Word Spy - self-talk

I visited my therapist the other day and came and left with a feeling that there was and is something bothering me but just below the surface of my mind; I can't figure out what it is. My therapist recommended, among other ideas and questions, boning up on my self-talk, specifically repeating the phrase "I am safe" to myself.

Today I walked to work and repeated that phrase to myself over and over. Oddly enough I didn't feel any better, only worse and after about the tenth or twentieth repetition, something in my head responded "Safety isn't the issue."

To which I now wonder, what is?

It's All Fun And Games Until Someone Loses Sleep And Throttles The Life Out Of Those Responsible

Marriage is a perilous thing. Don't get me wrong...it's a wonderful experience: wonderfully beautiful and wondrous strange and terrifying. Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing in all of the preparations leading up the marriage...chosing the church, reception hall, bridesmaids...attending the bridal showers, marriage counseling (or not), rehersal dinner...prepares you for the gargantuanly infintisimal aspects of intimacy you will experience. Someone elses removed toenails, shedded foot skin, variously sized and colored eliminations...all of that is included in the love and cherish and sex.

My husband is a snorer (if such a word exists). He is a snorer of Valhallian proportions; both he and others have relayed fantastical stories of the volume of his snores. Early into our marriage these nighttime bellows were halted by the application of a c-pap machine; they are now back due to some cryptic malfunction preventing the c-pap from doing what it should. I'd grown used to the quiet while sleeping and now that the snoring has returned I find myself unable to fall and stay asleep without earplugs.

This would be an acceptable solution were it not for the simple fact that the earplugs block out all sound: the snoring, the soothing CD advertised to create peaceful dreams, the alarm that wakes me for my morning dose of synthetic thyroid, the other that wakes me for my morning dose of antidepressants. So I use them sporadically throughout the night, which provides only a placebo type help when it comes to sleep.
Combine this with the ever-increasing frequency of nightmares and my nighttime slumber has effectively been torn to shreds of a couple hours here, an hour there...I sleep in gasps. There are volumes of literature out there on the impact of sleep, or the lack thereof, on depression and vice versa and I have read enough of it to know that sleeping in this manner...in fits and starts...is to the illness like a match to a gasoline-soaked warehouse of firecrackers and napalm. Basically the catalyst for the inevitable disaster that comes when it is struck and applied.

Last night it was sleep...waking to a frantic dog in need of peeing...sleep...one nightmare...sleep...yet another...doze...one more, all to the tune of loud, penetrating snores. I gave up somewhere around too early 'o' clock and am now hoping beyond hope that I can wring out another half hour, hour of slumber before I start my day.

That Stupid Female Thing

Working with all men definitely has its perks; I prefer it over working with all women. The environment tends to be more straighforward, more direct; there is less game-playing and the game-playing that exists is, in general, more upfront, usually transparent.

There is one huge downside to it and that is the utter inability to commisserate with a fellow worker while suffering from a truly nasty bout of PMS. That and the simple fact that if you forget your 'feminine hygiene' products at home, you are utterly screwed.

Yes, email is a wonderful invention, allowing one to communicate almost instantaneously with another potential fellow sufferer...but it's not the same as venting bloat-related frustration to someone who is physically right there. And last I checked object teleportation still hasn't been invented so IM'ing a tampon is right out. Which just sucks.

Brought to you by the word bloat, and a wicked case of emotional turbulence.

Insert Witty Title Here

I finally broke down and made an appointment with my therapist (not to be confused with my psychiatrist) after having, in short succession, a shouting episode and a sobbing collapse. In my defense both were instigated by an extremely aggravating run-in with Comcast which, at one point, had me on the phone with dispatch, on the internet frantically searching for the developer's contact info, restraining Roscoe...who desperately needed to go outside...and trying to communicate with a physically present technician - all at the same time. The crying wouldn't stop until I'd gotten off the phone with everyone I needed to call (husband to explain absence at dinner with friends, therapist to make appointment and simultaneously sob while explaining my current state) and curled up around a bowl of cereal and my second reading of Vellum.

I did see my psychiatrist who, after listening to my recounting of the interesting experience of having the exact same situation evoke two completely different responses depending on the time of day in which it occurred, prescribed a bottle of 10mg Adderall XR. To be taken in increasing doses at 12 noon until the desired effect is reached. I'm alternately flattered that my psych trusts that I will not abuse the flexibility of said prescription and disturbed that I come across as such a competent person...given my fluctuations as of late.

The move (bought condo on south side of town which required moving from the north...where I've lived since moving here) and all experiences surrounding it were too much and differing from the point of this blog to recount here so I've also started another. I'm probably overextending myself in doing so, but I need the compartmentalization.