Therapalooza

Well it happens once a month…every so often it is every 5 weeks…a very special event occurs. I don’t know how many people get to experience it; perhaps only special people get to experience Therapalooza. (Yeah, so you’re surprised that I’m one of the chosen “special,” huh?)

Go ahead. Ask.
I know you want to.
I can read your mind. (Just because mine is a bit…well let’s just say mine is a bit…doesn’t mean I can’t read yours.)
Be like Nike and just do it.

“OK, Moms,” you say, “I’ll ask.”

WHAT THE F*CK IS THERAPALOOZA??????

Therapalooza is the once monthly day when I have my appointment with my therapist AND the shrink who dumped me on the same day!!

Calm down, my friend, I know that you are jealous of Therapalooza. Sometimes I am even jealous of myself during the other 29 or 30 days that are not Therapalooza.

And now, without further ado…or even adon’t… a recap of Therapalooza!!!

Therapalooza Act I: The Shrink Who Dumped Me

*I’ve got issues.
Issues with Bobby and Double (Big F*cking Issues, with a capital ISH!)
Issues with Margaret (Again that capital ISH!)
Issues with Seth…no, I take that back. The issues are not with Seth himself, but with the fact that Seth just got laid off due to no fault of his own and the incredible anxiety I am feeling about temporarily having one income.
Issues with ED (Big, Huge, Fat F*cking Cow Issues with a capital ISH ISH ISH!!!)
Who’s ED?
Issues with all my other issues.
Issues with issues with issues on top of issues with whipped cream and cherries on top.
Did I mention issues?

Oh, did I tell you that I want to get a second job? Not a second career. Nothing major or full-time or even important enough that I will rue burning a bridge when my brilliant Seth gets another even better full-time job, second job. Just the run-of-the-mill not something I really want to do because I have nothing better to do second job. I’m talking tutoring which will give me some good money but every certified teacher who wants to pick up a second job wants to do. Or babysitting which is a pretty simple task for a mom (we’ll leave off the “gotsproblems” part) with three kids and you’re right I don’t really desire to work all day with kids and then be with my kids and then spend weekends with mine and others so I can get extra money. And I would most likely be able to get the same money a high school kid would get even though I theoretically could and should get more but I would be able to get the jobs now and then it would be more in my pocket than working retail and seriously I don’t think I could handle waitressing.*

Conclusion: Yes, you do have big, fat f*cking issues. Yes, your life does suck. No, I will not give you a stimulant for your ADHD. Yes, I know that is the only thing that really worked, but because of ED I will not give you them. Here’s a prescription for *%&%$%^^%$##%. See you next month during Therapalooza.

OK, so what that I am paraphrasing. You get it, right?

Moms!
What?
Get on with it?
With What?
You’re Killing me. I’m begging you to let me read about ACT II of Therapalooza.
Sure. Do you want the “I will take the about 17 MINUTE THERAPY SESSION transcript and stretch it into the 50 MINUTE THERAPY SESSION transcript” version? or the super-elapsed, “you totally get the point without me turning this already longer-than I planned entry” version?
What do you mean you’re not sure? Really?
Well me being Momsgotproblems, and me being so wonderfully and awesomely accommodating (Yeah, we already established issued filled) I’ll give you both!

Therapalooza ACT II: The Therapist

Here’s the super-elapsed version (sans conclusion): Start reading at the * and stop when you reach the *.
Here’s the stretched-out, 17 minute into 50 minute transcript (sans conclusion): Start reading at the *, read unit you reach the * and then repeat 3 or 4 more times (depending on how fast you read.

Conclusion: Yup, Moms=issues. I get it, Moms. Right now life, excuse my language, life sux (I totally get a kick out the fast she always says that while I frequently and spectacularly drop the f-bomb). How are you taking care of you? I don’t think getting a second job is a great plan. Sell stuff on craigslist. It’s wrap-up time.

Still jealous of Therapalooza? I’ll be happy to take along some of your questions to raise during next month’s celebration.

****IF YOU CAN TELL ME HOW MANY TIMES I USED THE WORD “ISSUE” OR “ISSUES” AND IF YOU COMMENT (LET ME REPEAT–AND YOU COMMENT) I’LL EMAIL YOU A SUPPLY OF CHEESEBURGERS THAT WILL LAST FROM ONE THERAPALOOZA TO THE NEXT THERAPALOOZA.

Remember Me?

Sorry, sorry, sorry, SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bad, bad, bad Momsgotproblems! I have not written to you. I have not informed you.

But I have not abandoned you.
But I have not forsaken you.
But I have not forgotten you.

It’s not you; it’s me.

Things have been crazy. Things have been trying. Things have been difficult. Things have been trying. Really, really trying.

I feel like Job. (Not job as in employment; Job as in the guy in the Bible that God kept dishing out bad sh*t to repeatedly to test his faith–kinda a mean exam, huh? Kinda like a giganto pop quiz a teacher might give to make sure students are doing the reading. BTW, I never give pop quizzes–as in ever–maybe because I didn’t always do my reading when I was in school? Who knows…) Anywhooo, I digress.

Really, it’s time to move onto some other individual, because I am really starting to get over-the-top overwhelmed. If I am at work, I am letting down Double and Margaret. If I am visiting Double (who is currently in the hospital), I am being a bad mother and employee. If I am visiting Margaret (who is not at home, but somewhere else…if I got into it, this entry would be 9,736,593.748 words–or something like that–long–) I am letting down my own family and Double.

I am only one person!!!

Oh, and I forgot one person who is all up in the Kool Aid: ED. Oh, in case you have never heard this expression, it is Southern. Actually the whole expression is, “He/She is all up in the Kool Aid and doesn’t know the Flavor,” which basically refers to someone who throws his/her two cents in and doesn’t know what’s going on. I f*cking HATE that! Anywhooo, I digress, AGAIN.

Back ED. He’s taking advantage of the situation. I’m just doing whatever he wants without any discussion, arguments, questioning, concerns, issues. No protests.

Zip. Nil. Nyet. Nada.

I know what you, my lovely readers (and you all are extremely lovely) are thinking, “Oh, Moms, that’s just pathetic! Just going along with ED? PATHETIC!”

Yup. Guilty as charged. I’ve been hitting drive-thru’s and convenient stores (you can ONLY guess what kinds of things I am purchasing) and the junk food at home. I’ve justified it by saying I am just doing what I have time to do. Because we all know it takes less time to buy a candy bar than an apple.

I am very terrible at handling my own life.
But I am excellent at making a plethora of excuses.

I’m still Heeeeeeeere!

Hi blog readers. Miss me? Of course you did? Sorry I have been MIA. Does that mean nothing has been happening in my life? Hardly. Rather the opposite.

Too much is going on. So much I can’t keep up with my own life. “With what?” You may ask. May ask? You are asking. With dear old Mags, with Seth, with Double and Robbie (or was it Bobbie? Who the f*ck remembers). With visits to my therapist–oh, now I’m twice a week crazy.

And with ED. Sorta. Huh?

He’s kinda been leaving me alone. To binge. But by leaving me alone, he’s not. I’m bingeing. So here’s the question: Am I acting under my own free will and choosing to be self-destructive? Or is this part of ED’s master plan?

What is this disconnect between what I ultimately want and failure to do what it takes to achieve it?

Am I my own obstacle?
Or is it ED?

Absent, But by No Means Gone

The title of today’s entry refers to two different people: ED and me. Let me be egocentric and start with me, because doesn’t it all start, and end with me, right? I haven’t blogged in quite a while. Sorry, readers. Things have been crazy–yeah, like always.

Even though I am on summer vacation.
Even though Margaret is at overnight summer camp.
Even though Beth is at day camp.
Even though Ann is at preschool camp.

So what the hell can be crazy?

Um, me? OK, stop laughing.

So what my mind is still getting pulled into 150 different directions and my thoughts are bumping into each other. So what I can’t get out of my own way. So what I can’t sleep even though I am really sleepy all the time. So what I am bitchy as hell. So what I am sore and still and cranky and I can’t even get out of my own way. So what I am pissed off at myself for doing nothing constructive with my time and I keep telling myself to channel that frustration and anger into a mass session of productivity and then I sit on my *ss in extreme laziness and become more and more pissed.

I feel more and more absent from everything. I am barely going through the motions. Laundry is piling up. The mess is more than piling up. Meals have been reduced to pathetic affairs; cooking is a thing of a past, but just whatever foodstuff can be gathered quickly and tossed on the table. The only thing I manage to do that is remotely responsible is taking Beth and Ann to and from camp.

As I said absent–just like my daily blog entries–entries.

And ED.
The other person referred to in the title of this blog entry. He has been absent, but not gone. Absent from my thoughts? Hardly. He is never absent from my thoughts. ED is ALWAYS with me, whispering sweet nothings in my ear, “You’re fat. You’re disgusting. You’ll never be skinny because you are always stuffing your face with food. Stop lying to yourself.”

But ED has not really been with me to help me become skinny and happy. He has kept skinniness absent from my life. He’s been absent with his help.

But not gone. Over the past week or so, ED has peeked through the curtains. He guided me to my knees (you can guess why) I think twice. That’s it. Just twice. Just enough to say, “I’m not gone for good, just absent.”

ED, prove to me that you are really, really back. Stop being absent. Be present. Be present. Every day.

And I will try to be present. Not sure if, not sure how, but I will try. Both in my life and in my blog.

ED and Stress: Friends or Foes?

Ok, so my life is stressful. Yeah, yeah, I know what you are thinking. “Momsgotproblems, EVERYONE has a stressful life, so what makes yours unique?”

Well, I guess nothing. Lately however, I have reached my threshold of stress, and yet it keeps coming! I feel like I have fallen off a racing boat speeding through the Atlantic Ocean without a lifejacket. And as I spew salty water, gasp for air, and rely on my rusty tread-water technique that I learned in summer camp umpteenth thousand years ago, I see, off in the distance what looks like an old water-logged plank. Why there would be a plank in the ocean is beyond me, but there is! Anyway as I use some kind of crawl/doggie paddle/flailing stroke, I manage to reach the board and can just barely keep my head out of the frigid water.

And then I see the wave. Now we are not talking average, run-of-the-mill, ocean wave that naturally crosses the water. We are talking the mother of all waves. The wave that Poseidon unleashes when he destroyed whatever city he did in the beginning of “Clash of the Titans” movie starring Harry Hamlin. (If you have never seen that movie you SO have to see it!) Anyway… My trusty rotten board flies away from me and I am once again left sputtering. And then the ocean liner. Now on “The Love Boat” (What’s with me and the reference to old visual entertainment?) the cruise ship glides gracefully through the ocean barely disturbing the water. (Incidentally, on the cruise ship other things also “glide gracefully.”) Well the ship I encounter stirs up quite a wake that actually throws the life jacket off my body. And then the ship backs up again and does it again!

OK, once again, My metaphors have taken over this entry. But I hope you can connect the dots and show that the stress which is keeping me up at night and occupies my thoughts/feelings during the day is heavy. Too heavy to get into here, but let’s just say things with Margaret have gone from terribly horrible to unbelievably abysmal.

How am I handling it? Not well. Or well. I guess it depends upon how you look at things. Usually ED makes me binge. It’s a non-stop food fest in my own hands. I hate it, and feel weak, and out of control.

That is handling it not well.

This time around–the swimming, wave, “Love Boat” thing–I am not able to eat. Even when I want to eat I am manage to fight off the urge. Well twice so far this week I have given in and eaten. They were what I consider “mini-binges.” Not normal, still more than I want; hell, even “not normal” for me. But these mini binges haven’t caused any damage. Well today is Friday and I consumed food Monday and Wednesday. No. My goal is not to eat today.

Nada. Nothing. Nyet.
I have to fight off the hunger no matter what.

Now back to the question at hand (ya know, the one asked in the question): what is the relationship between ED and Stress?

I find in my usual bingeing self believing that ED and stress are FOES. Stress piles on top of ED and then ED piles on top of me in the form of food. FOES!!!!

But when are they friends? Now. Stress (and its neighbors: guilt, anger, frustration, hopelessness, and let’s not forget his new roommie frustration) is practically killing me. ED has decided to allow me a modicum of happiness. He is allowing me to restrict. Fast. Whatever you want to call it.

I call it very, very cool because I finally broke a “number barrier.” A what? Huh? A number something? In this case the barrier means that my weight has gone from 19,490 lbs to 19,489 lbs. See what I mean? I’m out of the “90’s” and into the “80’s.” Essentially every 10 lbs (but not from where I started). Get it? Of course you get it!

That is all thanks to ED. And Stress. And their (currently) sympathetic partnership. They are FRIENDS.
And if I have ED in my life (he’s in-it-to-win-it) and I must have Stress (and I mean crazy, hot-mess stress) I want them to remain FRIENDS.

I need all the friends I can get.

Therapy Can Only Do So Much!

Dear Blog Readers,

I am so very sorry that I haven’t written in so long! Lately there has barely been a second for me to catch a breath, much less for me to blog. Seriously. I am gasping for air as I type this! (That hissing noise you hear is the oxygen slowly flowing out of my portable oxygen tank that I keep in one of those wheely carts.)

Anyway, today I am returning to therapy after an extended absence…a couple of months? Does that sound about right? Lately I don’t even know what day it is, much less the last time I did something.

I have been over-therapicized. With all the sh*t going on with my sweet Mags, I am seriously occupied almost every single day with appointments. I am so tired.

Mentally, Emotionally, Physically.

So what am I doing? Going back to therapy. Adding yet another “talk about your problems and let’s work together to find a better way to come up with strategies and coping strategies…blah, blah, blah.”

Why the f*ck am I doing this to myself? Good question.

I feel like it is the thing to do. I honestly think it will change NOTHING. I honestly think I will change NOTHING. I think I will feel the same strain in my life and the same drain in my life. I think my life and its issues and problems and stressors will still exist with the same potency.

Everyone says I need self-care. Even after my trips to treatment, I STILL don’t believe in self-care. It helps nothing and does not make me feel any better. It makes me feel worse. I feel guilt. I feel selfish.

Therapy is not self-care; therapy is self-exposure and self-vulnerability and self-weakness.

Putting the Cart Before the Horse

Warning! Even though I did not intend this to be long, it kinda/sorta/a teeny bit long. Definitely worth it. Poignant and insightful, and FABULOUS!!!!!

I am sure you have heard the old adage of putting the cart before the horse. The way I interpret this problem is by fixating on future problems instead of the one in front of me. Another way I think about it is by putting the solution, or end result, before the problem. It’s putting the effect before the cause. It’s putting the reaction before the catalyst.

What the hell am I talking about?

The other day I was stressed and anxious. I know, I know; that is nothing new, and my dear blog readers have come to expect my neuroses and mental-ness to come out in my writing. But because an additional problem, a very serious personal matter (honestly it is so personal that I can’t share it with you. Sorry!), I was/am extra, extra, EXTRA stress and anxious and worried. I felt sick–literally sick. I had to do something because I really couldn’t handle it.

I wanted to purge. I needed to purge. The urge was so strong that it was killing me. But I had a problem: I was fasting and there was nothing in my body to purge.

What did I do? I had something to eat. The purpose? To purge. The cart before the horse.

Now that was the first (ok, not the first but not a regular thing by far as you know) time that I wanted to handle the pain by purging. Most of the time the purging is ED’s way of punishing me for eating. And I readily do it; often before he even insists. I know if I eat, and usually eat a lot, I need to rid my body of the food.

Usually my MO is to binge and binge HARD. A no-holds barred, anything goes, eat as much as I can and as fast as I can. I hate that. HATE THAT. I hate the aftermath. I hate the numbers on the scale. I hate the guilt that follows a binge. During the binge I have the ‘what the f*ck’ attitude; I think to myself that I have already scarfed down too much food, so what is the point is stopping? The damage is done so I keep going. Think of it this way…

Ok, this is weird. I cannot come up with a comparable example that isn’t totally ridiculous. I was going to talk about being late. If I’m five minutes late for an appointment, or 30 minutes to a doctor’s appointment, what is the difference. Here is the difference: if I am five minutes late it is no big deal and I will be seen by the doctor at the time she (all female doctors in my life) would normally see me. (When have you seen a doctor without waiting at least 5-10 minutes?) Now if I was going to be 30 minutes late, I would most likely have to reschedule the appointment because I would then mess up all subsequent appointments with other people. So that scenario won’t work.

Here’s another example I was going to use: if my principal (or assistant principal or department head) was formally observing me and giving me my formal evaluation, I would want everything to be perfect. If I got a “needs improvement” or an “unsatisfactory” (the rating goes effective/satisfactory, needs improvement, umsatisfactory), I would flip out and do my best to correct that area. She (or he or she–see above list of adminstrators) would most likely come again to see if I improved in all those areas. It would be so much harder and stressful to fix all areas. I would be under the microscope. Often. What if I got only one “needs improvement?” I would still flip, but I would only need to change one thing, which is easier than changing many things. (For the record, dear readers, both of my formal evaluations this year were absolutely glowing and made me out to be super teacher extraordinaire!) That example isn’t good to use.

Here was another situation to prove going over the deep end with bingeing is no worse than going over a little bit. Let’s say I have x dollars in my bank account. Ok, let’s be real; it’s x-1. But again x. Is it any worse to spend x plus $10 than x plus 1? YES! My overdraft protection will only cover so much and then I would have bounced check fees left and right!

Wait! Wait! Wait!!! I just thought of a couple of examples where bingeing a ton is no worse than bingeing a little. Say I am 9 months pregnant. (I’m not, but would like to be–how much harder can four kids be instead of three kids?) Now compare that to being 5 months pregnant, or 1 month pregnant. Is there a difference? No. A person can’t be “a little pregnant.” You are, or you aren’t. Pregnant is pregnant. Bingeing is bingeing.

Drunk is drunk.
Stoned is stoned.
The letter A is the letter A (ok, that makes no sense but I didn’t want to put another negative example.)

I’m pretty sure that I have conveyed to you that I hate bingeing. Loathe it! Despise it!

I know what you are thinking; “wow, Momsgotproblems really went off on a tangent and the second part of this entry has nothing to do with the title.

Let me reign it back in–see, that can be a horse thing! You already know I’ve got problems (if I haven’t convinced you of this, look at my name). Of course my writing, like my thoughts, will stray from the topic. Second of all, consider this whole issue of bingeing and the debate of whether or not bingeing a little vs. bingeing a lot makes a difference. It not an example of putting the horse before the cart.

It is an example of ME pushing the cart with the horse riding in it.