A Surprisingly Sane Blog

I keep trying to find motivation to work on drafting pleadings for my litigation class, but it’s nearly noon with the overcast of soft, drifting clouds, the distant hum of planes heading toward Boeing Field, my dainty clock ticking, and my coffee pot hissing with the occasional drip of condensation. The lighting by kitchen window is reminiscent of the rare drizzly early spring morning in Tucson. Lovely.

Both my girls are at school, James is at work, and my house is filled with the glorious sound of serene quiet. I never have the opportunity to simply enjoy this kind of peace, so it seems like a waste to pollute it by opening my school books.

You’d never guess that, while meditating by this open window, it is the first moment since Friday that I have been able to calm my nerves. I am waiting for a phone call to confirm that my several-page legal writing sample was impressive enough to make it to the next round of the interview process at the company of my dreams. I figure I have about a 50/50 chance. After two years of unemployment (beyond dance) and hundreds of useless job applications, this company finally graced me with an email that requested more information.

I don’t believe in praying for selfish reasons. I pray for faith, guidance, comfort, strength, direction, healing, hope, and fruits of the Spirit… but I am hoping, selfishly, that each one of those prayers results in a job offer.

After years of floundering through mental health issues, the worthlessness of the unemployed, the loneliness, and the constant employment rejection, I really need this.

Please, please let this work out.

You’re gonna hate me for this, but I can’t stand three very popular things:

1. Trendy/misspelled baby names
2. Cheesy, “motivational” posters and sayings
3. Sticking those massive flowers/bows on newborn baby girls’ heads

First, names. Why am I being a hater on that one? Take it from a girl with a “misspelled” name: I have dealt with 30 years of people screwing up the spelling and pronunciation of what should be a simple name. I cringe when I see weird spellings because of my own misfortune. The trendy names? They’re all just pretty much one name, misspealled. Aiden. Jayden. Jaidyn. Fryayayaden. Not that they’re bad, I’m just sick of them. And there’s 10 boys and girls with the same damn name in every grade these days. Poor kids.

Second, motivational propaganda. Those sayings that are supposed to make you feel powerful, ready to step up to the plate. I always brush by them and head for the snarky, sarcastic vintage-style posters instead, “I just sleep with him so he’ll buy me shoes.” I get why people like them, but I find them cheesy. I’m sorry. If it works for you, that’s awesome. I wish they worked for me, but I’m just a bit cynical about them.

Third: silly baby head gear. Look, it’s just overkill when a newborn has to have a flower bigger than her head to prove she’s female or to hide the stereotypical misshapen skull. That poor little thing- a headband of those proportions cannot be comfortable on her delicate skin. Enough already.

I know, hate me. These are for nobody in particular, but just trends that annoy me and have for ages. I need to stop being so practical and just live a little, huh.

Current Mood: Bored

The last few months I have made a ridiculous number of changes in my life, and by changes, I mean huge ones.

It’s like I’ve lost interest in my “old” life and suddenly had to figure out what I wanted with my “new” life. Except I realized recently that what was really happening was that I was frantically running away from my “new” life and was desperately trying to settle back into my “old” life.

That didn’t make much sense, huh. It did to me, but it’s kind of hard to follow, I think.

Before I had April, I wasn’t plagued by postpartum depression or a serious mental disorder. Yes, once bipolar, always bipolar, and am fully aware of the fact that I struggled with the illness long before recent days. However, I felt like there was more of a balance in my life that kept the illness under control to the point which I could enjoy the majority of days. I had hobbies. I loved to scrapbook and always had some kind of new art project or crafty-schmafty thing occupying the dining room table. I went rock climbing every week with James and my brother- up until I was 5 months pregnant, in fact. I dabbled in the thought of taking some artistic photography classes to accompany the “regular” classes I took in college. I had hopes and dreams that my therapist was helping me identify and I was excited to make happen. Dance was a weekly part of our life as a married couple, which caused a ton of problems, but I felt like there was a solution somewhere around the corner. I seriously considered getting back into martial arts, which I have a second degree black belt in and love the physical challenge. And I had a job. A great job as a 4th grade teacher, which I was laid off from due to the recession and budget cuts.

When we moved to Seattle two years ago, I went crazy. No, literally. It’s not completely my fault. I was taking Prozac, which was great for postpartum depression but terrible once my hormones were “under control” because I wasn’t depressed… I was manic, and that kind of drug shot the mania to a psychotic level. When we moved, I was hoping that we were leaving the world of teaching dance, being part of swing clubs and all their drama, and going out social dancing like it was a life staple back in Tucson. Dance is not a bad thing. We love it. It’s the atmosphere, addictive and carefree, that is not and never will be a healthy part of our lives as a couple and family. I wanted to leave that behind, find an awesome new career, and fulfill those hopes and dreams that I moved here for which to make some headway.

Insert Epic Fail here.

I did none of that. I went sprinting into the opposite direction. Dance. Depression. Mania. Baking too many cookies. Gaining and losing 12 pounds from those manic binges. Drugs (only legal ones, mind you). Medication nightmares. Feeling so out of control and out of touch with reality that I didn’t think I was going to make it out alive. Making friends with people who weren’t good for me. Nearly divorcing, mostly due to dance and its strange grasp on James and me. Spending too much money during manic crazes. Thinking everything was under control when, in fact, it had flung so far out of control that it’s amazing I could sill function. Crazy makeup. Accutane. Spiraling. Wondering why I have a closet full of eccentric clothing that I would never wear off the dance floor. Why why why? Pretending to hold it together to ensure my girls felt secure and happy. Putting a smile on my face in public when I was teaching, making everyone believe James and I were just fine even though I had a divorce lawyer in mind. Planning escape routes instead of hopes and dreams.

Then, about two years after our move, K died. I will probably never know why her death hit me so hard, but I assume it was because her life paralleled mine so closely.

Suddenly, I had to stop living life the way I had been. It wasn’t a conscious decision, though. Back to school. Actually thankful that the arthritis in my feet gave me the perfect excuse to stop teaching dance. Closing out our Friday night workshops and dances, which I never really blogged about but were a HUGE deal. Focusing on Julie’s awesome school more and volunteering my time to help out with her class. Considering going back to church and not shuddering to think of organized religion. Spending far less free time on the computer (I was kind of addicted). Planning another backpacking trip to the Grand Canyon for several people. Getting gear for that trip and trying to figure out an easy trip on the peninsula on which we could bring the girls. Making friends outside of the dance world… successfully. Actively searching for an entry-level position as a legal assistant for the duration of my academic program to help with the success of becoming an actual paralegal after I have graduated (wow!). Peeking into the backpack holding my climbing shoes and harness and chalk pack and realizing I am itching to get back into rock climbing. Trying to stop biting my nails and cuticles and getting better at it.

All these things and more- so many changes- and James and I are doing so much better. I married an amazing man. It’s sad that we’ve been missing all of this as a result of our relationship and lives being saturated by the effects of the “dance world” and dealing with “my illness.” But as of this week, our commitments to dance have ceased forever, a I cannot explain to you just how amazingly relieved he and I feel that starting tomorrow, we will not have to run to the ballroom and teach and DJ and dance for hours and stress about whether or not we have enough people to pay our rent and other overhead. We are no longer slaves to what was supposed to be a hobby. And maybe, one of these days, I’ll be able to go to a dance without having an anxiety attack and actually enjoy myself. Maybe.

My psychiatric nurse practitioner retired a couple months ago. I backed off on my medication significantly to stretch the amount of pills while I search for a new doctor. I’m taking half of what I was using before, and physically and mentally, I am gradually doing much better. What the hell? Those pills were supposed to work magic. Have they gotten to be too much, are they part of the cause of all the upped insanity these last two years? I feel far less sluggish and I actually have been scrubbing the house. My homework is easier to finish. Now I’m a little hesitant to continue with medication at all, at least for the short term. I made an appointment with a doctor who does this thing called “neurofeedback.” We have a friend who is just as nuts as I am who did it and swears by it. He is doing a million times better than he has in years, and it gives me hope that maybe this may be one of the best solutions for me.

The winter solstice was yesterday, today the sun is alive and shining, and in two days I will have a house full of people I love. I am cautiously optimistic that things may be looking up.

Current Mood: Happy

I don’t ever forget that actual humans live behind their blog posts and facebook persona, but it’s easy to start thinking that the 15% of their life posted on the internet is the majority of what’s happening behind closed doors. I think it is certainly easy for some too look at the screen and feel like the person behind it is nothing more than the two-dimentional character displayed on some website. Other times we meet someone that could very well be a long-lost twin. We create a picture in our mind of the person posting a status or 50, and that’s who we imagine them to be.

It’s kind of the tragic truth to the www in some ways. Sometimes it gives us a horribly wrong perspective. But in another light, I’ve met people through the internet more than once and was, for the most part, pleasantly surprised by just how much like their internet personalities they actually were.

This leads me to wonder about how people view me based off of my writing. I’ve had (a very small number of) folks tell me I was an insane bitch who should never post on the internet again (yup, I censor those comments… I almost never do, but there certainly some psychos out there, and while I don’t mind differing opinions and constructive criticism, assholes get the immediate write-off). I’ve had people conspire to call CPS when I was struggling with postpartum depression and blogged about all the intimate details of my frustration, when in fact the real-life version of myself was already seeking help, my kids had been deemed safe, and the situation behind my keyboard certainly wasn’t a fraction of what it really seemed. When you put your life out there for the world to see, everyone makes judgements and there’s always backlash. Oh well, you deal with it.

I’d ask what YOU think what sort of a person I am, but out of the insane number of page views that I’ve been getting since making the Top 25 Mental Wellness Blogs by Moms plus the years of picking up readers, only like .0000001% of you guys actually leave me comments. (hint-hint… you don’t have to be shy… I’ve gotten well over a hundred comments on posts before, so I know you’re out there, and I comments on other people’s blogs every single day, but I read like 50, so I don’t get a comment on yours daily).

But here’s the thing. Besides the private internal crap that ends up on my blog and Facebook statuses, what the hell do people really know about me? I’d hate to think that my readers just have this image in their head of this unstable bipolar freak yo-yoing between reality and psychosis. Or that I sit in front of a computer all day while my kids break shit and smear poop on the outside walls. It’s so not like that.

So here’s a bit of a play-by-play if you’re interested. A short one.

I’m home during the days with my kids and do pretty much what other stay-at-hom moms do: take care of the kids, play with them, do art projects, turn on music and dance, make them breakfast and lunch along with several snacks plus manage the necessary food and kid clean-up. While they’re at the table eating, I spend a few minutes surfing the web on my laptop and usually get small increments of a blog post written at a time. I usually throw on an episode of Dora at some point for the girls so I can jump in the shower and get dressed, but usually not until closer to lunch time. Or I throw on a show so I can finish a blog. Like right now? It’s just after noon, I’m listening to the awesome jazzy tune of Pink Panther as I write this, and I’m wearing a pair of hideous bright green and turquoise checked pajama pants along with a t-shirt with that Paul Frank monkey on it. Oh yeah, I am the epitome of mature right now.

In the afternoons, I generally run some errands with my monsters in tow, make more snacks, clean, do laundry, lay April down for a nap, and get dinner preparation started- or dinner made completely. While April naps, I usually do a bit of reading and writing practice with Julie, or I pull out the watercolors and let her paint and cut up paper to create whatever she wants… then I have her help me clean up the massive mess that ends up all over the family room. James takes public transportation to work (remember, he’s the computer guy), and I pick him up from the nearby lightrail station in the evening. We usually finish making dinner together, eat, then frequently I run out to go to work.

Yes, on top of my full-time job, I work. I do two things, both related: I am a dance teacher and I am a West Coast Swing DJ. Additionally, I do my part to get out and social dance as often as I can (but not often enough) to help continue to raise my level of dance and prepare for competition. I teach out of an awesome studio in downtown Seattle, and not only do I teach select evenings, but I also teach private lessons on Sunday afternoon. Friday nights are big nights for me because James rushes home from work, we leave the kids with a babysitter at 6:00, and we spend the evening teaching workshops and overseeing a dance practica afterward. And starting in August, we’re turning that practica into a full-blown west coast swing dance during which I will usually DJ. Because, you know, we weren’t busy enough.

Additionally, we do dance/DJ gigs for other events regularly around town, and we’ve even been fortunate enough to be invited to Vancouver, Canada to teach and DJ a few times.

Outside of dance, I love to read on my Kindle, work on writing my latest book (the others I’ve always conveniently forgotten to continue writing), plan “girl dates” at coffee shops and stuff with some of the local dancers, and spend time with another good friend of mine (also from the dance world). I always have some crafty thing I’m working on- making costumes, a little scrapbook project, or a house thing that requires paint or artistically hanging crap on my walls. I love decorating. And I also love playing with make and fashion. I am a true girly-girl, even though I’m wearing stupid monkey PJs and usually only wear makeup when I’m teaching or dancing.

As a family, we really try to get outside as much as possible. We love going downtown with the kids, parks and playgrounds, and seeing nearby outdoorsy places with hiking and forests and other tree-hugging dreamland sights and activities. We haven’t done it since I was 5 months pregnant with April… but James and I have a history of rock climbing, and I really miss it.

I have several doctor appointments that I do every month: Therapist, Psychiatrist, Dermatologist, and getting my monthly and sometimes bimonthly blood tests. The last two months I’ve been at the Ophthalmologist’s office every other week while we try to get rid of this uncomfortable scleritis in my left eye. All part of staying mentally healthy, which is necessary with my crazy busy life.

The late evenings after the girls are in bed or when I get home from work are when I spend time with James. We’re good about getting that time in to relax and talk and drink some tea, sometimes watch a show together, before bed.

I like my life to be busy, and I’d like to state on the record that most days I do just great mentally. I have nights where I’m so exhausted I can’t function and bipolar triggers start to go off. But most of the time, I am fine. When I’m not busy or I have too much time on my hands, I start to struggle with depression or mania. Staying busy helps keep me stable.

Phew. There. A small look behind the blog. Hopefully those of you who think I’m a psycho bitch can see me as a little more human now? Okay, just kidding. I know most think none such thing, even though sometimes I fear you all might.

Current Mood: Cool

I enjoy watching train wreck relationships.

It’s awful, I know, but it’s the real-life version of what you see in the movies, and there’s always so much more drama in the real-life play-by-play.

*devilish grin*

Current Mood: Mischievous