Teaching a writing lesson…
Me: “Ok, so we’re going to start with something called a ‘brainstorm.’ Have you heard that word before?”
Kid: “Yes! A brainstorm is when you have like a storm in your brain. Like when all your thoughts are bad and they just keep crashing around in your brain and it’s hard to stop them, even when you try to think of good things.”
No.
But you are my spirit animal.
Therapist (the second she opens her office door): “Unfortunately, I’m out of tissues, so I went and grabbed this. Hopefully it will suffice.” (hands me a roll of toilet paper)
Me (laughing): “I won’t need this! Everything is good!”
Therapist (cheerfully doubtful): “Well, you know. You’re going through a lot of transitions right now so…just in case.”
Me: “I know, but they’re all good transitions! Trust me, I’m doing GREAT!”
I used over half the roll.
A mega roll.
She let me keep the rest for the ride home.
(Continuation of It Should Be Illegal For a Therapist to do This )
As it turns out, she had an unexpected medical emergency that required her to be rushed to the hospital. She did not have her schedule book or contact information with her. She is, thankfully, fine now.
In related news, I am going to hell.
**Warning: This is a rant. I am fully aware that there are MUCH larger problems in the world than the one I am experiencing right now, like hunger and poverty and sex slavery and Donald Trump and teachers getting through their first day of school today, which is inevitably a giant shitshow (good luck, teacher friends! You got this!) But this is my blog where I get to complain about shit. So I’m going to. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.**
—–
Not to be dramatic, but I feel the need to be dramatic right now. PROBABLY BECAUSE I DIDN’T GET TO HAVE MY THERAPY SESSION TODAY AND NOW MY EMOTIONS ARE BATSHIT.
I barely slept last night. No acute reason, just a typical bout of wide-awake anxiety that I couldn’t calm, no matter how much of Amy Schumer’s The Girl With The Lower Back Tattoo I tried to consume to distract myself. No big deal, it happens. I’m used to it. I ended up going out to the couch at 5am just to get a change of scenery from the toss-and-turn of the bed. I managed to finally fall asleep at 6am. Then my alarm jarred me to life at 9am.
I know, I know. No one feels sorry for me. I got to wake up at 9am! But I’m simply providing the context for my current state of VENOM SPEWING ANNOYANCE. I was already in an anxious state of mind, and then got only 3 hours of sleep. NOT A GOOD PLACE TO START. YES THESE CAPS ARE NECESSARY. I CONSIDERED TYPING THIS ENTIRE POST IN CAPS BUT THEN I REINED MYSELF THE FUCK IN. YOU’RE WELCOME.
The reason the alarm went off at all was because I had an early therapy session all the way downtown. I have tutoring clients uptown later in the day, so it was not exactly ideal to trek downtown for this session, especially on no sleep, but I figured that I probably needed it right now. When I don’t want to go to therapy, I take that as a sign that I need it the most. That’s called being a responsible crazy person (“The More You Know” sidenote: Sometimes people get confused about my cavalier use of non-PC terms such as “crazy person” in reference to my mental illness. So to clarify– I’m allowed to call myself crazy. You’re not. Unless you’re also crazy. It’s like with any other minority group. People within the group can call themselves and each other whatever they want in order to make it through the day, lighten the gravity of a situation, and cope with the daily challenges of their existence. These are the rules, as they have been inscribed in the book of life. Seriously, kids chant about this in Hebrew at their bar mitzvahs. I’m sure of it.)
So instead of calling my therapist and begging for a phone session, I hauled my tired, anxious ass off the couch, packed a suitcase (literally– my doorman yelled, “Have a great trip!” as I walked out the door) with all the assessment materials I’d need for my afternoon clients, and decided I’d show face at the session, park myself downtown at a coffee shop for the rest of the day to get some work done, and then see my clients from there. Not ideal, as I felt like garbage, and even less ideal because I would have to skip my morning workout (somewhat important for my sanity), but I prioritized the therapy because I know it’s most important for my well being. Oh, and it’s fucking expensive.
So imagine my surprise when I arrived at my therapist’s office, after a 45 minute public transportation journey, carrying a SUITCASE, in the 90 degree heat, to see this on the outside of her office door.
No text. No call. No email. Instead she decided it would be best for me to travel all the way to her office in order to find out I came for absolutely nothing. COOL DECISION, person responsible for my sanity!
I could have slept in today and caught up on the sleep I didn’t get, which certainly would have helped my mood. Or I could have gone for a run– also a guaranteed health boost. Instead, I prioritized my therapy appointment, and rearranged my entire schedule around it. Only to get rejected via POST IT NOTE.
Now I know exactly how Carrie Bradshaw felt.
The understanding part of me has to assume that something pretty bad came up very last minute, and she’s completely incapacitated. I can’t think of any other reason why she wouldn’t just shoot me a text.
But the fire breathing monster part of me is pretty pissed.
Am I nuts for thinking this is entirely unprofessional, unacceptable and possibly deserving of a free session? I literally have no idea if I am overreacting. I simply can’t be logical, because my emotions are all over the damn place. Ugh, I really need to speak to my therapi….
Oh wait.
The airline announces that they will now board all people with disabilities…
Me: “Does your diabetes count as a disability for travel?”
Eric: “Ummm no.”
Me: “Well, it should.”
Eric: “Does your mental illness count as a disability for travel?”
Me: “No. But you have a meter and insulin to prove your disability. I have nothing to prove mine.”
Eric: “They could spend 15 minutes with you.”
Just received this email from a stranger in my blogger inbox.
And you know, there was a time in my life when this kind of baseless, spiteful, wholly unconstructive criticism would have gotten me really riled up, and set me on a path to fire back with a similarly vicious retort.
But then I graduated Kindergarten and knew better.
Not sure what happened to this guy.
Therapist: “And why do you think you had that thought in response to that event?”
Me: “I don’t think there’s a reason, I think it’s just what popped into my head. For no reason at all. Can’t I just have a thought and there be no reason for it?”
Therapist: “If I believed that, I’d be out of a job.”
Me: “Touché. And I guess to be able to justify the cost of this session, I should think of a reason.”
Therapist: “Sure, if that motivates you.”
Me: “I think maybe my thought in response to this event signifies that deep down, I am just a frightened, lost, ignorant soul simply stumbling through the dark, terrifying abyss that is life.”
(long pause)
Therapist: “Alright rein it in.”
I’ve gotten many comments about my lack of posting lately. Most of you think it’s because I’m too happy and in love to bother writing anymore. HAH! No.
Yes, I love Eric dearly and yes we are very happy together, but that would never be the reason I stop posting. If I’m writing less, that is usually a bad sign. I write more when my energy is good. I make myself write when my energy is bad, too, because it is definitely therapeutic. But you’ll certainly see more frequent posting when my spirits are up.
SO STOP BLAMING ERIC.
Jk, you can blame him a little, at least for the blog’s decrease in entertainment value. My pre-Eric dating life was more amusing. For you guys, at least. Living it was bona fide hell.
Anyway, back to the point. Here’s where I’ve been:
I have felt like absolute dog shit for the past 5 weeks. No, not depression (wahoo!), but feeling this awful for this long was starting to make me FEEL depressed, which is when I knew I had to make a change. I was blaming the new Paleo diet (for those of you not familiar, Paleo is essentially a whole-foods diet…nothing processed, no added sugar, no dairy, no grains, no legumes). I had started feeling this way about 6 days into the diet (after an initial first week of feeling fabulous), so I was certain that my body was just transitioning from carb-burning to fat-burning for energy, and it was taking a little longer than normal because I’ve been feeding it approximately 16 gallons of sugar-coated garbage per day for the past 34 years and now it’s like WHAT THE FUCK DO I RUN ON NOW!?!? CHRIST.
So I was just giving it some time.
But weeks passed, and I still felt incredibly weak and depleted. I essentially felt as if I possessed no muscle whatsoever. My arms and legs were extremely heavy, and when I walked, I felt like I was going to teeter over. It hurt to hold things in my hands (even my phone. I HAD TO PUT DOWN MY PHONE, GUYS). I was so irritable I wanted to punch everything in sight, which is less than ideal when you work with children.
But I really didn’t want to give up the Paleo diet, because the switch to this lifestyle had instantly cured my two biggest life-long ailments– headaches and stomachaches. So I kept riding it out, certain my strength would return, as well as my ability to not be a fang-toothed fire monster.
It didn’t. I started crying every day because I couldn’t run anymore. I could barely make it up the stairs to my classroom at school. I couldn’t carry a grocery bag. Social events made me anxious because I didn’t know how I’d feel. I pushed myself to go to a friend’s outdoor-concert birthday party, only to end up crying hysterically to her when I didn’t have enough energy to stay on my feet.
Nobody likes the girl who cries to the birthday girl. I know that’s not even a thing, but I made it a thing, and I think everyone involved can agree it was not a good thing.
So I had a ton of blood work done. Checked all my vitamin levels, thyroid, cholesterol, blood pressure. Everything came back fine. I started to think I was going insane (you know…again).
I googled everything I could find on issues with pervasive weakness. About 3 hours into my google search, as Eric tried to gently pry the computer out of my hands and suggest I do something productive, like stand up or blink, I came across a testimonial from a girl who had very similar issues. They were related to her birth control. Specifically, she started noticing herself fall apart as soon as her pharmacy switched her over to the generic form of her pill.
This had recently happened to me. About 7 weeks prior, my mail-order pharmacy had sent me a 3-pack of the generic form (Levonorgestrel and Ethinyl Estradiol) of my regular birth control (Aviane). I wasn’t thrilled about the switch without notice or approval, but I naively trusted it’d be the same thing, and I’d be fine. Well, you know how the saying goes– “naiveté killed the cat.” (Yeah, I know, it’s “curiosity.” But that doesn’t fit this context and there’s no good quote about naiveté so BACK OFF.)
I immediately googled “Levonorgestrel and Ethinyl Estradiol.” The reviews and patient testimonials were insane. Basically, women switched to this pill and turned into Medusa. One girl swore it caused her divorce, because she became a completely irrational and emotional lunatic. Another used to be a marathon runner and then found she could barely walk (um, hello?!). Another gained 15 pounds in 3 weeks despite going to the gym every day and being in the most active, healthy phase of her life. Another stopped having sex with her husband because the sight of him disgusted her (that sounded more like a life problem than a medication problem, but godspeed to that couple.) Overall, the pill had a user rating of 1 star (for comparison, the name-brand pill I’d been taking had a rating of 4 stars).
“Holy shit. I’ve been poisoning myself,” I thought as I scrolled through testimonials that easily could have been written by me. I had basically been waking up every morning and swallowing a tiny little dragon pill that turned my insides to mush, my pupils red, and my breath to Game-of-Thrones-worthy fire darts.
I stopped taking the pill immediately. Didn’t even ride out the pack like they say you’re supposed to. Just stopped mid-pack and threw the rest in the garbage.
I quit it last Sunday. By Thursday, I was myself again. My body no longer feels heavy. I’ve been running every day. I have my strength back (not 100%, as I haven’t worked out in 5 weeks, but it is infinitely better). I can walk up stairs and not lose my breath. I can laugh again. I don’t hate everything.
Needless to say, Eric is relieved.
So the point here is four-fold:
Number 4 is very important. Because if you murder your significant other, it should be because that’s just who you are as a person, not because a pill made you do it.
You’re welcome.
I’m glad to be back!
Me: “I’ve been told walnuts will improve my brain health.”
Eric: 
I took a look at my weekly FitBit step count and saw that my friend Leslie’s number was oddly low.
A normal, rational brain: “That’s an unusually low number of steps for Leslie to have walked in the past week. She must not be wearing her FitBit.”
My brain: “LESLIE IS DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!”
(She’s not dead. I confirmed via text. Because even with a possible death on the line, voice calls are hard.)
Emily's Posts 