So I’m supposed to be straight forward with this and give things how they are. Which seems to be easy in hindsight and not actively engaged in chaos.
Which is now.
And for the past…. 24ish hours.
I hit a god awful low yesterday, coming home from the beach, after spending a wonderful day with a bunch of families from the homeschool co-op we are a part of.
It was very relaxing, I got to connect with several moms, and the kids had a blast.
But on the way home, I don’t know what happened.
I just dropped really super low.
I was thinking about my previous post early in the day and when I was typing that out, I was crying because of all the pain and future confusion I feel like I have given my sons. (And tearing up now.) Mostly thinking about how I hope in all my chaos, when they think of home, I hope they still have me in that picture, that I’m a place that brings comfort. Because I really am not sure I leave that impression. and I miss them.
One has a daughter and the other is 18, but still with me every other week, but I won’t see him until Tuesday. I really really miss them.
Anyhow, between that and thinking hard on a conversation Peter I had had several days ago, about when I was manic before I went on a trip to Belize last month, I had asked how does he define exhaustion (with me). I always think I am exhausting because of my constant flip flopping of moods, subjects and focus, that I ask too many questions, or I process everything out loud.
He had said it’s exhausting for those reasons but mainly because he doesn’t know what to expect and when, and I had told him about issues with this need for outside attention but I was processing it out loud to him ( a major step from before) and I worked through it. (That can’t be easy for anyone, ever). And a few other things I can’t think of right now, but the point is, I didn’t even think about that stuff TOO. On top of the ways I exhaust myself.
So I was feeling pretty useless, and very much a burden, and just a really deep down depression the entire drive home.
Then hey, I found out it’s that time of the month. Which, I have an exact calendar, and it STILL surprises me at how influential it is for me (yay PMDD).
When I get home, I can’t find Peter anywhere. I start running crazy scenarios in my head like: he’s run away, or he’s pissed off because something from the long past (when we were separated) has popped up, or he was so stressed from work and he’s passed out from a couple martinis and fell in the river.
No.
He’s on the dock relaxing after a crazy work day.
I walk out and he happily says “Hey! How are you?”
At this point I really need to spill out all I have and tell him “Do you really want to know?!” Sarcastically.
He says probably not.
And at that point I’m crushed.
I mean, I know. He JUST stopped working (he works from home) and he needs decompression and I just really needed some validation and comfort. But there was no way I could dump everything that my brain has made up right then, so I shrugged and said some nonsense whatever and went inside.
I felt a gap widen at that moment.
I don’t want any gap between us. We are always one, we blend, but he needs his time, especially now, and I am such a burden, especially now . (That word sounds huge, I don’t mean it as heavy as it is, I just don’t have another word at the moment.)
I take half a Xanax, because I am super reactive at that point, breathe, feel better. Kids crash out hard from the long day and I feel like I am going to as well.
We do our evening things, take my pile of pills and almost fall asleep.
I even start to dream.
But immediately wide awake, so I start to think about our housing issue (blah blah blah, we are currently in flux for next few months), which leads me to think about what I can change in the house.
Then it becomes obsessive because I have an idea!
The next night (tonight) we are having guests over, and last time, we had no seating in the kitchen. I’ve been wanting to put a huge raw edge wood bar in there for sitting/eating/whatever, but because we didn’t know if we were staying, should we do that.
So I start to think of smaller, affordable fixes. And then I create one.
This is how it always starts…
But I can’t just leave it until morning, I have to get up, measure everything, go in the garage and see what we have and what we need, then what’s the best design, then how to paint it, and then how to keep calm until the morning because only a crazy person leaves the house at midnight to go buy hardware and lumber to make a bar in their kitchen that night.
So I go work on a drawing.
Peter wakes up around 1am to me drawing in the other room and make sure I’m okey. At this point I’m slightly calmer, I guess.
I finally barely will myself to sleep about 130-2. I have to get up at 630am to start a day full of doctor appointments, boot camp, making a bar and friends coming over (and that bar HAS to be done by the time they get there, because THAT’S THE FUCKING POINT)
I wake up with no problem (which is a huge red flag because I NEED 8-9 hours of sleep or a nap,) but I am wide awake and ready. All day long. Not exhausted at all.
I obsessively made the bar, putting Peter in a position to stop his work and cut the corners for me, which is stressful for him because changing track of thinking, so now I have guilt AND I know I am bleeding manic out my pores but trying to hide it and can’t figure out why, but I just don’t want to be that burden, and I’m a mess.
Bar made, house clean, I love it, barely anyone notices the bar, friends visit, scared visiting dog almost knocks down the entire bar (NOT his fault, I love that baby, just bad engineering on my part, especially because I wasn’t willing to wait and do it correctly)
Edit to add: I just also remembered, while making the bar this afternoon, I set a timer for 30 minutes for the paint to dry. Near the end, I see there are 25 seconds left, so I sit there and look down again thinking it’s almost up and it’s only been 3 seconds. I look at the timer 4(!!) more times in that 25 seconds thinking the time was up. I explain this as an example of how fast I have been moving and how impossible it has been for me to slow myself down. I swore every time I checked, that it had been 25 seconds. (Another red flag)
Had a great time with Peter and friends tonight, but now, 1 am again, I am on barely any sleep for me, and I am still amped. Even after my evening pile of pills.
I want to sleep and my skin is crawling with electricity and I am not sure what to do.
I have pill options, but I am terrified of anything, I just don’t want to accidentally OD, or anything else. I take what is prescribed or less.
So here we are, teeth gritting, skin crawling, brain in a nonstop spiral to nowhere, yet my eyes and body are screaming for sleep ☹️
16 Mar 2019
0 Comments
Straight
So I’m supposed to be straight forward with this and give things how they are. Which seems to be easy in hindsight and not actively engaged in chaos.
Which is now.
And for the past…. 24ish hours.
I hit a god awful low yesterday, coming home from the beach, after spending a wonderful day with a bunch of families from the homeschool co-op we are a part of.
It was very relaxing, I got to connect with several moms, and the kids had a blast.
But on the way home, I don’t know what happened.
I just dropped really super low.
I was thinking about my previous post early in the day and when I was typing that out, I was crying because of all the pain and future confusion I feel like I have given my sons. (And tearing up now.) Mostly thinking about how I hope in all my chaos, when they think of home, I hope they still have me in that picture, that I’m a place that brings comfort. Because I really am not sure I leave that impression. and I miss them.
One has a daughter and the other is 18, but still with me every other week, but I won’t see him until Tuesday. I really really miss them.
Anyhow, between that and thinking hard on a conversation Peter I had had several days ago, about when I was manic before I went on a trip to Belize last month, I had asked how does he define exhaustion (with me). I always think I am exhausting because of my constant flip flopping of moods, subjects and focus, that I ask too many questions, or I process everything out loud.
He had said it’s exhausting for those reasons but mainly because he doesn’t know what to expect and when, and I had told him about issues with this need for outside attention but I was processing it out loud to him ( a major step from before) and I worked through it. (That can’t be easy for anyone, ever). And a few other things I can’t think of right now, but the point is, I didn’t even think about that stuff TOO. On top of the ways I exhaust myself.
So I was feeling pretty useless, and very much a burden, and just a really deep down depression the entire drive home.
Then hey, I found out it’s that time of the month. Which, I have an exact calendar, and it STILL surprises me at how influential it is for me (yay PMDD).
When I get home, I can’t find Peter anywhere. I start running crazy scenarios in my head like: he’s run away, or he’s pissed off because something from the long past (when we were separated) has popped up, or he was so stressed from work and he’s passed out from a couple martinis and fell in the river.
No.
He’s on the dock relaxing after a crazy work day.
I walk out and he happily says “Hey! How are you?”
At this point I really need to spill out all I have and tell him “Do you really want to know?!” Sarcastically.
He says probably not.
And at that point I’m crushed.
I mean, I know. He JUST stopped working (he works from home) and he needs decompression and I just really needed some validation and comfort. But there was no way I could dump everything that my brain has made up right then, so I shrugged and said some nonsense whatever and went inside.
I felt a gap widen at that moment.
I don’t want any gap between us. We are always one, we blend, but he needs his time, especially now, and I am such a burden, especially now . (That word sounds huge, I don’t mean it as heavy as it is, I just don’t have another word at the moment.)
I take half a Xanax, because I am super reactive at that point, breathe, feel better. Kids crash out hard from the long day and I feel like I am going to as well.
We do our evening things, take my pile of pills and almost fall asleep.
I even start to dream.
But immediately wide awake, so I start to think about our housing issue (blah blah blah, we are currently in flux for next few months), which leads me to think about what I can change in the house.
Then it becomes obsessive because I have an idea!
The next night (tonight) we are having guests over, and last time, we had no seating in the kitchen. I’ve been wanting to put a huge raw edge wood bar in there for sitting/eating/whatever, but because we didn’t know if we were staying, should we do that.
So I start to think of smaller, affordable fixes. And then I create one.
This is how it always starts…
But I can’t just leave it until morning, I have to get up, measure everything, go in the garage and see what we have and what we need, then what’s the best design, then how to paint it, and then how to keep calm until the morning because only a crazy person leaves the house at midnight to go buy hardware and lumber to make a bar in their kitchen that night.
So I go work on a drawing.
Peter wakes up around 1am to me drawing in the other room and make sure I’m okey. At this point I’m slightly calmer, I guess.
I finally barely will myself to sleep about 130-2. I have to get up at 630am to start a day full of doctor appointments, boot camp, making a bar and friends coming over (and that bar HAS to be done by the time they get there, because THAT’S THE FUCKING POINT)
I wake up with no problem (which is a huge red flag because I NEED 8-9 hours of sleep or a nap,) but I am wide awake and ready. All day long. Not exhausted at all.
I obsessively made the bar, putting Peter in a position to stop his work and cut the corners for me, which is stressful for him because changing track of thinking, so now I have guilt AND I know I am bleeding manic out my pores but trying to hide it and can’t figure out why, but I just don’t want to be that burden, and I’m a mess.
Bar made, house clean, I love it, barely anyone notices the bar, friends visit, scared visiting dog almost knocks down the entire bar (NOT his fault, I love that baby, just bad engineering on my part, especially because I wasn’t willing to wait and do it correctly)
Edit to add: I just also remembered, while making the bar this afternoon, I set a timer for 30 minutes for the paint to dry. Near the end, I see there are 25 seconds left, so I sit there and look down again thinking it’s almost up and it’s only been 3 seconds. I look at the timer 4(!!) more times in that 25 seconds thinking the time was up. I explain this as an example of how fast I have been moving and how impossible it has been for me to slow myself down. I swore every time I checked, that it had been 25 seconds. (Another red flag)
Had a great time with Peter and friends tonight, but now, 1 am again, I am on barely any sleep for me, and I am still amped. Even after my evening pile of pills.
I want to sleep and my skin is crawling with electricity and I am not sure what to do.
I have pill options, but I am terrified of anything, I just don’t want to accidentally OD, or anything else. I take what is prescribed or less.
So here we are, teeth gritting, skin crawling, brain in a nonstop spiral to nowhere, yet my eyes and body are screaming for sleep ☹️