Allie's Archives: a recovery journal

[Blueberry]

What is WRONG with me?

You have a Beast called CPTSD.

You will pull through this present phase though. We always do. You too. Things go up and then very deeply down. There comes a point in healing where things don't go so deeply down anymore. Nor for so long. 

[alliematt]

Ahh, I see we are back online!

I copied and pasted my "lost" posts to a Word doc and I may just repost them here, just for my own reference.

[Blueberry]

Yes, we are back online! Feel free to repost your 'lost' posts for your own reference. That's what I'm doing too, bit by bit.

[alliematt]

(Copying and pasting stuff that was lost during the migration):

Sanmagic said in response to an earlier post:

i echo what blueberry said, allie. this beast takes over and makes us miserable until we finally don't feel so miserable and maybe even have some clarity of thought and purpose. please be patient with yourself. there's nothing wrong with you. nothing. you are precious and valuable in the midst of everything going on, and deserve love and kindness, so i'm sending you a hug filled with both. hang tough, allie - we're hangin' right beside you.

[alliematt]

(Copying and pasting stuff that was lost during the migration):

Sanmagic said in response to an earlier post:

i echo what blueberry said, allie. this beast takes over and makes us miserable until we finally don't feel so miserable and maybe even have some clarity of thought and purpose. please be patient with yourself. there's nothing wrong with you. nothing. you are precious and valuable in the midst of everything going on, and deserve love and kindness, so i'm sending you a hug filled with both. hang tough, allie - we're hangin' right beside you.

My response was:

I hope you all are right. Right now, what my brain is saying to me is that it's impossible to figure out the truth about anything. Everyone lies and twists facts to suit their own agenda.

I'm sorry that it seems that I'm not getting any better.

[alliematt]

Wrote this on January 26th:

And then I was finally well enough to go to Weight Watchers today . . . AND MY HUSBAND TOOK THE CAR WITHOUT TELLING ME!!

I left a message on his cell around 9 this morning asking, did you take the car?

HE HASN'T CALLED ME BACK YET!!!!

[alliematt]

Sanmagic responded with:


is right!

[alliematt]

January 26th:

Well, he did apologize (and he also sounded POOPED when he got in the door.) And the poor man is working overtime tomorrow. I have plenty of issues to deal with, but my husband needs support much more than my hollering at him. I did tell him that I'd called him and left a message.

I think tomorrow calls for popcorn and a movie.

[alliematt]

Also on January 26th:

Maybe this is an EF. I don't know.

But between the abuse sentencing of Larry Nassar this week and a video of bullying in my county's school district that went viral, I'm not having such a good time.

The girl in the video that was being bullied could have been me.

And what makes me so angry is that THE BULLIES WON.

They won the day they drove me off the bus.

THEY WON.

They got their way.

They KNEW I wouldn't fight back because the culture around me said that *I* would get in trouble if I fought back, and plus, the Bible said "turn the other cheek" . . . which I tried.

THEY WON.

There may have been times they got in trouble, but most of the time, they got away with it because there was NOTHING anyone COULD or WOULD do.

The people that win are the ones that scream the loudest and that know how to intimidate people.

If you're pretty and popular, you can get anything you want.

I'm not pretty, and I'm not popular.

Bullies win.

[alliematt]

Also on January 26th:

Maybe this is an EF. I don't know.

But between the abuse sentencing of Larry Nassar this week and a video of bullying in my county's school district that went viral, I'm not having such a good time.

The girl in the video that was being bullied could have been me.

And what makes me so angry is that THE BULLIES WON.

They won the day they drove me off the bus.

THEY WON.

They got their way.

They KNEW I wouldn't fight back because the culture around me said that *I* would get in trouble if I fought back, and plus, the Bible said "turn the other cheek" . . . which I tried.

THEY WON.

There may have been times they got in trouble, but most of the time, they got away with it because there was NOTHING anyone COULD or WOULD do.

The people that win are the ones that scream the loudest and that know how to intimidate people.

If you're pretty and popular, you can get anything you want.

I'm not pretty, and I'm not popular.

Bullies win.

Sanmagic responded with: 

bullies suck.

bottom line, bullies suck.

the only comfort i could ever take from any of this is that the people who hurt me are very unhappy, insecure, miserable people who hate themselves and find no happiness in anything. it's a very small comfort, tho, cuz, basically, bullies suck.

i'm truly sorry you had to go thru any of that, allie. it's not right, it's not fair, and you didn't deserve it. sending you a hug filled with compassion and love.

[sanmagic7]

allie, i see you're in the midst of re-posting back pages.

how are you doing otherwise?  are you feeling better?  thinking of you.  love and a big hug, sweetie.

[alliematt]

allie, i see you're in the midst of re-posting back pages.

how are you doing otherwise?  are you feeling better?  thinking of you.  love and a big hug, sweetie.

At the moment, I am watching Chicago Med on On Demand, in my bathrobe.  I consider that an act of self-care. :-)  I have work to do later and I will shower before I do that. 

I have been up and down emotionally, but last Friday I saw my pdoc and he said that since I had dropped my dose of Lamitcal (I'm not sure if I posted about my epic meltdown recently) it would take a while to get "back to normal" (I went back on my regular dose). So I'm still waiting on the "normal" to come back, but I do NOT feel as awful as I did a couple of weeks ago. 

Last night I was frustrated and tired (sometimes, proofing work gets to me!) so I elected not to go to Wednesday church services last night and climbed into bed before 8 p.m.  I put my earbuds in and listened to back episodes of an old time radio show called Suspense (which is pretty good!). 

This morning I have eaten breakfast and also drunk two cups of coffee.

Thank you for checking on me. :-)

[alliematt]

Posted on January 27th.

I know I'm screaming a lot.

A few weeks ago, I lowered my dose of Lamictal by half because my dermatologist wanted me to do a "drug washout"; i.e. get off of all my medication. He's trying to figure out if I've developed an allergic reaction to any of my drugs.

My primary care doc didn't seem to think that was a good idea, and I tend to agree because of the nature of some of my drugs.
There's a lot of stuff going on in the world that I'm reacting to, but I do think that dropping the dose had a bad effect on me.

Next Friday I see my pdoc. I will get a new script then. In the meantime, I'm still dealing with a skin rash and other problems, and I'm so tired of going to doctors when they can't seem to help. And I've fixated on my problems with religion as well. The one thing that is supposed to be a source of comfort and strength to me, the one thing that is supposed to give me some sort of guidance to live by, has turned into a trap. It's this stupid scrupulosity.

Why in the name of God did I have to get OCD?? It makes me unhappy and miserable and it makes everyone around me miserable as well.

I can't get out of the house today because my husband has the car. He's working 10 hours of overtime to pay for stuff that we desperately need. He's going to work himself to exhaustion if he's not careful.

Yesterday I screwed up on some proofing.

I think I'm at the point of burnout.

[alliematt]

Sanmagic responded to a couple of January 27th entries with this:

allie, i'm going to disagree with those studies.

i had an inflated sense of self-esteem, but the more i got into recovery, the more i realized that it was because my self-esteem was so very low. it was a defense mechanism to think/believe i was 'all that'. i would've reported, at the time, however, that my self-esteem was very good, very high even while belittling others.

i don't believe that somebody hurts someone or looks down on someone because they truly have good self-esteem. to me, that just does not compute. not anymore. the better my actual self-esteem got, the more tolerant, patient, and non-judgmental i became. hope you get the rash/meds thing straightened out.

i can surely relate to seeing one doc after another with no satisfaction. could your rash be from stress? you have so much going on in your life, i wouldn't be surprised if your body is screaming in its own way.

i just looked up lamictal, and it does say that a severe skin rash could be a side effect, especially if you're on certain other meds as well, like depakote. i'm not trying to be a doc here, but i often look up my meds to see what i might be able to expect. maybe that's what your dermatologist is thinking about. looks like more exploration is warranted by your doc.

good luck with this, allie. the whole meds thing has been a thorn in my side for a very long time. please, be kind and patient with yourself, take care of yourself, and hopefully you will get some relief very soon. big warm loving hug to you, sweetie.

[alliematt]

Sanmagic responded to a couple of January 27th entries with this:

allie, i'm going to disagree with those studies.

i had an inflated sense of self-esteem, but the more i got into recovery, the more i realized that it was because my self-esteem was so very low. it was a defense mechanism to think/believe i was 'all that'. i would've reported, at the time, however, that my self-esteem was very good, very high even while belittling others.

i don't believe that somebody hurts someone or looks down on someone because they truly have good self-esteem. to me, that just does not compute. not anymore. the better my actual self-esteem got, the more tolerant, patient, and non-judgmental i became. hope you get the rash/meds thing straightened out.

i can surely relate to seeing one doc after another with no satisfaction. could your rash be from stress? you have so much going on in your life, i wouldn't be surprised if your body is screaming in its own way.

i just looked up lamictal, and it does say that a severe skin rash could be a side effect, especially if you're on certain other meds as well, like depakote. i'm not trying to be a doc here, but i often look up my meds to see what i might be able to expect. maybe that's what your dermatologist is thinking about. looks like more exploration is warranted by your doc.

good luck with this, allie. the whole meds thing has been a thorn in my side for a very long time. please, be kind and patient with yourself, take care of yourself, and hopefully you will get some relief very soon. big warm loving hug to you, sweetie.

I responded to this with:

I've been on Lamitcal for over a decade, along with Cymbalta. I've never had a problem with any of my meds. I've been dealing with this rash since last June. It could be stress. God knows I have plenty of it.