This might come across like reading my twitter, if I had a twitter, but here goes anyway.

I absolutely loved reading your comments and I am not just saying that. I always get very excited when you lovely people comment and I read my comments over and over. Feel free to diagnose me accordingly ; today I am feeling rather good. I had my first appointment with my new psychiatrist yesterday. In case I didn’t mention it, or you forgot, my primary care physician insisted I see someone and then told me she would no longer prescribe psychiatric medications for me, just to give me some “I’m out of Klonopin!” nerves and “I’m running low on Paroxetine! Side effects of withdrawal will be hell!” jitters. I was surprisingly not angry with her for this. I know she knew it was the only way I would go and she used it and I say well played, if her intentions were good, and I think they were. Anyway, I was originally unhappy because there were so few psychiatrists accepting new patients so I got stuck with a man when I had asked for a woman. Now, I love men. I usually get along with them better than women, truth be told. But I have had male doctors in the past and I thought I would be more comfortable with a woman. Plus, this guy’s office is far away from my house and after I wrote down his name and the appointment time Alex googled him and he got his degree from the University of They Have Universities in That Country!?!? I know that sounds horrible, but if I named the country you would know what I mean, as it’s associated with dire poverty, starvation, and death. Angelina Jolie is expected to swoop down in her private jet and adopt a child from that country any minute just because it’s that bad there. Plus, I was worried that he would have an accent I wouldn’t understand and then I’d have to either tell him, “I’m sorry. I am only catching every third word here.” or I’d have to shoot for context and just nod and hope my responses were correct. I don’t have the best hearing and it has become increasingly clear that I need to get a hearing aid or at least a Miracle Ear implanted but I haven’t even wanted to deal with any of that.

I spent yesterday morning fretting and filling out the forms they sent weeks ago. I actually had to attach another sheet of paper to list all of the medications I take. When I got to the family history part I was worried because the first thing on there were the questions about my parents, their ages, are they living, and if not, cause of death. I actually considered lying about my Dad. I feared that as soon as I wrote “Father, Death in 1985 at age 57, Cause: Suicide” that would be the primary focus of the appointment.i went ahead and told the truth, figuring it would be in my medical records anyway. My mom offered to drive me. At first I resisted, but she had a compelling argument; she’s only seen me once since she returned from Australia, and she knew I was going to be taking a bus to a hospital I am not familiar with and she has been there several times. I agreed and when she insisted she would wait until my one hour appointment was over and drive me back home I asked if she would like to go out to lunch, my treat, and then maybe visit a plant nursery. She was excited about the nursery idea, and she knew one that she thought I would like in the vicinity of the hospital.

When we arrived at the hospital and found the wing that contained the doctor’s office I started to have a panic attack in the elevator up. I didn’t say anything but I was considering reaching for my last few Klonopin and popping a couple when my mom reached out and squeezed my hand and smiled. I knew then that she wasn’t there because I was unfamiliar with that part of town, or that hospital. I felt like a big, dopey kid trapped in the body of a thirty five year old woman. I decided against the pills, partly because I thought it might be beneficial for the doctor to see me in the panic state I live in most of the time, but mostly because I was almost out and what if he didn’t give me any prescriptions?

My mom lead the way off of the elevator, knowing somehow the exact ways to turn, as I followed carrying racing heart, churning tummy, and a dizzy head. After I’d checked in with the receptionist I looked through the stacks of magazines and pulled out some that I knew my mom would enjoy. I stared down at my dirty clogs and realized that I should have cleaned the dried flour off of them before I came, but I hadn’t thought of it. My mom read bits and pieces aloud from a magazine, some article about saving thousands at the grocery store. A dark skinned man in a well cut suit entered and walked through the waiting room and through the door. My mom was excited like a school girl, bouncing in her seat, “That’s him! That’s your doctor! He’s so cute! Isn’t he handsome? Oh my!” I felt awkward sitting there in jeans and a T shirt, clogs still dirty from baking at work, my face free of makeup, my hair pulled into a ponytail with bobby pins slipped onto the sides of my head to catch those wisps of hair that always slip out and curl around my face.

When he came to the door and called my name I stood on wobbly legs and followed him. We made out introductions but he didn’t shake hands. He led me into the smallest office I have ever seen in my life. It looked like a closet, seriously. There was enough room for a desk and two chairs and that’s it. I had brought a water bottle with me and when I asked if it was OK if I sat it down on the corner of his desk he said, “Yes, it’s OK, I will be drinking my coffee”, and then motioned to his Starbucks cup. I realized that he thought I was asking permission to drink and I smiled and said that I didn’t want to leave a white ring because of the condensation and he just waved that worry off, not the type to bother with coasters I suppose.

He asked for the history of the meds I have taken in the past and believe me, I had to pull out notes for that one. So many years, so many different pills. He asked the history of my depression and anxiety and a few other general questions. Happy marriage? Good kids? Work history? Etc. The only things that gave him pause to question me further were the facts that I admitted I have no friends, the fact that I don’t know how to drive, (he thought that to be absolutely stunning and questioned me in depth about how I’d managed that), and the fact that I admitted to worrying more about my daughter than my son, (he said he felt like I was projecting something from my own childhood onto my daughter). I imagine that I am not the only one who worries more about my teenage daughter than my teenage son (people help me out here, have you experienced this?) but I didn’t argue with him about it. He questioned the fact that my Mom was in the waiting room and took notes about the fact that she drove me there, but whatever.

There was a moment in that hour somewhere where he let an uncomfortable silence hang in the air. I wondered if it was a test to see how I’d react. I sat in silence for some time as I looked around the closet room and then I finally asked him, “So, I am guessing you don’t treat many claustrophobics ?” He looked confused for a few moments until he looked around his office and laughed large. I felt better because I always try to make my doctors laugh at least once and for damn near 200 dollars an hour he’d better find me funny every so often, or at least fake it.

Mostly he talked about anxiety and how much harder it is to treat than depression because anxiety is a normal human emotion and then he went into medications and an in depth account of how they work and although I have done a lot of reading about this myself over the years I didn’t want to interrupt him. He said that he would be happy to provide me with my prescriptions and wrote them out and told me to make a follow up appointment with the receptionist. Basically it was much easier than I had worried about and he gets mad props for not making me tell the whole story of child abuse and my dad’s suicide because I didn’t want to and I was afraid he would say he needed to see me three times a week but nope, just once a month.

Afterwards my mom and I went out for Mexican food even though my mom has this “If it’s wrapped in a tortilla it’s crap” opinion. She selected the restaurant. I ignored the margaritas even though I really wanted oneand we had a nice talk. When we were finished we went to a nursery where I bought a bunch of plants for my garden. When I got home Polly and Nathan came out and helped me plant them, and that my friends was the best therapy of all.

“Death is caused by swallowing small amounts of saliva over a long period of time.”
George Carlin

Thank you for the laughs George. I wonder if you’re finding out the seven words you can’t say in heaven.

I have been spending some of my time talking on the phone and emailing my cousin, the one I wrote about here; the one I didn’t go see when he was in Portland. We’ve had a magical ability to communicate with each other since we met in 1983, and I do believe him to be the only person who can say, “Cheer Up!” to me without making me either feel worse or making me want to snap and get homicidal. I wanted to apologize to him for my lack of civility when he was in the city but it didn’t end up even needing to be explained. This man, he is marvelous in the way he is fully able to just move on. It has been nice having someone to talk to. Honestly, Alex and I never had long in depth conversations, except of course for the time frame when we were using drugs that never wore off and we used to talk for hours, bonding over pharmaceuticals. Steve (my cousin) has always been incredibly supportive of whatever I am dreaming of doing, and it’s nice to have someone like that in my life once again.

Like most people I get moody and bitchy; sometimes I don’t feel like talking to anyone and I just want to be left alone. If I act like that for a few hours or a few days even it is inevitable that Alex will ask what is wrong. The thing that has always set me off, and we have lived together since I was 15, so that’s really a lot of times I got pissed off by this, is the way he asks me. He will say, “What’s wrong with you, anyway?” The tone of his voice, the way that the emphasis is placed on his enunciation of the word wrong, the whole thing always gives me a rush of anger and I usually answer with , “Nothing!” On occasion this will end it, but sometimes he will continue with, “Well, obviously something is wrong. You’ve been acting funny and…” I won’t pretend that I am an easy person to live with. My moods swing wildly, and sometimes I want a lot of attention and I get clingy and needy with him, and then other times I don’t want to talk to anyone in the world and I long for my own bedroom, one with a lock on the door, just so I can have the solitude I crave.

Lately we have been so busy with both of us working too much and sleeping different shifts, rarely are we in the bed at the same time due to our work schedules. Sometimes when we go through stages like this I forget that we are just busy, tired, and stressed and I really believe that he doesn’t love me or give a shit one way or another how I am doing.

I have brought this topic up to him numerous times, this constant feeling I have inside of me that I am not loved by him. He has always listened to me when I try to explain what I imagine is missing when I say not feeling loved, but he struggles to show me his feelings, and I feel bad for not being satisfied when I know that he is just loving me to the best of his abilities.

One of the main reasons for my decision to try to end my drinking habit is the fact that my stomach has been bothering me for weeks now. It is a horrible burning sensation that I knew could be related to the fact that I was drinking mostly coffee or alcohol, taking my prescription medications on an empty stomach and not eating properly. I bought TUMS and those little individual pepto bismal tablets and I’ve been stashing them into my purse and into my pockets when I have to go to work so if I need something to try to ease the burning gut it is readily available. The pill holder that Alex bought me to stash my emergency Klonopin into seems too small these days. I need a medicine cabinet I can wear as a backpack.

I never mentioned to Alex that my stomach was sick or why I haven’t been drinking alcohol or coffee. The other night I was on my way to work and my cell phone signaled that I had a text message. I looked at it and it was from Alex. Usually it is something regarding the kids, or a request for me to pickup something from the store. This time though it was a question he’s never asked me.

Alex: Are you alright?

Me: Yeah, why?

Alex: Because your stomach has been bothering you for weeks and I was wondering if you are feeling better.

I was stunned, honestly, but more than anything I was touched. In one text message he was able to convey more concern than twenty years of living together has ever done. Gone was that anger I feel every time I hear, “What’s wrong with you, anyway?” Apparently, are you alright is OK with me. Maybe we should text to each other more often instead of talking.

I have been feeling out of sorts since I started working again. I think that it has something to do with being now forced out of my self imposed isolation back into life. I see people socializing everywhere around me; groups at fine restaurants with candlelight faces, huddles over morning coffee and scones. I feel at times a pull to be a part of a group once again. I haven’t been able to maintain a friendship in years. I don’t want to have to explain my sometimes total lack of ability to function. The real me shows through the cracks on the surface anyway. A coworker stops me at work the other night, “What’s wrong?” I told him I was just feeling mad, but then he wanted to know why, and I could only shrug and turn my face down until he walked away. I was hot, tired, had been in front of the oven for hours, and I was longing for a chance to take a break and to get something to drink. I thought of asking him to bring me some water but I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave the oven because otherwise I would burn something, and I couldn’t ask a fellow worker for a glass of water. He stopped by later and glanced at my face, checking for something. He broke out in the biggest smile I’ve seen in ages and I surprised myself by smiling back; a real smile. I searched for some meaning in the smiles but shoved it away, knowing my tendency to over think everything.

“I feel as if I have been standing in front of this oven for hours and hours.” I told him. “That’s because you have”, was his reply, because there are no clocks up there by the oven and I wasn’t really sure how long it had been. It was a busy night and time flew by.

Later he tried to arrange for me to get a ride home when I was finished but I brushed him off, telling him I had a bus to catch. I don’t want to get close to anyone again. I don’t want to make friends or have other people being concerned about my well being. I just want to hide in plain view.

Friday I had a doctor’s appointment that I had planned on canceling but had forgotten. I got dressed and went even though I didn’t want to talk about my back, or my depression and anxiety, or my should I keep it? uterus. When they called my name I walked in and after passing through the doors I was immediately asked to step onto their large digital scale. I took my coat off as it was my heavy winter one still soaked with rain from the last downpour I walked through umbrella-less and I hung it and my purse on the hook. As I was slipping off my shoes I remembered what my Mom always says before she’s weighed; the joke about needing to take off her 100 lb. shoes. She did it every week when we were in Weight Watchers together and she’s done it at every doctor’s appointment and ER trip I have accompanied her on. My Mom has maybe a dozen lines like that which she laces into her conversations. Decades old and worse for the wear, they are the jokes I used to roll my eyes at and groan with embarrassment over, now I smile just because they are a part of her and she refuses to give them up, even though everyone has heard them all before.

The CMA led me back to the room and after I had sat down on the paper covered exam table she took my vitals. I apologized for wearing a long sleeve shirt, but the young girl said it was okay, she could put the blood pressure cuff over it because it was so thin. I studied the girl’s face as she carefully recorded the numbers. She looked to be about twelve, her hair in a ponytail, her face a mixture of perfectly tiny features that made up her sweet little face. I imagined that I could be old enough to be her Mom, if I’d given birth to her in high school. As she was checking my pulse the sleeve of the long sleeve shirt she wore under her pink scrubs slid up and I saw that her arms were covered with scars from cutting herself. I imagined that she had to wear long sleeves on even the hottest days, and I thought about her cutting into herself, wearing her pain on the outside too. She told me that I had to get undressed and that I couldn’t even leave my socks on. “When I go to the doctor, I always want to leave my socks on because it makes me feel more secure.” she said to me. I nodded in understanding and wanted to hug her but she was out the door, gone, not my girl to save.

My doctor had large dark puffy circles under her eyes. I had never seen them there before, but although she sees me naked, inside and out, we are not allowed to break through the doctor patient relationship and talk about her. She scolded me gently for not having done the two things she had told me to do, go to physical therapy, and get blood work done at the lab. I told her that I knew I should have, but when the woman had called bright and early from the physical therapy department I had listened to her chipper over enthusiastic voice and deleted the message without writing down the number. The doctor laughed at that. I have always been suspicious of people who are genuinely cheerful, especially so early in the morning, because I feel like I am in a Twilight Zone episode enough as it is without surrounding myself with constant happy banter.

The doctor gave me three new prescriptions and I showed her the zit that had sprung up on my chin. It was one of those that lingers, red and throbbing, but there is nothing you can do about it because it refuses to break through to the surface. I told her that it was my worry about going back to work zit and mentioned that I had read in a trash magazine that celebrities have cortisone injections to eliminate their pimples. She said that she had never done a pimple injection before and she wanted me to hold a warm compress on it three times a day.

She flipped through my charts after we had talked for awhile about my back and my crazy brain and exclaimed that I had lost fifteen pounds in a month. She asked me how I had done it and I, having not been aware of the weight loss, said that I had been drinking lots of water and walking my dog. I didn’t mention that I was trying to flush narcotics out of my system. She warned me again about the ramifications of taking any job that required lifting and I nodded solemnly as I thought about telling ChefHisName that I could lift up to one hundred pounds, no problem. She told me she wanted me to find another psychiatrist because she felt like what she was doing, the drugs she was prescribing me, the medication monitoring, she felt it wasn’t working. I knew she was right but I felt weary at the thought of trying therapy again. I told her I’d look for a doctor who was accepting new patients, and inwardly felt nauseated at the thought of sitting in another office with the stranger taking notes and the tissue box pushed closer to my seat as I was told to tell the story of my childhood. Again. Over and over again, just for me, just for them, until one day something in the wiring of my brain reprograms itself perhaps? Until I can retell the morning of March 27^th 1985, walking into a house to find my father had chosen to die, was I supposed to tell that story until I could tell it with dry eyes?

I went downstairs to fill my prescriptions and the café next to the pharmacy was packed with lunch eaters. After comparing prices between the café and the vending machines I bought water from the vending machine, letting that be an opportunity to use up all of the nickels in my purse. I sat staring at the numbers on the pharmacy screen. It currently read 71; the piece of paper in my hand read 85. There was a woman in a wheelchair telling everyone and no one that she had lost her husband of thirty years to cancer. People moved tables to avoid her, and she maneuvered her motorized scooter, carefully zipping up rows in between the groups of patients and employees trying to eat their lunches. Everyone seemed to be avoiding eye contact, not wanting to get caught up in someone else’s grief, and I looked directly at her, committing her face to memory, noticing the long thick grey whiskers growing from her chin. She didn’t come near me. She forced her pain on the other people, the people in the circle that I actively tried to sit outside of.

Finally, unable to stand sitting a moment longer, I made my way outside to the one bench that has been designated as a smoking section at the hospital. Rushed employees trying to hurry and inhale as quickly as possible linger there, as do patients who come outside to smoke, some with their IV poles still attached to their arms, some with oxygen tanks hooked to their faces that I imagine to be flammable.

As I lit my smoke I remembered my cell phone, which I had turned off due to hospital regulations. I turned it on, wondering if ChefHisName had called with the appointment time for my UA. I pressed the 1 on my speed dial and his voice was there, different than before.

“Hi, sorry I haven’t gotten back to you sooner. Uhhhhhhh…….After giving it, uh, further thought, I uh, have decided to uh, um, go with someone less experienced, so ah, um, the position has been, uh, filled with someone else. I, um, uh, will, however, keep your resume on file, and it will, uh, be the first one I pull if I am looking for a Chef or a Baker.”

I hit the 4 button on my phone and listened to the message again. I felt a pang of disappointment, then a rush of anger. He had told me the last time we spoke that the job was mine; I just needed to take the test. Pride came to my mind and joined regret and anger in the party and my ego said, “ChefFucker, you just made a huge mistake not hiring me.”

As I stood there and studied the sky, the people taking advantage of the free valet parking, the old people bringing their even older looking parents into the hospital, (at least they were parent child in my imagination), and the most amazing thing happened.

Usually I am prone to fretting and fussing, over thinking every scenario until it’s beaten to death, bloody and limping, feeling and feeling some more. This time? This time I just let it go. I let it all go, and I actually felt the weight of it leave me. I wondered if that was the secret of the chipper people I so try to avoid, the ones whom I feel so irritated around, the ones who can put on the face and pull out the happy voice.

I walked back inside and the number board read 84. I was next.

I have been asked, countless times now, to describe my depression. I was never able to articulate it. Today I was thinking about it as I loaded yet another load of soiled clothes into the washer and I remembered that line from John Irving’s amazing book “The World According To Garp” “Beware of the Undertoad”. It sums things up quite nicely. I feel as if I am being pulled under water. Sometimes I fight and fight when I feel this horrific sadness, this horrible weight wash over me, and still other times I just submit. There is comfort here anyway, in this sadness, in this fatigue.

I appreciate everyone who took the time to comment on my last entry. The one part that I left out was that the cousin I mentioned was this one, the one I had been so incredibly close to. I emailed him and he hasn’t answered back, although he wrote my mom to thank her for her hospitality. I think that if I was being completely honest with myself I would say that as much as I have missed him, I don’t want him to see me, not like this.

For those of you who can commiserate about the tendency to hide I am sorry. I wouldn’t wish this on another person. For those of you who thought that I wouldn’t be obviously mentally ill in person I guess it would depend on the day. I go up and down.

Jane asked about whether or not I was reluctant to work on my phobias and the only answer I could give is I am tired of working on it. I have had three doctor’s appointments in the last week alone. I am on a few more prescriptions so now I have an even longer list and I am starting to forget the names of the pills. I just make a little pile in the morning. I quit going to my psychiatrist awhile back. He was a nice man, but he spent most of the sessions telling me stories about his life and his mental illness. I was appreciative that he was open and honest about his life but he soon started to tell the same stories over and over and I would sit on the couch listening. My insurance pays for 20 visits in a 24 month period and I am afraid that I wasted them telling a man that I understood why he freaked out that one time and whipped his dog. I really didn’t understand but I didn’t know what to say to that one. I need to go through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy again. I did it in the 90s and I need to do it again, never mind how much I hated it, it helped in the end.

Spring break is over today and I dread waking the kids in the morning. I think they had fun. Nathan spent the majority of his time hanging out with his girlfriend, asleep, or on the phone. Polly went to a variety of sleepovers, as well as having a few girls stay the night here. That involved meeting some moms I hadn’t met before, and although I dreaded and fretted I made it through those meetings and they let their girls stay the night in my home so I must not have done too badly. I’ve noticed that I don’t know what to do with my hands when I am talking. I need to remember to wear something with pockets because sometimes my hands shake and seeing them shake makes me even more nervous.

We had Maggie spayed this week. She is recovering nicely. Except for her shaved belly and the strip of fur missing from her arm where they put the IV in you wouldn’t know it to look at her. The first day she was sore and very sleepy and now she is back to chasing cats and birds around with glee.

The 23^rd anniversary of my dad’s death passed on the 27^th. Unlike last year I didn’t write about my feelings. I did talk with him in my mind, but I do that everyday. I used to be so angry at him for leaving me. Now that I understand more how sick he was I will ask him how he made it to the age of 57, ‘cause I am 35 here and I don’t know how to keep going. I think though that I am selfish and egocentric. I want to create at least one masterpiece before I go. Just one.

When I first started this site I imagined that it was going to be my way of reaching out to others who were living with depression and panic disorder. I thought that having lived with these illnesses for so long I would have something to say that might help others. I quickly realized that in order for me to cope, to function, to move on, I couldn’t spend a lot of time focusing on my symptoms. I needed to get busy doing other things or I would exasperate my symptoms and trigger new ones.

One of the side effects I haven’t really been too keen on divulging to anyone is the guilt I feel at my inability to function properly in social situations. About a week and a half ago my mom called to let me know that one of my cousins would be stopping in Portland for the weekend on his trip around the globe. She also told me of some friends of the family who currently live in New York who would be here in April. Before the weekend, which has since passed, I began to fret. I first started fretting about my appearance. I imagined that I needed a haircut and something had to be done about my fingernails with the ragged cuticles and torn hangnails. Then I began to fret about my clothes. I pulled out my skirts and dresses from where they hang forgotten and dusty and tried each one on, fretting over dry cleaning and ironing and oh my god I am going to have to wear stockings and I need a new pair of shoes because my best pair is caked with mud because I am always outside with the dog, in the rain.

After I had perused a few websites looking for shoes I can’t afford I came to the conclusion that I also needed a new dress because everything I own is black, and I realized my cousin’s visit fell on Easter weekend and I wouldn’t look very spring like.

I found the perfect dress and the prefect shoes. I found a control undergarment that promised to flatten my not so flat belly and I started to calm down imagining myself entering the door of my mom’s house dressed in the pastel hue of a freshly dyed Easter egg with my hair freshly trimmed and my makeup carefully applied.

Later that evening as I was undressing for my shower I glanced in the mirror. My roots, they are so grown out. I realized then that I wasn’t going to be able to go until I had my highlights touched up. As I lathered myself in the shower I tallied up my mental purchases and came to the staggering sum of 500 dollars needed for me to feel comfortable enough to be seen. It was only when I was faced with the dollar sign that I knew I needed to step back and look at what was really bothering me.

What I came up with, after much personal reflection, was I was afraid to be seen by someone who hadn’t laid eyes on me in so many years not only because I have low self esteem about my physical exterior, although that doesn’t help, but because I have never been able to shake the suspicion that people can tell that I am mentally ill just by looking at me. I fear that they will know that I am in the midst of a panic attack. I fear loss of self control, creating a scene, having to flee the party but having no way to get out because I have arrived in someone else’s car.

I have heard countless times that when you have panic disorder your fight or flight response is skewed. I understand that, but my flight response only kicks in when I am away from home. My number one response is TO HIDE.

I tried to calm myself down in the days to come. I finally called my mom and told her that I would not be going. She protested heavily and ended by telling me that if I changed my mind I only had to call for a ride. As Saturday, the day of the party, approached my phone started ringing constantly. I let everything go to voicemail. My mom called and tried to convince me to go. Maria called and said, “I am here if you need someone to talk to.” I cried as I listened to her message because I knew she really meant it, but I didn’t call her back. Monica called and offered to come over and pick up my kids and take them to and from the party. I took her up on the offer because I didn’t want my kids to miss out because of me.

On Saturday my kids went and I stayed home. It was a beautiful day and I imagined everyone eating outside, my younger nieces and nephews running and playing in the grass. I spent the day with my puppy and my guilt. I thought about my sisters. Between them, they have been married three times. I missed all three weddings. I thought of the Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners I had avoided, of the birthday parties, the graduations, the school performances, the funerals I had skipped. I let myself think of all of these moments that I had hidden from and I let the shame wash over me. This is me, who I have let myself become.

When my kids came home clutching the gifts my cousin had brought with him from Australia Polly was filled with words about the day. She told me all about who was there and what they ate. She said over and over, “You should have come. It was so much fun. Why didn’t you come?” I couldn’t explain it to her in a way that she can understand now, at 12. She told me that everyone kept asking her where I was and why didn’t I come and it was then that I realized that by not coming I had brought more attention to myself than I would have by going.

I really wanted to be honest when I wrote this, even if I am opening myself up to ridicule. Yes, I know that my inability to function affects my children, my marriage and my extended family. I understand that my fear of driving has resulted in my family always planning on taking turns picking us up and dropping us off when the location of a family gathering is not bus friendly. I know all of this and so much more because even though I try to hide it way down deep I think of these things daily. I carry this shame and it is mine; I own it.

I have been examined by two doctors in the last week. Go ahead and skip this entry if it’s boring to read; I understand.

My back was examined by a specialist. I had to remove all of my clothes and get into one of those gowns with the ties in the back. I wanted to sneak into the cupboard and grab another gown after the nurse left and before the doctor came. I like to wear two, one covering my front, one covering my back. Doctors do not like it when you do this but it makes me feel more comfortable. I realized that I was going to have to let it all hang out as the pain is low, down into my buttocks even. Every time I think of the word buttocks I think of it the way Forrest Gump pronounced it. I left my socks on because it made me feel better wearing them.

The doctor did an exam that consisted of pressing on different parts of me and asking me what hurt. He checked my reflexes and touched me in different places by running his finger across my skin on one side and then the other and asking me if both sides felt the same. He ended up leaning over and pulling off my socks because he needed to check my feet too. I felt like a stupid child for having left them on.

Because I was able to pinpoint the exact spot that hurts so severely he deduced that I probably injured my Sacroiliac Joint. He also thought that it might me two other things, but I can’t really remember the second one because at that moment he was lifting my legs up as I lied on my back. He kept commenting on how tight my muscles are. I was trying to position myself so that I wasn’t exposing myself fully. He said something about possible nerve damage. His third guess was a herniated disk. I asked if I could have an MRI to find out more, but he said that my insurance won’t cover it because I present no signs of neurological symptoms. Basically he said that he was going to treat me for an injury to my Sacroiliac Joint and see if that works. If that doesn’t work he’ll try something else. He also recommended physical therapy once a week. He prescribed several medications. I have to follow up with him in two weeks. I thought of something my grandfather said, “They call it medical practice for a reason.”

I saw my primary care physician later. She told me that she is uncomfortable with my current anxiety level and I said, “If you’re uncomfortable, imagine how I feel.” She put my Paxil up to the highest level you can get and then added in some more prescriptions.

I remembered this one time I was watching “Breaking Bonaduce” and he said that he took enough pills a day to get full from them. I thought it was funny in a sad way and now I am swallowing piles of meds, some of them I have to take three capsules three times a day. The good news is that I am practically pain free except for first thing in the morning. The bad news is that I am so tired, and I am having a hard time forming my thoughts into words and writing them.

I am often tempted to go off the medications all together but I have to remember that I relapse every time. I don’t want to live this way, but the alternative is even worse. I am working on another entry; it’s just taking longer than usual. I thought I would post this update for the people who kindly emailed and asked how I am doing. Thank you to everyone who took the time to email. I was very touched by that.

Hopefully I’ll be able to clear my foggy brain and put together something else to write about besides pills and pain soon.

First, a big thank you to Robyn for linking to me and sending so many readers my way. It is very exciting to have someone I have been reading for so many years find my journal and recommend it.

I have been answering a larger than normal array of emails, which has been fun, really, as I like to get to know my readers better. Due to the fact that I have publicly shared my own battles with child abuse and drug addiction, depression and panic disorder, it is not uncommon for people to tell me of their own struggles. What I haven’t learned is how to achieve a balance between writing here and answering email. So here I am again, and if you’re still waiting for a response from me I hope to get caught up on all email this weekend.

From the comments: Lori, thank you for pointing out your new url. I was indeed wondering where you had gone and was about to get all stalkerish and email you. MichelleW why oh why didn’t I know about the pain that is Spanx before I wasted my money? I should have known better when the overenthusiastic woman at the clothing store kept pushing them on me, telling me that, “Oprah recommended them” and “She’s got like a trillion dollars and can have the best of anything so you know if she’s using them they must be good…”

Belle, I loved this line , “As long as it holds the fluff in and the straps are wide enough, I’m happy!” Fluff! I might have to borrow that word.

In other news, I have had a rough week with the depression and the anxiety. Sometimes I can go quite some time forgetting I even have panic attacks and then bang! one will hit, hard. The same goes for my depression. I could feel myself slipping lower and lower after my nanny died so I thought it was related to that. I emailed my favorite cousin because chatting with him always makes me feel better and he wrote back describing the funeral and I felt worse. It is hard to be so far away from family.

I contacted my doctor and she wanted to speak with me again face to face. I told her about the constant sadness, the thoughts of suicide, the never ending anxiety , and the panic attacks that come from nowhere and I can’t seem to calm down. She likes to play around with my medication so I didn’t even want to be there, even though I really like my doctor, and not only because she uses google when she can’t remember something. She’ll just log on to the computer while we’re talking and double check something. I don’t know why I find that endearing but it might have something to do with the fact that she doesn’t hide it, she’s just human. Plus, she laughs at my jokes. That is a big requirement in a doctor.

I have been smoking so much lately that I have a permanent wheeze. My doctor asked me to try Chantix. The only problem is Chantix has been linked to depression and suicide. I went ahead and filled the prescription. When the pharmacist called me over for a consult, she asked more questions than she ever has, “What other methods had I tried?” Well, I tried cold turkey but I am a vegetarian, so that one didn’t work and I tried Wellbutrin but my anxiety went up so much I stopped it after a month because my smoking doubled, and I tried the gum, but I could remember to tuck it into my cheek, I kept chewing it, and I tried the nicotine patches but they didn’t work either. She asked if I had nightmares while using the patches and I said no, but as I told her, I had the wildest, sexist dreams I have ever had in my life. Seriously. I almost kept using the patch for the aphrodisiac properties. That was all I needed to say. Drug stuffed in bag and I was out the door.

I am committed to getting healthier. The photo above shows me starting the day with a well rounded breakfast. Alex brought cookies home  because they were left over from some meeting he had at work. Waste is wrong and I had to have one.

It’s October, 2006. The time before we must have my mother’s house empty has dwindled to hours. There is no longer time to sort through the boxes and repack them. I have started merely dumping the old boxes into new ones, taping them shut and scribbling misc. on them. The only reason I am bothering to place the stuff in new boxes is because these boxes have been sitting for decades and the bottoms have deteriorated to dust. There are mice in several, awakened from their nests as their shit rains into a new box. There is no more time to care. My heart is racing; the weight of all of this is on my shoulders. My mom is ill and hasn’t slept for days. She is starting to speak in nonsensical fragments not even close to coherent sentences.

There are people around now. Two years have passed since I began preparing this house for sale and the people have arrived at the last minute, offering their help, their cars and trucks, their backs and arms. My mom doesn’t want them there. She whispers to me to get rid of them, but I can no longer do this alone and so I ignore her wish. Why is my mom sitting in the kitchen with her computer on a cutting board emailing Tokyo? People are asking what is wrong with her. I ignore them and try to come up with a system. Only I will deal with the boxes in their raw, dust covered state. After they are repacked and labeled (an absurd term for what I am doing) I will allow people to begin to load them into a waiting vehicle.

My mom is a hoarder, a packrat. It is her secret shame. I am trying to protect her from anyone else finding out, but family members and her best friend are witnessing what can no longer hide in a basement larger than most people’s homes. Some whisper about how things ever managed to get this bad. Fewer look to me. Is that blame in their eyes? So many dumpsters, trips to goodwill, yard sales, items on craigslist, trips to the dump and yet somehow, so much left is here.

I am dumping boxes as fast as I can when I see it, an envelope. It is a letter addressed to my brother in my father’s handwriting. I look around to see if anyone is watching me and quickly shove it deep into the pockets of my jeans. I say nothing to anyone.

Later that night at my house I pull it out and stare at it. It is thick. I knew about this letter before, but it hasn’t been mentioned in years. In 1983 my mom put my brother Matthew into a foster home. She did this for his safety, as he and my dad were coming to blows now that Matthew had started fighting back when beaten. My mother feared for his life. He went to live with a wealthy family with several kids who were grown by that time. My father wasn’t notified of his whereabouts. I was jealous. I wanted to be sent to live with a different family too. I missed my brother. Sometimes we would meet him at secret places (usually fast food restaurants) for a quick visit. He would hug us all before he walked out the door first and I would blink back tears as he headed in a different direction than our home. Walking, he was always walking, no matter how far he had to go, no matter the miles wearing out his shoes or the fact that he had bus fair in his pocket. It might have cleared his head. I’m guessing, of course. Years later I started walking to clear my own.

During that time when my brother lived in another house, in another city, my father begged, pleaded and cried for his son’s return. When that didn’t work he punched us. No one ever divulged the secret of his whereabouts. We were good secret keepers. My dad wrote this letter to my brother and asked my mom to deliver it to him. My brother refused to even glance at it. After a year my brother came back home to live with us. Another year or so and my dad was dead, having walked down the basement stairs to make a noose and end his life. There was no suicide note. My mom and I tore apart the whole house looking for one. It was weeks before she would allow anyone to take the garbage out for fear that it might be thrown away.

A few more times over the years my mom tried to deliver the letter to my brother, but he always refused to accept it. My mom said that she had read it and she felt he should too. I said nothing. I was jealous. This letter was not mine to read.

When I found the letter in a box filled with junk: twist ties, expired coupons, disposable napkins, photos that had gotten wet at some time and were stuck together, ruined, old magazines long since molded, I said to myself that I was just going to keep it safe.

Of course I read it. It is nine pages long and filled with details about my father I was never aware of. He explained his decent into mental illness and alcoholism, his feelings of failure for having ended up being an abusive drunken husband and father. He wrote of his time spent in church praying for the lord to save him. He asked my brother to relay messages to my sisters and me; messages of love and apology that no doubt would have fallen on deaf ears in the early 80s, but now, now they make me weep. I never got those messages. Would they have helped? I don’t know anymore.

I hid the letter in my locked file cabinet and pretended that I wasn’t doing anything but waiting for the right opportunity, maybe after my mom was settled in her new house.

I pretended that I wasn’t mad, not at my mom for not taking better care of the letter and for choosing not to tell me the words that were written to me, but most of all I tried not to be mad at my dad for not writing me a letter like that one. I tried not to be mad at him for not trying harder to make it through his illness.

Finally I admitted to my mom that I had found the letter during the move and held onto it for her. She has demanded it back and I shall return it because it’s not mine to keep. I am glad that I had an opportunity to read it now as an adult. I was ten when it was written. I never would have understood the words then. Now I do.

My dad would have turned eighty over this past weekend. It’s hard to imagine. In my mind he hasn’t aged a day so he still has a full head of hair and a strong build. I remember the way I felt when he hugged me tightly, and whispered in my ear that we were the last two members of the family who were blond and we needed to stick together. His hair was gray, but he never tired of that little joke between us.

My Mom asked me last Friday to go with her to place flowers on his grave and I said no. I only want to go alone. It is three buses and a walk and I still want to do it alone. There is no one in my life that I can talk to about the conflicting feelings I have about loving someone so much and losing him, someone who also had a side where he hit me and said horrible things to me.

Grief. It never goes away fully for me, it changes. I am now 35; my father is forever stuck at 57. I couldn’t have saved him from his fate then anymore than he can save me from myself now. But I am glad that I found that letter and that my dad took the time to write it. Even if it never ends up in the hands of your only son dad, it helped your youngest daughter. Thank you.

I have been sick again. Not the kind of sickness that comes from a virus, but the kind that comes from not having the medication I swallow to make it possible for me to face life. There was some misunderstanding between my doctor’s office and my pharmacy regarding the refill of my Klonopin. I have been on this medication for over a decade. It enables me to risk daring feats such as leaving my house. My doctor’s office blamed my pharmacy and they in turn blamed the office. It was all a jumble of miscommunication through fax and phone calls that eventually led to me calling the doctor on call for my doctor and begging him to help me out by calling me in a refill. He coldly refused, stating that he didn’t “deal in controlled substances over the phone.” It was all that I could do to keep it together, to not explode and tell him off. Being treated like a junkie is something that happens to me from time to time. I know that when I pick up my prescriptions sometimes the people behind the counter glare at me and ask me for two pieces of picture ID and insist that I have a consult with the pharmacist (who happens to be busy right now but won’t you have a seat?) even though this medication and I go way back, to the 90s even.

I know that this will be the case if I switch doctors. I have finally realized that the doctors work for me and if they won’t give me the pills to help me function I will find another doctor who will, and don’t you tell me about yoga and exercising and breathing and cognitive behavioral therapy because I have tried all of those things. Exercising while having a panic attack? Good one.

My doctor was out of town for a week and now she’s back. She apologized for the confusion, refilled my Klonopin immediately and I scribbled a swirl on the signature line when I picked it up; I flashed my ID and nodded to the pharmacist when he asked me if I’d had this before because I was sick and I was tired of trying to explain it to everyone so I just grabbed the bottle and walked away to take it. I feel better now.

Once, years ago, I ended up in the ER because my refill wasn’t ready and after waiting for 11 days I checked myself into the hospital because it was the only thing I could think of to stop the panic attacks that kept coming. This time I didn’t want to do that so I tried other things, like Tylenol PM to help me sleep and alcohol to help me calm down. I tried breathing exercises and placing a rubber band around my wrist and snapping it. I tried. My Mom says that I should be proud of myself and I can’t imagine why. I can’t help but think that this wasn’t the dream my parents had for me as they whispered in bed about what I would be like when I grew up. It wasn’t the grandiose idea I had for myself either.