Okay, maybe "normal" was a strong word...

I hear voices. Most of the time it's just random shit and they're not actually talking to me, but yesterday one was talking to me and saying some really mean things. It went away after I took my medicine with food. I'm supposed to take it with food every night, but lately I haven't been eating nearly as much and thus have neglected to take it with food most nights. It doesn't absorb nearly as well without food, so... yeah. But it's better now and I just have to be vigilant about taking my meds the way they're supposed to be taken. I still think something's not quite right with my medicine. Lately I haven't been sleeping through the night, and last night I only slept for about four and a half hours before I couldn't go back to sleep... been up since about 1:45. Bleh. I tried to go back to sleep, I really did, but after I got Clayton up for work at 3:30 and I'd been awake for nearly 2 hours, I decided there wasn't much point to getting back in bed feeling so wide awake. I'm seeing my doctor in two days, so maybe I can get this straightened out. I take medicine for sleep, but the last couple nights I've been taking NyQuil so I haven't taken it because you're not supposed to mix the two (benzo's + alcohol = bad). I'll forgo the NyQuil tonight though so I can get a good night's sleep (hopefully). I'm seeing a dermatologist tomorrow because I've been a little broken out lately and that definitely needs to go away. Honestly, I've struggled most of my adult life with acne, and the only thing that really made it go away was birth control, which I obviously haven't been on since I had my tubes tied. *sigh* I really didn't want to be up this early. I might have a photo shoot in Wichita later this month/ early July. It's focusing on cutting scars, and sadly I have plenty of those. I've had problems with it for about 11 years now, although in the past six years it hasn't been nearly as bad as it was. In my teens I would often cut every other day and I would never really give myself a chance to heal. I only had to get stitches once, but that one time nearly freaking killed me. That was almost six years ago, and thankfully it has never gotten nearly that bad again.

Life's back to normal

... or as normal as my life can be. I got back on the full dose of my antidepressant and feel soooooooo much better. Things had gotten a little rocky between Clayton and me there for a hot minute, but that seems to have improved with being back on my full dose too. It also helps that he's finally getting help for his mental illness (recently diagnosed bipolar). Huge relief. It was definitely wearing me down being his (nearly) sole support when he had his highs and lows. Of course I wanted to be there for him, but at some point it was starting to negatively affect my psychological well being too. I felt helpless. I've put so much energy into making him feel better that I've had to sacrifice some of my happiness. It's a lot to ask of me to be the stable one in a relationship, but that's what I've had to be. But I think now that he's starting on some mood stabilizers and going to therapy, some of that weight is going to be lifted from my shoulders.

Not much else is going on. I've finally got all my canning supplies together and ready to go, so I'm going to make some jam today. I got mangoes, raspberries, and blueberries. I was supposed to just use mangoes and raspberries for the recipe, but raspberries were expensive and blueberries were on sale, so I decided to go for a happy medium and get some of each. Honestly, I'm pretty sure I got way too many mangoes. I might see if there's a different mango recipe in my book that calls for more mango and just eat the berries. That would make me happy. :)

Not having the best time

So I've only been taking half doses of my antidepressant for more than a week, and I feel like shit. It was necessary because Clayton ran out of his and I was sharing my prescription with him till I had no more to share. He goes to the doctor next week and I can refill mine next week as well, so it's temporary, but for the time being I'm sad and crabby all the time, not aided at all by the fact I've got PMS. Oddly, despite the PMS I have lost three pounds in the last 5 days, which I'm sure isn't healthy. I think the thyroid medicine is finally kicking in, because even accounting for dieting and exercise, there's no other way I should have lost so much so quickly. I'm not exactly complaining... I've been struggling with my weight for years, to the point that I was making myself throw up after every meal for a year and a half. My husband was pretty dense about it... I'm mysteriously sick all the time, but only after I eat? Come on. I wasn't covering my tracks that well. But it kept my weight pretty constant, and I even lost a little. Once I stopped doing it though, I ballooned. That's the problem with bulemia. Even though you don't necessarily go on "binges", you're still used to eating whatever you want without many consequences weight-wise, and then when you stop you still think you can eat whatever you want with no consequences. I had a fast food problem, and more than that, before we left I had a serious problem with Dunkin Donuts. I would have the largest possible iced mocha, a breakfast sandwich, and at least one donut, and that was if I only went once a day. I was unemployed and I filled my hours and coped with my stress by eating. Odd thing is, now that we're not constantly poor I don't feel the need to eat fast food every day, let alone twice or three times a day. That's saved us a lot of money too, to be sure. Back home, pretty much the only way we survived was Clayton bringing home free food from work. We never cooked at home. In the beginning of our relationship we were always going out to restaurants, every night. You can't keep track of how many calories you're taking in when you're constantly eating out. Geez, I sound so obsessed with my weight. That's not healthy. If I somehow miraculously keep losing weight at the rate I am though, I might try wearing a two-piece for my planned photo shoot in New York. Granted, both my swimsuits I have are technically two pieces, but they're both tankinis and not really the look I want to have. Plus one has a skirted bottom, and that's definitely NOT cute. I want to go look at bathing suits later today, but it seems like it would be a waste of money in two possible scenarios: A) I buy one the size I am now and lose weight to the point it doesn't fit, or B) I buy one that's too small now and fail to lose enough weight for it to fit right. I'm probably going to have to get new lingerie too, as that's supposed to be part of one of the shoots and I don't really have what the photographer had in mind on hand at the moment. What else exciting is going on? Well, having my hours cut at work sucks, but at least it's temporary, so I can probably tough out a couple lousy paychecks. Last night, with the exception of the new assistant manager being a bitch and a know-it-all, as usual, things were pretty harmonious and ran pretty smoothly. I definitely noted the absence of the bitchiest girl I work with last night, as I'm pretty sure that's the reason things were as harmonious as they were. The assistant manager though... she thinks she knows better than I do how to do my job, when she's the one (while I'm off doing something important like getting ice) getting drinks sent back for being made wrong and stocking WAY too much of certain beers in my already overcrowded beer cooler. Seriously, MGD is NOT so popular that I need 10 of them stocked. And who mistakes tonic water for club soda? And she orders me in a passive aggressive way to do this and that AT THIS MOMENT when it's not even remotely imperative that it be done so urgently. I know how to do my job. I do my job well. I could do my job just as well (and with much less under-my-breath mutterings and hostility) if she weren't constantly up in my business. I try to deal with it with the least possible confrontation, but I don't like being treated like a five year old. Most the time I hold my tongue and just stay quiet around her so I don't risk saying something she could construe as insubordination. Then she asks me why I'm being so quiet. Perhaps she hasn't noticed that I'm not quiet around anybody else. I'm downright chatty. But my mom told me if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all, and I have nothing nice to say to her. Would I love to tell her how dumb and absolutely infuriating she is and that she doesn't know the ins and outs of doing my job so she should just shut the fuck up and let me work in peace (as much peace as I can have on a busy night)? Hell yes I would. But I also like having a job. She's not worth losing my job over.

Hooray for windfalls

I recently got Medicaid to go along with my Medicare, which is pretty great in and of itself because it cuts my copays down significantly. Today, however, I checked my bank account and $110.50 had mysteriously appeared in it from the Social Security Administration. That's the exact amount I pay for my Medicare premium. So this leads me to believe that it was my last month's premium reimbursed to me, which also leads me to believe that the state of Nebraska will be paying my premium. And hey, who couldn't use an extra $110 a month? I sure could...

Impatient

I'm impatient. Granted, I've lost two pounds in the last two days, but I'm really sick of being heavy. People I talk to about it aren't very helpful. I have people telling me I look good, and it really bothers me because I don't look nearly the way I did a couple years ago. I know I can look better than this. I know I can feel better about myself than I do now. And at some point, it has to be about health. Of course I would love to get down to 135 or 140, but even 160 would put me in the healthy range for my height. I HATE not being healthy. My blood pressure has gone up, I can't fit into my cute clothes anymore, I have 1 bra besides my sports bras that fits... I don't care if I'm ever "thin", I just don't want to be overweight anymore. My new psychiatrist agreed that it's more than likely the medicine that's made me gain so much weight, but of course, there's not a whole lot they can do about that since I need the meds to be sane. He kept talking about changing my antipsychotic because I still hear the voices almost daily, but every other one out there causes weight gain and that's not an option. It's not to the point where they bother me a whole lot, so I'd rather just stay on the one I'm on because it's a "weight neutral" one (ie doesn't cause significant weight gain) and there are very few of those. On another note, the doctor said that, because my voices started so young (when I was 15) pretty much no medicine is going to be able to get rid of them completely. I'm fine with that. As I said, they're not really to the point where they bother me much, and they don't talk to me or command me to do things, they're just there. The medicine just pretty much keeps me in the state of mind where, when they do talk to me, I don't feel compelled to do what they tell me to. I'm never truly sane, to be honest. My sanity kind of moves along a spectrum, from nearly normal to batshit insane. Right now I'm in that nearly normal range, as I am the majority of the time, to the point people don't know I'm mentally ill without me telling them so. I don't try to hide it though. Just the opposite. I feel like the only way the stigma associated with mental illnesses will go away is if people are educated. I'm not ashamed, and like I said, most the time I'm nearly normal, and people need to see that. People with mental illnesses who get proper treatment can live pretty normal lives. Granted, I can't work full time and I need a LOT of treatment, but it doesn't completely take away my ability to function as a member of society. *sigh* Therapy has helped me an awful lot. I used to be so ashamed and so introverted. It's really nice being free from that.

Gotta lose some weight...

Over the course of a year, I'd put on 40 pounds. I'm not going to blame my medicine or much of anything besides myself. My eating got out of control. I knew I was gaining weight and I was still eating a ton and not doing much besides sitting in front of the computer while I was unemployed (which was a lot of the time). Plus, I'd been bulemic and kept eating like I was still throwing up everything I ate after I finally got over it. Now I'm trying to fix the mess I've made of myself, and it's really hard. I'm eating a lot less (probably 1200-1500 cal a day tops) and getting my cardio and strength training pretty regularly, and I've quit eating fast food, which was definitely my downfall. I want to get down to 170 by the time I go to New York in the beginning of August (pretty much my weight this time last year) and I've already lost 11 pounds, so hopefully I can stay motivated with my diet and exercise, although I don't think that will be a problem with a clear goal in mind. With all the free time I have, it's really important that I stay active.

Been a while

It certainly has been a while since I blogged. I didn't have internet for a good while, and before that I was sharing a computer with six other people, so it was hard to make time to get my thoughts out there. More of the same, really. Small town life isn't the most exciting. I apparently no longer owe the government $10,000, which is definitely a plus. My hours have been severely cut at work, so even though I really enjoy my job, I'm exploring other options. Hate to say it, but Clayton's job isn't paying really well either, so we're both on the lookout for new opportunities. We've finally moved into our own place and it's starting to feel like home. I hated to do it, but I finally broke down and bought a scale. I've gotten really self conscious about my weight because it seemed like I wouldn't stop gaining, but luckily I seemed to top out right after we got out to Nebraska and have since lost ten pounds. I've altered my diet a LOT (no more fast food!) and have started exercising, so I hope to get back down to 175 by the beginning of August. Speaking of the beginning of August, I've decided to visit my husband in New York City. Plane tickets aren't that expensive and he actually said he'd help pay my way too, and I've never been there before. I'm very excited! I'm trying to arrange a couple modeling jobs (hence trying to lose some weight), but we'll see how things work out. It would be nice if I could actually profit from going though. :)