Interesting coincidence: Fire on Main Street in Watertown tonight, 2/26/2013

I just received one of those “breaking alerts” from the Watertown Patch.  These come in my e-mail…I opened the alert and it stated that there was a three-alarm fire on Main Street.  This fire apparently broke out in the block of buildings that contains a hair studio and a yoga studio.  I walk past there all the time with Puzzle, and it’s very, very close to my home.  Jeepers.

Now, you may recall that just last night, I did a You-Tube piece called “Main Street.”  This is purely a coincidence, but kind of a scary one, don’t you think?  I talked about nobody wanting to walk alone on Main Street in the wee hours, and nobody being out except the drunks and the partyers, or I guess that’s what I said.

And people like me.  People all alone with their eating disorders, but I didn’t say that quite like that.

Maybe I should turn down the heat, eh?

Anyway, the article stated that the Patch would so kindly keep us readers updated on the fire, and our fire department would of course put out the fire ASAP.  I received a text message from the T, and I assume this was to say that the #70 bus has been diverted off Main Street, because…hey, folks, Main Street is closed off.

Main Street….go see my You-Tube channel and keep yourself amused.  It’s the Juliemadblogger channel.  Here’s “Main Street”:

Life’s challenges continue

I have stated that I plan to do a You-Tube about how I now see my life a little differently now than I did before.  This is of course a good thing, given that I used to see before me nothing but a hopeless, tangled mess, like a ball of yarn that can’t be made right, and in order to undo the mess, you’ve got to get out the scissors and maybe a big chunk has to get tossed.  So I thought there was no sense in trying at all.  I figured some Act of Fate would come by with the scissors and I’d be gone in the trash and none of it would be in my control, or I’d just do the scissors thing myself and get it over with.  But no, I don’t see it this way at all now, no tangle, no mess…it’s not like that.  That’s not what I see.

See, skeins of yarn have to be undone properly.  Some undo from the inside, and some undo from the outside.  Some you have to put on the back of a chair and then sort of make them go around in a circle, and undo them.  Some you have to rewind before you use them, and some you don’t have to rewind.    Many have little “tails,” and you have to find the tail end that’s tucked into the skein somewhere.  Once you find the tail, you’re all set, all you have to do is pull the tail, and the skein comes out fine without tangles.

Above all, if you look at the skein too closely, you’re going to be a fool.  Step back and look at the skein as a whole.   Are there instructions that come with it?  Read them.  Sometimes, the tail is tucked into the instructions.  Now that’s something to think about, isn’t it?

You wouldn’t believe how obvious things can be once you take a step back and look at life from afar.  Look at yourself as if you are someone else observing yourself.  Laugh at yourself every day.  Talk to yourself every day.  You’ll be glad you did.

So I broke everything down into smaller chunks.  Nothing is impossible anymore.  Nothing is ridiculously overwhelming anymore.  I’m working on a few things and those few things will get done.

Eventually, I’m going to be sleeping okay.  This is my main challenge right now.

I have spoken with a nutritionist and I have a meeting with her tomorrow night.  The weather is due to be crappy and I’m not looking forward to the trip over there even though it’s only one bus ride.  We had a brief conversation and I have mixed feelings about what transpired but I feel that my need to meet with this woman overrides my hesitation.  I told her about the muscle cramping I’ve been experiencing as well as the other physical problems I’ve been having.  I told her I was kinda scared.  She stated, without hesitation, that it’s clear I have some serious malnutrition problems and electrolyte imbalances and that she would like to meet with me at least once every other week for a while.  She said I would have to be motivated.

I had packed far too much into my day tomorrow, four things, and ended up deciding to cancel two of them just to simplify things so I can spend as much time as possible lying in bed resting, which is what I normally do anyway.  I have to be home so if the urge hits me, I can lie down if I need to and rest.

People don’t understand, if you have insomnia as severe as I have it, what happens is that during the day, all day long while the day progresses, you end up with the sudden need to lie down, and you have to do just that.  You might not sleep, but you lie down anyway.  I call it a “nap attack.”  People mistake this for “panic attack,” but of course there’s no panic to it, it’s nothing of the sort.  “Nap attack” is named after what the comic strip cat Garfield called it.  The sudden need for a nap, the sudden, overwhelming fatigue that hits me so hard I feel like I’m going to fall over.  I feel like I have no choice.  I can’t take a shower now because if I do, I’ll fall over, so I have to lie down.  Puzzle needs to go out, but she will have to wait until I lie down first.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve written blog entries and I’ve been in the middle of a sentence and had to lie down.  Often, the blog entry never got finished.  It ended up in my drafts folder forever.

How long has this been going on?  A year and a half?  Getting worse, I’d say.  I can’t freaking concentrate, either, that too getting worse.   I have tried sleeping pills and my body still won’t sleep.

A word about this psychosis Dr. P claims I have.  I’ve noticed that if I go into her office having not eaten, she tells me my sentences don’t hook up and that one doesn’t lead to the other.  If I eat a good breakfast, she tells me how well I’m doing and how much sense I’m making.  As a result, every time I’ve been a bit hungry during those once-a-month visits to Dr. P, she’s assumed I’m psychotic and has raised my antipsychotic medication.

Of note is the fact that I have rarely had my blood sugar tested, but there have been times that I have seen different doctors than my usual one, or there were reasons to do more comprehensive blood tests, so a blood sugar test was included.  I’d leave, and go home, and then there were times that I received an alarmed phone call from some doctor a few hours later saying, “You should eat something or drink some OJ.  I’m surprised you aren’t comatose.  Your blood sugar is so low.”  Each time that my blood sugar tested low, I recall experiencing confused thoughts and symptoms that a psychiatrist might mistake for “psychosis” or sometimes “mania” if they interviewed me.  Well, there you have it.

I have presented this to psychiatrists a number of times, but they poo-poo it.  I mentioned it to the psychiatrist at Walden when I was there last July, but he dismissed me, saying, “You don’t have diabetes” and he would hear nothing more.  It was rather fruitless cuz he barely paid attention to anything I said while I was speaking to him.  It was like speaking to a sieve.  And of course it is common for people with anorexia to feel “high” while starving.  People who don’t have anorexia are less likely to experience this high.  I can see myself going off the deep end in my journal due to starvation, back a while.

So in conclusion…all I am saying is that I need this nutritionist appointment more than I need psychotropic drugs right now. Workable chunks, right?

Another weird body thing hit home today.  Maybe a reason my body won’t sleep.  I thought I might be coming down with the flu again.  I feel crappy.  So I took my temperature.  Not with a cheap budget digital thermometer that reads all over the place and tells you you’re dead, but with a real glass thermometer that you put in your mouth that gives an accurate reading.  I left it in a while, under my tongue.  Took it out and was kinda shocked.

The lowest mine reads is 96.  Well, the mercury, or whatever that silver stuff is, barely moved.  The lowest my temp has ever been was once down around 95, but 96 is darned low.  I waited a bit, and took my temp again, and then waited again and tried again.  All three times were well under 97.  My normal temp is 97.6. Hey what?  Have I gone cold-blooded?

Well, gee, Julie, what did you expect?  You have that stupid disease.  Get real.  Laugh at yourself, okay?

 

Hoping to make a smash with my new medium on the Juliemadblogger You-Tube channel

I’m not sure what it is or what to call it where I’m going with it, but I think I’ve hit upon something.  It’s unique and it’s mine and no one else is doing anything like it.  I don’t need anyone else’s help to do it.  I do it by myself.  I don’t need fancy expensive equipment or software or know-how.  I don’t need anyone else’s cooperation, such as meetings for rehearsals or setting up with anyone ahead of time.  It’s all done by myself.  So what would be a better niche for Julie Greene, who claims she can’t deal with humans anyway?  When I was a composer, one of my main problems was dealing with the other musicians who were always not showing up when they said they were going to show up, or not playing the wrong notes, or losing their parts, or showing up late….You guys know the excuses people make.  Or a rehearsal or performance was supposed to be tape-recorded, and the tape recording would mysteriously go awry and come out blank.  For most of my life, I was a closet composer anyway cuz no one even wanted to play my pieces or look at them or cared that I wrote my own music.  Jeepers.  No wonder I didn’t stay a musician very long.  Other people are too frustrating to deal with.

But with You-Tube, it’s all mine.  It’s a performance medium and I can choose to perform a part that’s written medium, that is, my own writing that is written word-for-word, such as reading from This Hunger Is Secret, which I did the other day to promote my book.  I can read all sorts of things and that’s like doing a public reading just for fun.  I can improvise a piece like I did last night in “Main Street,” in keeping with the fact that it’s eating disorders awareness week.  This is sort of a new medium for me and I like what I did.  You’ll have to go see the piece and tell me what you think.  I can do how-to and instructional pieces, such as my piece on how to put on and take off a dog sweater that I did here.  I wonder if folks drop in out of cyberspace and find this useful.  I’m planning to do a piece on feeling a bit more hopeful these days.  And of course I made a You-Tube that simply told folks what was to come next, sort of a sneak preview.

I hope you all enjoy my You-Tubes.  Have a nice day!

I made two You-Tubes today

One is a fun one and one is purely to promote my book.  I so love doing You-Tubes!

Here is the first:

 

Here is the second:

Okay, here’s my Stand Up for Mental Health Video on You-Tube!

Expect more You-Tubes coming soon!

My channel is Juliemadblogger!

I plan to make You-Tubes twice a week!

Power

Funny, I saw my brand new T last night for the second time, and again I had the same experience that something he said hit home for me not during our session, but hours later, in fact, today, just now.  I want to share what he said, cuz I think it was damn smart of him to say it, and I’m sure that he won’t give a hoot that I’m sharing it here.  Actually, he’ll probably think it’s cool that I’m saying I learned something last night instead of sitting on my butt saying, “Yeah, yeah, yeah” and then getting up and leaving.

So here’s what he said.  I know I’m not quoting properly, but in a nutshell….

“Julie, I have no desire to have any kind of power over you.  I have nothing personal to gain from controlling you in any way.  It wouldn’t be good for my Karma.”

Later, he said, “I’m not in it for the money.  But I think you know that.”

I thought, “Well, gee, why is he explaining all this stuff about Karma?  It’s not necessary.  It’s too complicated.  He can just tell me he’s not on a power trip, and assure me I can trust him, and we can leave it at that.”

But I thought about this today, real hard, and realized that although I don’t believe in Karma, and his belief system is none of my business, I have to realize that people have had power over me in the past, and that’s what he’s talking about. He wasn’t talking about himself. He was talking about those people.

It’s very, very simple.  People who have had power over me in the past had something to gain personally from taking advantage of me.   That thing, whatever it was they needed, they got from me, and kept on getting from me as long as I gave it to them.  I was not aware of this of course, or barely, or it couldn’t be stopped, depending.  It happened on many levels.

I should probably give an example out of my distant past.  This was back in my 20’s, when I had my driver’s license and a car.  I’ll make up a name for the person for anonymity’s sake.  So let’s call her Anita.  She was an old friend whom I hooked up with hoping for something a bit more mutual, I guess you would say, than how it ended up.  When she saw my car, her eyes widened and she said to me, “Oh, can you drive me to—”  This began a string of demands that never seemed to end.  Every time she called, she wanted me to drive her somewhere, wait for her to shop, and then drive her somewhere else.  I had to drive her to appointments, where she’d leave angry, and then mouth off to me about how horribly the appointments had turned out.  The shopping was endless, and then, she went and returned what she had bought, angry as ever at the shop owners.  Much of the time in my car, she yelled about how angry she was and about how unfair life was.  Then she demanded that I drive her someplace else.

Then, one day, she called and said, “Drive me to the hospital.  I’m going in.”  I was so glad this woman was going to be “out of commission” for a while and that she was not going to be using me for my car.  I was finally free.

This is a very simplified example of me being a total pushover, of course, so it’s real obvious and I can point out how this woman was personally gaining from taking advantage of me.  She was personally gaining a ride.  Every time she asked for a ride, she got one.  So she kept on taking.  She didn’t have dollar signs in her eyes, she had car signs.  So in my 20’s, when I saw that a lot of my friends had nothing but car signs in their eyes, I decided to get rid of the car and the car sign friends went along their way.  I told myself, “Good riddance.”

It’s time for me to get rid of people who aim to take power, even in the subtlest ways.  Meanwhile, my T points out that I tend to assume all people take power, and this isn’t true.  Not all therapists are like my previous abusive T that I fired a year ago, though most are.  My last T wasn’t.  She just didn’t do anything.  Not all humans are mean bullies.  Some people are naive, some are ignorant, some are kind, some just don’t know.  Some you can’t assume anything.  Many are just kids, some are looking the other way, some speak a different language, some are dead already, some are on drugs, some can’t hear too well so you have to repeat yourself, most are too busy texting or stuffing their faces to care, some are on another bus altogether.

Where are you?  Are you sitting at the table?

News about me

Things are looking up for me.  I made a list yesterday of things I need to work on and ways that I have improved my life.  Nobody asked me to make this list.  I did it on my own.  It is a very crude list.   I have reworded it somewhat so that you can understand it better, because my version is slightly abbreviated.

1. I need to finish the projects that I begin.

2. I need to improve my sleep.

3. I need to start a new writing project.

4. I need to continue to work on my running.

5. I need to validate my improved thinking about the way I view my two brothers.

6. I need to further develop my You-Tube channel.

I elaborated on these six goals as follows:

Number One: I need to make lists periodically and prioritize items.  I should get into some sort of routine again.  In a way, I have started to do this.  I have been running every day, showering daily, getting into night clothes every night instead of sleeping in clothes, getting Puzzle out earlier in the morning, going to bed at a reasonable hour, getting Puzzle out at night before it gets too late, keeping my floor extremely clean, doing the dishes right after I dirty them, hanging up my clothes instead of throwing them on the floor, keeping my desk clean, emptying the trash regularly, and many other things.  I need to see what works, and keep doing what works.

Number Two:  I think I’ve spoken about this before.  I have made improvements in my sleep.  I need to see what works and keep doing it.  Lack of sleep was causing many problems.

Number Three: I need to decide on a writing project, set a deadline, and work toward the deadline.  I need to work on the writing project daily.

Number Four: I am making great progress with running.  I need to remember to take a day off now and then.  So far, I am working steadily toward my goal of being ready for the 5k I have signed up for at the end of  April.

Number Five: I have completely resolved my angst over my brother Phil not loving me.  I have let go.  This is HUGE.  My brother Ned is not the same person as my brother Phil.  I have to remember that just cuz they are both baby brothers, they are not the same.  My religion tells me there are no schmucks in this world.  But Phil is acting like a schmuck.  Ned is doing his best and I give him a lot of credit for trying.  I need to separate them.  I can and already have detached from Phil.  It’s just the way families are.  As my new therapist said, Jacob and Esau settled the matter of the birthright over a bowl of chicken soup, nothing more.  Families get to be stinkers over nothing.  That’s the breaks.  He’s so right.  I love  having a new T who does not have boundary problems and has nothing to gain personally from doing a power trip on me.

Number Six:  This is big news for you readers, cuz I am going to expand my You-Tube channel!  I plan to do two, yes two You-Tubes a week.  I love hamming it up in front of the camera.  What have I got to lose?  I love my “fan club,” those imaginary folks in the imaginary audience on the “other side” of that camera.  After all, they don’t dump me, they don’t walk out on me, they don’t laugh at me, they don’t kick me out, and when I call them, they pick up the phone, or so I’d like to think.  They never unfriend me, certainly, or talk about me behind my back or gossip about me.  My You-Tubes for my lovely audience/fan club will be on the following topics:

Informative
Instructional
Essays
Readings from my own works
Literary
How-To
Fun
Humor
Opinion
And many more

I think my upcoming You-Tube will be a posting of the one that was supposed to be for healthyplace dot com but never got up there.  Then, my next one will be on the following topic:

How to put on and take off a dog sweater

Stay tuned everyone!

 

Sleep is like going into another world

I found myself in bed at around 4:30 or so this morning, having absolutely no clue what was going on or what had happened to me. All I knew was that I had faltered in my constant vigilance and things had transpired in the night beyond my consciousness. Did this mean I had slept? Even deeply? It has been months since I have experienced anything like this. Real sleep. It meant loss of control to me and it also meant I had to restart myself, a clean slate, all the crap from yesterday slept off finally, if only for a couple of hours. Once I got used to the fact that I indeed slept, refreshed my body, and woke up, I told myself I could hardly wait to do it all again tonight.

Sweet dreams, readers. I think I’ve targeted the cause of my insomnia, and fixed it at last. [end]

Oh how nice to take advantage of the fact that I fall between the cracks and get forgotten about

Get ready, folks, for a good laugh….

My ex-therapist thinks I’m in the hospital right now.  But she’s wrong…I’m not at the hospital.  I’m totally off the hook with her and I don’t give a hoot.

I had phoned the hospital not this past weekend, but the weekend before, asking about care, specifically a week ago, that is, Monday the 11th, because the Admissions personnel weren’t exactly in last weekend due to the storm.  I guess they decided the local Crisis Team should get in on the act.  I’ve told my blog readers all this before, but in case you’re just tuning in, I’ll recap.

I told those Admissions folks no way did I want the Crisis Team showing up with the bells and whistles of police, ambulances, sirens, uniforms, and the like, so they’d better call first.

Now at this point I guess they called, and we agreed there would be no “home visit” if I agreed to make arrangements for Puzzle’s care, and show up at the hospital the following day.  They said, “Call us tonight, and if you don’t remember by 8pm, we’ll call you.”

Did they remember?  Nope.  I phoned them maybe at around 8:30 or so, saying I was busy making a You-Tube.  I said I was using Windows Movie Maker, and explained that this was free movie editing software that came with every Windows computer.  I said I was making the You-Tube on request from a mental health website (not sure I mentioned the name of the website, but it’s healthyplace dot com’s Stand Up for Mental Health campaign) and I said the You-Tube was about empowerment and stigma and the advantages and disadvantages of “coming out” as a person with mental illness.

This information, all about “movie editing,” “software,” “You-Tube,” and the like rather overwhelmed this crisis worker.  Keep in mind that most of their clients are not computer savvy, don’t have online access, and may not even know how to “keyboard,” as they put it, and often don’t have interest in it and don’t understand the value of it.  So this crisis worker probably thought I was as together as can be.

You-Tube?  Yeah, Julie’s fine.  So everyone promptly forgot about me.  Which was just what I wanted.  And to tell you the truth, what I needed.

So I think my CBFS worker thinks I’m in the hospital.  My ex-therapist thinks I’m in the hospital.  How nice to have “disappeared.”

My psychiatrist phoned me, I think Wednesday night, saying, “Let me get this straight.  You decided NOT to go into Walden?”

I can’t recall what I said, but I told her I had an appointment with a new T on Saturday, and that I would go to that appointment, and that was that.  Apparently, my psychiatrist, Dr. P, didn’t phone anyone to inform them of my “decision.”  Good.

Meanwhile, I signed up for a 5k not long before all this came about.  This race is at the end of April.  I told myself, “Yeah, Julie, fat chance this’ll pan out.”  But I seem to be following through.  I went to the gym Thursday and yesterday and ran quite a bit.  I surprised myself at how well I was able to run.  I felt strong and steady and happy and natural and felt no strain or soreness whatsoever.  Yesterday I completed three and a half miles of combined running and walking, mostly running, and whatever walking I was doing was very, very fast, or at least fast for someone my height.  Is it a myth that someone with short little legs is probably going to walk slower than someone with longer legs?

There is no reason I should have a crappy life.  Why should I accept this lot?  Why am I taking these “low expectations” everyone seems to be heaping on me?  Why not reach for the stars?  I am not scum, and I refuse to be spat on any longer.  Move out of the way, you fuckers.  This race is on, and I’ve got your number.

Unreliability

Did my CBFS worker read my blog this morning?  That I know of, she doesn’t even know I keep this blog.  I don’t care one way or the other.  She was supposed to show up at 9.  It’s 9:30, and she’s not here.

So two weeks ago, she showed up, telling me she’d be here in a week.  Then a day or two later she called me and said, “Oh, by the way, I’m on vacation next week so I won’t be here, I’ll be there on the 18th.  I forgot to tell you.”

In other words, she suddenly decided to take a week off.  Now keep in mind she took off the entire month of December and much of January, claiming long-term sick leave.   Before that, she was calling me every other week, telling me she was not going to show up, that she was taking a sick day.  Am I supposed to believe this?  Is her mind really on her job, or on her ipod?

I don’t need CBFS.  I’m not homeless, and I don’t need services, but many people are living in the streets or in shelters or don’t know how to get by, and need services.  No one needs CBFS, because the people at CBFS don’t work.  Let’s get a service that works for people.