Lazy Sunday

In case there was any doubt as to the origin of my subhead.



Well, not that I, Jennifer, personally have a sub head. But you get the point....

Rock on.

Nothing and Everything

I got nothin' today.

It's the end of the week and I've had a cold since last Friday and Shop Guy has a new woodworking gig so he's spending lots of time in the basement and there's some sort of woodworker fest all weekend and the Shorter People have been Incredibly Loud since Tuesday and the girls in my afterschool program have been Incredibly Loud and Pissy and Huffy because we are pushing them way beyond their comfort zones.

Sigh.

But I've grown rather attached to writing to you so I must dig deep...

Nope. Still nothin'.

But here's a cool picture Isaac made for me on my iPhone.

I think this must be kind of what it looks like inside my brain.

More Old Stuff. And Points of Clarification.

Whee. Having fun yet?

Here's another glimpse of what I was writing about a few years ago, when Shop Guy was known as I.T. Guy. If you haven't already, you'll soon begin to recognize some patterns in my writing that reflect patterns in my experience: Up. Down. Up. Way up. Down a bit. Sometimes pretty far down. But almost always functioning.

In the business we call that dysthymia.

I used to go way, way, way, way, way down. I think I've built in enough safety nets to keep that from happening for now.

And with that I give you this:

Wow. That last post was so sad. Or at least I felt really sad re-reading it. Fortunately it's a long way from where I am today. Today’s post focuses a bit more about how I came to believe that Dancing with the Universe, and celebrating those around me who Dance as well, is the only way for me to live. To remind me of this new place in my life, here are a couple of pictures of the bigger and littler people in our household. These were taken last summer in Grandma's restaurant in Duluth...the starting location of our journey to follow the path of the tiny canoe in the book "Paddle to the Sea."

Now then, back to why I Dance: When I learned that my heart was strong and healthy, I became obsessed with researching panic and anxiety. I don't use term obsession lightly; this was a full-blown demonstration of the powerful grip of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. When I got up off the couch, this is what I did: Read everything I could on the Internet about panic attacks. I love the Internet, and use it to do a lot of research for my projects and books. In this case my savvy didn't serve me well...much of what popped up was distressing, depressing information and commentary about the evils of psychiatry, the debilitating nature of panic disorder, and so on. Most of the rest of it was made up of sales pitches about how easy it is to stop panic attacks if you simply follow a certain procedure or process...and for a very reasonable price you can, of course, purchase those instructions online.

From the few sites I deemed credible, I gleaned some valuable, but still disturbing-at-the-time information: Panic disorder is often treated with a combination of medication and behavioral therapy, panic disorder is often co-diagnosed with depression, panic disorder is treatable but doesn't usually just go away.

I really wanted it to just go away.

An interesting aside here is that during this time I was in regular contact with my mentor and friend Ann, a spiritual guide and life coach. At one point during a long walk in the urban wonder that is Cedar Lake Park, I told her I was certain I had some sort of panic disorder. She turned to me and said, "I was just thinking...what if you actually have some sort of panic ORDER?" We let that just be there, as I will do now.

A number of people urged me to try medication. I was timid about that because of a bad experience. About six months earlier my internal med doc had prescribe a popular, common anti-depressant. Though I often experience (or think I experience) side effects from new medications, I was already edgy, nervous, and having difficultly sleeping, so I agreed to give it a try. I took one dose before bed. Within a few hours I was basically freaking out thinking that I was having a seizure, was delirious, and that the meds were going to kill me. I hurried downstairs to talk with I.T. Guy and, while explaining my symptoms, passed out.

After coming to, I watched as I.T. Guy loaded the kids into the car (it was 3 a.m.) and then we drove to the nearest emergency room. After several hours of being hooked up to various monitors, the staff told me I seemed fine and should go home and call my internal med doc in the morning. I called her, and she recommended therapy.

...to be continued

Adjustment Dis-Order

So, the first re-entry into The Marriage Counseling went fairly well from my perspective. Comfy couches, free (chilled) water, nice guy, office decorated with wise and witty sayings on artifacts from the Bibelot. The best part was when Mark the Wise told us that when filing with insurance he'd probably indicate (only with our blessing of course) that one of us has an Adjustment Disorder.

Sweet.

Apparently it's a common term, common "condition" in relationships, whatever. Still it will be great when Shop gets pissy about my pissiness to be able to say, "Back off! I have an Adjustment Disorder." Or better yet, "It's okay, I understand your frustration...it's part of your Adjustment Disorder."

Sigh.

I wonder if writing this will get me in trouble with my insurance company. Maybe you are not supposed to mock diagnoses. Maybe you are not supposed to reveal them. Maybe if you know you have them you don't really qualify under their terms as having them.

Shit.

This is all very confusing.

This Is My Life: Unprecidented. And a Poem

Shop Guy has announced that if it snows this year in the Northland he will replace his 27-year-old winter boots. I support this decision.

Actually, Shop Guy and I haven't been getting along so well these days. We're kinda like the boots...been around for a while and worked well but getting pretty worn. And we've overlooked some shortcomings for a bit too long.

So we're going to try the marriage counseling thing again. As you know, I'm a big fan of The Therapy with the right person. I don't see it as a concession that something is terribly wrong as much as an acknowledgment that minds, bodies, spirits and relationships need attention and sometimes some tuning up, just like everything else in life. Unfortunately a few years back we had a counseling session with Bernie the Dork (who right away had us mirroring and active listening and all that). We sort of bonded over that Fail and never looked back. But it's time; so we'll give Mark the Wise a try and see how it goes.

In the meantime, I think we could all use some Shel Silverstein.

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

This Is My Life: Word to the Wise

So, nine-year-old Nora says to me this morning:

"Isn't it kind of weird that you send me off every day to be taken care of by people we don't even really know and then I get on a bus driven by somebody else we don't even know and that's how I come home?"

Uh...yeah.

Old Stuff

This tome was originally posted on my first blog, Come Dance, in February 2007, nearly three years ago. If you're like me you won't read the whole thing; because, really, who wants to read this much detail on a blog?

If, however, you're just joining our regularly scheduled programming it may provide some useful context.

This is long and will be posted in multiple parts, but if you've ever been significantly depressed or anxious, or thought you might be, or thought someone you know might be, (or wondered why I am the way I am), I urge you to read on.

Before Costa Rica (a retreat I took in November 2006), to be blunt, I'd been through a lot of shit, though much or all of it was in my own mind. I thought that positive thinking was a simplistic, unrealistic way of viewing the world. Being a pessimist was much more enlightened. I mean, I have a loving family, ample resources, good connections that get me things like learning opportunities, jobs, and child care for the shorter people in my family so I.T. Guy and I can pursue work we love that pays well. Spend too much time contrasting this with the many things in the world that are brutal, unexplainable, unjust, and unreasonable, and you've got fertile ground for anxiety, depression, paranoia, guilt, you name it. I figured my time for agony was coming, and I better toughen up or I wasn't going to be able to handle it.

So, I got a life coach. On September 11, 2003, with an awareness of a seemingly incomprehensible amount of anger and fear on Earth, I met with her, Ursula, for the first time. We were talking about how my values were aligned with my life experiences (on the surface very much in sync), when out of the blue, everything around me grew darker and started to spin. I got goose bumps and at the same time started to sweat.

I was so scared I told Ursula what was happening. She threw away my Grande Latte (aka Big Ol’ Cup O’ Nerves) and lowered my head to the table; she was totally calm even though the rest of the people in Caribou we’re watching. Eventually she encouraged me to walk to the bathroom and splash water on my face. She drove me home and for the rest of the day I had a splitting headache and was exhausted. I was REALLY angry with I.T. Guy when he got home from his day job, because he pretty much acted like things were normal and as far as I was concerned things were falling apart.

Two days later something similar happen when visiting my grandpa in his nursing home. Standing by his bedside I suddenly felt weak and nauseated. I sat down in his wheelchair and reminded myself over and over to breathe. I remained conscious, but had to literally struggle against the urge to flee.

Soon I started avoiding the grocery store out of fear of passing out at the register and no one knowing what to do. Taking the little people anywhere was an ordeal because of worry that I might crash the car or faint in a public place where no one would be there to take car of them.

A series of tests for my heart, including a 48-hour stint with a “Holter Monitor,” showed that everything looked great...except that about 90 percent of my day-to-day world was now only in my head, though spiritual enlightenment this was not. Detached from my own body, and thus from everyone else, I spent much of the time on the couch or in bed. Walks became a way of remembering the physical world around me—touching trees, breathing deeply to smell whatever was there, outside of me. Touching my thumbs to each finger, starting with the pointer, over and over again, I repeated the mantra, “I am filled with loving kindness, I am calm, I am peaceful and at ease, I am well.”

...to be continued