Archive for the 'Assholes' Category

On Today.

Published on July 14, 2011 by Corinna Carlson | 6 Comments

Today how overwhelmed I am from the happenings of the weekend decided to nail me at the best time and place, the gym. Tuesday’s workout was fine I felt great, I was still in denial happy la la land, but today as it generally goes I was triggered by something small and innocent and bam apparently I have to deal with my feelings. Fucking feelings always making me feel shit.

Doesn’t so much matter what happened but for the first time ever on Friday evening I admitted on Twitter that not only had Adam and I had a fight but that he wouldn’t be coming home that night. Many people were very quickly very supportive and I can’t thank you enough we are both very lucky to have the friends we do. Sometimes I just get to a point where I don’t care, if people want to pretend their marriages and relationships are perfect fine so be it that works for them but I think it is unrealistic to think that an eight year relationship / [almost] five year marriage wouldn’t have a few hick-ups. Since last July, we’ve been going through the first real rough patch in our marriage and I’m quite frankly tired of pretending everything is fine. I don’t feel the need to elaborate further but I do feeI that I needed to be honest with myself about it. At this point all that really matters is that we want our marriage to work.

Friday evening also brought the horrible news that a friend had again tried to take his life. This is a friend who I’ve visited in hospital before, someone we both care for deeply, but for me when they get to the point of hospitalization there is a part of me that sometimes shuts down, I simply cannot handle it and I feel physically ill. When you are dealing with friends who suffer from depression and you yourself suffer from depression and have tried to take your own life on multiple occasions, in some cases you have no choice but to protect yourself first and immediately pull down the oxygen mask, but in others you have to put the triggers and nausea aside and step up to the plate walk into the fucking ward and visit or in this case you and your husband who you’re not really talking to spend the day following day with them.

It took a few hours for my body to relax on Saturday, for me when I hear someone say something to the affect of “a few people would’ve missed me, some I’d really hurt, most not.” I can’t deal because already losing someone to suicide was by far the worst pain I have to this day ever felt in my life, I know for a fact that any variation of that statement is bullshit. And from the most selfish place in me I won’t lose another person that way, I fucking won’t. But I also won’t not be friends with someone or abandon them because they suffer from something outside of their control.

And so today I’m freaking out a tad and feeling yet again unaccepted for my depression because I tweeted my feelings today and was instantly unfollowed by someone I’ve met so yes, I take it personally. Now, let me be clear, if someone doesn’t want to follow me on Twitter I’m fine with that, long gone are the days I’d freak out, I didn’t even understand social media back then, but fuck it, whatever, that was until today because you know what? If you know the person, even if you don’t like the person show some fucking tact, wait a few hours, don’t make it so glaringly obvious how big of an asshole you are. I get it, not everyone wants to see people who suffer from depression talk about their depression but that’s actually kinda funny too, because most people will keep following the person who suffers from Cancer and support their battle but unfollow the person struggling with depression. I’m trying to calm down and relax I obviously know I’m not in this bad of a rant mood over Twitter, I’m honestly sort of amazed I cracked this soon, normally I can hold shit it and make it a fuck lot worse before I explode so I guess I’ll call that a baby step in the right direction of feeling the feelings.

You can tranquilize your mind

Published on January 7, 2011 by Corinna Carlson | 26 Comments

When they read the email he’ll insinuate that I don’t know what I’m talking about, he’ll say that I’m trying to make it worse and to make it about me. But I’m not and it isn’t. Anyone who knows anything about my family dynamic has at one point asked me if a free trip to Bali every year is really worth putting up with my parents’ constant drama and bullshit. I have always answered with a resounding FUCK YES. When I went to see them in 2009 things were only semi awkward, but because I was in a really good place for a change I gave it a go and about 90% of the trip was good. I even kept my lips zipped right shut when my dad made some witty remark about how the depression in our family had skipped a generation [delusions of grandeur much]. It didn’t take me long to see beneath the mask my father wore while I was there, I left knowing he hadn’t changed a bit. I probably said a lot to the contrary back then but I wanted to believe.

Over the last year the answer to that question has been changing more and more to FUCK NO. The ignorant and racist letters they send when they moved to fucking ASIA are quite shocking. I’m simply not capable of using them for a free trip and last year we didn’t go anyway. The older I get the more I simply can not live with “we’ll just have to agree we remember things differently” being good enough for me. It isn’t. A lot of days my resentment builds, and shit man, I’ve been working on this relationship with an incredible psychiatrist since 2003. I know that I either have to walk away or accept them for who they are.

And I can’t do either. Despite trying and failing at both.

Since they’ve moved to Bali it has been one thing after another. For two people who inflicted the level of abuse and neglect on me that they did, I honestly thought that them moving to Bali would result in us simply drifting further and further a part like we were doing before suddenly they woke up one day and realized they had a daughter well after I realized I’d grown up way short handed and it has been a battle ever since. I’m sorry but you just do not get to neglect me to the disgusting and gross extent you did and suddenly decide we are going to be friends. No, it’s over, it ends here.

And now I’m being accused of trying to get my mother to have another breakdown [again] because that is how my family rolls and he reacted like I said he would in that first sentence I wrote at 2:22 PM looks like he was out of bed for about two minutes before he blasted off his ‘I’m a five year old and it’s all your fault’ message to me.

Right, so my Grandmother is in the hospital and long story short she should have either been put in a home years ago or have a paid nurse who looks in on her weekly, she is 88 years old and is basically left with distant relatives of relatives of friends to look in on her, when she talks to her children she lies to them about how she is doing because she is fucking 88 and last time she was in the hospital having HEART SURGERY instead of her daughter who lives in a suburb of Toronto going to visit her the relatives of the relatives of the friends were left to handle it all AND my Aunt still bitched about the costs.

My father because he has never liked my mother’s mother has refused to do anything to help her, like say having a professional check in on her, which has now lead to my uncle entering her apartment to find it reeking of feces, the bed pot not changed for days, the bed-linens un-save-able and bloody Kleenexes everywhere. I’m fucking furious. I’m livid. Is this for fucking real? No matter how I feel about my parents, even if I’m taken out of their will, I would STILL not allow what has happened to my Grandmother to happen to them.

And his excuse, she at 88 wanting to keep her independence and not telling my Aunt and Uncle how she was actually doing and he knows that under no circumstances can my Aunt or Uncle afford a nurse or a home, to which I reminded him that the elderly don’t always know what they want and what they need and that someone as independent as my Grandmother would NEVER give that up without a fight. There is no excuse for her living like that none. I can not believe these people expect me to have a relationship with them just because THEY are the lonely ones now. I’m not ready, I don’t know when I will be but I’m not and this just makes it SO much worse, so much worse that I may never be ready. I’m pretty sure the admittance forms to whatever home I end up tossing them into can probably be signed without my having to see them, but at least I’d still fucking help.

I Think I’m Paranoid.

Published on July 22, 2010 by Corinna Carlson | 17 Comments

I’ve always considered myself to be a paranoid person.

People have always called me a paranoid person.

No matter how well I am doing, of all the variables I face dealing with chronic depression I have some of the most trouble dealing with paranoia. With years of therapy I know that paranoia is actually nothing more than having a negative attentional bias towards something, not allowing myself the observation of any positive feelings to help convince myself that no, everyone does NOT hate me or think I’m stupid or useless and that I shouldn’t even be entertaining these negative thoughts and overwhelming feelings.

It doesn’t matter how much medication I’m on or not on. There is no medication that helps me with this. This is something that to different degrees I have always dealt with, but when you add anxiety into the mix, I feel like my innards are being blown up and twisted into balloon animals and not even cool ones at that. I’m allowed to take an extra clonazepam on really bad days to curb my anxiety but that still leaves me unable to eat because when I’m hit with paranoid anxiety attacks just because I can get my stomach out of the knots with the clonazepam I still can’t force myself to eat as I still feel like I am going to barf all over everything.

Recently something happened where I was bullied, badly, yet again in my life, being a few years into my thirties now just adds to my utter disappointment in myself. And it has unfortunately triggered my negative attentional bias and my anxiety to off the chart levels. Not to mention I’ve had two idiots totally fucking with me on Twitter which hasn’t helped matters.

The last two weeks have had me feeling like there is no reason for me to be here. I despise feeling like this. What happened just reminds me that no matter how much I work on myself, no matter how hard I try to work on my posture and stand up straight, no matter how many people tell me that what happened was not my fault, that it obviously is, there is obviously still something very wrong with me, after now eight years under the same psychiatrist’s care it blows my mind that I am still a target for bullies. It makes me angry it makes me feel like everything my father has ever said about me is true and that I don’t deserve good things. It brings me back to having to have exchange students, who were staying with us when I was in high school, come and get me to keep me from getting beat up. I just don’t want to deal with this anymore.

It hurts really bad.

And speaking of my father, it also makes me resent even more how far away my parents are, I deduce that no one understands my relationship with them, not Adam, not even me, but last week I needed to be able to pick up the phone so badly and just unload to my parents and I couldn’t. They are too secluded for Skype. Getting and holding a clear phone connection is a challenge, not cheap and with the time difference we are up at the same time for a very short period of time. I even know I probably would have just ended up more upset talking to them if I didn’t hear what I needed, but simply not even being able to take the chance just reminded me again yet again that they left me here, that retiring to Asia was more important than their only child and fuck it, everything hurts. I don’t know why I can’t let this illusion of my parents suddenly being ideal parents go, they did the best they could with a problem child.

This will of course pass, just not soon enough, it is hard enough to deal with these two facets of my depression but when they nail me at once I have to hang on for dear life I know that I’m not headed for break down mode, what happened is only going to make me stronger. But it sucks feeling like a loser, that is never good. Worrying constantly that people are out to destroy my reputation, worrying that some people are NEVER going to give me a second chance, worrying that people don’t want me around – what have you – is all petty and idiotic and I wish I could have a new brain.

The continuing saga of Corinna’s unfortunate ass

Published on January 24, 2010 by Corinna Carlson | 12 Comments

Prologue

Back on February 8, 2006 when I came out with the secret that I had been a chronic hemorrhoid sufferer from the ripe old age of 19 I never imagined it would turn into an epic saga filling my life with enough material that I could write a book on What to Expect When You’re Expecting Rhoids. Nor did I realize how much support I would receive, granted my archives for 2006 are a disaster and ALL of the comments from the whole year are gone, but at the time when I realized just how many people were suffering with ass issues of their own, or for whatever reason wanted to be kept posted on my ass, I decided I would blog the entire adventure including the surgery.

I welcome you to read the posts I’m linking to in this Prologue, I will only include the main highlights here to either welcome you to the saga or refresh your memories. I particularly love the guest post that Adam did I think he captured my fear quite well.

My first bowel movement took over an hour. I chugged glass after glass of water to take my mind off the fact it was happening fresh out of bed at 7 something in the morning with absolutely no pain killers in the system. Everyone knows that I Corinna Liscumb have a mild tendency to exaggerate but this is different and I would never do that in regards to something like this, Adam sat on a stool [haha I said stool] the whole time and basically held my hand. Although I would give anything to see my facial expressions there was no fucking way I was busting out the camera even for something as memorable as that was. In case anyone is DYING to know my second pooh was much shorter but just as painful and involved yelling and the word ‘fuck’ at times.

Even years later I often think how when I woke up all the nurses were talking about my tattoos instead of say mentioning that not only was there a lot of gauze on the outside of the area BUT that there was a piece of gauze UP inside my anus that was about the size of my thumb. I was actually told about that there piece of gauze in my comments by one of my loyal readers [isn't enough to call Sarah a loyal reader, she's a friend as well, we've both been there for each other through some heavy shit over the years, she's the bomb].

Sarah knew an ass surgeon, I can’t remember exactly what she told me but it included and was not limited to a part about how *most people* when crapping out that piece of gauze pass out cold. Not like I didn’t already know it, but that confirmed to me that I’m one tough bitch.

___________________________________________________

Although I still mention my ass surgery on here I’ve never felt the need to give an update.

Until now.

Even though everything looked fine on my initial follow up visit two weeks after, by six months I knew I had a problem.  Around this time I phoned the surgeon’s office back and explained that something wasn’t right, I was told that it could take up to a year to properly heal but to call back and come in if I had any pressing concerns. On the year anniversary, nothing had changed. By this time we’d done some research and discovered that having the hemorrhoidectomy did not mean that I would never get the rhoids again. OK FUCK WHAT? It explained a lot but I was livid, I should have been told that when making the decision to have this invasive and painful surgery in the consultation. My rhoids had not actually returned but I had noticed a piece of skin wasn’t tucking up inside like the rest were and it was easily irritated by say a thong.

I made an announcement on Twitter that I was returning to work. The day Adam walked in and said he had been laid off, I was on the phone to my girlfriend before he stepped out of his boots; she has gotten me all of my previous work in film, my schedule was shifted around a bit but I did get hours. Last Monday was my first day. Sometime during that 16.5 hours it felt like my ass had popped out a rhoid. I wasn’t surprised, I assumed this day was coming and I was working on location outside for that entire day, it almost made sense with my luck that this would be the time that they would return.

On Monday night when I got in the shower with what can only be described as despair I pushed that piece of swollen skin as far up my asshole as I could. I didn’t even have any Vaseline to help soothe the area, I recently hucked our container because it was from 2005. And sure maybe expiry dates aren’t completely accurate but I thought that 2005 warranted being thrown out. I returned to work on Tuesday and worked all 16 hours of it in a lot of pain but being the only female PA who was I going to tell? It was day TWO I was scheduled in till the following Monday. I OF COURSE didn’t want to let my girlfriend OR my husband down. But I had no choice I woke up Wednesday morning with the added thrill of a plugged nose and my cough had returned. I texted my on location contact/boss and my girlfriend/boss, but I only mentioned the onset of the cold out of no where. As I mentioned to her later I didn’t feel comfortable talking about rhoids over text message at whatever hour it was in the morning. THANKFULLY I was not fired, but I was taken off the rest of schedule for that episode. I thought for sure I was toast but I must have horseshoes in that dysfunctional ass of mine too.

I wasn’t able to see my family doctor until Saturday morning which was half my fault because my brain was set on I DON’T WANT TO HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH ANY OF THIS – LA LA LA my ass doesn’t hurt so bad I can hardly sit.

I gave the doctor a quick rundown on the surgery, and my hospitalization at 19 (with a very serious case of thrombosed hemorrhoids) which began my ten year hot streak of internal and external rhoids before they were removed. I explained to him that I knew something had gone wrong with the leftover skin and prepared myself for the worst.

“What you have there is actually a yeast infection about this big [forefinger touching thumb around] causing the swelling, itching, redness”. Everything led this veteran rhoids suffer to believe they had them again. He did also confirm that the piece of skin was not a good thing and could cause me further problems down the road but that this was different. I was like “WHAT, I totally wash my ass man”, not to mention I have NEVER heard of an asshole yeast infection. He explained to me it has nothing to do with that, only not to wash my genitals with soap, I told him I hadn’t for years, I use hypoallergenic Vagisil wash. I know I have sensitive genitals, Vagisil wash is my friend. Taking this in was interesting because I don’t know the exact number of vaginal yeast infections I’ve had in my life, honestly WHO keeps track of that. It’s under five, and I’m almost 33.

This new development with my ass is both good news and bad. Good news no rhoids. Bad news FEELS like I have rhoids and right now I can’t work, I need a couple days, this stuff is supposed to work fast, which begged me to ask Adam the question(s) of “when a doctor tells you something like an ass cream works fast do you ever wonder why, like does he use it, has his wife used it, is he suffering from a yeast infected ass right now?” I guess now I’ll just keep my asshole yeast infection cream in my work bag and if it starts to act up again, take that, I have ASS CREAM.