“I don’t mind”

Marilyn Monroe said I don’t mind living in a man’s world as long as I can be a woman in it.
There was a time when I agreed with her. When I truly believed they women were equal, that the reason I was ignored was my age.  But then I noticed something. The people who said that women weren’t equal, and it needed to be changed treated me with respect. They heard what I said… The people who said that women were equal ignored me.
Fast forward to today, and I’m making less than a man would at my job. It’s not that I negated less. It’s that I was lied to when the negotiation ended. It’s that there are no local jobs that I will ever be paid the same as a man.
There are no local jobs where I will be respected like a man would. There is less chance for me to do the photography I like because I’m a women, and should be taking photos of people. Yuck. Not Me.

I’m trapped by being a women. I’m ignored, pushed aside. If what I want for me isn’t what the other person in the transaction wants, I’m expected to give up my goal, regardless of how that makes me feel…

So no. I’m not happy being a women in a man’s world.  I’m not content to be unequal to any one, based only on my gender, and sexual orientation.

Success journal

I  finally started  one.  My amazingly  awesome therapist gave me a journal with (insert quote  here)   written  on it.  This quote gave       me some thing to think about… And the end result of that thinking was to give me a journal that’s a simple list of what Ive done. This is something that I have neglected to focus on or even acknowledge for a long time. I review this journal second thing(meds come first) I. The morning. Its helping me move towards getting out of bed before work so that my life is more then laying in bed and work. I’m feeling really happy about this and am considering posting this list as a photograph on twitter, but I’m not sure if I’d be OK with making it public, or of it would just feel like too much work.

the darkest times

It was a dark and stormy night. The road that was going to lead me home was an unsafe one, that had rock slides and sheer cliffs. My friend refused to let me take that one, so I took the safer route. It’s still a mountain pass, but no sheer drops,  3 lanes in each direction, and much straighter. So, I thought that all would be good.
There was a car to my left, and rocks all over the road. Running over one of them left my tire punctured and my rim broken. Thankfully I had a spare in the back of my car. In a crying panic I called my friend.
I was sitting in my locked car, waiting for them to rescue me when the wrong car pulled behind me, A man in a yellow rain suite then shined  a mag light into  my window. He was highway patrol.  He was professional. but that doesn’t help me at all. I’m triggered by law enforcement, as well as car problems.  Just as he left, another vehicle with far too many lights pulled up in front  of me.  I was already at a 10.  He was a nice man who changed my tire for 60 dollars.
This let me go on my way and I made it home.  Now I;m not copying well while waiting for a replacement rim.
This part is much harder then the  first part in the car becouse no one seems to get it… Im cut off from all  of my safe places. I cant just toss a few items in the car and  take off.  I feel at times like I did when my now ex boyfriend wuld take his care and leae me withonlthe stick sift that I couldnt drive.

189 pounds

I’ve gained 10 pounds in one month due to overeating and inactivity. Some of it has been stress eating, some has been celebrating.My activity outside of work has turned into laying down in bed for the most part. I’ll lay there reading, or watching streaming video on my iPad. That or I go to therapy.  But my job is really physical, and it makes me be on my feet and moving. This movement has likely stopped me from getting even fatter.

So, I know how to make my self loose weight. I get more active… I sit and read instead of laying down. I spend more time working on projects, even if they are ones that are really sedentary. That would be things like writing, and interacting with people.  In a week, my body would have lost enough weight for the pain to stop. It really is that simple for me. But I have to want to do it. That’s the problem for me. Being my currant weight is doing something for me.

It’s keeping men from flirting with me.  I don’t want the guy who’s my age and really, really cute and nice flirting. It’s not a good time for me to  be meeting that kind of person right now. I don’t want the guy who’s old and jobless. I never, ever, ever want him in my life. Unless he’s really rich and looking to marry me. Then I’ll consider it.  Lets say that I made it through the cheese/insulting line, and I go to turn him down. There’s a good chance that I will receive a fairly uncivil reaction from the guy. This part scares me too.  I’ve seen far too many guys who arn’t ok with me not wanting anything to do with him.

Do I really need to put up with that kind of crap from guys? Do they really need to be mostly assholes who won’t take a “I’m not interested” as an answer? Unfortunately, the case to both of them is yes, yes I do. The worst part is that the world I live in has said that this is both acceptable, normal, and good.  This needs to change.

Why I’m skipping Thanksgiving this year

When I was a kid, food was always an issue. My dad apparently didn’t believe in eating breakfast, or lunch. Of course there cereal, but the milk would be spoiled, or all gone. There would be no tea to drink, only black coffee.  The sugar was gone so often that I didn’t bother to check for it, and the milk.. already covered. So, there was nothing but toast but the jelly would have mold on it. of course my Dad didn’t think that there was a problem with eating moldy food, so sometimes the bread would be moldy also. That left me with little to eat for lunch. Lucky for me, there were a few smart teachers who would call my Dad, and make sure that I was given both breakfast and lunch at school. But that didn’t start until they figured out that I was using my birthday money on food.

When I got older, things got a little better. I started cooking, and thus got leftovers for lunch. That became cool when I got to high school because I would eat good for me food, and my friends wanted to be healthy.  The problem then became getting proper food.  There was a period of a few months where my diet was almost nothing but shitty iceberg lettous. I was still at the age where I needed a work permit, my parents wouldn’t sign it without me handing over my paycheck. I didn’t have a place that I could have hide the money safely. My room was considered fair game for searches. So, I wasn’t given food that had any nutritional value, and I didn’t have a single safe person who was willing to help me get it.

On top of this, I was always told that I was “fat” and my dad gave me various pills. They got flushed. I know, that’s bad to do with them, but It’s what I had to do. I didn’t want to take them. My problem wasn’t that I needed pills, I needed food that was healthy. If I ate too much, I was fat. If I ate too little, then I was being disrespectful for not liking the food.

So, I’ve already had food issues. This is only the ground work for the real problem. My last exboyfriend refused to eat anything that i cooked after a little while. He would then get offended if I didn’t like or eat the food that he made, or wanted to go out and eat. But I wanted healthy food, not fat and sugar filled stuffs. But, I let him cook, and I gained weight. As this happened, he got steadily more abusive. I don’t know if it was about my weight, or if it was about him being an asshole. But, it happened.

Then, earlier on the night he attacked me, he odored a pizza for us… one with meat on it… despite it being the one that I was paying for, and it was celebrating for me, and I don’t like meat on pizza. I like vegetables, and lots of them.  He knew this, yet disregarded my tastes at my celebration, on my dime…

so, now the girl who has post-tratamic-stress can’t handle sitting down with a group of people and eating. So, I’m skipping Thanksgiving this year. I will not force  my self into an experience that is high pressure, and likely to end bad with people who won’t understand. I say that because the ones who do understand let me just say “not this year” and answer with “ok” or “I understand” or “I’m here to talk about it.”

Mental Health Professionals are control freaks.

I have never been a follower. I’m not much of a leader, but I do make my own choices. This is why I have issues with the mental health professionals that I know. They keep on acting like they have a better idea of my life then I do. At my latest intake exam, I had one tell me that I should get a job dealing with people in the AM’’s because I have sleeping problems.
Mind you, if I were to get a job in the AM dealing with people, I wouldn’t be able to keep it. I’d have one too many bad days, and be fired. With my currant job, I’m mostly alone, and can go off and cry/panic/cope as needed. Most of my job is on my own, and free from anxiety causing stuff. Then he scheduled my next appt. for when I’m normally sleeping.
So, is he on my team? No. If the idea that I should go get another job that actively triggers my anxiety isn’t enough, could you just schedule me for a time when I’m available? One that’s not going to get everyone who I live with annoyed, and destroy my sleeping schedule?
If this were a one time thing, it would be different. But I’ve never had, in my years of dealing with them, a “metal health professional” who didn’t proclaim that there answers were the best, and who was willing to answer a single objection, or a single question. I’m used to doctors working with me more. They will at least give me a b.s. answer. I don’t always call them on it.
I just don’t understand why it’s so hard to find someone in the mental health world who understands what it’s like out there in the real world. I don’t need people just giving orders. What I need is people who are going to help me find solutions so I can get back on track. Back to writing and photography. Get to the point where fear isn’t the controlling part of my life.

“wealthy” editing 2 (I’m a terrable writer)

My brain is melting and running from my ears. My writing is so bad. I’m terribly scared that someone will read “wealthy”, right now. I’m also equally scared that it will be locked away in my computer because I never bothered to finish writing, or editing the story. ..

I couldn’t get through the whole thing on the first pass.  The horror of it was so great that I had to stop. I’d written one too many paragraphs that had to be redone, and now I’m scared that I will never be able to finish the story.. and the anxiety is such that it stopped me form editing and to start filling in the gaps of the story. I got 2 pages written. That’s a respectable amount of work for a part time writer. 

Now, I’m writing this post instead of working on my story. I’m scared that I won’t get to it, and I’m scared that I won’t be able to find the right words to tie the story to gather. I was so scared about this that i laid in bed for hours before behind hungry finally pulled me out of bed.

 

Is this writing any good? I don’t know.. and that scares me. Will no one read it? that’s as scary as someone reading it, and it being terrable.

“Wealthy” Starting Edit One.

I now have 2 stories sitting in the “rough draft” folder. The One that I just finished I believe could be very good. The other one sitting there… I think was just me figuring out how to get a story over 1,000 words on paper. It ended up as 14,000 words. This story is under the working title “wealthy”.  It’s going to be my experiment with editing a story. My plan is to start today, using my iPad, or my computer to read through it and mark up what I think it needs. I’m *not* changing anything in the story (unless the change in me finding a really wrong word, or a misspelling after so long).  Then I’ll make changes on the second pass. I’ll keep you posted on how this goes.

Mighty Minion freaks out

Telemarketing isn’t reliable work. It’s not anywhere my dream job, and I failed at it this time. I could do well if the scripts weren’t changed every day… I tried. I failed. Im sitting in a coffee shop with my new hair cut. I now get to enjoy having a few days off where I don’t have to work, and I’m mostly trying to not be freaked out, the way that I have been the last few days.

I am on major freak out mode, and I have been for a few weeks. I can’t quite relax, and can’t quite calm down. I’m having tons of panic attacks. I’ve been in and out of crisis mode, mostly sitting on the edge of it. If it wasn’t for having very good friends, I wouldn’t be holding it together.

I can’t get anyone who’s in the mental health field to be helpful. None of them are willing to call me back, or answer there phones. The ones who will answer have all of there options weeks, and at least 300 dollars away. I wouldn’t mind the price, but I’ve been down this road before. I’ve been to enough to know that they are all the same. I’m scared of everything. Treat that, don’t try to tell me that having no hope is a mental disorder. Don’t try to tell me that *My* definitions of values aren’t important.

What I want from a Dr:
*treat main problem, not the secondary.
*review the chart before the appointment
*Believe me when I say that the side effects arn’t working for me.
*Believe me when I say that the meds make me more crazy
*When I say what my goals are, make them your’s too.
*see me On Time.
*If you cancel on me make my next appt. discounted.
*Clean the whole place, on a regular basis. (never, ever, ever should I smell stale piss in
your waiting room.)

“Life is Pain”

“Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something” The Princess Bride.

 

I hurt, both physically and emotionally. If it’s a good day, I’m only uncomfortable. My hands and wrist are, at best mildly uncomfortable. I’ve got arthritis already. On the bad days I can barley move my hands.  On the really bad days, I”ve got burning pain shooting up my arms.  Lucky for me, the really bad days don’t happen very often.

 

Then there’s the anxiety. It comes in stops and starts, and right now it’s really bad. My phone… is mostly dead. I can barley use it. I’ve got another one on the way, but it’s not here yet. I’ve got more reliable phone for my own use, and because of my magical number service, I’m porting my texts and calls to it..

 

But, I’ve lost all of the apps that I have become dependent on. Every time I go to use one, I have a panic attack. It’s ranging from mild to very severe… How do now get notes onto my computer? I can’t. How do I view my google calendar? I can’t.. check email? nope. Take a photograph of what i want to remember? not gonna happen…

 

So, what do I do? I freak out. I take my time, and I get things done as I can. I let people know that I’m waiting on the new phone… and I try not to mess things up too badly.  I then also remind myself that I am a self-rescuing princess… who gets a little help.