mistakes, observations, and my garden growing

I got my car back. And here is something annoying: If I had gone ahead and let my friend put in the new battery we bought, I probably wouldn't have needed to get my car towed. See, we did this experiment where we tried to jump my car directly from his battery, not going through a battery in my own car, (i.e., the jumper cables connected from his car battery to the cables that would have connected to my car battery). The result? Nothing. So, not wanting to waste my $105-plus-tax dollars I had spent on my battery, we didn't put the new one in, just in case we wouldn't want it, because once you put it in, you can't return it.

My choice didn't really make sense; we'd already gotten rid of the old battery (which I am still pretty confident was thoroughly dead). So I would need a new one. I was just afraid that if it was the wrong battery or something? Anyway, my friend talked to someone they knew who suggested putting the battery in, but by then I had already scheduled the towing, not to mention a busy day in between time, so I left the battery in the trunk.

The towing was covered by my insurance. At least, I'm pretty sure it was. But I'm still annoyed that that money got "wasted."

So I keep telling myself, "it takes experience to get experience." I know better for next time. So this is my most thorough exposition on the matter since it came up Thursday, when I learned what did need done with my car. It just became one of those thoughts in my head tormenting me even while I tried to ignore it. "You wasted money." "That isn't smart." "You might not be able to get a towing that you need to be covered since you wasted your coverage on this."

And then I reply, "It takes experience to get experience." Like a mantra. But perhaps it was really a compulsion?

So ERP? Yup, Abigail, you wasted money, maybe around $100. So terrible. Maybe your insurance will charge you for it since you made the mistake on how to deal with your battery. Maybe, maybe, maybe, I'm not coming up with anything that bad. Nasty anxiety, growing out of proportion behind my back. Hasn't it learned not to do that to me yet?


And now to completely change the subject. My doctor and I are trying something where I take one dosage of my SSRI for half the month and a higher dosage for the other half. I think it is worth a try, but I have some reservations on how well I think it will work. Take two weeks ago when I dropped back to the lower dose: a few days later, my mood got worse. Sweet thing. And then Friday I upped my dose again. Only to get the extremely tired feeling Saturday that I associate as a side affect to this SSRI (even though this one doesn't usually cause tiredness or weight gain; it just decided to do the unexpected with me, but still work pretty well). I don't like the idea of getting so extremely tired once a month when the dosage ups and side effects visit for a moment. But we'll see. I guess I'd even put up with that if it really solved my roller-coaster (slow motion roller-coaster) moods.


And to completely change the subject again, my peas have sprouted!


And to change the subject again, Thursday night, I got a text from my boss regarding something that happened at work, without my knowledge. So Thurs night, despite trying to reason with myself that it wasn't more likely to be my mistake than any one else's, I was anxious and had a bit of trouble getting to sleep. But then Friday, when I talked with her, I learned that her best guess was that the mistake occurred when I wasn't even there! She just asked me on the off chance that I knew something. So my "mind-reading" cognitive error was definitely wrong! I was so relieved. I'll have to work on my "assuming the worst" habit. How, I'm not sure. Except maybe by working on positive self-talk. That might help. I could try to assume the best about myself for a change (forget what other people are thinking; deal with myself for starters!). And remember that relief again. That felt so good.