Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope you are all having a happy holiday!!  Like I said yesterday, I know this day can be packed with all the feels so I hope it’s an o.k. day for you.  I am making the World’s Best Dinner Rolls this morning and I already burned out my mixer, yay me!  That sucker was smoking like a crackhead!!  I unplugged it and put it in the trash (once it was done with its smoke).  There’s something about baking bread that I just love.  The rising dough is like a warm baby’s butt, I don’t know what to say about punching it down.  I don’t associate that with punching a baby’s butt.  I’m not that mean.  Who would punch a baby?!?!  Anyway I digress.  My family loves my homemade rolls and it’s going to be a true feat to make them in this postage stamp of a kitchen I have.

Yesterday I started watching Stranger Things on Netflix, I wouldn’t say it’s addictive or anything, I only watched seven episodes.  I could have kept on going through the whole two series I think but I had to go to bed so I could get up and make bread!  I am tempted to turn it on now while the bread rises but I might get so involved that I neglect my bread-making duties and then I’ll miss Thanksgiving and my family would be pissed as hell.  You have to have yeast rolls with your Thanksgiving meal.  It’s like, a rule.

I also started reading the book Lab Girl for my book club, that’s something I can do with the time I have while the bread rises.  I could clean my house but fuck no.  I’m going to wait until the dust is swirling around in little dust-devils and I can’t see the back wall.  Give it a little drama.  It’s hard to work up the motivation to clean.  Maybe if I had a visitor here I would clean.  This apartment is my dirty little secret.

Well people hope you have a great day.  Let me know your plans and how you’re doing in the comments.  I love hearing from you!  Peach out!

This Damn Job!

This damn job is not working out.  I have been sitting (AGAIN) with absolutely nothing to do for two days.  It makes me feel like such an asshole!!  It is anxiety-provoking on a couple of levels.  First of all, it makes me feel incompetent, like they don’t have any confidence in me to give me anything to do.  Second of all, I get scared that they don’t have anything for me to do, and that they’re going to get rid of me.  For someone who gets paranoid in the workplace, this is a hazardous environment.  Yesterday, I only lasted until about 2:30 pm, then I emailed the boss and said I was sick and left.  I stayed home “sick” today – I just couldn’t take another day of sitting on my ass and doing nothing!!  I know I’m not being wise – I’m not going to get paid for this time away.  I just don’t have tolerance for this bullshit!!

Today I am going to look for a new job.  There’s all this noise and chatter in my head about not having enough experience to find another job in Security, I am just going to ignore it and blindly apply for Security Analyst jobs.  I can’t imagine that they’re going to keep me at the current job if I just sit there doing nothing.  Fuck, I don’t know.  I just need to be busy and productive!!!  Anyway…

I know the holidays can be jam-packed with the feels for people, I hope you all have a good Thanksgiving.  I will be with the whole fam-damily, we’ll see how it goes.  Hopefully my Dad behaves and doesn’t act like an asshole.  Yay!  Holidays!!  Hugs to you all.  ❤ ❤ ❤

Happy Saturday!

Or Happy Sleep-In-Until-It’s-Light-Day!!  Oh my, I had such lofty ambitions for what I was going to do last night, Friday night, and it all came down to dinner and BED!  I am TIRED on Friday nights!!  It may be psychological but I don’t know, it may be physical.  Whatever it is, I end up going to bed almost as soon as I get home on Friday nights, and I sleep a solid twelve hours.  And it feels so good!!!  I usually wake up at my usual time (3:45 am) and go Hey!  I don’t have to get up!  Yayyyy!!  and I go back to sleep.  Honestly, it’s delicious.  If there’s one thing working has given me, it’s an appreciation for the weekends.

I just made macaroni and cheese, you know, the homemade kind you bake in a pan with butter and milk and cheese and pasta?  Oh and onion!  It smells GOOD in my house.  This afternoon there’s a big family get-together to celebrate some birthdays.  My brother is in town from North Carolina along with his wife and three precious little boys, it will be great to see them.  They call me Aunt Sassy.  It will be great to see my family, but then I always do the compare/contrast between them and me and I feel like a great big fat whale and that is unpleasant.  Most of my family is uber-fit and skinny and then there’s me.  😦  I do not like being so uncomfortable in my body.  I think it’s a combination of my bipolar meds, and an overeating disorder that I have had pretty much my whole life which has now caught up to me in a big way.  I can’t seem to find my way out of this great big body.  My family loves me anyway, I wish I could practice self-love anyway.

The job has been…o.k.  I did something this week that in theory was good but in actuality had a bad consequence and I had to hustle and undo what I had done.  It was very stressful and I was so afraid that I was going to be asked not to come back.  Alas, that did not happen.  Thank God.  Although part of me wanted to be released from the job, the daily grind, the daily commute, which is a bitch.  But I really would have been up shit creek without a paddle.  I have just managed to pay my parents half of what I owe them, one thousand dollars of the two thousand they lent me for two month’s rent when I was waiting for that fucking job to start.  So I haven’t even managed to save any money yet, but I am on my way to getting my head above water.  I MUST move out of this place by the time my lease is up at the end of May, it is a shitty place but I can’t dwell on it because I’m stuck here until then.  I just need to focus on remaining continuously employed.  This is daunting.  Ok, it’s Saturday, I’m not going to think about it today.  But in general, that needs to be my focus 😉

Well y’all, I hope you had a great week.  Please let me know.  And ESPECIALLY let me know if you suffer with weight issues so I don’t feel so alone in my body prison, will ya?  Thank you for reading and PEACH OUT!

To Tell The Truth, Or To Shut Up

A friend of mine has been struggling recently.  She has never been hospitalized, and she said she was considering inpatient hospitalization.  I, having been hospitalized many times, opened my mouth and shared with her that a) Without insurance, an inpatient facility probably wouldn’t admit her unless she was suicidal; and b) Even if they admitted her, again, without insurance, they would probably only keep her for 72 hours.  My insight, opinion, knowledge, whatever you want to call it, was not appreciated.  I think my friend has a romanticized opinion of what a hospitalization would be, that it would be a nurturing experience of unending therapy for what ails her, when in reality hospitalization is just a warehousing of the mentally ill where they pump you full of medication, sometimes treat you with ECT, give you some useless group therapy (often just lectures), and release you as soon as you appear to be stable.  They also take away your phone, your freedom of movement, most of your clothing and other belongings (anything you could harm yourself with), and in some ways your humanity.  In reality, I will do anything to avoid being hospitalized again.  I have been suicidal many times since my last hospitalization, but my memories of being in the hospital and being stripped of choices, being woken up early when I was tired as hell from medication by some rude bitch, being forced to go to group therapy in order to earn the right to go outside to smoke, eating sub-standard food, being subject to room searches, and lectures by mental health technicians with big egos and Bachelor’s Degrees in Psychology at the most, has left me with a desire to stay out of the hospital at any cost.

Being hospitalized can keep you alive when you’re suicidal, but aside from that, I haven’t found it to be especially therapeutic.  I’ve in fact found it to be more of a negative experience than a positive one, which is probably a good thing, because I do everything I can to avoid re-hospitalization.  In fact, in writing this I’m reminded of exactly what I need to do to avoid being hospitalized again.  Daily self-care is a must.  Taking medication, exercising, and practicing gratitude are all forms of self-care for me.  Even with the best or most vigilant self-care, I can still become unwell.  I’m not perfect, and I do have Bipolar Disorder.  But being in touch with myself daily, I know when I’m slipping and I know when I need to get in to see Dr. Drugs.  Sometimes medication needs to be tweaked.  At times, I’ve had to make adjustments with work, such as working at home.  At other times, I had to stop working.  I hope that doesn’t happen again, but I know in reality that it might.  I have to live one day at a time, like the recovering alcoholics.  Today, I am ok.  And for that I am grateful.

I’m curious what other people’s experiences have been with hospitalization.  Have they been positive or negative?  Do you have the same aversion to hospitalization that I have?  Also, how are you?  I think about you all and count you as blessings when I say thank you every day.  Have a great weekend.

I Guess This Is My Life Now

Having Bipolar Disorder and working full-time is a fucking challenge.  How else can I say it?  It is taking all of my resources to keep going.  I feel like I’m running a marathon every week.  Most people see working a full-time job as no big deal, but for me, with Bipolar Disorder, it takes herculean efforts to live this kind of life.

I have to get up at the ass-crack of dawn, because I have to have “me” time in the morning.  It’s just a personal requirement.  I am a monster without my morning “me” time.  Don’t ask me to go without it.  Then it takes me a good half hour to eat breakfast, which I hate, but it’s a requirement, to get through the morning.  Then I have to take a shower and get dressed in something nice, because I have to look nice.  It’s just another self-requirement.

Finally I grab my lunch that I made the night before (no eating out for me, it’s too expensive and it’s not as healthy) and I’m out the door for a 45 minute commute.  I turn off the radio and use the time to say my gratitude prayers.  I find that gratitude is a very important part of my daily regimen.  It puts me in a good headspace and I get to work with a good attitude.

Work is going much better now that I have things to do, I work totally independently on the projects that I have, I just sit at my desk and work work work.  I am totally fine with that.  I also sit and quietly tell people to “shut the fuck up” (very quietly) and when the rage at the noise really builds up, I take 1/2 a Xanax.  I also chew tons of Nicorette.  I don’t smoke at work because I don’t want to alienate people with the stink of smoke.

Sometimes I am so absorbed in my work that I forget to go home on time, but oftentimes I am itchy to leave and I’m watching the clock.  I run out of the office and into the comfy confines of my car, where I can smoke and smoke and smoke!  I drive like a semi bat out of hell all the way home, by which time I am usually pretty tired.  I usually wash my face, put on my pj’s, take my nighttime meds, make the next day’s lunch, and go to bed.

On the weekends, I go to the grocery store, sleep in gratefully, cook something for the coming week, do my laundry, and usually go to my parent’s to watch the Denver Broncos.  It’s not much of a life!  Mostly I work at keeping the Work Engine going.  Will it get easier?  I hope so.  Right now it feels like everything is centered around work.  I have gotten two paychecks, and it’s nice not to be broke anymore.  But I do have to admit that there’s been days that I’ve just wanted to quit.  I miss my slow life.  Sadly, the slow life doesn’t pay the rent.

Now that I’ve gotten you all psyched up to work full-time, tell me, how do YOU get through the week?  Hope you are all well . . . Let me know!