Strange day

It started so well. I got to work and they'd gotten donuts for everyone, and the box said they were for everyone on our "nursing, PT, OT, and home health aide staff who does such a good job". Which means they remembered ME, since I'm the OT dept. I also got my very own voicemail box. It still would be nice to have my very own place to oh, use the phone or connect to the network (and they made it harder because they pulled out the network line in the conference room that I had been using), but we're on a good path.

Unfotunately that was the best of the day. I spent most of the drive down here trying to get my home phone line repaired since it wasn't working. After I FINALLY got a human after 7 calls I was told it might not be fixed until Monday. At which point I pointed out that since they can't provide consistent enough cell coverage for me use at home despite having been assured that would be no problem, then not fixing that line, they were leaving me for days with no way to call 911 despite being paid huge amounts of money/month to achieve this. I gave up. I went back to the provider I left 6 months ago because of being told one thing and then receiving a $300 cellular bill. I did that tonight and I don't even regret the cost. Much.

I had another good moment when my contract was renewed (it's not even up for 6 weeks) and I was told how pleased they are with me. I suspect this is less so today, but truly a lot of what they thought was me missing paperwork was them not looking at the handwritten stuff I did, so that helps. I think.

Then there was all this paperwork that was messed up from last week because of my computer problems, including one visit I've done that is non-reimbursable. I don't know what happened there, I very clearly remember writing up the orders, but somehow they either were deleted or lost in cyberspace forever.

Then this lady who I always see on Wed. and Friday went out of town for about a week without mentioning it to me previously. Which is good in that it opened my schedule, but it is bad in that I would have seen her earlier in the week if I knew. So, one whole week of missed therapy.

My first patient was furious with me, as was her caregiver, because of the agency's decision to call her family and MD and file a report with adult protective services based on my visit a few days ago. The caregiver I basically told she couldn't talk to me about this, which is true, but I am really annoyed because I know she got in trouble for not doing her job well and leading to some of the issues, and I think she led my patient to her high-pitched squawking and the every annoying insinuation that I'm too young to know how to do my job. I LOOK young. I have a chubby cheeked face that looks young and my curly hair adds to that. I also just don't show aging as much as some people. I have grey hair, more than people would guess, but it is mixed into the curls. I haven't developed wrinkles or what-not; that's just genetics. But it can be annoying. I am not that young; 10 years of experience is a bunch of experience in this field and besides, the decision was made by me, my supervisor, the social worker, the clinical nurse manager, and I believe the director of the agency. I made the calls because I was the direct witness, but still I feel horrible. I knew this was likely. I also know how badly she needs OT, so I finally convinced her to wait to decide to stop after the weekend and someone else is going to talk to her for me in the meantime.

Around then is when I broke my tooth. It was a cap that was placed years ago after a kid at camp smacked me in the mouth accidentally. I can't get it fixed for 2 weeks and even then I am going to have to mess with work hours to get to the dentist. Unless I can maybe move Dr. Mind that week......hmmm. Regardless it isn't the most pretty thing and it's kind of sharp. I swallowed the cap so i can't even stick it back on temporarily.

My next patient was fine. Thank goodness. We had a lovely time talking about where the camp I worked was, as she used to live there. Which is amazing as I never meet people who have been there. I can't wait to bring her some pictures of it next time.

Then I got a call that my new brace is in but they could only see me in the morning. I called and explained my situation and will be seen in the afternoon. I'm anxious about this new brace. I need it, I'm rolling my ankle in my current one that is only a few weeks old, and the new one just won't let that happen, but it also means accepting that I wear a BRACE, not an athletic support system. On the other hand the other option is surgery and brace sounds good in comparison. And I'm glad to get it as now I can go buy shoes at the specialized shoestore and have them fit everything needed into the shoe. I dread that, but my current shoes hurt. I think they stretched; they have too much leather for the instructions I was given. The orthotics don't hit right. I tried to switch to an older pair of shoes but can only find one of them and they hurt too from being worn out. So tomorrow is new shoe day.

Then I got a call that yet another patient cancelled, this time because his dog bit him. That scares me a bit as that is twice he's been bitten by the dog and although they keep it shut up when we're there it does come out and it now officially scares me.

So with all this I didn't get to the motel with supper and settled until after 7, then I took the fastest shower ever, ate, and now am going to plug in my work computer to charge and go to sleep. I am sooooooooooooooooo tired. I don't think I slept well last night.

I have no idea how tomorrow is going to go; I feel like I've missed visits with everyone but most of them can't be seen tomorrow anyway. So, it may be a weird day. Hopefully not weird like today. Today is the first time I have really messed anything up and that doesn't feel good. I know relatively that if I've done this 6 weeks and am just now making noticeable errors it's not that bad but it still is unpleasant.

Oh well.........

The antidote to overwhelmed

I've been struggling some the last few days. Worry about the baby, my reactions, time lost to resting last weekend (desperately needed but still, I had so much that needed done), time lost to my work computer dying last week, and stress because of some difficult cases of late, I've just felt like there wasn't enough time in a day. I've not sewn or done much of anything the last several days because I'm TIRED and what time I've had has often been spent writing progress notes. But today has made things feel a lot better.

For one thing I finally took time to work on a paper Dr. Brain needs to help me get Nuvigil through insurance, maybe. I noticed the ICD9 codes were different than usual. One is PTSD, which is now a more major diagnosis for me than in the past. The other was for bipolar mixed MILD. That's fun to see.

Second, every week we have team meeting. They always introduce new people and everyone claps and smiles at them. Today at the end of that she looked at me and asked "can I?" and I said yes, and so she told them I'll be staying through October and kind of made it clear I'd be staying. I got a ton of applause, a hug and some really, really nice things said about me. Including my supervisor saying "this is just where you belong". I think that's the nicest work compliment I've ever gotten. I fit in here. I've never had that happen before at work. Twice I have been close to someone i worked with, but never the entire team like this. I love it.

Third, one month into project start eating normal foods, Sunday I wanted a hamburger. We bought half a beef a while back and had individual patties made, so I thawed a 2 pack of those and ate one Sunday and then tonight wanted and ate another. That's MEAT people. Not only is it meat, it's healthy, lean meat. I swear that increase in protein alone feels good somehow.

And now I'm doing 30 minutes of paperwork. That way I can relax in the morning. Maybe.

Some days suck

So today, in the course of 8 hours, I:

1)created a lunch break last week to take away my overtime because I was afraid to ask for it to be retro-approved

2)missed .25 hours which I now have to deal with somehow

3) Found out that when my contract says "Paid time off: 3 days to be determined with 2 week notice" that this does not in fact mean I have days off. And when I requested permission to take the day off that i did the return email "got lost" and so I found this out when I didn't get paid for the hours I took off. Nor are they willing to admit that this is just a BIT confusing and that telling me might have affected what I did. So I lost pay and have "special permission" to go see the podiatrist again to have my brace fitted when needed, after being admonished that they set up for me to work 1/2 days on Thursdays so I could see Dr. Mind and that should be all I need. I'm still working 40 hours per week people. I work long, long days and that includes working most of a full day each thursday, then going to see Dr. Mind, then being exhausted on Fridays. Because that's the only way I can see all my patients. And when i told them I didn't need days off I am absolutely sure I said "so I'll be able to just take them when needed, right?" because I knew I'd want time off when my sister has the baby.

4) After a frightening sequence of events including the closest to a fall I've had a patient come in YEARS (and we're talking about 7 of those) I spent a very long time contacting an MD, talking to nursing, calling a family to tell them that if their mother didn't have 24 hour care something like immediately I was going to have to report her to adult protective services, and then filing that report. Which sucks but she was so, so scary.

5)I gave up cable TV because it cost too much, and then the state started giving our libraries about half of their old budget and that meant the library I relied on for books on tape since I can't listen to music for very long most of the time couldn't buy new ones, so I have been paying for that service for maybe 18 months now. When I took this job I increased my service to have 8 books at once, since when you drive 1000-1500 miles a week you listen to a LOT of CDs. Well for quite some time I wasn't getting my 4 at a time; it was always 3 but I was listening to some really long books and not driving so much so it was ok. Now I still have only 3 out (2 of which have really been returned, just not credited yet) but I am paying double the price of what I should have been paying for four. So I called and complained and while they allegedly will get back to me about the time I've paid for the higher level of service and gotten nothing, they don't care. And so I get to once again listen to the same CD over again, for the 2nd time in a row, and possibly a 3rd given that it takes a while to get the books and this only lasts a few days and nobody will apologize, nobody will take responsibility, and I suspect nobody will refund my money.

6) I checked my credit score today. I have been working my butt off paying off debt. I'm needing a new car by winter and so I've been paying every penny I could scrape up into paying off credit cards. Yet somehow, mainly because of the particular day that they used as the reference date I think (because I use my Discover to pay for most things and then pay it right off, but that means it has high peaks sometimes if I've had a major purchase, like $300 of tires in the last few weeks which are paid off now but weren't when the month closed one day last week) my credit score had dropped a LOT since January. There's nothing like working so hard on something and being sure to never, ever miss a payment and paying 4-6 times what is owed per month each month and seeing the credit card balance cut by a third in a month, yet see you will never, ever qualify for a good car loan for some mysterious reason. I know that by the time I apply a lot of the debt will be gone, and I learned today that you need to let things settle for a while before you look at the score, but still.........I'm sick about this.

I'm going to bed now. I've had it with life.

Have fun, do good

I found this thing yesterday that's fun. It's a vocabulary game that donates a grain of rice to starving people for each correct answer. The rice is paid for by ads that are at the bottom that you don't even notice, and it's quite challenging. It assesses you at first and then starts you at whatever level is indicated. If you miss one you go back a level; 3 in a row and you go up. It is difficult, but the correct answers are shown and you always get another chance (or 7) and so you really do learn.

I am having trouble prying myself away.

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

My little brother

I realized the other day that I've mentioned on here before that I have a little brother who I don't see anymore and who I miss on a daily basis. I've referred to him frequently as I've talked about experiences that have made me more afraid of losing my neice/nephew. And I'm sure he'll come up again over the next few weeks/months.

So here is the story of how I grieve for a person who is still very much alive:

I'm fairly sure I've mentioned before that my father married someone who I wan in high school with, a girl 2 years older than me who he'd been abusing (versus being involved with; I don't see how their relationship is her fault really as she was a kid) for a really long time. Oh, and he was her teacher when it started. All that is a really long story that is rather sensational sounding (ie you would think I pulled it from the headlines; the only reason that didn't happen is the school district involved hid it and got him out of his teaching job).

I'm cutting many years out of this, but after my parents were divorced when I was 19 he immediately married her. 2 months later I found out I was about to be a big sister again. I was 20 years old. I also had been successfully backing away from him for about a year. When I learned about the baby I decided that I did not want to ignore this child's existence, and that truthfully the baby would need people not his parents in his life to watch for signs that things were hurting him/her. So I gave up the break from my father and plunged back into that bizarre situation.

I was supposed to be present when the baby was born. It refused to reveal if it was a boy or girl, and the doctor thought girl because the heartrate was high. However the doctor didn't know the mother was smoking through the entire pregnancy. It also failed the blood screen for chromosomal abnormalities, but further testing was fine so it was a false positive.

Several weeks before the baby was due my uncle died in a state about 12 hours away. The doctor cleared the baby's mother to travel because there was no sign of impending labor whatsoever. On the way home she went into labor. They drove as far as they could but the baby was born in a city a couple hours from where he should have come. I couldn't make it for the birth. This turned out to be a good thing as the call he was coming caused me to crumple to the floor and cry for many, many hours. I was clearly not quite as ready for him as I thought, on top of grieving for my favorite uncle.

At 3 Am the phone rang and I had a little brother with good APGAR scores who was staring all around and seemed fascinated by this new thing called earth. At 11 am the phone rang and they were taking him via ambulance, on a ventilator, to the children's hospital ICU after he stopped breathing twice and the 2nd time they couldn't get him to breathe again. The calls over the next hours were awful. He'd had a severe type of stroke; they couldn't assess the damage for several days/weeks (I don't remember now) because all they could see was blood. (he had the less common type of stroke where a blood vessel bursts, rather than a typical stroke where blood flow to an area is cut off. His type of stroke is more serious and had a much high fatality rate). He had also had several seizures, so was receiving multiple seizure meds. At that point the outlook was bleak and the best outcome was for a severely disabled child. I lost it. All the months of bravely facing this and making decisions about involvement totally fell apart. My friends made many phone calls to professors to get tests and papers that were due that week and the next in large quantities moved and I struggled to go classes. I went as I could, mainly if a friend could stay and monitor the phone. I made the painful decision that if he was going to die as it appeared I didn't want to go and bond. I knew that I would regret that in many ways, but I also knew that I'd have regrets no matter what I did and no matter what happened. When he was about 4-5 days old he ripped out his own vent and started breathing without difficuly. 24 hours later he was the step-down ICU with a much improved prognosis. The bleed had stopped and had begun to clear, meaning he wouldn't just bleed out into his head and the seizures were controlled. I went to see him and about 2 days later got to accompany him home, weeks before they had originally thought possible. The degree of brain damage was not known yet, but he was alive.

The time I spent with him in the NICU was strange. The didn't have anything set up for adult siblings, so we were given grandparent passes. His last full day in the NICU his parents were doing all sort sorts of required classes on CPR, caring for his apnea monitor,seizure management, etc. so I was allowed to stay with him all day. They took him to be circumcised and he came back crying. I've never felt anything like it when as soon as he was cuddled to me and I had a bottle for him he relaxed, took the bottle and snuggled in for a sound nap for about an hour.

His first 4 or 5 months were rough. He didn't reach milestones because he was so drugged. There was no way to predict what his outcome would be, but the doctors expected he would have some learning disabilities if not significant developmental delays. However, they also admitted they had never had a baby with that severe of a bleed and the seizures that indicated the brain was damaged survive.

When they tapered the seizure meds after he hadn't had one for a significant time period this amazing little guy appeared. I remember laying on the floor reading to him one night, just a silly Dr. Seuss book (Marvin K.Mooney will you please go now!), and something about my facial expressions and tone of voice was absolutely hysterical to him. He began to remember me between visits and although he did everything at his own pace he grew and developed all the skills he should have.

I totally fell in love. Yet knowing how messed up his life was likely to be because he was growing up the child of a child molester and the victim of that molester, plus all the abuse I had suffered from my father, I couldn't stand it. I wound up depressed and in counseling. At the beginning the therapist asked me if I wanted to just take him away. At first I lied. The next visit I admitted that it was all I could do to not just steal him and take him far away from what awaited him. And that was how I began to finally admit to the psychologist what really happened in my home. I had a very hard time for months, followed by my first really manic episode which I downplayed and therefore still wasn't diagnosed. After I crashed from that I did agree to antidepressants finally and my next 11 years were trial and error of medication after medication.

When he was about 15 months old a lot of stuff happened. This was during a period I was so manic and going through so much emotionally that I didn't sleep for weeks on end, so my memories aren't totally clear. But essentially someone accused my father of molesting their now-adult daughter, my childhood playmate and neighbor. There had come a time when suddenly she would not play with me at all that had never made sense, and I believe she told her parents I had done something because they constantly invited my sister to do things and ignored my existence for the most part from that point on. There were suddenly reports to children's not-protective services about my brother's care, destruction of property at my father's home, and anonymous threats, all of which came from the furious parent of my friend. And suddenly my brother's mother realized that her whole relationship was based on child abuse. I was with her when she realized, and have never seen anyone turn that white that fast. That night was when I found out that my parents had known since I was 2 about my grandfather molesting me. I somehow made it through the last week or so until I went back to college, and then practically moved into the counseling center for the next 4 months. During that time I was getting up to 6 hours of counseling/week and spending hours doing homework for it. I cut back to the minimum number of classes and my attendance was spotty. I gave up pretty much everything but work, because I had to do that.

At first there was so much fear. And then my brother's mother actually left. She called me from a shelter for abused women, which is where they lived for the next year or so. Ironically it is about 6 miles from my home now. We stayed in close contact for a long time and I actually lived at the shelter with them (in the halfway house) for 6 weeks so I could watch my brother while she was out of the country on military duty and I was taking a course I had to finish before grad school.

During those weeks (she was home part of it) we worked out a lot, including that she would work to keep his biological siblings part of his life. She knew that I had cut off contact with my father and that I had worked so incredibly hard to be comfortable with having this surprise sibling that I didn't want to lose him. Plus, I was special to my brother. We loved each other a lot. She continued to promise that we'd still be in touch throughout a horrid custody battle that ended with my father losing all visitation, rights to any parental decisions, etc. and was ordered to pay the highest child support possible (there was a penalty included or something). That was when my brother was about 2 years old I think and he'd rarely seen our father since he was 18 months and the child welfare system began to realize he wasn't a safe parent (not that this kept them from turning around and giving him a month's visitation just before they decided he was too dangerous to even have supervised visitation. Duh.) So he has no memory of his father. His mother promised that she didn't want to remove his biological family from his life and that her intention was for him to grow up knowing that he had another father, who wasn't well enough to be with him, and 2 sisters and a brother. This worked great until just after he turned 4 1/2 and she suddenly had no contact with me. Emails, calls, etc. went unanswered.

5 years ago I heard from her. They'd moved to the city where I used to live, where I see Dr. Mind, so were only an hour away. My brother was a 2nd grader then, and despite the doctor's warnings after his stroke that he would have learning disabilities he was a straight A student and doing wonderfully. He remembered me and asked about me a lot. I kept trying to arrange visits and she'd say yes and then back out. Ultimately I realized this was making my moods go nuts (enough I had to go on a new med) and so I very honestly asked her to be sure she really felt she could handle this because i was having so much trouble coping. I wanted her to tell me if it was too painful and if it was then we could try again later. I haven't heard a word from her since.

My brother is now almost 14. When he turn 18 I plan to start trying to find him on my own. When he is 23 and has had time to finish college and really grow up I plan to do whatever I have to in order to contact him. If he doesn't choose to be part of my life that's fine, but I need it to be his decision. People have told me for years that he will remember me and be curious about me and probably eventually seek me out but there is no way to know this will happen.

In the meantime I have had to deal with what has to be one of the cruelest ways to lose someone you love: he's alive and nearby and neither he or I made the choice nor can either of us do anything about it unless his mother makes a new decision. He is my brother and I did nothing wrong, although my father certainly did, and still I am the one who has lost so much. So has my brother, as I'm an awesome big sister :), but it is one of the great losses of my life, and it's not like I haven't had my fair share of those anyway.

So now you can probably see a little more clearly why having this new baby come into my life terrifies me. I don't want to love him/her and then lose him/her to something totally unfair. I have a hard time not equating loving babies with getting hurt, especially since this has also happened with my friend's baby, the friend who decided to keep her child from me because of my demon possesion (aka bipolar).

There is no feeling stronger when I think of first holding this new little one and falling in love with it than fear.

Not so invisible and an unrelated yet funny statement

Funny story first:

The place where my sister lives once housed a rather notorious psychiatric hospital. It was a huge state hospital and some things that are still used today were developed there. Some really bad things happened there too, of course, and the overcrowding in the middle part of the 20th century was horrible.

I lived actually on the edge of what had been another notorious hospital when I was in grad school, so I'm very aware of the stories that people come up with about this. They can be very odd. And people of course have plenty of misconceptions about mental illness.

So today I was talking about my sister's baby and the patient asked what hospital she'd use (not really understanding home birth). I told her the local hospital and her son said "oh, that's near the psych place". At first I thought he meant the old hospital, but he was referring to a newer place nearby and seemed kind of like "I was near there, I'm so brave". Then he started talking about the nearby apartments that are probably a halfway house type of thing and how he's not sure "they" should get to live unsupervised like that. Funny thing? The reason he observed all this? Work crew from county jail..........So somehow criminal activity makes you better than illness??????????? It's something to ponder. I had no idea how to react.

Second, today I realized that I feel really weird about my new ankle brace. I'll have in the next week or so. It feels weird to progress to this brace. I know I need to; I was the one who asked for something more substantial because I've worn out 3 of the current brace in 6 months and this last one is showing wear after only 3 weeks. And I'm serious about delaying surgery as long as possible. I have spent enough of my life on disability; 12 weeks of it when emotionally I'll be well enough to be bored sounds awful. I'll do it when I need to and won't complain; I am well aware I will eventually need to. But for the time being I'd rather brace it well and be careful.

My current brace shows when I wear it, but with long pants it looks more like a black sock than anything. It looks like this:

Today I became aware that it does show pretty clearly when wearing shorts, which I knew because I see my own reflection in doors and the like and it's emphasiszed by my slight limp, but today I saw one on someone else and thought "hm, she must have sprained her ankle. I hope it feels better".

The new brace? Well it is not a support. It is a BRACE. There are 3 levels of support in this design and I'm not sure which I'm getting, although based on the price I'm thinking probably the highest level, which is what I'm going to picture here (the next lower level just doesn't have the bottom strap and I know I need at least that much; the lower level wouldn't be enough):

I don't know how to resize and am too tired to figure that out right now, but as you can see, this is a BRACE. Under the cloth it looks like this:

So from the day I get this on, there will be no question: I wear an ankle BRACE. I've had to help people adjust to needing braces or splints so many times, I never though I'd need to listen to myself. Because ti is a really weird thing to accept. I know I need it. Like I said, I even pointed that out to the dr. who agreed so readily I suspect he wanted to suggest it but knew it would probably cost me a good bit of money. (It's not that bad really, about $110 with deductible etc. and I still have some money for deductible reimbursement through part of my benefits). But it's just odd to know that part of my body truly doesn't work, and is impaired enough to need plastic and hinges rather that just plain old strapping. I'm struggling somewhat with my new arthritis as well; I didn't expect that really until I found out how severe the injury actually was in March and that I'd had that old fracture (100% of untreated fibula fractures develop arthritis and apparently this was the trigger I needed to start that), and even then, well, I'm not quite 35. I'm not supposed to need to worry about arthritis and when the arthritic pain will be too bothersome to deal with and putting on a brace every day.

After I get the brace I will need to go get new shoes. The ones I have now have stretched and are heavy and aren't working all that well. I have to go to an athletic specialty store that will carry the specific things I need and have staff trained to fit braces around orthotics that have a lot of stuff involved as well as a brace, and I feel weird doing that too.

I guess I got so used to my disability being hidden unless I lost control for a moment, or I chose to share, that I forgot totally that I could still have to deal with something that looks "different". I know all about that, I grew up with a very visible birthmark and I suppose that's part of this; I feel I've paid my dues in the looking different department. With what I've had I've had a few patients ask about it but never anyone I didn't know or anyone in a social situation. This will lead to questions due to its' obvious permanence. The ankle thing isn't a disability, and truthfully if the brace stops my limp then probably it will be less obvious than the current one, but I think I fear a return to the days of the walker boot:

and the repeated questions that went with the duck foot. In some ways having to wear that thing again is one of the things I dread most about the far off surgery; I really hated it. Although I know now to request not aircast because the air pockets never were right. If I stood they were loose. If I got them comfortable standing they cut off circulation in sitting. That was a LONG month.

And now I'm going to start getting ready to sleep. I don't know that I've made sense here, I am sooooooooo tired, the kind of tired that made getting up today painful. But at least you get to see what my foot is about to look like, plus it's past 6 months of attire. Lucky you.

I think I got a responseo

I can't go into this much right now as I must get to sleep NOW because I have an early meeting, but I think I got some form of response, in that I got a very nice email from my sister telling me how she's going to tell the baby about Aunt Jen making all these things for him/her. (Weird, based on the last ultrasound pics from last week (the baby isn't in position and is trying out breech so she's getting some very late ultrasounds) I think it is a boy and so do most relatives, but I just about called it "her". Perhaps I don't really have any instinct).

Ultrasounds are becoming so amazing. While looking at this strip I said "Wait, is that baby LOOKING at me?" And it is. It had one eye open you and you can see the iris and pupil. I didn't even know they opened their eyes in there. It also has very long eyelashes and tons of hair and is very chubby. (Unfortunately my sister needs a small baby for a best chance at natural home delivery and this baby is trying to be a breech giant. Please pray for her as she'll be heartbroken if what I suspect is going to happen does: I think it is likely the baby is too large to engage in her tiny pelvis and that it also has no room to turn around. there's a little time yet for it to turn and she's having treatments to do this, but it just has so little space. Right now it is jammed from her lungs to her bladder and there is just no more space, yet it is growing very rapidly in these last few weeks.) I have a bad feeling that there will be a c-section in the next 2-3 weeks as letting the baby get enormous (it's on track for 8-10 lbs) won't help anything.

Anyway, kind words and the first time I'm called Aunt Jen for REAL made my day. More later.

Opinions please-what I wrote

This is what I wrote to my sister, with some details changed for anonymity.

All I want to know is if this is somehow unanswerable. To me it is raw and so maybe it isn't the way I see it, which is simply asking for understanding, and again, to me acknowledging that understanding would be helpful.

See what you think, but again, please be gentle. This is so incredibly painful.

Sister:

Hi. This is very hard to write, but important. Please take it as intended, which is just to tell you "this is how I feel, I hate that I feel that way but it is very hard not to, and it's fair to you to let you know this because I don't want you to see my pain and think it is aimed at you in any way". And it should have been sent a while ago, but it's taken longer to write than I'd hoped.

Dr. Brain says I need to be very upfront with you about something because while I don't ever intend to show this it may sometimes be impossible to hide. Basically, I'm just sad right now in some ways that might be a little hard to just guess at. I'm so excited about the baby and can't wait to meet him/her, but well, I guess the best way to show this is to say that last Friday evening I watched a movie and a baby was born and I cried for about 2 hours. This is an intense reminder that some of my dreams aren't ever going to come true, and that hurts.

I don't know any way to say this that makes it not sound horrible, but it can be very hard for me to watch your life. We both grew up in the same environment and both of us lived through some really bad things. We have the same gene pool and the same high odds for getting bipolar. But I got sick and you didn't. And because of my illness there are a lot of things I'd hoped for in life that I won't have. Even when I'm doing the best I ever do and am able to act "normal" illness affects every part of my life. I'm so thankful that you and brother beat the genetic odds. Even though I hate parts of my life I also believe that things happen for a reason, as part of a grander scheme, and it's not like I wish that one of you had gotten this instead. I just wish it weren't part of any life, and I wish that I did not have it. And it's harder with you than with brother because you and I grew up together and went through things he didn't, and because your life looks so much like I used to think mine would be.

If I was asked before I was diagnosed where I wanted to be as I approached 35 years old I would have said "I will be married and have children, have or be working on my PhD in gerontology, and be enjoying working as an OT." Of those goals I meet "I enjoy working as an OT". Which is a sad thing since work isn't the thing that should be first, much less often only. As recently as grad school 2nd year I had to fight tooth and nail to be allowed to write a real thesis instead of just a research paper. I needed the thesis as a foundation for a PhD; that's how sure I was that I wanted to go that route. And instead by the time I started my thesis i was rapidly decompensating.

I know your life isn't perfect, but sometimes it feels like you just got to have so much of what I want (which would be because I wanted some very typical things). This isn't saying my life now is awful; it's not. However, it's very far from normal and never will be normal, and there are many things I've wanted that I've had to set aside and go on without doing/having. I am so very, very fortunate. I function so far above where I should be able to and I have wonderful people working to keep me doing well. But having to have a team of people who work together and intensely to keep you able to get dressed and go to work every day is not exactly what you spend your childhood dreaming of, nor do you ever expect that it would be that way.

So over the next month if you see me looking sad or I sound sad or stressed or whatever, please don't take it personally. I know that we veer to totally different extremes in believing in God, but it is God these feelings are directed at. It's just that you kind of are a catalyst. I'm working hard on something I have to go back to over and over again, accepting that my life isn't like I hoped and that instead I have to be thankful for very simple things. I don't know how to explain any better, just that it is hard sometimes to stay focused on being glad that I can work when seemingly everyone else gets to take that for granted.

If you ever doubt how I really feel, please take a look at what you'll see soon, the many, many hours I've spent making things for this baby because doing so and having some small part in it's life that way makes me happy, even a huge amount of what I've made for you is going to generally be covered in waste products (although given what I do that sounds about right). The sewing is good for me, but being able to show love to the baby and to you by doing something like that is much more important, and I hope you can see that is as my true feelings, even if sometimes my face says otherwise.

Again, it's not your problem. I just want you to be fully aware because I don't want to inadvertently hurt you. I don't want you to think this is about you or the baby or anything else. It's just me having a hard time that I'm working on, but I can't snap my fingers and make it stop. I wish.....

I really hope you understand and that I've not hurt you. If you have read this and feel hurt, please, please give me a chance to explain before you feel that way because it probably means I've said something wrong. This has been incredibly hard, and very tearful, to write, and I've tried to be careful, but I'm not always the best judge when crying. I do need thought shut up and give the cats proper attention, per them, and try to make up for only a few hours of sleep last

night between my mother's dog and a storm and mom getting home.

Just Me

Too much hurt

Today was hard enough that I cried, quite a bit, by the end and I'm not done yet. I may be calling for an extra appt. with Dr. Mind for early in the week if I don't feel better by tomorrow afternoon.

It was my sister's baby shower. The whole day just didn't flow. I was up at 5 and sewing and washing things and putting together gifts until I left at 10:45. I'd hoped to be at my mom's by 10:30 but it just wasn't happening. My sewing machine went on the fritz and took a while to get to work right again, I was doing multiple things at once which I do not excel at, and I'm tired.

So I rode down with a friend of the family. He is someone I have a complicated relationship with; sometimes I love him, sometimes I hate him. He can be way over the top and very difficult to deal with. He also can be incredibly fun and caring, and he's been part of my life for a very long time now. He also can be very self-focused and not very sensitive to my noise issues. He also doesn't listen when he thinks he knows better. He decided to try out a new navigation system on his car that wanted to send us on horrible backroads. I work on those roads, I know them well. He did not actually take those roads, but also refused to take a shortcut through the town I work in (ie I know my way around very well and how to save 5 minutes or more) because it wasn't on his list. He had me leave stressed out because he got to my mother's early and then when I got there, still 15 minutes before we had agreed to leave, he acted like I was late and hurried things, practically taking my home health gear and ripping an impermanently applied decoration to a bag I was going to take back home to finish after the shower. And he got me very upset by telling me something about the baby I didn't know and felt very hurt that I wasn't told by someone and then all about how I had really upset my mother by emailing her about an issue with my sister while she was on vacation. So by the time I got there I HAD to be alone. Which was fine since I also had to fix the decorated bag. Therefore I spent my first hour sewing by hand things huge thing and trying to calm down/waiting for Klonopin. Then things were ok for a bit, although my sister almost was avoiding me. Or so it felt since I'm still rather stunned that I wrote out my heart and sent it to her and she ignored it.

She did seem to like her gifts, and even snuggled the blanket I made; she got a lot of blankets and it was easy to see the favorite. It didn't even occur for a minute ask if I made it. It is pretty nice, and I'll post it and a bunch of other stuff soon.

But overall my mother was stressed and annoyed with my sister's difficult personality right now, I was hurt and still upset because I still do not see where my telling her that the weather, which is different than her weather was bad and that this might affect her decision is anything wrong. She told my mother that I didn't think she could make adult decisions. In the meantime apparently there was some whole thing about my brother-in-law wanting to use my mother's broadband that was the real issue, but not one time did I know a word about that. And all I said, truly, was just to know that there were lots of thunderstorms coming and it might be hard to work outside, and as a result we aren't going to have a garden. So I feel terrible about this and so confused as to what I did wrong.

Then afterward I burst into tears just because I'm so tired of wanting my sister to like me and not succeeding. I even sobbed out about the letter I wrote that she she didn't answer. My mother said maybe it was something she didn't know how to answer. I will post it tomorrow for you all to see what you think, but I don't think the appropriate answer is hard "I understand. Things will be ok". Because not saying that means essentially that she does feel something is wrong with me or that she is not going to work to make things ok. My mother also said that she doesn't think it is my bipolar so much as my sister and I have a difficult past . But there is a huge difference: years ago there were 2 of us who were hating each other, more than most sibling issues but we were also in a different situation. Now I desperately want her to like me and keep trying, and all I get is warm and cold and hurt really badly when she picks cold. I think she truly believes I'm out to get her, that I'm an awful person, and that I'm annoying. In the meantime I'm trying to act like things are ok by emailing and taking her to dinner, and trying to be part of her life and mostly she either is short with me or ignores me, but enough of the time to keep me from giving up hope she is normal. I feel like I'm trying to make her like me and frankly I'm sick of it.

But how do I just give up when my mother then tells me she's starting to not want to have our family together at all? She says there are just too many issues. Meaning me since it is ME who has trouble with my sister in law and trouble with my sister, and I don't even UNDERSTAND the trouble with my sister aside from I think I'm being a fool trying to fix it when I don't know what I do wrong and my mother refuses to tell me if I am doing anything because she won't "take sides". So now I am left feeling like my sister hates me and my mother thinks I'm wrecking our family, especially because I'm also upset with the person I came down with. And I'm so very tired and confused and tired of crying about this because I do not get it. I am a pretty blunt person. This has partly to do with my personality, partly probably to do with my profession as I believe in honesty with patients, and partly because my bipolar sometimes doesn't allow for social niceties. I don't believe in refusing to have a real relationship with you SISTER and not explain what is so wrong. I don't believe that if someone tells you something that is clearly very painful to them that you IGNORE it. And I think that it is cruel to not allow people who are going out of their way to show they care to be part of what is going on. Ignoring my "how do you feel? do you need anything?" when it turns out the baby is possibly breach and also probably pretty big which is a bad thing for someone as petite as my sister, that's not nice. I am so tired of not being worthy of knowing what is going on, worthy of coming to see the baby until I reach some point on a priority list where I will be below lots of non-sister people, and I'm realizing that no matter what I want I'm not going to get to have the relationship with this bab y that I want.

And I'm so, so tired of that. I still hurt every day because I lost my little brother's part of my life because of his mother 9 years ago. And now I wont' have a relationship with my niece or nephew that approaches normal because for some reason I am a bad person to my sister and I have no idea why. I'm sure I do things wrong, but I am and have been for so long trying SO HARD and all I've learned is that I can't try hard enough or something, at least not if I will not be told what is wrong.

It's very hard to not feel like everyone hates me............at least my whole family does and I don't get it. I really, really don't.

And at this point I have to stop the crying I've done off and on for hours now and start trying to sleep. Tomorrow I'm essentially going to make myself stay or on the bed so that I rest, so more then, including the letter I wrote because I need to know why it was offensive or whatever.

Only me

Seriously. After hearing the opposum placenta story the other day Dr. Mind told me that I seem to attract bizarre experiences. Well, the last 2 hours of my life count. Or 3 hours, who knows now.

I've been making a salad for the party tomorrow. Funny I'm not sure I'll be eating it since it doesn't sound appealing right now because of my upset tummy, but at least I made something. Before doing that I washed a whole bunch of dishes, mainly my stainless steel water bottle collection. So the salad required a lot of dishes as well, and lots of mess from chopping lots of vegetables. I finally got all that done and moved on to making homemade cat food for my mother's cat who is sick, and also for my own since this is apparently delicious and CHEAP. Essentially it is pureed chicken livers in their own broth, gravy, and some baby food veggies. Except that i can't find the stupid gravy I bought for this. Which meant that I wound up with chicken livers all over my kitchen. I have barely eaten meat in almost a year now, and now I have offal dripping off my stove (don't ask; I miscalculated). SO I got that cleaned up and by then was soaking wet and needing another shower. I apparently smell like liver, judging from my cat's VERY affectionate reaction here. But I'm not done yet, so I cleaned up my mother's friend's gift for my sister, which is used and which I picked up yesterday in the city. That would have been fine had I actually remembered that if you are going to use you shower hose that you have to detach it BEFORE you turn it on. That meant I got soaked. Again. I still have to clean up the aluminum garbage can I'm turning into a diaper pail (at least the outside, I did do the interior and it's never been used so it's really not gross or anything.) And I still need to change my sheets, try to get a bit more food in me, take meds, and wash the baby's presents. Tomorrow I'll have to package them which I've still not totally figured out, and then hopefully I'll be up at my usual super early so I can finish the last few things which my sister can wash. If it weren't for the exposure to my cats I'd just leave things as I know she'll want to wash everything anyway, but things probably have hair and giving cat hair away seems rather gross. I'll also have to sew snaps on bibs in the morning; I just can't do that tonight even though it's easy. Soooooooooooooooooooo tired...........I'm going to be sorry I didn't take Monday off too. Aside from the whole thing where then next week would also involve 25 visits in 3.5 days.

So, I'm now officially a wreck. No doubt that Klonopin will be taken tonight. And tomorrow morning......