unreasonably rational

I like Saturdays, when I don't schedule them too heavily. Today is a free day on my calender, except for that niggling feeling that I might be forgeting something. I've had that for a few weeks now, though, so I think it's just a feeling. Another, "Hi, Anxiety, how are you doing today?" Actually, I was thinking of naming one of the thought-groups Whatif. "Hi, Whatif; I see you came up with a new idea (new as in this month). Whatif I forgot something that I scheduled. Oh, dear. Well, maybe I'd be glad I forgot, because maybe I don't want to do it anymore." ( Whatif: "Whatif someone reads this and you had scheduled to be with this someone and now they feel hurt because you don't want to do it anymore.") "Whatif, that's a complicated one. And don't you think it's a bit unfair to qualify forgetting something as not wanting to do something?" (Whatif: "When have I EVER been restricted by FAIRNESS. Not a good com...

I've started a new habit, if two days counts as a habit. Writing two posts in one day. But hey, then I don't have to cram all my thoughts on all my subjects into one post. This one is about dejavou, which may be spelled wrong, but the spell check isn't telling me how to spell it right. I'm remembering two years ago, when the ERP had my stomach hurting and my appetite hiding and it might have messed with my sleep, too. Two years ago ish, when I decided to add medication to the therapy in my grand scheme to end my OCD and depression. Actually, we aren't quite at two years since my first appointment to see a doctor about it, but I probably decided around this time. In a few weeks, it will be two years since I started medication. I remember this because I had the unfortunate time coincidence of starting my medication a day or two before my birthday, rendering me very tired for my birthday dinner with my family. I am not likely to forget my birthday, so I'm not lik...

My therapist lent me her copy of the The Cognitive Behavioral Workbook for Depression . She also has one coming in the mail to her that I could have if I choose to go through with it. And I'm really good at nodding my head. But I don't like the book. I read a chapter or two yesterday. Part way through the first chapter, I stopped because I was having a hard cry. Because to me, the book is showing me this ideal plan that will eradicate my depression and prevent a relapse . Seems about as real to me as a light saber. And a bit dangerous, too. Because the words go through my eyes, through my brain, are transformed into sledgehammers, and bang about on my emotions. You terrible person. Oh, look at that. A depressed thought. You are using depressed thoughts to hurt yourself emotionally. Look at you. Your depression is your fault. If you just did it right , you wouldn't be depressed anymore. There's no excuse for two years of depression (not counting the years before yo...

Pardon my slightly political post. You are welcome to skip it. And I'm pro-Food Stamps, just so you can decide if you want to read on. I grew up around people who thought the government was too involved in people's lives. Unobtrusive and necessary laws like driving laws and laws against stealing are fine, but "welfare?" Welfare was seen as a messed up system often abused by people who don't want to work. Basically, welfare had a negative connotation. Then my brain plays meanie on me and I end up in the psych unit of the local hospital. "Behavioral Health Unit," since that is supposed to somehow make me feel better than "Mental Health Unit." Seriously, I'd rather have something wrong with my brain than with my behavior, because I associate less guilt with that. "Mental Illness," to me, conveys the idea of an illness instead of a sin problem, and I like that, so I will keep calling it a mental illness, so there! But I'm side...

I guess I keep trying to get rid of the whole mental illness stuff by finding the answer . If I understand it, then I will be able to avoid it, right? And maybe there is some truth to that. For example, this morning, I slept too late to get to my church before too much of it had already passed, so I started trying to form plan B. But plan B was very important , as in, stomach-ache inducing important. Then I finally told myself, it actually doesn't matter that much. If it is a bad church, I know enough to survive one visit. Hey, I could always walk out if it is that bad , something I've kind of wanted to do for a while. But to put it simply, this decision wasn't that important. Realizing that helped, and I picked a church (after driving past to make sure the service time was okay). It was a small church, which was fun for me; I grew up in small churches, even though I go to a large one now. We sang songs that I already knew, some that I haven't sung in awhile. I enj...

Saw my therapist today. To my satisfaction, we actually worked on the stuff we'd planned to work on instead of completely getting sidetracked on my last week's issues. To my disappointment, I didn't quite deal as much as I wish I could have on this last week's issues. Maybe I should plan to spend the first 15 minutes on immediate issues or the last 15 minutes, which is about what I did today. Somehow, I want her feedback on what I've been dealing with during the week, but I also want to make actual progress on bigger, underlying issues. I think we will be going through The Cognitive Behavioral Workbook for Depression: A Step-By-Step Program , by Knaus and Ellis. First off, I inwardly rebelled against the idea, because I hate the name of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, even though it used to be my favorite. I dislike the thought I now associate with it; that I have a behavior problem and if I'd just "do what's right," I wouldn't be depressed or ...

Annoyingly depressed. Like, "I thought I was done with this" depressed. This isn't supposed to happen. Even if my newest medication isn't working. I'm supposed to be wrong in thinking that my medication isn't living up to it's job. It's supposed to be working, and I'm supposed to slowly realize how much better I actually am feeling. The move was supposed to just be a little setback. You know, all my stuff in my new place and, tada! the stress goes away. Work gets better and better. I figure out my financial situation. I make amazing progress on my one summer class. My head is full of the names of bones and muscles in the body (the class is human anatomy). And the sun is supposed to shine, and I'm not supposed to still be using the heat in my car. Definitely not. Oh, and I'm not supposed to say "supposed to," because it is too much like "should." The flat tire (from two different nails) on Sunday was okay, because I ...

I haven't written all week, so I give myself permission to blog twice in one day. I took a long bubble bath and felt better. Then I ate pizza and watched two episodes from Season 1 of Guilligan's Island, a nice, fairly light comedy good for distracting me during meal times (yes, I still distract myself intentionally to make eating easier). It was nice. And then babysitting, which was nice, too. So the day turned out all right after all.

I woke up and started the day with the significant concern that I would use the day wrong. Hello, new "dominant" face of OCD. Got through breakfast and returned to bed, because I didn't know what to do or how to do it in the time between now and when I'm scheduled to babysit this evening. Eventually, I convinced myself to get up with the temptation of wearing something exciting - i.e., something I wouldn't wear to work. But, of course, the first choice no longer fit me. The trouble with gaining weight, whether or not I'm still within a decent weight range. Anyhow, I finally got out of the house and on to checking Facebook and blogging, and I'm feeling a bit better. The moments of indecision when I don't want to do anything because I can't decide what to do are annoying, but once I actually start doing something, it gets better. As, I'm pretty sure, any counselor would tell me to do, and I would counsel myself to do, too. I babysat again last ...

After babysitting until after 1 am, I went home and followed my going-to-bed-routine, created not for OCD but in the interest of sleeping and the comfort of "normal." And slept late. But I did get up. Babysitting is key for two reasons. The first is that one of my tires died yesterday. The tire shop was able to stick a used one in its place, allowing me to postpone the inevitable purchase of new tires. The cost for this and the service was forty-some dollars (as opposed to almost four hundred dollars to put on the cheapest new tires). Incidentally, I also was asked to babysit last night, and I got paid $40. Yes, the similarity was evident to me, and I chalked it up to a miracle from God. So that was nice. The other reason it is important is that it threw off my sleep schedule more than usual, which left me less "strong" than usual, which will matter in a few minutes. I got up in time to get a package from the post office - a new table cloth - actually a cloth on...

I don't think words can express how glad I am that today is Friday. It was time for the work week to end. I still try to be SuperTeacherCaregiver. If such a superhero existed, I'm sure it would have more than two arms and definately at least two heads. This superhero would be able to intervene in time every time so that no child bit anyone else. That would be really important and save a lot of stress for all the adults involved. If the superhero had any intervention ability left over, it could be used for the less serious squables that the children have. As for the two heads (at least), these would be needed so that the teacher could know everything that happened in the classroom. No socks would ever be lost. No scratch would be left unexplained. Everything would be recorded in the Superbrains (with super memory). Any question about how any child ate, slept, played, etc would be answerable right away with no delay for searching one's memory (and the SuperTeacherCaregiverHe...

Thrift stores give me two emotional highs, one when I make a purchase I am happy about, and the other when I donate stuff. So much for giving in secret. My counselor talked a little about getting rid of things and understanding that our identity, while sometimes represented by things, is not dependent on things, and that that is an important understanding to be able to get rid of things. It was definitely a helpful thought when I sorted through things. I used a spin off thought: I can remember this event or this person without keeping this item (or at least not the whole item; I tore off a few inside cover pages that just had the book title and a note to me from someone). And I got rid of two boxes of stuff! Hurray! It also helped when I thought about a book I was getting rid of would maybe help someone else. This was good for overcoming guilt for not reading "enough" of a few books I've been given. When I spoke to the hematologist who works in a cancer center and who I...

So, thanks to all of you who had the discussion a little while ago about grading how you did on exposures so that you could get credit for a less-than-100% exposure. I was thinking about grading what I did, and I decided that I was going to try to get my apartment I was moving out of 90% clean. An A, and no more. Well, the thing above the stove, I decided an 80% would be fine after scrubbing above my head for a bit. There is endless grease up there. Aiming for 90% helped a lot. That way, when I noticed holes I hadn't seen when I filled the nail holes, I told myself they were covered by my 90% goal. When I realized I forgot a small section of the wall (washing it), it also was classified in the 10% I was leaving undone. In the end, I'm sure it wasn't exactly ten percent. Now that my OCD is peaking over my shoulder, it assures me I probably left like 50% undone, but thankfully, the 50% I missed would be invisible to most people without OCD. "So there, OCD! You must in...