The Best Laid Plans

Don’t get finished by a person with ADHD. Well, they do, but not on time. There is certainly no consistent blogging. I think I lost my 2 readers.

My way or the highway, that’s how I roll.

This hasn’t been easy, not that I expected this to be puppies in tutus and unicorns distributing free chocolate chip cookies on top of down comforters. The physical effects are done (ie, eyes wrapped in Saran wrap or microfiber cloths and being unable to complete sentences). Now I just feel like I did 6 years ago. Except with more wrinkles. And thinner (for now).

Recipe for Insanity: Food issues, plus a healthy dose of PMS. What you get: A 7 pound weight gain in ten days, and for each pound, an inch off of your hair, which you spontaneously decide to do after 2 glasses of wine, and upon exiting the bar, take note of a Super Cuts.

I didn’t lose my husband though, who has been exceedingly patient. He spoils me. I love you, my DB.

For 29.25 years there has been a constant fight going on inside me (I really do not have Multiple Personality Disorder, to preface this, despite the delightful mix of mental illnesses that run in my family) – I call this Lucy versus Ethel. Lucy is my brain - she has bright blonde hair, experiments with chemicals (legal and illegal), screams at people when she feels like it, drinks entirely too much on a regular basis, and eats her body weight in Lays potato chips, or chocolate chip cookies if she is really on fire! She also wears a monkey costume, or nothing at all if she is feeling quite vivacious.

Ethel is my mind. She makes a to-do list every day, writes down everything she eats with the corresponding WW points, exercises, wears underwear every day, stays on budget, on task, on point. Her teeth have been cleaned on a biyearly basis, has had her yearly physical. She chooses to read fine literature instead of watching poor reality television and her house is neat, she folds her husband’s underwear for him, and makes him deliciously creative sandwiches for lunch each morning. She wears a pressed outfit from Banana Republic.

Lucy and Ethel do not get along. They constantly argue with each other. While Lucy is quite likable, follow what she says and you will end up jobless, and 200 pounds, and she will desert you, fat and alone, while Ethel says, “I told you so, sweetheart.”

It is a constant battle of Lucy versus Ethel. Fighting is exhausting! But it is exciting! When you have ADHD, your brain is like a magnet, searching around for excitement! Stimulation seeking behavior! Exclamation points are fun!

LUCY VERSUS ETHEL – FIGHT NUMBER 1,100,656 – 9/12/2010:
Lucy – OH LOOK. Lays Potato Chips and Onion Dip – let’s eat the whole bowl! You can slather yourself with the leftover dip as moisturizer and lick yourself clean!
Ethel – Shut up, Lucy. Sarah, you have been pretty good today. Let’s stay on track! Eat a few chips and write them down (them points)!
George (my stomach) – HUNGRY!
Lucy – Have a little wine. OK good. Have a little more. (Lucy is very smart and very sneaky.) Isn’t it great being intoxicated? (Lucy knows wine impairs Ethel.)
Enter carrot cake.
George – THIS ROCKS! BRING IT.
Ethel – Absolutely not.
George and Lucy (in unison) – Shut up Ethel – we are drunk and going to kick your ass. Ethel exits, carrot cake enters body.

With the Strattera, Lucy was more of a whisper, a little quiet monkey, someone you could ignore and move away from, with no carrot cake consumed. Ethel, while reserved, could be heard loud and clear.

Without it, Lucy is a 150 pound gorilla (I just revealed my body weight on the internet, great) foaming at the mouth, AND SHE WILL NOT BE IGNORED. And she kicks Ethel’s ass.

That is my synopsis of my mind/brain battle. The battle of logic versus instinct. It is quite exhausting.

I know this could be a heck of a lot worse. I could have a life threatening illness, and not know the outcome, or be in control of it. In this case, I know what I need to do here. I have a gained a lot of knowledge over the past 29.26 years, especially throughout the past year. It is just a matter of implementing it, and telling Lucy to shut the hell up. Am I really going to let a spongy mass of tissue win this battle? It could be so much worse. Ok, the lame self pep talk will end now.
OTHER NEWS THAT I WANT TO KEEP TRACK OF:

Suddenly I have the desire to do things that I have been procrastinating with. I changed my name, finalized my wedding video, and photos. I also framed my Ketubah and wedding invite. (Side note: HOLY HELL IS FRAMING EXPENSIVE.)

Mind drugs are weird and do more harm than good, in certain cases, I will say this over and over. MAKE THEM YOUR LAST RESORT. That is my PSA. Why am I suddenly willingly able to do stuff like this versus 3 weeks ago? Who the hell knows – brains are weird but so are drugs. It’s a totally different story if you are a paranoid schizophrenic, in that case, pop those babies like tic tacs!

DB and I are trying to spice up our marriage (not through those ways you filthy-minded person) in fun ways, so we have implemented Friday night date night. We make tasty dinners and do my favorite activity, eating. Did you think I was going to say something else?

Friday night we made pan-caramelized halibut with a brown butter and white wine sauce, and white truffle risotto with a mushroom medley. Cooking together is fun, until I have a violent outburst (I only had one). It also helps us with our communication (eg, DB, don’t pour that searing hot oil on my leg! I am not wearing pants, not that pants would help!).

We also discovered the magic of BLACK TRUFFLE OIL. Sounds expensive, but in reality is $7.99 of pure heaven. I want to put it on everything!

I also purchased the red leather handbag of my dreams. See below. I love you HomeGoods. Thank you Junior Drake.

Is it time for lunch yet?

Buffalo-Flavored Kisses

As I write this, I can smell the warm, inviting fragrance, of Frank's Red Hot.

My husband is eating boneless buffalo wings for breakfast. I just forced him to kiss me so I could taste the sauce.

I was almost 140 days sober until Wednesday. Heroin? No. Crack? Not as far as I can tell. Puppy squeezing? Who wants to be sober from that?

No, it was gluten/wheat/ice cream-filled bathtubs (those have been replaced by wine bathtubs - people with addictive personalities typically replace addictions with new additions). The reason I cannot eat those is a whole other entry. I realize this is a bit of a fad right now, much like the Atkins diet, but this ain't no fad with me. (The Atkins diet was so much fun. I love meat. Pork rinds were also so great. The problem was just looking at a cinnamon roll while on that diet caused an immediate 15 lbs to adhere to your body faster than you can say BACON!)

I am going to be honest, I have had some breadcrumbs here and there, and some cheese. Honesty is key.

By now, those of you reading this should know that I am an all-or-nothing type of girl. Why slowly taper off medication when you can just stop it abruptly despite all medical evidence which will lead to massive binge-eating and dry-heaving crying fits with fits of screaming?

That leads us to Wednesday. Wednesday started off quite positively. I woke up with a smile on my face, which has not happened in about 29.2 years as far as I can recollect. My eyeballs did not feel as if they were wrapped in saran wrap, and my hunger levels appeared to be under control, versus Tuesday where random strangers looked delectable to me. Then I had to work on Wednesday, which was the usual "same shiz, different day." The usual spikes in blood pressure, seizures, and intracranial hypertension.

Sprinkle some haywire brain chemistry sprinkles on that, plus some poor impulse control sauce, and BOOM!

You have a binge-eating sundae!

Two pounds of penne vodka later, plus a me likey from Coldstone (ie, 2 lbs of cake batter orgasm-cream mashed in with cookie dough made by little angels), and then a Corona Light (my theory is that the carbonation would help break up the huge mass in my stomach, either that or a stomach pump), I was feelin' high on life!

And then the hyperglycemia wore off. It wasn't pretty, neither was the fact that the amount of air (it did not smell like roses, according to DB, and he was "nearly asphyxiated while sleeping") that exited my body was something that should have been tracked by Sir Guinness himself. If I pointed my butt in the right direction, I probably could have propelled myself into the air.

Thursday morning I woke up very upset. I know food consumption should not be equated with failure, but I felt like a big loser. I felt like I was a teenager again, hiding in my room, sawing through Doritos like a rabid beaver, washing my face to not be caught orange-lipped by my mother.

I just felt out of control. I am an adult - I don't want to have a safety blanket or a pacifier anymore (ie, Strattera). I want to be OK without this, especially for a child.

Yesterday really stunk. I walked around like my hamster died (that is rough, let me tell you) all day. By 7 pm I was doing the hardcore ugly cry (the one where your face looks like it's pressed against a window), alternating with violent screaming while driving to my appointment. It was a full blown pity party of disgust. I know I was acting like a binge eating episode was the end of the world, and that is lame, but some french fries are missing from my happy meal, if you catch my drift.

I love french fries. I also think the person that invented nacho cheese dust should be given a Nobel Prize.

Thank goodness for a special person in my life who bitchslapped me and my brain back into reality, my RAT. (Really Awesome Therapist.)

The bottom line is that I worked hard to get here, and the way I feel, and these hardships are just a measure of how hard I have worked over the past year. I am doing this now because I am ready. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Also, karma is a big bitch!

Pearls of wisdom from me.

Now if you will excuse me, I am going to go eat some pickles and sneak some sips of pickle juice from the jar. Don't tell DB.

Lukewarm Turkey

For the 2.2 people that read this, I am still alive – day 2 of no happy pills. The cold turkey is feeling kind of lukewarm right now, considering I slept for a total of 2.5 hours last night.

Yesterday was a surprisingly tolerable day. Dare I say that I am much happier without the happy pills? Don’t tell the pharmaceutical company!

Other than random electric shock headaches, a deep paralyzing hunger where I fantasized about gnawing on small fat babies dipped in ranch dressing, and feeling as if my eyes were wandering in 2 separate directions, I did pretty well.

I was actually, in a good mood? I don’t think I had a thought of violently attacking anyone all day long.

CNS therapies are interesting. I have been on a few drugs in my life (mostly legal).

Ritalin – take my rage, and give it some cystal meth, and there you have it. Not pretty.
Wellbutrin – I might as well swallow a bunch of tic tacs.
Prozac – Should we talk about the hives that landed me in the emergency room? Maybe we should talk about the violent insomnia, the Parkinsonian shaking, the teeth chattering, or the fact that I could not feel any type of emotion whatsoever.
Xanax – Oh my, how I love you. You are like drinking a bottle of wine without the calories. I love you so much, that I decided to stop taking you so I did not end up on Intervention.
Ambien – This was also fun. Why go on just Prozac when you can take several other drugs to deal with the side effects? That is so much more fun. Things get really interesting when you take it and don’t actually fall asleep. Instead, you call your friend, have a 3 hour long conversation that you don’t remember, and then walk out to tell your husband that he needs to turn off the air conditioner so it stops talking to you. It’s January.

Strattera was helpful. While I went on it for ADHD, it totally wiped out my binge eating, which stopped a continuum of bad depression. For example, when you eat 4 dozen chocolate chip cookies, while you feel an initial burst of chocolate chip flavored elation, about 10 minutes later you feel like a major fat failure. And why do anything else except sit around and watch bad television when you are a fat failure? It was instrumental in getting me off of an ugly downward spiral. So thanks, Strattera. It’s been real.

Here’s my take on all these drugs (legal). When you have “mental challenges,” (I am trying to be positive and not say things like “when you are a nutcase/batshit crazy”) it is like your mind is full of junk. We are talking about dirty spandex pants, US magazines from last week, empty pickle containers, toilet paper that you bought last week that you haven’t put away yet, and a whole lot of junk mail (I may or may not be talking about the current state of my living room).

When you take happy drugs, all the junk still stays there, but the lights get a lot dimmer (or completely off, in the case of Prozac). Things look a lot cleaner, don’t they? Guess what, the crap is still there. The only way you are going to clear out the crap is if you change out of your sweatpants, brush your teeth, and clean the hell up!

I think therapies such as these are very important. They have helped millions of people. But I think a lot of people use them as a bandaid. If you slap a bandaid on a carotid artery bleed, things are going to get messy fast. The only way I ever changed was when I took action, and found the WBT! (World’s Best Therapist!)

I will get off my soapbox now, but then again, this is my blog. (My grandpa used to make me sit on phonebooks at the dinner table so I could reach the table.)

On a separate note, it is slightly scary that we might have to start thinking about childcare. DB brought this to my attention last night. I’m glad he thinks about such important things as this. He’s the ying to my yang. The rice to my krispie. The bacon to my bacon. Who knew that you just couldn’t keep the baby in a fish tank? No water of course. Just some sand. Like a terrarium, except a baby-arium.

(I do not condone keeping infants in cages.)

Bad Idea

I have had my share of bad ideas over the years. These are a few highlights. If I were to chronicle all of the bad ideas over my 29.10 years we would have a War & Peace on our hands. Which I sure as hell didn’t read.

Age 1: Dog food tastes like crackers!
Age 2: The kitty has a hole in its butt. Let’s stick something up there!
Age 5: Let’s pretend I am a horse and eat real grass! Why aren’t any of the other kids talking to me?
Age 7: My mom won’t cut my hair with bangs. Therefore, I will take a crayola scissor and do it myself.
Age 13-21: Too many bad ideas to remember.
Age 21: Let’s start a blog and discuss every single personal detail about myself, with zero confidentiality, and then one day my new boss will find it!
Age 29: Since my insurance provider screwed me over this morning, instead of slow tapering off my medication, I am going to cut it COLD TURKEY.

I am typically an all or nothing type of lady. Usually it’s nothing. Hence why I haven’t written a blog entry since 2008. I tend to start things and not finish them. Hence the strattera.

I also have a very crappy work-life balance. Typically it’s work – eating (my favorite activity) – sleeping (second favorite activity) – watching bad television. Let’s not forget wine drinking. You won’t find any zen on this webpage. But those of you that know me, know that I have been actively working on that.

Right now, I am as good as I am going to get. Emotionally and physically. Unfortunately I have little control over the genetic portion of my portfolio, which ain’t pretty. When life threw me a deck of genetic cards, lady luck was not on my side.

So here we are today, August 23, 2010. I stopped Strattera today. A normal, rational person would have slowly tapered off of it. When my lovely insurance provider decided to call for prior authorization for a lesser dose (WTF), I decided to go cold turkey! I really enjoy turkey.

Why would anyone in their right mind do this? The goal is to create some offspring here. No clinical trials in pregnancy with Strattera = better stop the drug before baby makin’ time so the baby doesn’t come out with multiple heads, additional limbs, or both. Like I said, the genetics are scary enough.

So here I am, a few hours in. No DTs yet or projectile vomiting. I simply feel like someone has plucked the eyeballs out of my head and wrapped them in cotton. Past experiences where I neglected to medicate myself have resulted in mass food consumption in the latter part of the day, so I must stay strong. My job also requires me to form complete sentences, which could present a problem.

Here we go.

The fresh and clean smell.

Smell that? It's the smell of a new fresh beginning, the way a t-shirt feels when you take it right of the drier and it smells clean, feels so warm.

I started a blog, a web journal, a web site, in 2003, before everyone and their mother had their own URL. I didn't hold back anything, was young and naive, overexposed. As I advanced myself in my career, there was way too much risk involved leaving my heart and soul up on the web for anyone to see. With the click of a button, it was gone.

Here I am again, fairly anonymous. I am starting out in more ways that one, time is flying by, and I need to capture the past somehow, some way, like lint in a dryer vent. If you don't clean the vent out, fires can start. Sometimes there will be nothing but fuzz, sometimes you might find a hair ball, and if we're lucky, maybe some spare change.

It is time for change.