Nov 16 2013
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OFL, BFF, BOOF! et al

As I prepare to leave nonprofitland next week, I can’t help but reflect upon the people I’ll also be leaving behind.  BFF is the band-aid holding the place together after Our Fearless Leader (OFL) left in August.  BFF has horrible boundaries and desperately craves acceptance from everyone.  I saw a lot of myself circa 2004 in her and I was antipathetic towards her for it.  Now, I’m merely feel sympathy as she’s rounding 60 and may possibly never learn to find value in herself rather than in the approval of others.

OFL’s departure was the reason I ramped up the job search. She was a brilliant leader.  Only in her absence, however, did it become clear how much shock she absorbed by serving as a buffer between the staff and BOOF!  BOOF! is the chair of nonprofitland’s board, pushing 80, and an idiot.  But she’s a dangerous idiot in that her decisions are based on power and in interests other than the people the organization is designed to help. She is a primary reason I’m moving on and I’m grateful that after next Friday, BOOF! will be a person so unimportant, her real name will fade from memory.  Like Diet Coke Guy. His name has been long forgotten in the decade since, but his self-aggrandizing behavior will forever be infamous.

Nonprofitland’s people were not all case studies. I will miss Bagel.  Bagel is the Finance Director.  She is the same age as my mom, a self-proclaimed ‘angry lesbian’, and one of the kindest people I’ve met.  She’s a bagel — crusty and hard on the outside but a big ‘ol softy on the inside.  She’s probably in my top five favorite co-workers of all time.  She and her partner of 24 years ‘married’ on Nov 1 — as they were finally allowed to by the same type of arrogant zealots who wield powerful ignorance over nonprofitland.  It sometimes seems for every act of benevolence there is an equal act of malevolence in organized religion.

This morning, I rose early and excitedly from bed.  The misadventures of BOOF! and BFF are coming to a close in my book of life.  I am delighted to start the next story.

Oct 31 2013
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adventure, reduce

The End of an Era

photo2 The view from the last event I plan to ever plan.

I am retiring from event planning and I’ve found it to be incredibly important to me to pay homage to the last twelve years, even if just privately. I poured so much of myself into this career, it would feel anticlimactic to simply flip off the lights, close the door, and walk out for the last time without honoring it.

But, alas, there isn’t much to say after all. It’s the feeling of finishing the last page of a really good book.  There are many feelings involved and such a gratitude for the experiences,  but ultimately, I’m already looking forward at what’s next as I close this wonderful novel and take a deep and rewarding breath.

xxxx
Event Planner Brilliant Event Planner
September 4, 2001 – November 22, 2013.

Oct 22 2013
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depression, renew

The Best Laid Plans

On August 6 I declared, “The next three months I’ll spend trying to holistically rid myself of this depression through yoga, talk therapy, St. John’s Wort, massage, and exercise.”

What’s that quote? Life happens when you’re making other plans?  Yep.

I have a new thing. I’m sure those closest to me could tally up quite a list of the new things I’ve proclaimed over the years. There was the year I didn’t eat McDonald’s. The time I wanted to see how long it took me to see the license plates of all of the states and D.C. in my home state. Then the times I did Crossfit, trained for the marathon, joined a water ski team, took a pottery class, then a stained glass class, joined a yoga studio, ate healthy during the week and whatever I wanted on the weekend, not to mention the time I only ingested smoothies for lunch or the time I wouldn’t watch television if I hadn’t exercised for at least 30 minutes…

I probably have about a 70% success rate because I did run a marathon, I did ski with a team for two years, I did make pottery and stained glass, I did see the plates of all fifty states and D.C., and I did not eat McDonald’s for an entire year. The most glaring failures have been with food and exercise.  I’m obviously not picking sustainable things for me. Even yoga. I really enjoyed the workout, but am not driven to do it. In looking at the one activity in which I’ve had the most success, it’s running.

Treads has been with me since 2006.  Together, she and I have run two marathons, four half-marathons, and hundreds of miles in between. We’ve run in snow, rain, at 5:00 a.m. to avoid the heat and at 8:00 p.m. because that’s the only time we could. We’ve run through my mom’s stroke, her husband’s unemployment, S’s cancer, the death of her grandmother, an so on. We’ve run in every condition – both environmentally and emotionally.

I’m not successful in running because I like it. I’m successful because it’s something that my living, breathing journal and I do together.  I’m successful because it’s cathartic.  Running gives me the opportunity to release negative or positive energy and then immediately burn it off.

Treads and I will pick back up in March to train for a half and a full marathon in 2014.  But I need to figure out what it is that I will do between now and then. I’m beginning to think the stagnation is a catalyst in my malaise.

I have until November 6 before I said I would see a psychiatrist about antidepressants.  Since it’s my desire to do this organically if possible, I better kick the August 6 plan into gear or, in the least, figure out a new thing that is sustainable and will aid in recovery from this depression.

Sep 01 2013
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mental illness, reduce, Uncategorized

PTSDawhaaaa?

As if it were a few weeks ago, I remember sitting in the office of my brother’s attorney listening to his presentation on the horrors seen by soldiers in Afghanistan. Mouth agape, I watched the accompanying slideshow containing images not one person in humankind should ever see. When I looked at my brother in disbelief, he gave a slight nod and a shrug.  I knew it was bad. I had no idea it was that awful.

He arrived home from two tours and four years in the United States Marine Corps with baggage that included his duffel and a mental illness.

PTSD is something soldiers contract after time spent collecting blown off body parts, after experiencing ‘pink mist’, or after shooting a dog that came too close because it might be unwittingly harboring a bomb.  PTSD is what happens when my brother watched the guy beside him shot in the head by a sniper. It’s what can occur naturally when 6 of 40 soldiers brothers, don’t come home.

So imagine the surprise when the therapist said, “I believe you to have PTSD.”

PTSD?  No way. I’ve never been to war. I’ve never been raped or beaten or seen another person die.  I’ve never experience trauma.

Funny how we see ourselves though. According to her, my life has been saturated with trauma.

It took a little convincing, but the more I paid attention, the more I started to understand.  One of the lifetime mantras that kept me functioning was: Someone else had it worse. Someone else was raped by their stepfather, not just exploited or manipulated into sexual acts. Someone else’s mother left marks when she hit, not just psychological scars.  Someone else didn’t get to say goodbye to their best friend, instead of having the opportunity to make the end count. Someone else’s brother succeeded in his suicide attempt, rather than watching him survive and make a 180-degree change. Someone else’s brother died in Afghanistan, instead of coming home broken. Someone else lost the whole of their mother to mental illness, and I’ve only lost most. Someone else got PTSD from their trauma, where I just have a hard time sometimes.

Someone else had it worse was a mantra of survival. It was buoyant when I might have otherwise sunk had I known how much better it should have been.

I had it bad.  I told my mom that my dad sexually abused me and that was the straw beam that broke the camel’s back.  She was hospitalized in the psych ward for six weeks.  I learned a detrimental lesson at the age of six – if you tell your mom, she will have a mental breakdown and you will be left. Alone. With him.

I had it bad. I used to provoke my mom until she would hit me so I could physically feel what I felt inside.

I have it bad. My best friend is dying.

I have it bad. My mom is so sick and has been for so long.

Mantra be damned. I have it bad.

Aug 07 2013
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You Are Not Important to Me

Being a fan of new perspectives, I was happy to feel enlightened by this video: http://bit.ly/19ObJbA

I am of the school of thought that venting and ‘getting it out’ was a purge of the negativity.  Alison Ledgerwood, a PhD in psychology, disagrees. She said voicing negativity only perpetuates the negativity.  She suggested to refocus on the positive. Instead of talking about the loss in life, talk about the gain.

It’s worth a try. I am a highly critical person and I don’t like that about myself. So in the interest of making a change, here’s what went right today thus far:

  • I woke up next to my favorite person in the world on the first day of the third year of our marriage.
  • Our family grew by one two days ago when we brought Olive home.  She’s a two-year-old black cat that I feel confident we saved from peril at the shelter.  She’s also helping me realize that maybe I can have a kid.
  • I had GREAT pizza for lunch.
  • It is a beautiful sunny day.

Ledgerwood also talked about forgiving. This is a little trickier because letting things go is not an area in which I excel.  I need to work on making the message more positive, but when someone is rude to me, I’ve been repeating to myself, you are not important to me in an effort to let it go. It does calm me down and keep me from fixating on the hurt feelings.  Perhaps, I won’t let your actions affect me instead.

I’ll work on it – all of it.

Aug 06 2013
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depression, reduce, renew

Just Because You Stick Your Head in the Sand…

I’m depressed. And probably have been for years.

That was really hard to admit to myself, much less to my loved ones. With the stigma surrounding mental illness, it seemed less embarrassing to look for a diagnosis of ADD or hypothyroidism than to talk about the white elephant in my head.

Sure, depression seems natural as my best friend and my mom are dealing with illnesses that will eventually take their lives.  But this depression has been flying under the radar longer than that.  The last time I can remember it not lurking around the corner was five years ago.  In fact, I’m fairly confident that I can pinpoint the minute depression entered my life.

September 27, 2008 was a Saturday.  TB and I had closed on our new house on August 15, but it wasn’t until late September that we were actually able to settle.  It was early afternoon and TB and I had been arranging our office.  Still in pajamas, I remember I was sorting books for the shelves and wondering why – if I was going to get rid of a few of them anyway – I didn’t go through them before moving.

My phone was on top of the microwave in the kitchen.  My brother called twice. My mom had a stroke.  It was the kind of news about my mom that I had been terrified of hearing since I was old enough to understand that cigarettes kill.  I used to cry myself to sleep in worrying about her dying in high school. And in college. And after. I didn’t study abroad in college because I didn’t want to be that far away from her if something happened. I spent three hours teaching her how to first, use a computer, and then to send an email before I went to Australia in 2006 because I had to know she was alive every day.

It’s been 1,774 days since that horrible day in 2008.  I would like to dissipate this cloud now.

The next three months I’ll spend trying to holistically rid myself of this depression through yoga, talk therapy, St. John’s Wort, massage, and exercise.  If that doesn’t work, I have committed to seeing a psychiatrist about antidepressants.

I will also acknowledge that it is in part the stigma that is keeping me away from the doctor. I also own that I am being a giant hypocrite in telling my mom, “you would take medicine for diabetes wouldn’t you? Mental illness is just like that. You can’t control this illness anymore than someone with diabetes can control their pancreas.”

In some regards, my mom is far stronger than I.  Oddly enough, that makes me really happy to realize.

Jul 31 2013
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mental illness

Unearthing

On the Thursday night of the glorious week of vacation I took earlier this month, my brother texted me to meet him at the hospital to help him admit our mother.  She was talking very openly about slitting her wrists. She’s never talked about killing herself before.

So, after a wonderful week focused on rest and wellness, the landslide that is mental illness once again enveloped light and happiness and left me covered in muck and debris.

Debris in the form of things that children should never hear: “I want to cut my wrists,” and things children should never learn: “I don’t know why [my kids] love me. I don’t know if I love them. Is that weird?”

Oddly enough, it’s not the debris that poses the biggest and most devastating problems.  The real fallout is the guilt that coats everything like mud.  And for anyone who has used a purifying mask or worked with clay knows, mud will adhere like a second skin and it will suck you dry.

For the past week, I have been unearthing myself from the guilt. Guilt that I don’t want to spend time with my mom. Guilt that I don’t do enough to fix her mental health. That my younger brothers are doing much more than I am. That my mom had a horrible childhood, and married the exact type of person she didn’t want to, and that she doesn’t have any friends or hobbies, and that she’s so lonely she wants to die, and so on and so on.  I feel heartsick or guilty about things 95% of which I can do nothing about.

Thanks, Catholicism.

I love my mom. Or at least I love who my mom was. I am loyal to this person who’s mental illness has overcome her. I will be loyal to that person until the end of my life, but I’m not certain I love this person.  How can you love someone from whom you get nothing back?  I’m so desperate for anything from my mom – for any sign of who she used to be, that’s it the greatest thing in the world when I can get her to chuckle like she used to.

Thanks, mental illness.

Thanks to Kent cigarettes as well. You sure shit on my life September 26, 2008. I’m not saying that my mom didn’t choose to smoke 1-3 packs a day – that’s on her. But it is on Kent (and mental illness for that matter) that she’s addicted and she had a stroke.

I feel like I’m in the middle of nowhere, covered in mud, and no one will help us help our mom.

 

Jul 16 2013
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cancer

The Eye of the Shitstorm

While expected thanks to the Zelboraf, this is likely a temporary status.  The drug typically works for five months. So T minus three months.

NED

Jul 09 2013
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Uncategorized

Ooh Big Tough Guy

While not dyslexic, I often interpose numbers. Today, I misdialed a number and ended up speaking to this exceptional example of manners:

man: hello?
me: Hi! Is Shawnie available?

[long pause]

me: Hello?
man: You stupid little fucker. If you ever call this number again, I’m going to beat the fuck out of you.
me: Okay. Is this the number for Shawnie or not?

[long pause]

me: Because if it’s not, I’m sorry for calling, but if –
man: No man!

Immediately tempted to post his phone number to every text and solicitation call out there, it reminded me of the best prank.  My oldest friend – meaning our moms went to high school together and then we grew up together – played a prank on her husband that was glorious.

cat-facts-prankShe’s much more creative than this prankster. Her husband received anonymous texts like Did you know that cat fashion is a $1.2m industry? MeeWOW!

I laughed so hard I cried when she was telling this story. I’m really tempted to enact a similar nuisance to the man who so rudely answered the phone earlier.

But, alas, I’m better than that and this type of genius is best used on someone who deserves it.

However, I not saying I didn’t sign him up to receive calls about a Communications degree from the rumored relentless sales team at the the University of Phoenix.

Jul 02 2013
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Uncategorized

Ants in My Pants

One of TB and my mutual friends said to him the other day, “I’m really impressed at how patient xxxx has been with [your unemployment]. I don’t think my wife would have been so nice.”

I know TB was quietly thanking me when he passed this along.  Unfortunately for him, it caused me to look at this from another angle.

TB and Lanky have been friends since high school. Every job TB is handed, he somehow gets Lanky involved.  TB’s brother had a client, Money-Bags, who wanted to start a company. TB and Money-Bags were introduced and RS was born.  Soon enough, Lanky was folded in. TB and Lanky paid themselves handsomely. They didn’t develop a business plan or a budget and neither of them could sell water to the parched.  So, one month before TB and I were married, Money-Bag’s $100,000 dried up.

Lady Lanky was pissed and it only got worse as time marched on and Lanky and TB pointed the finger at each other and Money-Bags and everyone else for the failure of RS. Lady Lanky had worked hard through grad school to become a speech therapist and now had to carry the financial load in her marriage.

TB and I have always been 50/50.  Last week, I was cleaning the basement (as he played video games and napped – but that’s a whole different story) and stumbled upon his credit card statement.  He owes $5,400. He long ago took the steep penalty and cashed out his only 401k.  He now works 30 hours a week stocking shelves on the weekends and uses his inherited monthly oil royalties to pay his half of the bills.

I’ve surprised myself in that I haven’t reacted like Lady Lanky.  In fact, with the exception of a few eruptions, I haven’t reacted at all – at least that I’ve recognized.

But I think it’s starting to boil up. TB has been unemployed for almost two years.  There has to be an endpoint, but I can’t see the light behind me or the light ahead and I’m really restless.

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