Celebrity Rehab
My latest television obsession is Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. It’s like watching Surreal Life and Intervention at the same time. The celebrities are mostly washed-up as far as stardom goes but most seem to really want to make a change in their life. The exception being Jeff Conaway whose slurred mumblings, seizures, DTs and vomiting spells STILL don’t create the fire under his seat to want to change. Also, the Baldwin brother drives me batty with all his creepy ‘I’m the therapist, too’ talk and guilt trips he tries to put on other people. It’s obvious he’s been to a lot of therapy and he knows how to talk the talk but he just doesn’t do it well. He doesn’t really know how to help people, he just knows how to make them feel guilty.
I watch Celebrity Rehab with the same fervor that I watch Intervention or any documentary on eating disorders – I’m reminding myself where I don’t want to be. I’m living proof that you can overcome addictions of many kinds and there is something about watching other people go through the experience that is so compelling to me. I think it’s the same kind of reaffirmation you get from going to AA meetings. It’s good to see people working to overcome and working through their shit.
Dr. Drew’s (who you may know from Loveline) approach reminds me of many of the good doctors and therapists that I’ve been lucky enough to know over the years. He’s straight to the point, no holds barred but all with an air of confidence that you can do it! He centers the patients within a few moments of talking with them and you can immediately see where the reality TV wears off and the real therapy begins.
So much of life (for many people) is avoiding real feelings and situations. And once you start avoiding with drugs or something else, the something else starts to take over and I don’t think you know when it stops being something you do ‘for fun’ and it begins to be something you can’t stop doing. But, one day, you wake up and can’t remember the last weekend or weeknight for that matter that you didn’t get high or get smashed or go home with a random stranger or a friend with benefits and you’re broke and broken and you start to feel in your gut that maybe, just maybe, your life is not really in your control anymore. And then you score some Meth or Coke and forget all about it for a few more hours.
Watching these sex, drug and alcohol addicts coming to a place where they can see how to make changes is absolutely fascinating to me. As is watching them backslide and then try again. I remember it all.
I have nights where I can’t sleep because I’m remembering some of those times where I was willing to do just about anything to score some drugs and I didn’t care who I hurt or what it cost me. I cringe and say some forgiveness affirmations to myself and I try to shut out the visual images in my brain and fall asleep. But usually, it takes a long time to move on from those thoughts to something else. My addiction times have really scarred me and I have no fail-safe way to really and actually forgive myself for all the damage I did. I know it’s not healthy to dwell on it and I know it’s not helping me. But I can’t figure out how to let it go.
Fraud
We’re cleaning up after dinner and I get a text from Sprint. The text says ‘Here is your new temporary password’ followed by a string of numbers. I shrug and show Joe. He logs in online using the temp password and creates a new real one. Our fear? That possibly someone is trying to hack our phone account. We’re both a little bit concerned because we just got a piece of odd mail from sprint the other week showing someone else’s name on our account.
This morning I get a second text from Sprint. This one says ‘Please use this validation number to complete your registration/add phone process.’ Now I’m really worried because it looks like someone is trying to add a new phone to our account.
I call Sprint and wait for literally over thirty minutes for a guy in the fraud department to answer the phone and say ‘Yello!’ which was kind of a shock since I’m used to them answering with their whole I’m so-and-so can I help you thing. I explain to him what has happened. He cuts me off to tell me that no, in fact those texts are from Sprint trying to get me to log in online and create a question and a password to cut down on fraud.
Why, Sprint? Why couldn’t you just let me know what you were doing? Why are you texting me with 140 characters that don’t explain the whole process and your intent and freak me out? How about a phone call? Using, oh I don’t know, a Sprint phone line?
Every Day I Write The Book
It’s so hard to write right now. I’m doing boring things like going to therapy and working on my feelings. I thought about slapping up another photo and calling it a day but then I thought I’d push myself and just see what happens.
I go to therapy every other week. This week we talked about creating some kind of schedule for myself. One of my goals is to get a job and contribute more consistently financially to my partnership but right now, the mere thought of having a job kind of makes me panic. Mostly because I’m currently sleeping about 14 hours per day. My thyroid medication needs to be upped and I get my blood drawn tomorrow. But even when that is taken care of and I’m back to waking up and going to bed at normal times, I still don’t have any kind of consistent schedule.
I’m also afraid to drive very far. Since I’ve been back on medication, something weird has been going on with my eyes and I can’t focus very well out of my left eye. It makes me skittish on the road and that is just not creating a very good driving environment. Additionally, crowds are still making me nervous and I don’t want to leave the house. I worry I’m becoming a recluse.
So, back to therapy – I’m supposed to create a schedule that includes getting out of the house for a good amount of time per day which means I have to drive and be around other people. I think it’s good to move past my comfort level and make some positive changes. It also scares me quite a bit.
I can’t get over this huge amount of guilt that I’m not earning enough money but because I’m not ready for a job yet, Joe is helping me be creative and think of other ways to contribute to our partnership. There are endless things to be done around the house but I don’t think of them right now. There have been times when I’ve been really up on things but right now is not one of them. So he’s going to help me make a list of tasks to be done around the house so I can plan them out when I’m making my schedule for the week. I’m hoping it not only keeps me on some kind of schedule but it also helps me feel like I’m contributing and assuages some of this guilt.
Man, this is probably a really boring post. But it’s all I have in me today. But really this is what is going on in my life right now. I’m relearning how to be a functioning part of my marriage and life in general. I’m kind of amazed when I look back at how I was even just a year ago, at how different I was. My last low manic phase really did a number on me and I hope to never repeat that kind of low depression again.
37
Today is my birthday. I’m 37. I’ve never had a hard time with a birthday until this year. I feel like 37 is so close to 40. And 40 is so close to 50 and 50 is so close to 60 and then Joe interrupts me to tell me he’ll just go ahead and call the morgue in the morning.
I haven’t done anything yet. I want to do so much stuff and I feel like I’m running out of time. I need to create stronger bonds with my children. I’m disappointed that I’m still overweight. My hair is too short. I still have acne. I’ve barely scratched the surface of the web social networking that I want to be a part of creating.
My birthday is always so close to New Year’s that I most often than not confuse the two with all the resolutions in my head. My birthday ends up being a day of promises made to myself that hardly ever are kept. But this year….this year it’s worse.
So for the rest of the day I’m going to do my darndest to try and feel positive. Wish me luck.
Photo Contest!
We’re having our first contest over at Flawed but Authentic. Go and enter!
Christmas Baskets 2007
Yes, I KNOW that Christmas is over but I didn’t post about the baskets we made this year so you’ll have to endure and pretend it’s a few weeks ago.
I made some lip balm. For more info I suggest Not Martha and Blue Arts. Both of them have spent time creating recipes and extra info for people like me and you.
I made an army of little mice ornaments out of kisses and felt and yes – googly eyes. It took forever and I will not be repeating that craft anytime soon or ever.
The fudge was probably the easiest thing to make. I use the 5-minute recipe that just uses chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk and you’re done in a flash. (I can’t find the original recipe but here is a wreath that Rachel Ray makes that is basically the same one if you use only chocolate chips instead.)
The chocolate dipped pretzels were fast, too. I used jimmies, red sugar and chopped pecans to coat the chocolate.
These little paper ornaments were sent out to a few friends. They were easy to make and so pretty on the tree.
I used watercolor and inks to create the trees on the cards. I like how they turned out. It’s watercolor paper that I cut to fit the fronts of pre-made cardstock cards.
Joe made these nice tree magnets using watercolor and business card papers and magnets that are pre-cut for that size.
And last but not least, we included a bookmark that was inspired by Jen Lemen‘s work. I love her downloadable prints. She gave her permission for me to pull together a smaller size for a bookmark to give to family and friends for Christmas.
Not shown for this year was a CD of our favorite Christmas music, some cheese, crackers and salami and Jelly Bellys. Next year, I predict that the lipbalm will be back as will the chocolate things.
Lunch With Diablo Cody
If you’ve seen Juno, you know what a great writer she is. She was also a lovely lunch companion. Our conversation went the gamut and I’m very pleased to have met her. She’s the type of person that is filled with compassion while discussing sensitive subjects and also notices the Hot, Sweet Mustard rich with honey produced by The Beaver Company on the table. It’s a tangy squeeze. I read her book last night. Quite entertaining.
Diablo blogs in a few places. I can’t find her MySpace one, (I found it) but here is the older one at CityPages.
While I Was Out
Christmas came and went as well as New Year’s Day and while they are important days to me, there is one day that came and passed that I didn’t acknowledge that burns in my fingertips to be noticed. That day is my wedding anniversary. Three years ago on the 21st, Joe and I decided to drive to Vegas and ask a midget in a bad wig and too much makeup to integrate our programs together and create a new product – a better product – a life-long product called Marriage.
This past year has been one of the hardest years of my life and subsequently caused quite a bit of strain on our relationship from time to time. Jobs have been hard. The situation with my kids has been hard. Our living quarters have been hard. And when you seriously consider suicide as an option, you know that life in general is hard.
I think it’s safe to say I wouldn’t have made it through this past year without Joe. Even that might be being a bit too generous to my own abilities as I’m leaving out the part that on more than one occasion he’s had to pick me up by my bootstraps and assemble me back together using nothing as a guide except my own distant sighing.
And while I know that I’m more of a partner since the medications have kicked in and I won’t always be having this hard of a time and that there have been times when Joe has needed me in some of the same ways I’ve needed him, I am certainly looking forward to being on equal footing sometime soon.
One night, as we were driving to or fro and discussing one of the many subjects where I feel less than equal and we were getting into that dangerous territory where it’s no longer a discussion and more of a land mine situation where Joe can’t say anything right because my angst is so great, he said, ‘But, Leah, I know all of that – but I love you. I LOVE you. And I don’t think you are hearing me when I say it. I LOVE YOU.’ And something about the way he said it made me stop and pay attention to it. So I thought about it and realized that I wasn’t listening and when I just sat there for a minute and felt his love for me, the rest of everything kind of settled down for a bit and stopped pestering my brain.
Thanks for that, Joe. I feel so incredibly lucky to have you for my partner. Thanks for three years of marriage and five years of being together, that while hard and trying have alternately been wonderful and worth it and mostly have been full of love. Thanks so much for that. I promise to keep trying and keep keeping my body on so I can keep trying. I love you and I’m looking forward to what our 4th year brings to us.
Hello
No, no, I’m not sick anymore. I left that up there for far too long. It was a nice Christmas and a good New Years and I barely had to blow my nose.
Yes, I realize the new header is not up for January yet. Look! A new header!
And how are you?
