New Year, Same Old

How can I feel in any way hopeful for a new year when I’m shredded to pieces a few hours before midnight. The night previous I went with my friend to the emergency room and marinated for 8 hours in God only knows what kind of pathogens during a pandemic. I foolishly believed this alone would give me a pass for whatever near future transgressions I would commit. I was wrong.

The nurse practitioner suggested something was elevated by 300 points, which could indicate congestive heart failure, but people have had readings in the hundreds of thousands. “Follow up with your primary,” said the NP, who was eager to go off duty. My friend wanted a covid test and the RN was pissed, so it seemed she used just a bit more vigor than necessary, as though she wished to hit my friend’s medulla. Some tech practically dug into her veins and didn’t get blood at first. It was a farce, the whole thing. And it didn’t help that my friend’s sunshine disposition was showing itself.

There was an old man with dementia who continuously made noises and she said in a jesting voice ( but not really) “can’t they give him something?”

The intake area was filled with all sorts of people young and old passing through. A psych patient kept asking everyone who passed by if they were a nurse. Some tersely said no, others completely ignored her. One tech took her purse and put it at the nurse station because she was afraid someone would steal her meds. When she finally got a nurse she begged to be put somewhere else because she was afraid to be out here with all these people. My own paranoia whipped up and I was afraid she was scared of me. She had changed seats, but during Covid that’s understandable. Finally someone came for her and they ushered her along as she told them she had talked suicide 30 times. “Tell the nurse,” the escort said.

Another fellow with an injured arm who could barely walk or hablarse íngles almost got served by a cop, but since he couldn’t understand, 5-0 went in search of his family.

A woman, likely a hoarder, had brought a bunch of stuff with her, and an EMT helped her carry it to a sitting area. The last I saw of her, she had commandeered a wheelchair and was arranging everything on it. I surreptitiously snapped a photo.

But to my sin. I asked my friend the next day if she got the results of the covid test. They were negative. We had hoped it would be positive, because the elevated fluid or whatever it is can be brought on by infection.

I was trying to figure out what I was going to do for the evening, and I was afraid if I didn’t ask her if she wanted to do something for New Years Eve that she’d be upset. So I asked her if she wanted to do something. I didn’t hear back, so I ordered a pizza.

And then it happened. As though I lit kerosene. ” The proper question would’ve been, how are you?”

The conversation followed a similar trajectory to the other times she’s been mad over me not doing something right. I lack empathy. That I’m missing a chip upstairs. Wait until I’m sick and it won’t be pretty.

I try to apologize, that I thought she only felt bad if she exerted herself. I wish I could convey how upset I was by what she was saying. I kept wishing I was dead intermingled with rage. I risked my health to be with her. Not many would. She knows I’m pretty sure my mom got the pneumonia that killed her in a hospital waiting room.

There were reminders of death as we waited. Two code Sepsis rang out, a protocol not started until almost a year after my mom’s death. I suppose Oscar probably heard his Code Sepsis over the intercom. We also heard two people code blue.

I’ve always hoped I’d be the first to go since I’m huge and not needed much. I don’t want to be alone again. Everyone leaves one way or another.

Alone

I haven’t spoke with my BFF since the 27th. That is, I haven’t spoken to her where she deigned to reply. One day, I felt particularly desperate to not be alone, so I made small talk in messenger: “Hey, they shot an 18 year-old here the other day by the mailboxes.”

Nothing. Not even her regular, “The people living there are animals.” I guess I really messed up if I don’t get to hear her denigrate my apartment complex, the entire southeastern United States, or virtually everyone she ever knew.

I’m actually worried about her. I check Messenger every day to make sure she’s OK. If she needed something/someone, I’m confident she’d let me know.

I worry I will wind up an unattended death, or evicted, or with a life-threatening disease, and no one will be there for me. It’s an overwhelming fear.

I worry about my impulsiveness when I’m really upset, that I get manipulative the more upset I get. I don’t mean to, but it is an extreme character flaw of mine, and I really need to work on that.

I wish she didn’t think I tried to turn her boyfriend against her. I did no such thing. The one time he threatened to leave, he was fucked up, and she had been nasty to both of us on Christmas 2019. The other times, he cried that he thought she didn’t love him, etc, and I would try to convince him otherwise.

Misery and Despair

She’s my only friend who exists on this side of the screen and I don’t want to lose her. But about 3 days ago, she began ripping me to shreds again just as bad as she’s ever done. She stopped awhile when I was in a deep depression, but now it’s back in full swing just as I was crawling out of my hole. Everything that could possibly get to me:

• Lazy retard
• My videos are moronic
• I’m a ‘train wreck’
• I’m neglectful of the strays

I’m just laying here miserable and worthless. I threw things, screamed, and just had a total meltdown alone. Then my fucking sorry POS self crawled into bed.

She can be so nice, but I know the slightest thing will set her off. For instance, New Year’s Eve. I forgot to tell her which Dollar General I was at because there are two near me. She made me wait two hours to pick me up in a sketchy area and berated the shit out of me while waiting. And when I’m that upset, I meltdown. The cashier at DG knew. She could see that I was bawling outside, loud anguishing sobs I could barely control. My friend came and had us eat at a restaurant there that she knows I don’t like to go to because the manager thinks I’m trash. I really wonder if I have autism because I totally lose my shit sometimes loudly. My therapist doesn’t think so because I crave relationships with other people.

It’s the Dependent Personality Disorder part of me that will take her shit and not lash out back for fear of being completely alone. I don’t want anyone living with me or making my decisions for me unless I ask, but I don’t want to be alone either. I’d have no one. Honestly, if she lost me, she’d be pretty much alone, too.

She says I have no ambition, but in my heart of hearts, I want to write a blog and articles that people read. I want to become known on YouTube and actually be liked for being a “train wreck,” i.e being myself. I want to feel loved. I want to matter just enough to be worth my skin. I want to help someone.

Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, I got a short form disability review. I’m always afraid of losing my benefits, becoming homeless, and dying in an alley. So, I need to call my therapist first thing Monday. I think I need a squeeze in.

Back in 2012, I was in a mental hospital. I guess things could be worse.

Dependent Evermore

I like to blame my mother for my personality disorder. She’s dead, so she won’t take it personally; besides, it’s traditional in psychiatry. My father, the drunken spermatozoa, no doubt helped, but I never met him.  His absence gives him a free pass, and he is also dead. I suppose I could blame God for making me of a species that desires companionship. The fact that I’m human sometimes makes it hard to distinguish the blur between pathology and normalcy.

If you turn back time to the 2010-2011 me documented on this blog, my life and strife was my mother. I wish she were still with me. I miss her unconditional love very much. There are no substitutions. Everyone else pales in comparison. BUT. She didn’t prepare me for this world. Maybe it was that I was her only child, but she insisted on doing everything for me, and if she didn’t, I probably asked her to do it for me. Maybe it was the two years I completely isolated myself from people my own age, ages 13-15, and I just never caught back up socially.

What’s the point of this post? Besides killing time waiting for the maintenance guy to put some freon in my air conditioner, I guess it’s just to say that I’m miserable, and thought I’d bring everyone along for the kill-joy ride. My main problem, besides it being 85 degrees in my apartment, is my fear of my friend abandoning me. I got really upset over the weekend, she berated me, which made everything far worse, so I stayed in be for a couple of days. I fed the strays by my house, but I didn’t feed the strays by a doctor’s office.. I think those cats get fed everyday, or virtually everyday by the doctor, but it was still bad of me not to go. She won’t forgive me and I feel lost without her. I just feel terrible and weepy. I feel like life is hopeless without  her, and that’s probably my personality disorder. We talked all the time and she’s virtually withdrawn from me. It’s driving me crazy like when my ex-roommate (ca. 2012, for those of you following along at home) would give me the cold shoulder.

My Mom and I Waited for Calamity

Mother’s dead five years today. The ache is dulled, but there. I feel it should be an eternal darkness over my soul as a justice to her and to atone for my flaws. Why did it end this way?
We worried about each other always. My mom fretted if I stayed at the pool after dark lest someone come molest me. The gazebo they built out at the back of our complex, she begged me not to go lest someone molest me. When I’d talk about how I’d like to have a driver’s license  to go to things at night, like fireworks at the beach…You shouldn’t go alone.
Don’t go too far from the shore. Don’t even taste alcohol. It’s in your genes!

And the big joke was that I was worse than her. If I couldn’t find her in a store, I panicked. If she went out alone, which was rare, I’d warn her to lock her doors and be careful. I was sure she’d die in a car accident. On the rare occasions I went over to a friend’s house overnight, I’d call twice . If she dropped me off for a day somewhere, I’d call to make sure she got home. My greatest obsession was my mom.
I miss her advice. I miss her always on my side. But I’m also glad to be free. Free from her worries, free from mine over her.
I’d give back my liberty though to be with her again , but it’d be nice if we could’ve been less dependent on each other the next time around.

Pepper to Taste

Ever since my old therapist chucked me due to new Medicaid restrictions, I have a  new therapist named Pepper. It isn’t a pseudonym, her name really is Pepper. I have no idea what her last name is, just that she’s a therapist. I just liked her when I met her during an intake interview and asked if she was taking new clients. So voila. When I think of Pepper, I think of that doll by Ideal from the 1960s. Pepper the doll had red hair. Pepper the therapist has red hair. In fact, if Pepper the doll had an age progression photo done to age her into her late 50s, she could be Pepper the therapist.

Pepper

But let me digress a bit. So new Medicaid restrictions were causing dumping of us ghetto/trailer folk all round. The first to fall was my eye doctor. People on Medicaid apparently do not have eyes. They literally cut all coverage for eye exams, glasses, etc. Well OK.  Next was my dentist. Due to the fire hoops all Medicaid providers must jump through, my dentist dropped all Medicaid folks. Then my therapist dropped Medicaid for the same reason. “I’m just not going to play their game,” said she. I don’t blame her. My psychiatrist, though, was the most emotional about it. Her eyes got watery as she said she really cared about her Medicaid patients, and would do her best to try and keep us. She told me before that she  felt an obligation to my  late mother to make sure I’m OK. Well, OK.

My psychiatrist was determined to find the loophole in the needle that was in the haystack to keep her Medicaid patients. I sometimes wonder if it was the specter of my mother urging her on, though I’m sure she has other far  more likeable patients than me. My mother was the likeable one. The shrink should know, because I drug my mother in with me every time. When I came in the first time after my mom died, she thought my mother must just be parking the car. Awkward. I always had been    intimidated by my psychiatrist, she who wielded the power to diagnose my crazy ass on a whim. My shy, awkward ways, my lack of smiling all made her wonder if I had Asperger’s.  I think she later figured what I believe to be true, my lowwwwwwww self-esteem and fear of doing the wrong thing is the culprit. I get social cues, so next diagnosis please.

Dependent personality disorder. Oh swell. I might buy it and I might not buy it. I’d be more apt to believe it if I didn’t do so well on my own, and for the most part want to be alone. But my past is my past. When my mother was alive I depended fully upon her. When I was with he whom I called my Soul Bro, I thoroughly depended on him to the point of sustaining  emotional abuse. Why do I still see him as the great love of my life? I must be a head case.  I’d rather not be dependentocdbloggergirl.wordpress.com, thanks.

 

And back to Pepper. Pepper is great. Pepper is awesome. I even try to take her advice sometimes. Whereas my former therapist mainly did talk therapy, Pepper is big on cognitive behavior therapy, mindfulness, and shit. I preferred talking and my therapist giving me insight, but OK. She is trying to give me coping skills, assertiveness skills, and learn not to obsess on doing everything to please everyone. Learn how to breathe all mindfully,  be aware of other things going on around you. Cool. Sometimes, however, I must refrain from mumbling, “Lady, are you for real?” Such as the Kitty Cat Exercise.

 

Yes, the Kitty Cat Exercise. One day, I showed up in her office flushed from a hurried walk from my apartment, a good little jaunt. I either missed the bus or didn’t have the fare, and I was late. I apologized profusely, though I am the type who will be late to my own funeral.

Seeing my state, Pepper asked me what my favorite type of water was that I liked to visit.

“A pool” said I, so the idea of me thinking of ocean water and hearing the waves was out of the question, I guess.

“Well, what is your favorite sound?”

“There is nothing nicer to me than the sound of a cat purring.”

This Pepper could work with, so she had me relax, turned on a ‘relaxing sounds’ app on her smart phone, set to purr mode. Then she cut the light in her office out and had me imagine a long-haired grey cat with a bit of white on her nose and me stroking her fur.

I tried to do the exercise, but my mind decided to be a smartass as usual.

That cat sounds like it’s on a respirator.

Then the cat I pictured became Nyan Cat, the animated cat with a pop tart body.

When the exercise was over, Pepper suggested I find such an app so I can do this on my lonesome. I said, “Yes, that sounds like a good idea.” Or I could just go home and pet my cats, same results.

 

One last thing though, and I don’t want to be maudlin, but I had the most bizarre dream. It is in my dreams that I remember I once had a mother, and that my memories of her and my life before she died are my memories.

I dreamed that my former roommates invited me back to live with them when I wished for $250.00,  but I still had my own apartment. Things had not changed though, they were both insulting me and I felt a constant threat of making them mad, or being thrown out of Faux Bro’s life which I was paying to be in. Philippe was with me. If you remember, Phil was the cat they wanted to keep as their own, the other two my nurse had to retrieve from the pound.

Then I found myself at the McDonald’s down the street, a place I had gone to get away from that oppressive environment sometimes during the final days. And there sitting waiting for me was my mother, my dead mother, which I kindly reminded her of her state. “Mom, this is a dream. You’re dead. You can’t really be here. Please stay.”

At the end of the dream, I venture back to my own apartment with Phillipe in my arms. 

 

Thanks for reading and I’m sorry I haven’t been around here or at your blogs, will do  better. XOXO

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