Lucy's Big Adventure

I write about Lucy and how much she lights up my life, and then I picture spam the post showing you how ridiculous she looks most of the time...And then...

We have a minor ant issue happening in the Roth House, so the Husbeast bought some traps.  Yesterday, in the middle of making brownies with the kids I spy a little ant crawling by the sink.  Remembering said ant traps, I walk into the other room and retrieve one out of the box.  (The box was sitting on the sofa table because the rest were to be staked outside).

*ANYWAY*

I lay the ant trap behind the sink, and as i'm placing the trap I decide to go back and grab the box to lock up so the kids wouldn't get into it.

I forgot about one of my kids...

So, let's say a total of 10 seconds has passed? I walk back into the room and my dumbass dog has EATEN THE INSIDE OF TWO TRAPS. What was going through her mind that she decided they looked and smelled delicious is beyond me. (Amazingly, the box was still on the sofa table, stealthy little bitch).

Naturally, I panic.  I immediately call the vet, and it goes something like this:

Me: Lucy ate two ant traps and I'm not sure what to do.
Lady: Let me get the Doctor on the phone.
Doctor: Ok, you need to take a turkey baster, fill it with peroxide and squirt it into her mouth until she throws up.
Me: I, uh...what?
Doctor: Turkey baster, peroxide, vomit.
Me: Well that sounds like fun.
Me: I don't have any peroxide.
Doctor: Bring her in.

Miss Ant Trap Eater had to stay at the vet all day.  He got her to vomit twice, and she is fine.

She, of course, was so excited to see me when I picked her up she peed all over me and the floor.  Then when I was writing a check she tried to knock a cat carrier over, get behind the desk, and wrap me up like a mummy with her leash.  Once we got home the excitement and stress of her big day was just too much for her and she climbed under the blanket, glued herself to my side and slept the rest of the night away.

I'm almost positive I sprouted a few more gray hairs yesterday.

She was too tired to move

I would like to think she will make better chewing choices in the future, but I doubt it.

Lucia, The Wonder Dog

 I write about a lot of serious topics. It gets pretty heavy here on Life as 5.  I want you to know that I have a lot of joy in my life, on top of the stress.  One of my favorite sources of love is my dog.  Her name is Lucia, but we call her Lucy, Lucille, Lucy-Loo, Dumbass, and Get The Hell Out Of The Trash.  Family friends found her wandering down the road when she was a pup, and since she's become a part of our lives she has become my constant companion.  She is sensitive to my moods, and knows when her mommy needs extra love and attention.  On days when I am laying on the couch, somehow her warm body molds around me and her unending devotion and unconditional love remind me that I am worthy.  

Lucia is a beautiful dog, thick muscled and strong.  The vet believes she is a BeaBull (Beagle/Bulldog) and she is lovely. 

 

She's just not, erm...photogenic.  She's kind of...derpy.  

"Who you calling Derpy, bitch?" 

Fake smile

Ok, in her defense she had a staph infection and was tripping balls here. 

This is her displeased face

Derp

Super Derp

Senior Picture Pose Derp

Happy Lucy

Insane Lucy

"Meh" Lucy

I don't even know what to categorize this as...

I'll call this one "Ignore the fact my head looks like a peanut and bask in the love...awwwww" 

Happy Friday! 

Scars

A less-than flattering post recently made about me (yawn) addressed (among other things) the fact that I have grappled with self-harm.  The blogger stated: "She had openly admitted on being violent toward herself (physically)."

I think this needs addressed.  Yes, I have struggled with this issue on and off for many years. I'm not going to lie about it, it's an unfortunate part of who I am.  I'm obviously not proud of this issue but I refuse to let this attempt to belittle me bring me down, so i'll use it to educate. I think the blogger meant to make themselves appear "better than a self-harmer" or that i'm "crazy." (Only I can call myself crazy, yo.) The entire post is a means to shame me , and that's just silly. So onward we go...

So, let's start by defining self-harm/self-injury. The Mayo Clinic's definition is as follows: "Self-injury, also called self-harm, is the act of deliberately harming your own body, such as cutting or burning yourself. It's typically not meant as a suicide attempt. Rather, self-injury is an unhealthy way to cope with emotional pain, intense anger and frustration." 

If you have ever been around someone who self-harms, then you know it's a long and difficult road.  It usually starts in the teen/young adult years. I started when I was a teenager, cutting on parts of my body that were easily hidden. I'll call the times I've cut myself through the years relapses, as it's not been a constant in my life.

The reason I had my most recent relapse was what I felt was the absence of hope.  The frustration of never feeling well, having no answers or relief, depression, anxiety, racing thoughts led me to release, or cope in an unhealthy way.

I know it is a hard concept for people to digest, it's hard for me and I suffer from it.  It's not a pretty situation, and I (literally) have the scars to prove it.

These are my scarred upper legs. Cutting doesn't make me a bad person, or violent, or crazy, or disturbed.  It doesn't mean i'm a bad mother, wife, friend, daughter.  These scars are a part of my journey, and I won't let someone who refuses to understand use this pain to their advantage.

I'm showing you this so you can understand how someone can love and hate themselves at the same time. I have fought tooth and nail to get mentally healthy, but that I struggle at times with something I don't even understand.  I promise not to give up, as long as you promise, too.

Redefined

Lately I have been reflecting on what was written about me on that silly troll list, specifically: "Death makes her feel important and defines her."

A funny little sentence, that is. Let us dissect it together.  Crack the bones and really dig in to the gristle and marrow of what they are saying.

"Death makes her feel important."

I've pondered over this for some time. I'm not going to talk much about it because, well frankly, it's dumb. Death does not make me feel important, it makes me feel powerless. Death scares the shit out of me, befuddles me, amazes me, worries me, keep adding a bunch of words to describe the indescribable...but don't add "important" in there until the day my days end.  That is when I get to feel important, it's my big day after all!



The second part: "Death defines her."  Now this I could go on and on about.  Who isn't defined by death, who hasn't been touched in one way or another by someone they love passing away?  Does it define me because I write about it? Does it define me because I don't stamp it down and pretend i'm shitting butterflies and rainbows instead? That I accept grieving as a palpable, life changing event? I am defined by grief, simply because I love.  I love deeply, and by loving deeply I feel deeply.  When someone I love passes away and I know I have to move on without them, it changes me.  With that change, I am REDEFINED. I am never the same after I lose someone, how could I be?  Someone who changes pieces of me while they were alive will most certainly change pieces of me after they are gone. I'd like to call it common sense, or maybe I'll call it "normal human emotion."

I think the problem is that I don't hide the ugly bits of my life, and that is hard for people to accept. They are very busily weaving their facade, creating their perfect lies (life)and I have accepted that life (and I) are deeply, deeply flawed. Call me anything you want, but don't call me contrived. (For the record, I prefer being called a pretty, pretty princess.) 

Ennui

I feel paralyzed by an invisible enemy, known only to me.  There is no simple way to describe my foe, for he is mine alone.

He is my curse, his desiccated remains heavy on my back, sharp clawed hands brutally wrapped around my neck choking me. My albatross, my illness. He breathes untruths into my ear, secrets to painful to reveal. He is what makes me feel shame, remorse, useless. He does not rest, for what creature such as this would need rest?  His sustenance is my weakness, he feeds off my fear and my faults.  Every misstep brings him glee, he bathes himself in my self-loathing.

He is never quiet, although at times he is drowned out by the hope in my heart. Even he can't break through that last piece of me, for that is my stronghold. My heart is strong with love, the whole of it inflamed to bursting by one unwavering love of a man and three sets of eyes . Two so much like their fathers, and one matching mine. Their love comes with no canon, it just is. That is a nourishing love, a love that keeps me existing even when I feel the demons never-ending weight slowing me, making me crawl and grasp and cling.

He is relentless, he leads me down dark twisted paths in my mind. He twists my stomach and confuses my thoughts. Will I ever live without this beast, or is he forever entwined within me? Am I to walk this road for the rest of my days feeling half whole, feeding him, sustaining him?

Someday I will learn to carry this burden. Someday I will be stronger than this unwanted invader. Sometime he shall bow to me.

From Failure Forward, Part Five: I can swallow five pills at once.

I started getting ridiculously sick when I got out of the hospital. I got a nasty flu, and I couldn't shake it.  Then I got a stomach virus, then the flu flared back up until I was on the brink of pneumonia followed by another round of stomach flu, rinse and repeat. After some hefty medications, I was exhausted and burnt out. I was barely eating, constantly sleeping, my depression was awful. I ended up back at my doctor and she ran a ton of tests.  I am deficient in Vitamin D and the Epstein-Barr virus is active in my system. I had mono when I was 20, and for reasons unknown the E-B reactivated, that's what they think was killing my immune system. Both my doctor and my Psychiatrist also think I am suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but that is still up in the air as of today.

I take a Vitamin D supplement and a prescribed vitamin that is gigantic.  I take those in addition to: a mood stabilizer, an anti-depressant, an allergy medication, and a fast acting anti-anxiety medicine for those "special times" when i'm losing my shit. All that adds up to me having to buy a Day/Night pill organizer which *officially* makes me old.  Also, I've learned to swallow lots of pills at once.  Except the vitamin, that thing hitches it's own ride, it's ridiculous.

I do not want to be Bipolar. Which is, of course, a stupid sentence. Who wants to be Bipolar? It's true though.  When I was in the tiny office with Dr. B and he was telling me that I was Bipolar and the reasons why I was so out of control, that I was going to get better...I was both relieved and devastated. I was hoping he would tell me my depression was really bad, or I just just a giant baby, but that's not what he said. That was not reality. And there is nothing to do but to accept what is.

I am learning everyday what works for me and what doesn't. I get overwhelmed extremely easily. I do better when I have something small to focus on.  Painting and creating helps. Protein drinks work when i'm not hungry. If someone is visibly ill I run screaming in the other direction. Talking things out with Sara, Jennifer, and my long lost but no longer lost friend Dan helps me everyday. Knowing I have friends that love me no matter what is an irreplaceable stepping stone in my journey to healing. Letting myself grieve Christians death helped, my family helps. So does root beer and hot chocolate. Leaving somewhere when I get uncomfortable or overwhelmed is an embarrassing but necessary action for me. Time alone, a good book, and a long soak in the tub are healing. Not lying about being okay, facing my demons, and remembering my medicines are key. Asking for help is a must. Forcing myself to do a little every day keeps me accountable for my actions.

It hasn't been an easy road. There are days when I just can't deal with life.  I lay on the couch and clutch my pillow to my chest and just breathe. Other days I'm up and cleaning and doing errands and being supermom-wife-friend. I know someday i'll even out, that I'll have way more good days than bad days, I know someday i'll get there. I know because I have hope, and I have faith. Faith in myself, faith in God, faith in my family and friends. I am loved, I am worthy of love no matter how sick I am, and I am needed on this earth by those people whom I love and who love me. I am not the sum of my illness, I won't give it that power.

From Failure Forward, Part Four: Hope

I stood in the doorway of my room in the hospital, trying to absorb what I was seeing.  The walls were pock-marked and dirty, there were holes in the wall where a clock once hung. There was a bed with a thin blanket and plastic coated pillow, a nightstand, and the obligatory hospital tray/desk/object to trip over. It was stark, cold, and I felt empty looking at it.  The kind nurse walked me through getting ready for bed, giving me the knock me on my ass pill, and telling me everything was going to be okay.

A voice over a speaker above my head woke me up. The disembodied voice told me it was breakfast time. After a feeble attempt to tame my hair with a hospital issued comb, I shuffled down the hallway in yesterday's clothes and hospital socks.  At the nurses station they talked me through ordering food, and where to go eat, and what was going to happen on my first day. I nervously went to the common area to wait for my breakfast. What kind of people was I going to encounter? Were they going to be like me, or were they going to be every stereotype portrayed in the "loony bin" movies?  People starting wandering in, some looking glazed over, others looking nervous or sad. Old, young, male, female we all united in one common goal: get food into our bodies so we could shake the residual disorientation from the sleeping pills in our systems. Once the coffee started flowing and the trays were passed out, conversations started popping up. The twisting in my gut eased just a little.

After breakfast I went back to my room, tidied up my bed area, lined up all the toiletries on the bathroom shelf by size and shape, refolded the bath towels so they were nice and even, and then sat down to read the folder they gave me the night before.

Sitting in that bare room, missing my kids and my husband...I felt so isolated and alone. I felt empty, lost, confused. Angry at myself for not being "normal". Embarrassed and ashamed that I was in the psych ward. I laid my head in my hands and just sat there, lost.  Lost, but with a flicker of hope.  It was small, but it was there.

One of the therapists came in and we talked for a while. She asked to hear my story and I told her. Then she took me down to the Recreational Therapy room to do crafts. There are few things in life more surreal than making a mosaic next to a drug addict and across from a woman who kept falling asleep mid-craft. I fluctuated between wanting to laugh hysterically and weep. After arts and crafts we had group.  That also made me want to laugh hysterically and weep, but for a completely different reason. The stories we were telling, the horrible things people thought and felt. The absence of hope, peace, sleep.  The heavy feeling that wouldn't go away, confusion about how we all ended up being this way.  The silence from ones that couldn't find the words, the kindness of the therapists. It was very overwhelming. I didn't know, I still don't know, how to process hearing all the different reasons we believed we hated ourselves. It made me incredibly sad, but also less alone.  Less like a sideshow, more like a "normal" flawed human.

I spent three days in the hospital. I learned I was bipolar and why the medicine I was on before was making me worse.  How I had to keep hope alive.  That was the main theme of that place: Hope. Without hope, I have nothing. Without hope I start thinking about ways to numb myself, hurt myself, end myself.  Without hope that things would get better, I forgot how much I loved being alive. I would have never remembered if not for my new psychiatrist, the nurses, the therapists, and the other patients. I could go on for days about the things I learned about myself and other people during my stay, but I can't. There are just some things I don't have the words for still.  Maybe someday I will.

Come back and find out how my life has changed in the last 6 months, for better and for worse, tomorrow.