So, today is the doctor's appointment.
What's bizarre about me is that for any illness I will invariably have fewer symptoms on the day of a doctor's appointment than on the days leading up to it. It's embarrassing. It makes me feel like I'm doing this illegitimately, that I must not be as screwed up as I thought I was when I made the appointment, that I was wrong and shouldn't be taking up the doctor's time. Sigh.
Which is to say, I had a good day on Friday from sheer force of will, and got a huge project accomplished at work in the nick of time, as then I had to write up my self-review on Monday. Both these things were things I had been dreading horribly over the past few months and still hadn't managed to make headway on; I just got paralyzed. Friday morning, I spent my whole jogging time talking myself into being capable of getting that fucking project done because it had to get done, dammit, and then I had to do the same thing yesterday morning.
I collapsed utterly on Saturday, was dragged out with one of my friends who makes too much eye contact and talks a great deal at a loud volume, we took the friend back to the apartment with us (in spite of the fact that I had been trying desperately to send my Hub subliminal hints that I really, really needed some down time), and I had to keep hiding in the bathroom every hour or so in order to cry, I was so desperate. I was so scattered, I couldn't find the words or conversational pattern to use that would let me say, "Look, I love having you here, but I have to take a nap because my mental pressure is about to make my head blow up." My Hub was determined to have that friend stay as long as possible, because we almost never see her, and so I had the added bonus guilt of being a truly horrible friend because here on this one chance I had to see this person, I was merely tolerating her presence instead of enjoying it, and in fact desperately wanted her out of the house. When she left, I collapsed, I cried, my Hub was confused, we quarrelled, and then I briefly fell asleep. I felt better when I got up, and we managed to kiss and make up before we had to get ready to go to a birthday party.
I managed to make it until about 10:30 PM at the birthday party, and enjoyed myself and the company of my friends. My old college friends and my Hub are really starting to get along and socialize in a companionable way, which is just awesome. Still, we had to duck out at a scandalously early time of the evening, and then promptly fall asleep when we got home.
Sunday: I had tons of responsibilities at church and utterly could not under any circumstances skip it or arrive late. Dragged myself out of bed, dragged myself to church, was overwhelmed, wept in mid-service, nearly fled, collected myself, managed to finish things out and then scurry home, where I went back to bed. The nap put me back to rights a little bit, and then I got a phone call about a friend's family crisis and had to snap myself into shape so that I could be a source of comfort and calm and so I could help take care of things.
Yesterday, I managed to keep myself up throughout the day and complete my self-review. I've been keeping a Word file of my accomplishments over the year, so I stuffed most of them in there and I'm hoping that my occasional month-long stints of being incapable of keeping up with the day-to-day tasks will be unnoticed in the face of my occasional days of sheer brilliance and innovation. Sleight-of-hand, baby. I was already slumping by the time we headed home, barely made it through the errands we had to do, and was looking forward to getting to collapse... and then my Hub discovered that his general feeling of crappiness all day was actually due to a fever. The boy is sick! CRAP.
I can tell that I'm already cutting corners in order to keep myself together enough to support everyone else this week. Bad food choices are the least of these. I'm managing to keep exercising in the morning, but it's always one of those "oh, God, please no, please not morning, I can't do this" things that I just have to slog through and survive. I'm going to pay for this big time, I think. Hell, I already am. Ah, the things I do to fuel myself.
On the up side, my boss is letting the fact that I'll be gone today slide under the table (the "shhh, don't tell anyone and you won't have to take time off" thing... bizarre that I'm more scrupulously honest about this shit than my boss is), and so after my appointment I'm going to go run an errand and go home. So that's good.
Also, I'm utterly delighted by the fact that my Hub, who has previously had no interest in puzzles, will lean over my shoulder when I'm doing the crossword puzzle or sudoku puzzle in the paper, and help. He's getting better at it, too, and since his brain works differently than mine does, we come at these things from different angles. Add another hobby we're developing in common to the short list: walking tours, professional wrestling, cooking, and now puzzles. I had this horrible paranoia back when we were engaged that I had to find us more things that we could do together, or else doom and gloom would occur, and I panicked over it and kept trying to shove us into things... so the fact that these things are developing on their own makes me feel good about the state of our marriage. It seems to indicate that we're sort of growing into each other, instead of ending up as sort of glorified roommates. I've seen a number of marriages where the couple has nothing in common, activity-wise, and they never hang out together, and they either a) fall to pieces, or b) end up like my parents (a relationship which I swear I will never understand, but seems to be long-lasting in spite of its unwieldy and illogical nature).
It also tickles me that these are mostly long-lasting, very basic hobbies. Walking tours are something we'll still be able to do for years, with strollers and then small kids on those scooters-on-a-stick things (kid gets tired, parent rolls it along with the handle: genius!), all the way up until we're those old retired folks walking slowly, pointing and exclaiming at everything. Cooking? Basic, and it's an evolve-able hobby, too. Puzzles are eternal, and will help keep our brains flexible.
I talked to my sister for about an hour last night, and when I mentioned that I was going to see the doctor about possible depression, she said, "Yeah." After a moment, she followed that up with, "There's really no polite way of saying this, but I'd been wondering for a while if you were all right and maybe needed something like that. You've seemed... off." That's two out of three of the three folks who know me best who've confirmed my gut feeling that something's gone wrong in my head.
Oh, I need a nap. Can't do that; am at work. Alas.
Which is to say, I had a good day on Friday from sheer force of will, and got a huge project accomplished at work in the nick of time, as then I had to write up my self-review on Monday. Both these things were things I had been dreading horribly over the past few months and still hadn't managed to make headway on; I just got paralyzed. Friday morning, I spent my whole jogging time talking myself into being capable of getting that fucking project done because it had to get done, dammit, and then I had to do the same thing yesterday morning.
I collapsed utterly on Saturday, was dragged out with one of my friends who makes too much eye contact and talks a great deal at a loud volume, we took the friend back to the apartment with us (in spite of the fact that I had been trying desperately to send my Hub subliminal hints that I really, really needed some down time), and I had to keep hiding in the bathroom every hour or so in order to cry, I was so desperate. I was so scattered, I couldn't find the words or conversational pattern to use that would let me say, "Look, I love having you here, but I have to take a nap because my mental pressure is about to make my head blow up." My Hub was determined to have that friend stay as long as possible, because we almost never see her, and so I had the added bonus guilt of being a truly horrible friend because here on this one chance I had to see this person, I was merely tolerating her presence instead of enjoying it, and in fact desperately wanted her out of the house. When she left, I collapsed, I cried, my Hub was confused, we quarrelled, and then I briefly fell asleep. I felt better when I got up, and we managed to kiss and make up before we had to get ready to go to a birthday party.
I managed to make it until about 10:30 PM at the birthday party, and enjoyed myself and the company of my friends. My old college friends and my Hub are really starting to get along and socialize in a companionable way, which is just awesome. Still, we had to duck out at a scandalously early time of the evening, and then promptly fall asleep when we got home.
Sunday: I had tons of responsibilities at church and utterly could not under any circumstances skip it or arrive late. Dragged myself out of bed, dragged myself to church, was overwhelmed, wept in mid-service, nearly fled, collected myself, managed to finish things out and then scurry home, where I went back to bed. The nap put me back to rights a little bit, and then I got a phone call about a friend's family crisis and had to snap myself into shape so that I could be a source of comfort and calm and so I could help take care of things.
Yesterday, I managed to keep myself up throughout the day and complete my self-review. I've been keeping a Word file of my accomplishments over the year, so I stuffed most of them in there and I'm hoping that my occasional month-long stints of being incapable of keeping up with the day-to-day tasks will be unnoticed in the face of my occasional days of sheer brilliance and innovation. Sleight-of-hand, baby. I was already slumping by the time we headed home, barely made it through the errands we had to do, and was looking forward to getting to collapse... and then my Hub discovered that his general feeling of crappiness all day was actually due to a fever. The boy is sick! CRAP.
I can tell that I'm already cutting corners in order to keep myself together enough to support everyone else this week. Bad food choices are the least of these. I'm managing to keep exercising in the morning, but it's always one of those "oh, God, please no, please not morning, I can't do this" things that I just have to slog through and survive. I'm going to pay for this big time, I think. Hell, I already am. Ah, the things I do to fuel myself.
On the up side, my boss is letting the fact that I'll be gone today slide under the table (the "shhh, don't tell anyone and you won't have to take time off" thing... bizarre that I'm more scrupulously honest about this shit than my boss is), and so after my appointment I'm going to go run an errand and go home. So that's good.
Also, I'm utterly delighted by the fact that my Hub, who has previously had no interest in puzzles, will lean over my shoulder when I'm doing the crossword puzzle or sudoku puzzle in the paper, and help. He's getting better at it, too, and since his brain works differently than mine does, we come at these things from different angles. Add another hobby we're developing in common to the short list: walking tours, professional wrestling, cooking, and now puzzles. I had this horrible paranoia back when we were engaged that I had to find us more things that we could do together, or else doom and gloom would occur, and I panicked over it and kept trying to shove us into things... so the fact that these things are developing on their own makes me feel good about the state of our marriage. It seems to indicate that we're sort of growing into each other, instead of ending up as sort of glorified roommates. I've seen a number of marriages where the couple has nothing in common, activity-wise, and they never hang out together, and they either a) fall to pieces, or b) end up like my parents (a relationship which I swear I will never understand, but seems to be long-lasting in spite of its unwieldy and illogical nature).
It also tickles me that these are mostly long-lasting, very basic hobbies. Walking tours are something we'll still be able to do for years, with strollers and then small kids on those scooters-on-a-stick things (kid gets tired, parent rolls it along with the handle: genius!), all the way up until we're those old retired folks walking slowly, pointing and exclaiming at everything. Cooking? Basic, and it's an evolve-able hobby, too. Puzzles are eternal, and will help keep our brains flexible.
I talked to my sister for about an hour last night, and when I mentioned that I was going to see the doctor about possible depression, she said, "Yeah." After a moment, she followed that up with, "There's really no polite way of saying this, but I'd been wondering for a while if you were all right and maybe needed something like that. You've seemed... off." That's two out of three of the three folks who know me best who've confirmed my gut feeling that something's gone wrong in my head.
Oh, I need a nap. Can't do that; am at work. Alas.
posted by Meg at
8:49 AM
1 Comments:
(hugs)
Hang in there, Meg. You'll find your answers, and you'll get through this. Hope the doctor's appointment goes well for you!
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Anonymous, at 11:21 AM
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