Hello there life, I thought you forgot about me

Made an appointment two weeks earlier than usual with my therapist to discuss PTSD-like symptoms I've been experiencing, and I get stuck in my driveway. After half an hour of digging, placing cardboard under the tires, pouring bird seed everywhere, and crying, there was nothing left to do but call in and say I can't make it.

Well, fuck you, life.

You throw me lemons, and I'll make mixed drinks.

So I present to you, Maddie's Shitty Day Lemonade!

1 bottle of Mike's Hard Lemonade

1 mini bottle of Sour Apple Schnapps

Take two sips from bottle, add bottle of schnapps, drink on couch while watching reruns of Ink Master.

And then Maddie's "Snow Is Still Pretty And Looks Cool When Viewed Through This Drink" Soda!

3/4 of a glass of seltzer

A splash of grenadine syrup (natural)

A splash of raspberry syrup (Polish, not artificial shit)

A generous splash of potato vodka

Mix in a clear glass and then stupidly view the winter wonderland through it while listening to your mother retelling your driveway adventure in overdramatic detail to a friend.

Bottoms up!

(I also will note that I don't advocate drinking as an alternative to mental health help. This is meant to be a hilarious yet somewhat tragic blog post about my unfortunate day. Other than some nightmares and problems with getting my work done, I'm alright. I just need a good nap. If YOU, however, are having a rough time with mental health, please seek a doctor.)

What Happened To Me?

Here's what happened in a nutshell... with PUPPIES.

Productivity Bonanza - Monday

Unpleasant mornings have begun to become ordinary.
I woke up yet again for breakfast, and had to sleep until 12pm because of a high pulse and chest pains.
I'm sure somebody reading this is thinking, "You're probably a fat lard-ass and you don't know why you're having heart problems?!? LOLOLOL"
...except that I'm 5'4", female, and 120 lbs, which is a perfect weight for someone my age/height/gender.
So yeah, I really have no damn clue what's going on.

Well, after waking up to Jon returning from class (he came back super early), I ate lunch and took a refreshing shower.
I wrote my blog entry, and then got to work.

When I organized my craft supplies, I found all these blue beads that I didn't even know I had.
Not sure where I even got them from.
I knew I had to do something with them, along with all the UV beads I purchased a couple years back but never actually did anything with.

Since my fish fiasco on Friday was a bust, I decided to do something with the rest of the pawprint cane slices I had made, once again, a couple years ago.
I started to string up some beads and designed a pretty snazzy bracelet, and then proceeded to repeat the whole process 4 more times until I ran out of the tiger's eye beads.

I'm pretty proud of the finished result, and I even glued the ties together for extra strength.

RECAP:

• Wrote blog post
• Made 5 bracelets with a possible value of $10 each

Not too shabby for a shortened day's work!

I just really wish I could feel better in the mornings though.

Productivity Bonanza - Friday

Yes, I'm late with this entry, but for good reason.
Something is really not right with me.

I've been waking up with Jon like I'm supposed to, but when I do wake up I have chest pains and my pulse skyrockets up to 90-110. It usually abates after a while, but for some reason it was really bad yesterday.
I slept almost 16 hours yesterday and had a persistent headache. Really unpleasant.

Anyway, enough with my continuing health issues. (Can't I ever get a break, though?)
TIME FOR PRODUCTIVITY!

So, on Friday I had a bit of a difficult morning. Once again, chest pains and a high pulse...
...so I decided to sleep until 10am again.
Well, things didn't want to work out that way. My high pulse lingered and kept me awake, so I gave in and decided to give myself until 12pm. Thankfully I did manage to fall asleep, and waking at 12pm did help me a bit.

I had a small lunch, washed up, wrote my blog post (Thursday's), and then got to work.
My mission was to make some things out of some scrap clay I found.

At first, I was pretty much set on using some salmon-colored clay (I mean the color of real salmon, an orange... not the so-called "salmon" color) to make some fish. While organizing my supplies, I found a ton of blue-colored beads, so I thought making some small fish charms would be great for creating some bracelets.
Well, turns out making fish is a boatload (hahaha) tougher than it seems.
When I tried pinching near the tail, I'd warp the whole fish. No matter what I did I could not get that darn fish shape. Finally I tried working on a larger scale and managed to make a fish that could only be a necklace charm, which of course was not what I had intended to do at all.
I stopped trying to make fish after that.

Frustrated, I decided to go much simpler, and make some oranges for post earrings.
Well, okay, maybe making the orange itself is easy, but those little leaves were a pain.
All I could think as I pinched off microscopic bits of green clay and formed tiny leaves was "I hope nobody quit their day-job for something like this."
Being a crafter is fun, but most of the times you're really not paid based on effort.

After making a random pair of peach earrings too, I switched to making my famous (not really) wacky birds. I only had enough time to make two of them before Jon showed up and we ran off to get pizza. (Mmm, pizza.)

So, let's look at what got done...

RECAP:

• Thursday's blog entry written
• Approx $47.50 worth of clay goods created (when finished, of course. I still need to bake, glaze, attach to earring posts or whatever, and actually put them up in my currently non-existent shop.) 

Maybe not as much as I wanted to get done, but it's still a lot more than I do on a regular basis.

All I know is that this stupid health issue needs to resolve itself, or I... well, I don't know what I'll do. I guess I'll go to the doctor. Again.

Goddamn it.

It's upside down and I'm too lazy to flip it.

Productivity Bonanza - Thursday

So, Thursday was my first day of following the game plan set out for me by my therapist.
(If you're confused, read the previous blog entry, it won't kill you.)

Thursday morning I woke up confused and half-asleep to Jon's phone alarm. I really didn't want to get up, so I told him to go take a shower first and wake me up when he's about to eat breakfast. He did exactly that, and I deliriously ate some Cheerios.
When it came time for him to leave, I said goodbye, and then realized how awful I felt. I was getting dizzy and it seemed like my heart was about to burst out of my chest. Thankfully my dad has one of those blood pressure checkers, so I tested myself.
I had a pulse of 93, and I didn't do anything so that was definitely abnormal. My blood pressure was also slightly elevated from normal.
I concluded that I had to go back to sleep, at least until 10:00am, so that's precisely what I did.
When I woke up I proceeded to shower, check my phone, and change into actual clothes rather than PJ's.

At approximately 11:45am, I officially started my day.
First thing I did was attempt to fix my glow-in-the-dark glass gauge that I stupidly wore into the shower a week back.
(It had fallen from my ear once it got wet, and one of the tips shattered. I managed to find a little shard of glass, and after being absolutely confused where the other bits were, I felt a sharp pain in between my toes. Yep, there was the piece I was missing.)
I took out my jewelry glue and started to work, but the first piece was slightly off-center.
Oops, too late, this shit is like super glue.
Oh well, it's back together but it's not perfect.

After I had finished the repair (if you can even call it that) I walked into my room, pondering what I should do next.
I thought about doing some clay work, but then I saw a lonely box on top of the piles of school crap littered around my room...
...THE SCRAPBOOK.
See, about two years ago (perhaps even more) Jon and I had purchased a scrapbook from Michael's Craft Store. We thought we'd start a scrapbook documenting our adventures during our relationship, and eventually be able to chuckle over it when we're old farts with false teeth.
That was all good and fun to think about, but once we bought it neither of us really got around to doing anything with it. It just kind of sat there until I randomly decided to make the cover drawing and first page, and it never really progressed any further.

I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to not only give Jon a nice surprise when he returned home from a long day interning at the police department, but also do something that I'll be thankful for years from now.
I grabbed my laptop, the box of supplies and photos, my set of markers, and a Snapple Iced Tea (diet lemon, of course) and plopped myself on the deck table under our umbrella.

4 hours later, and just as my glue-dot roller was running out of tape, Jon came back home. He was tired, but seemed genuinely surprised and glad to see the scrapbook finally coming together.
I only managed to get through about half of our freshman year together (we have a shitload of photos) but it's a start.

The rest of my day consisted of watching episodes of North America, eating dinner, and screwing around of World of Warcraft.

RECAP:

• Repaired my gauge (kind of)
• Completed 11 pages of the scrapbook (That's 44 photos glued, 44 captions written/decorated)

I'm pretty damn happy with that. Here's to a productive day today!

Productivity Bonanza - PROLOGUE

I try my best to stay strong and not let difficult situations get me down, but sometimes it's a lot harder than usual to cope with things.
This past month or so really got to me, though.
Between familial issues, friends leaving for other schools, my own school problems, and my own health taking a downturn, things have just absolutely sucked.

The thing that really did the trick was my anemia getting out of control once again.

If you've been reading this blog for at least 3 years (which I highly doubt, since my life isn't all that interesting) you'll know that in 2010 I had to leave the University of New Haven due to a bad case of anemia.
My hemoglobin levels were down, my iron levels were down, my red blood cell count was down, the sizes of my red blood cells were inconsistent... I was a mess. 
Worst of all, I had to leave college to recover, and lost my scholarship.
You can imagine how painful and upsetting that was for me. I didn't go back to school for a year, and instead moped around for 5 months until I finally got off of my butt and got a job.

Well, it happened all over again two weeks ago.
I started to nod off during class, had shortness of breath, heart palpitations, and dizziness. When it led to confusion that's when I got really scared... I quit my summer class, got a blood test, and sure enough my iron count was low again.
Once again, I fell into a period of feeling useless and upset. I started to stay up late, get up late, and generally do nothing.

This Monday was the final straw.
I stayed up until 5am, accidentally woke up Jon as I climbed into bed, and he couldn't fall back asleep. To make matters worse, he had to leave for class... On about 6 hours of sleep.
I felt so guilty for that, and told myself I had to start going to bed at a normal time... So I drugged myself to sleep with some ZzzQuil and somehow found myself sleeping for 13 hours.

Yesterday I had a psychiatric appointment.
I've had a psychiatrist for the past 7 years. Once again, if you've been reading this blog (which I doubt) you'll know that I've had major depressive disorder from approx. 2002-2008. I started getting psychiatric therapy in 2006, though of course I haven't had the same psychiatrist since. (I've had two.)
Even though I'm technically "better," you never really recover from depression 100%. You're still left with some emotional "scars," some painful memory triggers (which eventually just become annoyances rather than sources of pain), and of course, problems adjusting to being "normal" again.
One of my "scars" so to speak is a feeling of guilt when I don't live up to other people's, or even self-imposed expectations. That was a prevalent feeling when I was depressed, and I still react badly to it. (Of course, I just feel sad now, not an I-wish-I-would-die kind of feeling.)
I'm pretty sure it's guilt for having to quit my summer class, and that Jon is off doing something awesome every weekday that had me spiraling into a sort of mini-depression, so it was a relief to be able to blab to my psychiatrist about what had happened and what was going on.

The result of that appointment was a game-plan to help get me out of this spiral downward, and get back to being happy and proud of what I'm doing.
The plan is:

• go to sleep when Jon goes to sleep
• get up when Jon gets up
• when Jon is at class or at his internship, work on crafts or videos or anything useful
• NO NAPPING, no matter how tempting it may be
• make a blog post of my progress at the end of each day

Since I obviously am running out of time (Jon is already asleep, but he went to bed much earlier than usual) I'm going to make a blog post of the previous day's happenings each morning.

I hope that by following this "plan" I can stop feeling so useless. I know having this list given to me by my psychiatrist sounds kind of silly, and almost juvenile, but I've always held adults in high regard... So when an adult tells me to do something, I listen. 

I know I'm technically an adult myself now, but I guess I mean I respect my elders. 

And by elders I mean people older than me. 

Or something.

Here's to hoping this works in the long run.... I feel a lot better today, to be honest.

That's a start.

Productivity Week - Day 3

Okay, so Day 3 was yesterday.
Yesterday was pretty busy and stupid at the same time, but I did get a little bit done in terms of the list. I also made some strides on a more personal level.

I woke up at 11am, don't ask why. I don't have a clue either.
I had a 1:45pm appointment with my psychiatrist, so I had breakfast... err, lunch... brunch.... yeah, and got washed up and ready to leave.
My psychiatrist appointment went really well.
No, I'm not crazy.

I've been seeing a psychiatrist since I was 16, when I got tested for a multitude of learning disabilities and my IQ after complaining of having trouble at school.
I initially was diagnosed with pretty intense ADHD, inattentive type. I was referred to psychiatrist for both therapy and medication, but within a month I was sent to the hospital for a heart ultrasound. Needless to say, ADD meds did not get along with me, and did some crazy things to my heart rate. The chest pains were pretty bad too.
About a month or two later it was apparent that my problems were worse that imagined... I had severe major depressive disorder, the fancy name for depression. Therapy and psychiatrist visits became more frequent, I had to take and test a lot of medications, I had a brief stint in a psychiatric hospital, blah blah blah.
Eventually my psychiatrist retired, but he felt horrible for not being able to cure me. I was referred to a new and younger female psychiatrist, and she had an idea to try a medication that tackled two different neurotransmitters. During the summer of 2008, I was finally cured.
Of course, having lived a portion of your life with depression still has some lasting effects.
My life's timeline often confuses me because your mind simply deals with memory differently when you're depressed. You remember a lot of the horrible things, but can't remember any good things. You still have lingering emotions that emerge when reminded of the past. Most of all, it's hard to figure out who you truly are when you find yourself again.

I see my psychiatrist a lot less often now, only once every two weeks. She is more of a mentor now, and I look to her for advice regarding my troubles in life. She's the one who has really pushed me to find a job, and this week was no different.
This past month we have been working on two things: reducing my medication, and figuring out what is holding me back from moving forward.
I've dropped my medication from 250mg to 200mg, and am going to now reduce it slowly over the next two weeks to 150mg. There have been no adverse affects, so I'm delighted that I might be able to live without medicine. I've been taking the same medicine for 3 years, and I'm glad to see that something has changed in me.
We also had a long talk yesterday about why I am so hesitant to get a job and move forward in my life.
A lot of people think psychiatry is bullshit, but they really know how to bring out emotions that you subconsciously have buried in the back of your mind. They ask tough questions you've never thought to ask yourself.
Through talking I realized that the thing holding me back is an intense fear of failure.
After dealing with depression and problems in school and college, I really am scared of not being good enough. I'm scared of not living up to my parents' expectations, and embarrassed in front of my friends, family, and peers.
The worst part is that the more I fail, the more I start to believe I'm a failure. That makes me feel like my only option is to give up.
The thing is, I WANT to move forward in life. It's like two sides constantly warring...
If I put myself out there, get a job, go to work, there is a chance that I'll be happy and successful. There's still that fear of doing horribly and getting fired, though. I've failed in the past, haven't I? That's what my mind keeps saying...
So this week I have to really try and shut out those doubts. I need to try instead of saying that I will try, and putting it off because of fear.

I came back home at 3pm, feeling better having been able to uncover that fear. I vowed to face that fear... later in the day. At least it wasn't later in the week.

I hopped on World of Warcrack... err, Warcraft, to test out the latest patch release.
It was a lot of fun, and we were on the second to last boss in the new Zul'Aman dungeon when we all got disconnected.
When all my group members logged back on, to our horror we were no longer in a party together, meaning we would be kicked out of the dungeon.
A lot of swearing took place, and we all dejectedly said goodbye to each other knowing that we had done a huge portion of that dungeon all for nothing.
I managed to leave with a shiny new piece of wrist armor and a ring, but the other people weren't as lucky.
That was the end of my little gaming break.

At about 6:30pm I finally decided to keep to my word, and I checked Craigslist for local jobs.
I have to admit, I had a bit of a panic attack.
All of the jobs had an experience requirement, a degree requirement, or just were jobs that I wouldn't ever want to do, like line cook or telemarketer.
In my panic I realized that I didn't have a resume. Thankfully Jon sent me his, which I used for a template to make my own. (Thank you Jon! <3)
I managed to find two jobs to apply to: a local part-time nanny job, and Crumbs Bakery.
I submitted my resume, and am awaiting a reply. Yay!
So that's 4 jobs that I've applied to... Gamestop, Barnes & Noble, Crumbs, and a nanny.
Let's hope I hear back from someone soon...

So that's about all for Day 3.