Mumblings of a Muddled Mind

I like to write about what matters to me and to raise awareness for mental health. I suffer from mental illness but that does not define who I am.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Hi, I Am Andie

And I am an alcoholic/addict.

Yeah yeah.

I picked up another desire chip at a meeting last night.
I didn't think I was ready to quit it again but then something pops up that makes you either reconsider your position on something or forces you into reconsidering it.

I have attempted to eradicate alcohol from my life twice before and this will be my third time. They say the third time's a charm but I don't believe in that jargon so I hope for myself that I can stay committed for this third time and make it last.

One thing you learn early on is that you have to live "One Day At A Time" and that is difficult for me to do. I have been worried about the future and possible things that may or may not happen in the future, for most of my life. I used to cry at night because I couldn't sleep due to being too worried my Nanna was going to die some day or that I would make a mistake on the spelling test I was sure to ace the next day in school. I have no idea why I did and still do this. I need to learn how not to think this way and just be happy for today. I may have some loose control over events that may happen in the future such as career choices but even those are not solid. People get laid-off and fired all of the time for various reasons. So what if that happens to me? I have to stop thinking that the worst possible scenario is going to happen and just live. It's hard living this way and it's counter-productive. I can't learn to live if I don't actually try to do so in the first place.

When I was a kid my mother stayed at home with me until I was eight and then she took a course to re-certify herself in the secretarial industry. She did so well that they hired her on and then unfortunate things happened and she got laid off for very trivial reasons. She was crushed and I saw just what can happen if you choose something and then have it fail so badly for you, that you never recover and it's a catalyst to your extreme unhappiness. Yikes. Scary stuff. I suppose that might be the root of why I have not really pursued anything career-wise. I am afraid to commit to it and have it all backfire in my face. I also saw my two older cousins graduate from University both in the chemistry field and not have any job opportunities open to them afterward. I suppose that deterred me as well. What also did it was that I lost my love of academia when my mom passed away. I couldn't focus right and I was just not interested in becoming anything special any longer without my mother there to witness it. I was a people pleaser at a young age. I loved to see how proud my mother was of me as she devoted her entire life to me while neglecting her own and I also liked the positive attention it brought with it.

I had not planned on going back to meetings so soon. I was still to pissed off at myself and proud to admit that I had screwed up my sobriety yet again, but like I said, sometimes things just happen and force you into facing your bullshit. My friend is approaching her one year (yay! I am very proud of her) and she was asked to speak at an open-speaker meeting last night. She was absolutely dreading doing it but I guess she knew one day she'd have to get it over with so she agreed. I messaged her the other day and she told me she was speaking at the meeting and I told her I wanted to go to be there for her. I know I would want the same as I am very afraid of speaking in public but more so when it has to do with a lot of personal baggage and failure. So I went and I realised I had missed it a great lot. I grabbed my chip and got a bunch of congratulatory handshakes at the end. My friend had nothing to worry about because she did a great job of speaking; she was to the point and she story was inspiring, so I have no idea why she worked herself up so before the meeting (oh wait, yes I do!). Now what I need to do is find a sponsor who lives close to me and actually work with the program instead of half-assing it like I did last time.

Being completely sober scares me. I don't know how to do it for long periods of time. If it's not the booze, it's something else. Mostly smoking herb but the kicker with that is that it actually helps my IBS a freakin' tonne. I have tried the other methods of getting the pain to stop when I have an attack but that always helps me. The problem with that is, because I seem to have an addictive personality and a hate-on for living completely sober, I tend to want to smoke more than I actually need to help me. I am just going to have to suck it up and deal with the pain because smoking too much makes me very unmotivated. It also makes me feel like I am cheating when I go to meetings and claim to be sober. I am at the meetings but that doesn't mean I haven't smoked after them. That totally defeats the purpose of working the program to the fullest, I think.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Physio and the Mega-Bitch

I had my first physiotherapy session today for my jaw. Luck would have it that I was scheduled with the owner of the clinic because when I explained to her what an awful state my current financial situation is in, she lowered the price of my treatments!

I had acupuncture for the first time. It was interesting. I had explained to her that I have an existing anxiety condition and so she seemed to be worried that sticking needles in me would cause me some anxiety. She obviously missed my upguaged ears and my labret piercing.. heh.
The only time I am afraid of needles, is when I am being injected with something. I don't mind giving blood, that's no problem, but I hate the creepy feeling of knowing something is coursing through my system that would not otherwise be found there naturally.

So, no problem with the acupuncture ones. They are really tiny, in fact.

I have not really noticed anything significant after having it done but I do have another appointment on Monday for some more puncturing. Funtimes. While I was left lying there I was scrunching up my nose because I had one stuck right above my nose bridge and it was moving funnily from side to side as I would do so. Ok, I was pretty bored lying there, I admit it.
She told me to relax but it was hard what with the giggling lady who had to announce she was going for a pee in the middle of her treatments and the din of multiple conversations between therapist and patient all around me, but hey, I tried.

Other than that, my life is rather boring.

I went to my best friend's birthday shindig on Saturday night. It was fun, the cool peeps and I had a kitchen party. There were a bunch of people there, thankfully I knew a good handful otherwise I may have just left due to Mega-Bitch. I have no idea what her problem is with me as I have never done anything to her but she seems to like to give me dirty looks a lot. I am thinking maybe it's because even though I am 6 years older than she, I look at least 6 years younger. She's that type of girl who needs to eat as she is grossly skinny and has zero fat in her face making her look haggard and old. I suppose she could be pretty if she was not scowling 90 percent of the time and maybe if she would eat something. I think she might also be guilty of over-tanning herself as she definitely has leatherface. I don't know. I just know that she annoys me and one of these times I will be forced to go up to her and ask her what the hell her problem is. I feel bad for her new husband, really. He is such a nice guy, super funny too. She comes off as a mega-princess and very high maintenance. Poor Chris.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

The Hurts..Why I have been Absent..

I have not been posting as of late due to not feeling well. Last week I was in emergency three different times. On Tuesday I got sent home with instructions on how to get better and a bottle of Lactulose. It is a laxative. Basically I was superbly bunged up and not able to "release the hounds" on my own. I know, lovely eh?

The crap didn't do diddly squat so now in much more pain, I went to emerg here in my small town yet again the next day. This time they took an x-ray, told me in doctor-speak that I was full of shit (like I didn't know this already..haha) and sent me home with more meds; meds I didn't even need. I sufferd through the pain until Friday when I could no longer handle it and not to mention I had an MRI at a hospital in the city at 4:30pm that day and was not able to lay flat on my back to do so.

I went into emerg and they took another x-ray, told me once again I was full of shit, literally, and pumped my full of painkillers via IV so I could make my MRI which was for my sciatic nerve pain in my hip. Speaking of which, that is what started this all, or made complications worse. It was the percocets I was taking that had made it impossible for me to go. Couple that with my IBS, the fact that I wasn't eating right because I was in an "I hate my body and so therefor I hate food and wont eat much" disposition and blamo, you have a recipe for disaster and a LOT of pain.

After my MRI they sent me back to the emerg department to fix my problem. Not going to get into how. The evil part about this is that I was told by the hospital here in town that due to the fact that they don't have any good diagnostic equipment, I should go into the city if I didn't get the answer that I needed. Well, retards, they gave my the SAME DAMN TEST there too, and they seemed to think it serious enough to fix it for me. AHHHH.

I have been gradually getting much better and I am no longer bunged. I never thought it would be such a joy to go to the bathroom on my own but hey, you learn something new every day. So, to sum it up, I really hope that I never have anything more serious and have to go into the hospital here in town again because they seem to like to send you home with copious amounts of medications instead of trying to help you.

Due to the fact that I can't take the percocets for the pain, my hip is bothering my more so now and my TMJ (which I have a CT scheduled for) is acting up like crazy. I figure it's because of the amount of pain I was in so therefor I was clenching my jaw a lot. It could also be because I was on anti-anxiety meds but have now been off them for good for a while now. Supposedly they help with TMJ too. Basically, I am falling apart.

I spent a few nights crying myself to sleep because I was fed up with all of this and I just want to feel healthy again.

I need to get back into swimming for exercise. Seems to me that it would be the least painful way to go about getting more fit at this time.
I also have a Physio appointment set up for my TMJ to learn how to deal with it when it gets really bad.

Friday, April 2, 2010

No More Nails! :D

Ahhhh..this is gold.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

A Recipe For Breaks

Oh..haha I laughed my arse off when I watched this this morning.
This guy is my new hero for the day.



Beardyman

The Wedding DJ

A friend of mine who is living in Vancouver now has taken up a new career which has me thinking. It's ok, this isn't the dangerous thinking I am prone to. She has been DJing for quite some time now and plays mostly drum and bass but today I found out she's also doing weddings.
Brilliant!
I think I might do this myself. We have a nice set-up here for CDJs so I totally have the resources right here. I am not a huge fan of DJing CDs but if it makes me some cash, why the heck not?
I own real turntables and a mixer myself but there is currently no space in my house full of crap for them. I'm kind of sad about this because I much prefer vinyl for the sound and feel. I like to frig around with cut n scratch techniques and that's not happening on the CDJs.

That is ok however because I don't think that style of record playing is big in the wedding industry. Maybe if I were DJing ghetto weddings in Detroit or something...(yeah right)

The only problem is finding music. It's probably pretty costly to build a repertoire of music commonly played at weddings, but I could do it. These days it's easy enough to download single tunes which is what I would be doing. That is going to drive me nuts as I usually like to grab full albums for my collection but to be honest, a lot of wedding music sucks ass! It's just not my thing.

Oh gosh. What if I get hired to play a country wedding? That would be a horrorshow for me! Maybe I'll stipulate that I don;t have a vast collection of cow music...yes, that would be a good idea. :D