a huge support system of family and friends that really do love me and want me to be successful no matter what it is I choose to do. They want me to choose happiness and love and health. Even when it is not what I want to choose. If I had my choice I would stay in bed with the covers up over my head to keep out the monsters and just let what happens, happen. 


But I don't. You know people always say "don't give a shit what others think or what they say" or some crap like that. It's true, I am not going to argue it's validity but if it wasn't for people and their thinking and their feelings I wouldn't go on. I wouldn't be. I don't want to put anymore hurt out there in the world than there already is. I might not feel worthy of love or life but I don't want to purposely hurt those that love me.


And it's time like this that I miss Tony so damned much. He loved me, fat, crazy, sad and mean. He loved me in spite of me. It might not have been the healthiest marriage or love but it was always there. I took advantage of it. I ignored it. I didn't let it blossom because of the hurt or maybe it was the hurt that wouldn't let the love blossom. What kills me the most is we were working on things and the last month I had with him was one of the happiest I had in a long time. He seemed more at peace and I was more in tune to his needs. Even when he was in the hospital and I couldn't make any noise or turn on the light because he felt so bad and I was annoyed for a second it would go away and I would touch him, rub his legs or his back or just lay my hand on him. He loved gentle touches like that and I was stingy with them because of the hurt. Maybe the touches would have healed some of the hurt? I don't fucking know. All I know is now, right now at this second, I would stuff my fat ass on his lap and wrap my arms around his body and kiss his fuzzy head and I would never, ever let go.

Date, say what?

It's been 7 months since Tony died. Time to move the hell on. Oh hell, who am I kidding. I'm lonely and odd curious about dating. I am fascinated by the fact that I can date and talk/flirt with men. It's stupid and crazy really. I think it is just something to take my mind off what is really going on in my life. A new obsession, of sorts, and damn I suck at it.


Now, I haven't gone on any dates. Not sure that I will ever make it too that point to go on a date. I have only chatted with men through text or messenger and let me tell you it has been one crazy week. I was chatting with one man for around three weeks. I was suspicious of a few things and that helped me out. But the story goes he asked me for $1400. So yeah, can we say scam artist?


The other guy I have been texting. Well, I like him. I felt like he liked me right up to the point he asked my sister out!! Yeah. I know. Thank goodness she told me so I didn't get all wrapped up and hurt.


And my third chatter. Well, he thought seeing his mom naked was hot. And that was that.


So, I am going to tuck my tail between my legs and say "fuck it" and go lay in bed and feel sorry for myself.