#god I really think I've cried more in these last 4 weeks than the entire rest of my life so far combined | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jodilin65 · 9 years ago

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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2015 I wish I could say that 2015 was ending on a good note, but instead, it is ending on a horrible note. I am filled with fear, doubt, and worry galore and have made another appointment with Dr. L.

My PCP is going to start me on Lexapro for my anxiety, which is persistent and intense nearly every day now. It is absolutely horrible. Had anyone told me that they could feel this way for no reason at all, I would have simply laughed. Any time I've ever felt emotional in the past it was for a specific reason and I understood what that reason was. That reason may have seemed very depressing and even a little scary, but it didn't seem nearly as terrifying and as hopeless as this does.

To add to my anxiety, Doc A warned me that this drug does have side effects and that not everybody responds to it well. It can make my anxiety worse, she said for the first couple of weeks, including suicidal thoughts, and may take up to 4 weeks before I notice any difference if I can get that far without having to stop the medication and contact her. The thought of becoming any more anxious than I already am is utterly batshit terrifying! I think I would definitely end up in the looney bin for damn sure.

The problem is I'm alone so damn much. I don't want Tom to throw away his job, though, and all he’s worked for (he just got an award of excellence), and ultimately risk us losing the house all because his wife has turned into a basket case.

My PCP said anxiety is a medical disorder and from what I read it has to do with transmitters in the brain going awry. I guess we all have chemicals in the brain and mine’s putting out too much adrenaline or whatever it is that makes us feel panic and fear. Something like that, anyway. What the hell “broke” my brain, I don’t know, but SSRI drugs are supposed to block some of that.

I am just so terrified of trying this new medication, yet I feel I have no choice. The lorazepam is only helping so much. I haven't slept through the night in ages without either waking up, with or without my heart racing. It’s been absolutely terrible. I'm so afraid that this is the new me and that I'm going to suffer from this for the rest of my life in which case, I don't think I can stand to do so. There are people who believe that if God leads you to it, then He’ll get you through it. Oh yeah? Well, God led that reporter to ISIS and He certainly didn't get him through it, did He? I'm smart enough to know that sometimes we really do get more than we can handle in life and

I worry that this is going to be one of them. I also worry about the trip. I was first starting to think we should maybe cut the cruise part of the trip out and just see my sister in FL, but now I worry I may not even survive to do that much, I feel so bad.

Last night, Tom got up from napping at 9pm (he managed to work today, though he is still very sick with what we now suspect was the flu and not a cold. I wondered as much just because of how draining it was on me). He was worried about me, knowing I’d be stressed. I cried on his shoulder for a while, and then emotionally I felt better (despite sleeping shitty) until around 6:00 this evening. An hour later I took my lorazepam. I couldn’t even get through my entire Bowflex routine with my heart racing. I then did Stacey’s breathing exercise, but if this is a medical issue and not something “eating” at me, then I don’t see how those will help much. I still do them anyway. She’s the expert and she told me to do them, so I “hit the floor on my tummy” for 10 minutes twice a day like a good girl. I’m not saying none of this is psychological. If it weren’t, then Tom’s presence wouldn’t calm me down.

Ugh, I wish Tom were awake now as I just want to run into his arms! I want to run to my big sis, too. wipes tears But sometimes I fear I won’t survive long enough. She left me a message today and said a friend suggested contacting the media about our 24-year reunion, which was kinda funny. But we’ve always known about each other. The media’s more into stories about lost siblings, etc. that were separated when they were adopted or something like that. We couldn’t just tell the media, “Well, our mother was a bitch who pitted family members against other family members, our dad was spineless, and we all stopped talking for many years until they croaked.”

Back to my pity party… I miss the old me so much! The one who hasn't been afraid to be alone since she was a kid.

Tom looked online at the various SSRI medications, including the Prozac, which I had suicidal thoughts on and had to stop, and compared the chemical makeup of these different drugs. Prozac seems to have a little of everything, but Lexapro seems to have only a little of one thing and he believes it's the most promising in the mildest. She's only starting me on 5 milligrams. That doesn't mean I'm any less terrified. I have always been prone to side effects.

Yet I have to do something. I am struggling with everything. Working out has become a struggle. Cleaning has become a struggle. Sleeping has become a struggle. Even writing has become a struggle. I'm sleeping much longer because my sleep is so disturbed. The only good in this is that I have lost a little weight since my appetite is down.

If there is a God, and I highly doubt it, please let next year be better! Please bring me back to myself! My energetic, confident, secure self who may be a worrywart at times, and who may get angry and stressed out, but who is never afraid to be alone. Or just afraid for no apparent reason. Please let me survive 2016!

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2015 I don’t have a more positive update to make this time, but I do have a more interesting and promising one.

First, though, my niece Sarah had a seizure while with her mother at the grocery store yesterday. How terrifying it must’ve been! She was at the checkout when she had to be taken away by ambulance. I don’t believe in prayer, but I believe in at least being thankful she wasn’t alone when it happened, and hopeful that her new medication helps her.

My anxiety was through the roof last night, though my heart was never racing. You know that saying about butterflies in your stomach? Well, that’s exactly what it felt like. I could feel waves of adrenaline push up from the pit of my stomach and up into my chest and even my face, causing my lips to tingle. It’s the same kind of fear you would suddenly feel if you were walking down the street and were suddenly faced with a big mean-looking dog.

I cried on Tom’s shoulder and while this helps make me feel better, I also felt guilty because he has the same cold I had and I’m sure he doesn’t need this right now as patient as he is.

I am now taking the lorazepam more as prescribed, which basically means every 12 hrs. Even if I don’t feel that anxious, I don’t want to wait and let myself get there.

I’m also still waking up overheated and with a racing heart which calms down after a few minutes. This one I’m not sure is connected to whatever’s causing my “artificial fear.” I wonder if this could be the perimenopause. I sleep with just a thin blanket, nothing but my panties, drop the temp to 68°, and I still wake up hot and with a racy heart.

My gut feeling has always been that whatever is going on with me is physiological as opposed to psychological, not that I’m not against exploring psychological possibilities and ways to help myself with Stacy. Yet my endo has told me my labs don’t indicate that I could have these symptoms, and my adrenaline test that was done through bloodwork shows that I do not overproduce adrenaline. Still, I find it awfully hard to believe this is all about “something eating at me.”

As I was lying in bed thinking (lorazepam makes you drowsy and so I have to lay down periodically for a few minutes) my mind suddenly flashed back 10 years ago when we were living in Oregon and really struggling big-time financially. I’m not normally the superstitious type. Yes, there are psychics who can sometimes know the unknown and have dream premonitions. It’s happened to me. It’s harder to believe the things you haven’t experienced firsthand, like ghosts, for example. I’ve never seen one personally so I wonder if it’s people’s imagination, though I admit I don’t know it all. Regardless… one night in 2005 Tom read about a spell online. It only takes a few minutes to perform it by using regular household items that aren't supposed to make your life perfect but are supposed to improve it and stop the extremes, as in the really bad things from happening.

When Tom asked me to help him perform the spell I just laughed and almost passed. But knowing that we had absolutely nothing to lose, I got up and assisted with the simple formula and performed the spell with him. It requires a small bowl of water in which you pour three drops of oil. Then you stick the eye of a small needle through the eye of a bigger needle and drop it into the bowl. While one of you sprinkles salt the other cuts at it with scissors as you both chant, “Eyes against eyes, return to sender.”

Just five months after performing the spell Tom got a huge promotion which was considered great money for being in the tiny cheap town of Klamath Falls, Oregon. Many other good things started happening as well. I was entering sweeps and winning like crazy.

Wondering if it might not hurt to try to reapply the spell, we performed it again last night. Although I didn’t sleep well, I felt calmer for the rest of the night.

When I got up, I almost dreaded checking my comments on Prosebox. See, part of the reason I keep the negative entries private is that I don’t want to depress or worry anybody, and I also don’t want confusing, conflicting, or unwanted advice that I’m already aware of.

However, a long-time reader and friend suggested I may have an adrenal imbalance. My first thought was… but they just tested for that via bloodwork and said I don’t overproduce. Next?

But then I went on to read her talk about how while she acknowledges that she’s not a doctor, a blood test for cortisol levels doesn’t accurately diagnose adrenal insufficiency. The only way to map out my cortisol is with a saliva test, and she gave me a link to a home testing kit on Amazon.

Not that I don’t appreciate all the advice my readers have given me, but I can’t deny that this one sounds the most promising of all. If the labs come up with anything, they will send it back to me and I can take it to my endo. She said not to bother with our insurance because I would end up paying more that way. Fortunately, it’s legal in my state. It’s only illegal in New York and Maryland. She said adrenal imbalances are common with those with hypothyroidism and are overlooked by Western medicine. I guess there are supplements you can take if you have this problem.

Well, I’m willing to try anything. ANYTHING to stop this horrible anxiety. Even when my heart isn’t racing I feel the same kind of fear one would feel if they were suddenly faced with something that scares them like heights or giant spiders. It’s awful. I just want to get back to myself so bad. I want my sleep back. I want my life back.

So Tom and I read up on it and decided it was worth the $140 to find out. If this isn’t the case, maybe I can ask my PCP to do other types of hormonal testing on me. If I’m entering perimenopause, that right there might be a factor. If all else fails, I guess I either take less levothyroxine and more anxiety meds. sighs with frustration I just want to figure it out, whatever it is… like yesterday.

Met with a different instructor, Ruthann, and group of aerobics buddies down at the clubhouse just after 4:30. Damn, was the walk down there cold! There were 8 of us, including the instructor. This time we didn’t follow the instructor herself, but we followed a video. The video was fun and fairly easy. It would have been perfect for Tom had he not been in bed with a cold.

One woman had really nice long hair like I had years ago. I recognized her from the pool last summer. Her name is Debbie. Her hair didn’t cover her ass like mine did, but it covered her back. She said she’s cutting part of it off. I remember how easy it was after a while to get sick of. The weight of it, the care of it, and the way it would get in the way of things.

Anyway, I had to cut class midway. The same thing happened when I started to get really warm and anxious feeling. I was actually grateful for the coldness during the walk back. Ruthann said they do this Monday through Wednesday.

I felt the same anxiety press up from my gut and into my chest and had to take a lorazepam an hour earlier than planned.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2015 I wish I could say all is well, and that’s exactly what it would be if it weren’t for this anxiety, which has been horrible lately. I never would’ve thought one could feel so bad when their life was so good. My life isn’t any more perfect than the next person’s, and yes, it gets noisy here during the daytime, blah, blah, blah… but I have a beautiful home in a beautiful neighborhood, and I’m in relatively good health with a husband who loves me unconditionally.

Yet here I sit, day after day, trying to figure out where all this anxiety is coming from. My endo said that since thyroid levels don’t change daily yet I’m not anxious every day, she doesn’t think it’s solely the medication, and Tom agrees with her. My gut’s initial reaction was to believe otherwise since I never had problems with this insane degree of anxiety till levothyroxine entered my life… BUT… then why did I go all those months without incident? Plus, according to my 2014 journal, I quit the levothyroxine on Aug. 23rd after they put me on 75s for the first time, and wasn’t restarted on 25s till Nov. 27th. Yet well into November, long after the stuff would have left my system, I was anxious here and there.

Tom also wonders if something could suddenly be eating at my subconscious that Stacey can help me figure out, though I can’t imagine what. He said it could be something that happened to me 48 years ago for all we know. Oh, great. So with 50 years’ worth of experience, how do you figure that one out? Wouldn’t that be like trying to find a needle in a haystack if that’s the case?

I don’t know what to think anymore. Why would something from my past, if that were the case, suddenly decide to eat at my subconscious and make me anxious and afraid to be alone? Tom says that with my history I’m a therapist’s goldmine to try to decipher and figure out.

I keep going back and forth between the meds being the current cause, and what happened with the meds traumatizing me into carrying on the anxiety myself. But then why did I catch a few months of peace if I’m now anxious about how it once made me anxious? And if my labs never showed numbers that could produce such symptoms, as Doc O said, then why am I having them? Yes, I’ve been calm for months at a time on this dose, but I’ve had problems on this dose, too. If the meds and anxiety truly are unrelated, then the timing was a helluva coincidence, almost seemingly designed that way to confuse me even more.

If it is the meds, then I would probably once again become tolerant to it over time like I did before just as long as we don’t go making any more changes. Nothing against Doc O, but trying me on 88s was a horrible idea in the end. It’s like it threw everything off. I’d just found the perfect balance and now everything’s been turned upside down, inside out.

If it isn’t the meds, then we could be looking at any number of things. I mean there would be a million possibilities in that case.

My symptoms vary. Sometimes I’ll feel anxious and my heart will race, and other times I’ll just feel anxious or my heart will just race. The emotional part of it is annoying and frustrating as hell, but when my heart gets in on the action, it becomes terrifying. No matter how much you tell yourself you won’t die and that it can’t kill you, you still want to run to someone in fear.

Finally fed up, I messaged Doc A to ask what she could recommend for a daily regimen and how it may affect me (positively and negatively). I hate how tired the lorazepam leaves me, but it’s better than being anxious.

I have never had a problem this complex and this scary before. I only hope to hell it gets resolved before I either end up in a loony bin or Tom has to quit his job to be with me more often. This park may not always be peaceful and our house may be 33 years old, but we do like the park and we love the house and would like to stay here till we leave the state altogether. His having to quit his job, as much as I love knowing that he would and that I’m more important to him, could leave us with even more problems in the end than we started with. I’m losing my mind. That’s enough. We both don’t need to lose our home, too. Money can’t buy health and happiness or fix all our problems, but it sure can help keep us more comfortable while we’re trying to get better. If he quit his job, I don’t know that I could keep the same doctors. I’d hate to have to start all over again with a new team, so quitting is a very last resort.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2015 This entry will be so depressing I might keep it private, especially since my thoughts are getting darker. My anxiety is coming and going, and just like Stacey said, the lorazepam doesn't always help. I can't sleep, I'm anxious as hell, and my appetite is down. Can't complain about the last one, but I would rather feel good and have to worry about not overeating.

I'm so fed up and frustrated with this shit that I am about ready to tell my PCP to go ahead and start a daily regimen and just hope there are no dangerous effects from it. I would rather be tired all the time than feel anxious.

I messaged Doc O to ask her if she's absolutely sure there's no way that the 75s could now become a problem. I know I did well on this dose for 5 or 6 months throughout the summer, but maybe I wasn't pocket-flaring then and maybe I am now. That's what I want to find out. I need her to tell me if that’s possible or not so that I can either rule out the medication as a possibility or do something about the medication. I skipped it today.

I'm really wondering how the hell I'm going to handle the cruise. If my heart keeps racing me awake every couple of hours I'm not going to have the energy to go on fun excursions. May have to cut the cruise part of the trip out and just see Tammy for a few days. If I'm sitting on her couch yawning, so what? But if I'm parasailing or snorkeling or shopping or whatever, I would like to be awake for that.

Two nights in a row now I have had my heart race me awake and I know damn well it’ll do it again tonight. I was anxious all last night and finally, I had to take lorazepam, which caused me to crash a couple of hours earlier than I wanted to, but the anxiety was just too much for me. I'm trying to do Stacy's breathing exercises but they're just not helping. I’m trying to keep busy but sometimes I just want to lay in bed and cry or at least just feel sorry for myself as I continue to worry about how long this will go on, what’s causing it, and what can fix it.

I woke up anxious today at 10:00 and then it came and went in waves and dissipated around 1:00. Just like last night, though, it reared back up shortly after my very sick husband went to bed. I still have traces of the cold in my head and a slight cough, but it’s 95% gone. He only did 8 hours today that’s how miserable he feels. Unlike me, he even has a bit of a fever. At least he’ll get better. I may never get better. That’s a tough pill to swallow to think I may have to live with this anxiety on and off for the rest of my life. I won’t let myself suffer like that. I swear I won’t. If the doctors can’t help me and death is the only way out, then I may seriously consider it. Nothing I have ever gone through in my life was this tough. Nothing. And I’ve had my share of rough moments.

Why is this happening??? How can this suddenly be “normal” for me if Tom’s so sure it’s not the pills??? How can this simply be me being anxious over what the 88s did??? I just don’t get this new and horrible me. Wish Doc O would hurry up and get back to me, but I probably won’t hear from her for a day or two.

I just want to scream and cry in frustration at times. I miss my old self so, SO much!!! Remember how I said my perfect vision would be the one thing I would take back if I could? I was wrong. I want my calmness back. I want to go back to being able to sleep at night or whenever I happen to sleep. And I also want to go back to not being afraid to be alone. Even when I'm not alone I still experience waves of anxiety that I feel both physically and emotionally and it just sucks. I totally miss the me that had no clue what this was like. That only knew what it was like to have stress and worries, but not downright waves of fear and panic. I would soooo rather be dirt poor, stuffed back in Jesse’s little shitbox away from civilization and totally in the dark as to what it means to feel this way. I try transporting myself back there, but nothing I do seems to help.

Just like Jesse’s mutts stole my ability to truly enjoy what country living is supposed to be all about, this anxiety is preventing me from enjoying my life here to the fullest. I miss the days when my biggest problems were other people’s noise, earaches, and little things like that.

My crazy schedule has only gotten crazier. Like I said, even when it wasn’t predictable, it still was. Now it’s gotten much harder to gauge when I’ll be getting up because the constant wake-up calls are throwing everything off, causing me to have to sleep longer.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2015 Still getting over my cold and still have a lot to write about. Unfortunately, Tom did get hit with it after all. Aw, just when we thought he’d escape it, too. :( He started feeling “off” last night and is lying down now. This is something I definitely have mixed emotions about. I love the idea of him spending more time at home if he needs to call out of work, but hate to see him suffer. It really gets you on the third or fourth day.

I hope Stacey didn’t get it either. Speaking of her… I can now quickly go over what we discussed. She didn’t remember me when I called her the day before our meeting, but once she pulled up my file and saw me, she remembered me from last May. So much for swearing I’d only see her once, as I jokingly said to her. You would think by now I’d have learned that A, one should never say never. And B, never assume something’s over for good.

Like anxiety attacks. Yeah, that shit I still deal with on and off. Haven’t had any major attacks since last Tuesday, but my heart did race me awake following a gruesome nightmare (I’ll get to that later) and I took a lorazepam to help me get back to sleep for the first time since Wednesday or Thursday night.

I know some have wondered if it could be my thyroid medication, but the doctors, Stacey, Tom and I are sure it’s not because I went months on 75s without incident and then there’s what the numbers say. On 88s I was on the low end of normal. On 75s I’m on the high end of normal. Also, when you’re having trouble due to levothyroxine the symptoms are both relentless and brutal. I had a lot of other symptoms when I was “T4 storming” that I’m not having now like lung tightness and other things. Plus, if it were the medication, it wouldn’t give me a few days off here and there. You just don’t get breaks when that’s the case. It’s also unlikely to be the thyroid itself because the thyroid is being treated.

We believe this is anxiety caused by the anxiety that the meds originally were indeed responsible for on the higher dose. It was the most terrifying experience of my life that was truly torturous and traumatizing. It wasn’t something that was just “annoying” or “uncomfortable.” It was utterly horrifying and unmanageable. That’s why my dose was lowered. But the memories and the PTSD are still there, so when I’m alone or when I feel the slightest feeling I find strange, the anxiety has a chance to rear up.

I am hopeful that my “trauma training” with Stacey will help keep me from needing a daily anti-anxiety regimen. She and Tom both feel it won’t come to that and I hope they’re right. Sometimes I just don’t have the kind of confidence in myself that others have. I’m human. I have good and bad days both physically and emotionally like anyone else, and sometimes life gives me a little bit more than I can bear. It’s frustrating and even depressing too, because my life would be so ideal if it weren’t for this awful on-and-off, highly unpredictable anxiety. Even though there are times I know it’s more likely to bite, it’s still unpredictable. It can get you anytime, anyplace, no matter what good or bad may be going on at the moment. That’s the scary part. The asthma attacks I suffered regularly when I smoked were much more straightforward and obvious. Even living in poverty was a no-brainer as stressful as it was, but this is much more complex. There is no simple cause and cure.

Backing up a bit… traffic into Rocklin wasn’t bad at all when we went to see her. On the elevator, a young, tall slim (doctor or nurse?) with a blond ponytail made friendly chatter with us about the weather. She sort of reminded me of Alyssa.

The waiting room was dead and we didn’t have to wait long at all. The first time I saw Stacey I was impressed with how much more knowledgeable she seemed than Dana, and I was even more so the second time around. Another new “trick” I learned from her was the importance of breathing through my diaphragm versus my chest. This is relatively simple for one who’s had singing lessons. Even Tom gets this much being a trombonist in the Air Force once upon a time. She wants me to lie on the floor for ten minutes twice a day to help reinforce this type of breathing (because it’s impossible to breathe into your chest this way) which is to help prevent hyperventilation and use up the adrenaline quicker. Light activity can help with that too, but the hardest part, as she pointed out, is resisting the urge to basically hunker down. You want to hide under your covers, but you also want to run for help, too. Fighting the body’s fight-or-flight response is the ultimate challenge. No matter how much your logic knows you’re not in danger, you totally react as if you’re definitely doomed to die.

She did say a couple of things that weren’t exactly fun to hear. She pointed out that one could go ten years without an attack just to be hit with one after all that time. Once you get an unfortunate taste of these things, you’re never guaranteed to be forever free of them. All you can do is hope to lessen them and cope with them better. I could live another 30 or 40 years, so to think of being under the threat of these things that long is a bit disappointing. On the bright side, they say that just like all good things come to an end, so do the bad things. So hopefully, just like other problems I’ve had in life were resolved some way or another, this one will be too. She gave me a site to go to that has a self-help course.

The only other unnerving question she asked was if I trust my doctors to be thorough and not overlook any possible heart issues. They better be! But yeah, I think I trust them. With all the different doctors who have listened to my heart and who know my family medical history, someone would’ve caught something by now if something were amiss.

Daily medication is still an option but due to how drowsy and habit-forming that can be, I’d still prefer to give Stacey a little more time to help me help myself and just use the lorazepam as needed. If I’m still having problems after the trip, then I’ll consider a daily plan. God, I hope I don’t have problems then! But I’d be more worried about my sleep than actually having an anxiety attack while I was awake.

I removed the flannel sheets from the bed and put the regular ones back on, since the flannels keep you warmer and I overheat enough as it is with the damn memory foam topper, even with a so-called cooling mattress pad. I think part of my heart racing me awake has to do with overheating and not just anxiety. Maybe even the perimenopause. Again, that’s what makes this so tough is that it’s a very complex thing. There’s usually not just one cause/cure.

As he was pulling out to go to the store yesterday one did start to get me, but fortunately, I stopped it within seconds. Same thing… I started to feel really warm and a bit shaky, I ripped off my robe, and then I took slow deep breaths with my tummy. I just wondered if I’d have been able to stop it that fast had my mind known he wouldn’t be back in less than an hour and would be gone all day. So yeah, I’m a bit worried about him returning to work tomorrow as well as how I’ll sleep tonight. Hopefully, I’ll sleep in a bit so I won’t be aware of being alone for as many hours.

I still shake my head in disbelief at times. I can’t believe I’m dealing with this shit. I never had this before last year. I have always loved spending time alone. I focus and work better on things that way. But now I’d rather have someone around even if they were the type that can’t shut up and was always distracting me.

Anyway, I still have more to write about, but this entry’s kinda long, so I’ll sign off by saying that traffic on the way back was a nightmare! Really, why do people have to creep just because there are more than just a few cars on the road?

Later…

With the trip being about a month away, we were looking online at different excursion options. We’re taking a loan out from the 401K and allotting ourselves 6K. We’re thinking we’ll do mostly ocean activities in Cozumel and Roatán. Then when we return to Mexico we’ll mostly shop in the town of Majahual, which Tom can’t pronounce to save his life, haha.

I’m sure we’ll snorkel like we did in Maui and Lanai, but they have this really cool “personal” submarine where you wear what looks like a space helmet and you ride around underwater on what looks like a little motorcycle of sorts. The water only comes up to your chest. That’s $75. For $100 you can go parasailing, but I’m not sure I fancy the idea of being 600’ above water. We just might go for it, though. It’s not every day that we get the chance to visit the Caribbean Sea of Central America. Honduras is Central America, anyway. I glanced at the surrounding countries on Google Maps. Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Belize are some of the neighboring countries.

For $500 you can rent your own private boat for 4 hours and enjoy catamaran sailing, snorkeling, etc. So there are lots of possibilities.

The new kettle I got from Prime Now works great. Love how the drivers are GPS’d so you can see exactly where they are in real time.

Next door had more company than I’ve ever known them to have, but they were quiet. All I heard was people getting in and out of their cars. If this were Phoenix with the freeloaders next to us we’d also have hours and hours of screaming kids, basketball games, barking dogs, blasting music, shouting adults and trash and traffic galore all within 15’ or less of our windows.

Now for last night’s brutal dream. This wasn’t the usual nightmare I have that deals with captivity, poverty and even medical drama in light of my own recent ordeal. Instead, I was in a swimming pool on what appeared to be a college campus. There was a good-sized grassy hill in front of the building and the pool was by the front corner of this area. I was the only one in the pool for some reason. It went from day to night in seconds and I decided to get out of the water now that I could no longer see the few bees that were floating about its surface. Clusters of students were still scattered about the hillside.

Then a bright light suddenly came on that rotated in circles. This was on the opposite front corner. I knew right away something bad happened, but it took a moment or two before I spotted some people lifting a vehicle off a young black girl. She was bleeding horribly and I realized the poor thing might not make it.

This was the first time I awoke overheated and with my heart pounding. I had to take a lorazepam to relax enough to fall back asleep.

From there on out it was just snippets of senseless stuff… Tom and I in a tiny pizza parlor… Tom annoying the blond chick behind the counter by mashing a marshmallow into the head of a nail… me going outside to get something from the wrong car… me nearly running into a black girl who joked about something I didn’t hear… and then him asking me to be sure I could find our lottery ticket if we won on the 5th.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2015 To say I’m getting behind in my writing is a bit of an understatement, but now that I’m starting to get over this cold, I can start catching up. I just may not get to cover all I want to cover this time around.

Got a wonderful surprise in the mail from my Midwestern buddy today! Japanese Cherry Blossom body spray, purple glitter nail polish, and a sparkly little makeup bag that will be great for the trip. Everything was packed and wrapped beautifully, and the card she enclosed was adorable as well. Anyone who knows me knows I love smelly things and can never get enough glitter, shine, sparkle and bright colors.

I’m still way too exhausted to write about my visit with Stacey, but I’m able to stay up longer and longer. For a while there all I did was sleep. My ears still haven’t drained completely, so I can still feel the cold in my head. Still coughing a bit, but not much. Not much sneezing either. I just hope Stacey didn’t catch this and I really hope Tom won’t be hit with it next either! The first few days seem like no big deal, then it just sucks the juice right outa you. And talk about going from warm to cold, which I do enough of the time anyway! Never did have a fever, though.

Hopefully, the quality of my sleep will start improving. Even though I don’t have a schedule, for the most part, I also do have one at the same time. But when the cold was at its worst my sleep was horribly erratic. At least most of the time I have some idea of when I’ll be sleeping/awake. It’s waking up and not being able to fall back asleep that gets old. Not being able to stay asleep is one thing, but when I can’t go back to sleep versus waking up for just a second or two, it really messes me up.

Amazon Prime Now is way cool. In less than two hours I got some popcorn, some blueberries, and a new kettle to replace the one that broke.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2015 My “mild” cold turned into the cold from hell and I’ve been sleeping pretty much since Wednesday night. It has totally sucked the energy right out of me. I guess that due to not having a cold in so many years, my body just forgot how to deal with them. All I want to do is sleep. I just cannot wake up. And when I am up, it isn’t for long. My head is completely stopped up. I yawned shortly before going to see Stacey a couple of days ago (I don’t yet have the energy to write about that) and my ears popped for a moment but they’ve been stuck like glue ever since.

My mind and body are at odds with one another. My mind says, “Get up! Do more blogging. Run on the treadmill. Do some coloring. Hit the Bowflex. Do some laundry. Watch a movie. Enter some sweeps.”

But my body says, “Screw you. Just lay around and be lazy.”

I get free samples every now and then and one of the things I got recently are these lavender-scented breathing strips you stick across the bridge of your nose. Never had scented ones before. I jokingly said to Tom, “They almost make me wish I had a stuffy nose.”

Be careful what you wish for!

If my body didn’t have the threshold it has where it won’t let its weight drop under a certain weight, I’d have probably lost close to 10 pounds by now. I’ve only been able to have a few bites of food here and there. Tom has been wonderful. He cooked for me and helped me out a lot. This is the first time, however, that I got sick and he didn’t. Usually, it’s the other way around.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2015 I want my old self back, but I realized like never before that she’s just not returning. No matter what I do, my old self is gone forever. I have an appointment to meet with Stacy today. She's the counselor that I liked better than Dana. Saw her last May and she didn’t remember me when we spoke on the phone yesterday. That’s ok. I only saw her once and I know she sees many people. She’ll probably remember me when she sees me if she hasn’t already by pulling up my file.

I also notified my PCP about the anxiety and she said that she hoped that seeing Stacey would help and if not they could put me on regular maintenance anxiety medication if need be. I think I just might need that for a while. I'm just hesitant after what happened with the Prozac.

Anyway, yesterday was terrifying and horrible. My heart raced even a little bit with the lorazepam. My anxiety was through the roof that I had to have Tom come home early which brought mixed emotions. I was grateful to have him here because that helped calm me down, but then I felt guilty and worried about jeopardizing his job. He said he's not worried about layoffs, though this would pretty much guarantee to scrap any future promotions and raises. Yeah, that's something God would do… Use my health to screw his job. Funny too, because the older I get the more atheist I become. Yet at the same time, I truly feel - unless I'm just paranoid as fuck - that something up there is hell-bent on torturing me with my health. It can't do it with money right now, so it's using my health. I swear it wants me to go through one long-term problem after another. If it isn't the freeloaders, it's money, and if it wasn't my health, what would it be then?

Words cannot express just how frustrating this is! Sometimes I wonder if I can survive till the vacation or if I'll even wanna go on living afterward. The biggest question is what the hell is causing the anxiety??? These are the same symptoms I had when I had high thyroid, yet logically speaking there's no way the numbers could say that’s the case. Is it possible that it might never have been connected to the medication and that it was just a helluva coincidence that it started after starting the meds? And all despite other complaints out there saying the same thing? Might I have gotten this even if I had never been diagnosed with Hashimoto's? I just don't know what to think anymore. Or did it start with the medication and then become a psychological thing caused by my worrying? And why does it come and go? Why did I have warning signs when I was on the 88s, then why did it suddenly sneak up on me when I was in a perfectly calm mood on 75? I just don't get it.

From what I read, one doesn't usually develop anxiety disorders this late in life unless they're connected to something medical. So is it just my thyroid itself? I asked Tom; if it was my thyroid, then why didn't these beatdowns happen before I was diagnosed and medicated? He said because my body got used to the low thyroid. Yeah well, I wonder if I might have to let it get used to that again and stop the meds altogether. That's not a decision I've made yet. I just hate to invite the unmasked symptoms back, but they're a lot easier to tolerate than feeling like you're having a heart attack and terrified out of your mind.

Anyway, today I really feel my cold. My throat isn't as sore but my voice is very hoarse, I’m run down, and my head feels congested even though I don’t have a runny nose. Just some sneezing and coughing. It's been mild overall. I wouldn't have had to call out sick had I worked outside of home.

I've decided that I'm sick of sitting around at home even though I keep myself busy here. I'm going to go down to the clubhouse in a little over an hour and watch the step aerobics. My PCP said yoga, daily walks and meditation help, but I do exercise nearly every single day. Maybe in different ways, but it's not like I'm not physical.

When I was in Valleyhead and jail and constantly forced to interact with nothing but people, people, people, and almost never alone for more than a few hours, I longed to lock myself alone in a room for days. All I wanted was to be alone. I looked so forward to it because I felt so smothered by the hundreds of people I dealt with. Even just by my husband when he was on unemployment month after month, year after year. I just wanted some space. Now I'm just the opposite. Being alone terrifies me and that's not right. I shouldn't have to feel this way. I should look just as forward to being alone as I do spending time with my husband. I'm tired of this thing running and ruining my life, and if there is anything up there doing this to me, I totally hate its fucking guts. I'm going from scared to mad, not that I'm not still plenty scared. It's terrifying when the adrenaline suddenly pours through you like a waterfall and your heart starts pumping faster and faster, harder and harder.

Later…

I’ve been meaning to bitch about this days ago, but while I adore my friend Alison and she has continued to be a great support, but also drives me crazy at times with her clinginess, her demands, and her reading things in that aren't there. I can't even say the simplest, most innocent of statements without knowing if she's going to misconstrue my words.

The other day I asked her if she has come to like living with her parents or if she would still like a place of her own. For that I get, “That kind of hurts that you would say that as you know it takes time to save for an apartment and I've only been nannying for four months.”

Now why in the world would she think I would intentionally say something hurtful or offensive? I was simply asking what she preferred regardless of what money she had saved.

She said her iron levels were dangerously low the other day and wonders if that's what made her suicidal. Either way, just like I would say about Andy, I sometimes wish she would have less free time or get a boyfriend. She almost had one but from what she said, Leon dumped her for the same reasons that drive me crazy. She was too demanding.

Later…

Aerobics was fun. I'm trying to find a better "people/solitude balance." I don’t want to be smothered by nothing but people, people, people, but I’d like to mingle a bit more given that I work at home and Tom doesn’t. It’s about time we took advantage of more amenities here other than just the pool and spa anyway. It’s nice to enjoy what many people have to pay for.

With me being younger than most folks here, I thought they'd pretty much ignore me, but they were very friendly. In fact, they welcomed me with open arms. Literally. LOL, they like to start their little get-togethers off with a hug, so I got a few hugs from the half a dozen or so ladies that were there. I just wish I didn’t have such shitty vision with or without glasses.

Anyway, the only two names I remember are Nancy and Claire. All were older and all-gray. Nancy was the only one close to me in age and without the gray. They meet Tuesday – Friday and do a variety of exercises both in the mornings and the afternoons. The instructor, in her 80s and a wonderful inspiration, said they used to have 35 people per class but it’s dwindled over time.

Probably because of how easy it’s gotten to work out at home. Even though we have the Bowflex and the treadmill, variety is still nice. It’s nice to run in the fresh outdoor air at times when it’s not too cold, hot or raining, and it’s still fun to work out with others as well.

So we worked out with the instructor leading the way to the tune of some oldies. The oldies weren’t so bad. It was the Christmas music that was lame. It was still fun and I worked up enough of a sweat to be glad I wasn’t wearing long sleeves. We worked out for about 35 minutes, though we had a 5-minute water break in between. Next time I’ll know to bring a bottle of water. In the meantime, one of the ladies showed me the way to the kitchen sink where they had a filtered water faucet.

Claire was fascinated by the seahorse on my shirt before she had to leave for a doctor’s appointment. LOL

For part two, Nancy ventured off to the exercise bike and treadmill in front. A couple of guys played pool in a room off the back of the main room.

The second time around we used resistance bands. She said I could bring my own if I wanted to, but I don’t have one like what they use. She said don’t worry about bringing my own weights because they have so many from 3 pounds and up.

But do I have to bring my own resistance bands? I don’t think I do. It seems she passed those out to everyone. I used the strongest one, which she said she figured I’d want being “so young.”

Only one woman was obese. The rest had mostly slim legs while being a little top-heavy. Overall, we were a pretty fit bunch. Claire was weak and frail, though, and had to sit in a chair for the most part till she left.

The Angels coloring book I won came and it’s just so-so.

In dreams, all I remember is something about contemplating auditioning for a job singing but not having enough confidence in myself, a dog barking out an open window as I was talking to someone, some woman moving and then us moving.

Then I was living in my grandparents’ house when I realized I hadn't checked the mail in days. When I went out front I found there were tons and tons of mail. Some of it seemed like it could be stuff I’d won entering sweeps. I also found it odd that nearly 40 years later the same neighbors were still around.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2015 I might not get to post this today because I feel so awful. Bob’s hammering and sawing don’t help either. I loved how yesterday’s wind and rain kept it so unusually quiet, but now it’s back to being noisy and it’s only 9am. Just thought I would get a draft started and say that I am really seriously contemplating quitting my thyroid meds altogether. Never before has any medication ever given me such problems and I’ve had it with this shit. Every time I think I'm over the anxiety and the booming heart, it returns to haunt me. And the thing is I was feeling so calm and relaxed last time around, which kind of makes it scarier. I only had a few seconds of warning this time around.

I have a cold, which consists of a sore throat and that run-down feeling. This is my first cold in about 4 years. I obviously got it from somebody when we were out over the weekend. There I was missing the good old days where colds, toothaches, earaches and things like that were my worst problem but I never had to fear being left alone.

Then I get this cold and think, wow, maybe I’ve gotten what I wished for… the good old days back. Yeah, right! I felt wonderfully calm after sleeping ok and didn't think I needed to take a lorazepam after he left for work. After I worked out on the Bowflex and did some online work, including my Dutch lesson, I felt cold and tired and decided to relax in bed. You know how colds make you feel. You have no energy. Well, anyway, that familiar and horrible feeling of being too warm suddenly came on along with the fuzzyish feeling in my head just a few seconds before my heart took off at breakneck speed. Not just racing but booming hard.

I jumped up and took a lorazepam and called Tom. We've been Skyping each other like crazy trying to keep me calm. I am so frustrated and so depressed right now. I feel like I'll never escape this thing and that I’ll live in fear for the rest of my life. We had changed our minds about contacting the doctor this week, figuring there was nothing they could really do, but I'm definitely going to contact Doc A next Monday. This is no way to live. If I have to take lorazepam every single day, so be it. I’m sick of the torture and I’m totally beginning to believe I’ll never escape this shit no matter what I do. I’m fair game to it any time any place.

It's almost like the 75s are now too much for me. I'm not suffering nearly as much as when I was on the 88s, but this shouldn't be happening! Why is this happening? I wonder how much of it is the meds vs. me being anxious, though I didn’t feel the least bit anxious till it hit. Can one really develop an anxiety disorder this late in life? It just seems an odd coincidence that as soon as I start the thyroid meds, the trouble begins. Well, not that day, but within a few months. I just don't understand why this keeps happening. I just feel so singled out, picked on and totally hated from above. Totally.

Gonna just go ahead and upload this without editing or proofreading. Sorry for any errors. Meanwhile, the calm has been replaced with depression. I’m trying to keep busy, but with a cold and a scare like I had, it’s not easy. I just want to sleep and not wake up till it’s time to go on vacation.

I’ll write about my dreams later… if I even remember them based on the notes I jotted down when I got up.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2015 Saturday I was relatively anxiety-free, but on Sunday I was a mix of calm and anxious. The anxiety was about being left alone today, but right now I feel fine. I slept better, too. I didn’t overheat and my heart didn’t race. While I woke up feeling refreshed, alert and calm, I’m just not ready to face the world alone without my lorazepam just yet. I took one before bed and will take one when he leaves. If I can make it through the week without incident, then I’ll be off the lorazepam by the end of the week. I just hope this time it’s for more than a few days or even a few weeks! Each time I have a problem that basically hits the ‘reset’ button in the progress I’ve made toward gaining my serenity, security and confidence.

In better news on this rainy, windy morning… the trip is getting real! We’re starting to finalize our plans. Tammy said it’s about what WE want and so we should think of ourselves first. Yeah, but we still want to do what’s convenient for her and the girls too, if we can help it. She’s having surgery on January 25th. Two weeks is a bit long, but there’s an appealing Princess cruise leaving Ft. Lauderdale on January 30th that makes two stops in Mexico and one in Honduras. It returns to Florida on February 5th. We would spend until the 8th or 9th with Tammy, hoping that since a weekend falls in there my nieces will have a better chance of being able to swing by and meet us. We’ll be flying first class, and instead of having a layover at the Atlanta hub like we did in 2007 when we went to the Bahamas, PR, and (almost) to the Grand Turks, it looks like we may layover in Dallas. Don’t know for sure yet. Our stateroom will be one of the luxury suites. Not top of the line, but close enough with a private balcony and all that.

Cosco, who we’ll be doing the trip through, rates Princess and Royal Caribbean the same as Holland-America, the line we went on the first time around, being slightly above them. We looked at their cruises but they go where we’ve already gone. It would’ve been nice to at least be on a ship we knew our way around, though. We were on the Westerdam. It wasn’t a very attractive ship but it also wasn’t as overwhelming as I thought it’d be since most floors are staterooms and you only spend time on about 3 of the ship's 10 or so decks.

The Mexican lady that Tom works with says Mexico’s too dangerous. Yeah, but we’re only going to a couple of touristy towns, and there are some dangerous places right here in the US anyway. It’s not like we’re going to the Middle East or Africa or crazy countries like that. This will be my first trip to Central America if we do decide to take this trip. It’s a bit long (twice as long as our Maui vacation), so we’ll think about it for a few days till the passport arrives, and decide if we want to do it or a shorter cruise to just Mexico. There’s also a Jamaica/Haiti option.

We’ve allotted 2K for the airline and 2K for the cruise. We’ve decided that even years will be vacation years and odds will be major purchases. So a brand new side-loading washer/dryer set is on for 2017.

Today’s cardio day since yesterday was strength training day on the Bowflex. Sometimes I still think, hey, this isn’t fair! Most people who do what I’m doing lose weight. They don’t maintain it. But most of them are also younger, so it’s all good and better than gaining.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2015 Ugh, Kalamata Greek olives suck! Instant rat food. Really grateful to have those furry garbage disposals around. Food is never wasted when you have them. ;)

I’m baking chicken wings in a bag with McCormick’s chicken seasoning. It’ll be interesting to see if it’s as good as the version they have for pork. Tom picked it out and I tried some seasoned pork chops with him, and wow! They were sooo good! I’ll never skillet-fry or Shake-n-Bake pork again. This is also a little healthier, cuz remember, I’m trying to lower my cholesterol and sodium intake.

Just ate the chicken, which cooked for an hour as I read an email saying that royalty payments from Germany were on the way. It was very tender and tasty. :)

I slept long and horribly. I kept waking up. Then one time I woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep for a while. I didn’t have to take a lorazepam, though. Not sure if my heart was racing or not. It might’ve been a little bit. Gonna see if removing the body pillow helps the quality of my sleep or not. God knows it’d surely look better without it on the bed. Two pillows and the rainbow teddy bear I just HAD to splurge on at Walmart is enough. The bear isn’t just for looks, though, but to lie against the too-bright digital clock at night. It’s easier to pull it aside to check the time during the many times I wake up than a bulky pillow is.

Anxiety was borderline when I got up, like threatening to bubble up below the surface, but now I feel fine. Eating seems to help, though if I get too anxious that actually snuffs out my appetite. I just know I never had this kind of anxiety before the thyroid pills entered the picture, but I also don’t know that the medication is solely to blame. Some of it could be my thyroid or just me worrying. I’m already worrying about being left alone tomorrow, but this week, depending on what happens, I will contact Doc A.

Tom accidentally stumbled upon an article on anxiety that says the best thing to do is to embrace it, tell yourself it’s ok, you’re not going to die, you’re not having a heart attack, and simply “ride the waves.” Meaning that the body reacts the same when you’re about to go down a steep rollercoaster as it does when a panic attack sets in. The heart begins to race, the adrenaline begins to flow, and we react to these physical actions by becoming fearful as harmless as they are. As I told Tom, though, it’s hard to resist the fear as it would be if a psycho with a gun approached me.

“But the psycho with a gun can kill you. Anxiety can’t,” he said.

However true this may be, and no matter how much you tell yourself it’s harmless, it’s still very hard not to feel terrified and afraid to be alone. Like I said, I’ve never had this before levothyroxine that I would quit the stuff altogether if it wasn’t for the unwanted hypothyroidism symptoms I’d go back to having, and the serious complications I may very well be looking at in 10-15 years.

I guess I just gotta learn to “ride the waves” better. And stop “what-iffing,” and overanalyzing things like asking myself, is my heart beating faster? Does it feel like it’s going to start racing? What if I’m alone and I run into trouble? Etc.

Now for some happier news… Tom’s passport is on the way and this weekend we’re going to throw a few possible dates for Tammy to make sure she’ll be available at those times. She has a lot of medical drama going on, but since she isn’t working right now I’m guessing she’ll be pretty flexible. It’s just a question of how many days we’ll be with her, how many days we’ll be cruising, where we’ll be cruising to, and if we’ll even be cruising at all. There are many possibilities. Tears of excitement sting my eyes just thinking about seeing everybody for the first time in 24 years!

There’s what I want and there’s what would be easiest on me. It’d be easiest to spend just a couple of days with Tammy and do a 4-day cruise to Mexico or even just a weekend cruise to the Bahamas. But since part of the fun is adding new countries to my list, I want to spend 3-4 days with Tammy (which will also give the girls a chance to meet us at Tammy’s) and do the week-long cruise that goes to Mexico, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.

My biggest worry is my sleep curse. That concerns me more than any potential medical drama. I’m less likely to have anxiety when I’m not alone and when I’m busy and doing fun things.

“You survived 6 months of jail,” Tom pointed out.

True, but I was younger and healthier. Still, jail wasn’t fun or worth being tired for. Vacation is.

I have more to write about but will do it later on. I want to hit the Bowflex now!

Later…

Ah, my first workout felt great. It was more of a refresher course than anything the first time around. It all came back as I went about the routines. Our last one didn't have a tower and Tom would've laughed if he saw me cuz I hooked up to it incorrectly at first. Now if only the intermittent anxiety could back off…

I've trained on and off in various ways for years, so the names of the muscles and exercises are familiar, and since the body has memory, it can spring back to life quickly enough, not that I've let it "forget." A 50-year-old doesn't have boobies this lifted unless she's been doing something or another (push-ups and planks). Ass isn't northerly, but it's not southerly either, so that's good. Call it a Midwestern ass. I'm not 34 anymore so I expect to always look like shit to a degree, but it's fun being a Bowflex Babe just the same!

I was at some party in last night’s dream where some chick started to come onto me. Then she backed off and someone else gave me a huge container of popcorn. I took the container and decided what movie to watch while I ate it.

Then, I don’t know if I observed this through a movie or what, but I watched as a bunch of cops tried to get this guy to shoot some other guy so that it’d look like self-defense or something like that, but I knew in my mind that they were just trying to manipulate and incriminate the guy. Just when I thought the guy might fall for the trap, he caught on and a high-speed chase ensued both on foot and in vehicles.

I was in Nebraska in another dream and met with Aly. She took me to her house and her parents were both tall and slim with ponytails that covered their backs. I suddenly realized that her house was really one of the houses we had back in Massachusetts and asked her father if he bought it in 1987. He confirmed my suspicion with a nod, and I couldn’t wait to be led down into the basement where I used to spend a lot of time hanging out. But the stairs leading down there now seemed so narrow that I wondered if I’d be able to squeeze down them. But I did manage to get down the stairs and then we watched TV.

Aly eventually went to take a shower. I heard water running and glanced upward at these wooden beams that ran across the ceiling. Thick nails appeared every few feet or so and water trickled from each of them. I wondered if I should go upstairs and tell someone.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2015 Heard from Lana again. Apparently, Facebook is fun for her and I got a little too “serious” with my questions. I can understand how she’d feel that way, but one wouldn’t blame me after the hassles I’ve had with some people. Stranger requests always make me suspicious. Especially when they won’t tell me what friends we supposedly have in common after I fail to find any on our lists. No biggie, though. However, I am pretty sure now that she’s not connected to Andy. Besides, I wouldn’t expect him to have friends in Nevada anyway.

We had fun flying Tom’s new drone around our huge living room, but it’s not easy to fly! It’s very tiny and easily fits in the palm of my hand. I kept bouncing it off the cathedral ceilings. The rats were peering out of their cage with their usual curiosity, and I tried to fly it over to them, but couldn’t quite get it there. Rats love to chase things, and of course, had I not been cursed with asthma, Simone would be here to enjoy it, too.

Because I had to return a dress that was too big on me, we had $20 credit which I’m surprising Tom with a cool gadget that combines my love of color and his love of electronics. He said he’ll begin guessing when he’s not too busy (I told him about it at work via Skype). It’s a multicolor wave light that shines upon the ceiling and makes the room look like it’s under water. You can also hook an iPod to it and play music from it.

So glad I discovered pin4ever being the pinaholic I am on Pinterest, as now I can back up my boards/pins to my drive, then store them on the Cloud. Yay!

Our Bowflex has arrived and I’m looking way forward to getting stronger even though I don’t expect to ever lose weight and probably only a few inches all around if even that. I’m still older, I still come from a genetically heavy family, and I still have Hashimoto's. We Hashi’s do a great job losing and gaining the same 5 pounds over and over. The last time I lost 30 pounds I was about 43 and I couldn’t even keep it off a year. I’m okay with keeping the weight, though, because then I won’t have to get new clothes too soon or have my wedding ring too loose. My body definitely reached its middle-age comfort zone years ago and I’m content to leave it at that and not set any unrealistic goals for myself. But nothing can stop me from building more muscle! :)

The only bad news is that I felt a little anxious yesterday morning and took a lorazepam. I’ve found that if I take it early in my day it won’t knock me out. Then my heart raced me awake 4 hours after crashing. I’m skipping today’s dose and will be contacting my PCP to let her know I’m not quite as over the effects of the higher dosage, though I am still better. I just hope Tom’s right and that I’ll eventually get back to normal for good. I’d hate to think that this time around I may have to live with this forever.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2015 When I got a friend request a couple of days ago from a Lana L, I immediately noticed a resemblance to Alyssa, plus the location made me think of her as well. She’s from Lake Tahoe and I’m pretty sure that’s where Alyssa's parents live.

I then jumped on Alyssa's wall and found the “add friend” button no longer visible, and started to wonder if she’s been on my friend list all along and I somehow never noticed. Facebook is glitchy like that at times. Normally you’re notified when a friend accepts your request, but notifications sometimes fail. The ones that notify us of comments and likes weren’t working the other day. So glitches are nothing new there.

But then I found it strange that Lana wouldn’t answer my message asking how she found me. I asked her again on her wall and she said she just liked my cute rat profile picture and that we had it few mutual friends.

My first thought was… We do? I looked at her friend list but didn’t see any mutual friends and began to suspect that Andy may have put her up to friending me, probably to see if I was talking about him on my wall, or maybe even to steal some pictures in which to make his silly little Photoshop alterations with.

The truth is that unless I feel someone may stalk, pester or harm anyone, I don’t discuss those I have a falling out with on my wall. After I go directly to the source I will probably blog about it because that’s what journals are for.

But Lana, while continuing to remain oddly evasive, did acknowledge knowing the doctor, saying she had low thyroid too, Alyssa was a great lady, and she was glad I found her.

I then stated that she was no longer my doctor and asked if she was her doctor or if they were just friends. This question went unanswered as well.

I noticed Lana had a friend with Alyssa's last name and I added her. After she accepted I asked her how she knew Alyssa, but the only Alyssa C she knows is her four-year-old niece.

So then I checked Lana’s friend list and found that Alyssa wasn’t on it. Then I checked my last message to Alyssa and at the very top of it, it said that we weren’t connected on Facebook. Maybe she really did get the few friend requests I tried to send and she disabled friend requests or something. But did she ever get and read my messages?

No one in their area appeared to have visited my blog either unless they’re doing it secretly.

I sent another message to Lana which was not only ignored, but I found that she had unfriended me when I got up. Very strange and suspicious. I’m back to thinking Andy probably put her up to friending me. I tried to see if I could find his name on her friend list, but since he’s got me blocked, his name probably wouldn’t show up. Whatever he had her looking for… I’m not changing my mind. If I dump you a second time around (and especially a third) it’s forever. And no, it wasn’t for any one reason, including the fact that he’s a registered pervert, but for many reasons. I just don’t like the guy as a whole. I don’t hate him. I don’t think he’s a bad person. I don’t wish him any harm. I just don’t want anything to do with him.

If I’m wrong about him being behind it, then it could’ve very well been a scammer trying to pose as a sweepstakes site. For example, 4 people claiming to be from Women’s Freebies, one of whom tried to tell me I won a million dollars, a brand-new Dodge Ram, and a “lop top,” tried to friend me. First of all, Women’s Freebies doesn’t award prizes of such high value, and that’s not the way they go about notifying winners. Smaller prizes will usually email you, and larger prizes will usually send you a certified letter and call you. I was a professional sweeper for years. I’m not stupid and I know how it works. I found others who reported being contacted by the same scammers anyway.

Lana doesn’t seem like the typical spammer or scammer, though. She’s a real person with a real account. But she had to have friended me for some reason. I asked Rhonda if she knows Andy and told her why I’m suspicious of her friend. It’s no biggie, but I am curious.

Lastly, I posted a public note letting people know that if I don’t recognize their names or we haven’t talked before somewhere, I’m not adding them.

In one dream Tom and I were in the car getting ready to take off somewhere. Some crazy guy was making strange faces and hand signals in the rear window. Fortunately, we were able to pull away without hitting him.

Then I was running with what might’ve been my mother and Jesse over these grassy hills. Exhausted from our trek, we all collapsed next to each other to catch our breath.

In the last dream, Tom and I were trying to get an apartment back we once had that I just loved, LOL, even though I hate apartments in reality. There was even more traffic in front of it, but it wasn’t as close to the windows as it is to our house in real life.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2015 I started a little “drama log” seeing that I have now had three incidents in one week. First I have a major panic attack on the 9th that leaves me trembling uncontrollably afterward, and that was the most terrifying of all. Then on the 12th, I have an elevated pulse followed by the runs, and yesterday my heart raced me awake. Am I ever going to be able to live without being in fear of my own damn heart?

Tom thinks that within 2 to 4 weeks after I fully get acclimated again to 75s, the racy heart will back off and that 2016 will be virtually free of this shit. I wish I could believe him! I just hope he’s right! At times I totally feel like something up there is getting a genuine kick out of tormenting me with my health. I actually miss the days of worrying about money. All the little problems I had seemed like nothing, and the bigger problems didn’t seem so big in comparison to living in constant fear of what my own body may do. It is a truly torturous way to live, always wondering when the next attack is going to hit. I’m guessing my next one will be Sunday or Monday since I seem to be getting them every 3 to 4 days.

In the 90s I used to be afraid to go to bed for fear of having an asthma attack. A few years ago I was afraid to go to bed because of all the nasty dream premonitions I was having. Now I’m afraid to go to bed because of my heart, which also torments me while I’m wide awake. I’m either suffering or I’m worrying that I’m going to. I just want it all to end! I can’t afford to deal with this shit while we’re on vacation. Having to deal with my sleep issues is overwhelming enough. Like I said before, being tired is one thing, feeling like shit is another. In fact, my heart started racing again after Tom left and I had to take a lorazepam. sighs I’ll never get better. Never.

I always feel really warm when I wake up with one of these things and even when they occur when I’m awake. Tom thinks that because I was having a medication-related dream, it triggered the attack. Something about rinsing out a pill bottle that I was drinking from.

But if this were suddenly to end now, wouldn’t something new just come to replace it eventually?

Later…

Before I get into an even bigger mystery than the cracked mirror in the Indian diary (in my next entry), my energy levels have been good so far today as well as yesterday. Two days ago, however, I felt so blah. I didn’t even have the energy to work out that day.

After Tom left yesterday morning I felt a little anxious, my heart started to race, and I took a lorazepam which knocked me out several hours sooner than I’d have liked. Oh, so we’re going to play these anxiety games every day now? Really, I am so, so fucking sick of dealing with this shit. Once again I feel like I’ll never get back to being my usual self. Sometimes I even think of stopping my thyroid meds altogether as I’ve never needed anti-anxiety meds before starting the stuff. But I don’t want to gain a million pounds, always be dizzy, lose my hair and memory, feel freezing cold even in the summer, and a million other symptoms.

But it’s no wonder those with depression want to slap those who tell them to just smile and be happy. If only it were a choice and that simple! It rules us. We don’t rule it. Like it or not, I could say “fuck you” to anxiety and declare that I’m never again going to allow myself to feel anxious and that I’m in charge of my own mind and body, but that’s not the way life works. There’s only so much we can do, and I’m afraid we don’t have as much control as we’d often like to think we have.

I’ve also been getting headaches more than usual, right above my eyebrows or just above my right temple. Since the vast majority of the anxiety has backed off, I have been having coffee, though only one cup a day.

Oh, to be back in the days when I didn’t have a clue as to what this kind of anxiety was like and I was never afraid of my own heart. I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d rather be dirt poor all over again than go through this shit. Being poor was an easier kind of hard. I hope Tom’s right in that it’s just about my body needing another couple of weeks or so to readjust to the 75s. I’m still a million times better than on the 88s. The only time it really got scary was last week. But still… enough is enough already!

Meanwhile, I slept better. I started to overheat and almost had a racy heart, but after I got up to pee and then returned to bed, I was fine.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2015 Ok, this is too fucking spooky. I just went into the bathroom to pee, glanced at the counter, and saw that the little round mirror on the front cover of the diary I was recently given from India was cracked. A single slightly wavy line now runs across it. But I never dropped it or bumped it against anything! Nothing heavy fell on it either. I’ve learned that if you look hard enough you’ll find that there’s a logical explanation for things, which doesn’t involve any magical gods, fairies, angels or devils, but I can’t find one in this case. It’s almost spooky. Isn’t a broken mirror supposed to represent the start of a seven-year curse? The only thing I can think of is that it might have weakened over time from handling and pressure and it finally cracked.

The only thing in my life that includes angels is the adult coloring book I won in an Amazon instant win. Like I said, these days you have a better chance with instant wins than you do with random draws. Funny too, because I was just thinking how I have enough coloring books to last a long time and won’t need to shop for anymore for quite a while.

Andy picked a fine time to drive me away with his arrogant, know-it-all attitude because Ask completely changed the look and function of their site. It’s absolutely horrible and I know he would be pissed. Both of my accounts are now deactivated.

I don’t miss him at all or checking in and sharing pictures like we did for years. It was fun while it lasted, but there are so many other sites to share/view pictures on. I certainly don’t wish him any harm, but I don’t miss his repetitious and obsessive ways. Or his immaturity, selfishness, and airheaded ways. It’s no wonder he has remained single all these years. Until he can grow up, get over his trust issues, and stop being so judgmental and assuming too much, he will likely grow old and die alone, but hey, it’s his life. It’s not up to us to change people. All we can do is decide who we wish to have remain in our lives, and who it’s time to move on from. I always try to exercise my best judgment when it comes to these things. If I’m going to cut ties with somebody it’s going to be for a damn good reason. I’m not going to walk away because you fart too much or because you might think tarantulas look cool. I just got tired of the little insults and annoyances that added up over time, and when one is offended one too many times, it’s time to move on no matter how much they may be missing the point. As they say, we can explain something to someone, but we can’t make them get it.

Got a friend request on Facebook from a beautiful woman named Lana who bears a remarkable resemblance to Alyssa. This one has nicer eyes, though, and appears to be married and living in Nevada. The account looks legit and all that, but I’m still curious as to how she found me. I sent her a message and will decide later on whether or not to add her.

A while back Alison noticed a “Khayos” as one of the NaNoWriMo writers on their account on Twitter and brought it to my attention. At the time I doubted it was her because there was no mention of her obsession with rescuing feral cats. Just for the hell of it, I tweeted to her: Khayos from Kiwibox?

After not thinking I was going to hear from her, she replied with: Yes! OMG, a kiwi?

So Aly was right, and I followed her. We’ll see if I hear anything else from her. Her real name is Amber. She’s the one I kind of used to have fun bickering with on the old KB site, however childish it may have been. She was one of those who was attractive at the same time she wasn’t. She was in her early 20s at the time so now I’m guessing she’s in her late 20s.

Last night I had a very depressing dream about Kevin, a.k.a. Nervous. I gave him that nickname because when he felt challenged or you dared to disagree with him he would literally become nervous and shake all over. He was the guy that was obsessed with me back in Massachusetts in my 20s. He was a lot older than me. He died in the mid-90s of a heart attack at age 53.

I admit that in real life I did and said some mean things to the poor guy. Apparently, I reminded him of his ex-wife. Anyway, I admit I took advantage of his fondness for me and used the guy for rides, favors and money. Andy used to joke and say he sometimes wished he had his own personal slave like that. I didn’t have as much compassion or as much conscience back then, unfortunately. I would never bother with the guy these days, especially since the attraction wasn’t mutual. He was tall, mostly slender, and very ordinary-looking.

He was about 46 when we met. The landlords were bombing the building and ordered everybody out for a few hours. I had two guinea pigs and no car. He was getting into his little maroon Chevy Citation when I bravely opened the passenger side of his car, piggies in a cardboard box, and asked if he wanted company. This was in late 1986 or early 1987. Our “friendship” took off from there.

He was argumentative and arrogant, but damn was he loyal. If I asked him to jump off a bridge he probably would have. Like most of us in our youth, I could rarely go anywhere without getting hit on, so if anything the dork kept most of the guys at bay for me. Other than Tom, and very few other male exceptions, I still prefer women.

In the dream, however, I was living with him. I’m not sure if I was forced to or if I felt obligated to live with him because of how I treated him in the past. Of course I would never trade my husband for anyone no matter what history we may have and no matter what they looked like. But it seemed I did just that in the dream and was determined to get over Tom and deal with my depression and sadness over missing him. It was almost like I was punishing myself.

The dream started with Nervous and I discussing what we liked and didn’t like in bed, even though it was understood that just like in real life, our relationship would be strictly platonic. I told him that as long as he wasn’t verbally or emotionally abusive, I would stay.

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” he said as far as putting tasty treats down there before – uhem – actually going down there.

“To each their own,” I told him, “but that wasn’t my thing.”

Then I was walking across a grassy area toward where he stood because he said earlier that he needed my help with something. Several other people were around and I suddenly became aware of the tight red dress I was wearing. I wondered if people found me sexy-looking or just fat.

He spotted a snake nearby and hit it with a shovel. When I approached him I asked if he still needed my help and he said no.

I turned and walked away and realized it was noon, Tom was due to visit one time to see where I would be living and say our goodbyes. Again, very, very sad dream.

I also remembered in the dream that my sister and others were coming to see me and I felt tears well up in my eyes consisting of a mix of sadness as well as excitement.

The second dream I had didn’t last as long. My parents were still alive and I had just returned to an apartment after visiting them. I lived alone and didn’t seem to know Tom. Panic gripped me when I realized I didn’t have my keys or my smartphone, and I raced back outside the building where several people were present. I asked if anybody had a cell phone I could use. People began to ignore me at first, but finally, a kind tall, slim black lady pulled a cell phone from her bag and held it up to me. That’s all I remember of that one.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2015 In one of my dreams last night Tom and I got into bed. He said something about being tired but still able to go a long way and then he asked if I was ready. I knew he was asking to have sex. I said I was, but then without thinking about it I rose from the bed and sat at a nearby table separating these orange rocks or beads by size. Then I felt bad for suddenly getting out of bed.

Nane was in one of my dreams and it was strange because I was seeing the dream through this other girl’s eyes. Nane and I were supposedly an item in person and I watched this girl approach her as she sat by a lake where she and I had just been swimming. The girl said she had something really important to tell her about me. Nane looked wary for a second and then the girl told her that she believed I was psychic. Nane sort of laughed at that point and said, “Oh, I thought you were going to tell me she was seeing someone else.”

In another dream, I was living in a huge house with a huge family, and I was also on probation and taking classes all day. My routine was to check in with my probation officer on the way to school each day. However, I couldn’t fall asleep one night. I sat in my room and when I saw it was 3 o’clock in the morning I started to get a little worried about how I would get enough sleep to function for the day. By 5 o’clock I’d pretty much given up. I fell into bed exhausted, trying to think of the best excuse for why I skipped checking in as well as school, figuring “I was up all night” wouldn’t cut it, getting old or not.

Later…

I’m still dealing with burning and itching right around where I pee and wondering just how correct Alyssa was with her enlarged hair follicle diagnosis. Should I be THIS itchy? I just wonder if I could have infected piss. I used the cream she gave me, then later a Vagisil wipe, then I rinsed off in the tub and I’m still itching. Usually one of these things helps it. Perhaps I need to use the cream twice a day for the full two weeks instead of just once a day here and there.

It will be interesting to see if my white blood cell count comes back too high when they do blood work on me in May. If this is still irritating me when I see A in June, and I’m sure it will be, I’ll bring it up. Anything is better than killer anxiety, though. Still, why must I always suffer in some way or another? Why can’t I get a break for a while? I’m now beginning to worry more about what problems I may have on vacation than how hard my sleep issues may be on me.

A coworker from India returned from a visit home and brought back gifts and gave Tom a gorgeous pen and little diary, as she called it. India’s really big on glitter, and colorful, shiny things, which I just love. I will use it to jot notes of whatever dreams I remember when I get up. Then we’ll eventually move someday and I’ll leave it here for the newcomers to try to figure out what the hell it means. ;)

The damn drain is now clogged after I fed it the remainder of my cod. What’s the point of having a disposal if all it’s going to do is choke on the fucking food we feed it?! Never should’ve gotten a new one. Gonna treat this sink just like most sinks I’ve had from now on… disposal-less!

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2015 Tammy confirmed that she did get my message (and isn’t on BP meds) even though it’s appearing as unseen, so yeah, the doctor could have (hopefully) gotten my message. Either way, if the doc stumbled onto my Facebook page from there and then into my blog, she did it in a way I can’t see.

Had a bit of a rough night last night but fortunately, it didn’t last long. I was watching TV when I noticed my heart was racing and beating a little hard. I got up and lay down on the bed but it continued to do so. Then my stomach hurt and I ended up having the runs. I took a Lorazepam after that, but I probably didn’t need one because my pulse seemed to start slowing down before it had a chance to set in. In fact, I was sitting there doing some coloring and thinking that it wasn’t going to make me drowsy when all of a sudden I felt intense drowsiness come over me. I climbed into bed and was astounded to sleep over 12 hours. I haven’t slept that long in years!

I woke up for a minute when the power cut out for a few seconds, kicking my sound machine off. Tom said there was a huge storm while I slept with tons of wind and rain. He also saw next door’s vehicle in their garage, so I guess they’re not on vacation. The garage light went off last night and it’s not on tonight. They were probably just at a Christmas party somewhere.

I wish Christmas was in the summer. It’s too cold to go riding around the park at night, so you don’t see much of the pretty lights and decorations unless you’re in a car. I miss riding around in the middle of the night, but we’re soon going to have plenty of reason to work out inside. We’re getting a new Bowflex home gym!!! We had one in 1999 which cost us $1200. As with any form of activity, it won’t make you lose weight if you’re not willing to cut your calories low enough to do so, but it definitely builds muscle and gets you in shape. Only these days you can get one that’s even better than the one we had and all for just $385. twirls excitedly

I mentioned to Tom how I kind of missed having one, and that I thought of getting one. This got him thinking about it and he was shocked to discover how much cheaper they are. I thought the cheapest one was $450, but nope! So we rearranged the living room since it’s something like 100” x 72”, and moved the treadmill closer to my desk so I can watch my show while I use it. Thank God for closed captioning since it’s a bit loud.

Anyway, last night I felt really cold. I was cold everywhere, especially my hands and the tip of my nose. I began to wonder if I was going a little hypo again, though I’d rather that than the constant hell I went through both physically and emotionally when I was on a higher dose. But then I got warm right before my heart raced and I wondered just the opposite. I mean my T4 couldn’t have dropped that much or else I’d feel a lot worse a lot more often. Still, I’m tired of these scattered spells here and there. That’s two heart “beat downs” in less than a week. Really hope to hell this doesn’t happen when we’re on vacation. I’d rather be a little tired than feel like shit. Just like last time, though, it happened after I ate quite a bit, so I really have to make sure I don’t overeat or even let myself get slightly full.

Tom believes he can and will lose weight, but I’ve accepted the fact that I’ll never have the willpower to put up with the hunger and sluggishness of lowering my calories consistently to lose weight. But we’re both determined to eat healthier, not overdo it, and he wants to become more active. He’s not as good with sticking to exercise routines as I am. He feels this will motivate him. Plus we also made more room for him to use his Wii easier.

Thank God for huge living rooms too, since it now houses a desk, a huge L-shaped couch, a treadmill, a rat cage, two 6’ fake trees, and soon our new home gym. So I’ll be a ripped fatty, LOL.

Also grabbed a few more fairy and animal figurines for my collection of 70-something pieces while he got some things he needed (on Amazon).

Had to return the pink Sakkas dress I ordered because it’s too big on me. The purple top I got fits fine, though.

I also had to switch back to my old mouse because I just didn’t like the feel of the new one. It also had a problem with the wheel clicker occasionally zooming out my windows instead of opening things in a new tab.

I checked out ant farms and wonder if it may be an interesting thing to have and observe. I laughed when I thought of my sister, who would no doubt say that only I could be interested in such a thing. LOL, well, it’s better than spiders.

Anyway, I’m finishing up the remaining granola bars and crackers and am slowly switching over to healthier snacks. I don’t know if dried fruit is as healthy as fresh fruit, but I got a little of both. Plus I have fish for meat instead of chicken and beef. I got soups, pasta, beans, and other high-protein foods, plus cherry tomatoes to snack on as well as dried peas. Dried cranberries are just ok, but the pineapples and banana chips are better. For fresh fruit, I got blueberries and grapes. Trying to do everything in moderation and not eat unless I’m really hungry. Not famished but hungry. Really hope this will lower both my cholesterol and BP! Will find out in May.

May.

Damn, that seems so far away.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2015 Their garage light is on next door. Wonder if they’re just out tonight or on vacation. Vacation would be nice as that’s a week or two off of hoping Bob doesn’t do any loud projects, even if it means that light has to be glaring through the kitchen window till they return.

So I won another coupon for another candy bar. Not very exciting, but better than no wins at all, I guess.

While I am always consistent with my journal, I have continued to be lazy as far as creative writing goes. Maybe my dreams would make good writing prompts in which to create silly but fun short little stories around. I don’t mean the dreams that only last a split second either. I mean more like last night’s dreams.

In one of them, I was walking with someone somewhere. It wasn’t here in the park. There were many people around, including Alyssa. I spotted her ahead of me but didn’t say anything to her. Then I started feeling dizzy and commented to the person I was walking with about it. I knew Alyssa heard me and I wondered if she’d want to help being a doctor and all that, or if she would just ignore me. The dream ended before I could find out.

In another dream, a heavy young woman kept insisting she knew me from a town called Pleasant, but I had no idea who she was. We were at a large restaurant in which I thought Tom accompanied me, but when I glanced away from the woman, I found my mother at my side. She guided me into another section of the restaurant with these ugly chandeliers hanging all over the place and ordered some rather disgusting-looking food.

“Is that chicken?” I asked her.

She said it was, but it was just “mashed” instead of in a roll.

In the last dream, I was stuck in some weird coed jail. At least the “waiting room” was coed. I was observing a guy who was propped up on a built-in cement bench sound asleep. He suddenly woke up and told someone with a laugh that since he was never assigned to a room, he never had to leave that bench whether he was asleep or not, until his release.

Shortly afterward I was moved to a room with rows of beds. The room wasn’t very large, though I don’t know how many roommates I had. Then I was given my mail for the day in which I received an anonymous letter. The letter started off saying horrible things (I’m not sure what), but then it went on to enclose a handful of very beautiful nature scenes, leaving me as baffled as ever.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2015 Wrote out a very different shopping list than I’m used to writing because this time I’m paying attention to nutrition labels and not calories. I got as many things low in cholesterol, fat and sodium as I could.

Last night I dropped one of the frozen dinners I’ll no longer be getting and what a fucking mess! Mashed potatoes were everywhere… on the counter, on the cabinets, on the floor, even in the recycle pail. I had to dump the items in it and wash out the pail. Then I mopped the floor.

Partly due to dropping the food, we decided to move the microwave out of the cubbyhole and onto the counter. Steaming food seeped through the plastic and burned me, causing it to slip out of my hand. This way I can yank things right out onto the counter to cool, instead of having to carry it over to the counter while it’s piping hot. The toaster oven and can opener are now living in the cubbyhole. We just swapped their places as the microwave is now where they were.

Tom picked up my inhaler on the way home from work, and wow. They’ve gotten pretty high-tech since I last used them in the early 2000s. They now have puff counters. Still hope I don’t ever have an emergency bad enough to need any of the 204 puffs available to me, but they’re here if I do.

Less than a week after I began sweeping again I hit my first win, if only for a coupon for a candy bar. I realize that these days, due to all the competition out there, one would have a much better chance with instant wins as opposed to random draws.

I just wish Roboform didn’t suck. It used to be great and then it got worse before I stopped sweeping regularly about 6 years ago. I would’ve thought by now they’d have improved it, but nope. Half the time it doesn’t work properly.

I haven’t been remembering much of my dreams lately. Just scattered bits and pieces, which make no sense.

Sent Doc O a Happy Holiday message on Facebook and I not only didn’t get a reply, but it doesn’t appear to have been seen either. Because she never got it? Or because she doesn’t want me knowing she saw it? Hmm… Tammy's messages are also appearing as unread yet she’s been on playing games. I’ll have to ask her if she got my question and ask if she’s on BP meds.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2015 Well, this is kind of embarrassing. Just seven hours after telling Dr. A how wonderful it’s been being anxiety-free, I had a panic attack. I got into bed just before midnight and noticed my heart was beating a little fast and hard. I thought maybe it was just because I had recently eaten. Meanwhile, life is good and I wasn’t worried about it… until it took off racing like a racehorse. Scared the living shit out of me too, and of course I was trembling uncontrollably as the adrenaline raced through my body. Since my current thyroid dosage can no longer affect me this way, I worried for a minute that I really was having a heart attack, but fortunately, Tom was home and he calmed me down relatively quickly, knowing it was just anxiety. He’s pretty sure I was just worried about my blood pressure.

Whatever it was, it's a very disappointing setback. Just when I thought I was free of these things for good, I’m reminded that I’m not totally exempt from them. They can strike anytime, anyplace.

So I took one of the lorazepams I was so sure I wouldn’t ever need again and fell asleep an hour later. I expected to wake up with my heart racing a few times throughout the night but I actually slept quite well.

Doc A also asked me about a pap smear, but it hasn’t been three years yet. She asked about a mammogram too, and I said I’d pass for now. Then she asked about a colonoscopy. I’ll definitely pass. She said to let her know when I’m ready. LOL, no one’s ever “ready” to have their boobs squeezed and cameras shoved up their ass.

Later…

We now have a possible travel plan. It’s just a matter of exactly when he receives his new passport. Royal Caribbean takes off on January 30th, which is a Saturday, and goes to two different cities in Mexico. We’ve learned that the tickets actually get cheaper if you wait until it gets close to the date of the trip, as the cruise lines push to fill up the remaining rooms. We would just hate to book this trip and then find that he doesn’t get his passport in time. I don’t understand why these things have to take so damn long in today’s day and age, but they do.

This trip would be for four nights, and we’re probably going to fly first class too. As short as I am, I don’t need the extra legroom, but it has so many other benefits, one of them being that you’re less likely to get stuck next to screaming kids. As long as they’re not sitting up front in the coach section, since there’s only a thin curtain between the two sections and not a soundproof wall, you get a more peaceful flight and much better service. Another benefit is that you only have two seats on each side so I wouldn’t have to climb over anybody other than Tom (I like window seats) to go to the bathroom or anything like that. It’s also easier to find seats available in first class since a lot of people can’t afford it.

His research found that Celebrity X cruises tend to be the most expensive while Princess is the cheapest. Cruises tend to be wild no matter what, so we would rather skip Princess, figuring there’s probably a reason why they’re so much cheaper. Like maybe that line is reserved for the rowdiest and rude of cruisers?

I was thinking of going almost vegan. As a friend and follower pointed out, anything from an animal is going to include cholesterol. I’m not saying I’ll give up stakes and fried chicken forever, but I’m going to try to focus more on pasta, potatoes, fish, fruits and veggies. I know I’ll never lose weight. I’ve gotten too old for that shit and I still have hypothyroidism. But one is never too old to eat healthier. Still working out most days, though. Tuna has less cholesterol than chicken and of course chicken has less cholesterol than beef. Salmon, sardines, tuna and mackerel are pretty healthy, and of course white skinless chicken is better than dark chicken with skin. The problem is that’s the only part of the chicken I like, so I’ll back off of the chicken for now as well as eggs, bacon and red meats. I just have to go easy on the pasta because it’s high-calorie. Just because I can’t lose weight doesn’t mean I want to gain it either, although I’m not holding back for a second when we’re on vacation!

My snacks would usually consist of 90-calorie granola bars or small bags of crackers. No more of that as items like that have trans fats in them. I printed out a list of foods high in trans fats. I’m considering dried fruit for snacks. The Mayo Clinic says they’re healthy as long as they don’t have partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.

We usually only do fast food two or three times a month, and last night on the way home from the doctor we agreed that that would be our last run for quite a while. If I were single I wouldn’t care if I died now or in my 60s or in my 80s, especially since I have no kids. But since my husband has another 30 years or so left to live, I don’t care to desert him so soon.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2015 My appointment with my PCP went smoothly and I am so glad to not have to see doctors again till March! Dentist in March, ENT in April, endo in May, PCP in June. Will have an eye exam somewhere in there, too. My vision’s been noticeably worse lately.

Anyway, traffic was the usual nightmare, especially coming back. We worried I was going to be late because Tom accidentally went to the lab instead. Realizing we had to go to Roseville instead, we raced as fast as we safely could and got there right on time without a minute to spare.

So I went through the usual process of checking in with the now-familiar staff since I’ve been there 4 times already and was given the same checklist that the shrink gave me just yesterday. I thought it was a bit weird, but filled it out anyway. It asks if you’re feeling worthless, like hurting yourself, having trouble concentrating, trouble sleeping, etc. Do they now give this to everyone, or did they just want to compare today’s answers to yesterday’s? Either way, I didn’t mind filling it out.

The doctor came in wearing one of those masks the dentists wear. She had a cold even though she didn’t sound sick.

My BP is still up, though I don’t know why. The high number was 160. Whitecoat syndrome? Or is this going to be my next problem? My guess is it’s still normal most of the time, but she asked that I check it at home periodically and let her know if it’s 140/90 or higher. I don’t care if it is. I don’t want any new medication!

She said I looked great for my age, and even the shrink said I looked younger than 50. Really? shrugs Benefits of being fat, I guess. Stretches those wrinkles taught. As for the weight aspect of it, I told her I’ve given up. I can’t do the low-calorie thing day after day, week after week, month after month. I can only try not to gain any more weight.

She said not to stress about it and that it’s all about portions and having half of your plate be a salad. I still don’t see myself ever losing much weight, if any. Young me was naturally skinny. Older me is naturally heavy. I do intend to eat healthier, though. I knew eggs and red meats were high in cholesterol, but she also warned me against fried foods and cheese. I didn’t know these things were high in cholesterol, but the fried foods definitely make sense. Also, the obvious… avoid overdoing the fast food and trans fats.

I’m hopeful that my thyroid, BP and cholesterol numbers will be great when I go to the labs in May, but somehow I doubt the numbers will be ideal. I’m still going to do my best to get them as close as I can, though the T4 should be good. Really, REALLY don’t want to have to take any additional medications. She knows I still fear medication in general. You can work through a traumatic event such as what I went through and you can get better, but I don’t think anyone ever fully gets back to where they were before a traumatic event.

I filled her in on the highlights of my meeting with Dr. L and asked about menopause and she said I’m at the age where you usually enter perimenopause.

I also told her about the asthma attack I had and she called in a Ventolin inhaler for me, and to let her know if I ever need it more than twice a week. Hopefully, I’ll never need it, but after that kick-ass attack for the first time in a decade, I like knowing it’s there just in case.

This was the friendliest the doc’s ever been since I’ve seen her, and again I wonder if Tom’s absence had anything to do with it (I left him in the waiting room this time). They always seem friendlier when I’m alone. We got to talking about our upcoming vacation, and how I danced in my 20s and became an author. She said that now she’s curious and will have to look me up. LOL, and assuming she’s got cookies enabled, I’ll be watching to see if she links into my blog. :)

She said she’s been in the country for 10 years. The climate in Ecuador must be so much nicer, though.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2015 Finally got to meet with the shrink today. Doctor L was very nice. I was a bit irritated with all the traffic we had to deal with going to and from Folsom, then the noisy waiting room, but we didn’t have to wait long.

What was surprising was the appearance of the place. It looked like the typical medical building Mercy would have and not the small office like what Dana and Stacey had with plush chairs. I also didn’t meet with the doctor in the same room where the nurse took me to take my vitals. My BP was a surprising 170/80. This alarmed the doctor a bit, though I assured her I was just wound up about seeing a new doctor, and when she had the nurse take my BP again on the way out it was 150/80. It’s almost always normal. I’m sure right now as I write this it’s 120/80. In looking at my BP measurements since switching to this medical group, 144 was my highest.

Anyway, after the first round of vitals, I was taken to another office where I expected to have to wait for the doctor, but the doctor was already there. She’s a tall, slim woman with dark hair that was piled up with a claw clip I liked that she said she got in Hawaii. She’s from Guatemala too, but I didn’t have any problems understanding her with her accent.

She asked for some past background, and even though I didn’t see what it had to do with the here and now, I told her a little about my bio family, the foster homes and Valleyhead. Even how I would cut myself as a teen and jumped out a window and broke my arm. The system was very different then, as we discussed, and the stigma was even worse. Instead of receiving help for these things I totally regret doing, I was ostracized and made to feel even worse. Shrinks were also too quick to drug their patients up instead of getting to the root cause of things by talking and taking other healthier, safer measures.

I told her I felt that for the most part, it was a waste of our time and money to see her because had my old doctors simply listened to me and not withheld so much information from me, then we could have just lowered my thyroid medication dose the first time around and 95% of the anxiety I was referred to her about would’ve backed off. She understood, but at the same time said they were a caring group and were just looking out for me.

I told her about my old endo, of course, and the drama I went through when my T4 got too high. I said that while I fear medication in general and tend to be prone to side effects, I’m fine on my current thyroid dose and am ok with taking low dosages of lorazepam as needed, but only as needed. I hope to never need the stuff again, but it’s still nice to know I have it if I do. The bottle I have is over a year old now, since I got it from Alyssa, which I’ll refer to her as now, and so she called me in a new one and said I could get refills from my PCP. Hopefully, I’ll never need to do that, though. I hate being dependent on things other than oxygen, water and food same as anyone else. After I broke my cigarette and Navane habits in the '90s, then I became dependent on sound machines, then lotion, then lip balm, then glasses, then thyroid medication, and now anti-bacterial soap so I can have a slightly itchy crotch instead of a seriously itchy one.

I thought we were going to talk more about what happened that led to my referral to her as opposed to the past, but she asked a lot about the past and my family. When we hit upon the subject of my sleep disorder she asked if I’d taken any action where that’s concerned and I said no because it wasn’t much of an issue since I work at home and there isn’t any cure for it, but as she said, it might be a good idea to look into it since I can never know how it may help in the end. Yeah, maybe so, and it definitely would be more convenient to always be on days. Just not right now. Right now I just want to enjoy the fact that after tomorrow I will be appointment-free till March! Yes!

Then it was off to Jack’s for burgers and fries where some pissed-off black guy was shouting that he was tired of waiting for his tacos. I wondered if he’d pull a gun out and get trigger-happy, but fortunately, he didn’t.

Still entering sweeps, most of which are pretty crappy these days compared to years ago. They just don’t have as many big prizes anymore, and again, I don’t feel I can win like I used to.

The park and Bob have been very annoying during the daytime. People are constantly landscaping, along with the park, and Bob was using his saw really early yesterday morning I think to repair his trellis or something.

Tom trimmed the Cypress trees and put a lot of stuff on the street this evening for tomorrow’s bulk trash pick-up. The old toilets, a couple of chairs, a water dispenser, the old disposal, the boxes the toilets came in that are filled with tree clippings as well as old hoses.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2015 This can’t go on, I realized earlier as I sat deep in thought by the window. If you’ve had this many doubts this often over the years about your friendship with Andy, then maybe it really is time to move on.

It’s true. We’re just too damn different. Our only common ground is collecting photos, and our tastes in that differ as well. Never expected or wanted anyone to be a carbon copy of myself, but you gotta have at least some common ground, don’t you? He’s him and I’m me, but that’s so very hard for him to accept and deal with. He automatically assumes others feel, think, believe and do the same things he does, and I have to remind him that hey, we’re not all needy of this and that. We’re not all into the God fantasy or being chased by devils because we don’t embrace Him with open arms. We don’t all want tons of friends. We’re not all oozing with jealousy. We’re not all obsessed with weight and appearance. We may be when we’re younger, but most people grow up and quit worrying about how others see them.

But if he believes the sky is gray and you say no, it’s blue, then you’re a liar.

But it isn’t just about us being different. It’s about me being offended, frustrated and annoyed time and time again. I get tired of the insults. Tired of the negativity. Tired of his know-it-all attitude. Tired of waiting for him to catch on and get things. Tired of having to repeat myself, even if he may not be pretending to be forgetful as a way of mindfucking me and further adding to my frustration and annoyance. I understand his years of smoking pot led to severe memory loss and maybe even his ability to process and learn things. He’s not very perceptive and he can be incredibly paranoid, too.

And no, he was never stupid. But he’d often say stupid things that just made me want to reach out and slap him awake one too many times. I will always remember and appreciate the good times, but I’m feeling more and more like it’s time to move on. I may not be perfect myself, but I’m tired of his negativity just because he’s so miserable and unhappy with his own life. I’m tired of the immaturity. I’m tired of the repetition. I’m tired of the stupidity, intentional or not. Again, not that he’s literally stupid, but more that he acts stupid at times and makes me feel like I’m talking to a 15-year-old.

We met up for the second time in life when he was 26 and I was 22, yet I feel like he’s forever 26 while I’ve grown, matured and moved on. We all have an “immature” side of sorts. But his star-struck ways and dreamy obsession with celebrities, for example, is something you do in your teens and 20s. Not your 50s.

I’m also tired of him thinking he knows it all where I’m concerned. Yes, he knows me very well. Give him a dozen dresses and ask him which one he thinks I’d like best and he’ll almost certainly hit the nail on the head. But he doesn’t literally know it all any more than I do and when he keeps insisting he knows something he doesn’t, that’s where I get annoyed and even offended. When you keep insisting something’s the other way around (especially when the other person should have a much better idea than you do of just how it is), you’re basically calling them a liar and that’s offensive. Like me insisting France isn’t in Europe. No matter how much I may believe that I’d still be 100% incorrect.

Even though he’s apologized for the HORRIBLY mean and false statements and assumptions he’s made concerning my sleep issues, my driving phobia, my husband, the people that screwed me in Arizona, and my MIL, the hurt and anger have stayed with me.

When you expect people not to judge you but then you judge them for the number of friends they have, for example, that’s not only offensive, but it seriously makes me question the value of your friendship. True friends don’t prank call the shit out of someone they knew was dirt poor at the time, stalk and harass them online, then claim they’re anti-revenge, then say the many mean, untrue and hurtful things he’s said to me over the last few years and insult my husband while he’s at it. My husband and I have never once judged or condemned him for the way he is. We’ve always accepted him as is. Obviously, I can no longer do that, but that’s the difference between him and me… he judges, critiques, condemns, pushes and tries to change those he feels should mirror his ways more than they do. I just walk away from them altogether. Period. He can be just as lacking in compassion and selfish as he can be compassionate and generous. So many times on Ask I’d mention doing this or doing that and would feel a little hurt when he wouldn’t ask me about it, or how a doctor’s appointment went. I felt like he just didn’t care at times and like it was all about him.

I was ready to drop him after the second offense, but the guilt of having dumped him after 11 years or so back in 1999 ate at me and I felt obligated to put up with it. But now I realize and remember WHY I cut ties with him in 1999 in the first place, and that’s for the very same reason I’m doing it now. I didn’t feel guilty for letting my abusive mother go and I’m not going to feel guilty for letting him go. Really, it’s ok to pick and choose our friends… without guilt. I can walk away despite the things I said and did wrong in the past. The past is the past after all and can never be changed anyway. Sometimes we really do gotta look out for ourselves and do what’s best for us, even if that means throwing in the towel and moving on altogether. But for a while, I couldn’t do this. Why? Because I felt so bad for dumping him 16 years ago, that’s why. I also knew his mother and sisters would take it hard if I let him go again, but you know what? I don’t care what they think. No disrespect to them, but again, sometimes we just gotta worry about ourselves and not what others think or how they’re going to take things. How they react or feel about things is up to them and not my responsibility to prevent or control.

It isn’t just the big things, but the little things that irritate me as well at times. Maybe it shouldn’t as I realize this isn’t harming anyone, but when he’d post pics of teens or college kids flipping the camera off, for example, I couldn’t help but think how immature it was. I mean, this is the kind of silly thing a young person gets off on and finds amusing, not older folks. Again, I realize there’s no real harm in his doing this, but it does tell me a thing or two about his personality.

It all started when I excitedly told him about the job I started and instead of getting a “Good for you!” or a “Good luck,” or an “I’m happy for you,” I get, “You’ll be sick of it in 3 weeks for cutting into your daily grind.”

When I assured him it wouldn’t and why, he continued with the negativity and the arguing, insisting he knew me well. Yeah? Well, I know myself even better. This is the same work I did from 2005-2008 and I loved it (I told him I’m entering sweeps for someone else and a few other things when in fact Tom’s just giving me $100 a month to sweep for him which is a very decent amount). It also didn’t interfere with my day-to-day life at all as it only takes a couple of hours a day to do and I don’t even have to do it all at once. I only stopped because the economy went bad and I stopped winning.

At the risk of sounding negative myself, I did tell him that I don’t think I can win for us. I’m going to try my best, but honestly, it’s not so much about the economy as it is about the competition. When I was supplementing our income, mostly in Oregon, by sweeps and contests, you typically had a few hundred to a few thousand entrants. Now you’ve got many, many thousands, and even millions in some cases.

Win or lose, I can still write, read, listen to music, watch shows, interact with friends online, clean the house, care for the rats, spend time with my husband, take showers, eat meals, exercise, go out to stores, and live life.

But everybody’s a liar to him. That’s just how he is. He may truly prefer his solitude same as I do, but did he ever think the reason he can’t get that many decent friends or a BF might be because of HIM? Just like blacks aren’t always shit on for being black, maybe he’s not shit on as much as he may think he is for being gay, but for being annoying.

Well, he may know a lot, but he doesn’t always know it all and not everybody’s lying to him. He flatters himself too much if he thinks he has enough of a hold or any kind of power or authority over others that they would feel the automatic need to lie to him about things. As if he could use the truth against them somehow?

I did tell him earlier that I was contemplating taking a break from him (though I think a permanent break would be best) and he went into his typical counter-attacking mode by saying something about me pissing him off 2 years ago for whatever reason, and how he almost thought of taking a break from me then as well. I don’t remember what he’s talking about and I don’t care. It was when I realized I didn’t care that I knew I was losing my desire to continue putting any work into our friendship, which gets to be more work than any friendship should be and a little too often. As they say, when you lose the will to argue, the friendship has worn off. Why tell him he’s the same exact guy he was at 26, minus the pot and ciggies? He’ll not only turn it around and say the same of me (though I wasn’t a pothead), but he won’t see what I see. I don’t know if he’s not smart enough to see that he’s never grown or matured as a person or intellectually or if he wouldn’t want to see it. I only know that one can’t make people see or believe what they don’t want to. It’s up to him to be the one to take a good long look in the mirror without bullshitting himself. No one can do that for him. In the past, I would at least let someone know why I was walking away from them, but as I said, I no longer have the will or the desire to argue, defend or explain myself to him. I’m just going to make a clean break. Any further messages, emails, comments, calls or postal mail I may get from him will go unread and deleted/dumped as soon as I know it’s from him or a name I don’t recognize. I will give him the journal copies I set aside for him since he’s always been afraid to go directly to my blog for some reason, claiming it’s “too hard” to keep track of where he left off that way.

I wish him the best of luck and I hope happier times find their way to him soon enough and that he will someday see life in a more positive way, work through his trust issues, and be less offensive to others so he can have all the friends he thought I should have. I’m sorry he lives in a shitty neighborhood and that the people he cleans for are homophobic sickos who shit on him as well, but I don’t feel the need to be all negative just because things are going well for me and not for him. Looking ahead at what may go wrong with a particular plan for the sake of looking out for yourself is one thing, but always being negative is another. The guy totally sees the glass as half empty.

Lastly, I get tired of having to pick, choose and censor my words, be it directly to him or on Facebook, knowing how paranoid and sensitive he is, always taking things personally.

Later…

Just thought I’d do a private entry while Tom is out picking up our prescriptions at Walmart and getting a new passport. Well, now that he found the cards you’re supposed to use if you lose your old passport, he can at least get the process underway. Hopefully, it won’t take too long. If worse comes to absolute worst, we’ll just go to Florida only.

I wish there was an option to do some private tweets instead of having to be all or nothing. I could use Histofme for the private tweets or just save private things for private entries. I definitely feel a sense of freedom in my writing now that I have cut ties with Andy, and I also don’t feel a shred of guilt for doing it either. I’m confident I did the right thing. Having to censor journals online is one thing, but I would also want to add things in for him or edit out certain things and it was a real pain in the ass. I did so much for that guy and for what? Because he was too stupid or too afraid to go to the blog? Maybe even too lazy? Even Maliheh would say she was “spoiled” into getting it via email.

Anyway, I was a little surprised that while he didn’t deactivate his Ask account like I deactivated the one I used with him, he blocked me on Facebook. Then I realized it was probably because of Norma. This way he can do to me what he did to his brother and say all kinds of nasty things about me without me seeing Norma’s response to it. At least I think that’s why he did it.

If it were five years ago I would worry about him harassing me and maybe those I’m close to as well, but I don’t see him doing that nowadays, to be honest. I sure hope that by now he’s at least above and beyond that kind of childish revenge anyway.

His shit has really made me appreciate Aly’s friendship all the more. She has never falsely accused me of lying, made fun of my fears and phobias, come off as insensitive, tried to judge or change me, or argued every other thing I say. She’s never been pushy and she cares enough to remember the things I tell her and to ask about what’s going on with me.

I got a friend request from a stranger. No, it’s not connected to Andy because the request came in before he knew I dumped him. I asked if we had spoken anywhere before and they answered in Thai. Google Translate let me know that they were spammers. Wanted to sell me some diet shit or something. The person ended up doing me a favor because I learned something from them. Facebook now has the option of making the message appear to be unseen unless you click “Accept” to allow them to know you saw it. I clicked “Decline” and I immediately thought of Doc C. I seldom get spam so I have no idea how long this feature has existed. All I know is that in the past if you wanted to read something it would appear as having been read, but you could run and mark it as unread once again once you were done.

So she and Nane may very well be reading my messages after all. I haven’t sent Nane a message in a long time and I have no desire to in the future, but I still wouldn’t mind giving Dr. C a piece of my mind where the meds and anxiety were concerned. Maybe I should let her know just how much info Dr. D withheld from me and that she was wrong in blaming most if not all of it on me instead of where it belonged… on the meds. Not that I have anything against her or think she was a bad doctor in general. But maybe she can learn from me and it might help others she encounters who are going through the same thing.

I still peek in on her out of curiosity from time to time, and she’s still with the black guy. In fact, he must be from DC because she mentioned that she went there and met the family.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2015 Yesterday we took the bikes out, but after just one trip around the circle, I had to come back. It's just too damn cold out there! Really, I don’t want to ride till the spring. I’ll stick to treadmilling for now.

People are starting to have more company due to the holidays and that gets annoying with all the car door slamming.

We installed the new garbage disposal yesterday and a handful of other things around the house.

This morning we went to Walmart but didn’t get much. I wanted to find a long shirt or sweater for my black leggings and asked the girl what she recommended. She laughed and said, “Let’s get you out of the plus size. You’re about a medium, right?”

I said yes and she showed me some options, only I wasn’t impressed with anything I saw. There were almost too many choices, making it seem overwhelming and like I didn’t know where to begin since everything seemed to blend in. I realized I’d be better off shopping online where I can search for specific styles, colors and measurements.

I’d rather be laughed at than run over. Yeah, some psycho on a moped tried to run me over in my dreams last night. Only we were indoors and I was standing in the middle of a long corridor in a large building somewhere. I was with someone, though I don’t know who, and since they were riding too fast to stick a leg out and kick off the bike, we had to scramble into an alcove as fast as we could.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2015 Now that the economy is better, Tom is going to be “hiring” me to enter sweeps for half a year or so and to manage his AARP and Coke Rewards accounts since I have more free time than he does. I highly doubt I can win much of anything with literally millions of people entering for things at just a simple click of a button, good economy or not, but I’ll enter anyway. It’s about the number of entrants more than the economy. When I was winning you’d have a few hundred to a few thousand entrants. Not 100K to millions of entrants.

Went to Michael’s yesterday and I swear I never saw so many coloring books and one spot in my entire life. I ended up getting six of them… butterflies, flowers, abstract, etc.

Got a GREAT deal on a shot glass display case I intend to use for my animal figurines. The ones that will fit in any way. It was half off so it only cost $30. Those things usually run around $80.

It was kind of weird that they had pajama bottoms being an arts and crafts store, but I loved the ones with the rainbow-colored leopard spots, so I grabbed that and a bright pink-orange T-shirt to go with it.

Lastly, we got the prettiest pair of scissors we ever had, LOL. It’s got a pink and purple design on the handle along with blue rhinestones in the center and blue blades.

I spent most of the rest of the day eating a lot and being lazy. I deserved it. One doesn’t turn 50 every day. Then I dreamed that Hoodie started purring like a cat, haha.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2015 As usual, I only saw the headline and didn’t read the article, but some black actress has been charged with assaulting a 17-year-old. How black is that? And let me guess… I go down for 6 months, plus probation for a fictitious letter all because my “victim” was black, but this black chick will get a slap on the wrist, right? Famous or not, rich or not, black or not, I’ll never understand why violent crimes are taken so much less seriously than things people supposedly say. Even theft gets harsher sentences. Still, the blacker you are these days, the less likely you are to be held accountable for your actions.

I just don’t understand not only why we don’t do something about our deadly Muslims, but why not these violent, vicious, hateful, race card playing, rioting, looting blacks, too? Together they have ruined so, so many lives. Yet we keep making excuses for the blacks because they had it rough 100 years ago. Well, so did my Jewish ancestors! These two groups need to be addressed and dealt with appropriately!

So now I’m half a century old! Pretty damn amazing and exciting considering that I once doubted I’d ever make it to 30.

I don’t remember turning 10 or even 20, but my 30th birthday sucked (we were having the sex/baby fights we’d often have back then), my 40th was ok, and my 50th is great. I’m not talking about just that day, but my overall life at the time. I didn’t start journaling till I was almost 22, so I’ll have to look back to see what I did that day. I only know I was in the Pacific Northwest at the time. Turned 10 and 20 in Massachusetts, 30 in Arizona, 40 in Oregon, and 50 in California. What state will I turn 60 in?

I saw a headline about something about diabetes medication that could extend your life to 120 years. I definitely must keep active and keep my weight down so I and less likely to become diabetic! As it is my hubby’s 8 years older, though his family medical history isn’t nearly as bad as mine.

My birthday wishes actually started on Facebook at 3:30 yesterday afternoon since I have friends overseas. It’s funny how they start off in other languages, and then switch to English. LOL

I slept well and will be going out today. My heart did race me awake a couple of nights ago, but I had to get up and pee anyway, and it slowed down really fast. Getting overheated or going through menopause is going to do that to me at times, anxious or not.

We got some good rain yesterday but today will be 60° and sunny. If it’s under 70° it’s too cold.

Tammy and I exchanged Facebook voice posts. They’re a pain in the ass, but easier than typing. It’s also easier than chatting live by phone because even with a cell, going to the bathroom if you need to is still a pain in the ass. Facebook is more convenient.

She’s been having fun gardening and shared some pics. Wish the outside of our place looked as good! She’s got the perfect amount of plants. Here it looks like they tried to sloppily jam in as much as they could fit. If I could snap my fingers I’d have mostly white gravel with a few scattered palms.

She still deals with the pain of that fibromyalgia which is said to be a very complex disease that affects the entire body. Damn! And I thought having my thyroid attacked was bad. She also said something about a procedure they’re going to do on her legs, and if it works they’ll cut some nerves so she’s not in as much pain every day. They oughta cut my ear nerves that they damaged, but I’d hardly describe what I go through as excruciating as it is in her case. Mine’s just annoyingly uncomfortable and it’s not constant.

Mark will have to work some of the time, but she’s looking forward to showing us around and showing me some pics. I don’t know why, but at first, I thought it had to do with our parents, and well, no one wants to spend much time discussing those they don’t like for whatever reason and that was abusive to them, right? But she assured me the vacation will be all about us, and that the pics consist of the girls and some of us when we were younger. I felt bad for assuming incorrectly, but hey, it happens at times. As I told her, though, I would never deliberately try to offend her. We’re too old for that shit, and without negative influences butting in and trying to pin us against each other like our parents and brother often loved to do, having an enjoyable relationship as sisters should be much easier.

Oh, I can tell you that the day I get to run into my big sis’s arms and hug my nieces for the first time in 24 years (she thought it was 27 or 28, though 24 is still too damn long), it’s going to be one serious emotional moment. It’ll just be the opposite this time; I’ll have less hair and more of me. Haha, she’s never seen me 24 pounds overweight or with glasses.

Going grocery shopping today, as well as out to some stores, and this will be the first time I will buy foods based on calories AND cholesterol amounts, in an effort to bring my cholesterol down even more.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2015 This is my first entry with my new solar keyboard and my new dress. The keyboard is easier to adapt to than I thought it would be. I can see why Tom would love his. I’m glad I got mine in silver instead of black. The keys are more visible in dimmer light this way, even if I rarely look at them. The only key I’m not seeing is a refresh key. Love how it’s wireless and can stay charged for up to 3 months even in darkness. It’s definitely worth it for any Mac user, though I suppose they may have one that’ll work with Windows.

So sad about the mass shootings in San Bernardino. Yeah, let’s all “pray” for them even if they’re dead now, because “thoughts and prayers” really do help keep those crazy gunmen in check. Seriously, I know one has a right to their own personal beliefs, but sometimes you just want to grab a needle and pop people’s little fantasy bubbles. I'm not for banning guns altogether as I believe in the right to bear arms for personal protection, but we definitely need to start doing background checks on people. REAL background checks.

Got a call from my PCP's office yesterday. First I thought she was calling to tell me she called in a statin prescription, which I definitely don't want to take with all the medication nightmares I've been through. However, all she said was that it was better (the thyroid meds brought it down) and to do the labs again in 3 months. Yes! As I told her, and plan to tell Doc A on the 9th, I’m actively doing things to help it even more by watching how I eat. I’m just relieved to know she’s not going to try to push statins on me when I see her. I just want to ask her a few questions about menopause, get an inhaler in case of an emergency, and get out.

I also got a call from the shrink’s office. My first thought was oh no! Don’t you dare cancel on me. I just want to get you over with! But all they wanted was to bump me up an hour on the same day. No prob.

Yesterday was surprisingly quiet with one disappointment. The house that’s off by the driveway corner of our house is for sale and it’s a house with a garage. I’ve only heard sawing from that particular garage 2 or 3 times since we’ve lived here, but since that’s what most old people seem to think that’s what garages are for I dread what may move in there, not to mention all the traffic as they show it and move. With my shit luck, they’ll have a loud car stereo or a motorcycle.

Chatted briefly with our really nice mailwoman who delivers on Joe’s day off. That’s our regular. She loves this route since she can use the bathroom at the clubhouse, has no side streets, no vicious dogs to worry about, etc. She tells Joe to hurry up and retire so she can bid on this route.

On the way back from the mailboxes, I caught Bob as he was pulling his golf clubs from Jim’s trunk. So that’s where those two go, huh? Anyway, I waved to Jim and Bob called out a hello. I then asked Bob if he’s had any problems with theft in the nearly 30 years he’s been here. Never, he said. That’s when I told him my bike was stolen and he was quite shocked, pointing out how he leaves his bike out all the time. Yeah, but what I didn’t tell him is that his is a boring typical bike. Mine was a definite eye-catcher.

Speaking of bikes, I was riding one in my dreams last night, only its front wheel was bent.

Then someone tried to tell me that the cast of the show I watch, Criminal Minds, were really FBI agents in real life.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2015 I was all set to do an entry, fingers poised over the keyboard. But then I realized I didn’t have anything to say. The only thing I can say is that the landscaping drove me crazy from 7:30 yesterday morning until around noon. I could hear it in various sections of the park. I still can’t believe how much daytime noise I hear here. It’s just ridiculous at times.

I also got a message from an Amazon seller saying that one of the animal figurines I ordered was out of stock. Then why did they have it listed?

My new keyboard arrives today and I’m hoping I can get used to it easily enough as I don’t usually do well with change.

I guess that’s it. I think I will go watch my show while it’s still dark and quiet.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2015 I didn’t read the article, but when I saw a headline about a black guy being arrested for making threats against whites, it put a smile on my face. It’s about time they were held accountable for threats against us, just like we’re held accountable for threats against them. NO Group should ever be allowed to threaten another. It pissed me off how we would just laugh off their threats for the longest time. Well, the more you allow someone to get away with something, the more they’ll do it. We can’t say we're striving for equality if we allow certain people to do things that we don't allow others to do. The double standards simply aren’t fair.

Because my cholesterol is bad but not THAT bad, I’ve decided to eat healthier and less of it, too. I prefer natural remedies to pills and I think I can get it pretty damn close to okay. You know that IF diet I mentioned being the only thing that works for me? Well, I don’t want to damage my metabolism any further by not eating for the first 8 hours of my day, so I’m having little things along the way to “trick” my body into thinking it’s not being starved the first half of its day. Most importantly, I need to back off the red meat.

An important function key on my keyboard is getting stuck a lot, so since Tom recommended the keyboard he’s been using which is specially made for Macs, we ordered me one. Only his is black and mine will be silver. Its batteries are sealed inside and should never need replacing. It’s wireless and solar charges in both natural and unnatural light. I’ll have to keep my nails shorter with chiclet keys, but it’s a full-size keyboard with a very similar layout to the one that I’m so used to.

Tom was amazingly productive on his days off. He took apart and cleaned the treadmill. He also tightened a bolt that was causing the platform to rattle a bit. Then he printed out tablet stands on the 3D printer.

Really hope it’s not as noisy as yesterday was. Between the park doing the streets and common area, and Bob, I had to listen to over an hour of landscaping and it’s totally annoying. But the house across the street is on for today and I’m sure others will be running something loud somewhere. If it were up to me I’d always be on nights unless I had appointments.

I had a dream I was visiting my nieces. Becky had to run some errands, so I hung out with Sarah and the 2 or 3 kids she was babysitting. It was Halloween and we were making costumes. She asked if I figured out what I wanted to be yet and I said no, and that with my luck I wouldn’t figure it out until it was time to go. Then she went to give me a hug but I quickly pulled back because I spotted a spider on the wall behind her. She grabbed a can of bug spray and started spraying the wall furiously, LOL.

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