Other than the fact that I felt like I was going to burst into tears over the cat looking at me sideways it turned out to be one of those days where everything sent me into hysterics, which was good and bad. I already had a massive headache and was bloated and felt disgusting overall and wouldn’t shut up about it, but that is still better than it going the way of feeling like my blood is going to boil out of my body.

It isn’t uncommon for us to spend large amounts of time laughing but I was still thinking – “what the fuck is up with me, I almost never get this hyper.” When I went to bed I figured I’d sleep like a log, I hadn’t napped that day and was tired; having felt like crap all day sucked and I was in no mood to accept that laughing is good.

Sleep didn’t come, night sweats on the other hand came with a fucking vengeance, I deduced that it was still payback for forgetting my medication, although in my not fully sleeping but sort of dreaming enough that I couldn’t bring myself to get out of the soaked sheets and clothes haze, I could tell that there was something else wrong. I was feeling numb in my hands and I wasn’t so much dizzy as it just felt like every time I moved I could hear and feel everything around me moving with me. I ass-umed it was related to the migraine side of it all and went back to tossing and turning in the damp gross sheets. As IF I would ever do it, but Adam has always said that I can wake him up and that he will sleep in my night sweat area, fucking disgusting but sweetest shit ever.

When I got up in the morning I felt horrible. The numbness was still coming and going from my hands and I was finding myself pretty creeped out by the whole moving my head and then hearing almost a whooshing sound going by, not to mention anxiety shakes central. I can’t remember what clued me in, but I jumped off the couch, grabbed my granny style pill holder and let out a nice loud FUCK ME when I discovered that my pills for Sunday were still sitting in the wee compartment. No wonder it felt like my fucking head was going to fly off my shoulders which would have at least cleared up the problem I was experiencing with my lips going numb.

I instantly started to tweet my disdain for myself and my carelessness whilst trying not to freak out because I was feeling seriously ill and other than taking more than one extra milligram of clonazepam, I did not want to mess with anything. I figured it was better to suffer it out than to take two or three milligrams only to have a longer recovery period.

I was basically a walking public service announcement for what not to do; I’m still quite frankly floored that not only did I forget my meds twice in one week but within that proximity. I’m not a defiant person with my medication, I will go off medication that my shrink puts me on if I don’t like it, but I have never ever just stopped taking anything cold turkey.

I felt so bad I was worried it would carry over into Tuesday and I’d have to miss a gym session, missing my workout on Monday was piss off enough but my equilibrium was fucked. I did chuckle over the one part of the email my shrink sent me which said: “Problem with effexor is when you miss doses you can feel extremely unwell.” That much I had fully figured out. Got it.

Thankfully, the really nasty side affects only lasted into the evening, Tuesday I was still a bit off balance and we did have to modify my workout but I was still able to go, and today I’m pretty tired but back on track. At least I didn’t go nuts. I have to admit I was a little worried about that, I thought I would be super depressed today actually but other than napping for a few hours I still feel alright.

This little fuck-up made it pretty clear to me that I am doing the right thing coming off all of this shit, granted I wasn’t trying to rush it, the next official drop isn’t until my next refill but whoa man holy shit I hope in the mean time that I don’t do that again.

When I think about the fact that Adam and I have been together [including the dating years] for almost eight years and that he has never seen me run a race it triggers more than just not having been able to run, it also triggers the loss of a person I miss. It is one thing that I have always struggled with depression, it’s another that since developing anxiety back in 2002 I became a person I despise sometimes when I really let myself go there. And given that my brain feels like it is in an emotional firing range right now I suddenly feel like I have absolutely no idea who I am. I find that I am thankfully able to draw from the eight years of psychotherapy that has brought me to this place where I can attempt this reemergence to a life outside of my apartment. But I use draw from lightly, I couldn’t have imagined if I’d tried just how emotionally challenging taking on a few new life goals was going to be – ready or not.

I was prepared to deal with a bit of an emotional roller-coaster, I have major daddy issues wrapped up in running. Pushing my fathers voice trying to remind me that I can’t do it and that I’m not good enough out of my head during my sessions at the gym, during yoga or sitting on my ass thinking about this process isn’t nearly as easy as pretending I don’t have to get over it.

When I’m allowed to run again, I will be running through all of those issues and I know it’s going to be painful but I also know it’s coming. What I wasn’t prepared for was to be plummeted into relentless anxiety, some days it feels like too much is being triggered by this. I’m acting irrationally but at the same time not, a lot of shit has been happening in the last while that I have no control over. I have control over how I react to it, and I have let my emotions get away from me a few times, but I’m also realizing I’m dealing with so much more than I originally thought I was. I did not realize just how true it is that muscles don’t just hold many memories but that they hold them in the most hermetic of places.

I’m going to stay on this journey even though it is currently kicking my ass because I believe I made the right decision in starting it, I believe that all the tears and painful memories that are surfacing will only make me wiser, stronger and faster when I do hit the pavement and race again. I’m simply struggling with how big of a tempest it has brewing with my emotions, the fact that working out and working with an athletic therapist isn’t currently transferring over in a positive way in regards to my depression or my anxiety is also causing me a great deal of stress. I’m trying to remember that right now I’m in therapy and that therapy on any injury is painful but I feel unmotivated and depressed and getting to the gym is a workout in itself and some days other than proving my father wrong, I don’t know what the fuck is keeping me doing this.

I was straight up honest with him that last Sunday I’d upped my Clonazepam by a milligram because in order to be in the gym I have no choice but to find ways to get food down my throat and this is the fantastic it feels like I have a dryer than fuck metal bar across my esophagus anxiety the kind that if I do get food by it’ll just laugh at me whilst I double over from the waves of nausea. Given that I have been learning to sit in my feelings this new thing where I actually learn to experience feelings in the real word again and do things for me is turning out to be a wee bit challenging.

I’ve had more than one situation trigger me into this anxiety but unfortunately to get out I can only deal with one thing at a time. It may seem strange, but I don’t often find myself crying in my sessions, lately though I’ve noticed that I have been crying more in general. I used to be a crier and then I wasn’t and then I learned how to accept being a joy crier and I left it at that and kept suppressing real tears and firing them off in destructive bullets of anger instead.

When I found out in February about a week before what would have been her 89th birthday that my grandmother had died in January and that no one had told me I was quite devastated. After the vitriol spewed by my Aunt in my comments you’d really not think that things could’ve gotten much worse from there. I didn’t call my mother right away to offer any condolences, I had no idea how to deal with a betrayal of that magnitude, had no idea how to put my anger aside, myself aside to make it about her loss and I questioned whether I would call at all. I did end up calling, I called her on what would have been her mother’s birthday, it was still the day before here. I don’t remember a lot of the conversation but I know that at no time was any mention made of anything except my grandmother and current events. I don’t think I need to go into detail as to how fucking hard that was I wanted to explode on the inside.

Shortly after this phone call we received an email saying she wanted to come stay with us. We were both pretty floored she had the balls to ask considering no explanation, no apology has been issued for the offside attack launched on me, not to mention she doesn’t think that not telling me that my grandmother died was wrong she feels she did the right thing. And in this case I don’t really give a fuck about opinion entitlements, I don’t know how to forgive that, but somehow I found myself telling her she could come for five days.

Enter discussions with close friends who ask me very very good questions and challenge my decision, to the point that I even tell the Dr. I ain’t letting her come. But he talked me out of it. He suggested some great ideas and we discussed for about the millionth time laying down boundaries with her. The boundaries I try to set with my parents generally dissipate into the depths of I give the fuck up pretty quickly. But at that moment, I felt good, for real, I figured that I’d handled the phone call and left my dad and everything else out of it, so fuck it, I could do it, I could have her come visit, plan it all out before she got here, not even discuss my father, I even emailed her and offered an olive branch of another day saying she could leave on the morning of the sixth day, I told her the schedule with my psychiatrist so she could book the week around it, getting the full five days with me and was confident with the right boundaries we had a shot at a new beginning, for just the two of us. Or at least a start.

As I’m writing this I realize how ridiculous it sounds.

I’m 33, when the fuck will I ever learn.

To save a few bucks she decided to ask me if she could come for eight days; let us not forget, I used to be a travel agent so I know damn well that all international scheduled fares go down after a seven night stay, but she decided to show complete and absolute disrespect for this entire fucking try-a-thon, one I felt forced into anyway. But you know what? I didn’t freak out. But I did hold my ground and it was hard because she of course said she was sorry and that she was crying but piss off with your guilt trip seriously. The exchanges we had made it clear that if I didn’t do this now If I didn’t say no, NO this is our year, and I’M doing things for me right now and it isn’t a good time and it isn’t about you and NO I’m NOT saying that I’m never going to talk to you again but I can not do this right now.

I feel really fucking guilty and it was the initial anxiety trigger but it is fear, fear of finally putting my foot down, the pain of knowing that she hurts but that she has to live with the decisions she has made in her life and that I can’t do anything about them. My parents keep accusing me of not moving on when in reality I don’t think they realize how far I have moved. It hurts, but it isn’t forever. If I hadn’t set this boundary with her then there wouldn’t be any chance for change because I’d have only been enabling the same behavior I have for years.

I’ve been advised to cry more and feel the sadness, It is supposed to help me push through the anxiety and fear. I think that I had been concentrating on the same goals and personal improvements for so long that I forgot how scary it is to start new ones. But if i don’t move on, neither will the anxiety that keeps me down.

Deciding to work with a personal trainer is already working on my body but it is sending me into an emotional tailspin I did not see coming or I’m not sure I’d have done this. It’s making me cry, I don’t like to cry unless I have PMS or I’m joy crying over sports.

I’m realizing that I’m still terrified of any form of human connection. Any. I cant stop doing and saying ridiculously inappropriate things to keep people away. Have them want to keep me at arms length and not get to know me. I thought that I was past this and finding that I’m not is really pissing me off. It is one thing to have a problem with over-sharing in general, that I’ve been working on. This is different, this is fear of letting anyone new near me in any sense. I’ve finally gotten my ass out of the house and I’m finally doing something for me and then I come home and over analyze myself to death, and berate myself until I feel nauseous.

I wasn’t surprised when making the decision to return to running made me feel angry for injuring myself so badly and waiting so long to get serious about it. I figured that the competitive relationship I had with my dad might rear its ugly head but I’m more than prepared to push through that. I don’t know what it is, but I have to do something about this fear of people, if I don’t I’ll end up going through who knows how many personal trainers and gyms.

I know I deserve this and I wish I knew why the fuck I just can’t let myself have it, and be myself not some fabrication of myself made from fear. I wish I could just leave myself the fuck alone long enough to even give it an honest shot.

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.

It is pretty bizarre being in a place where I’m so depressed I’m suicidal sally but scared to post just how bad I feel in fear of someone phoning emergency medical services on me which wouldn’t be bad so much as it would be just a waste of time, Adam is here I have a psychiatrist but I’m running into my honesty for example on my outwardly violent PAST being used against me to a point that has made me for the positive re-evaluate a lot and I mean a lot of things and it has made it hard to post. It never ever used to be that way.

It is hard to be so depressed that you picture and see yourself dead every day I wonder how I get that low it seems almost impossible to me to feel so good one minute and just want to slit my wrists and have to hand the razors to Adam as I finally get in the shower with tears streaming down my face hating hating hating feeling feeling feeling too much pain.

I was thinking how, come August 2007 I will have been chronically pretty severely depressed for two full years, it blows my mind I haven’t felt good for more than approximately five days in a row since 2007.  And as usual I recognize I’ve got a good husband and I’ve got a good cat and I’ve got good friends it is my bloody rubbish head you see it just won’t let me be me at times that subsequently work for me. I lack balance and structure, I’ve had them both, I LOVE lists and have a day planner and then I let them slip away just like when I’m feeling good it’ll be two pm plus and I’ll remember you need drugs to keep feeling that good take em honey or it won’t last the rest of the day let alone five. (hopefully more this go)

I’m taking the good right now, I’ve managed to get back into Yoga but with it being tax season I won’t be officially back till Monday, I got all the tax shit done wanted to drink Drano when I saw what we owed after I’d worked my ass off giving the stupid damn government our money all year, we’ve been golfing as shown below and on my flickr, I’ve been speed walking and not experiencing ANY I/T band pain which is awesome I’m trying not to get too excited because I REALLY push myself when I walk and I walk long distances and if the I/T band pain stays away and I can run FAR at FAST paces again OMFG I will be the happiest girl on EARTH. I’ve also managed to pack on at LEAST 10 to 15 pounds – I am ecstatic, three different people have told me I look good and fit and I BELIEVE IT! My tits and ass are hanging out of my bras and panties and seeing as my clothes have been falling off for almost a year I’ll fucking take it. I think I’ll be fine with my bras mini cleavage on the mini rack is great but my butt not fitting in my underpants only works for Adam’s viewing pleasure.

In closing I made VLogBlog three yesterday on Earth Day, I am wearing triple green, sports top, v-neck t-shirt and snazzy Asian slippers from China town. I’ll give you the set up: I attempt a taste test with Gus, containing Whiskas Dentabites Complete Oral Care and Feline Greenies.  She is too old to be put under for a teeth cleaning and she hasn’t been as excited about the Feline Greenies which are the fancy ones. Hence I decided an experiment was in order.

And before I go I am very much in love with this old quote:

I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.
— Marilyn Monroe

I think that of everything that comes with my depression I find the agoraphobia and the social anxiety the most frustrating and the most expensive. It is worth mentioning that I had no problems with agoraphobia or any sort of social anxieties until I was unfortunately sexually assaulted in my own home in May 2002.  From a few days after the attack till this moment that I sit here writing this, anxiety and I co-exist together whether I like it or not.

I was going to Yoga regularly until I went away to Ontario [in October and November] and I haven’t been able to return since I got back. Not without trying mind you.  Shortly after I discovered that I could in fact leave the house at least once a week for something that I fell in love with pretty quickly I informed the instructor of my issues, I didn’t have to tell her about my poor posture that is pretty obvious but I did mention the broken collar bone and subsequent surgery from 1999 and how I blew my I/T band out in 2002 and went on to not only run and train on it but run my first half marathon on it. Stupid right, but so are father / daughter rivalries and had I not finished that race, not that I’m not a failure in his eyes already but at that time there was no way I was going to let him have the satisfaction of my not finishing. And thanks to arrogant ignorance on my part I may never run again.  I never told her the shit about my dad obviously but she started to work with me, made sure I was careful with my shoulders, would remind me when it would be something my core may not like, she was and is a GREAT instructor.  I wanted to go a lot more than I was going so I told her about my leaving the house issues and because she talked of Facebook in class I added her on Facebook.  My goal there was to make myself go.  Because I want to, I want to go every bloody day and there is no reason I shouldn’t but I can’t I can’t get out that door not since I got back.  Even when I try to fool proof my excuses they still win sometimes.  And I know I just have to get back over there one time and I’ll be fine, I’ll start going again.  I am thankful because my classes are already paid for and so she doesn’t have to be supportive but she is.  I write it in my planner every day under 10am. And that is progress because once it starts to go in the planner and I have to actually see that I’m pissing away exercise that I love when I can’t run, it’ll get me out. Let’s aim for Monday.

Tricking myself does sometimes work and Adam also has ways he can get me out but they work maybe 45% of the time, if that.  Normally if I get out, I’m ok, I’ll still act like a semi illiterate mumbling idiot until I feel comfortable around you and then all of a sudden my crazy ass vocabulary comes spilling out and it is like you are talking to a different person.  A very old friend, like sand box days, once told me he loved our conversations because of the words other than FUCK I chose to use in my sentences and to this day it is one of my very favourite compliments ever received.

I am as my very close friends and new friends find out very quickly notorious for canceling.  And trust me when I say I absolutely hate this about myself.  When I say yes to an invite of some kind, or ask someone to meet for coffee or a walk a movie, or buy tickets to something, in that moment and likely till within hours or a day of the time that I am supposed to meet you or a group or go to a concert, it starts.  The internal battle, knowing I will be fine but when I feel ill and am shaking and can’t eat and become over-come with a panic attack it stops me dead.  Most of the time if it is a coffee or walk date I can’t get myself out for it becomes excuse city, I want to get to a place where I can flat out just say “I would not have made this date if I did not intend on coming, I am letting my social anxiety get to me, you are important to me, this is not personal” the only problem with this is that other people’s lives do not run around mine and I don’t like fucking up other people’s days.

I wish I knew the secret formula that gets me out because this isn’t just a problem with friends, with friends it hurts because I stop getting invited to things period and some people who don’t get it or really don’t know me use it as an excuse to drop me, why not though? It is the easy way out.  But I have missed seeing my VERY FAVOURITE artist on EARTH because of this, last time Neko Case was here it was for a two day festival and I only made it to one day.  I could have brought my Neko concert total up to four times but I just could not get myself out the door on the second day.  Also, I bought tickets for Adam’s birthday to The White Stripes one year and I bailed at the VERY last minute.  Still a sore spot with Adam, and I don’t have a problem admitting that because I in no way expect people to accept my agoraphobic issues it is just super awesome when they do.