You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October 2008.
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All of the guys that I’ve dated, save one, have felt the need to tell me why I am not worthy of dating them. I’ve been thinking about this tonight and am seriously pissed off. I’m angry because I chose to date these losers in the first place. I’m angry because I had such low self esteem that I felt that they were the best that I could do. I’m angry that I didn’t understand that they didn’t share my values but instead only wanted to get laid and I was pathetic enough to go along with it.
Unless you are a child you can only be used with your consent.
I am angry. I am pissed and don’t know what to do about it. I want to love and be loved but I also just want to punch something. I want to move on but don’t know how.
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Salted Lithium memed me. I’m scared not to respond because apparently if I don’t he’s going to make me play for the Cincinnati Bengals… who apparently suck ass.
The rules of the “6 Random Things About Me Meme”:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.
So, here are six things that you don’t know about me:
- I am amazing when it comes to color. I can pick out the perfect hue of paint or the perfect fabric to match a carpet. It’s a blessing and a curse. *heavy sigh*
- I love beer. Imports, domestic, mostly dark thick stick-to-your-ribs kind of beer. I just finished a Rogue Dead Guy Ale.
- I have a 0 gauge Prince Albert piercing. Oh, I’m sorry was that TMI? See #2.
- I cannot have video games around because I will loose entire weekends to them. It’s like crack. Although I see Fable II has come out…
- I own an enormous collection of cookbooks. I am particularly fond of authors that describe the inspiration behind their recipes. It’s food porn.
The people that I am tagging are: Rose, Whimsy, Immi, Life Worth Living Now, and Melissa. I guess that’s five, not six but I’m feeling a tad lazy this evening.
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Fact: I quit my job. The relief that I am feeling is tangible. The daily pressure, the unreasonable demands and the deadlines are all slipping away into an ocean of calm that is at the center of my being. I’ve known for years that this job is killing me. It’s one of the main reasons that I continue to struggle with bipolar disorder. Yet, I refused to quit as my self esteem comes in large part from my work. The fact that I have been able to perform extremely well in such a high pressure job for all of these years while battling manic depression has been a secret source of pride for me. Even as others are doing similar jobs I would be thinking, “but are they also dealing with medication side effects and mood swings?” I continued to take on additional responsibilities well past the point that one person would be able to do the work. Well, one rational person anyways. They are replacing me with three people! That’s not something that I want to be proud of at all. This only shows how desperate and fearful I have been to make a healthy change for myself.
I will now need to face up to the sources of my low self esteem.
I have managed to squirrel away enough money to not work for six months while I look for something else to do. How cool is that? Not that I really want to burn through all my savings but that’s what it’s there for. My boss is being cool about the whole thing and has even offered to write a letter of recommendation. Actually, except for a couple of friends (who are most likely just worried about me) everyone including my doctor has been very supportive. You see, I have decided to change careers and am continuing to work with a life coach to make this happen. Quitting could be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done yet I am so excited about attempting this.
On the med side, my psychiatrist is getting me off the Strattera because my gap health insurance won’t cover it (a savings of $311). He doesn’t believe that I will experience any withdrawal symptoms from this because I have been taking it as an anti-depressant and not for ADD. It has been his experience that most can get off this drug easily.
I will be switching from the brand drug Depakote ER to the generic Divalproex DR as I continue to decrease the amounts. This will save me about $200 a month. The gap insurance doesn’t cover pre-existing conditions for the first 12 months so I need cheap meds. With these changes I will only be paying about $100 a month, otherwise it would be $670.
I wish that the time that I would have off would be during the summer. However, I will be busy looking for work. I may do some volunteer work to occupy my time as well.
The adventure begins!
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I have pretty much made up my mind to hand in my resignation at work tomorrow. I understand the situation with the economy but I have sat down with a friend who is a financial planner and I have enough saved to make it through May of ‘09 – longer if I take a part-time job while I am looking.
The biggest bite will be for my prescriptions. Currently I pay:
- $25 for a 30 day supply of Depakote ER
- $25 for a 30 day supply of Strattera
- $9.79 for a 30 day supply of Divalproex DR
The gap insurance that I am looking at excludes “preexisting conditions” so it’s possible I’m screwed and will have to pay full retail for my meds. This will cost:
- $303.59 for a 30 day supply of Depakote ER
- $311.29 for a 30 day supply of Strattera
- $54.99 for a 30 day supply of Divalproex DR
That’s a total of $669.87 per month in prescriptions plus $155 for insurance. The cost of paying for the more expensive cobra insurance may actually be cheaper by $100 – $200. I am going to check things out and make sure that the gap insurance won’t pay (99% sure it doesn’t.) If so, then I plan on asking my pdoc about the possibility of switching from the Depakote ER and taking the generic Divalproex DR instead. That alone could save me $200 a month. Then I could afford to stay at my current dose and work to get off the Strattera which would save me a lot of money. I had no idea it was so expensive.
Otherwise, I’m doing well with the last dosage decrease. The extra anxiety that I have may be from the job or the meds or both. Who knows. It’s not unmanageable. I have been pretty down on myself for the last week but with this shitty job it’s not a surprise. I’m scared to death to quit but I know that if I don’t my ulcer is going to come back and worse, I am going to lose my mind.
While I’m having a meltdown about my job, here is something for your entertainment:
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So even my therapist thinks that I should get a new job and it seems like he never wants me to make life changing decisions. He said, “It sounds like you are asking for permission to start looking.” What I was asking was if I should put in my notice now, before I have another job.
You see, another mental breakdown has crested the horizon, gone over the mountains and landed in my backyard. Now it’s staring through the window on the back door. I simply cannot do my job anymore. I am so stressed out from going to work and having people complain at me all day. I can’t do anything to please these people (no one can). My boss says that I am doing a good job but he doesn’t provide me with any support. I know what a breakdown feels like and this is definately the start of one.
I have money saved. Enough to live on for six months in my current lifestyle. The money could be stretched if I were to do temp work. More if I sell my car.
I know that it’s not good timing with the economy the way it is but I have no dependants and little debt as I live well within my means. There are jobs out there. It may take a while to find one but temp work isn’t so bad.
A job is not worth my mental health. Especially now that I am finally doing better. My biggest fear is what to do about insurance.
With bipolar disorder your interpretation of the same events changes from day to day and moment to moment.
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Three weeks into the latest Depakote ER decrease my brain is doing eerily fine. This amounts to about a 125mg drop. I keep waiting for things to go horribly horribly wrong. Reality isn’t paying attention to my fears though and my thoughts are noticeably clearer and there is little searching for words. There has been a slight increase in what I call the “bug” hallucinations. This is where I see small black things running in the corner of my vision. But it’s nothing big. I have these occasionally so it may not even be related.
I am still taking about 750mg depakote and 80mg Strattera daily. I am also taking two teaspoons of cod liver oil. I really am doing well. The last week has been extremely stressful. Stressful enough that a year ago (maybe even six months ago) I would have ended up severely depressed and barricaded myself in my apartment. This time I got through it with what I would consider an appropriate amount of feeling blue and then bounced right back. Today I was smiling at work even when a coworker told me they would never want my job and didn’t know how I did it. I figure, as long as I can smile and feel calm I’m okay. Plus who am I to complain in this job market?
I have been meeting with a life coach which has been going very well. She specializes in creative people. We have been working on ways to bring my creative side out of it’s drug induced coma. I have decided to buy a nice digital camera and see how I can explore my creative self with that. Digital photography is appealing as it takes little physical effort and has the advantage of instant gratification. The meds still make me tired pretty easily so I am not up to anything too physically or mentally demanding.
I will post some photos once I start. Wish me luck.
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I have a strong desire to uproot myself and move to Portland, Oregon. I have never been happy since moving here. Has it really been fifteen years? However, I worry that what I am doing is attempting to run away from my problems. I am going to have to explore where this idea is coming from.
The people here are friendly on the surface and there is a large gay community but it’s next to impossible to make friends unless you grew up here. Almost all of my friends are from out of state. This isn’t just me whining, even my therapist admits that many of his clients experience the same thing.
I was looking at Portland’s GLBT website last night. They have a men’s group that gets together for yoga and another that is running a six week class for men who are looking to find a long term relationship. I checked in my city and there is nothing comparible. I suppose that the proactive thing to do would be to organize this myself. I have the skills. The hardest part would be finding a therapist or social worker to run the group. Maybe I’ll run it by my therapist and see what he thinks.
Those who speak