Not the Answer

My hyper-quilt-activity is not the answer.  It only raises more questions......

Never Far Away

My anxiety is never far away.  I'm having rough time of it today.

The toughest thing for me in trying to get better, move on, cope.... is to figure out my triggers.  I'm still struggling with that.

What's strange is that I thought I was doing a lot better.  I've found a project to work on.  I moved forward with plans for my group.  We had a nice weekend.  I shouldn't have much to be anxious about.

It's days like this that I feel the most hopeless.

Project Monkey: Drinking of the Kool-Aid

Whether or not you think the phrase "drink the kool-aid" offensive, because of it's roots to the Jonestown murder suicides in 1978, it's a very effective phrase.  My kids would look at me blankly if I used it, buy my generation and older would probably know what I meant.

The term “drink the Kool-Aid” is used to describe blind acceptance of something, whether it be a high stress work environment, an order from a superior, or membership in a particular group.  (Wisegeek)

I'm asking you not to drink the kool-aid..... wherever it may be offered up:  politics, business, friendship, or quilting groups.

People become so overwhelmed by charisma, a personal quality attributed to people who arouse fervent popular devotion and enthusiasm, that they abandon any ability for critical thinking or just plain good sense regarding character and true intentions.

A kool-aid drinker will mindlessly follow his or her leader even if it means doing personal or public harm to self or others. (open.salon)

What is worse when you drink your own kool-aid!

I admit to sipping the stuff, including my own concoction.  Unfortunately, I'm the type that gets sucked in because I'm so desperate for belonging.  It's a good thing I haven't received any invititations to cult meetings lately.

My professional head shrinker was aghast at my latest endeavor and lease on life.  It wasn't what they had in mind when I promised to move on.  There's only so much I can agree to and I agreed to get more exercise and to get involved and I.....have.


It's super awful quality, but I couldn't find anything better.

Project Monkey: You Mean I'm Ill?

This post has a lot to do with an email from beliefnet.com that I got yesterday.  I've become a quick fan of Therese J. Borchard.

Being a person with some type of mental health malaise has become my identity and how I am seen by those around me.  (Actually since I've been having an episode  for the past six months, I've been reminded that it's been my not-so-secret identity all my life.)  That being said, I've never labeled myself as a person with a depression illness or acknowledged that I have an illness.  I've said I have mood swings, the blues, a chronic personality Bitch disorder, that I'm depressed today, etc.

Most of the people around me make me feel like I have some control over my depression.  Heck, even I think I should be able to control it.....  I'm not being paranoid about this.  I know it's true!  M has let it be known from early on just as much.  I don't think he's changed his mind at all over the years, but now he deals with me differently.  When I'm in one of my moods, he says as much and excuses me until I snap out of it.  I think my mom is the only one that gets me because I'm pretty sure she deals with the same issues.

I have people tell me you're the unhappiest person I know.  Can't you try to be happy?  Why are you this way?  What do you have to be unhappy about?  You complain about everything and everyone.  blah, blah, blah

I've felt a little better about life lately. I get most down when I feel like I'm alone, that I'm horrible person because of the way I feel or the things I do, and that I should be able to control my depression.

I'm not happy about acknowledging my depression as an illness and an incurable one at that.  I think you can manage it and take steps to try to head episodes off at the pass, but I'm learning that you're never really cured.  I would love it if it was a switch I could turn off.

My goal has always been to learn ways to deal with the way I feel, to learn how to cope, and to put myself in the best position so as to not to become ruled by it.  To learn that I will always have to be mindful of that which I suffer so that I can avoid getting into situations that destabilize the tenuous balance I've been able to achieve.

This is one of the hardest parts because it takes a lot of work and requires certain recognitions.  It will require me to say No to myself and others, also.  I don't have to be defined by my illness, but I need to be very mindful of it with everything I do.

From the beliefnet.com article:

I suppose it's an exercise in saying the Serenity Prayer: trying to identify the things I can't change, the things I can, and asking God for a little assistance in telling them apart. In her book, "The Wisdom to Know the Difference," Eileen Flanagan writes about how we can better live the Serenity Prayer ... or navigate more gracefully through the thorny territory between our diagnoses and our opportunities. Much of it, she says, comes from accepting ourselves: with our cotton mouths and extra pounds, with our hypersensitivity to noise and stimulation, with our low threshold for stress. She writes:

Accepting life's flat tires seems to be easier for people who have accepted themselves. If you know who you are, what you are capable of, and what you are called to do, you are much less likely to waste your time and energy sweating the small stuff or even the big stuff you cannot change. You are less likely to project your uncomfortable feelings onto other people, instead of facing your feelings and learning what they have to teach you. You are less likely to waste time trying to change other people and more likely to influence them with a positive example.

I'd like to think she's right ... that the more we accept ourselves with our limitations, the more freedom we feel in living as individuals, not merely as bipolars, diabetics, or cancer victims, and the better we can distinguish the things that we can't change from the things that we can.

This may or may not have made a difference in what happened six months ago with TQC.  I'll never really be able to test it because I can't go back.

Warning: Have Fun or ELSE!

I've been warned by a professional to have some fun or else.....

How in the heck am I supposed to do that?!

I've also been warned that having fun doesn't mean spending money....

I'm also supposed to stop worrying so much about my kids, this house, my parents' health, and everything else. I'm supposed to take a vacation from worrying.

Ha!

I'm up at midnight because M got into bed first. I ordered him to go to bed because he fell asleep and was snoring. I forced him to get up as quickly as I could so he didn't get into the sleep of the dead where I can't wake him up and I'm forced to go to bed instead to get away from the noise.

I cleaned up my sewing table and filled up another tote. I told M that his quilt may be the last one I ever finish. He told me to stop being so melodramatic. I agreed with him. I'm always the drama queen.

We've got two soccer games tomorrow. A is bummered big time that this is his bye week. Sunday is the Z's day for b'day fun. I've still got to work that one out as S thought I was taking her and her friend out that day. Maybe if I write about it here I won't "worry" about keeping two kids happy that share the same birthday, but don't really want to share me.

Project Monkey: Questions to Ponder

I hate feeling like I'm crazy and out of control all the time.

I've felt this way for so long that I don't think I know what's normal anymore. I worry that I'm addicted to these feelings even if they're negative.

The truth hurts A LOT! (M was talking about an owner in one of his buildings that he thinks has some type of psychological issue he says like bi-polarisim or manic condition. He actually said, "She's worse than you.")

I keep asking myself what will make me happy? Am I fooling myself into thinking that if I get the house in better shape that I will be happier? Am I dumb to think that if M and the kids help out more around the house without my constant nagging that I'll be happier? Am I totally crazy to think that if I quilt more that I'll be happier? How about if I have a real quilting-based blog where I really share my love of quiiting, books, etc? Or, if I finally make some friends that I'm actually able to do things with?

If I accomplish any of this stuff will I be happier, or will I just look for other obstacles and things to be unhappy about?

Why can't I just do what I want to do instead of talking about it all the time and putting obstacles in my path, making excuse after excuse?

The other thing I'd like to figure out is when, where, how did I misplace my sense of humor? Even when it rears it's head it's usually in the form of sarcasm and snarkiness to the point of meanness.

Lyrics | Switchfoot lyrics - This Is Your Life lyrics


Lyrics | Depeche Mode lyrics - Halo lyrics

Homework for the Week

I'm very good at being angry and unhappy. I excel at it actually.

It's been suggested by the monkey doctor that I try to be good at something else......

Still working on the coping skills thing.

I've also been told that instead of waiting to be forgiven by a certain Twilight quilting group that I should forgive THEM for what they did to ME. (Before any doubts the rosy picture I might have painted about the events and my part, I was brutally honest about everything.) Check them out: the blog has been redesigned and they're having an anniversary contest. Do yourself a favor and don't tell them I sent you....

I Can't Handle the Guilt

As I continue down the road of self-discovery.....

It's amazing I can get up in the morning or stay upright with all the guilt I carry around for just about everything in my life.

I'm not a good enough mom.

I'm lacking as a wife.

I'm certainly not a good daughter.

I'm a horrible friend.

I'm a Quiltzilla....

I shouldn't spend money on any of the things I spend money on, including my coffee habit and quilting obsession.

The list goes on and on.

It's not like I live with the guilt I have feel. I'm angry that I feel guilty. Sometimes I think it WOULD be better if I did the things I do with impunity. I regularly act out against the guilt I feel.

In Search of Happiness: Will it always allude me?

Lyrics | Soundtrack Artists Lyrics | Monsters Lyrics(use the arrows at the top of the box to make it move faster or slower)

Shannon: the MONSTER


More than one person in my life has asked me if I know how to be happy? Others have written me off because I'm such an unhappy person.

I tried an exercise. I tried to list times in my life when I've felt happy and I was hard pressed to come up with many or at least remember the instances. I do feel like a cloud hovers over me all the time. Any happiness that I feel and/or acknowledge is always tempered by some negativity I identify and focus on.

I'm reading a book someone gave me years ago, but refused to read. I've never given it away, though, which is very telling. The Addictive Personality by Craig Nakken. It's focus is understanding the addictive process and compulsive behavior.

The book begins with a basic premise that happiness is cyclical and uncontrollable. (I'll have to think more about this. Does happiness find you or do you find it?)

The book says that almost all people crave happiness and are able to experience it during points in their lives, but for what ever reason it slips away. Don't worry happiness returns, but these cycles of happiness are virtually uncontrollable. It's impossible and unrealistic to be happy all the time. When people try to effect happiness unnaturally with a substance or an action, they increase their potential for addiction.

I think I should be happy with just being unhappy. LOL...... If I weren't trying to be happy all the time, then I wouldn't do things to effect the mood change associated with the euphoria. I wouldn't compulsively shop. I wouldn't try to be part of groups when I don't really like or identify with their purpose just to be a part of the group.

I skipped over a lot of the book last night to get to the solutions or steps to take to get well. What you say?!

One of these is to become more spiritual. I would like this to be an effective step for me. I've discussed my difficulty in attending church lately. I've talked about my disappointment in not being more a part of the congregration. This is a big fib. I want to go to church. I don't want to be bothered with all the social requirements, though. For instance, this has become a huge part of the service of late and is one of the reasons I've not wanted to go. Instead of the "Peace be with you....and also with you..." part of the service to greet those attending, the pastor has required us to participate in an exercise where we spend three minutes with another group/person and get to know each other and then finding another new person/group and introducing your new friends to them. Excruciating!

Before you think I walk around with a scowl on my face all the time and growl at people--that is SO not the case. Before you think that I don't know how to be neighborly or help out in a pinch--that's not the case either! I'm usually a very pleasant person. I know how to behave in social situations. YES, it would be better by most people's standards if I desired to be more social but I don't. I hate being forced to. I dislike feeling guilty because I'm not living up to expectations to be so.

WHY can't people just accept that I'm this way. You don't have to like it or me. When do I get to be ME?

Betrayals

You may not believe it, but I do edit a lot while writing and definitely before publishing. It could be much worse........... Sure the blog is for me to get it all out, but you well know how much I like visitors and comments because I don't feel as alone as I could be. With every angsty entry I worry, but I usually publish something or another even if it's a muted version of what I really want to say. The focus of this blog changed when I deleted my other one and I'm still not happy about that. One might not understand why I have to have more than one blog, but I do. I intended for this one to be about my home improvements and how quilting was a part of that. Until I get off my ass and have another blog, this is where I'll continue to spew.

I'm trying to be done with making excuses for what I write about on this blog. This one may or may not be a doozy by standards, but I must write. Read if you want!

Work has been difficult for awhile now. I've been dealing with a situation involving another division of my company. I'm a bookeeper with other evolving responsibilities so I have been drawn into the whole drama. I've been so stressed out over the whole situation! It looks like it's going to be resolved very soon even in an uncomfortable and wrenching way. I played along for as long as I could, but I'm honestly glad it's going to be resolved because it will relieve some of my work stress.

The situation brings to mind a peeve of mine: Betrayal. My boss trusted someone. He gave someone an opportunity and was sorely taken advantage of. My boss is upset by the business failure, but he's more upset and HURT by the betrayal he feels. I so get that!

A few months back I went through my own situation. I lay a lot of the blame at my feet for any number of reasons, including my lack of communication to parties that I had issue with and their work because I cringe at conflict. (I'm well aware that by doing so I caused more drama, especially for myself.) Even though I knew how I addressed certain problems was wrong, the reason for my reaction was because of the betrayal I felt by those that I thought were in agreement with me (even saying so in private correspondence) and themselves didn't vocalize any objections until the end of the project.

Betrayal

Part of all of my thinking and rehashing all this ONE MORE TIME is because I am trying to identify MY BUTTONS: the things that I do, the things that annoy me, the things that I can't live with, etc so that I can make MY changes. I need to discover as much as I can about what makes me tick. I need also to learn to be okay with the fact that I can't be friends with some people because of the WAY I am. I'm sure I will be much happier.