Luna Tail

Okay, I’ll jump in on this debate. I have found two posts on this already, and if you want to comment to add you link, feel free.

Lee Doyle
Seeking Shanti

Now this is a respectful debate… no flaming, or your comment will be deleted.

I am Pro Choice. I consider myself a liberal, and I’m also pro gay marriage. But this is about Abortion. I think women should have the right to do what they feel is best for their own bodies.

When Does Life Start?
I am not so much a person who debates when life starts, or does not. As a matter of fact, I think that most things are alive. And most beings are sentient. I don’t eat animals, because I do not, in any way, believe that we should kill another life to survive. It is no longer necessary. And I believe that animals, at least mammals, are aware of their own existence and have a full range of emotions just like human animals do.

So why do I think it’s okay to end the life of an unborn? Either human animal or other animal? Is the unborn alive? Perhaps. Either way, the quality of life for the unborn should be taken into consideration. First off, there are too many dang humans in this world anyway. Just like there are too many dogs that need homes. If one of my dogs became pregnant (which they won’t because they are all fixed) I would abort the pregnancy.

I eat plants. And I believe that an unborn is about as alive as a plant. I don’t think there is consciousness yet until just before birth. And so I think that the life quality of the being needs to be considered, as well as the timing of the abortion.

I will admit to you, I was pregnant once. Not many people know that. The day after I found out, I scheduled the abortion. The quality of life for that mass of sells in my stomach would have been awful aqt the time. This was about 14 years ago. I miscarried before I had the abortion, but I felt no guilt about scheduling it. I felt no remorse, and I think I would have felt no sadness or regret had I gone through with it. It’s a mass of cells, in my opinion, nothing more, nothing less.

Women need to be able to make the choice. 100% of the choice. They may be influenced by others, including the father, but it’s the woman’s ultimate choice whether she wants to have that mass of cells develop into a human or not.

Choice is Paramount
I honor, respect, and revere life. I think it’s an amazing thing, and very valuable. I also think choice is paramount. I am not religious in any way. I think we should treat others well because it’s the right thing to do. I don’t take any god into account when I say what I feel about being pro choice.

If Roe v Wade is overthrown, it would be awful. Women will have abortions anyway, in very bad conditions. And their health will be at risk. Keep it legal. It’s freedom of choice. We must have abortion stay legal.

That is my opinion.

I’m in Colorado and scheduled this post to go off while I’m gone, so as to keep my content going on this blog. So I won’t be dropping Entrecards either for a week, sorry about that!

Anyway, I woke up this morning, hating to have to wake up, thinking what is going on with me and why do I get to feeling miserable when most of the things in my life are good.

Why can’t I stop eating… why do I think I don’t get enough sleep, enough down time, enough… whatever. I often think that I just don’t get enough of things, food is one of them. And so I over eat.

And I sat there and thought really, the world is apathetic. The universe doesn’t care much about me. The food sits on the shelves, or on the plate, and doesn’t taunt me. I do it to myself.

I’m always trying to get five more minutes of sleep… that ends up at a half hour or so. I resent that I have to work, and not get to do what I want to do.

So I have to change my attitude. The world is not cheating me out of things. I am doing it to myself. I control most of my own world. I control all of my own thoughts and my own actions. I can, for the most part, have what I want if I work for it. That’s the great thing about our country, the USA. I am limited only by myself and the patterns that were drilled into me that are no longer working, and I need to change.

This is something I need to spend more time thinking about, too.

This morning as I was drying my hair, and curling it with my curling brush that is metal in the center so the curl holds better… I was trying to list all the things that I do that have anxiety attached.

My hair.. makeup, clothes… cleaning the house. Work… training the dogs, cooking… the list kept going on and on and I realized that my anxiety is attached to all my activities that take some kind of effort. And it would be easier to make a list of activities that anxiety is NOT attached to.

That list consists of, basically, two things. Watching TV/Movies, and playing on the computer.

Hrmph.

When I’m having PMS, the anxiety is much worse. I hope I won’t have PMS during my cruise in October… or I’ll have to look at cruises at different times of the month! Actually I can handle it okay, but it is still annoying.

There is a book out called ‘Taming the Inner Brat’, and I haven’t read it, but I want to. Because I think my anxiety ridden self tends to argue with my adult self. And thus I have a lot of conflict going on in my head when I do things that are responsible. Like cleaning and cooking and making a menu with myself.

I want to make peace with that part of me, so I can be more responsible more often. And organized. I want those things, and at the same time my Inner Brat doesn’t. It’s an interesting mix.

Every darn month I forget how awful PMS is… I just hate this darn premenstrual syndrome I go through. Today is day 5, and so I am feeling much better. Last week I was pretty miserable again. And I swear every month, when I’m miserable, I forget that I’m miserable because of PMS.

Ugh.

Well, I feel better today, and I’m able to get things done again. Seriously, I should be able to just not do anything during that last week of every month. It’s awful, but it’s real. And I do need to take care of myself during that time.

One of the things I learned in CoDA (Codependents Anonymous) recovery.. was that the top layer of most people’s problems is called denial. And that denial allows us to keep doing our addictions… because the next layer down is behavior. We are denial to cover up our behaviors that are unhealthy, or downright destructive.

The layer below that is the feelings. We are in denial so we don’t have to face the behaviors that cover up the horrible feelings we can feel… including Anxiety.

There are more layers, below the feelings are the beliefs we hold, and below that is self-esteem and whether we hate ourselves or love ourselves. But this post is about the Behaviors and the Feelings layers.

Lately I have been realizing that my blogging is becoming a pretty major addiction. And this addiction allows me to not feel the anxiety I feel. Anxiety about work… mainly. And also just general anxiety that I think I have learned to feel on a daily basis and I really don’t know how to stop feeling. It’s like a bad habit.. like popping my knuckles. I don’t know how to stop that either and I’ve tried a few different things.

Fortunately I am no longer addicted to men, emotionally unstable and lazy men at that, nor am I addicted to drugs or alcohol… so I don’t need alcohol rehab. But the anxiety is still there, even though I do have the Sertraline as a tool I use to keep it much, much less than it used to be.

It’s hard for me to just sit… to just sit on the couch and look out the window and not think. It’s hard for me to meditate… I’ve tried, but when I do a huge package of anxiety comes along with it and makes it unpleasant. Being still allows the anxiety to come up. Being busy keeps the anxiety down to a more manageable level.

But… as we all know, the only way to conquer our fears and anxieties, is to face them. I need to face them. I want the anxiety to go away more. Work gives me the greatest anxiety… because I have short-timers disease (even though I have over 5 years left before I can retire) and work just always has given me anxiety. I’m afraid of appearing to be an idiot. I’m always afraid of that in all aspects of my life, though.

So I do have to stop being on the laptop as much as I have been. This weekend I have an agility trial, so I won’t be blogging much. But on weekends I’m not doing dog things I have to start to enforce non-laptop time so that I can try to sit and relax and examine the anxiety that I want to get rid of. Of course.. today is day 26, which makes me even more anxious… which I forget every stinking month when PMS comes along. And so maybe using the laptop to get away from PMS is okay, for a little while.

I am selfish now. Okay.. maybe compared to other completely selfish people, you can’t call me selfish. When I was seeing my therapist a year or so ago, I told her I was being selfish and she just laughed at me. Told me that no, I am not selfish, even though I might think I am for myself.

Why do I say I’m selfish now? Well, because I spent so many years, many many many years, living for someone else… usually a dysfunctional man, being codependent, that I didn’t do anything for myself. And now, I really feel like it’s all about me.

I do my own dog sports. I watch the TV shows and movies I want to watch. I travel when I want, clean my house when I want, go outside when I want, stay indoors when I want… and basically just do what I want to do.

Of course I do want to make sure everyone else around me is okay with it… LOL maybe that’s why I’m not truley selfish. And I really don’t like doing things like plumbing fixtures and home improvement, I prefer if my husband does them. But still, I really love living for me and making sure my own needs are met.

And my dogs fill my maternal instincts very well. I do hope my husband thinks I’m not too terribly selfish now. Because I do love him and want him to be happy, too. But for the most part, I love being selfish, and I’m going to keep at it!

One of the things I want to change about myself is how much I fight myself on things.

Like what.. you may ask? Well, when it’s time to empty the dishwasher.. part of me says to just go do it. The other part, the fighting part, complains and whines and fills up with anxiety and fights against doing it.

Same goes with washing clothes (well, putting clothes away is worse than washing clothes), cooking, shopping, going upstairs while I’m being comfortable watching TV… and the worst one of all is work.

I really resent having to work for a living. I know, I know… ever living being has to do something to provide for shelter, food, and those things necessary to live. However, I don’t want to do it! I don’t want to work anymore… I want to play. I have some years left before I can stop working so I better just suck it up and work anyway, which I am doing.

But it’s annoying, fighting with myself all the time. Maybe I need some sort of strategy to get rid of this. I do know it’s tied to my general anxiety and social anxiety too. Which I am covering with meds, but I do have some more to deal with. Hrmph. I just wish I had some nice land where I could relax and play with the dogs, maybe some Branson property, in the middle of nowhere… and a housekeeper and a cook too!

Well I’ve not taken any Trazodone for.. what.. four days now? Five? Maybe three? LOL I’ll have to look at my blog to find out because I have a rotten memory.

And while I feel lighter and my temperature feels cooler, my head still hurts quite a bit and I’ve been grumpy as hell for the last couple of days. Am I going through withdrawals? Maybe I shouldn’t have stopped cold turkey. Maybe I should go do some research about it on the internet. Hrm.. Maybe I should have done this a few days ago.

I have a low level anger, but it’s nothing like before I was on the Sertraline (I’m still on that, btw). But at the same time I don’t really care much about things. I can stare out the window and watch the clouds, which I love to do, and have the day pass more slowly, which I also love. I try to grab every minute of every day as it comes, because time just goes by way too fast anymore.

So I do feel better. If only my head would stop feeling like it’s 3 times the size it’s supposed to be. And I’m still tired, though not as badly as I was before. It’s 4:33 pm.. too late in the afternoon to take a nap? Maybe not. Maybe I will take a nap. I took one yesterday, and I felt better. I just love naps.

EDIT: Well, from the web, some places say Trazodone is not addictive and so you can’t have withdrawals. But many people seem to have withdrawals anyway. So I’m going to say yup, I’m having withdrawals from Trazodone and call it good. And I only stopped on the 22nd of Feb, so that’s only three days ago. The days have been going by so nice and slowly, and I am very happy with that!

Hopefully by this next weekend I’ll feel better.

I went to bed last night and I’d forgotten to take my Trazodone to help me sleep. Well I was tired anyway so I decided I’d see if I could skip it. I think I have been taking them since before September to help me sleep, because the Sertraline was making it hard for me to sleep. And I am paranoid about getting enough sleep. It’s one of those fears that I have, that I won’t get enough sleep.

Fortunately I feel asleep just fine and slept most of the night. I did wake up about 3am but I felt pretty good so just laid there and after a while I fell back asleep again snuggled with all the dogs on the bed (three now, including Muffit).

When I woke up I felt refreshed and good. And it made me think. Are all my problems being caused by the Trazodone? I feel so much better today… I haven’t felt this light and airy in months now. My neck is still kinked, but my nose feels more clear and my throat less scratchy.

So I’m going to stay off the Trazodone for a few days and see how it works. I’m afraid of not being able to sleep, but heck it’s the weekend so it won’t be a big deal if I’m tired. I hate being tired during the day. In fact, I’m quite nervous about it. I hate feeling bad. Hate it hate it! But then I’ve felt bad for some months now so maybe, just maybe, this will perk me up. It’s something I should have thought of months ago.. but my sleep is so important I don’t want to mess it up!

I had a good weekend and I’ve been looking around at the people I admire. And I like to have those traits in me, and some of them I think I already have. So this is a self-esteem, self-promotion, ego post, if you will!

• I like the life I have built for myself.
• I like that I was able to fight and, for the most part, beat my codependency.
• I like to think that I am good at seeing the world as it is, not as I want it to be. Sure there are things I still see like I want them to, but I like to think I’m open to seeing things as they are.
• I like having an open mind.
• I like being liberal, and a democrat.
• I am secure in my sexual orientation.
• I like to think I know myself pretty well now.
• I love my husband.
• I love my dogs, and doing dog sports, and I’m so glad I finally did what I love!

I don’t like it when people put themselves down, and I try not to do it when someone gives me a compliment. Though that can be a hard thing to do. I need some alarm system monitoring to make sure I accept compliments and I know, and am proud of, my strengths!