Luna Tail

Okay.. well, today is my last easy sick day. Being Sunday. Tomorrow I’ll have to go back to work. I’m still not feeling all that great, but I can’t just stay home all the time. As much as I’d like to.

I don’t mind being sick, really. Because when I’m sick I don’t have to have any responsibilities. I know this goes back to my childhood. I always had no stress when I was sick. I could do whatever I wanted. Not be judged for what I was doing. I can relax and just enjoy life. Do whatever I like to do. Not have the heavy weight of ‘am I good enough’ hanging over my head, which always seems to be there. Something I really need to get rid of, and is one of the main causes of my anxiety.

So right now I am setting up my Do Follow RSS feeds, listening to John Barrowman sing on YouTube (not only does he look good, he sounds good too).

The only drawback of being sick, is I’ve always needed physical evidence. A sniffle, or a fever, or something like that. This thing I have, I don’t really have physical evidence, unfortunately. But my husband doesn’t care, and my Mom doesn’t live with me anymore. And why would I fake being sick anyway? I’d rather play with the dogs, and I really want to do the agility trial next weekend. It’s a three dayer.

I might actually go to the doctor tomorrow. There is one physical sign that I have that is very odd, indeed. Thursday night I broke out with little red splotches all over me. I thought maybe a spider had bitten me at night. But I have a ton of them, and all over my chest, my hips, and my arms. It’s really weird. Maybe I have chicken pox… but since I had them as a Kid, maybe Shingles? I just dunno. And my throat is still a bit sore. And I’m still tired, don’t have much energy or motivation. And I’m still a bit achy. But I don’t have any shooting pains. Diagnosis over the internet is such a bad thing, though. Usually I think I just have everything. :p

Oh well, back to more John Barrowman videos… LOL.

Oooooo I am so excited! I am able to watch Torchwood on the Internet! I’ve never watched TV on the net before, but last night I did some googling.

Torchwood is a Doctor Who spinoff. I will admit, I did enjoy the old Doctor Who series when I was a kid. It was completely hokey, no doubt, but I loved a couple of the doctors. Mainly Tom Baker, who was the fourth doctor and the longest running (and most popular I think). And I also loved Peter Davison, the fifth doctor. I had a hat like his for years and years, and a coat rack, too. I loved sitting up at night when I was a kid and watching these two doctors.

So when Doctor Who started all over again in 2005, I was so excited! And I was able to watch it on the Sci Fi Channel. (I swear, I pay $60 a month just for the Sci Fi chanel LOL. Though Battlestar Galactica, the new one, is loosing my interest fast.)

And there were a few episodes of the new Doctor Who, toward the end of the first season, which had a new character which I totally and completely adored. Captain Jack Harkness. Ooooo hubba hubba. One of the very few male bisexual characters on TV today. (There really should be more. It’s nearly acceptable for women to be Bi, but not quite yet for men. But it’s coming.) And when I heard of the spinoff, Torchwood, I just had to watch it. But it was a BBC only show! Dang… and Sci Fi hasn’t picked it up yet. And I don’t get the Dish Network package that has BBC America. And I really wanted to watch John Barrowman! As Captain Jack. Yeah yeah, I’m married, but like they say, I’m not dead. And my husband eyes women quite often, and I don’t mind. We are very open about things like this. And so what if he’s gay. He really should be Bi in real life, that’s more fun anyway. lol.

Anyway, so googling around I found Guba. And (no, this is not an ad), they have all of Torchwood season one for download. For free! Woo Hoo! So as we speak I am downloading episode four. I watched one last night, and it was very good, indeed. These files are huge, though, 400 meg about. So it takes hours, even with DSL, to download them all. But I’ll get them. I’m excited!

I get to watch Torchwood! *Happy Dances*

Okay, been thinking about being open and honest, and here is a post along those lines. It has to do with my anxiety. Mainly, I have social anxiety. It’s really hard to describe this to someone who doesn’t have it. It doesn’t really make any sense. And as I sit here right now, being sick and tired, I don’t really feel it. But I know that tomorrow at work I will feel it again.

If you’ve ever seen The Fisher King, it’s kinda like that. At stressful times it’s like I have this big red knight riding me down. It feels like it’s life threatening. It makes me procrastinate. I’m soooo good at putting things off. It’s a big red knight in my chest that is quite terrifying, and running away from it feels like the only thing to do.

One of the biggest things that causes this red knight to appear is situations where I don’t know what I’m really doing. My new job, for one. And dog training, for another. Those are the two big areas of my life where I deal with it. And in both, I feel a deep, horrible humiliation that goes with it. I feel like I am a true idiot if I don’t know how to do something, and that I will get in deep, awful, life-threatening trouble. Remember when you were a kid and something really embarrassing happened and you felt that knife splitting humiliation through the very core of your being? Well, I can get that feeling just by anticipating something difficult. Seriously. It’s a pretty awful feeling. I was watching a home movie from back when I was about 13.. years and years ago, and I remembered that time, and I knew I was feeling the SA at that time, too.

It’s a bad habit. It’s a deep seated learned feeling. I have been doing it all my life. It’s time to stop. When I was in my 20s I buried it in emotionally unavailable men.. I had no friends, no hobbies, no life. I could fret about whatever guy I was with at the time, and ignore my own feelings. Well, I have worked through a lot of that codependency, and now the SA stares me in the face and it is the thing I have to deal with now.

I’m working on it. I’m doing a couple of things about it. I hope it helps. But today, right now, I’m just tired. I have no appetite, and I want to go back to bed (it’s only 3:33 in the afternoon). Ugh. Well, at least when I’m sick, I don’t have to have any responsibilities, so I can basically relax.

Ooo my first self portrait Sunday. Not that I really like this picture of myself all that much. But what the heck. I like the walls of the front room better, really love that color still even though it’s been a couple years now since we painted it. So everyone look at the walls instead, okay?

At least my shirt matches my eyes… which was not intentional, I assure you. I hardly am able to match one piece of clothing to another, much less anything to my eyes. I have a terrible eye for color. And I am kinda looking older, not a kid anymore for sure. Maybe I need to get some cosmetic surgery in Manhattan!

Well, today is another day, not much to do but knit, visit an old foster dog, and relax. Yay!

Here is a closeup of the cabling on my blue cabled socks. Not sure how well you can see it… If you click on it, you will see the bigger picture with more detail. I really love to cable. It is fun, and I think I’m pretty good at it, too. These socks are too small for me but they will fit my friend at work. She wears a size 5.

And below is a picture of both the socks. One is done, the other I am over half way finished. I’ve done the heel flap and turned the heel, and am working on the gusset decreases. LOL, I still can’t believe I understand all this knitting jargon. Never in a million years did I think that me, tomboy I’ve always been, would knit, but I really do love it! The heel turn is the best part. Who ever came up with that? It’s very cool.

After I finish these socks I will continue to knit my afghan I’m doing for collie rescue. Maybe make some money off of that, I hope so. Probably won’t be too hard to at least get back what I spent on yarn. And maybe a bit more for the collies.

I love this yarn. It’s called Lorna’s Laces and I bought it on ebay. I bought another color too and made some other socks. But I think I like this deep rich blue better.

http://www.thedietdiary.com/blog/lucia/2252

I am working today. Just trying to get some things I need to do… doing. And my anxiety is probably about an 8. Uck. I hate the work freaks me out so much now. Too stressful. I know that my thoughts are holding me back. I keep wondering if I can do it.. am I capible? I had a flash this morning of thinking things like it’s fun to find solutions to projects, I am good at what I do.. but it didn’t last very long.

I need to get those back.

The pills haven’t really kicked in yet, I guess. :p My avoidance behaviors are still there (thus I am here instead of working now bye!).

Well, I survived. I knew with this new job I’d have to give trainings. I was really, really hoping that I wouldn’t have to, that it would just fade away.. as it has done in my past. But no good. I had to do it. I have to share in the burden. UGH.

But it wasn’t too bad. Of course I was nervous beforehand and at the beginning. And I know I talk too fast, and so I really had to slow myself down. And I don’t know the subject as well as I would like to, as well as I feel comfortable with. But I did okay. It was a short training, shorter than what I’ve watched my coworkers do, but it wasn’t all too bad. And really, I don’t have as much knowledge as they do to import to the students, and so realistically I shouldn’t feel dumb, I should just know that realistically I know less, and so have less to say, and as time goes by I’ll know more. And it’s all okay. Whew. I actually feel pretty good about it. I need to use it as an exposure. There can be up to 8 people in the class, but they gave me a small class of 3 to start, so that was nice.

It’s really weird to talk to people and have them not reply. And some faces are bored, some are frustrated, some are happy. I guess that’s normal. It’s all normal.

My coworker kept telling me to ‘use the stress’ as energy. I was like okay I’ll try.. but I have anxiety that is off the scale. That’s why I’m on meds and in therapy. But explaining that is near to impossible, and so I don’t really try.

Speaking of meds, I’m doing okay. The first week I thought I was getting nauseous and dizzy, but that could have been because I’d been out of town for 6 days before and was tired. Today was my first 50mg dose. I was on 25mg for the first 7 days. And I still think I’m okay.

I even think I have a bit of placebo effect, because I find myself thinking ‘I don’t have to be afraid anymore’. I don’t care if it’s real or placebo, just as long as my anxiety goes down a notch. It’s too high. I can’t work or so my hobbies with it so high.

*sigh*

So, I actually am feeling pretty good now.

Well, I’m jumping on the bandwagon. I started Zoloft yesterday. My red demon is around me, and I’m getting nervous talking about it. I’m only on 25mg a day for 7 days, then will slowly increase.

Wish me luck.