Contrary to Evidence

This morning it occured to me that I need to go back into therapy. I wish I didn't. I have a pretty good idea of what's wrong with me -- low self-esteem, depression, addiction, social anxiety. I also have some ideas about what's right with me -- talent, intelligence, wit, generosity. But I don't know how to get the two categories to balance each other out.

I've been sitting at my computer most of the morning doing the usual things, taking pleasure in none of them and wondering why I'm doing them. I need to get into my files, three feet away from where I'm sitting, and find some stuff for my publicist and editor. I planned to put away all the clothes that happen to be out. None of this is difficult work but I can't do it.

My brother called to tell me that my last and favorite aunt is in the hospital being treated for lymphoma. I spoke to the cousin I'm closest to in that family and it was good in the moment -- we cried about our parents and laughed about our parents, recounted the many ways her father (my father's youngest brother) and my father were tied together. But when I hung up I was empty. Empty or full. Full of a feeling of what's-the-point. I walked Daisy, then walked myself to the ice cream and cookies at Gristides, took two klonopin and we shared a bingelet.

Today I'm on the verge of tears.

The deal with me is that whatever happens, I accuse myself. Objectively, of course, I didn't kill my mother but it's easier to mutter "I hate myself" than be sad. That has to be fixed. So far, I haven't been able to.

When I realized I should get a shrink, I wondered what sort. I trotted my fingers over to the Psychology Today website to look for therapists in my neighborhood. Much as I love Dr. Miller, it was a three-hour commitment to get to the Upper East Side and back again. It's time to shop local. The website has a nifty diagnostic test and this is what it told me:

• You appear to have experienced at least one major depressive episode.
• You show signs of Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
• You appear to suffer from panic disorder with agoraphobia.
• Your responses strongly indicate that you suffer from Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

I also came up as having lesser symptoms, kind of like having a minor subject area in college, linked to "Social Phobia," post-traumatic stress disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder.

Who, I wonder, decides which of all these states gets capitalized??

My body dysmorphic would have been off the scale if it asked questions besides those concerning anorectia/bulimia.

I found a therapist a few blocks away and emailed him. I think it's time to try a male shrink again. Now I'll have a cigarette, brush my teeth and get ready to call my father about my conversation with my cousin. That may call for a nap.

One of those Days...

It started yesterday. I wanted to give my morning dogs a work-out & I ended up being out for three hours with them. I barely had time to have snack (cottage cheese & a pear) before I was off to take care of Italian greyhounds. I crashed when I got there. I was suddenly so, so tired...& I had more dogs to walk.

It's my first week back with the full compliment. My foot barely twinged.

I decided to catch up on Facebook a little & took one of those "Everything About Me Quiz" quizzes. I'm fond of Facebook. I've found friends from grade school there & people I was scared of in high school who've turned out to be very cool. I know what my nieces, nephews & cousins are up to. I've made some friends.

But the quiz got me. I answered one of the first statements, "I am________." "Brilliant."

I believed it, too. But a half hour later I was kicking myself for not remembering the names of all the characters in the Palliser novels & nothing about biochemistry. I revised, in my head, that I'm brilliant at what I'm brilliant at. Sometimes I feel brilliant.

I should not have put that sentence out there where everyone can see it. I posted a bunch of new pictures kind of in the hopes of burying it. The statement haunts me.

When I get tired, I get cranky, & when I get cranky I either turn it on myself or on the world. I wasn't sure, as I dragged Daisy back from Henry's house last night, that the world would escape my anger. All I knew by then was that I hadn't gotten hungry for lunch until it was too late & that I was now starving. I also knew I didn't want to stand there & prepare anything. I ordered out. The meatloaf had gravy on it. I scraped it off as best I could & Daisy loved it. I took her for a quick pee-walk & went to bed with Conversations with Other Women in the DVD player.

I set myself up well for today -- tired, stressed, feeling a fake, no writing done, too big a dinner & a really depressing movie that made me think about things I'd rather not think about.

So I pour some milk into my coffee mug at ten minutes before seven this morning but it chugs out. F---. Gone sour. Coffee without milk. Uck.

I step on the scale. Up 1.8 pounds. My rice takes twice as long to cook than it should, thereby closing my option of getting to the store before breakfast & dogs. Then I cook the rice just long enough that I can scrape all the rice out but have to soak the pan. I now have a sink full of dishes to come home to.

The dogs were my reprieve, along with washing my hair & finally chopping a head of cabbage for my salad mix. I stood up from eating lunch & promptly tripped over my feet, nearly crushing the dog AND my knee & spraining the two smallest toes on my right foot.

Which is nearly mended from a fracture.

I'm starting to turn it on myself.

I'm afraid, I tell you, to go out in the world now. I have to walk Henry & go get essential groceries. Many things could happen. I could say any number of stupid things to myself. It's one of those days.

Another Disconnect

My whompus gave out at 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon. I still had to walk two dogs, go in & take care of two sets of other dogs, & walk mine. I was resentful of so much care taking of animals & no time for dinner yet. I needed kibble. I didn't really have dinner in the house. When I went off to visit the first set of Italian greyhounds, I had money & cell phone in my pocket & a menu as a bookmark in Potatoes Not Prozac.

It was after 6. That was more bites out of my energy. I decided it was too complicated to order food AND carry kibble home & besides, when would I eat? I still had another set of greyhounds to go, & my dogs to feed & walk.

If you're waiting for the cookies-&-ice cream binge story, you won't get one. I had breakfast for dinner, one helping each of oatmeal & yogurt, & fell into bed. Today is Saturday & simpler. My dogs & one set of greyhounds to take care of.

Still, I need groceries. Badly. I need to do laundry. Badly. I had intended to go to the bank this morning & get a couple of rolls of quarters. But after walking the dogs & eating breakfast, my whompus said we're not going anywhere. So I didn't. I stacked the dishes in the sink & crawled into bed with the girlies & kind of dozed for two hours. From there I could take care of the greyhoundse & take my own monsters out for an hour of fetch. I just finished lunch & did the dishes. Groceries still loom, & so does whatever laundry I have quarters for. But where's my whompus???

This is one of those Fatty/Normie Disconnects & I'm pondering which is the truth.

Fatty says, "You're fat & lazy. Just face it. If you weren't so fat, you'd have more energy. If you weren't so fat, you wouldn't wonder if this is a patch of depression or a lack of energy. If you weren't so fat, you wouldn't be depressed -- or if you weren't depressed, you wouldn't be fat. Because you're fat you can't figure out why you're so lethargic today so stop trying."

Normie says, "It was a rough ten days. You boarded at Roger's house for four nights & have had Hero & Daisy squeezing you in bed all of this week so your sleep has been disturbed. You finished a tough chapter on deadline but with nerves that had you shaking ten minutes after you woke up each morning. You had three days in which you had three extra dog walks as well as having to spend more time out with Daisy because Hero needed the time to do her business as well. Why in the name of Normality would you think you'd be anything BUT de-whomped today???"

We all spend a lot of time talking about what we eat, ate, wish we were eating, exercise, stress, deadlines...but this is one of those days when I honestly don't know if I earned this lethargy or whether I deserve it because I'm fat. My food has been good -- it's not a sugar hang-over. Most days it felt good to put in four or five hours of walking dogs. Then yesterday, at 4, the batteries stopped. I told Hero last night, as I was putting coffee together for the next morning & measuring out their kibble, that I had to be really really careful not to put the coffee filter on the floor & the kibble on the coffee maker.

It was that kind of tired.

Writing about it makes me think that Normie is the right voice. I remember being thin & having my batteries run out at some point on a Friday. & a two-hour dozelet made it possible to face what I couldn't before -- dogs, dishes, lunch, blogging.

Then my Self-help Normie wants to clamor in that I should "be gentle" with myself today. & I sort of am. I took that nap. But I think I must get groceries today if I want to both productive & "gentle" with myself tomorrow. There has to be some kind of do-it-anyway clause even on a Saturday.

+++

Two or three side notes. You may have noticed that I had my CELL PHONE with me last night. The last person in probably the whole world has gone cellular. I am ashamed that I caved.

I finally figured out the basics of my new camera (this was the week of reading badly written instruction booklets). It can do fabulous things & I feel like one of my best friends has come back from rehab or Boy Scout Camp. It really is a "toy," in the way that toys were when I was seven years old.

Last and not in the least, least, I'm flirting with an interesting man. We have made some conditions for a more serious relationship. He knows I want to lose weight but is OK about how I look now (well...with the book deadline hanging over me, I haven't had a decent brush-up -- washed, let alone colored, my hair in a week; the cold has peeled my hands and cuticles; my eyebrows are out of control; my toenails threaten to puncture socks -- the latter being what I meant by getting groceries today so I could "pamper" myself tomorrow -- I need to shave & generally do the "Merry Old Land of Oz" thing.) But just about each time we talk, he asks if I've been to the doctor or, now, if I'm worried about going to the doctor, & how my weight is.

G'rrrrrrr. This is the WORST question, isn't it? Especially because he's asking because he wants me to be comfortable with me & knows this is an impediment. It's not judgment. I'm not weighing myself & can only say my food is clean & I can walk up a couple flights of stairs with more ease than not long ago. This makes the question worse yet because I can't say, "I've lost 1.2 pounds."

I'm going to have to tell him that I'll talk to him about my food or my weight when I need to talk to him about it but that the question smacks of everyone who made me eat more when I was a kid.

G'rrrrr.