Category: agoraphobia

agoraphobia, coffee pot posts

Saturday morning coffee pot post

Laurie

Just barely getting it in before noon, because my racing thoughts kept me awake until 3:30 a.m. when I finally gave in and took a Xanax. I can also blame the book I’m reading, When Christ and His Saints Slept by Sharon Penman. It was very hard to put down, even though I know the outcome of my 30+G grandmother Maude’s war to claim her crown from Stephen in the 12th century. Part of the excitement of reading this book is coming across characters who I think I’ve seen somewhere in the family tree on familysearch.org and trying to track them down. Last night it was Miles Fitz Walter. I have so many asshole ancestors, and since they all married into (and battled) each other’s families, it’s a big well of oppressors to drink from. I’m not proud of them, but it’s fun to be able to know something about their lives, which is impossible to know about the middle class and immigrant generations in between other than what can be found in censuses and wills. The day I found Uhtred from “The Last Kingdom” on my tree was a big day!

My thoughts were racing last night because I’m ready to warp up my 16″ Big Sister Mirrix loom the correct way, with heddles and all!, and start another tapestry. I know, I said that I was giving up tapestry. That’s such BS. I say that at least once a year. My problem is that I can’t decide what to weave next. I spent a long time looking through my photos on the computer last night, and I downloaded and then uninstalled Gimp when I saw that it is WAY too complicated for me. I need to find that site where you can upload a photo or drawing and print it out to a larger size on standard copy paper, like a grid, that you put together. I’ve forgotten the name of it. I did come up with a design that I liked based on the background photo of this blog, spent an hour doing alterations to make it into a cartoon, and then lost it. That’s when I uninstalled Gimp.

Anyway, I know that I have some other photos that I took of reflections in the lake so I’m going to look for them this weekend, and actually draw a cartoon this time. I’d like to do something abstract.

I am trying to force myself out of the house so when I got an email from CVA asking for volunteers to gallery sit, I signed up for 2-5 this afternoon. There is a fiber art exhibit from six local artists at the arts center. I was going to take my Mirrix, but since I couldn’t decide on a size last night to prepare it for weaving, I’ll take my stitching.

I know that a lot of my local weaving friends who have been in the area for a long time think badly of CVA for the way they treated one of our own and got rid of a big weaving studio at a time when weaving and fiber arts were making a comeback. Believe me, I am very cognizant of that ugliness and I spoke up about it, and I still would love to know what exactly prompted that terrible decision since they would not discuss it at the time. But now they are lifting a new generation of fiber artists, and those artists had nothing to do with what CVA did to Sandra and the weaving program in Greensboro. I want to support these artists. I am conflicted about supporting CVA but I’m working on letting go of my grudges.

Plus, it’s better than vacuuming these cobwebs I see on the walls and windows of this room right now. That will have to be attended to. It’s been one of those intense work weeks and I’ve been lazy at home, other than cooking once or twice.

Anyway, since I slept so late I need to get in the shower and eat something and go. Yay me, fighting against my agoraphobia!

agoraphobia, coffee pot posts, Reading, whining

Saturday morning coffee pot post

Laurie

Really, really trying to stay positive. I was in a great mood on Tuesday. I resolved (knocking wood) a sticky problem at work that took WAY too many emails to too many people. My foot finally felt better and I walked home from work, which felt great despite the stifling heat and humidity. Sandy fixed the leak in the kitchen sink, which required breaking off a part that had been glued on, and so I was extremely wary of this effort. The number of ants still appearing are down to less than 10 a day, when they were swarming the kitchen a week ago.

I am working on NOT retreating to my bedroom when I get home from work. This is part of my agoraphobic tendencies and it is a very hard habit to break. My bedroom is my little nest of comfort and safety from the room. But I have been well aware that spending so much time in bed reading and online, even propped up sitting, has been a big factor in my sleep issues. It is difficult, but I’m making my own little “spot” in the living room and bringing my books and Kindle and laptop there.

Today we are going to the paperback book sale at St. Francis Episcopal Church which is always great. Not that I need more books, but it looks like we probably won’t move anyway. Tomorrow I’ll go do some art playtime with friends. I wanted to do a serious deep clean of our kitchen and my bedroom, but it looks like that is not going to happen.

“The Grove of Eagles” by Winston Graham is really great and if you liked the Poldark books you would enjoy this too. I am even enjoying the long descriptions of a sea battle and attack on Cadiz, Spain. We are still watching “The Last Kingdom” together and I am still watching “Mom” and now the latest version of “The Kids in the Hall.”

Sandy started going back to his water exercise classes early in the morning at the aquatic center, so he’s been giving me rides to work and home when I need it. And I’ve needed it. Not only has the steroid shot worn off on my right ankle, my LEFT ankle and foot is now painful. Thursday night I was awakened by what felt like a yellowjacket sting between my ankle and my heel, and it continued to sting me at intervals of about 70 seconds for an hour. When I realized that it was not going to stop, I got up, took a meloxicam, wrapped it in a soft brace, and iced it.  The meloxicam does not last 24 hours.

So now I’m hobbling on both feet, and I switched back to my worn out Brooks sneakers (in case the pain is due to the new Merrill Moab2s, which I don’t believe is the case). I made an appointment with my podiatrist two weeks from now. I think it is my very high arches, since I stopped wearing uncomfortable shoes with no support many years ago. I do love to go barefoot, and this is also a very hard transition to make as far as being at home. I’m doing the best I can to wear shoes inside, except for getting up in the night to go to the bathroom or for other reasons. One of the things I plan to do today is visit The Shoe Market where they have an employee who makes custom orthotic inserts.

I’m beginning to understand the dilemmas that disabled people face. Being overweight has a huge impact on your body, but when your body is in pain, it is nearly impossible to get the exercise that will help you lose weight or at least not to gain weight. If you don’t look disabled to the rest of society, they are going to judge you for being overweight and suggest that you go for a walk or to the gym. If you’re depressed, as many disabled people are, you don’t have the motivation to exercise anyway, and exercise is proven to help depression. It’s a tough spiral.

I’m doing chair yoga exercises and that is about as far as I can go.

Since I’ve walk to work since 2004, I may have to buy a parking permit now and get a handicapped placard for my mirror. And here’s my other complaint and then I’ll stop. I’ve long thought that it is a slap in the face to charge exorbitant parking rates for employees to park on UNCG’s own parking lots. It would do a lot for employee morale to provide free parking at UNCG, yet when it is brought up all you hear is excuses why it can’t be done. It can be done. They just don’t want to lose the revenue. Before this job, I never had to pay for parking at my own job. It’s ridiculous. People are leaving in droves and they better come up with some reasons for their employees to stay because it’s about to get bad.

Now, onward. The new academic year begins soon, and I will be training my successor, because I can’t see that the advantage in waiting to retire is that great. I’ll get 91% of my pension and the same deal on my medical insurance. I’ll try to wait to take my Social Security for as long as I can, but I’ll be eligible to take it early if I need to. Next year at this time, I’ll be retired and looking for either a part time or temp job or recovering from foot surgery or in an artist residency or looking for something else to fill my days. It will be an exciting transition, but I hope not TOO exciting if you know what I mean.

agoraphobia, depression/anxiety, Nature printing, Studio talk

Monday

Laurie

I’m not doing a lot of photography these days, but I am fascinated with the shadows that leaves cast on the sidewalk  early in the morning. This is a ginkgo branch, and while I don’t have the patience or skills to make the shadow any darker because of the mottled sidewalk, I thought that it was cool the way its shadow morphed into a caterpillar. It has made me consider relearning the caterpillar stitch in bookbinding.

20220104_081651

I put this one up on my Facebook page: if you are a beginner at natural dyeing and leaf printing and don’t know what leaves might have pigment, here’s a tip. On your walks, notice what leaves leave a print on freshly laid or recently laid (within a few years) cement. Also, any tree that bears nuts should be a good choice.

20220108_163641

Yesterday I went to the print studio at the arts center, and although it was nice to have it by myself, I couldn’t bear the heat. It must have been in the upper 80s in that room. I peeled away as many clothes as I could, and fortunately I wore a t-shirt under it all, because the last time I had been there it was roasting hot. I found what looked like a room thermostat, but it didn’t have a temperature and it was set in the middle. I turned it all the way down after I broke into a sweat. No difference. I wonder what it felt like this morning because I forgot to turn it back. My bet is that it is either broken or not the thermostat or the heat is controlled by a central office. Since I am of a certain age, I never know if this intolerance to heat is just me.

I took advantage of the paint drying really fast to paint some panels and old book boards with black gesso. I ditched my plan to iron some fabrics and weave cloth strips. I packed up some of my stuff and brought it home. I can’t handle that kind of heat. So I’m going to call them and see if it really is a technical problem, and cancel my membership if it is an ongoing winter thing. Bring home my stuff and consider rejoining in June after I come back from Portugal.

Update: It is an HVAC problem, not a hormone problem. I’m not the only one roasting. A work order was placed the week after Christmas when I first noticed it. I told her that I’ll go back on Sunday, and if it hasn’t been fixed, I’ll bring my stuff home for a while.

Sandy suggested that I turn the back building into my studio again. The only problem is that we’d have to clean it out and I’ll probably have to buy other window AC unit. Also, the door and the steps need repair. It’s something to consider. A space heater heats it fairly well. I’m sure that the critters nesting in the crawl space above the ceiling would like that.

Yesterday I got it together and cooked again – bacon and eggs for brunch, beef stew for dinner. On Saturday I wove about a half-inch on my tapestry. That doesn’t sound like much but it took a couple of hours. Got laundry done and put away. After I left the studio I went to Deep Roots for a quick grocery run. Cricket was there in the parking lot with the Boomerang Bookshop bus so I went in and talked with him. Maybe I should get up a box of books to donate or trade for credit with him. I love his shop, and once when he was getting very depressed and burned out I volunteered to help him with it. But he didn’t want help. I don’t blame him, and honestly, do I want to learn how to drive a bus?

Anyway, I felt better this weekend. A little more energy. This is the first week of classes for the spring semester. We shall see how things unfold.

agoraphobia, coffee pot posts, Coronavirus Chronicles, critters, depression/anxiety, Obsession, old couple

Saturday afternoon coffee pot post

Laurie

In which I am settled in near the wood stove with the last of the coffee. There is no fire in the wood stove, though. Allergies in the house has stopped its use unless there is a heating emergency. I need to buy some clean firewood instead of the rotten moldy stuff in the back yard stack. I pulled out an electric radiator style heater to help with warmth during this cold spell.

I definitely started feeling agoraphobic again this week. On Wednesday morning I must have breathed in some saliva in my sleep because I woke up not able to breathe. I coughed for an hour and the stress gave me a migraine. Then I felt totally freaked out because it was so difficult for me to go to work. I called my therapist and she got me out the door, then I had an appointment with her the following day.

I told her my motto for the year was “I guess we’ll see” and she suggested that my word for the year be “Unfolding.” I like that. A strange part of the session which I will talk about with her again next week is that agoraphobia is an evolutionary response to danger, and she seems to be suggesting that at this particular time it is a reasonable one.  I suspect that she is trying to get my anxiety down and to stop being so hard on myself. It’s difficult for me to tell if I am overreacting sometimes. She also reminded me that irritability is caused by my depression.

When I told her that I had watched “Just Look Up” and it was terrifying, she said to me, mid-sentence, “Don’t watch that!” Which is very strange because the main premise of the movie is to pay attention to what is really happening and doing otherwise will kill us all. I mean, seriously, the baddies in the movie countered the slogan “Just Look Up” with “Don’t Look Up.”

I know that I need to prioritize my mental health but ignoring what is going on in the world doesn’t seem to be, I don’t know, responsible?

Critter report: Diego was just sneezing but he is much better. His meds are insanely expensive, so another thing on the list is loratidine to alternate (or substitute) with the Apoquil. After he started throwing it up again, I went back to the EN prescription cat food, and started giving him his pill pocket around 9 p.m. This seems to be working out, because at $4.50 per dose those pills are too costly to vomit up. I also went to Petsmart and took a chance on buying a case of Fancy Feast Turkey and Giblets pate. So far, so good. The Greenie dental chews are a hit as well. I stopped the nose drops but I’m going to try again tonight and have Sandy hold his head still. The other sign that Diego is better is that he is starting to bully Pablocito again.

The trip planning for Portugal has been bugging me. Everything has changed so much since I first bought these Aer Lingus plane tickets from Boston to Dublin. At first I was going to use my Southwest points to get to Boston, so that part was free, then I was taking American home. Since then we changed the tickets to Boston to Lisbon, which simplified that part of the trip, but the plane tickets to Boston and back have doubled. My Southwest points won’t cover the trip and I don’t want to spend any more money with them anyway – I hate their politics, I don’t trust them, and I want to be done with them.

The plane trip back is going to be rough with leaving Lisbon late at night and an 8 hour layover in Dublin – hardly enough time to be worth getting a hotel room at 1:30 a.m. and getting up in time to go through all that security again early in the morning. So I started following United flights out of Greensboro and doing a cost analysis of whether it would be worth it to ditch the previous plan and make the whole plane trip simpler and shorter, without having to pay for parking, and without having to change airlines and doing multiple Covid tests.

To make this plan work, however, I would have to get my 60,000 miles credit from the new United credit card I was just approved for. I probably won’t get those until April at least. Cutting it a bit too short. At least I will have them for my trip to Oregon in July.

This is the kind of shit I obsess over, and quite honestly, I enjoy the hunt. I read articles on the best ways to save money on travel and get the best plane ticket prices and follow Rick Steves among other travel gurus. I started telling Sandy about what I was researching last night and he doesn’t understand how complicated the plane ticketing process is. He brought up Google Flights and told me that flights to Boston weren’t that expensive. He was looking at today’s date and not looking at the different times at all. Then he told me that we could stay in a Boston hotel. I asked him if he had looked at the cost of Boston hotels. Then he said that I was lucky because other women’s husbands would have taken their credit cards away. A jaw-dropping sexist comment from my feminist husband. That got him cussed out. He immediately saw his error, and I didn’t carry that anger too long, mainly because I cussed him out so thoroughly, and also because I realized that we are products of a sexist and racist culture and generation, and both of us still carry these biases that will inevitably rear their ugly heads from time to time.

This morning I apologized for saying “FUCK YOU” and he said that he deserved it for being an asshole. This was a very rare occurrence for each of us in our marriage. This is also a good time to say that I firmly believe that one of the reasons we have been married for 34 plus years is that since Year Two we have kept separate financial accounts and instead assigned certain bills to either of us so that it worked out about equal. We are both extremely frugal and at the moment we don’t carry any debt. At all. No mortgage, no home equity loan, no car payments. If my credit card bill is over what I can pay per month, I have enough in my money market account that I pay it off from there. Then I work on getting that money back into my money market account.

In other words, I am fucking amazing at managing my money. And so is he, although we have different approaches to what we think is best. And today all is well.

I’m going to try to stay out of my bedroom and cook and weave tapestry and read in the front room, not in my bed. I’m going to do the exercise videos again – they are mostly dancing, and if my heel starts hurting too much I can do them sitting down. I don’t know whether I will go to the studio tomorrow. At least the city has mandated masks in city facilities again, but so many people who DO wear masks don’t wear the right kind or wear them correctly. I’ll probably be alone in the room if I go in at 1 p.m. though.

agoraphobia, coffee pot posts, Coronavirus Chronicles, depression/anxiety, old couple, Reading

Saturday morning coffee pot post

Laurie

Well, this week could have gone better, but I’ll take it. I stood up for myself concerning a particularly awful process I was expected to use at work that was inaccurate and basically unusable, and I feel like I was heard at least one step up the pecking order. Then I concentrated on what I could do. I got a lot done.

The weather is absolutely lovely and we spent a lot of time on the front porch yesterday evening. I cleaned out most of the junk in the Honda in preparation to clean the inside and shampoo the carpets. I took out at least 20 books. I also did some front garden clean up – pulled the “weeds” that the bees no longer need but left the dandelions, which I love. My favorite flowers are in bloom right now, and the yoshina cherry trees are bursting with light pink flowers. The peppermint that I shouldn’t have planted is spreading through the fieldstone path across to the other section of the garden, but it smells so good that I don’t mind (now). I planted it in several places in the hope that it would deter both mosquitoes and groundhogs.

Reading: Almost finished with “Good Harbor” by Anita Diamant, which I have mixed feelings about. At first I thought that I could relate to the characters, but instead I have found it pretty depressing. I liked her other novels much better, especially “The Last Days of Dogtown,” which was a recent read. Part of my problem with novels about women who struggle with children or fertility is that I feel no connection to motherhood. I have never felt the urge. The other character is having serious mental health issues revolving around cancer and death, maybe not the best reading choice for me right now. I’ll finish it, because I don’t have much farther to go and it is a short book.

It seems like I’m breaking out of the agoraphobic tendencies, although I am typing this in my bedroom, where I spend way too much time. On Thursday morning I drove Sandy to what we thought was going to be his muscle biopsy under local anesthesia at an outpatient surgical center in Burlington. Instead, it was a consultation with the surgeon and pretty much a waste of time other than him telling us that the biopsy would be done under real anesthesia in Greensboro, maybe at Wesley Long Hospital. He didn’t have Sandy’s lab work or records, and he was quizzing him to see if he really needed the biopsy. Once I told him about Sandy’s CK test results, those kind of questions stopped and he moved on.

It was frustrating, not only because we expected this to be behind us by now, but that the communication has been so bad. These days I know to be wary of any anesthesia that puts you all the way under – it can trip an older person into dementia and Sandy had a difficult time maintaining his oxygen levels under anesthesia during his oral surgery a couple of years ago. It definitely has cognitive effects. And the surgeon was not encouraging about it being scheduled right away, although he said that he was on duty at Wesley Long next week and would try to get it on his schedule.

This biopsy really has to be done soon. Sandy dreads it so much that I worry that he is going to back out. Yesterday he was feeling much better and started working on getting the Honda battery charged and the car aired out. He brought me lunch at work. I am very happy that he feels better and is trying to do more. However, he has a denial problem and I have my hands full trying to stop him from health self-destruction since he wants so badly to believe that all he needs to do is get back into shape. This has been the case for years, not just with this issue. I do not want to play the role of his mother or nurse and I want to treat his medical decisions with respect, but I also don’t want to be a widow in my early 60s. I love him and I want to grow old with him. He will be absolutely miserable if he doesn’t get better. His family history is full of disability, including his father who was quadriplegic and his brother and mother who had strokes affecting their ability to move. He also has a serious aversion to asking for the simplest help.

Anyway, the good aspect of this trip was that I drove to Burlington to an unknown location in heavy traffic and even drove around the area a bit without any anxiety or panic. So I haven’t descended into that agoraphobia hole. I feel better, knowing that.

And I feel better that I am officially fully vaccinated, having passed the two week mark yesterday. I haven’t heard from Lora about the residency in Ireland yet, but considering the problems that the EU is having with a third wave and getting the vaccinations out, it looks more and more unlikely. If I can’t go to Europe this year, we will pick a national park to visit. I wouldn’t mind a train trip, or going to Maine to Acadia NP. I’ve never been farther north than Connecticut.

We got a small tax refund back from the state but not either federal tax refund yet. That will be welcome money that we will probably use to hire local people to work on our house. I also try to donate to a lot of individual causes and charities that I see people advocate on Facebook. We are very lucky, despite what we are dealing with at the present time.

agoraphobia, coffee pot posts, Coronavirus Chronicles, depression/anxiety

Saturday morning coffee pot post

Laurie

^^^First, birdies.

I have a collection of glass paperweights. At one time it was such a delight to search flea markets, yard sales, and antique/thrift stores for them. After a while I decided to stop collecting them because we have so many knick-knacks in our house that it is a dusting nightmare. I gave a lot of my paperweights away, but I kept the ones that had meaning to me. Here are a few birds from my windowsill in my office. The yellow one came from Florence, Italy. Sitting here at my work desk at home, I see the one that used to be in my mother’s living room for years, and the one that she bought for me when she went to Vienna. I will be giving away more paperweights before long, but those are keepers.

^^^I found this awesome blue jay feather on my walk home.

^^^I played a little with the Diana app on my phone and came up with this.

Bernie is doing okay, I think. He is chirping in there now. Sandy often plays a YouTube video with parakeets singing and squawking. He sings along. He pecks at himself in the mirror.

Today, I am going to concentrate on weaving tapestry, and a little bit of cleaning.

Now, the mental health stuff.

Another rough week. I got out my neti pot and remembered that my sinuses are always a wreck this time of year. It never used to be scary, though. I’m going to look for my humidifier in the linen closet, maybe reorganize and purge that space.

I had a panic attack at work when a well-meaning professor would NOT move away from me inside my little office. She hovered over me reading slowly from some instructions she had written down and kept losing her place and getting irritated if I clicked on something before she said to click it. After asking her to let me handle it several times (she was trying to help with a technical problem, and she is the least technically literate person that you could ever imagine), I finally yelped, “Please, I canNOT breathe in this mask!” and she moved out to the hallway, and at that point I lost the thread of the whole thing, but I know that I shut the door and she came back later and asked through the door if I had resolved it, and I basically told her yes. I hadn’t, but I had a work-around. It was not worth having someone peering over my shoulder in a small space for many minutes.

So, UGH, first panic attack in a long time, and I HATE having panic attacks at work the most. It wasn’t a major one, so I was able to get myself together and work the rest of the day, but DAMN. This does not bode well. I have way too much to do in the next two weeks.

Okay, </mental health stuff…

agoraphobia, bloggy stuff, coffee pot posts, depression/anxiety, Obsession

Saturday Morning Coffee Post

Laurie

This is day three of my week without social media or news. I suppose that some people would count blogging as social media but I have so little interaction with people here I generally think of it as an online journal and personal portal.

If you have followed me through the years you might know that I began this blog in early 2005 as a healing process for my depression, anxiety, panic disorder and agoraphobia. I am open about my mental health because I strongly believe that we must take away the stigma so that more people, like me, do not wait so long to get help. I am light years better than I was in 2003, which was probably my lowest point, but I still struggle. Much of my problem is physical…panic disorder and depression runs in my family. However agoraphobia is a behavioral response to anxiety so I decided to give behavioral therapy another try. And for the past few years, my biggest problem has been obsessive thoughts and behavior and it keeps getting worse. The political situation in this country has done some real damage to my brain.

Anyway, I’m not going to go into all the details of my therapy, but she gave me two assignments. One was to stay off social media and avoid the news for a week. The other ***GULP*** concerns my game playing. Perhaps it is significant that I waited to tell her that I play games A LOT until the end of our first session. Immediately she said, “Delete your games.”

To the social media break, I said, “Okay, that’s a good idea.” To the game break, I said, “D-delete my games?”

She said, “Ah, there’s the look.”

She nailed my addiction.

I have been playing games all my life, since I was little, to calm my mind. Before computers, since I can remember. I played solitaire and board games where I played both sides. I had a plastic grid with tiny pieces very much like Legos that I constantly made patterns on, sitting on the den floor in front of the TV. (It drove my daddy crazy.) I do puzzles. I am drawn to any game or puzzle that involves logic, strategy, or setting up patterns. Ever heard of nonograms? Candy Crush totally scratches that itch too.

So she backed off a bit when I told her that I didn’t think that I could do that. Instead I am limiting my game playing to a schedule and being aware of the amount of time I spend playing games. I would be embarrassed to tell you how much time I have wasted. It is my way to avoid thinking because my mind is engaged with strategy.

Sewing pieces of fabric together serves this same function, but my sewing machine has been wonky and my hands can’t deal with too much stitching. I cleaned my machine as best I could and the tension has straightened out. It costs about as much to repair this Brother as it costs to buy another, so I won’t be getting maintenance or repair on it again. Once it crashes again I’m going to switch to my mother’s old Singer which dates back to the 50s or 60s. The only reason I haven’t been using the Singer is due to lack of space in my studio. The Macomber loom takes up a lot of space and I need a work table. And I swear that I am going to warp up this Macomber this winter. The warp is measured and ready to go.

Right now I am concentrating on getting my t-shirt quilt finished. It’s beginning to get chilly and the garden is about done. I have never quilted anything (successfully) but this is just a bunch of old t-shirts and it’s not a work of art. I’m going to finish it and get the room back in my studio. I don’t care if the angles are correct or the stitches are even. It’s something to cuddle up with, not to hang in an exhibit. It will be good to get a big project finished.

Also, I finished the summer entries on my tapestry diary and now I’m mulling over how to weave September and October. A lot happened.

Tomorrow afternoon I plan to go down to Gate City Yarns and get a little social time in. Sandy is going to take me out for dinner and we will watch our friend Brad’s jazz band play in the park.

And next Sunday afternoon, I am going to drive to Raleigh for a book making party with the Triangle Book Arts group. I am not going to back out of this one. I have ideas.

In between, I’m going to go to work and get shit done. It’s likely that there will be more frequent blogging.

agoraphobia, depression/anxiety, whining
Laurie

I think of all the things I want to write about constantly, thinking that I’ll start doing it after this, after that, and then I don’t do it. Then the words float away, buried by the debris in my anxious brain, or pushed away by mindless game playing that absorb my thoughts lest they go to dark places. I do this to myself. It’s the same reason I don’t get art done.

It’s a pattern for me to get depressed after my last trip west for the year, without any trip planned to keep my INTJ cells active. This coming year I’m sure that I’ll go somewhere for a retreat, maybe to the HGA (Handweavers Guild of America) Convergence in Reno in July. I’d love to take one of the ATA (American Tapestry Alliance) three-day workshops. However, I’ve never been able to get into one, even when I set an alarm to register online at the very moment registration begins, because donors to the organization get to register a month early and the workshops fill up. If I was to donate $125 before Oct. 17, I’d get a shot but I’m feeling the squeeze of medical bills and household repairs that I need to hire someone for. Then I might not get in the class anyway and I’d be out the money. And I’d have to make a firm decision about going to Reno before Oct. 17. Ay yi yi. This is the kind of thing that makes my chest hurt. So maybe I’ll try to register for one of the classes again on Nov. 17 without the extra donation. If I get in, then Fate has decreed that I should go.

Fortunately there are lots of book arts classes that are in driving distance and don’t cost so much. I’m getting involved with the Triangle Book Arts group, which has its meetings in Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill and are about an hour’s drive away. Tomorrow morning I’m going to a mark-making workshop at the Chapel Hill Public Library and it will be my first meeting with this group.

Have I mentioned that my agoraphobia now has no problem with hopping on a plane to fly thousands of miles away, but rears its head at a car trip by myself more than 15 minutes away? Mental illness has no logic. This is the kind of thing that slips up on me. I have to push through this. Boo, panic disorder! Go away!

Then I’m going to join this TBA group again the following Saturday in Durham to play with creating a panel for a collaborative accordion style book that will hang at the ReFuse show in January.

I’ve got all kinds of ideas for this panel BUT I realize that right now it might be best for me to just pull out a bunch of collage materials and found objects and then follow my nose.

And I’m working on appreciating Greensboro and North Carolina. I know it’s a case of the “grass being greener on the other side of the hill.” I realize that Greensboro is actually a great place to live, and that North Carolina is a beautiful state. I’m trying to see it with new eyes instead of the eyes of someone who has lived in the state for 56 years and in Greensboro for 38 of those years, never anywhere else.

So I’m going for a hike on one of the lake trails on Sunday.

But all I really want to do when I get home from work is play computer games, read, and sleep. I gotta snap out of it, but it’s not so easy when I want to be kind to myself too. Like right now, I’m gonna have a real hard time not laying down on the bed, much less even thinking about cooking dinner. Last night I ate some crackers and went to bed at 7 p.m. I don’t know how people with children manage.

You’ve probably guessed that I’m having a hard time with thinking about politics, natural disasters, and personal worries.

Oh yeah, my gallbladder surgery is scheduled for October 5. Trying REALLY hard not to think about that, except for keeping my diet fairly low-fat. My neck is much better, and I’m getting a home traction device soon that should help a lot.

Okay, that’s enough whining. I’ll write about my gardening plans and more substantive subjects later.

agoraphobia, depression/anxiety

Today

Laurie

12375851_10206674016226914_69795915_o

Today, I got through the day after a serious prolonged anxiety episode during errand running after the guild party yesterday. The party was fun, the food at Printworks was delicious, and some of us exchanged handmade “mug rugs,” so I was surprised by the panic attack. It’s been so long since I’ve had a major one that I forgot that they usually do come on at the most puzzling times. So, YAY, I got through Monday! One day at a time, ya know.

I did manage to go to a Hanukkah party last night, and I’m glad that I pushed through it, but I pretty much collapsed before I even got to the car. One thing I did learn over the years was that panic disorder developed into agoraphobia when I did not push through it, and I certainly don’t want to retreat to that.

12380790_10206675089533746_740630049_o

The menorah was beautiful. I love what Susanne has done with her studio, spreading it over two rooms on the first floor of her house. I hope to do some papermaking again soon over there.

Today we resolved one of the work issues, but I think that we’ve done all we can and won’t be able to resolve the others. Too bad. God knows we tried. Now I’m letting it go, evicting the cats from the bedroom, and heading to dreamland. Hopefully I will be blogging about art instead of mental health issues very soon.

agoraphobia, depression/anxiety

A bout with agoraphobia

Laurie

I am 95% finished with cleaning out the kitchen – I have two drawers to go, and they won’t be bad. It was the ones in which nothing had been touched for months, in some cases, years, and around the trashcan under the sink that had me horrified. The mice found those spots irresistibly peaceful and set up homesteads there, so it was a nasty job to tackle. Fortunately the large majority of the heirloom stuff was boxed up so that the mice couldn’t touch it, and I ended up throwing “away” most everything that wasn’t metal or glass and couldn’t be sanitized. I ended up with three big cabinets and five drawers to use for my art supplies. This was a rare instance in which I actually used bleach and a face mask in cleaning the kitchen. I had had it with the procrastination and I was taking my space back.

One of the reasons this made me feel so much better is that the kitchen mess was a result of my struggle with depression. I couldn’t face it – it was overwhelming. I was already using a tiny portion of my kitchen to prepare food because I felt that I could control it and keep it reasonably clean. I got to the point where I hated cooking because the kitchen nagged me that it needed major attention every time I walked in there. I bought prepared foods from the farmers’ market to take to potluck parties.

As a recovering agoraphobic, I realized that I was retreating from spaces in my own house.

Once I got that (and I’m not sure that I totally understood it until just a couple of days ago), I knew that I had to move past it. That is the only way to deal with agoraphobic behavior. So I took it a little at a time until it was done. I feel so much better. I cooked soup this week and I worked in my new studio space. My kitchen space is smaller and manageable. I am not holed up in my bedroom now, although it does still beckon to me. I’ve set up my laptop in the dining room/studio.

That’s the thing with agoraphobia, it will slip up on you if you stop paying attention.

I try to write about my experience with it from time to time, because I think that it is important to talk publicly about mental illness. Agoraphobia is about your personal comfort zone and can take many forms.

To those of you who can relate to this overwhelming anxiety of moving out of a comfort zone, if you haven’t gotten help, I urge you to either find a doctor or therapist who can help you and if you can’t make yourself go, get a friend to take you. Agoraphobia is a behavioral problem, but I was not able to deal with it on my own until I had taken medication for anxiety and depression for a few years. Now I fly and travel all over the world with great pleasure. I wish you the same.