bipolar notes from underground (off meds)

Trying to keep functioning

2011-06-02T08:27:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to post about once a week and maybe even gain back some readers. Things are going better with the extra wellbutrin. I am trying to function more normally and not think too much about the internet scam. I am waiting to see if my daughter got into public prek for next year which is very nerve wracking as there are so few spots for schools in my neighborhood. I am still tired a lot of the time and it's hard to look at my very negative bank balance in the account that got scammed. luckily I have a separate account with the same bank that I can use.
I got my court date for small claims court for suing the bank and it's a long time away, July 28. I'm not sure who will come with me as my lawyer as my father might be out of town and I definitely need a lawyer to plead my case to the arbitrator. I'm having a tough time staying positive about it and hoping I will beat the bank as they did lie to me and it affected all my actions that day.
Anyway at least for now my daughter is in school right now, she goes two days a week. If she doesn't get into public pre k she will probably not go to school next year and I will be stuck dealing with it taking care of her and trying not to get us both bored out of our minds. If she gets in she gets to go five days a week which would be great for me giving me a lot of extra free time. The odds are definitely not in her favor. I need two miracles to happen out of nowhere, for her to get in to a program and for me to win back my money from the bank and be able to pay my bills.
I had a weird dream just now while napping. There was a big ligt green caterpillar in my kitchen but it was not cute. It was very creepy looking and I didn't want to squash it because it was so big and fat and because I assumed it would eventually become a butterfly and no longer be scary looking. I don't remember the rest of it...

Back after a long hiatus with big PTSD

2011-05-28T19:35:00.000-07:00

Hi to the few people who read this blog, to which I have not posted for over a year. I am trying to come back to it again and gain from the therapeutic benefits of posting and getting helpful supportive comments. It's been almost two years, on june 8 it will be two years since elvis' death.
the latest thing that sent me into a swirling dissociated depression happened several weeks ago. i got completely swindled on the internet to the tune of about 2500 dollars. someone contacted me about reiki. i'm an advanced reiki practitioner and advertise on some websites so i often get emails from people. back in beginning april someone pretending to be a client from england contacted me about coming to the US for several reiki sessions and told me about a recent thing that happened to her that got her depressed. in that email she said she wanted to prepay with a cashiers check. to make a very long story short, i should have at that moment told her i only accept cash and not cashiers checks but i didn't spot it so began a long back and forth with this fake person including several missed sessions and fake reasons for not leaving the country and insisting on prepaying. anyway i got a check in the mail for almost three thousand dollars and still didnt suspect anything. i ended up spending a day taking cash to western union to send to her. the reason i did it was that i was stupid, but also that my bank lied to me. i asked the teller several times if the check was good and would not bounce and he told me yes. of course the next day friday the thirteenth of may, i was buying medication of all things and my bank card showed i had a minus balance. i rushed to the atm to look at my balance and realized the check had been fake and bounced.
what followed was a downspin into PTSD, self hatred, self blame, going over and over the events and what i could have done differently, crying every day about it and freaking out. my father is a lawyer and told me we could sue the bank in small claims court. but he was having terrible back pains and going into surgery soon after that. he is still healing from it and i have the papers i have to go on tuesday to file in person at the small claims court. then in about three weeks on a thursday night we get to pick an arbitrator or judge to hear our case against the bank. i stupidly looked up some things on the internet and started getting depressed that i would never win the case and get my money back from the stupid bank but my father is still optimistic that the bank won't show up for the court date and the arbitrator will rule in my favor.
whatever happens at least today was a big turn in a better direction for me. yesterday i left a desperate message with my psychiatrist that i was going to take extra wellbutrin because i was fantasizing about going to the hospital and things like that. for once he called back quickly which he doesn't usually do and we decided i would try that before trying new meds. i think the boost in meds really worked quickly because i went from feeling like a depressed zombie who didn't care about anything in my life and wanted to just die or have a lobotomy so i would never remember this awful event to functioning, doing some cleaning in our very messy apartment which had added to my depression and just yesterday i felt like i could never do any cleaning and would just spiral down into a mess in my head and in the apartment. somehow throughout this my daughter has been in my care a lot but hasn't seemed to catch on to too much of my negativity and terrible mood swing to downward downward downward. throughout the events in a kind of haze i was aware that nobody had harmed her or my husband or me although at times i wished someone had harmed me physically instead of financially.
i think i'm getting better. i hope the wellbutrin doesnt ware off. this is the second time i've taken the highest dose of 400 mg for a while. i'm really hoping it will work along with just trying to force myself to function better and be nicer to myself while being completely broke and dependent financially on others.

am i out of the loop?

2010-03-24T07:07:00.000-07:00

my keyboard is working now so i'd like to post at least once a week again and get back some of my readers and supporters.
these days i'm incredibly anxious. yesterday i took three klonopin to get through the rest of the day plus the two at night.
anyway i don't know if i should change my blog as elvis is dead and i already had my child so i'm not pregnant and can't recount elvis' life only be sad about his death.
is anyone out there still reading my blog?
any suggestions about how to get back in the loop with other bloggers, especially the bipolar blogosphere..???
anxiety is worse than depression as it feels so horrible in the body...

Missing Elvis

2010-03-07T10:16:00.001-08:00

elvis died on june 8 2009;i miss him terribly.

my keyboard is broken so i will post more after i get it fixed as it makes it hard wrt ite without everything getting erased which has happened three times as i try to write this.

elvis is dying

2009-05-27T11:51:00.000-07:00

elvis is dying of a brain tumor. no further doctor visits can do anything. i dont know how long to wait for him to go on his own which i would of course prefer. i dont want to have to bring him in for a last procedure. he's sleeping comfortably right now and when i look at him i can't believe he is dying.
i don;t like using words like "going" or whatever. death is death. i just feel so dissociated and unable to do anything right now. but babysitter arrives soon and i have work to do. he is in pain and discomfort but still eating when i feed him by hand.
this love is so painful i love him so much... his 17th bday is in end of july. he's a leo/born in year of the monkey 1992.

comix from yesterday

2009-03-03T10:51:00.000-08:00

my new comix

2009-03-02T12:34:00.000-08:00

very excited to introduce my new comix, some in style made while hanging out with baby, with her scribbles on it, adding to the aesthetic appeal...
anyway the new representation involves me being a bunny. i think of one artist who did a lot of bunnies. unfortunately he passed away and ended in a bad way. i forgot his name but he drew lots of bunnies. he definitely had some kind of issue like schizoaffective disorder. anyone know who he is. there was a whole documentary about him that was great.
anyway i do think of him when drawing the bunny. he drew everyone as bunnies and got shown at the museum of modern art here in nyc.
i am still in need of taking my morning meds. time to go take them now.

Sluggish depression...

2009-03-02T12:29:00.000-08:00

The fogstan foggy beetle...

2009-03-02T12:20:00.000-08:00

Part 2, A difficult day...

2009-03-02T12:17:00.000-08:00

Comix at last and a lot!

2009-03-02T12:12:00.000-08:00

here they are finally! my new comix posts!!! Read the one below first! I screwed up the order...

fear

2009-02-18T21:09:00.000-08:00

i can't sleep. money worries create great fears. as does noise of dog and not having any way to do anything for him though he seems to have stopped. i tried just petting him. he's back on prednisone. the current vet (not his regular one) has not called me back proably is sick of me. so am i. i feel fearful of a lot of things. in one day a lot of scary possibilities happened. maybe the real fears are all in my head and its not that bad. i cant say more. i just wish practical aspects of life were in my range of abilities. why am i so unable to deal with real things? is it a gift to be able to deal with things that are not on this reality plane. i feel for other people with mental illness who are totally unable to care for themselves or anyone and live in residences and shelters. life is not made for sensitive dreamers. being good at making things that are not useful is a difficult gift to have -- it does not help you provide for anyoen and makes me a dependent. i have never been able to support myself by myself. i assume my other qualities have to make up for this but maybe not. sometimes i berate myself a ton for it. it's hard to not know how to be the way everyone else is but i cant seem to do it. at least i am taking carea of the baby most of the time but then we pay a nanny so i can work and it costs more.
there are more messes but i dont know. i maybe need to stop therapy as i cant afford it even with insurance. whatever. i need to sleep. is anyone out there at all who feels this way or reads my words?????

elvis

2009-02-15T06:20:00.001-08:00

elvis the scnoodle:
elvis is old and getting older.
elvis is 80 years old (according to his size in human years)
elvis is in his 17th dog year, ie. he is 16.5, had his half bday some time around end of jan.
elvis is elvis is elvis.
elvis is much loved by all of us.
elvis is called "dodo" by lola and very very very loved by her.
elvis gets love medecine, it helps him most.
elvis takes a lot of meds daily like me, but for different issues.
elvis takes soloxine for hypothyroid.
elvis takes actigol for gallbladder.
elvis just took an antibiotic klavamox, for two weeks.
elvis takes tylan powder in his food to help digestion and colitis.
elvis now takes an appetite increaser, i forgot the name.
elvis also takes codeine sulfate once in a while, usually at night.
elvis likes to pace around the house.
elvis hates baths and does not get them much as he has a bad back and neck.
elvis takes prednisone when his disc (intervertebral disc disease) flares up.
elvis trots and even runs at the beginning of his walks.
elvis drinks a lot of water.
elvis eats chicken baby food.
elvis loves whole foods rotisserie chicken.
elvis has a growth on his right front leg, which cannot be removed as it is coming out of the bone or too close to the bone, only noticed about two weeks ago by us humans.
elvis is stoic, brave, still manly, handsome and feisty when he feels the need.
elvis peed on denzel's carpet this morning in denzel's office area.
elvis had a seizure last week and i worried that he has a brain tumor.
elvis has a great vet who is wonderful and talks to me on the phone to answer questions, does not mind when i start crying.
elvis will not get an MRI, CAT scan (what dog would submit to a CAT scan, ha ha), or biopsy or surgery on his "tumor" as the seizure and his age indicate that these things could kill him and he seems to be doing well, considering what is going on.
elvis gets better when i get less anxious about his health and when he is not taken to the vet.
elvis will live quite a lot longer due to loving care and hopefully an increase in food intake, helped by that appetite pill and rotisserie chicken...
elvis just got a head rub.
elvis still competes with denzel.
elvis is alpha dog extraordinaire!

the episode

2009-02-15T06:10:00.000-08:00

ok. the new episode of february started after my bday, on a thursday, evening, after my therapy session with my therapist i noticed that i was manic. for me it's an immediate awareness of my actual brain chemistry neurons or whatever shifting and i feel it biologically the way people report feeling anxiety in a physical way only it's nothing like anxiety. i had the visuals where everything is seen in a new clarity,the thoughts and connections and other stuff but i was able to be aware and use my way of kind of witnessing my brain like in mindfulness meditation.

this time i was very able, even more together and quicker than usual to get on to the job of managing the episode and mania. called my doc and told him and said i was going to up my abilify and take 200 seroquel (usually i take 150)mg. he left me a message saying i was right on and to increase abilify the next day and keep up the seroquel and that it was great that i noticed so quickly. the other ingredient was talking to denzel right away.

the upside was that i enjoyed reading this book called dogtrain to lola in a manic sort of way that was good -- i felt really present and was really into the book and holding her and relating with her. i know my therapist that night thought i was very related and grounded because i check in with him as i have a tendnency to go off and talk a lot to avoid emotions.

so that's been going on since last thursday about 10 days or so, and as you can see, the episode is not over but under control. the fact that it is 9am in nyc and i'm writing a lot of posts is soooo much better than if it was 2am, or 5am, you get the point. i've already had a night's sleep.

as to the stressors causing the episode, i'll save for another post. a lot of stress about elvis' aging, relationships, holidays etc. that built up in my body. i usually have manic episodes a couple of weeks or month after the big stresses have subsided a bit, but the elvis stress continues. to be continued.

the image i had for a cartoon was to draw abilify and personify it and have me talking to it. i'll try it out soon and get my scanner hooked up to this computer...

my new year's resolutions

2009-02-15T05:54:00.000-08:00

these posts are all amplifications (amplify is another word related to abilify) of the first post of the day...

anyway i will keep spelling abilify my way, woops that is the correct spelling, how grandiose of me.

i forgot to confess that i remember seeing a silly commercial about bipolar disorder with a long haired woman walking on the beach that i think was an abilify commercial. i remember liking her long curly hair and she reminded me of a few people i knew as acquaintances, the kind of women i think of in this idealized way: earthy, smart, down to earth, healthy etc. funny that they put that type in the role of manic depressive.

here are my revised new year's resolutions:
three words first:
balance, compassion, abundance

those might be enough and these ones to follow probably are too self critical:
i tried to imagine that this year i will be careful with the words that come out of my mouth (including words i write like in here of course) with the intention of being more present, relating to others better, and not talking too much or getting into my manic talking that happens when i'm not manic but anxious and uncomfortable actually. it also was primarily meant to help me with all my relationships but especially my family, even with elvis. i really believe that words/speech is action and right action is hard to get to or at least well intentioned compassionate action. a friend once told me " there are no bad thoughts, only bad actions". it was one of the most helpful ideas esp. for mixed episodes when i have terrible thoughts in my head, i mean stuff i would not even talk about in this blog...
so more careful words in speech, but allowing myself any thoughts i want or have or cannot control with less judgment of my thoughts and more focus on working on my speech. i often talk like i'm thinking out loud or say things i do not mean. at same time i stay quite private. it's all a way (manic defense the shrinks call it) to keep people a safe distance from me...

next one is not self critical, what i'm working on in therapy, summed up in two words: self acceptance

abilify, abilify, abilify say it three times and tap your shoes together!

2009-02-15T05:32:00.000-08:00

ok so i'm still manic,but managing it. got sleep last night, about 6 hours or maybe 5.5. will have to take a nap later.

the mania is now under control and not further triggered by abilify as i'm on a higher dose. the longer you take it and higher d0oses it starts to do its threepart performance: mood stabilizer, helping lower depression, and antipsychotic! seroquel is supposed to do that too but it has a lot of long term effects that could happen later, like diabetes, etc.

so now i take wellbutrin 300mg, abilify now up to 10mg and seroquel now up to 200 mg. (with klonopin when needed).

i fully admit that my weird desire to start abilify (the idea of not taking depakote again was longstanding and the idea to maybe replace it was not weird but good sense care taking that seroquel is not enough and i did not want to have to stay on high doses of seroquel. with depakote my seroquel dose was 75mg before i went off to get pregnant.)well the wierd part of it, about 20% as to the 80% that i think was well founded and supported by my doc:
1. i liked the name for the first time i really liked a drug's name. i have to probably take these drugs for the rest of my life, so cut me some slack that i focus on the names. any bipolar knows when you get manic words MEAN more than when you're not. associations to the name: ability, abilify like liquify or other words like that , the "ify" i think means, to make, so to make more able, then other associations: ability, amplify, i think i'm spelling the drug's name wrong. i think it's "abilifi" anyway if i go more towards fantasy with the associations: able to fly, able to lift out of depression and mania, able lift...
2. i had an intuition that it would give me a hypomanic lift, just from knowing that unlike the other mood stabilizers it is not going to knock me out of slug me into sluggishness...
3. i even like the blue color, it's a really nice blue, not like the color of wellbutrin which i take the generic of anyway and wellbutrin smells bad. it's a tiny pill shaped like a rectangle but rounded at the edges. the blue is sort of cerulean blue, nice and bright for a bright new day of normality, not that i ever feel normal.

ok enough of that. i'm exagerating for effect and i know this post seems manic but it's partly due to my lack of posting and wanting to catch up and missing writing and enjoying it. i like words and playing with them when i'm not in an episode too.

next post: the episode and where i'm at with it...

new year's resolutions, new news and new episode!

2009-02-15T05:13:00.000-08:00

hello all, so much for blogging more frequently. i've stopped using my mac almost completely as it's not hooked up to the internet and in a bad place for watching baby girl at same time. i think i'll start calling her lola just so she has a name here but it's not her real name. i don't want to regret writing about her in this context and as my name in here is fake anyway, as is denzel's and elvis' hers needs to be too.

anyway i will try to hook up my scanner and start doing comix again. i really strayed from the whole point of my "notes from underground" which was to post comix frequently about my bipolar adventures, as practice for the graphic novel i've been blocked about doing for about 9 years now. i'm on page 26 or so. today i'm going to a fun party where i will find some great old comic books and get reinspired. my friend whose party it is, a great friend of denzel and an "uncle" (not biological but more of an uncle than her "real" ones) to lola, set aside a bunch of wonder woman and other related comics by and about women.

anyway i will try to figure out a way back to comix. i haven't come up with the right drawing of myself but i have been doing some drawings that i think will help get to it.

this post should probably be divided into several posts. january news was that i got very depressed and then started a new medication towards end of jan.
abilify!!!
i had talked to the doc about changing to something more as the seroquel was not enough to manage my episodes or at least to prevent frequent severe ones. at beg. of jan. as you see from last posts i was kind of in a mixed state. the angry depression at end of january lasted only a few days. as soon as i started a low dose of abilify it went bye bye.
i know abilify can stimulate in low doses when it is helping your antidepressent work better. i think it did cause some hypomania...

anyway more about abilify. where have you been all my life? all those years of depakote, feeling sluggish and needing about 9 hours sleep a day at least, unable to wake up early etc etc. it did not affect my creativity though, so depakote takers out there, if it works for you, great! i also did not keep up with getting my blood checked and hate needles so abilify is great for that. no need for the blood levels i had to do for about 10 years of lithium followed by years of depakote.

more in next post.

ps i'm also vcrazy

2009-01-07T21:46:00.000-08:00

i've done some really weir things lately. the pen that i use to draw lines all around my midsevction still hasnt worn out from baths. it looks really nuts but it's winter an d i dont show my belly anyway. i did it on my arms too.
also broke several nivce plates my mom gave me a few years ago, plates i liked. i put them in a plastivc bag an wavcke it on something and then threw it all out. an improvement over my twenty year old self who onve took eeverything in my room and threw it against the wall...

new year, more posts hoping i am

2009-01-07T21:39:00.000-08:00

i made a list of things i put off or dont do and one of them was posting and doing comix for posts.
anyway i'm having a terrible time, on extra meds still need to dose mysyelf now as i am not sleepy yet.
this is now my one of few plavces to be negative and vcomplainy. first of all my keyboard is stucvk in several plavces from a spill a while ago so i wont bother trying to spell things right. the d v and vc are all fuvked up.
i am all fukced up. funvctioneing well in the day for most part, sometime feeling quite good, others not, then sudden wave of terrible depressing thoughts and feelings, anxiety or not, vcrying etc. all mixe up. i go to the psyhiatrist tomorrow. time for m klononpin.
are there other bipolar one people out there like me? i mean my frien just pointe out when i was teelling her how i was feeling that i'e always been able to funvvction while in the midst of very intense or bad episodes.
it's goo d in some ways but makes me feel like i dont kno w who i am.
vcant be too spevcific vccccvccccccrffffffff. and elvis is on steroids again, third time sinvce ovctober
happy new year

biting me in the ass!

2008-10-10T21:19:00.000-07:00

I think that's the expression when your words come back to haunt you. funny that after this last post, and those comments, today i freaked out when i noticed i had missed two birth control pills in a row. i frantically looked up info and realized that yes, there was a tiny chance i could be pregnant. shit. i left a friend a message and she called me back and reminded me about the morning after pill, so called plan b, i had totally forgotten about that option, though i used it once before years ago... she mentioned that when she got it the first pharmacy they were super rude to her and refused to fill the prescription but it was a while ago. i assumed it would not be a problem. what a nice surprise to be reminded by the nurse on the phone that i dont need a prescription. wow! if some jerk politician starts taking this away, i will be more than pissed off. what a hard one right. it was interesting as they asked for proof of age, it was like being carded for taking the morning after pill. i guess teens do the same thing they do with beer. get a friendly adult to get it for them. then i wondered if denzel could have picked it up for me. anyway i was so relieved to take it and suspend catastrophic thinking about having to deal with an unwanted pregnancy while taking care of my lovely daughter... there's no way i could go off my meds, especially with the anniversary of my psychotic episode of last year approaching. halloween will never be the same for me. i have to wake up at almost 3 am to take the next dose of this pill.

i have no idea what all these extra hormones are doing plus the pill itself. i just hope i wont feel too grumpy or erratic tomorrow but of course it's worth it. i'm just glad i didnt vomit. if you take that pill and vomit, it won't help prevent pregnancy...

again i am grateful that there are still these kinds of choices in this country or at least my state.a small step forward. what a relief. sad to think of all those women who had to go through waiting to see if they really fucked up by missing a couple of pills when this morning after thing wasnt yet invented. what a great invention for prevention.

a woman's right to "choose"

2008-10-06T06:40:00.000-07:00

i was reading one of my favorite blogs and was inspired to post on this subject. she was reporting on someone's judgment of her choice of job that she is working at while taking care of her young baby.

when i was pregnant and chose to have a c-section, i was struck by people's judgments. one of my friends who had two babies with epidural was supportive and talking about how it's great women now have choices about the birth of their child. but there are plenty of people out their who have their judgments about what kind of mother you are if you choose to have a c section. first we are judged on whether we choose to continue a preganancy or not. then we are judged on how we choose to have the child if we do choose to continue with the pregnancy. we are judged if we gain too much or too little weight while being pregnant. only a pregnant woman walks through new york city and has her privacy invaded by strangers asking questions. every one else here is accorded their anonymity and privacy.

then after we have the baby, there is all the judgments about breastfeeding and choosing it or not. i could go on about this. but you only have to google breastfeeding to see all the dif. judgments and choices out there. and it does not end there. people judge whether it is good or bad for you to go back to work immediately, wait a long time, work part time or full time,etc.etc.etc. including where you are working and who is taking care of the baby. just look at all the judgments people had about sara palin and her work schedule. i don't support her political views (and here is a woman who is being judged for her choices, who makes women and girls in her state pay for rape kits, and who does not support women's right to choose.)

it does not end there. just look at the kind of reporting there is on tv on mother's day. wow, does the US have an idealization and devaluation of motherhood going on.

end of rant. just to update people on my bipolar stuff. i have been taking extra seroquel for a few weeks now after a few scares when i thought an episode was beginning. i was worried i'd have to get back on depakote, but for now, it seems i can just up the seroquel...it's almost halloween, the anniversary of my psychotic episode of last year and i think that's been a big trigger.

baby has woken up.

the blues

2008-07-10T20:15:00.000-07:00

i am feeling terrible. i left my psychiatrist two messages. i must have crie about five times at least through the course of this day. i just ripped up parts of my journal out of destructive self hatred. the baby is asleep and i coul be doing the things i always want to do but i'm just obsessing bout the fact that the dog is not eating his dinner. i am so frustrated with denzel sweetly cooking chicken fo rhim an dthen mixing it with his food and fussing with it in a million ways to make him eat. it gets to the point where i feel angry an want to scream at him to just eat a fucking plate of food to put me out of my misery. i just dont think hes sick i dont know why his appetite is so low. he ate some this morning and a little of what i gave him this afternoon. i know i would feel better if he ate his dinner right now. i'd still be depressed but i'd feel better.
my day is about food. feeidng the baby, going to the food store and buying food, thinking about how to make my dog eat more. reminding myself to eat. wanting to stop eating until he starts eating sometimes.
i feel so antisocial. i had one weird conversation with someone today that got me so sesitivea nd paranoid that i wanted to just retreat.

july 1

2008-07-01T21:55:00.000-07:00

i guess i am posting about twice a month. id'like to do more but its better than nothing. it's been hard lately.i've had double bad feelings about myself, bad about being a not good mom and then not good dog mom.
my dog is old. i took him for his checkup and spent several days anxious to get the bloodwork results as he had lost too much weight. it all was too familiar to the days of the baby at beginning losing too much weight and not gaining fast enoug and my feeling like a bad mom and bad breastfeeder. now i went through feeling guilty that i've neglected my dog, havent watched his eating enough, paid enough attention to him etc.
i've also been productive: his bloodwork came out perfect so i['m trying to fatten him up to avoid having to get a sonogram to look at his insides. smaller more frequent meals with more company while he's eating, running to the grocery store to get beef baby food to try and see if he can digest it as he loves turkey and chicken baby food but beef flavor is of course better forhim.
all this and i'm a vegetarian for spiritual reasons an dhere i am feeding my dog dead animlas. hypocrisy is part of being a human being.
still feeling bad for yelling at the baby two weeks ago in front of denzel and being rough with her the other day and for the times he is not around and i get frustrated and impatient.
it's hard taking care of two little beings and feeding them. now the baby got addicted to cheerios and suddenly doesnt like most of the solids she used to like so i'm stopping cheerios altogether to bring her back to all the vegetables and yogurt she was eating. meanwhile my eating habits remain terrible. i had ice cream for breakfast and hardly any lunch and forgot to eat dinner til 10. when i'm depresed and angry i have no desire to take care of myself in eating well and almost eat badly as some kind of angry thing like i dont give a shit.
anyway, on the bright side doggy is almost sixteen years old and in pretty good health considering.
i cant decide whether to buy a good precise digital scale so i can relieve my anxiety by weighing him at home and seeing him gain weight; also a way to weigh the baby who is now plump and juicy and in fine form, mostly for curiosity about how heavy she is getting.
but will it be bad if the dog is not gaining and will it make me obsess more? denzel thinks its a bad idea but i'm thinking it would be helpful to have real facts and avoid worry and anxiety,s o if i find a cheap digital scale i'll get it anyway.
i hope it wont cause me to start obsessing about my own weight. i come from a fucked up family that is obsessed with not being fat so even though i know i'm probably too thin, i get paranoid that my parents are looking at me and thinking i'm fat. it's nuts but families are crazy that way. it certainly added to my preoccupations while being pregnant, what a waste of time...
then i think of that poor model who jumped out the window and was foudn yesterday, only 20 years old. no matter how fucked up and crazy i am, i've survived. bipolar illness is deadly. i cant remember the stats, but the death rate is similar to some cancers...
so i'm trying to end on a positive note, that i got through so many difficult times and so many episodes and am still struggling away at my negative view of myself, my anxiety that causes me to not be able to live in the moment etc...
the baby has such a beautiful personality, she is sunny and curious and her smile is so amazing it is the happiest thing on earth to be with her when she and i are laughing together and i feel how special it is to be her mother at this moment. soon enough she will be more and more engaged with the outside world and i will be on the side, watching her grow. this special closeness now is transient but beautiful at tiems. i know i will miss it. being a parent involves constant loss and separation. she is literally crawling away from me, as she should!

happy dad's day

2008-06-15T21:28:00.000-07:00

today was our first father's day with the baby.
it was a great day for th emost part except the beginning when i was a bit cranky and we argued about stupid stuff. but i used the change the subject and put it behind you technique and ignore what just got interchanged and it worked.
we spent the whole day just us with baby and dog when at home. we went for a long walk so we didnt take doggie.
he got a haircut last weekend which was great, just in time for the heatwave. he's all shaved looking which makes him look much younger to me...

it's so hard to keep up with blogging with having a baby... i just checked one of my email accounts that i never check and had to start erasing bout 1000 junk emails! my email box that i c heck daily is overloaded with 500 emails, most read but not cleaned out.
impossible to keep up with anything.
but i'm happy to say i got a new cellphoen that i love.i can now do videos of the baby which i couldnt do before.
i had this old phone that i dropped about a hundred times and denzel kept putting back together for me. then it totally died two or three days before i was due for a free phone.
anyway i'm taking good care of the new phone. it's fun to have camera and video and it looks much cooler htan the old one. it's an lg nv2. anyway, i'm not much of a technology person. for a long time the seven on my phone hardly worked so i had to spell people's names wrong when i added them and it was hard to delete messages with the seven button.

very sad about tim russert's death. unfortunately we had the tv on to cnbc all weekend so now i'm sick to death of his story as i have heard all the anecdotes and every tribute at least once. it seemed like the folks at nbc had to spend the day on the air talking about him to lessen the blow and shock which is understandable. but i think i overdosed on it.

anyway the baby is big and beautiful. we took her out to a party yesterday afternoon and she wowed everyone.
happy father's day to all the dads out there!

bad mom story

2008-05-27T22:02:00.000-07:00

i'll keep it short. at one of the rest stops on our trip as usual denzel went to the restroom and i was with dog and baby. he gave me the keys to the car. baby was asleep in car seat. there was a sign pointing to where to bring dogs. for some stupid reason i did something really dumb. i locked the car with baby in it sleeping and walked over with doggie to let him pee in the grass. i was not in eye shot of the car but it was only a few minutes while denzel was in the bathroom. dont ask why i did not think about how stupid it was to leave the baby. but keep in mind that i am not a car person. i dont even have a license and hardly ever go places in cars.
anyway denzel came out and was furious at me for leaving the baby even a few minutes and mentioned that i could have gotten in serious trouble with the authorities. i thought he was exagerating though i of course agreed that it was terrible judgment to do what i did even though the baby was still asleep and fine. i kind of avoided the topic the rest of the ride as i didnt want to get in a fight and he was really upset and even said it scared him.
anyway later i looked on the internet and saw that a mother got arrested for leaving her baby in her car for a few minutes. that made me feel even worse.
what's wrong with me? and does society not give anyone a chance to make a little mistake? it's not the same thing as leaving a baby in a car for hours while shopping or soemthing like that. anyway i feel branded as a bad mom. in addition denzel thought i was choosing dog over baby. i didnt see it that way. idont know why it happened as there were so many times when he left me with both dog and baby and i stuck right near the car and was talking to the baby with the dog out of the car and her in it with the door open and me monitoring her. was it the sign that pointed further away for bringing pets to do their stuff that misled me? or that denzel gave me the car keys.
anyway has anyone out there ever done something stupid like that? and hwat would they do if they had arrested me? would they take the baby from me?
should i just feel like i made a mistake after being in a car all day and not having enough sleep and being at the end of a long trip visiting three different places? or should i feel like a horrible lousy abandoning mother?
am i the kidn of person who should not be allowed to have kids?? i dont want another one as i think one is hard enough to take care of while dealing wiht bipolar and owning an old dog i am overly attached to.
please help me sort this out and forgive myself. i really love our baby and spend more time with her than any other being, even elvis...

one week later...

2008-05-27T21:52:00.000-07:00

hi. not so bad to get back on one week later now that i have a baby it's hard to post more often.
first off, the trip was mostly a big success. the first car ride was the worst as the valium calmed elvis down a bit but he did n't put up with being in the crate for more than about an hour or so at most. then he sat on my lap for about five hours (including many stops for all of us to get out of the car). the next day's ride was better saturday but i felt bad giving him more valium (it's human valium which is safer for old dogs anyway). the best use of the valium was for giving him a bath outside. i had not bathed him in about a year as he almost injured himself trying to jump out of the bathtub last year and i practically had a panic attack, so you can imagine how dirty a new york dog can get. doing it outdoors on a sunny day was perfect and i was so happy to see him clean. he smelled lovely for a few days.
the next big breakthrough was my realizing the obvious, that the best way for him to ride in the car was to sit at my feet. i was sitting in the back behind denzel to be next to the baby in the car seat. he was not confined in a box and had room to lie down and was right at my feet. he even slept for a lot of the trip today which was the longest amount of driving and i did not give him any valium!
so now i am quite excited to take more weekends away with dog and baby. i sensed that elvis was happy to be in the countryside and smell grass and daisies instead of garbage bags and sidewalks. when we were at the lake house of denzel's parents and i walked with him in the grass near the lake and he sniffed the wildflowers i almost cried i felt happy he got to be out of the city at his old age and wanted to bring him to places like that more now. carpe diem, seize the day. it's never too late to try new things.
i took a lot of klonopin over the course of past few days but really felt happy to be away from the city. i think one reason i resist going anywhere is that i hate returning...
the next thing is the only bad thing that happened i'll reserve for a separate post...

wow it's already almost two weeks later...

2008-05-19T20:56:00.001-07:00

hi thanks for the comments. i wish i could post more and get back some of my readers. also wish i had time to make more comics as this originally was intended to be in comic strip form with occasional writing and now it's the other way around.

got to go to bed. dilemma: elvis seems to be sleeping. it's mdnight and i havent walked him s ince a little around 8 or so. normally he'd get a walk at about 11 or now. the lights are out adn all are asleep,baby doggie and denzel. what point is there in waking elvis up to walk him. he's asleep and i'm too lazy.

this means he may wake up early and pee in the kitchen if i dont wakeup first adn get him out of the house quick for his early walk.

has anyone out there given their dog valium for anything, especially travel and how was it for the doggie and you...
still worrying.
good i took my meds already.
i'll go to bed. last week i had a few nights of about only five or six hours sleep. i need at least seven, better eight or more, to stay stable...

i'm still going to the PPD group. now i'm the mother whos been coming the longest. this week is the first time i'm going to see one of the mother's outsied the drop in group. we arranged to have lunch together. i'm a little wary as i dont know her well and she is pretty intense. more about that later. i guess i just need to be careful about boundaries...

wed. may 7

2008-05-07T20:18:00.000-07:00

it's about a week and a few days since my last post. not bad for me, considering my slowdown with blogging.
i wont write long as i need to go to bed. tomorrow morning i have my six months since followup after birth check up at the ob/gyn. the last checkup was at six weeks or so. wow, how different things were. i was proudly off meds and breastfeeding. he gave me a special birth control pill prescription to be used while breastfeeding that i never filled. about two weeks later at end of oct. halloween i was psychotic.
now here it is the baby is 8 months old, i'm long done breastfeeding, taking meds and had another episode last month that lasted on and off throughout april.
this time i'm bringing the baby to the appointment. it will be fun to show him the being that he pulled out of my belly and brought into the world around 8 months ago. i'm not sure how much i want to tell him about the episode as he had recommended while i was pregnant that i go right back on meds after the birth and skip breastfeeding altogether.
and i'm taking this birth control pill that is ok but hard to tell when i get my period. i just dont want him to put me on a different one, as i've only been on this one for two months and hate changing meds in general.
i read the other day that seroquel is now being used as a stand alone med for bipolar, which is reassuring as i used to take depakote and did not go back on it and did not want to go back on it. i much prefer just taking seroquel and wellbutrin and some klonopin. it's also nice to take one less medication adn i think the depakote made me lethargic, sleep a lot, tired, and took away my sex drive. plus i find it creeps me out to be on it for the rest of my life. i now realize most likely i'll be on the other meds most of my life, but at least now there is even more reason to keep taking them, to make sure i can take better care of my daughter and spare her as much as possilbe the bad sides of the illness...
more anticipatory anxiety, this time about taking the dog and the baby upstate on a trip to see denzel's family. i worry about the car trip with elvis. i dont want to keep him in a crate during the car ride as he hates it. i'm afraid it will exacerbate his stress, his arthritis and his back problems...

very short summary of i don't know what to call it.

2008-04-26T22:13:00.000-07:00

yes, up again at 1 but i just took my seroquel so i'll be tired soon.
i think i mentioned starting an episode two weeks prior to the april 7 post. up until last monday the mania seemed low or gone, just a lot of paranoia, emotional getting way emotional more than normal, like crying more at certain topics, talking a lot to one of my friends...
anyway long story short, monday the 21st i got so manic i was really scared it was goign straight to psychosis, but i recognized it.
next post more detail.
today i found out that since april 11 i have been taking about twice or more of my normal dose of generic wellbutrin. i didnt realize as i'm used to always taking three pills a day but anyway i finally figured it out after i had taken 6 00 milligrams instaead of 300. i'm sure some of the past sixteen days i've taken three pills by mistake, three times the normal dose.
anyway that explains a lot at least from april 11 on and especially this week's mania followed by mixed state and sort of rapid cycling stuff i'm not used to.
more on another post.
has anyoen also been so oblivious that s/he did not notice that the new bottle of meds was suddenly changed.../??

taxtime insomnia and paranoia

2008-04-09T22:05:00.000-07:00

up late again, just took my meds. finally had time when baby was asleep to work on my tax records. not even up to the point of loading turbotax and starting the whole process, still going through my bank records and chaotic disorganized records of income and expenses. what a mess. and constant worry that i'll owe a chunck of money to the i.r.s. which i do not have in the bank. i hope not getting a paid maternity leave will help somehow.
my biggest paranoid nightmare is being audited. not because i'm doing anything terrible but because i'm very disorganized and the scrutiny, intrusiveness and feeling of my privacy being invaded would stress me out incredibly. i wonder if the i.r.s. ever audited someone until the person became psychotic, then would they continue the audit anyway? i really imagine being audited is on top of my list of triggers. other tops are loss of any kind, illness and injury, anything happening to elvis that could be scary, same with baby and denzel, obvious triggers. but losing our nanny was a huge trigger recently.
she actually called tonight to see how the baby was and how we were doing and if the new nanny was ok. she really misses the baby. i might take her to the park not in my neighborhood but where our former nanny goes with a different baby so she can see the baby again.
i went to the post-partem depression group today and it was a bit weird. drop in groups that are so intense can be odd.
i better go to bed. denzel is about to wake up and scold me.

the "vatta" temperament

2008-04-07T21:36:00.000-07:00

i don't know if you have heard of the ayervedic classifications of "dosha". anyway my friend who is studying it in depth did a consultation with me and it reinforced what i already knew, that i am very "vatta", air, nervous system imbalances, easily spiritual, disorganized, unable to do anything consistently, make friends easily with like minded people- trusting, moody, then the physical stuff: dry skin, fast metabolism, small bones etc. she said i was the most vatta person she'd come across, as most people are a bit of a mix.
anyway all this to say that my blog does not escape my vatta nature. i do it in an intense and genuine soulful way, but cannot keep it up in a disciplined consistent way at all. in fact due to this very nature, she did not give me a lot of instructions about diet, habits exercise etc. as she knew i would not be able to follow them. she sort of gave some gentle suggestions about ways to try to ground myself. we vattas are very much air, in our heads, need warm food, even oily heavy food to get us down to the ground. also even meals are inconsistent. some days i eat regular meals, other days i snack all day, other days i forget to eat, and some days i eat really only salty and sugary foods. it turns out ice cream for breakfast is not so bad for me.
that's what i like about this ancient system, it is all about how to balance one's intrinsic physical/spiritual/mental/emotional nature...
anyway so here i am, i guess it's about two months and a week later.

quick report:
two weeks ago i noticed the very moment my brain switched over adn went to manic mode, shortly followed by "mixed state", anxiety, paranoia, fear of getting psychotic etc. i took care of it pretty quickly with a heavier dose of seroquel, leaving three messages with my psychiatrist and of course telling denzel. it was very intense but i'm getting used to knowing that for now i am in a sort of "episode" or kind of fragile imbalance state where i take a more klonopin during day and sometiems extra seroquel in day and more seroquel at night too. the depression peeks its head through all this too so i'm continuing wellbutrin...
it has been mixed with baby. moments of delight and connecting with her and enjoying her laugh and smile, lots of physical contact and full of love for her. then also horrible moments of feeling resentful, bad, wanting not to have her around, or feeling kind of like a zombie or whatever the word is for feeling totally cut off and not responding to her at all and feeling bad about it but somehow locked off and incapable. other worse moments of bad thoughts that are too hard to write about. but feeling a little proud of myself that i'm livng through it and surviving...
a lot of this was triggered by our wonderful nanny having to leave due to the hours no longer suiting her for her family life. we now have a new nanny, but it was a terrible shock and loss. i still miss the old nanny. so does denzel. this ending somehow went to my nervous systema and triggered all kinds of abandonment stuff that went to my brain and started the bipolar imbalance going...
that's about all for now. i'm still quite paranoid around the new nanny, and a little paranoid in general. i should be asleep as i took my meds and usually make myself go to sleep earlier than this. bad sign. i'll take an extra seroquel now.
still attending the postpartem depression mother's group with baby. it's helpful but as it is a drop in group i find myself missing one of the mothers who left. she shared so much and then she was gone and now there are new moms there. i am such a creature of attachment and staying with people in my life that i am too sensitive to changes and people leaving... i hope the people who read my blog will come back... ok. i really will go take another seroquel...

birthday reflections

2008-01-31T21:51:00.000-08:00

my birthday is coming up soon and i am happy to say that my attitude has shifted in a more positive direction.

my birthday gift to myself is to have a birthday day that is stress free and positive and peace of mind for me. this will involve my not talking to any toxic people in my life and keeping all conversations to relaxing positive topics. i hope it will work out.

the biggest birhtday gift for my forty years is my baby girl. every day with her is more beautiful than the one before no matter what is going on.

i sometimes bring her to therapy with me when denzel is not off work to stay home and watch her. my therapist is amazed at how sweet she is and that she is so accomodating during the session. she doesn't cry much when she is there. last week i took her and she was sitting on my lap staring at my therapist, really checking him out. it was really adorable. then after she had a bottle she fell asleep so i could have the rest of the session without distractions! in fact the first time i brought her to therapy when she was only a few weeks old, she slept through the entire session and my therapist made a comment about it.

plans for my birthday: mellow, during the day i will work and have time with the baby and denzel who is home on fridays. in the evening i will be at home and two close friends and my friend's son will come over for a mellow time, food and cupcakes... i am glad that i will do something and not ignore it altogether and i am happy not to have a big party or lots of people. i think when i turn fifty and baby is almost ten years old i will have a big bash, but who knows.

for now i am focusing on the positive and thinking of forty as a turning point for better things to come and a more balanced state of mind.

the baby is smiling now and "cooing" i call it talking but it's noises, she likes to make sounds while her hand is in her mouth. she has a very beautiful soul i can tell. i sometimes feel like she came from some other place, i don't know where, but it's a place full of beauty and light and love...

the magic box

2008-01-14T19:31:00.001-08:00

feeling a little better today:
an actual positive hopeful post to balance out last night's...
i have a special box that i put some special little objects in and then write down goals, wishes, hopes and fold the paper and date it and put it in the box. it's called a goddess box.
i also put in goals and hopes of a few friends. they write what they want to manifest and i stick it in the box without reading it. every couple of months or so, i open up my papers and check to see if i have accomplished or gotten what i wished for. most of the time the goals get put back in, not yet accomplished, but once in a while they actually get done or happen and i throw out the paper and write new ones...
i just opened the box after over six months and saw some that had wonderfully come true, like getting pregnant and a few other things.
some of them i put back, like the ones related to elvis being healthy, to continue his good health.
so tonight i wrote a bunch more of them and dated them and put them in the box. i was amazed also to see i had so many "wishes" written by about four different friends, so those went back in too.
most of the goals and wishes are selfish ones like to have a good birthday with peace of mind, improved relationships with certain people, and certain career goals. but then there are ones for denzel and elvis and the baby i added, as i had not checked the box in over a year.
and some very ambitious ones for the world, like peace in iraq and things like that...
so the box is filled up again with hopes, dreams and good things to ask for the universe to manifest.
if anyone wants me to put something in there for them, let me know and i'll write it in for you...
i believe the things i put in for myself are strengthened by sharing the magic of the box with others...
i forgot to put one in about taxes and finding a good accountant. my finances are a mess... woops i'm ending on a bad note.
patience... that's in the box too as is "faith"...

self hatred

2008-01-13T20:04:00.000-08:00

happy new year. i felt nothing hopeful about the year changing. this is the first year that i have ignored three holidays in a row, thanksgiving, chanuka/xmas, and new years eve. i did not even have a glss of wine on new year's eve. my bday's coming up, forty. i am not going to do anything for that either. my parents are forcing me and denzel to go out to dinner for both of our birthdays which are around the same time. i'd like to cancel the dinner but my parents would be too hurt. i'm not even feeling close to them anymore. ive never felt so isolated from everyone in my family.
i am really hating myself. i just took out my contact lenses and rubbed my eyes because they were bothering me. then i continued to rub them hard and now they are all red. i imagined sticking a knife in my eye. i dont do any kinds of self mutilation and i never would but i sometimes fantasize about doing things to myself out of self hatred.
i wish i could go somewhere and be completely anonymous and start a fake life and just have no friends and be alone and away from everybody in my life.
i know all this is just bad stuff in my head. it will go away. the people in my life who are not talking to me have told me i am self absorbed, imature, selfish, self involved and not a grown up. they are probably right. i dont think of them as models of the kind of people i want to be even the ones in my family who think this of me. i'm sick of everything about myself. if i didn't have denzel and a baby and a dog i probably would just go disappear.
i had always imagined i would have some big party that was really special when i turned forty. i used to enjoy my birthdays. if i could go away and not be around that's what i would do.
i thought i'd feel good about myself at forty. having the psychotic episode and being distant from everyone in my family and not talking to one of them and another person because of the episode makes me feel like a failure at relating well with people i'm close to. and being in debt and not making enough money to support myself, that was not soemthing i'd envisioned about being forty. not being in any way what i had hoped. i wonder how bad fifty will be. i guess i'm done with birthdays. now the only birthday worth celebrating will be my daughter's.
if i could go back in time and change one thing in my life i would do soemthing so i could erase the psychotic episode of two months ago. so many things in my life would be different. i would not be posting a negative depressive post like this if not for the episode, nor would i hate myself so much and have ruined relationships and fights that occured after the episode. i waste time fantasizing about going back to the birth of the baby and starting that over so i woldnt have to go back on meds and so i wouldnt feel so distant from my family and others. i could even change the bad stuff that happened in the hospital when i had the baby. if only i could go back, not even really far back. i'm sure if i went back to age 20 i could change all the things that led up to today that were shit. but life can only lived forward.

depression...

2007-12-28T08:58:00.000-08:00

continues. i've had a lot of difficulties with some important relationships since the psychotic episode and it's been horribly distracting and upsetting. i had a terrible interchange with one of my siblings and it's pretty much over, any positive communication, so there is no communication. he was horribly cruel and judgmental about how i handled the episode, did not apologize, and said some awful things about me and denzel and how we handled the episode. he was not here during it. anyway, it's been a terrible loss as i thought we were close, and it's hard to avoid thinking about it and getting very sad and angry. i find myself crying every day at odd moments.
most of my friends have been super supportive so i'm truly appreciative of that and of denzel and elvis and the baby. i hope the new year brings a relief from emotional and financial stress and positive things for me and everyone who is positive in my life... i am grateful for people who read this blog and are so caring and supportive.
my psychiatrist said it takes six months to a year for the brain chemistry to totally get back to normal after a really intense episode like the one i had. i am still feeling the ramifications of it and it is almost two months later. i got stable really quickly but the emotional upheaval has been intense and difficult.

acceptance

2007-12-22T19:01:00.000-08:00

thanks for the supportive comments to last post. the post partem depression drop in support group has been helpful. i've been twice with baby. especially this week with all my pain about not breastfeeding. i had spent a day obsessing about trying to relactate and long story short by the next day at the group i had already realized i was too scared of going off my meds and daunted by the idea of having to pump constantly to try to breastfeed again. the whole idea suddenly seemed crazy and more of an expression of some other thing i was not thinking about, namely my upset and shame and anger at having the psychotic episode that led to the end of breastfeeding. the group leader emphasized that going off my meds was a terrible idea and that trying to relactate would take time away from being with my baby and really be damaging to the attachment process which of course made sense. there i was sitting with her in the group and she was so delightful and i realized i had to focus on her and try to get my obsessive thoughts to go away so i would not be with her and actually dissociated and not really present with her.
i still do not regret doing the breastfeeding. doing it for about 8 weeks was so good for her and me adn i would have been sad and felt deprived of the experience if i had started bottle feeding from the beginning. i think it was the right choice and i've finally come to terms with the fact that it was also the right choice to go back on teh meds.
with the pain of not breastfeeding i learned soemthing interesting, that i was going through the stages of mourning, at times i was angry, depressed -- crying with the pain that felt like the emptiness and other feelings one has when someone has died, and denial and bargaining (the obsession with relactating) and finally reaching acceptance.
i have to enjoy my baby now and be as present as possible with her. it is also hard because after my episode many of my close relationships (family and some friends) seemed to reach bad intense weird places that caused me pain and caused me to focus too much on it when i just wanted to focus on getting better and avoiding stress. i get very stressed out from having drama in my friendships and family relationships and it seems like since the episode there has been an explosion of it. a bipolar friend said something wise to me, that she noticed that people seem to get angry after you have an episode. i realized some of the crazy stuff with people in my life came from that. being near my psychosis caused them to be scared and freaked out. people who have not experienced psychosis are more afraid of the idea of losing control and falling apart, so i am trying to have some compassion for that while realizing that at least i have been brave to be able to go to these insane places and come back so quickly in one peice...
anyway the baby is lovely and starting to coo and make all kinds of cute sounds. i am trying to avoid getting down on myself for being bipolar and see that i can be a good attentive playful mother...

aftereffects...

2007-12-16T14:57:00.000-08:00

the aftereffects of the psychotic episode seem to be lingering intensely.
the worst part of all is not breastfeeding. i can't seem to get over it. i get very very intensely sad about it and then mad at myself. wondering if i should have taken the risky choice of going off zyprexa and then starting up breastfeeding again a week or so after the episode. maybe if i had done that i'd be breastfeeding still and on no meds.
i know it's not that bad for the baby. she is too young to miss anything and lives from moment to moment. i even tried to see if she remembered breastfeeding but she showed no interest. there's no more milk anyway.
for some reason that experience was so important to my being a mother that i feel terrible and cry almost daily about it. i hate myself for having the episode.
i went to a postpartem depression support group last week and talked about it. it's now been about six weeks since i had the episode and i'm still so torn up aabout it. i get upset when we take the baby places and feed her with the bottles and formula and wish i could be breastfeeding her...

nothing

2007-12-02T09:27:00.001-08:00

nothing to say.

daily doodle

2007-11-26T06:53:00.001-08:00

black hole

2007-11-24T11:47:00.000-08:00

i just tried to post using safari adn its all messed up. i wrote a whole paragraph about how i hate this illness and feel so depressed i wish i could die.
i hate what happens after an episode. everything is messed up and i feel like a failure in many ways i'm too tired to list. i would like it all to be over with, i am tired of so many years, in fact my whole adult life about 20 years of living with this illness.
i even felt like i just can't do it, be a mother adn a good partner, but i will keep trying because i chose it and it would be much worse on all three beings that i live with to give up on myself.
if you make comments be nice as i have no ability to face anything difficult. i feel like there's nothing left in me. i know it's the depression talking adn i'll just wait it out like i always do. i wonder what the point of having this illness is. it would be good to know there was a reason, like if reincarnation was true and something happened in a past life so now i'm paying for it; it would make sense. human beings seem to be desperate to make up storeis so that things that dont make sense make sense. but they dont and all of that stuff is just things we make up to feel better. chaos is real. fabricated order like religion is just story and tool for power.
the way to get through depression is not to find a good story to get addicted to.
i guess it's just to accept what's there and not look for explanations. when i'm psychotic things all make sense but they are just things in my head that are more real to me than anything outside my head.
when i'm depressed there is nothing in my head to hold on to. only bad cruel voices telling me i'm a horrible person. not other people's voices. my own.

thanksgiving and new comic strip yet again

2007-11-22T12:02:00.000-08:00

this is getting very frustrating. i've written this post a a few times and it keeps going weird on me. anyway long story short mommy is on zyprexa still plus wellbutrin and seroquel but thankful for growing baby, been depressed and difficult coming out of the psychotic episode, got down to earth and off crazy planet quick but it's a difficult landing on earth and recovering from the damage
. anyway no more boobie milk it's all contaminated with drugs/meds. very sad, thus the new comic strip which was fun to do. having a gquiet thanksgiving at home with dog baby and baby daddy denzel. went to a great yoga class. here's the comic strip:

zyprexa...

2007-11-12T11:26:00.000-08:00

this is me on zyprexa... well it feels that way. maybe it is my new cartoon character.
now that i have to stop breastfeeding (studies very uncertain, not enough conclusive, no long range studies, don't want to impede baby's brain development at this crucial early point. in fact the drug label for zyprexa warns against breastfeeding.)
anyway if you can comment, let me know , should the boobies go now that they are useless and be replaced by this weird insect?
what if kafka's bug story was twisted into, lady wakes up takes zyprexa, hears baby crying and tries to go to her, passes the mirror and sees her own reflection as a giant red insect...

blackness

2007-11-11T11:16:00.001-08:00

zyprexa blues

2007-11-04T05:41:00.000-08:00

big episode

2007-11-03T21:30:00.000-07:00

hi everyone,
well so much for doing without meds. i am taking zyprexa now, total of fifteen mil. per day.
the mania escalated into a full blown crazy episode, really psychotic. i am very tired right now from the zyprexa. just wanted to post something as the blog is very therapeutic. actually there was blog stuff in my episode. it was extremely intense and long and denzel said i talked non stop for hours and hours...
more on it later. we're still not sure about the breastfeeding as there is not enough evidence. i'm for continuing while on zyprexa and denzel is more cautious. i'm pumping and still feeeding her alittle so she can have that with me.
it's been very tough week.
does anyone out there know much about zyprexa or did you take it while breastfeeding?
also when did you start gaining lots of weight as that is a big side effect.
i'm too tired to write more but hope to make a comic strip soon....

baby breath medication

2007-10-28T23:04:00.000-07:00

today was a manic day. so was yesterday and probably a couple of days were building up to it. i learned a lot of good things. one was that there is a lot of good medicine out there that i don't have to take as actual pills. the best medecine for my manic brain is to sit quietly with baby and hold her and listen to her breathing and feel her breathing while i breathe.
other good medecine for manic mom is using the boobies.
the next cartoon idea i didnt have time to draw was that left boobie is manic and right boobie is depressed. left boobie is next to the heart and right boobie is thinking too much and feeling bad about herself. left boobie feels high off of life.

other good medecine includes being with baby's cousins of different ages, 8 years and below.
other good medecine is being with denzel and elvis.
being wtih meaning really concentrating hard on focusing on BEING and on the WITH part. very challenging to do while having a brain that is in manic mode as it's about turning down the volume of the brain at certain times and at others allowing myself to be in the brain.

time to try to sleep. i have many more thoughts to talk about here. it's very nice to have a good place where i can share these thoughts. part of my problem with manic brain of mine for many years was not understanding where was the right place to talk about what was going on in my head. i didn't realize until a few years ago how important the right place, right time and right people is. this blog is probably the most right place right time right people as well as denzel and a few friends soemtimes. talking to people about it is tricky as it has to be the right kind of conversation to enter with this topic of me and my mania.

it's all about reading energy and focus and attention. most of the time the best thing to do with my manic brain is to use it in a very positive way-- which is to really work on the essence of being alive, just BE HERE NOW. when there are people around it is most tricky not to get sidetracked by my mind and lost in confusion as conversation with Different People is an art.
how do you have a good dialogue with an Other Person while you have several of your own Self People in your head that you are having some Mighty Interesting Conversations with.

the answer is that it requires a lot of FOcus and Attention and Discipline. while listening carefully to an Other Person adn trying to connect with that Other Person meaning fully, I am at the same time telling my Inside Head People to be Quieter or I'm quickly acknowledgin them and reFocusing my Self on the outside person. this requires a lot of Energy.

Meanwhile I'm learning how to be with baby person more fully and calmly. i try to get all my inside people selves to come together and hang out with baby instead of getting involved in side conversations about a lot of Old Stuff that is still inside me, so we can all be with Baby right here right now.

my inside people are all me, but sometimes they are wearing Costumes of other people. that's tricky too, the work involves telling them to take off the costumes of some other person. then i see that it is me at a certain age.

ok. my inside person mother is telling me to stop writing and go to sleep and share soem more Thoughts about How to Ride the Manic Waves ...(and have fun at the same time without hurting anyone)

Moody Boobies

2007-10-20T08:43:00.001-07:00

more daily boobie comix!

2007-10-03T10:29:00.000-07:00

hi everyone,
motherhood so far seems to involve baby glued to boob and barely anytime for anything else.
the biggest stress is getting baby to gain more weight as she has been gaining but very slowly and so i'm often feeling upset about that and worried that i'm not "good enough" as a cow. we give her formula too.
no time to write anymore but i'm going to post the latest comics...

introducing the new post baby comic strip!!!

2007-09-22T22:02:00.000-07:00

Baby Here!

2007-09-11T20:07:00.000-07:00

just a quick post to let everyone who's been reading my blog and so supportive in on the wonderful news!
our baby girl arrived last week. she's doing well and we're finally home from the hospital.
i'll post soon as the hospital was quite intense and traumatic for me and i think other people with bipolar would understand.

i also intend to make some comic strips about breast feeding adn other post partem experiences as it's been quite a trip!

we love our daughter. we're completely smitten and enjoy staring at her for hours on end.

not sleeping much but feeling ok so far. c sections have their good side but there is still pain and denzel is doing most of elvis' walks. elvis happy to be home and happy to see me at home so much. so far he isn't much interested in baby...

too tired to write more. but very very happy! and feeling good about being a mommy, just very grateful for our beautiful baby. still marveling at how she got here and feel extremely blessed and blissed...

a mess...

2007-08-31T05:05:00.000-07:00

i've been a mess. horrible night last night. i've intended to post but haven't managed it. hope to make a comic strip this weekend.
in brief, freakouts, crying non stop, uncontrollable laughing, insomnia, eating late at night to try to make myself calm down and sleep followed by acid reflux involving vomiting in my mouth and swallowing it twice. eventually sleep, waking up early, then crying again.

biggest challenge of my bipolar pregnancy...

2007-08-22T21:53:00.000-07:00

i've been wanting to express this in comic strip form for a while; it somehow could have come out better, but it's the best i can manage at 1am...
it is confusing enough dealing with bipolar episodes and constant monitoring of whether i'm manic, hypomanic, depressed, psychotic, mixed state etc. whether on or off medications, but being pregnant and bipolar throws in a real extra challenge -- hormones!
then the question becomes "am i being normal crazy hormonal pregnant or am i being crazy made more nutty by hormones but not at all norrmal for a pregnant lady at al, in other words, bipolar crazy and pregnant at same timel..." in some ways it's not that difficult. when i have symptoms that women describe having after having the baby or when they have postpartem issues, but i'm still pregnant, i know this ain't normal for being pregnant... when i feel crazy but it turns out, as denzel puts it "you're just exactly normal for being knocked up and so many months along! how does it feel to be just like everyone else at this stage! ha ha. i know how you hate to admit you're going through the same stuff every other hormonal pregnant woman goes through!!!" he likes to rub that in. i do admit that if i'm going to suffer through being bipolar and pregnant, at times i enjoy that i'm having a very unusual pregnant experience that brings me to deep levels of awareness of all the transformations i'm going through and that most pregnant women are protected from going to these places and lucky in that they don't suffer the torments of it, but at the same time they don't get the special experience of being so in touch with all this intense unconscious material that if you live through it without destroying yourself, the fetus and your partner and anyone else along the way, is quite an extra special experience... along with that i also get to have all the other regular normal pregnant hormonal stuff. so sometimes i confess i bask in my own admiration of my special crazy and pregnant status. i can't get too grandiose because denzel is around to bring me back down to earth...

sleepless nights...

2007-08-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

i'm planning to do a comic strip, even perhaps tonight as i continue to suffer from late pregnancy insomnia. yesterday was worse. i couldn't sleep and i was in pain and discomfort and feeling freaked out. then i got hives again, which is starting to be almost daily, usually i wake up in the morning itchy with hives on legs or legs and arms. one time last week i woke up at 3am and had terrible itchiness and hives that was almost gone by morning but it was hard to get back to sleep. turns out hives are another lovely part of pregnancy especially in last trimester. i know it's nothing i'm eating different. i guess i'm allergic to being pregnant!
this is one of my complainy posts. keep in mind that i'm greatful that i've survived thus far on no meds and i'm aware i'm doing a pretty good job considering. one of the nice things my pdoc said in our last session was to tell me to keep in mind that i'm doing a great job as a mother. i of course protested that i wasn't yet a mother. and he said that i was and had taken great care of the baby thus far. it was so sweet and heartfelt and really meant a lot to hear that from him.
anyway back to my moaning. last night was terrible as the fake contractions were quite uncomfortable and she was moving so much. she likes to move when i get in bed and try to go to sleep. like, now she's not moving, but if i lie down she'll start her party. usually i get a kick, pun intended, out of her shifting and moving around but not when i get in bed and try to sleep. i ended up takign another bath late last night to try to get comfortable but got hives after and sat on the couch for another couple of hours trying to read and distract myself. poor denzel got woken up and unlike me he was not able to sleep late this morning.
my best sleep hours are after elvis' morning walk if i have an hour or more to go back to bed. by then the 'baby" i know she's still a fetus but she feels like a big ol baby, is calmer and not moving around as much and the pain is gone.
now it's after midnight and i feel ok but i'm not tired. maybe this sleeping issue is supposed to prepare me for not sleeping soon.
but last friday night i had a really bad short lived episode that i was convinced was partly caused by only getting four hours of sleep the night before. i really felt like a mental patient and my behavior was quite crazy. luckily denzel was very caring and sweet when he realized i was having a meltdown. i wont go into details but i had paint all over my face and legs and finally erupted into uncontrollable crying and was feeling so crazy i didnt know what to do with myself. i was full of self hatred and fear and thoughts that i couldnt have the baby.
that has since passed but the weekend was rough.
on a nicer note today i went to denzel's office and they had planned a surprise shower for him. he had no idea i'd show up. all his coworkers were very sweet and they gave us really adorable generous gifts and the cakes were great. cake is super important when you're pregnant, especially ice cream cake. one of his coworkers had gotten some cakes shaped like baby booties and stuff like that. i'm already looking forward to sampling the leftovers for breakfast as i had two peices of ice cream cake at the shower (one for me, one for baby of course) and no room for more cake.
the only issue with all these nice gifts and showers is that i'm not naturally organized, so dealing with thank you notes is rough. we still have to figure out some of the gifts that somehow we cant remember who gave us and cant find cards that go with it.
this baby girl is already a clothes horse and isnt even here yet! i must say my fantasies about having a girl and enjoying all the clothing are totally living up in reality. i get a total kick out of every little outfit, and as we have tried to avoid too much pink, it's really great because she has some kickass outfits in all different colors, including cute hand me downs from my nephews. boy baby clothing is cute for girls just as much as all the cute dresses and the pygamaz (new fun spelling)! i wish they made some of those footsie pjs for adults too...
so i'll end on this up note. i'm also planning to try this weekend to make her a baby book by copying some stuff out of a store bought one in a blank journal and decorating the cover and all the pages and then taking the store bought one back to the store. i hope i get it done. i still have to finish her blanket that i started making...

More Confessions...

2007-08-16T20:28:00.000-07:00

the bigger confession I should have drawn a comic strip of was an earlier sin I committed today. (funny how as a jewish superstitious atheist i freely employ all this dramatic wording from other religions, esp. these days, the catholics with "confessions" and "sin"... one thing i've gotten even more comfortable with due to pregnancy is all my inconsistencies and total contradictions...)

anyway earlier today i purchase a pair of designer sunglasses on sale, still at a high cost though they were more than half price. there was no need for them. even if i eventually have money to turn them into prescription sunglasses and wear them as regular ones until them, i do not need them. but they were ultra cool looking and i enlisted a friend who has kids herself and is trying not to spend extra money to tell me they looked great on me and stand there while i bought them.

this is not a purchase to be making with only weeks left before baby girl arrives, when i am in debt and will need extra money in the first couple of months of motherhood. on the other hand i'm sure the baby will be happy to see me stroll her down the street in her new lightweight stroller wearing those sunglasses and the sandals i got a few weeks ago in bright colors to match her stroller. she will be delighted and thinking, this was a very necessary purchase. i was there when you made it and got a nice rush of excessive spending high from you, thanks mom... of course this is not something i will be doing when she is here outside my belly.

also getting ready to get rid of another major sin very soon. the tv! i grew up with no tv and we both want to get rid of our tv and bring up baby without tv. i'll stil want a screen of some sort to watch movies on as i do not consider my film interests to be bad influence on baby and they are easier to keep away from her. i returned my baby einstein dvd after reading that article that came out and realizing it's best of all to just read to her and have denzel play music and sing to her...

otherwise going through all kinds of ups and downs and emotions. yesterday i passed the vet elvis goes to and saw a vet tech walking a little cute doggie with one of those plastic shades on her head and practically burst into tears. not sure if it was seeing the elizabethan collar on the dog or somehow missing elvis' baby days or some kind of reminder of times elvis has been in the vet or sick. almost cried on the subway tonight after intense therapy session...

having weird dreams again like i did in the beginnign of being pregnant...

the long block finally ended...

2007-08-08T10:32:00.000-07:00

not feeling too well. stressed out and kind of dizzy, but i wanted to post these before lying down...

still no comic strip...

2007-07-29T20:14:00.000-07:00

feeling ok now but earlier in the day i cried a few times... yesterday i cried on the way to the baby party with denzel. my friend and her husband and beautiful baby had a very nice party for us but i was not in a great mood at the beginning. everyone seemed to have a good time and i was glad in the end that i had decided to have a coed party rather than a typical shower. we've gotten some great and lovely gifts for the baby.
plus the ice cream cake! i splurged on a yummy ice cream cake that was great. i had two pieces and i know it was good because my picky gourmet mother had two pieces. my father also came to the party and they enjoyed hanging out with my friends. my sister brought her kids and husband.
by the time we got home i was feeling uncomfortable and sort of muscle pain from the fetus moving around and stretching.
i'm still anxious about everything and also money.
today i took elvis out for his late birthday special walk to the park by the water and he enjoyed it and had a lot of energy. i cried on the way there and on the way home and when i got home.
denzel and i took a long walk in the pouring rain and got soaked looking at dressers to possibly use for the baby. there was a bamboo type tray at a store that we joked about being the perfect baby changer. we'll probably just change her on the bed or the dining room table with a towel. i'm starting to get annoyed at all the ridiculous marketing geared at making new parents spend money they don't have.
i feel huge and can't believe how big i am and don't recognize myself anymore though friends say the nice thing about me looking the same except for the big belly. at least my face is not all puffy. i dont' understand how people say they love being pregnant. i am happy to have the baby moving inside me but i don't love being pregnant. i miss my meds and my old normal body and being able to bend over and cut my own toenails and do activities like exercise (which i was so not into before being pregnant but there's nothing like being unable to do something to make you want to do it) and having energy. and the crying feels weird, i feel like i'm a kid crying and scared and helpless.
tomorrow we go back to the doctor.

anxious again...

2007-07-23T20:49:00.000-07:00

hi, thanks for all the nice comments about soon to be baby photos/sonogram.
it's fun to imagine that face/head is inside me right now and quite surreal.
meanwhile i'm feeling quite anxious. just the usual things. hard to sleep at night and that's when i focus too much on not feeling prepared, feeling disorganized, worrying how elvis will adjust. worrying that we won't have all the stuff we need to have when she arrives, worrying that i'll have an episode and have to take meds and stop breastfeeding etc.
it's now the countdown to going to the hospital which is also anxiety provoking...
and i keep wanting to make a comic for the blog and not doing it...

happy photos!

2007-07-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

3d sonogram pictures fresh from yesterday morning. note her adorable nose. certainly was the best thing for cheering me up! it was great to see her. she's now almost 4 pounds!

depressed

2007-07-10T12:36:00.000-07:00

depressed and unmotivated. have not had any work so i've been napping and sitting on the couch eating crackers. the most i did was to take elvis for short walks. can't seem to do anything or bother with anything. have not been able to visit other blogs. feeling crappy.

a quick followup

2007-07-04T20:46:00.000-07:00

hi everyone, thanks for the support and advice.
the good news is that elvis had a great time at my parents and they treated him as wonderfully as they have always done. my mother even took him for a very long walk yesterday. i seem to forget that she complains and vents and criticizes in advance of things and makes things out to be a disaster beforehand and then the reality works out much better. i know i get that quality from her myself and work on curbing it as i do recognize it in myself and denzel notices it when i do it and calls me on it. unfortunately my mother is not always so aware of her behaviors and it does not help to point things like that out to her.
but she really is very thoughtful and caring in the end and comes through.
however i am still in distress/stress about what to do soon when i have the baby. i'm hoping my parents will soften up and change their minds and offer to let elvis stay with them, especially if denzel can come over during the day to do some of the walks and then go back to the hospital.
meanwhile i guess i'll investigate other options, like finding a referral from the vet of a good person who might house sit and take care of elvis. there are people out there who are expert at taking good care of old dogs with specific issues and i'll have to do some research and consider spending time and money on it. a kennel or doggie day care is just out of the question. elvis will soon be sixteen and he is in good health at moment but has a chronic issue with his back and very specific diet and medications and also gets extremely worsened by stress of unfamiliar situations and my own stress, so putting him in an unfamiliar environment with total strangers and cages or whatever is not going to give me peace of mind...
i'll continue posting about this as it is a major source of stress along with everyhting else about having the baby soon, etc.

i'm also aware that i'm probably very nervous about how he will do with having the baby around. he is pretty much my first born child and i'm so attached to him that i want to make sure he's ok during this strange transition and change and addition of new member to the family.

by the way, we managed to have a great trip and it was nice to get away from the city and nice to come back and be reunited with elvis. i got my usual return to city adn my life anxiety tonight...

more anxiety, dog related...

2007-06-30T21:23:00.000-07:00

thank you ol' lady for voting me a rockin' girl blogger. i'm too tired and stressed out at the moment to figure out how to put the image icon of it on my blog and i don't know how to link up anyone i nominate as i have a mac and safari program does not work that high tech with blogger.

for now i'll just post as it's been a while. i was hoping again to do a comic strip post but not up to it right now.

super stress and anxiety about going to visit denzel's parents as we are leaving elvis with my parents. what seemed like a nice arrangement that had me relatively calm and ready to go home from dinner and pack slowly and clean the apt. was horribly shattered by a phone conversation with my mother.

not to bore you with the details but my father is much more amenible to taking care of elvis and as the baby of the family and daddy's little girl, i appreciate his sweetness and caring and that he at his age walks elvis and takes good care of him though it's not without its pain in the ass aspects. the late night walk is hard on him. my mother on the other hand tends to make everything into a big crisis in general and i caught her after a horrible long airplane trip and having to sit in the plane in the airport for two hours when they arrived home due to stupid security stuff. so she was in a terrible mood and started complaining about taking care of elvis and asking why we couldn't take him with us. there are many reasons it won't be ok to take him on this trip, but after talking to her, i was trying to figure out a way we could bring him, as it was so disturbing...

i kind of freaked out and burst into tears several times talking about it with denzel and later again. he was pretty pissed off himself and our whole evening was almost ruined. so much for packing and getting ready and cleaning.

we're still going to leave elvis with my parents tomorrow. i trust my dad to take great care of him and my mom will just have to deal with it. i think she mainly can't stand that he pees in her kitchen and she doesn't like all the walks. the funny thing is i think she misses him when he goes, but she complains and bitches and gets so anxious about it, it sucks. last time i made sure my dad was in charge of all the medication as he is very thorough.

anyway my other big stress from all this is i don't know what to do with elvis when i'm in the hospital. i'll be there for four days probably because i'm getting a c section. originally i had talked to my dad about my parents taking care of him while i was there. it seemed reasonable to ask them that small favor while i have a baby on no medications and recover from surgery and deal with learnign to nurse. but now i don't know what to do. i have one friend who could take care of him maybe but she now has a baby who will be almost one year by then and i don't know if she can handle it or will even want to. i may have to consider hiring a really good vet tech/dog care person to stay at our place and take care of the dog. i know they exist, i've seen their cards at the vet but i have no idea how much they cost. having a baby is costly enough. and i dont like the idea of elvis with a stranger. he's not used to being taken care of by anyone except a few people he knows really well and his other owner who does not live near here anymore. so it's a real point of stress, worry anxiety.
meanwhile ihave to survive this trip and hope my parents take good care of elvis and don't stress me out with complaining.

elvis is so important to me i'd sacrifice just about anything for him. i'm really anxious that having a baby is just too much and i have to be able to trust that he'll be ok. i had all kinds of scary thoughts tonight after denzel fell asleep.
i'm not packed or ready to go tom. morning in any way.
i feel very freaked out and am trying to tell myself it will all work out. reality is always much better than what's in my mind and my mother is very blunt and does not keep her feelings or annoyance to herself.

Top 10 Most Challenging Life Experiences...

2007-06-18T19:43:00.000-07:00

i decided to try a list of them, the ones i've actually experienced so far, so having a baby can't be on the list yet...

1. death of a loved one
2. serious illness of a loved one
3. first time experience of psychosis and hospitalization
4. being pregnant with no medications for bipolar
5. bipolar "disorder" and all that comes with it, including dealing with its effect on one's loved ones
6. moving
7. dealing with anger and disapointment, conflict and confrontation from others
8. taking care of a dog coming out of anasthesia
9. high school and living through it
10. ages 13 through 28 and living through them

i am sure there are others that are worse that i have repressed, such as witnessing cruelty, violence and abuse, being mugged and some other things i probably "forgot" as i would not want to list them here...
if anyone else feels like making such a list, let me know and i'll check it out!

quick follow up

2007-06-18T19:36:00.001-07:00

hi all. thanks for the support. elvis and i had a very stressful time of it. the teeth cleaning was successful and they had to extract a very infected tooth so it was good it got done. but fri. night was a nightmare and i was very sleep deprived sat. and the weekend was quite a challenge. i would put witnessing and taking care of a small animal coming out of anasthesia on my top ten most challenging life experiences list. i'll go into details in another post perhaps. he's still stiff in the back legs from where they put the catheter in but mostly back to his lovely normal self.
and today i felt more like a regular human. on sat. afternoon i had a moment where all the stress of his stuff and other things got to me to such an extent that i felt like i was about to crack and enter bad episode land but i managed to get through and recover on sunday with rest and spending a good father's day with denzel.
it was a preview that scared me of how stressed out and ungrounded and on edge of episode i get when i don't get enough stress adn am caught up in worry and concern for a very small dependent being.
what will i do very soon when there are two small beings in the house to worry about, one a doggie and one a baby????!!!!!

elvis' big day is tomorrow!

2007-06-14T19:52:00.000-07:00

just a quick note, thanks for all the comments and for people who had experience with teeth procedures and their animals...

i'm a little less worried after talking to the vet on the phone yesterday. anyway tomorrow morning i bring him in for his teeth. turns out the cleaning only takes about 15 minutes and then it's a bit longer if they extract any teeth. it will be great to have it over with and know that it's good for preventative health that it's all done.

elvis is doing great. of course he has no idea he's going to the vet tomorrow. i pick him up tomorrow night.

i've had an up and down week but managed ok. today i got a haircut and wasn't sure i liked it but denzel took some photos of me and elvis and the belly to send people who haven't seen us in a while and i felt pretty good about my hair and my looks, which was nice...

block

2007-06-07T20:43:00.000-07:00

for some reason, maybe i just have no energy. i have been unable to get back to doing my comic strip for this blog. it really annoys me as i enjoyed posting the comic strip and expressing something original about myself and my experiences and especially bringing elvis to life.

for one thing my desk is stilled piled high with stuff. even my scanner that i would need to use to scan the comics has a stuffed elephant mom and baby that i found recently and had to buy. they stand on top of my scanner to remind me of the side of me that is a potential good mommy.

i'm still anxious and unmotivated to do anythign in the apartment. but i'm definitely feeling more stable than the last weeks of may, so that's a good thing.

elvis is getting his teeth done next friday. i'm terrified. trying not to think about it now. focusing on how puppylike and energetic he's been and how he's walking fine even running. the glucosamine did not work out as the beef pill pockets that i was going to eventually put the pills in started to give him beginnings of diarhea so i and the vet agreed to forgo the beef pockets and glucosamine. poor elvis. he really liked those beef treats. now he has to go back to waiting once a month for beef flavor in his anti-heartworm pill treat instead of getting a pillpocket twice a day. it was fun giving them to him as he really enjoyed them. but not worth messing up his fragile little digestive system.

he's so wonderful i continue to marvel at his beautiful being. seeing him trot down the street so excited to be outside on nyc's dirty garbagefilled sidewalks and sniffing all kinds of stuff, is better than any medication to remind me that i'm already so blessed by having him in my life for the past fourteen years or so. i think dogs are injected with extra godliness divinity at birth as they stay that way all their life. as opposed to us humans who turn into, well, humans. it's no wonder that dog is god spelled forwards and god is dog spelled backwards!

elvis back to his old self! me back to messier self...

2007-06-03T19:46:00.000-07:00

the good new is that elvis is doing much better, back to his 14 year old puppy self, even doing some of his adorable puppy like things like getting enthusiastic puppy energy and bounding around before going downstairs to his walks. some of his slowness last week especially on wed. was due to the rabies shot which i found out makes you exhausted and stiff in the muscles.

he's now getting special beef pill pocket treats after meals to see if he can digest them ok and prepare him for getting cosequin, a glucosamine supplement for arthritis. of course i'm partly wondering if i should even give him the pill as he seems much better, but the vet noticed arthritis when she examined him even though he moved fine when i walked him around in front of her.

the main new stress about him is that i have to get his teeth cleaned this month and he has not had that done yet. it's bad to let it go further as his teeth are not in great condition but they have to put him out for it and of course i'm super worried about it.

in general i think my trip into the dark and familiar zone of the more crazy parts of my mind has ended for now with a return to better places, but i'm very anxious and tired, totally exhausted. i had fine plans to go through piles of things on my desk and try to do some cleaning as things are more disorderly than ever but i got home from an outing late afternoon and went straight to bed. i'm constantly tired and have no motivation. all the stereotypes about being pregnant and nesting are bullshit where i'm concerned.

i've been trying to resign myself to the baby arriving in a messy disorderly apartment and that plenty of slobs bring up happy children. it sucks that the media paints a picture of organized expectant parents happily painting special things on the walls of a sparkling baby room and a clean neat organized apartment or house. when i was growing up i used to feel trapped in a family of neat people and hated being told to clean my room. now i'm worried my poor baby will be trapped in a chaotic totally messy disorganized house. i've lost all hope of things getting pulled together. we only have a few more months left and i can barely keep my papers in order and pay bills on time, much less pick up clothing and keep the kitchen neat, a bare minimum. the idea that we can reorganize the apt. and build storage space and transform it in time for the baby seems hopeless. i'm realizing i'm still slightly depressed but in this case the feeling of resigning myself to the worst case scenario seems a lot more comforting than having grand ambitions for our place and making room for baby. you can't be disappointed when you resign yourself to the reality of your own limitations. it's also just too hard to motivate or imagine that i can motivate when i'm pregnant and constantly tired. just keeping up with the bare minimum of one day at a time is a huge challenge.

the idea of a baby shower is scary and daunting. more stuff to put in the middle of the apartment. there's no more room under the bed or under the big dining room table so anything we get or are given for the baby will just go in the middle of the loft.

i have rescue fantasies of some magic person coming over and fixing everything. i've watched too many reality tv show of makeovers. denzel would never let someone come and reorganize our place anyway. but i admit i've had fantasies of waving a wand and everything being organized and fixed in two seconds with no suffering of dealing with the worse chaos that occurs when you start moving things around to reorganize in a place that does not just feel like a big close/garbage dump but in fact is. tonight is indeed garbage night. it's usually my thing to take out the trash or make sure denzel does it but i don't really care. i know how far i've descended when i can't find favorite items of clothing and dont bother looking for them.

i woke up this morning with grand plans to have new energy and tackle my desk and area and clothing areas and closet but that was a fantasy. i'm back to not caring and feeling the ultimate lazy slothful feeling that is a big part of my personality. as i get older i only get worse as i get better at living in messier and messier and more disorganized environment. sometimes it seems to mirror my inner situation and gets me down even more. sometimes i think this is actually a strength. all the neat freaks out there with perfect and organized apartments are sitting on total fear of the real chaos that is life and their own emotions. at least i'm totally aware of and living in my chaos and lack of control or anything. but i'm wondering how great it is to bring up a baby in this kind of environment. i guess i'll just have to hope that the baby will see that life is messy and disorganized and uncertain and chaotic but love can be grown in very messy places and love is messy anyway...

any words of encouragement or support greatly appreciated. i''m not sure this post conveyed all my fear and anxiety and exhaustion with worrying about how to deal with the mess of the environment and the big fear of the bigger mess of figuring out how to manage my life when the baby is here and be a good enough mother. i had great hopes of drawing a fun comic about elvis but that went out the window with my big plans of getting organized. i'll probably walk him and make a bigger mess getting ready for bed. sometimes i notice i retreat to bed to hide from the rest of the mess. somehow the messy bed is a slight haven to hide from all the clutter and mess.

tag, i'm it... very late in the game...

2007-05-27T16:11:00.000-07:00

ok. better late than never. thanks to nicole for tagging me. i hope i know how to insert the right codes for this. i'll of course tag people who visit me often. sorry if you've been tagged already. i guess you don't have to do this twice!

well ok. i realize what the problem is. I am using safari on a mac so i will have to just list the website addresses as they don't seem to give me options for making links within this post. sorry.

INSTRUCTIONS: Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so.

1)Baby Moxie
2)Kicking You From The Inside
3)Third Time Lucky?
4) Just Crazy Enough To Try
5) bipolar notes from underground (off meds)

Next select five people to tag: (if you haven’t done it already) i have to just list the web address as i am not capable of linking directly. sorry
1) This Side of Reason; http://mydisplaced.blogspot.com/
2) Coming out of the Dark; http://bipolarmadness.blogspot.com/
3) Bipolar in the CIty; http://bipolarinthecity.blogspot.com/
4) Kill the Goat; http://saintvodkaofthemartini.blogspot.com/
5) The Wife of a Schizophrenic; http://the-wife-of-a-schizophrenic.blogspot.com/

What were you doing ten years ago?
may of 1997. i was probably dealing with a depressive episode and avoiding getting involved with anyone romanticwise...

What were you doing one year ago?
may of 2006. dealing with having just gone off meds to get pregnant. i was about two months into no meds and having a lot of sex. probably also worrying about my dog as he had diarrhea a lot around that time and needed special medications... maybe i had already started this blog. can't remember. dealing with anxiety for sure...

Five snacks you enjoy:
1. ice cream, ice cream, and more ice cream, often with peanut butter
2. potato chips, (the ruffles kind, salt and vinegar, the expensive kind with exotic flavors) with whipped chive cream cheese on them
3. really creamy hummous on rice cakes or pita
4. chocolate, dark or white, preferably with peanut butter
5. pickles of course...

Five songs to which you know all the lyrics:
1. when i'm 64, the beatles
2. denzel's special song for our unborn baby all about her name
3. jingle bells
4. michelle ma belle, the beatles
5. other beatles songs too numerous to list
(basically i'm terrible at singing and have a bad memory but the beatles were part of my childhood.)

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
1. get a huge new place, like a brownstone or building in our current neighborhood with a great baby room, lots of storage, a studio for me that's ideal, a great studio/workroom/music room for denzel, an outdoor space for doggie and us and a wonderful roof top and great basement!!!
2. pay off all my debts immediately and invest some of the money wisely...
3. plan a wonderful trip (maybe a short two week one for now before baby last minute and one for when she is around 8 months old to take her with us) and find the perfect caretaker for elvis who will take extra good care of him and have a lot of vet knowledge while we are away to housesit as well in the above mentioned mansion!
the trip would probably include a visit to japan
4. help out some starving artist friends with money, not purely a gift, but as an investment in their projects to help them get the projects off the ground...
5. buy land and build a really cool country house that denzel would design!

Five bad habits:
1. laziness, procrastination and disorganization, they all go together for me
2. eating too much ice cream and unbalanced diet, even and especially while pregnant
3. not putting things away, general slobbiness
4. self hatred
5. complaining and worrying

Five things you like doing:
1. being with my dog
2. drawing and painting
3. nothing (literally, i like sitting and doing nothing, staring into space and not moving)
4. camping with denzel
5. watching the food network channel

nightmare during sleep and stress during awake...

2007-05-27T15:39:00.000-07:00

hi again and thanks for everyone's wonderful support. i plan to catch up on all your blogs after doing this post.

i'm doing better since last post but the past few days have been still difficult and my mood is still shaky. yesterday was quite stressful for various reasons. and we did not sleep much last night, denzel and i. we were supposed to go to the country with elvis to visit a friend but this morning we we're too tired and stressed out from yesterday. yesterday was difficult but good for our relationship as i was able to be there for denzel dealing with some difficult issues with people in his life.

anyway last night was not good for sleep and i had a horrible dream about having the baby and the surgery. the baby did not appear in the dream but it was leading up to getting the c section. i won't describe the dream but it was not restful sleep.

then when i woke up early and took little elvis out i noticed he was walking strangely. we had taken him out at about 4am when we were not sleeping and he had been fine. he seemed to be limping by a few hours later. then we decided not to go away anyway and i got very anxious about whether to take elvis on an emergency appontment to the vet or wait and see how he was doing. i called two of his vet offices and talked to a nurse at one. from what she said it did not sound terrible to wait and see how he is in the next few days. he is eating normally and just as excited to go out on his walks. he doesn't make any noise of any kind of pain and his front leg that seems to be limping does not seem abnormal or swollen. he puts weight on it when walking and peeing. he's been resting most of the day and doing his usual stuff so i decided not to panic and stress him out by rushing to the vet and having to pay an extra 100$ plus the visit as they had no regular appointments left.

i just took him out again and he was happy to be out. he even will run a little on some of his walks depending whether he has just got up from a nap or not. so i'm hoping he just pulled a muscle or something like that. right now he is sitting reclining near my chair totally relaxed so i'm trying not to worry too much. i made an appointment with his regular vet for tues. morning so i might take him in then if he is still walking strangely...

the irony is that we ended up bringing him to the vet yesterday to have the technician put the flea and tick liquid on him as i was too neurotic to do it myself and was worried about the chemicals being pregnant. i also did not want to put it on wrong and have a bad effect on him. i never take him to the country these days so i had thought i needed to get him a collar but it turns out the vets all recommend this liquid stuff that goes into the skin as being more effective. it lasts for a month so i guess it's good he has it in case we go somewhere another time. but he was fine yesterday when i took him for that. they were very nice and did not charge anything to do that for him...

needless to say today i was too stressed out and sort of depressed to do much. i'm still feeling the mood but i'm trying to relax and not worry about catching up on any of the things i need to do. after all everyone else is vacationing and doing nothing and we would have been in the country. i admit i'm relieved we did not end up going as taking elvis would have been stressful for me, worrying about him being ok on the trip and in a strange environment.

he's my real baby. i think i must have been a dog in another life. these days when i walk around outside and see people with a stroller and a dog, my maternal instincts go out to the dog. looking at the baby in the stroller does not bring out any desire to hold the baby or coo over him or her. in fact i'm kind of scared of babies and toddlers these days. but dogs just make me smile.

i hope to do a comic strip soon as this blog was supposed to be mostly comic strip form but my mood and mixed state have made it hard to get to it...

not getting better

2007-05-22T12:35:00.000-07:00

more of the same. not getting better. feeling bad for denzel and elvis having to live with me like this. soon i'll have another person in the house to feel guilty about having to be around me and my illness. sometimes i feel like i should have moved somewhere away from everyone i know and just deal with it without infecting other people.

more anxiety...

2007-05-20T20:43:00.000-07:00

just read too much on the internet about pregnancy, well specifically about delivery, actually about c sections as i decided quite a while ago to have an elective c section. there are some truly "crazy" judgmental people out there, i can't imagine that is good for their children. to tell people you do not know things like "you spread your legs to get pregnant, you should spread your legs to have the baby". this from a woman. it actually seems that the people with the most opinions about c sections are women, and the most intolerant and judgmental stuff comes from people who have had their child in whatever way they think is better. i just don't understand how people can complain about being given more choices.
who am i hurting by having a c section. one person actually made a mean comment about mothers choosing c sections as being selfish and not caring about their babies.

i can't say i'm completely comfortable with my decision but not because i might want to deliver the "natural" way, but because i'm not comfortable with getting the baby out either way. i wish honestly that i could just burp and she'd pop out. i'm scared totally of all of it, so the c section does not remove the fear. if i could be knocked out completely and wake up feeling ok with the baby there, i'd honestly choose that. i don't think that makes me a less fit mother. the things that could make me a shitty mother do not have much to do with getting the baby out. but it amazes me that there are women out there who think that way.

one of the reasons i chose the c section option besides the cowardly fear of labor aspect is the bipolar issues. i think the worst scenario would be long labor no sleep and then emergency c section because of complications, what could be more stressful, plus the huge stress leading up to labor of anxiety about it. i'm the type who carries stress around and then has an episode from all the collected stress, just like what happened this week. and lack of sleep for a prolonged period of time makes me manic. so i think choosing the c section option is actually also for the baby, so i can be more likely to be able to handle the first moments of motherhood without already being crazy and anxious and manic.

but at this point if i had to have the baby tomorrow i'd be frightened out of my wits. one of the reasons i never wanted to have a child until recently was that i really thought i could not handle the zero hour of getting the baby out of my body. i still feel that way.

it sure would have been nice to go on the internet and read some reassuring comments from other women. there was one reassuring comment from someone who said it was great and she had little pain and recovered quickly. and two friends of mine had no problem with the surgery. i guess i should focus on the real people i know and not the crazy comments from random things on the internet. plus i was born by c section myself and my mother said the experience was great. if i'm this freaked out now i can only imagine how i'll feel when it's time to deal with the reality...

of course i wonder why am i freaking myself out now. i could be just relaxing and trying to find that elusive bliss the media makes you think you're supposed to be feeling while pregnant. or i could be making a fun comic strip for this blog instead of another anxious rant... maybe soon, i hope.

mixed state, hello old friend...

2007-05-18T20:38:00.001-07:00

thanks to everyone for the supportive comments on last post. it was the beginning of an "episode", what i think of now as a mixed state. i had my first mixed state about 9 years ago; up until then i had mostly had either manic or depressive episodes. anyway it took me some time to learn to recognize them on my own but i can say i have gotten pretty good at it. it only took until tuesday for it to really dawn on me that my mood and mind and thoughts and chemistry were not about hormones and pregnancy but that i was experiencing a bipolar episode, a mixed state of depression, anxiety, psychotic thinking and so on. not much mania in there that i could recognize at all to sweeten things up, although there may have been a little hypomania on fri. and sat. before my depressive sunday.

anyway i won't get into the "psychotic" thinking that i experienced as i need a break from it, but i was proud of myself for the most part as tues. when i truly realized this is what's going on, i called boyfriend, psychiatrist and therapist and took pretty good care of myself. since then it's been moments of calm followed by more thoughts and weird scary imagery, destructive stuff i have not acted upon, as well as regular depression and so on. i've just been coping with it by trying not to increase anxiety about it, accept it and go on with my day doing my regular things and work and walking doggie etc. trying to avoid too much stress.

a lot of the stuff of the last post continues to plague me. the only physical thing that's a real pain in the ass, is that i learned in the first trimester that big meals are really uncomfortable and lead to indigestion and all kinds of yucky sensations, but every time i go out to a restaurant for dinner, i end up eating too much and feeling truly horrible, wishing i could throw up. i did that tonight and it's really annoying me that i could not monitor myself and eat less knowing full well this would happen. and it coincides with an easing up of some of the worst mental episode stuff. so i'm annoyed with myself that i am feeling so uncomfortable when i have a lull in the "sickness" of bipolar stuff.

anyway i'm not at the point to take any meds. i'm just riding things out and tolerating the brain chemistry storm... i will try to look at some blogs and comment again soon. at the moment i have no mental energy for anything much. it is soothing to know that i'm still walking and feeding and taking care of elvis. even while feeling like a failure as a mother, i can comfort myself with the knowledge that i'm able to take care of my dog while dealing with bipolar illness, a big accomplishment for me. and denzel has been really a wonderful caring and supportive partner and i know it's not easy for him.

a very anti-maternal mother's day...

2007-05-13T11:11:00.000-07:00

i feel like this would be best expressed in a comic strip but i'm too depressed and lazy to invent something that expresses it.
leading up to mother's day i've been extra into the baby, the baby moving, being pregnant, all that good stuff. i wore the red dress to the wedding and enjoyed being the pregnant woman and talking about the baby's upcoming arrival. i even enjoyed making faces and smiling at the cute 11 month old boy at the wedding.
by the end of the evening i had eaten too much, could feel all the acid reflux making me wish i could vomit all the food up and a small part of me was almost fantasizing about vomiting up the "baby" too. i felt dumpy and uncomfortable and could feel my belly stretching and was envying the non pregnant women there. but that was by the end of the evening.

it all got more prominent and obvious today when i woke up depressed and did some work work for my job and got in touch with the part of me that likes my job and likes my non pregnant former life. i enjoyed working on mother's day and felt resentful of being pregnant. beyond resentful. i've been feeling today like i don't want to have the baby and don't want to be a mother. i know it's all part of the process and maybe hormones or bipolar moodswings or whatever. i've also got in touch with understanding that when i deeply miss my meds it's more symbolic of missing my former identity as a non mother individual.

i don't remember if i have said it on this blog, but the missing my meds is now this: i used to miss the meds during the past year and a few months that i've been mostly "off" them, i used to miss them when i felt i needed them and wanted relief from moodswings, bipolar stuff. that made sense. now it's quite interesting and strange. if i hear or read about someone talking about their seroquel, for example, i'll feel myself feeling sad and missing seroquel, not out of needing it at the moment, but missing it like it was an old friend or family member. same with wellbutrin. for some reason i dont get those feelings about depakote which is also interesting. i don't miss the ol' fundamental mood stabilizer. but depakote was also the main reason for my abortion in 2005 so that may contribute to it, plus i never noticed anything adding to my life or relieving me while taking it. it was the thing to take to avoid problems with bipolar, whereas wellbutrin was there as my friend helping with depression and obsession and seroquel was there to help me avoid the hospital, calm me down and help me feel safe...

so now i'm clarifying for myself that this sadness and missing the meds is kind of like the body obsession stuff and feeling fat and gross at times. it's deeper than the surface meaning. it's really an anger at changing into a mother, losing my "single" individual identity and autonomy and fear of being swallowed up by motherhood and losing my sense of Self.

enjoying my work and other self expression right now feels like a general's last stand in a battle s/he knows will be lost. like a final swan song before i get posessed by the identity of mother that i'll never be able to get rid of, that will be part of me for the rest of my life.

i know it's supposed to feel like a marvelous addition and expansion to my life but i guess i'm fighting it. i've always been the baby of my family and soon i will have to be a mother and adult and responsible and all that that entails.

until then i will allow myself to whine and complain and make my last stand in this battle that my old self is losing, meant to lose and will lose.

red dress and the drawing i posted...

2007-05-09T10:10:00.000-07:00

hi everyone! thanks for all your words of support. i've been sitting here catching up on your blogs and eating a lot of peanut butter and honey on rice cakes. the best is if you have bananas to put slices on the peanut butter and honey. i remember once reading that a movie star ate a lot of peanut butter when she had to get fat for a role. i ate it all the time when i wasn't pregnant and it didn't make me fat. at this point, i've given in to just trying to be ok with the body stuff. i'm going to a wedding on saturday (i'll get to be not just the pregnant lady guest but the pregnant lady with her boyfriend living in sin and having a baby out of wedlock! fun.) and i just might wear the tight red dress i met my boyfriend in years ago. i tried it on last night and he recognized it right away and said all the good boyfriend pregnant daddy stuff like how hot i looked in it. then i neurotically tried to find out if i looked that different, like i wanted him to say "it's the same you just with bigger boobs and a belly." he then said he was only going to give me a few comments every time i put on clothing and bug him about my looks, which was probably a good idea. anyway the point is i think i'll try to go to the party in a clingy red dress and just flaunt my big belly and pregnant body, more for myself to feel good. it's a fun nontraditional wedding so it's the place to wear a red dress!

anyway about the drawing i posted. i was going to do a comic strip but then i suddenly could not think of anything and i had recently made this drawing and showed it to my therapist. he thought and i agreed, that the baby looked very happy and carefree and i looked happy and protective as the elephant mommy. i felt very happy and motherly while making the drawing and it was nice to show the therapist a happy picture as i mostly focus on my own inner conflicts and dark side in there with him... he also noticed that it looked like i was watering the tree with my trunk and that it seemed to be about growth which i agreed with.

i welcome your comments on the drawing even if you see totally different things in it. i debated whether to talk about what it meant for me as i like hearing what you all think just from looking at my pictures without explanation from me, but i felt like writing about some positive stuff about the pregnancy as i am very good at complaining. and there has been a lot of good positive stuff. it feels good to share the joyful part of connecting with her, the baby!

by the way we are past the 5 month mark!!!

drawing of me and the baby

2007-05-08T18:48:00.000-07:00

guess who is who!!!

we're back in comic strip form!

2007-04-30T19:44:00.000-07:00

hi everyone!
finally marlena shuts up her big complaining trap of a mouth and you get to catch up on the important characters, namely elvis and the growing fetus (and denzel, at least through the fetus' point of view...)

a rant... don't know what else to call it...

2007-04-22T08:03:00.000-07:00

while just watching "this week with george stephanopoulos", i was struck by a bunch of iintense thoughts and feelings that came up when the participants were talking about the recent supreme court decision upholding late term aboriton ban. one of the commentators was talking about technology and trimesters and another person said something about calling it a baby and not "fetal matter"...

i don't remember the exact comments, but it got me thinking about my last post in which i referred to my growing fetus as a "baby".

and of course, when they start talking about abortion, i think about my past abortion, which was only a little over 2 years ago.

at first i was thinking, "hmm. what does it mean that i'm calling her a baby..." then i got to my answers. part of what got me angry is the juxtaposition of talking about women (and men, who are often part of the decision, though not always) making a crucial life choice about whether the pregnancy is a welcome one which they choose to follow through with or not, with the talk of the tragic events of the week at v. tech and always the backdrop of the war in iraq where parents have no choice about their young adult offspring going somewhere where they are likely to be killed for no clear reason and to my mind, not a good enough reason to sacrifice one's child for.

for me, being pro-life should mean that you value the life that is living out there and growing up in this world. that you want your offspring to be safe when they go to college, to get proper care that keeps them and others safe if your child unfortunately needs help with emotional pain and mental or physical illness, that your child will not be sent to another country to be killed for false reasons.

i realized that i think of my daughter as my baby already not because she is scientifically already a baby, but because i choose to be ready to be her mother and to want to welcome her to the world as a person. i remember back at the beginning of this pregnancy when we went for the first ultrasound and my former obstetrician (not the one i'm with now) pointed to the screen and said, "there's your pregnancy." it was at six weeks and there was no observation of a heartbeat. i was very upset about it and remember being upset that she called the fertilized egg my "pregnancy" and tried to read meaning into it like, "there probably won't be a heartbeat, she didn't want to get my hopes up or add to my thinking of 'it' as a real embryo or whatever... etc." i realized that i was feeling very irrational and that she was just doing the usual thing of using precise language about the facts, but my reaction was strong because i already had made the choice to continue the pregnancy as i had stopped taking my medications and planned for it.

on the other hand, when i went in to tell her i had to have an abortion because i was on medications that were very dangerous to the "pregnancy", and had no plans to go off the medications (in fact it was at a point where it would have been very dangerous for me to go off them) she also did an ultrasound. it might have only been four or five weeks. she said it was very early and did not specify exact weeks. she did an ultrasound to make sure what was going on and had the sensitivity to not print it out and give it to me. i know if i had been pregnant and in the office that early saying i was going to go through with the pregnancy, she would have given me the photo. it would have been her acknowledgment of our hope that things would work out with a baby being born. her not giving me a photo was her respectful acknowledgment of our decision not to go through with the rest of the pregnancy because of the risks involved.

so part of what i wanted to say just from one expectant mother's point of view having made both "choices" in my life, is that it is intention and choice that creates life that is viable and sustainable, and the first of many choices is the one to continue the pregnancy, but it is by no means the last. i started thinking of my current future daughter as my "baby" long before she was probably even a "fetus" and just an "embryo" or even a "fertilized egg". i called her my baby in the last post because of my choice and my and her father's commitment to her, not because of technology, although technology helps us to see her at 10 ounces looking like a little baby and to see all her organs and count her fingers and toes.

but perhaps if the outcome of that midterm ultrasound had been negative, perhaps if they had found a terrible defect in the fetus, we might have made the decision not to bring her into the world. this would still have been our choice and it would have been based on "quality of life" which i think is part of what it means to think about "pro-life". it would not have been a clear choice that everyone would make; in fact i have no idea what we would have decided as i'm now in "what if" land, but i'm sure others have been put in this kind of position. to me the important thing is that parents have a choice about what they are doing before the child takes its first breath outside of the womb.

once that happens, once the baby really is alive and outside of the mother, it seems that our country, or at least the government, does not take seriously enough the real "life choices" that affect our children. like choices about making guns less easily accessible to people who might kill your child and other choices about sending our children to other countries for dubious reasons to die 18 or 19 or more years after we made the very important choice to bring them into the world in the first place... part of what i'm saying is that our policies about live people need to be a lot more pro-life. in fact i would argue that allowing the potential mother and father to choose whether to go through with a pregnancy on their own and respecting their right to this private decision is ultimately "pro-life" in the real sense of the term as i believe it...

baby's big photo shoot!!!

2007-04-17T12:35:00.000-07:00

here are some images from the big halfway mark sonogram today! in case you could not tell, the baby is....
a...... (drum roll).....
girl!!!!!!!!!!!!

mess...

2007-04-15T16:44:00.000-07:00

where do i start? i've had a shitty day. it's been terrible weather and i've been sitting in front of the computer doing frustrating work that takes forever and in between spending hours on my taxes which are also frustrating and awful. i won't go into detials but basically i've been angry all day and in between felt like bursting into tears. and now the apt. is a mess again and we just had it cleaned yesterday...
poor elvis had a crappy day too due to the horrible rain. his first few walks consisted of standing in front of the building avoiding getting wet and finding a few places to do his business. i just took him for a wet nonrainy walk around the block. he's so low to the ground that even with his coat on he somehow gets a bit wet. but at least he could move around...
my big highlight of the day was searching the neighborhood for ice cream and other foods to satisfy my cravings and bad mood.
time to go eat: grapes, fontina cheese, special potato chips (we discovered this boulder brand on vacation that has amazing flavors like salt and malt vinegar), and vanilla chai flavored ice cream. (i went to 3 places to try to find ben and jerry's new flavor cinnamon buns that is so great and seems like it was invented for pregnant ladies but alas, to no avail...)

2 comics...

2007-04-10T20:27:00.000-07:00

these comic strips reflect the two sides of my life at present. the more healthy support system of two healthy males in the house who express themselves freely and move on without dwelling and festering and obsessing and feeding on their own anxieties...
and me and myself and my crazy mind that gets me into all kinds of trouble...

post vacation blues...

2007-04-07T13:39:00.000-07:00

wow. they have a term for it. did not know that. and with this "post" i even have a double meaning going on, ha ha. posting about my post vacation blues...
ok. resorting to silly puns.
one of the reasons that i avoid going away is that i dread the return. the good thing about this time at least, lookin on the bright side, is that by the end of our stay in new mexico, i was a little tired of travelling and missed just being at home, not to mention of course, missing the doggie.
last time we went away, we were in a little cabin in the woods and it was even worse coming back to the big city because i just wanted to stay away in the woods for the rest of my life.

so on the bright side, this is not the worst "pvb" i've experienced.

so we arrive home after flying on redeye and walk in the door at about 7am and i realize we left the fucking heat on all week. our coned bill is dreadful and horrible every month so this week would have been great to not pay for the fucking heat. especially after i spent too much money on all kinds of fun things in new mexico from gifts to little handmade peices and jewelry etc. and a wonderful hand made doll that was worth every penny spent on it.

i left feeling stressed about money and not having done my taxes yet and thinking i have to get my finances together and be a responsible parent soon and my money situation is not great at the moment. we stayed in very inexpensive lodgings and we're lucky there was a roach in the room of a more pricey place we stayed. denzel complained about it and the other things wrong with the place and we got that night free (a wonderful savings of $66 that i immediately blew at a bead store the next day...) that place had a hot tub, probably the best thing about the place. and it was not too hot for pregnant lady to soak in.

in fact the only time i felt wierd from the high altitude and pregnancy was in the bead store in taos. i had just picked out all kinds of wonderful things and was trying to figure out what not to buy so as not to spend too much money. denzel came in with coffee and i started feeling weak and dizzy and had to sit down. of course he, being the sweetie he is, insisted i just get all the stuff i had wanted and figured it out for me while i sat there feeling faint. i was fine a few minutes later and many dollars later with some water and that was that...

i am basically terrible with money. i am both very frugal and "cheap" in many ways. don't mind in fact enjoy cheap motels. love eating out and trying good restaurants while on this type of vacation (normally with better weather and no pregnancy we'd be camping, sleeping in tent and eating food cooked on the fire, totally low budget) but don't have to go to fancy expensive restaurants. this vacation was a funny combo of low budget fun and then me shopping a lot-- it just does not feel like shopping when you buy little handmade things ranging between 2$ and $40 in little galleries and pueblo shops etc. after having a delightful conversation wtiht the shopowner, artisan, gallerist or whoever, but it all adds up...

it was really a great vacation. we spent most of our time driving through the countryside and in the mountains and stopping in small towns. we saw the gila cliff dwellings and the carlsbad caverns. the caverns were awesome in every sense of the word. i would descibe myself as very spiritual but not too comfortable with organized religion and indoors type of worship in groups, so to me, going into these cavers just felt so much like being in a natural temple that took millions of years of time and absense of humans to create. it was intense. it felt great to walk through the caverns and sense the immensity of time and the timelessness at the same time. stone is the most evocative incredible material. the caves were just so awesome and beautiful and "created" that i felt like i could not look at any human made thing ever again... and it was so great to walk through with denzel and the little one growing inside, of course the metaphor of being inside a big stone womb came up, ha ha.

anyway now back down to earth and concrete and garbage adn no mountains, except mountains of bills and things i've been putting off doing and an extreme mess of an apartment.

but also the little elvis! he got super good care from my parents and he is definitely the best thing about the homecoming. home is not where the heart is, home is where the DOG is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

separation anxiety!!!

2007-03-28T19:49:00.000-07:00

tomorrow i'm dropping elvis off with my parents and training them to give him his morning and evening medications. denzel and i are leaving early friday morning for new mexico. i will have to endure a lovely vacation of one week without my precious elvis.

i will miss him sooo much. i need a vacation extremely badly but i wish it did not involve separation from my most special best in the world little doggie.

my dad gives him excellent walks and he will be fed and looked after. i just get very anxious when i can't see his cute little face everyday.

it's like a catch 22. vacation. opportunity to go to a place i've been fantasizing about for years. and at the same time separation from my special dog who is like my first baby. the baby will be the second baby really.

send elvis extra amounts of love and health and safety so he will be ok while i'm gone. he gets a little droopy when i go away.

he just got his second part of his spring haircut last sunday and he looks extra adorable and ten years younger than his age of 14 and a half years!

so i will miss blogging too for about a week. i'll check in tomorrow as we leave early friday morning... maybe i'll even be able to post from new mexico.

a fantasy moment in bipolar pregnancy...

2007-03-25T07:56:00.000-07:00

finally, a comic strip after a long dry spell...

2007-03-24T20:28:00.000-07:00

head still in the trash...

2007-03-18T23:44:00.000-07:00

my head is still in the trash, metaphorically speaking.
i was going to do a comic strip today. i had some ideas and denzel even had a funny idea based on a self-deprecating remark i made about how i'd even lose if i was a contestant in the depression olympics.
i managed to make it to yoga class but then spent the day napping on the couch.
then later tonight could not get to sleep of course, so now it's even later than last time i posted. it's 2:45 in the morning.

meanwhile the more often i post the less i feel like people read my blog. thanks to the few who do comment, i really do appreciate your support. i feel like ever since i've been pregnant and depressed and whiny, the men who used to visit and make comments have gotten sick of or bored with my blog. so i'm also trashing myself for not being popular and not doing a good enough blog...

i should just do a comic strip now but i have no creative energy.
just getting through each day, doing as little as possible as things i need to be doing pile up and everything gets messier and messier and more and more disorganized.

but i'm just trying to follow my psychiatrist's backup's advice to take it easy on myself and lower my stress. seems to involve doing very little whatsoever. i guess elvis is lucky he's getting his walks and my teeth are lucky i'm still brushing them.

late night post...

2007-03-16T21:42:00.000-07:00

it's actually sat. early almost 1am my time... happy st. patty's day. actually i'm not too psyched about this holiday. love the irish but i live on a block with an irish bar that gets annoyingly rowdy, spilling onto the sidewalk, on regular weekends. it's not fun going out there to walk elvis and having to deal with rude underage drinkers. so st. patrick's day is extra awful adn there will be vomit on the sidewalk to avoid especially while walking the doggie...

i decided to alternate comic strip posts with writing posts and hope to post about twice a week as i need the extra support. it's been a very tough week, dealing with moodswings, no meds and additional stress of pregnancy emotions and whatever hormones are running around in me.

my head is back on, did not end up in the trash!

i went to see my psychiatrist's backup. he's on vacation. she was great, very supportive and nice, spent an hour wtih me on wed. and gave me her cell number in case of emergency. we talked about possibilities of taking medications but none of those options were too great and i was managing to cope better by then with the depression and extreme anxiety and fear of losing it/falling apart/getting into a mixed state.

basically prozac is safest but could cause mania. then i'd have to take haldol which gives awful side effects and makes it impossible to function. (i took it for two days this summer and had to stop...) and i can't take cogentin or the other meds to get rid of those side effects...

so it seemed best to follow her other recommendations to replace medication. such as going to therapy again, which i was already considering, lowering my stress and avoiding watching emotionally difficult movies and shows, avoiding stressful conversations and allowing myself to relax, not trying to accomplish too much, being nicer to myself, going to yoga, etc...

so i'm returning a few netflix dvds that seem like they'd be disturbing. started therapy with a new person yesterday. (probably will put something in the comic strip about that.) he seems very nice and comforting, just what i need right now... and i've been allowing myself to be lazy, sleep late, take extra naps etc.

elvis is always a good relaxing being to hang out with and certainly the least likely to get me into any kidn of stressful conversation!

and denzel has been super extra sweet. brought me two bouquets of flowers, calling to check in during the day, sitting with me at night, offering to get me a prenatal massage, buying special juice and foods that i like etc...

the worst of it is over. just need to chill out and recognize that being pregnant on no meds is no picnic...

to end on a good note: great pregnant find, my new favorite juice: all natural cranberry and pomegranite, organic, yum!

trash head...

2007-03-12T19:35:00.000-07:00

up late can't sleep

2007-03-07T21:58:00.000-08:00

up late. can't sleep. anxious. going to the baby doctor early tom. morning. about half an hour ago saying goodnight to denzel i got a weird chestpain and shoulder pain and couldn't stop laughing, especially when denzel thought i was having a heart attack. i'm pretty sure it was not. i never heard of anyone getting heart attack pains and then being unable to stop laughing. it went away.
anxious about vacation we're trying to plan but we're both disorganized last minute people plus i have anxiety about going away and leaving elvis even in the good care of my parents so i procrastinate for that reason. we were going to go to hawaii but it's too expensive so we're probably going to new mexico. i've never been there.it's extremely dumb to have conversations about planning a vacation when one of you should already be asleep (him).
i should be asleep too because of the doctor's appointment. i usually get extremely anxious before going to any kind of dr. appointment but i feel a bit better this time because i really like the doctor and we just got the good news about the cvs test.
i should just go to sleep as i have nothing interesting to write and i just can't get to sleep partly because i skipped yoga class and took a nap earlier.

i have terrible time motivating to do any form of exercise. i changed yoga studios to go to one about one block from where i live and i still have huge issues getting my ass out of the door. i skipped my sunday class too.
i'm just in a real blah mood. hoping it will be gone by tomorrow.

WEIRD DREAM
this morning early i woke up from a weird dream that i was on a big 747 plane that was supposed to be taxiing in the runway but it had too much stuff on the plane, was too heavy, and was veering to the sides like it was going to fall over, more like a drunken person who can't stand up. it was quite scary. then they were taking things out of the plane to make it lighter so it could stand better and move without falling (it was on the ground on the wheels, not in the air). i suddenly realized i had left elvis in some other part of the plane and panicked about finding him and worrying he was not on the plane or something. i went and found him and picked him up and was much relieved. by then i was so focused on finding him and reuniting with him that my anxiety about the plane falling over and crashing was not there anymore.

hmm. if the plane represents my psyche, i'm not in control. someone else is driving it and it is not in balance. is it also anxiety about my body on its way to getting too heavy and feeling like i'm not in control of it and like i won't be able to go where i need to, that i'll fall apart from being pregnant and lose sight of the core of my pre pregnant self (symbolized by elvis, my inner child and instincts and innocent side, or the part of me that needs someone else to look after me)??? am i carrying too much baggage ha ha??? no longer able to get the last leg of my journey done and be safely on the ground???
do i feel separate from some important part of myself...
any other suggestions?
what will i dream next as i'll have to go to sleep before morning.

finally, it's up or, better late than never...

2007-03-04T19:37:00.000-08:00

here it is... the comic strip i drew last week that i've been too lazy to color in or scan. note the ridiculous drawing skills, my tits are practically coming into my throat in the second frame... obviously not a realistic rendition. and i should have made my hair look better as the one great improvement to appearance i find in pregnancy is thicker hair (denzel would disagree with me here as he is constantly doing the good expectant father thing of telling me i'm looking super sexy.) anyway something comic strip wise is better than nothing. actually today denzel suggested i call the comic strip "the hourly catastrophe" as i guess my anxiety is up!

i don't know what to call this...

2007-03-03T21:03:00.000-08:00

i don't know what to call this post or what to call what goes on in my mind. what a strange day, at least the end of it. at the end of the shower i threw for a very pregnant friend, i randomly opened this book i have, frederick frank's "art as a way" to show someone about his method of art and zen and came across these old lost peices of paper i had ripped out of the book and written on during my first manic episode about almost 19 years ago. i didn't look too closely as it was really creepy and crazy stuff, though there was a nice photo of me i had ripped out of my high school yearbook, a friend at the party gave me a lovely compliment by saying i hardly look any different. i may be more sane now but i'm also more vain!
anyway i just looked at the pages and read them and they brought me back to how super psycho beyond just mania i had gotten at that time. i probably wrote that stuff the day before or day i ended up in the hospital.

well the weird thing was after the party i forgot about the pages in the book and eventually went off to see a movie by myself, "little children". i was not prepared for it. i like kate winslett, i'm a big fan and go to all her movies. i just thought it was a typical movie about a dissatisfied lonely mother who has a suburban affair. instead, i was transported into the world of the minor character who pervades the movie, ronnie, the mentally ill guy recently release from jail who is a child molester. ( i think in the book it's more spelled out that he molested someone and in the movie they suggest he flashed a minor but they don't get too specific although he's obviously done some creepy things.) so there i am expecting to just be watching a modern day madame bovary but instead the intense part of the movie involves this guy. i wont' give it away in terms of what happens, but his character is well written, to the point where i really felt for this lost lonely alienated guy who lives with his mother and can't be a "normal" person. after seeing the movie, i was so disturbed by what happens to him that i started to feel "crazy" myself. i just started getting this familiar feeling of feeling like i'd been doing a great performance pretending to be a functioning adult and suddenly felt like i did when i was crazy. it's hard to describe. i managed to call denzel and get home and talked to a good friend who had read the book and understands a lot about my bipolar stuff.

now i'm feeling a little more grounded but was weirded out when i remembered seeing those pages from the past and took them out before writing this post. among all the disturbing psychotic stuff on the pages there are some funny things i wrote like" TRY TO BE MORE CONFUSING THAN I AM" . it's all written in capital letters. on one page i glued a picture of janis joplin who was my idol at the time and wrote some weird stuff about her becoming part of me after she died. it's too embarrassing to quote the stuff in these pages. i can't throw them out though. somehow they feel quite poignant, a reminder of a former self who still resides somewhere in me.

i just wonder what will happen one day if my child sees that stuff. i'll certainly keep it hidden so the child would only see it many years hence when i'm dead and s/he's reading my old journals and seeing how crazy his/her mom really was...

truly it is hard to convey the extreme intensity of what i felt after seeing that movie. it's happened before, like with the movie "a beautiful mind". objectively i did not like how the movie avoided some real things about the man and kind of sugar coated things that were too "difficult" like his bisexuality. but the scene at the end when he talks about the price of sanity for him being that he has to ignore and not engage with or listen to his "delusions" the private friends in his mind that he'd been so close to for so many years of his life, that got to me a lot. it seemed to really express the aspect of loss that occurs with trying to be sane. to be continued. i thought if i wrote about this i'd feel less crazy...

lazy lazy lazy pregnant lady...

2007-03-02T21:45:00.000-08:00

hi everyone,
thanks for all the great comments. i can't believe i've been so out of it and unable to keep things going that it's been a total of 12 days since my last post...
i even finally did a comic strip a few days ago but i've been too lazy to scan and upload it,
so i thought i better get something up here now before people give up on visiting this blog. i seem to be more paranoid, or at least caught up in fantasizing that people are thinking things about me, a sort of sign of grand ol' narcisissm...
elvis told me to get off my pregnant ass and post. he's in fine form, actually sleeping soundly at the moment as is denzel. it's almost 1 am and i have the end of my 12 weeks insomnia can't get to sleep at night thing going on. same thing happened last night. i chose to lie on the couch and watch "little miss sunshine" again while finishing a baby blanket for a friend.

ok, so that's my big excuse! i organized a small baby shower for a friend that's happening tomorrow and then of course this evening got depressed and annoyed at myself as i had no energy or motivation to clean up the place and get it ready for tomorrow. all my ambitions of making fun decorations and welcoming posters went down the drain but i managed to clean up a little.
i'm excited to wear my new dress, green with apples all over it, a recent impulsive ebay purchase, but not so bad as it's worth over $100 and i got it for 25$. can still fit into most of my clothes...

so some updates on the pregnancy:
almost at week 13! that means the first trimester almost over and the fun best one begins! i hope i'll have more energy. the indigestion has subsided a lot. i've been lucky to have no morning sickness at all, just my regular awful excema and IBS that i had before anyway.
so far no mania, just a bunch of ups and downs with anxiety and irritability, grouchiness, mild dips in mood that don't last long and some nice sunny happy feelings and lots of good days, i am grateful for.
plus the big news i'm grateful for is that the CVS test came out fine. no genetic abnormalities, and since i got it out of the way about a week ago, i won't need to have an amnio!!! super good news for me as i'm super squeamish.
the CVS was stressful but i wont bore you with the details. highlights were dealing with an overly full bladder, having it done with a needle in the abdomen, and getting to see the little one moving lots beforehand...

i'll post the comic soon and you can read about my fascinating cravings. pickles and mint chocolate cookie (ben and jerry's of course) ice cream are the very latest. i love ice cream anyway but the baby is definitely into the mint flavors which i do not normally go for. i tend to go for chocolatey flavors but the baby has not been wanting any of that...

the newest odd thing is feeling like my belly is really expanding. at times i am kind of delusional and think it feels and looks gigantic already. then sometimes i look in the mirror and see that it's not that much bigger and most people who don't know me would have no idea i'm pregnant. it, the belly, feels much different though. it's a bizarre sensation, i'll try to describe it in a comic strip soon. it's also funny at times i want to tell total strangers that i'm pregnant, most of the time i refrain. there's a weird back and forth between wanting it to be obvious and feeling like it's too early to look really pregnant and wanting it to be a secret that isn't physically obvious and only my friends, family and blogfriends know about it...

also, we just found out the gender because the CVS test shows all the chromosomes. but i'll wait to do a comic strip about it and keep you in suspense to make sure you have reason to come back soon!
sorry for the text. i know the pictures and color are more exciting and a quick read.
elvis will be back soon in full form. his spring grooming is coming up in a week, so that will be big news...

oops... we missed last week's post...

2007-02-18T14:10:00.000-08:00

we'll post again this week soon to make up for our laziness. the cold weather and pregnancy mixed together make for procrastination and frequent napping...

100 things about me and elvis...

2007-02-08T07:50:00.000-08:00

i see people do these lists and thought i'd try one. but please read the comix from yesterday's post and comment there as it was a very big announcement for me!

1. i am pregnant and due in sept. of 2007
2. the baby will be a virgo born in year of the pig
3. elvis is a leo born in the year of the monkey
4. i am not married and don't want to get married
5. denzel and i will be together until one of us dies
6. i'll probably live longer
7. i think i will live to be about 111 years old. i had a psychic premonition about it.
8. i was depressed in high school but did not tell anyone
9. i went to a therapist for the first time my second year of college
10. i had my first manic episode when i was 20.
11. i became psychotic and was hospitalized.
12. i had another big episode several months later when i was travelling.
13. i was hospitalized in a clinic in paris.
14. the clinic in paris was good. the hospital in new york was awful.
15. in new york they tied me to the bed in a room alone.
16. i thought i was in heaven waiting for everyone in the world to die.
17. after everyone died my ex boyfriend i was still in love with was supposed to come and rescue me.
18. i started taking lithium after the second hospitalization.
19. i was diagnosed with bipolar 1 disorder.
20. i was put on haldol during both hospital times.
21. haldol sucks. i felt like a zombie.
22. i was still manic after i got out of the hospital in nyc.
23. since then i have had many manic episodes and mixed states but never gone to the hospital again.
24. i found elvis in a pet store when i was manic.
25. this is exhausting and i'm only on number 25.
26. when i was five i told my mother, "i'm never getting married and i'm never having kids."
27. i'm afraid of needles, procedures, examinations and doctors.
28. i quit therapy about two years ago after 12 years with the same therapist.
29. i got pregnant a year and a half ago by accident and had to have an abortion because of the medications.
30. i went to a group therapy of people with depression and bipolar in 1999.
31. i talk a lot but i'm shy and don't like meeting new people.
32. i'm more comfortable with being around one or two people.
33. i hate going to big group dinners.
34. i've always been very rebellious and don't like being told what to do.
35. elvis hates rain and baths.
36. when elvis was a puppy he was scared of canes and umbrellas.
37. elvis is very jealous of denzel.
38. i don't like going away because i don't like leaving elvis behind.
39. i am very vain about my hair.
40. it's been less curly now that i'm pregnant.
41. i hate the cold weather.
42. i am lazy and procrastinate things.
43. i like lying in bed and hiding from the world.
44. i've become more open to country music.
45. i'm listening to roseanne cash's new album black cadillac right now.
46. i have a terrible sweet tooth.
47. i don't like exercising and have not done any in months.
48. i love walking everywhere.
49. i hate driving and don't have a driver's license.
50. i failed the driver's test twice a long time ago.
51. i don't have any motivation to get a driver's license and enjoy having other's drive me places if i have to get in a car.
52. i'd like to live somewhere that has no winter.
53. when i was in college i said i was never going to move back to new york.
54. i moved back to new york several years after college and have been living here ever since.
55. i love taking baths.
56. i love camping outdoors.
57. i have a phobia of going away from home and have to be forced to go on vacation.
58. elvis cannot go up and down the stairs because of his back and knees so i have to carry him.
59. elvis is one of the top ten reasons for getting up in the morning.
60. if i did not have elvis i would truly be out of shape.
62. i'm not sure how i will take elvis and the baby out at the same time as i have to carry both down the stairs.
63. i'm afraid of post-partem depression.
64. i never thought of myself as maternal until now.
65. i've had fantasies of giving birth to a dog.
66. i'm hoping to have a girl but of course a healthy boy will be just as great.
67. the times i'm most anxious about are the first year of the child's life and then the teenage years.
68. i think the happiest year of my childhood/teenage years was age 7.
69. i have tried lsd and psychedelic mushrooms and some other things.
70. my lsd trip was really crazy and intense and later i realized it was similar to a manic episode.
71. there are a lot of things i could say on this list that i will not.
72. my first crush on a famous unavailable person was david bowie.
73. my first crush on a real unavailable person was a friend of my brother's. i was four years old.
74. my brother is nine years older than me.
75. the first person i kissed was a scottish boy two years younger than me.
76. i was sixteen and in germany on a summer program.
77. i had a crush on a sweedish guy my age and wished it had been him.
78. elvis bites the air repeatedly when he wants a walk.
79. elvis does not mind this cold weather.
80. i wish i had a backyard for elvis. he is so happy to go outside.
81. last time i was manic i cried because i felt so bad that elvis' life is so limited.
82. last time i was manic i got a whole idea for a story from taking elvis out and staring at the pee from other dogs on the sidewalk.
83. i still have not written and made the pictures for the story.
84. it's called the grey day.
85. about ten years ago i got an idea for a children's picture book called "the flying poodle".
86. elvis was the main character and he flew places.
87. his owners in the book hired a medium to follow him in a magic chair to find out where he was going.
88. i start many things with good ideas and manic enthusiasm but then give up on them.
89. i feel dissatisfied with my success thus far in life.
90. i wonder sometimes if i had not been bipolar would i have accomplished more of my goals by now.
91. i like taking days off and staying home wasting time and hanging out with elvis.
92. i sometimes think of myself as an underacheiver.
93. i am afraid of certain people reading this blog and figuring out my real identity.
94. i'm craving a cappucino right now.
95. i love watching old movies from the 30's.
96. if i had a past life i was around during the 20's. i was a silent movie actress and died young.
97. i am not and have never been a morning person.
98. at one of my jobs i'd have to get there by 8:30 and i would find time in the morning to lie on my coat in my office and nap.
99. i feel very blessed and happy that i'm with denzel and we're having a love child!
100. elvis is one of my top inspirations to be a better more loving person.

Big News: Comic Strip Changes Name!

2007-02-07T20:58:00.000-08:00

my super duper guacamole

2007-02-07T04:14:00.000-08:00

i'm not a great cook but i make a few really tasty things including the great salad i made at the party as well as this guacamole. it's pretty simple but very delicious:
avacadoes, as many as possible, scoop out the "meat" and mash it with a fork
red vine tomatoes, chopped up
red onion chopped up
cilantro
lime squeeze and mix it in
sea salt
pepper

mix all the ingredients together with a fork.
yum!

Yes we're back but cannot post comix today...

2007-02-07T04:07:00.000-08:00

hi everyone,
denzel helped me switch my old system on my mac but I have not yet copied all my programs so i cannot scan a comic strip yet. of course my lazy self has not drawn the strip i admit. my excuse is that we both had birthdays and threw a fun big birthday party this weekend so i was really busy cleaning and running out to the store to get things, baking a cake, making my super duper guacamole and being a fabulous and charming hostess. that all takes up a lot of energy, and then there's the energy of reaching a new age and saying goodbye to the old one. denzel's birthday is two days after mine so we have a shared birthday party. it was very aquarius, i put a "happy birthday aquarians" sign on the cake as the party was two days after his birthday and it was a guest's birthday that day and a few other people had just had birthdays or were about to. we aquarians like to celebrate the inclusive collective...
elvis' birthday by the way is in july. he's now about 14 and a half. he says woof to everybody and he'll be back as soon as i get things rolling on this computer.
so check back with us this week as we plan to post a fun announcement! got to keep up the suspense...

better late than never...

2007-01-30T11:00:00.000-08:00

a new habit recommended by elvis! fun!

2007-01-22T20:37:00.000-08:00

hi everyone! thanks so much for the supportive comments on the last pathetic post! they made my week.

elvis did not want to be associated with my self-pitying pathos, and he is back for this week's post and felt that my head was better left off the page as everyone has had enough of the craziness inside it, plus you saw it big in last week's second frame.
so here from elvis more important things to spend one's time thinking about and doing. he recommends everyone try his old, tried and true habit that he continues to delight in after years of repetitive slurping! enjoy and let us know what you tried licking and how the experience was for you...

Color!!! What inspired this crazyness???

2007-01-13T17:12:00.000-08:00

ok. wow! three comic strips in a matter of a few days! what's going on with me?
i'll tell you what's going on. i went off wellbutrin and i'm feeling super insecure and down and like a total loser now that i missed last sunday's self-imposed posting deadline and nobody's visiting and reading my blog. nobody likes me, everybody hates me, i think i'll eat a worm...

so i thought i'd add some color to attract people. i'm the baby of the family, youngest of four, and used to getting attention so it's hard for me to feel so undeserving and unpopular. i rack my brains, was it the porn name contest? was that a sick thing to do even as a joke and did it turn people off my blog? perhaps i just suck.
anyway i'm still trying to see if anyone does read this if it is ok to just click on the image and read my hadnwriting to read the comix, rather than my typing up all the dialogue...
boo hoo. my pathetic self is going to go visit other people's blogs and try to figure out why mine is so unpopular and doomed to failure. self pity party today, that's me...

we're back! don't give up on us!

2007-01-11T21:19:00.000-08:00

the daily catastrophe is back!
sorry folks, i've been lazy and disorganized, no good excuses but i made two comix for this week's post to make up for it. thanks to all who read last week and contributed to the contest. results will be announced soon. if you have ideas to contribute, there's still time!

click on each image to see it enlarged and read the comic strip. i've gotten lazy and thought i'd try seeing if people can read my handwriting if they click on the image, so i don't have to spend extra time typing out the words. this will give me extra time to draw more comic strips.

oh i forgot to put in the comic strip, i missed my psychiatrist appointment on jan. 2 because i forgot to add it to my new daily calendar for 2007. now you get a full picture of how disorganized and out of it i can be... i'll have to pay for the appointment as i did not realize i'd forgotten until the next day!!!

happy new year, hello 2007!

2007-01-01T14:31:00.000-08:00

hi. i am posting 2 comix today despite feeling depressed and tired and unmotivated!

the daily catastrophe
first comic strip of 2007
jan. 1, 2007

frame 1:
marlena: hi all! happy new year! this year i have made no resolutions.
elvis; she drew me too fat and misshapen here.

frame 2:
marlena (off frame): by makig no resolutions i avoid disappointing myself and wallowing in self-criticism
elvis: better. captures my puppylike good looks.

second comic strip of 2007!
jan. 1, 2007

frame 1:
ok. the suspense is over! announcing our first official competition...
elvis: a few posts ago, mo suggested a competition to come up with a porn name for me, elvis!
great idea, mo, though i will not do a film!
below frame:
elvis: as you know, a porn star name should capture my adorable super canine sex appeal...

frame 2:
marlena: as you know marlena rivers is knd of like a porn name though it is not my middle name followed by the st. i grew up on... (the usual formula for figuring out your porn star name, fyi or you can use the name of your first pet as the last name)
anyway, write in your ideas, in 'comments' and we'll decide on a winner!