Regardless of how bad it is, and it’s really fucking bad, it is refreshing to be able to finally say, yes, Adam and I have problems, we’re normal. Of course people know we do, but I get sick of the online facade. Sure we have a fantastic relationship but we are, hands down, going through a tough time right now. Why hide it, when it is affecting so many areas of my life?

A week or two ago I tweeted a line from one of my old poems “how can I feel so alone when you’re sitting right next to me”. This facet of my personality leaves me an excruciatingly lonely person at times. Wanting to reach out so incredibly badly, feeling frozen and not being able to do it.

It is no one’s fault. Neither of my parents grew up in demonstrative families and that wasn’t their fault either. My parents always told me they loved me but until I left home three months after turning nineteen I had never said it back.

In small ways as a teenager I was able to open up physically but back then the problems I had with affection I deemed for the most part normal adolescence stuff. And because of general teenage angst and insecurity I was able to fake being more affectionate than I really was. How I don’t know or remember, because I can’t fake it anymore as an adult, even craving every single person I meet to like me it is still more common for me to use snail mail [you should see my stationary collection] or my fingers on a key board to express affection, to reassure people I care.

I know it is difficult for people first getting to know me to understand how I can open my heart so freely in writing and then presumably close it off in person. I’m not a particularly closed off person, but if you don’t know me, let’s just say I [can] take a while to grow on people. I have friends who ask if it is okay before they hug me and some who just do it. I’ve had friends convinced they could break whatever it was holding me back and would try to force affection on me, mind you, in a caring way; but still not for me.

This runs a lot deeper for me than simply tensing up when someone hugs me. For years I couldn’t look people in the eye when I spoke to them, I know that to most it comes off as being rude, for me it was from feeling insecurity and fear.

Although it was something that always bothered me about myself, when it would come to my girlfriends, I always wanted to be able to be affectionate with them when we’d have sleep overs and give hugs without a back pat or loose arms but for the most part I couldn’t. I’d send them an affectionate note saying how much the weekend meant to me instead.

I think the best of example of just how bad it is would be how I used to treat my cat. In 1999, there was an incident that made me realize that I had an actual problem, I wasn’t just a cold bitch on the outside. Gus has always been a needy cat, she was the runt of the litter and she is spoiled rotten. But she never used to be. When Gus would jump in bed with me and try to snuggle with me I’d push her away, I’ve always been a non cuddle sleeper period, and mostly a non cuddle person in general, so having a cat putting her paws in my eyes and mouth was all fun and games during the day but when I was trying to sleep or read and she’d sit down right in the middle of whatever book I’d be reading, I never really thought anything of it; just pushing her off. I thought she’s a cat they’re supposed be independent why does she even want so much attention.

I was living with someone who also had a cat, this cat hated Gus, this cat wasn’t so much mean as she was just a total fucking terror on four legs. We never got along, myself and that cat, but she had a close relationship with her owner. It wasn’t until I saw how affectionate he was with his cat and how affectionate he was with Gus that I realized that I was depriving my cat of affection. I ignored it at first, it wasn’t as if, except for pushing her off the bed, that I was mean to her. It was years ago so I don’t remember exactly how it happened but Gus must have been trying to get some affection out of me and I wasn’t having it and this person basically yelled at me “Corinna, pet your fucking cat!”.

It didn’t happen overnight but just opening up to my bloody cat changed me, actually letting her jump up on me when I’m upset and comfort me, letting her sleep with me and not tossing her off the bed when she was ready for me to be up and walking all over me. How did I live without that before? With it being eleven years later, I’m glad I changed this behaviour towards her when I did. But then again how do I live with so little human to human contact? I have found being a good three years into my thirties now that it’s something that bothers me, a lot. And it is something that I have for a few months now been working on because I want to learn how to get over this before it’s too late, before people are gone from my life forever and I never got to give them one of those hugs that I’m starting to get better at giving, the ones where I will actually pull you in tight to me. And so far it has felt good every time I have been able to do it.

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.

Between my health, the cat, heading back to work and trying to write for ThinkHero nothing has been going as planned. I don’t mind doing bullet point posts but only when the points are small and not all worthy of their own post.

I think one of the worst things we are dealing with is that Adam’s UI runs out next month. He’s in a union or he’d likely have found work by now. It has hit the point where we have no choice, he will have to leave the union or things will become dire. We’ve lived for almost seven years with no extended medical, I had it when I was still in corporate jobs but Adam wasn’t on it. Both of us having it for the period we did, with the medical problems we have or that have come up, it hasn’t even helped. For example, the most expensive of any of my medications is my allergy spray and it isn’t covered. Sure I need new lenses in my glasses but I’ll just keep having our medical stuff written off on our taxes like I always do.

I have returned to work as a PA on season 3 of Fringe. I’m feeling pretty good about myself having been called back for another season. Given this show films downtown as much as it does and because I’m back on my bike, getting to and from locations has just become about 80% easier. I’m still working on call / part time, but this works best for me. The longer I do this work the more I enjoy it, the work itself isn’t hard, it’s the hours that make the work hard, get used to those and you are good to go. And that is basically all I can say about that.

I’m feeling a tad overwhelmed because a lot of positive things seem to be coming in my direction, yet I’m terrified of my health, my depression, or my ‘I don’t deserve good things’ side of my brain taking over and fucking it all up. I invented self sabotage.

As mentioned I started writing for ThinkHero, I have gotten a few really good pieces up but my intent was to post more and now I’m paranoid I won’t be offering up enough to keep me on, to which my friends say “are you kidding me you are writing for free” to which I say – yes, but I said I was going to do such and such and now I’ve been sick and going for test after test after flippin’ test and go see this specialist and OH lets have a barium enema while we’re at it. That now means another four plus doctors have had their finger up my ass in the last month. I intentionally don’t even shave my INNER ass cheeks anymore. Fuck it, and I sport a 70’s bush too while I’m talking about pubes. Deal with it.

Not to mention:

My blood work has come back showing I have VERY low blood sugar and that I am hypoglycemic. This means I have to see another specialist because I do not as of yet have diabetes and part of the goal here is keeping it that way. Eating every three hours is a real new one for me. I’ve never had an eating disorder but I do not like food and I eat because I have to, not because I want to, making myself eat every three hours makes me feel like I’m going to barf, sucks it is already helping me feel better. No idea if it is affecting my moods because I have too much going on to look that deeply in upon myself yet. This explains A LOT of my complaints over the last few months, dizziness worse than my normal shitty balance falling over, I’m a clumsy pants nonsense, my over the top tiredness, low energy and dropping close to fifteen pounds off my already small frame. This was so odd for me because I’m used to losing weight when I’m depressed but aside from these complaints, mentally I’ve still been doing fairly well. We were chalking everything up to the stress of having no full time work since January but I was pretty sure it was more than that being pretty in-tune with when and why I’m losing or gaining weight.

Speaking of me MENTALLY my meds have been dropped again. I’m on the lowest amount of meds I’ve been in oh, shit maybe four years. There is only 25 mg between me and NO MORE Seroquel the least favourite of the three meds I take, I have MANY an argument or rather *words* with my psychiatrist about him putting me on Seroquel. I’ve stopped waiting for the ball to drop, and I’m really giving this feeling better stuff a go. As I’ve mentioned this doesn’t mean I don’t have BRUTALLY bad days where it is ALL I HAVE not to toss myself out in front of a bus, but I’m hanging onto the rails of the sanity train for dear life and I will keep riding it no matter how many people try and toss me off for as long as I can.

Now for the hardest news to share. Gus isn’t doing so good. When we went to Langley for the wedding we thought not hearing from my girlfriend was a good thing, turned out she didn’t want to ruin our weekend. We came home to find that Gus had attacked someone who had not only known her since 1996 but had sat her on numerous occasions some over two weeks long back when I used to be a travel agent. This has left us with some hard and shitty decisions that had to be made, because we can’t have Gus attacking our friends, we won’t be spending Christmas with our siblings, we won’t be able to see our friends in Tofino and probably the worst for my parents is we can’t go to Bali until…… … and I can’t risk going to Bali myself and missing my last month with her, she is having enough trouble with my having returned to work. She is also dropping weight at a rather drastic rate. So much so that we were going to take her in early for her six month check up. It is hard to believe it has already been a year since we had to put her on pain medication and up until about two months ago she was doing really well. Her blood work has all come back fine both times it has been taken, she doesn’t have any kidney or liver problems. We made the decision to wait until her check up in September. We get her weighed once a month when we pick up her medication and are being pressured to bring her in but here’s the deal; Having picked wee Gus when she was the runt of the litter and she wasn’t the last kitteh but she was the one I fell in love with even thinking she was a boy, I know her and I know that taking her in for blood tests in June instead of September is only going to have to have her pricked an extra time. Forget the cost, it has nothing to do with that, everyone knows we can’t afford this to happen right now but who is ever ready for this financially or mentally or fucking in any way. The fact remains that even though it is beyond heartbreaking when Gus goes to lay on the floor right now and her bones make a horrible sound as they hit the floor, she is happy, she has energy she is still feisty, she still sits with us, sleeps with us, she isn’t hiding. She is eating less, but she is drinking more. Gus has lived a great long life, she was my best little furry buddy and now she is our best furry little buddy and we are going to keep her comfortable as long as possible but not drag the inevitable out. She is dying of old age, plain and simple. It is really, really hard, I don’t know what I’m going to do without her. I don’t like to think that far ahead yet. It sneaks in sometimes, but I’m not ready.

Last weekend Adam and I were in Langley and spent a night way out in Chilliwack, there are some super nice mountains that far out of the city, beautiful British Columbia all over the place. I sent two texts messages to Twitter and I used a computer once because my phone was randomly texting important pertinent information to Safeway, and I needed my response to reach the person it came from but I wasn’t even on it for five minutes. Other than that I was completely unplugged. We were at my youngest Sister (in-laws) wedding. And lucky me I get to post photos!

It was three full days away from my cat though, with family I hadn’t seen or spoken to since we got married in 2006. I was afraid of anxiety attacks, migraines, one of my ass or intestinal ailments acting up, totally freaking out, losing it, ruining everything and having to go home. When I thought about it I realized that I hadn’t even spent that much time with a large(r) amount of my own side of the family since 1994, when I was 17 years old and we went back to Ontario for Christmas. I did make a trip back in 2000 as well, but it was hardly 4 days, also for Christmas but it was to visit a very specific person in the family and whoever else I got to see was great but I didn’t see that many.

I don’t like being away from home period, which upon thinking about recently I realized I’ve been like that since I was a kid, I remember I used to come home from sleep overs in the middle of the night. When my parents where still living in Prince George I would fly home early pretty regularly. I knew I was going to be out there from early Friday until who knew when on Sunday.

Back when Adam and I got married my relationship with the people who were to become my in-laws was strained to say the very least. I didn’t actually talk to my sister in laws or father in law at all at our wedding. I had mentally prepared for months to not let how hard that day was going to be get to me, it was one of the best acts I’ve ever put on knowing I was walking down the aisle in front of some people who had reason not to like me, or who had heard enough negative things about me that in only one day I wasn’t going to change anyones mind. I’m used to being misunderstood, but in the case of my soon to be sisters, fucking up the chance at a relationship I had grown up wanting more than anything sucked, really bad.

Over the years that we’ve been married my SILs and I have worked out our differences and we get along better than I ever could have dreamed. I don’t even remember how it happened, it just did. We started hanging out with Kristy my youngest sister and her boyfriend Greg who is now her husband and my brother. Sara started to make a point to come over and see us whenever she was here from Philly. It happened slowly but I was starting to feel like these two women really had my back, that they didn’t just like me that they were starting to love me like real family. Whoa, what a trip that was.

Most people know I’m an only child but what a lot of people don’t know is that I grew up with just my parents. I had an incredibly hard time making and keeping friends and whatever these problems were they were always my fault, that is all I learned was that it was my fault not how to properly socialize or make friends. I never spent enough time with anyone in my extended family to build an actual relationship with them, I don’t know any of them, I know things about them, and I’ve heard things about them but I don’t KNOW them. The time I spent so alone as a child is no doubt why as an adult I spend, at least by choice now, a shit load of time at home. It was in 1985 that my parents made a choice to leave our entire family in Ontario and go as far West as you can coming to British Columbia.

Not spending a lot of time with Adam’s family never bothered me. Not getting invited out for Thanksgiving, who cares! I didn’t have to pretend I wanted to be there and sneak out to smoke pot at any escapable moment I could find. I have enough trouble holding my shit together when my parents visit me instead of me visiting them, I feel trapped, I feel they don’t listen to me or respect my space. I try and set boundaries when they visit but it always leads to overly dramatic fights and periods of time when we have no contact at all. Again, my fault.

Aside from mending and building a relationship with my sister in laws the only other person on that side of the family who I’d met that I knew liked me for sure was my Grandma. She spoils Adam and I rotten and it’s awesome. She was the one Adam learned how to make sock monkeys from so my starting to make the sock monkeys helped me out there a bit I think.

I started to get excited about this wedding pretty early on, I think it is probably for the best that I kept most of my focus on Kristy and Greg and didn’t spend much time thinking about the big picture, which was three full days with the Carlson clan who I hadn’t seen since we married and I’d be meeting members of an entire new family that I’m now a part of, being an only child this was incredibly overwhelming, it is very hard for me to connect which titles go with who, I have the basics down, but try to figure out what the correct term for the relation of anyone outside a brother or a sister and I really don’t have a clue. We hadn’t even been out to Langley, Daddy Bland had stopped by our place a couple of times over the years, but I would rarely accompany Adam on a coffee or eating excursion if there was one. I didn’t see the point, he was never going to like me and it wasn’t because I started to call him Daddy Bland, that’s his middle name.

Last weekend, up until the hangover on Sunday, was one of the best weekends I have had in ages. We’d met Sara at the airport in the morning to hitch a ride to Langley whilst also to pick up her boyfriend and headed straight for ground zero – my father in law’s fancy garage, already set up all nice, in purple and black for the Sunday gift opening. Family arrived all day, some from Dawson Creek, Edmonton, they came from all over. All recognizing me but me recognizing none of them. ONLY because it is nearly impossible for a bride to remember talking to her own family at her wedding let alone members of her new one, at least it was for me anyway, and I’ve heard that is very common.

We took off with Sara and Chris to set up the ceremony and reception hall and watch the rehearsal which Adam was needed for as he played the guitar and harmonica as Kristy’s wedding party and then Kristy and her dad walked down the aisle the following day. I still felt extremely overwhelmed at times and shed a few tears trying really hard not to let my anxiety get the best of me and allow my head to convince me everyone hated me. The bridesmaids couldn’t believe it when I told them I had social anxiety. I had told Adam I wasn’t taking any crap in Langley, yes I knew it was all about Kristy and Greg but this didn’t mean I was going to feel excluded. Not at one moment did I feel excluded. I even had some bonding moments with my step mother in law, I never saw that day coming and it was awesome. Real conversations.

Getting to spend time with both of my sisters at the same time was something I never thought I’d have in my life. I didn’t know if we would ever get along, but we do, and pretty well too. They are both such fantastic, yet different women. Sara and I both like reading, and looking like dorks in photos, she calls random people creeps, I call them jerks. Kristy likes country music SHIT I LIKE COUNTRY MUSIC. HA TAKE THAT INTERNET. Kristy is sensitive, I know I don’t have to tell any of you this but I’M super sensitive. And we all want to get along and want to have a relationship, that means more to me than I can really put into words, I’ve been trying to find them, I suppose they are here in this novel of a post somewhere. I don’t feel as lonely anymore. Talking and laughing with them, the cousins and aunts, uncles, grandma, and being myself – it made me happy, very happy, yet sad, because as an adult I haven’t been privy to times like this with my own side of the family. I never even thought family mattered to me. I have a wonderful husband and a cat, I’m set. But family does matter to me, I don’t know how to connect with my own (and I’m not talking about my parents) but connecting with my in-laws has shown me I can do it.

Weddings are an interesting thing, they can bring out the best and worst in almost everyone included. I needed that wedding, I needed that time with those two women, I’ve always bragged about their accomplishments, always been proud of the paths they chose but I didn’t know how to accept that we were all going to love one another unconditionally, that it was even possible, despite having more than just books and music in common, but we put up and took down that weekend together, Kristy got hitched, we partied like we’d never partied before and I was left thinking that Christmas can’t come around too soon so the six of us get to spend time together again, who knew that I would ever look forward to Christmas, let alone one with family.

We had done the cross Island hike to The Needle, the peak on the island of Raratonga, and because we each had our own scooter we left one at each end of the trail to make it easier to get back to the house where we were staying. We got lost on the hike and ended up scaling roots and rocks and were beat when we got to the bottom. Even had we not have gotten lost, it is still a full days worth of hiking. We were covered in mud and pretty pleased, it had been a really amazing day. We picked up the other scooter and as we were leaving for home it started to pour rain. I was not wearing a helmet.

At the time, Air New Zealand was the only airline with the rights to fly into Raratonga, leaving the Island a diamond in the rough in those days. I haven’t been in the travel industry for a good while now and could still probably sell a trip there just from talking about how awesome it is, lets just say Bali has NOTHING on it, not ONE thing. When I rented the scooter I rented it FIRST and DROVE to the license place, no lesson no nothing. My parents had been there the year before so my dad showed me the basics and I learned how to use it myself, and fast, they drive on the other side of the road there too.

My dad was in front of me and because of the rain I had my head dipped slightly as to not get water on my sunglasses, rendering me unable to see. He slowed down to hit a pot hole and I looked up too late, hit my front brakes and the bike slid out from underneath me so fast the next thing I remember is my head hitting the pavement. I remember the whole accident minus the sound, I have no memory of any sound and apparently I was swearing my ass off and freaking out at myself, calling myself stupid for crashing, how could I have let this happen… whatever it was relayed to me after and I was sort of embarrassed over how many f-bombs I had apparently dropped but not really I was after all in complete shock.

I was taken to hospital in what passes for an ambulance there – the back of a pickup truck with the universal red cross sign on it. Even with a piece of bone sticking up out of my arm and the fact that lifting it was agony it was according to them not broken, no x-rays, they cleaned up my road rash and sent me home.

(please note the OLD SCHOOL Nike Pegasus runners before they were discontinued but were thankfully brought back a few years ago now, they’ve always been my favourite shoe to run in)

I rode horses as a kid and had some pretty bad falls and throws and I ALWAYS got back up on the horse even though I was never a huge fan of riding, it was one of those things my parents must have thought would be good for me I guess, I never thought crashing that motor scooter would evoke so much fear in me that biking would simply exit my life completely, and roller blades FORGET about it! Unfortunately the image of my head hitting the pavement played over in my mind like a broken record, I can still see every moment of that crash like it was yesterday.  No matter how hard I tried to block it out, it would not leave, still today it isn’t gone.

The more years that passed the less likely I thought it was that I would ever ride a bike again. When my parents moved to Bali my dad left me with his old mountain bike that I rode as a kid as one of my cross trainers for running. It sat in the living room, then it was in the bedroom, my mom even bought us both helmets, then it went down to storage and then Phaedra needed a bike so we lent it to her and once we lent it to her I started to feel really left out, not by her, but by myself. I’m not a pussy I’ve been hurt badly before, I define clumsy, but that has never stopped me before.

By the time she was finished with the bike I was determined to get back on it. I can’t afford to swim right now so that is out as a cross trainer and in order for me to be able to run injury free because I have injured myself so badly racing in the past I HAVE to cross train and the bike was my only FREE option.

Last weekend, thanks to the support and encouragement of Phaedra and Adam I got back on the bike; I DID IT!

I was a little wobbly at first, and it took a few tries to get the seat right as I gauged how comfortable I felt and what was going to work best for keeping my hips stretching out nicely with each turn of the pedals. It felt so amazing to be back out there, it felt like I can for serious get back to running, Yoga just is not enough to strengthen the damage I have done to my right I/T Band but with Yoga, cycling AND starting slow again with a run / walk / run program I should be running 44 minute 10ks again in NO TIME! YAY!

I’m seeing a few bizarre things and having some horrible bloody thoughts running through my head while I’m riding but I’ve been out for three rides already, all well over an hour and have managed to keep my fears in check.

So without further ado, ME back on the bike! Here I am on my first ride out.

My second ride, we went in the same direction but i picked up the pace.

I know, I know BARF city, but hey, we work hard at staying happy together and finding yet another activity to do together (with Adam on blades) is beyond awesome. Things have been extremely hard since January and having a free active thing that isn’t walking to get out and do is already proving to RULE. I can’t help it, I am pretty proud of myself.

I like this picture because it looks like I’m wearing a CAPE.

Third ride was around the Sea Wall with Phaedra and Adam. I was more nervous on this one than the first, parts of the wall are really narrow and ODDLY people on the Sea Wall are NOT as polite as the people are when you are riding along the wall that goes through False Creek. I have never found people on the Stanley Park Sea Wall polite in all of the years I have used it, but having ridden twice towards False Creek I had gotten it into my head that all of a sudden everyone was wearing polite pants. ON YOUR RIGHT, ON YOUR LEFT. Nope, people on the Sea Wall would rather just run you over, or pretend you aren’t there, nothing has changed.

In 2004 my mother started to deal with her own depression issues but because I was so depressed, up until I went to Bali I never noticed. She was just mom, a bit mopey but being in such similar states I didn’t see just how much of a struggle she was having I just knew we were both struggling. But when I went to Bali I was in a really good place, one of the best places I have been in mentally since I started to seriously deal with my mental illness. It was on that trip that I saw just how depressed my mom was/ is, I’m not 100% sure with them so far away how she is really doing but I was flabbergasted. It was like staring myself in the face. One day she was ok happy in great spirits, the next totally quiet, not very responsive or interested in conversation BUT trying her very best to enjoy every moment she had with me, which I appreciated more than I think she knows because seeing her like that, I knew how much she hurt, how badly she wanted to be happy and chipper and YAY lets all drink Bintang Birs and be a family again. But some days she just couldn’t muster it and I understood, I understood her better than I think I ever had. It also made apparent the work I had done to have been in a head space so positive I only had two bad days where I thought please no, I don’t want to be depressed, please let this day be just that – a bad day – and I didn’t do anything stupid.

When I returned from Bali, I was still in a great place. After all that happened with my parents around this time last year it was just nice to feel like I had a family again. But with anything in life there are challenges and we are always left to make our own decisions as to how we deal with them leaving those around us to try and define, interrupt, perceive correctly or incorrectly what we are actually doing or saying. And in my opinion no matter how hard you work on yourself mentally ill or not you are bound to fuck up at times, sometimes worse than others resulting in steps backwards. With myself, when I feel myself slipping when I think I’m gonna lose it I slip right back into what I want least to become – what or who people perceive me to be, a sort of a typecast if you will. With anything that happens in life that leaves you feeling negative it is going to have triggers that set your blood on *temperature setting* HELL. It’s hot, it hurts, it burns, tears just sear the pain in further. And what would you know it, last Friday almost losing a friendship brought the asshole I’d been playing; no excuses to make, only the glaring assholy facts. I just wanted to cry and get high. Oh right I did. It has been a long time since I have gotten myself so worked up that I had a full sleepless night of night terrors, and three straight days of prescription drug abuse to say I was wasted would be an understatement, I’ve already been warned I abused them enough in the past that I could have a heart attack during an episode and even that can’t stop the beast. By Tuesday I was still a fucking wreck crying uncontrollably, mentally double fisting myself in the face, so mad at myself, fire retardant anger pants where the only saviour I had. Between yesterday and today I have regained my sanity. I’m still pretty pissed at myself but I’m not known for going easy on me. But for the record, I’m done. I’m not over it, I haven’t let it go, but I’m done allowing myself any inappropriate behavior towards this situation I’m dealing with regularly in therapy. I’ve been working so hard on this I even read a bloody self help book. I’m going to get there, I’m just going to KEEP my big girl pants on now. Fuck this high school shit, tricks are for kids.

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.