Bleeding

I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t be here writing right now but I have nothing else to do, no one to talk to. No one that understands anyway.

April 1st I started to taper my Lexapro. I’ve been sick since April 2nd. I don’t even care about the shit I’ve gone through in the first couple weeks, that was just physical stuff, awful but it felt like an illness. But now my head is short circuiting, constantly, nearly every time my eyes move I am zapped from my temples into my jaw and lips and it radiates into my teeth. This makes me so dizzy.  And in the past week I’ve started to loose it, like really fucking loose it. Like, hospital visit loose it.

My dr didn’t tell me it would be like THIS. I expected the brain zaps, but not for them to come 15 times a second, so fast and so disorienting it’s hard to keep my balance. I’ve had a headache for 28 day.  But some time last week I snapped. Something inside my brain just broke in half. I can not control my emotions. I cannot. I find myself fine for a moment and I swear the microwave could beep wrong and off I go. I freak out, yell and want to hit and kick and shake and move this feeling out of my body. I’m so god dammed angry. SO ANGRY! I’m mean, and I hate it but I also don’t give a shit. Nope, not at all, cause fuck you, that’s why. I’m just out of my head. I hate everyone who lives in this house, my kids, my husband and myself- Hate.  Not your getting on my nerves but I want to leave a note that says fuck you- you win. I’m am ANGRY!

And guess what? This shit is NORMAL and EXPECTED and no one told me. No one told me what I was to become. A version 10x’s worse than what I was 4 years ago when I took that first fucking pill. I had NO IDEA what I was doing to my body, my brain by taking this shit. They give it to you like it’s candy, no big deal, it’s just a little happy pill. But here I am. I am here. And I don’t know what to do. Thank god I know that I’m not actually as crazy as I’m acting and feeling, that this is “discontinuing symptoms” FUCK YOU DRUG COMPANIES- this is WITHDRAWL! They wont and cant tell you how long it will last, if you can even get anyone to admit that this is a thing. Oh, except the thousands of people on line who are all as shocked as I am to find that THIS is what was waiting for us on the other side of “well” HAHAHAH! Stupid fucks- you cant quit! They say 1-3 weeks of symptoms, but the world outside of clinical trials that were never done with discontinuing, the rest of them say months, years, who the hell knows! And I quit, I didn’t know- but it wasn’t doing its job well enough anymore. Ask anyone who takes meds how often they change, it happens ALL THE TIME. I needed a change, so I got two pieces of paper, one with instructions for weaning, the other for a new med.

But I wanted to stop, I really, really want to. I don’t want it anymore. I want this to be over so badly I can’t see thru my tears right now. I want this to be over.  And you know what, the only way to make it end is to take more. I don’t want to.  But is not an option?

Mike can’t take it, he can’t. He wont deal with this. He wants me back on it, like, sneak it in my food back on it I am so awful right now. But I don’t want it and he doesn’t understand.  I can’t show him anything written by a Md that says this is real and he cannot wrap his head around what is going on with me. All he knows is this is not who he wants to live with. I don’t want to live with myself either…… but what? Throw away the last month. What if I wake up tomorrow and it’s gone, I’m better?  What if I never am. I don’t know what to do.

I want to leave, I don’t want to be here, me, crazy, I am so miserable I can’t believe I can get out of bed.  I went a full week without taking a shower. Only drinking coffee milkshakes, not even knowing if I was really alive. Am I? Is this life. Really? I just want a normal life. I just want to be normal.

The top and the bottom

I’ve been tired since Ben was born. Bone tired. But I am able to stay up late, it’s my body that’s really complaining. The heavy limbs and achy muscles and joints. Near constant headaches. It finally came to a point three months where I told my nurse practitioner who handles my meds that I’m still physically dragging and I can’t seem to shake it. I mentioned my healthy diet and busy days and gym time (which is seldom right now, I’ll admit) but that despite being aware of my food and exercise, I have gained weight. I was frustrated and after talking for a bit she decided to run a massive blood panel. Everything she could think of was tested. I was afraid something big was wrong. It’s been years of feeling this way and trying and trying and trying to change things on my own.

Last fall I went through a long period of depression. One that I recognized right away so I did what I know to do. I ampped it up, started a Whole 30 and hit the gym. Sometimes, just sometimes I can Tom Cruse my way out of it.  It didn’t work at all. It lasted, I think, about 9 weeks. I gained weight. So in January, I did whole 30 again. I lost 3 lbs.  My meds weren’t working and something else seemed to be going on.

In the past six months I’ve had a few changes in my medication from adding vitamins to increasing my current dosage and finally adding on a new drug. Before I had my blood results back I decided that I wanted to quit the one I have been taking for nearly four years. I look at pictures of then and of my life now and honestly, the only thing I can see that has changed is starting meds and excess weight. What I was taking wasn’t doing its job and with the new one I was feeling better than I have in quite a while.

From the blood work I learned I have a simple problem! Just a vitamin D deficiency. I was relieved it was something and nothing all at once. A good vit d level is between 50-100, mine was 17.2. So pretty low. Low enough to answer most of my questions. The exhaustion and body aches and pains and some research has indicated that the more deficient you are the harder is it is to loose weight.  But the drug I’ve been taking for 4 years is a classic weight gainer.  So one adds and the other wont let you subtract. When I had Nate, I wasn’t medicated, the weight came off easily. It took 5 months to loose 52 lbs. With Ben, I’ve been medicated the entire time and, considence or not (?) I still haven’t lost the weight I gained with him. Which come on, he’s almost 3, at this point its just fat, not baby weight.  And I had a trainer for over a year, did bootcamp, two whole 30′s went exclusively paleo, two stints of weight watchers, I even tried Sensa, for fucks sake. I just can’t get this weight off.

My next appointment we talked more and added a metric ton of vitamin D (I’m taking 20,000 units a week) and we will retest in a few months. She changed my prescription for my new med , doubling it’s dosage and wrote instructions for weaning from the old.

I’m not off the old yet. I have two more weeks before I’m done with it. The first two weeks were not pleasant. But I hope in the long run changing to something new and ditching the old and getting my vitamin d to a healthy level will allow me to feel like myself again. I hope.

I’m not expecting to wake up 30 lbs lighter once it’s out of my system but I do hope that the work that I do to take care of myself will help me get back to a healthy weight and keep my head healthy.  Cause I’ll tell ya, fat jeans are depressing on their own.

Two Years

 

Today is a big day for me.

Today I am alive. I am well. I am happy.

I’m not done. There is so much work to be done, hard work. But I am here and I will do the work, I will take the pills and I will hold my people close and thank them for saving me. For giving me the strength to save myself. Because I am here, I am a survivor. And two years later I can really own it. I have been through hell. I have fought my way back.  Survivor. And I am here to tell my story, and I thank you for listening to it, for you are part of my survival as well.

 

(don’t know what I’m talking about?  Its this and then this.)

Spring Dreaming

It is beautiful today! Cold but gorgeous. The past week brought an ice storm along with snow making the clear blue sky so very welcome!

It has me dreaming up my spring to-do list both inside and out.  Our yard last year was left untouched, I had pots of flowers on the front porch but never got around to planting anything. I’m planning making up for it this year.  One thing I’ve wanted since we moved in is window boxes full of color, hanging ferns, new foliage on either side of the front door and new cushions for the bench. I hope this is the year I can actually sit on said bench with a book while the boys ride their bikes. I KNOW, I said I was dreaming….

Loving this look for the pots next to the front door!

As for inside, I’ve been tweaking every room over the past few weeks. Finishing the kitchen inspired me to keep going. On the list for the coming weeks is painting the UGLY support beam in the foyer, painting the foyer itself , painting the spindles on the upstairs balcony and finally doing something with the mini-hall between the dining room and kitchen. More on that soon, I think I have a solid plan, some ideas just take 7 years. (gah!)

I got a really cool bird cage at a second hand shop recently and was SO in love with it, and then I brought it home and well, I still hate birds… but I love the cage. I tried to stage it with plants and books, etc. but it doesn’t work, it looked cute but it doesn’t work in my house, at all. In a desperate last ditch I put on the ledge above the front door and a new idea was born. The birdcage isn’t staying but I’m excited to start collecting what will go there. (this post is becoming a tease, isn’t it?)

So, basically I need to book a few new jobs so I can fund all of my ideas. Inspiration, it only sounds free.

Filler

Hey, so, remember that time when I was all- maybe I’ll write here more? Heh, I do that a lot. And, right now, I have some things to write about but I’m currently pretending that I’m not dying of a cold (Mike had it first so I, naturally, declared him a giant #(^&*) so I don’t have much focus. So instead, I offer this questionnaire that I jacked from Sarah.

Do you have any strange phobias? Birds, man! Not the ones outside, flying around minding their own business, but the ones that get into the airport and your house, or if you have a bird as a pet? I cannot handle it. My mom is a bird lover and I grew up with birds n our house and NO THANK YOU.

Do you sleep with or without clothes on? Tank and unders

If you are outside, what are you most likely doing? In Feb? Trying to get back inside as fast as humanly possible.

Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band? No. It used to be Dave Mathews but not anymore. I do love a lot of music right now but no fav. I don’t think.

Do you believe in karma? Is a pigs ass pork?

Who is your celebrity crush?  Nate Russe, the lead singer of Fun. This changes a lot, and my celebrity “type” is hard to nail down.

What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?  When Nate snorts his snot into his throat. HORK.  Sound I love- Ben just started saying Wuv yew tew- and that kid is a HANDFULL OF DANGER AND ANXIETY so yes, that. OH, or, the garage door opening at the end of the day.

Choose: East Coast or West Coast? I love the west but it’s no outer banks.

What was the last book you read? It starts with food

Do you like the smell of gasoline? no, is this a “thing”

Do you have any nicknames?  Yeah, my mom and grandma call me Chrissy Tina. Mike calls me bo-bina. Nate calls me “MOM THE MEATLOAF” ( I wish I were kidding)

What was the last movie you saw? Django Unchained – and at home. god help my husband and his man crush on Will Farrell, the campaign

What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had? Oh, yall- I do my own stunts, you know that, right? I guess the worst is falling down the stairs 5 months pregnant with Ben and breaking my tail bone since it still hurts DAILY 3 years later.

What’s the last thing you purchased? Afrin, dentil floss and chicken sausage.

Can you touch your nose with your tongue? yes, so what.

Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you? does the pink frosting on my shoulder count? (nate was eating a cupcake, I’m wearing it)

What’s your favorite animal? Bulldogs

What were you doing last night at 12 AM? Snoring, presumably.

What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it? I’m sure there are many but hell if I know right this second.

What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far? Moving away with Mike, 12.5 years ago!

What’s the last song you listened to? God, the Thomas song, their 2 their 4 their 6 their 8.

What is your current desktop picture? A family picture from 2010

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You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power? OHH! To be invisible. I think I’d love to be a fly on the wall. Though, no good could come of it. I mean, do I really want to know what they are saying? I would like to hide from the kids a times- so, yeah, invisibility.

You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again? On Saturday, I shaved my armpits with Mikes electric razor, that was a terrible decision, I’d like to NOT do that.

You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go? Paris!

Moving on

Have you guys heard? Friday, February 1st is the last day of Style Lush, not just my last day, the last day. So sad.

I’ve been writing for Style Lush since its first day, and I’m so proud to say that I will also publish my last post on its last day. That site has become such a big part of my life. Nate was just 2 when it launched and I have found my way as a writer, mom and someone who can present herself to the world, albeit in a target heavy wardrobe, but still. I found my bearings in this new life of mine on its virtual pages and I will miss it so much.

 

The good news for you is I lose my outlet! I’ll be back here with clothes and shoes and makeup and whatever else I would have talked about there, will now live here. I hope that I’ll be around more, too. I miss it here, which isn’t new, I just tend to “write” my posts in my head while I’m falling asleep at night and then when I get up there’s no time for actual writing. I’m going to try to make more time.

If you follow me anywhere else, you know I just painted the kitchen!  And as always, there are more projects in the wings. Ones I hope to share here.

So, let’s get this party started!

Is there anything you want to ask me? Anything at all, ask away and I’ll answer it all in a post in the next few days!

Merry and Bright

You all know by now that I’m a homebody.  I’m a Cancer, and a decorator, I mean, where else would I rather be?  And I just love the holidays, this time of year is the best (and worst, so homesick!) and I can’t help but want to add a little touch of magic to all areas of the house.  I usually just put these all on flickr but figured I could share them here in one shot. So, here it is, our happy holiday house.

The first room on the left is the dining room:

There’s a little hint in the powder room:

The kitchen:

The living room:

Nate has a tree I didn’t shoot and I probably should have done the whole house at night- each window has an electric candle. Oh well, hope you liked it!  Happy Holidays!!

 

 

Mini-Makeover

I’m painting my dining room tonight. All day I’ve been itching to start but I KNOW that as soon as a start to prep, much less pour the paint, someone will puke or step in it or do some toddler type something that will derail the entire thing, so I’ll do it after they go to bed tonight.

I wrote a few weeks ago that I’d grown tired of the gingerbread spice wall color, it’s going a slate grey that Mike and Nate are both calling blue and my camera agrees, it’s darker and it’s not orange- and I can’t wait to see it up.

Lets pretend that I have a bag of money…if I did, I’d make it a bigger makeover.

 

I’d get new chairs for the head of the table.

I’d get 4 of these.

I’d set them on this.

I cover the top of my table in cream vinyl with a nail head trim.  (I know it sounds crazy- but it would be fab!)

And I’d have a bar cart.

 
And it would all live happily ever after. I can picture it. It would be awesome, if only I can find that bag of money… I bet it’s hidden in the same place Ben’s stashed my clog.

 

Changes

I love my dining room. I look at it a lot, my desk  faces it. I actually look at it more than the tv. I’m tired of it though. I love the warm gingerbread walls but I am a person drawn to contrast and while the color is gorgeous and saturated and amazing at night, it blends with the curtains, the table, hutch and picture frames. I want more contrast but I want to keep the warm moody feel of the current color.

My first thought was navy but the bathroom next to it is navy and I don’t want it to be the same so I decided a dark grey. Charcoal or pencil lead, something like that. I found a few in my paint decks that I liked but I went and grabbed a bunch of swatches anyway. And now I’m thinking. I love 5 colors. Two of which are DARK, one is cracked pepper (a flat black) and the other, weather vane an inky black, then there are three greys.  Honestly, all of them make me want  crown molding for even more contrast with the white!

Would you paint a room in your house this dark?

I love this room SO MUCH!

 

here are the ones I’m working with (down to 4 now)

 

 

Dreaming of some free time

My head is spinning, my body is still.

I waste a lot of time during a day. I get the daily stuff done, laundry, cooking, dishes, etc. I make lists, draw floor plans and dick around on the internet though, too. I do these things because I like to but also because they are interpretable tasks. I can pick up where I left off or not at all.

I have a lot of things I am in the mood to do. I am craving projects like mad. I want work on the kitchen, paint the dining room and hall. I want to do the spindles on the catwalk upstairs, I want to purge and organize and empty things out before the holidays and new toys come in. I want to start Christmas projects.

I typically do work at night, design projects for Haute House and writing for Style Lush. I could do some of this stuff at night, actually, the Christmas projects I can, for sure.  But refinishing and painting the kitchen isn’t something I want to do from 9-11 pm on a Wednesday.

It was easier a few years ago, before the kids were fighting over air, now it’s exhausting to get things started just to have to clean up and do it again the next day. I’m going to have to figure out how to balance it. I need to stay creative, I need paint under my nails and a pin cushion on my desk but hot ham, it is hard with these little people. I find myself dreaming of when they are both in school, and then I stop myself , I can buy stockings and a tree skirt, lets not fast forward to much….

Any tips on how I can get more of my stuff done during the day?