Monthly Archive for February, 2007

Page 2 of 7

How to Remember What I Forgot Part 1 of 2

Published on February 25, 2007 in For the Record and Segments. 1 Comment

I’m one of the most disorganized people on the face of the earth so I’ll take any help I can get to keep up with myself/selves. Awhile back Velvet Sacks if there were any memory tips and tricks I could share with everybody. I have mainly one but that trick works for many things I’d normally forget.

First of all, let me say that memory loss shouldn’t just be explained away with “I’m just in a fog” or “I’ve been under a lot of pressure lately” or “I’m getting older. I can’t remember things like I use to.” Sometimes loss of memory can be a medical condition so if you have persistent memory loss with no pre-diagnosed reason I’d suggest going to see your regular medical doctor.

It’s just stress. I’ve got a lot on my mind – For several weeks I’d start a sentence and forget what I wanted to say. I forgot simple words and I couldn’t hold a fluent conversation for the world. I thought I was dissociating or that I was “just tired.” I happened to have a doctor’s appointment that week and told him about this. It turns out it had to do with my thyroid. My thyroid is both overactive and under active. When it’s out of whack it can disrupt your thought process. My point is, I thought it was just stress but it ended up being a result of whacked out thyroid.

Still there are times I forget to do stuff even though my thyroid isn’t acting as spastic and my thoughts are fluent. In order to keep everything going as smoothly as possible I try to split up tasks between different days. I know every Monday is clean sheets day. I know every Wednesday is groom the fur babies day and Sunday is the day where I only drink water. I shouldn’t say ONLY water. I have two cups of coffee that day, one in the morning and one in the evening after dinner. I choose one day out of the week to do the water thing.

Medication reminders- I’m only on 3 meds but I always forget to take it. I tried pill boxes, I tried alarm clocks and all kinds of things. My newest attempt is to put the medication in a spot I know I’m going to be everyday without fail, by the coffee maker. I’m proud to say this has helped. If a person takes medication and they forget it a lot put it someplace you know you’re going to be. I’m also by the PC a lot but I don’t keep my medication here. There are times when I’m typing out a therapy assignment or something and the impulse to hurt myself becomes overwhelming. The last thing I need is a bottle of pills sitting inches away from the keyboard. I do not put medication by my computer. I have it someplace safe and somewhere I’m going to be at least once during the day.

Daily tasks- I don’t know why but I always forget to brush my teeth. I’ll shower, get myself dressed and realize half way through the day I’ve not brushed my teeth. Everybody knows the day you forget to brush your teeth and you walk out of the house everybody and their brother will be close up in your face. To fix this problem I moved my toothbrush and paste in the shower. I know I’m going to be in there every day. Now, my teeth get brushed every morning without fail. It’s just one of those things I forget or should I say forgot because this little trick works for me.

Feeding the dog- Sometimes I can’t remember if I’ve fed the booger or not. I have a soft ball on my door with a magnet on the back. It’s stuck to a piece of paper with a line down the middle. One side says FED the other says, FEED THE BOY. I know by the location of the little plush ball if I’ve fed Cappy Crunch or not. After he’s been fed I turn his bowl over.

Grooming the dog- When brushing Captain it is often hard to tell which side I brushed and which side I didn’t. He’s solid black, he looks the same on the left and right. I had to figure out what to do about that so I could brush him thoroughly. This is where marking come in handy. I take an old over stretched hair scrunchy and put it on his back led like an ankle bracelet. Because the scrunchy is very old there is no elastic to cut off his circulation. This is very important; you can’t use a rubber band or anything that’s so tight it cuts off the circulation. When I can’t find the scrunchy I use a piece of clear tape. PLEASE do not use extra sticky tape or press down really hard so that it hurts your furry one when you take it off. I use a small piece of clear tape and use care to not press really hard so that when I take it off it doesn’t hurt him. I then wash the spot where the tape was to get any glue that may have been left behind.

Austin

How to Remember What I Forgot Part 1 of 2
Sunday, February 25, 2007-5:32PM EST

For more information click here to see the entry called How I Acclimate Daily Life For My Disability.

How to Remember What I Forgot 2 of 2

Published on February 25, 2007 in For the Record and Segments. 2 Comments

Appointments- Email can be a good tool for organizing and keeping your appointments straight. I’ve found it helpful to send myself email reminders with online calendars for all kinds of appointments. If someone is suppose to come over for coffee I’m going to get an email from Google telling me tomorrow so-in-so is coming for coffee. I have email alerts tell me when it’s time to pay my phone bill and when Napster is to be paid. I even have a second email asking me to verifying that I’ve completed the task. When it comes to dissociation you sometimes need verification that you’ve completed a task. It helps when I get an email verifying this.

If you’re anything like me you get to your doctor’s office and you can’t remember half of what you wanted to tell him. Or if you’re a multiple you get there and you can’t feel your body at all, you’re dissociating heavily and all the information you had for the doctor is just gone. That’s frustrating but I’ve found something that helps me keep my doctors up to speed with my health. Before this therapist, all my therapists checked in on my journals. It helped them to see how I’m really doing. I asked them not to leave a comment and they didn’t. If you don’t feel comfortable with your therapist reading your journal then print off certain entries and bring them in so he/she knows how you’re really doing. If you’re going to a regular doctor and don’t have access to a computer where you can pull up your symptoms list from a saved email you sent yourself then put those same symptoms on your voice mail. Call yourself and get the list for the doctor that way. Voice mail service works for shopping lists as well.

Keeping important but not overly sensitive information on my voice mail has proven beneficial. I leave important numbers on a voice mail to myself that I can access from any phone. I just call my phone number, access my messages and pull up the one where I’ve listed important numbers. There have been times that I walked out of the house and didn’t bring a number I should have brought with me. I just call myself and get the info off my voice mail service.

So, this is some of the stuff I do to keep myself function and get tasks done that otherwise I’ll forget.

For survivors- One of the key things I use to help me stay grounded is to send myself emails saying that I’m safe and away from the people that abused me. Try it, it works for me.

Until again
Austin

How to Remember What I Forgot 2 of 2
Sunday, February 25, 2007-6:26PM EST

For more information click here to see the entry called How I Acclimate Daily Life For My Disability.

PC Guy aka Officer Le Perv

Published on February 25, 2007 in For the Record. 2 Comments

For a girl that doesn’t get much sleep can taking 10 hours whenever the mood strikes her be considered abuse? Surely it could but let the abuse snore on. I’m tired. This is one of those feelings I get when I’ve exhausted myself emotionally. I know when I can’t seem to wake up that it mainly has to do with 1) avoiding and 2) my body has been worn out by emotional upheaval.

My PC guy was supposed to be here today but he’s coming on Wednesday instead. Wednesday is therapy day which means if the session is a hard one like last time I”ll have to leave him in the room to do his thing while I do my best to get myself together then join him. It seems he’s assisted the HP website with the Help Center. I was laying down when talking to him but when he said that about the so-called Help Site I sat straight up! That was YOU!!!! I only gave him a little bit of grief, not much.

This man not only does PC work for companies like HP he also is a private DJ. I think this man does everything under the son. Wonder why they fired him from the Sheriff’s Department? Wouldn’t have anything to do with photographing a hot Latin girl on a judges’ desk now would it? I’m sure MySpace was happy to see it but the unknowing Judge whose name plate was clear as day wasn’t happy at all. This is NOT Officer McBastard I’m talking about. This is Officer Le Perv who lost regular contact with Officer McBastard and who comes over to fix my PC at drastically discounted charitable prices.

Okay, must sleep more.

Fun and Confessions

Published on February 24, 2007 in Art, Humor and Pets. 3 Comments

Cartoon of meI blog hop for funny stuff. Today hopping lead straight to YouTube where I found the following interesting and hi-larious vids.

Jim Carey does CSI: Miami David Caruso- hilarious stuff

When Cats Attack- great suspenseful music, thick plot, twists and turns with a surprise ending. Rated A1 in my YouTube opinion.

The Persian Fight Club- Two kitties battle it out.
It looks like they stop to clean each other then start wrestling again. What I like about this video is the song the writers chose and how they made the moves of the cats even with the music. You have to watch the entire video and see how the kitty punches are right in sink with the song Mama’s Gonna Know You out by LL Cool J.

George Bush, Oh No, another President with Alzheimer’s? I suppose this one’s not fun. It’ll make you wonder if they have a point. Is the US under another Regan and will this Regan end up getting the honor of Greatest American Ever because he ruled with dementia? I didn’t realize that qualified a person for a position of honor.

Addition snatched from a blogger: Jennifer Hudson sings And I’m Telling You from the movie Dream Girls. Jennifer Holiday at the 1982 Tony Awards singing her classic song. the crowd showed love through the whole performance. If you’re looking for glamore with Jennifer’s performance at the the Tony’s you wont find it. But if you’re looking for quality performance and historical performances this is the video for you. Jennifer Holiday IS this song. Yes, Miss Hudson does a wonderful job too but this is JH’s song. Here’s. Jennifer Holiday at the White House before a rather dead crowd. Notice Regan sitting in the front row. This is Jennifer Holiday at Carnigie Hall. If you’re not sure this is her because she’s thin check out the facial expressions (sometimes frightening) and hand movements. You’ll realize its her. Check the last part of the performance and you can almost see the Miss Holiday from the ’82 Tony Awards. I love the reaction of the crowd when she comes out and all through the song. That’s the kind of crowd she deserves. The White House must have bored her to tears and I’m sure she would tell you she wanted to go, it was the worst house she ever played and there’s no way, no way she’d have ever gone had Regan not pressed it. She wanted to be free, but Regan wanted to love her!

Confessions of a mad as a hatter blogger:

  • Sometimes I like to go back and read old journal entries to see IF I’ve made any progress or if I’m still a total mess. Going back over my entries I found a few that made me laugh and some that I thought, dear Lord what was I on when I wrote that one? But nonetheless, reading old entries can be enlightening. Try it.
  • I sometimes forget to turn on the slow cooker making cooking time even slower.
  • When filling my ink cartridge last time I was careful to cover the table, change my clothes and put up the fur babies to prevent spills. I forgot to wear gloves. My fingers were black for days.
  • I even wear a hat to bed, not a baseball cap but a night cap…not the kind with a fuzzy ball on the top like some Santa Clause thing! It’s a little black stocking cap urban kinda thing and no I don’t rap in my free time. And yes I realize I look like Lucy from Peanuts in the above cartoon of me.
  • I play Lupus ball with my dog. With Lupus attacking my joints I can’t get out and play ball with him as much as I’d like so I have to improvise. I stand on the porch and talk him through a game of fetch and never touch the ball. With every word he’s more and more excited. You got it Cappy, get that ball. Oh you’re a killer, a killer I say, a killer. He starts jumping and romping the more I tell him how fierce he is. Lupus ball gives him the exercise he needs and the rest my tired joints need.
  • When I brush Gracie I tell her how pretty she is and that she’s my favorite cat in the world and no one comes before her. When I brush Bella I tell her how pretty she is and that she’s my favorite cat in the world and no one comes before her. When I brush Captain I strongly consider paying a groomer.
  • My dog likes to eat the lotion right off my legs so I give him a taste on my finger so he’ll go away and leave me to supple up my legs in privacy. He prefers Vaseline Intensive Care to Skin So Soft by Avon.

Yours truly,
Austin

Decoder Rings And Secret Messages

Published on February 24, 2007 in Borderline Personality Disorder and Mental Health. 0 Comments

Sat-02-24-07/2:58AM EST

(You’ll have to highlight the areas where the font is white in order to see the other words)

Cracker Jacks, there’s a prize in every box and if you’re lucky it’ll be a decoder ring for secret messages only people your kind are privy to. Everything might seem in order to others but you have this tool to decipher secret messages, messages only discernable by those who know what they’re looking for. You use your special ring and find yourself among the elite few who possess …. worthless knowledge, stuff you could have lived without but the candy popcorn box convinced you just the opposite.

I think the most intense entries on my blog are written with a cryptic message only someone with the correct code language could decipher. Between each line is a question; has anyone ever felt this way? Am I crazy? Somebody help me please. I can’t keep going at this rate. Does this make sense to you? Am I really out of my mind? Sometimes the punch line to my own jokes is me. Sometimes my laugh is real and other times it’s a mask. I’ve lost my ability to determine which is which. I want to stop laughing. I’m scared to death most days. I’m on the verge of tears more than ever. What are people going to think when Austin stops being strong? What are people going to think when Austin stops laughing?

Sometimes I word things in a way that makes it nearly impossible to offend and other times I couldn’t give a flying fuck if someone is offended. I don’t like walking on egg shells. I hope this pisses people off and makes them go away.

I worry that people will find out just how sick I am and they’ll have no need at all for my cynicism, my humor bordering passive aggression or my artwork that often bores me. They’re going to find out about you and when they do your stupid Sundrip Journals will be a desert waste land. Sometimes I want to push people away so they can go ahead and leave. I’ll have control over that part then. It’s better to leave than be left. Most times I’m afraid to sign my Pride name because I feel stupid doing it. I hesitate to write entries that are depressing for fear people will think I’m wallowing in self pity, that I’m spending too much time thinking about the past, that I refuse to move on and that I’m keeping others from moving on by writing entries about my life. Sometimes I wish my head would shut up and stop assaulting me. Other times I invite the burden. The pain is buried so deep it feels like without some sort of jump start I’ll never get to the bottom of things and I’ll be stuck like this forever, not knowing fully why I’m angry and not being able to do a goddamn thing about it. I’m afraid to feel nothing at all again. I’m afraid to ever go back to numb. I’m afraid. I’m ready to stop and that scares me. So I tell myself to give it a few days and I’ll feel better. They’re going to think you’re a hypocrite. You always tell people that self care is important but you neglect your needs all the time. My advice to others is better than the advice I give myself. I do, give it time but I find myself right back here and tired.

I want the prize at the bottom of the popcorn box so I keep moving even when my I don’t feel like I can anymore.

If I left the comment section open to this it would almost seem like I asking for ???? hell I don’t know. To leave it open and get nothing would be a slap in the face. You can see my dilemma here…well, you can if you have a decoder ring.

Austin for Morton’s Pride

Anger and Ending Relationships 1

Published on February 24, 2007 in Mental Health, Relationships, Segments and Therapy Assignments. 0 Comments

I’m angry with the way this relationship turned out because…..

I’m angry because I feel like I failed her and myself. I’m angry because my issues kept me in that relationship then allowed the friends with benefits situation to go on for so long.

I’m angry because-
Her eating disorder and self loathing spilled into my own issues. She was conscious of what I ate, what my cats ate, what the dog ate and so on, everything was weight related and I started feeling badly about being a fat chick. I started thinking, how could anyone respect “this”? My comfort level with who I am became less and less as I heard daily about when she was thin, when her hair was longer, when her kids were thin, when her kid’s hair was longer. My self image began to deteriorate and that really pisses me off. I let that happen and that really pisses me off. She harped on the past and how long her hair use to be and how thin she use to be. I’m fat with short hair, what am I suppose to think when she talks about these things with such disgust? She detested this/me, I could hear it in her voice but she kept saying she was talking only about herself. I still don’t believe that.

I am angry because I gave up my time and my space for someone who only wanted to use me for a place to sleep, someone to cook her meals and do her laundry. I’m angry that wanting to be needed in someone’s life was stronger than my self respect. I’m angry that I let her use me just so I wouldn’t be alone. I’m angry that she’s a user. The relationship was complicated at best.

I’m angry that she slept in my bed, ate my food, spent more time here than home yet I still did nothing good enough for her. I’m angry that my every flaw stuck out ahead of anything I did right. It makes me angry to know my will is weak enough to bend to the will of some chick for the sake of belonging and for approval, which I never got.

I’m angry that I gave pep talks and played the rescue role when I really just wanted to tell her to dry her eyes and go home until she could get herself together and talk to me without manipulation. I’m angry that the rescuer in me couldn’t stand down, couldn’t let her just fall apart and cry herself into dehydration. I’m angry I kick into the comedian role instead of just flat out telling her, you’re pissing me off you need to leave. I wanted to fix things, her, me, everything and I couldn’t do that.

It pisses me off when we have the same conversation a hundred times. When something gets in her head it’s there for good, there’s no prying it out. It doesn’t have to be true. Once it’s there it’s there and she presses those beliefs on others even when they don’t want any part of it. The whole religion thing got to me with saving her father’s “soul” before he died. It angers me that she would cry and be so totally broken down over the death of ½ brother’s father whom she met only twice in 52 years for a grand total of 8 hours. I don’t understand why she was so broken up and why her world stopped for someone she met twice in her life and with whom she shares no blood.

Her level of cruelty makes me angry. It makes me angry that the stupid bitch would say some of the stuff she said. When she knows full well that my mother was my main abuser there should never be any room for the phrase “Mommy that feels good.” When I brush my cats or the dog she moaned followed by that phrase is not necessary. During sex that phrase is not necessary. It’s unusually cruel. When it’s met with the fierceness it deserves I got nothing but tears. How on earth could I ever think she wanted to hurt me? She’s so sorry, the last person in the world she’d want to hurt is me. Boo hoo fucking hoo. She goes into hysterics because Lord knows she’d never want to hurt me and she’s highly offended that I’d think she wanted to hurt me.

My aim is good but my balance is not which means I can toss a good argument back and forth but I don’t walk on eggshells very well. It made me so angry to watch every word I said to make sure she didn’t fall over and weep herself sick.

It makes me angry that I felt I needed to be the strong one. Even when I didn’t have the strength to lend, it seemed I came to the rescue, talked to her and listened, offered one of my famous pep talks instead of slapping her and telling her to wake up she’s 51 she’ll never see 110 again! I sometimes felt like I was enabling her. It was hard to know when to let her go and when to address the situation. It makes me angry when I’m stuck doing all the talking then come back and have to hear about how all I did was talk. I asked her how she thought we were doing. She said she was fine, she was happy. I knew that wasn’t true. She couldn’t be happy with US. We have too many issues. We couldn’t lay beside her at night. We couldn’t kiss her at night before bed. Half the time we couldn’t hug her without cringing.

I’m pissed because somehow I think this was all my fault. I’m pissed because I kept my mouth shut when I should have spoken. I kept the peace when I should have told her how I really feel regardless of her manipulative tears. I wish I had the dignity I had back in August when I could look her in the face and say what I needed to say using all the crap I learned in therapy, using I messages and dealing with things head on.

I’m pissed because I just didn’t want to accept that somehow this is all my fault. I didn’t want her to walk away and leave me thinking that I fucked up yet another relationship. Relationship being friends or partners, it doesn’t matter. I am queen of fucking ‘em up. She is just another person I excluded from my life. Not everyone can be wrong about me.

***comments are closed on therapy assignments***

Therapy Assignment: Anger and Ending Relationships
Friday, February 23, 2007-5PM EST

See also Anger and ending relationships Part 1 of 2
and Anger and ending relationships Part 2 of 2

PTSD and Relationships off blog link to Psych Central

Anger and Ending Relationships 2

Published on February 24, 2007 in Borderline Personality Disorder, Mental Health, PTSD, Relationships, Segments and Therapy Assignments. 0 Comments

I’m angry with the way this relationship turned out because…..

from PostSecret.comI’m angry because staying with her hurt me. I wanted to hurt me.

We loathed her as much as we loath ourselves.

It makes me angry that sometimes sex was for the sole purpose of pushing myself over the line. Sometimes I used it to hurt me, to make me feel bad, to trigger anger issues and self loathing. I don’t know if she knew that or not. According to her wall calendar she couldn’t really tell just how disgusted I was with her. Sometimes I was driven by self destruction. Sex was a weapon against me, not her. I just want to make that clear. Hell, I’m not into hurting people (S&M isn’t up my alley) and I’m not into sex totally for myself (selfishness in bed is masturbation, why involve someone else if you’re just going to be there only for you.) I guess my point is, when it came to our sex life it was consensual but often there was a self destructive undertone. I think she would absolutely die if she knew that. I wanted to hate myself. I wanted to make God hate me. I wanted to feel disgusting a few hours later. I challenged myself to stay present the entire time so I could have every memory to break me later on. I used sex instead of a razor blade. It pisses me off that I used her that way. What does that make me? I also wonder if I’ll be more likely to pick up a blade now that the other tool for self injury is gone. I guess I want to drive home the point that our relations were consensual. Dr. B shocked the crap out of me one time when he asked me that. Hell yeah it was consensual. My goodness! The goal was to hurt me not her, to humiliate me not her all without her realizing my goal. Although the sex was always consensual and usually initiated by me there was never any physical violence and I tried my best to please her, but there was always an undertone of self destruction. Now that I think about it, if someone said all this to me I might inquire into rape behaviors. It still bothers me though because I don’t think I made it clear enough to him that the point was to hurt me not her and to keep that warped crap under wraps.

It pisses me off to think of how sick all this makes me.

That whole relationship was fucked up. Everything I did was wrong, and closer to the end everything she did I thought was wrong. She didn’t like that I only clean my litter box once a day. She didn’t like the kind of litter I use. Even though she admitted she couldn’t smell the boxes she still thought it would be better to get clumping litter instead of using pine chips. There wasn’t enough water in the cat bowls, the food I buy isn’t good enough. I should be brushing them more often than every Wednesday and for the love of Pete I might want to keep Captain from playing with their toys. She didn’t like my dog and I’m most offended by that. Who doesn’t like Captain Crunch? Bella is bad and Gracie is good. I didn’t like the distinctions she made between them because they are exactly like the distinctions made between my sister and myself. In all truthfulness, I see me in Bella (the bad one, the bold one) and I see much of my sisters need to please in Gracie (the good one, the quiet one). I don’t need old shit popping up when I look at my fur babies. I tried to separate then from now while looking at them but she made that kind of hard when she’d toss in “Mommy that feels good” as I neglectfully brushed them just once a week.

***comments are closed on therapy assignments***

Therapy Assignment: Anger and Ending Relationships
Sex as a weapon for emotional suicide
Saturday, February 24, 2007-12:59AM EST

See also Anger and ending relationships Part 1 of 2
and Anger and ending relationships Part 2 of 2