Going to the chapel and they’re gonna get married part 2

My eyes are abit swollen and tired today. I cried myself to sleep. Wet snotty tissue in my paw. Luckily Porra gets me and didn’t think I was crying over my long lost love Tweenie’s Dad. He understood. Understood that I feel alone in the world again without mummy and daddy figures.

I’ve been a part of Tweenie’s Dad’s family since 1996. That’s……<get’s out fingers and toes and a calculator>…..16 years. I’ve always coped in my head that …yes …. I don’t have contact with my real mother and father….and Tweenie’s Dad’s parents where kind of my backup plan.

I’ve kind of piggybacked Tweenie’s family and now I am feeling an incredible loss. I feel such hurt….<I did follow my own advice and checked my hormonal cycle and yes I also have PMS!>

The one year Porra and I even drove down to them and spent christmas with them as their own children were off doing their own thing.

It all boils down to mummy and daddy issues as usual.

I’m losing a family (again). Hard to swallow, but the tears are starting to dry up.

The ex is getting married…

Yes, we’ve been broken up for over 11 years.

Tweenie’s Dad.

Why my eyes are moist I have no idea.

I was already having a crappy day. Some arsehole left a screwdriver in the road and it ended up in my tyre. Porra to the rescue  ! (he was there is lightning speed. He should really invest in a cape!)

My anxiety was at 120% already.

I feel sad Tweenie’s Dad is getting married. Moist eyes while eating speckled eggs. Not sure why I have feelings about this. Part of me is angry that he just carries on with his life no matter what crisis Tweenie is in.

Just gone to the shops and got a big box of Biral (herbal tranquilizer) and a big bag of speckled eggs.

 

Goodbye meds…

I have been off meds for approximately 6 weeks now. Being au naturel I have noticed some weird quirks. When I am medicated these quirks are still there, but pretty squashed by my meds……

• I am hating crowds of people. Not just mere irritation, but get me the fuck out of here type of stuff. I noticed it yesterday at the Good Food and Wine show. I sought refuge – away from the free olive paste et al – on a white leather couch near a R1.9 million Maserati that no-one could afford and was not near. I got the same feeling at the local Pick and Pay grocery store this morning where everyone and his cousin had decided to do their payday month end shop. This brings back memories of my mother rising at the crack of dawn on a Saturday to go food shopping because she hated crowds. Oh no. It’s true. You do end up being like your mother !
• Mini panic attacks while having a facial. I have this usually, but yesterday’s facial was much worse than usual. I suspect someone tried to smother me when I was a child (or perhaps I have been watching too much NY NCIS) or I am incarnation of an Indian wife shut in an oven. My poor long suffering beautician not only has to wax all my hairy bits, but now has to contend with me fussing and squirming when she goes near my nose.
• Self medicating with alcohol. I’ve noticed my wine consumption has been up. I’ve even had a ciggie in my hand at one point. 
• I thought that being off meds which make me less anxious. I have no logical reason for this idea except that I am in a stable relationship and my life is pretty cool. So you would think I am a cool cat. But it would appear that anxiety is my natural state. I’ve been so anxious that sex has not really been a feature lately. When I’ve been too busy in the evenings, I’ve fallen into bed without my evening bath. A sidebar to this is that Porra keeps away from me because I am a “stinky pommy”. I had to be honest with Porra this week after I got past the first ten minutes and told him I find the first ten minutes of foreplay or sex repulsive. I do. I cringe. I freeze. I don’t want to be there. 

I am hoping to explore other avenues to bust this anxiety rather than depending on medication.

Off to have a  Mai-Thaim bath…….

http://www.therific.co.za/

 

Today I’ve realised…

……that Tweenie and I have to stay away from stressful situations. It is not working for us/me.

Although I am doing OK off my anti-anxiety meds, I have an extra short fuse and I’m easily irritated. Putting Tweenie and I together at the moment is like shutting two strange rottweilers into a bathroom together and not expecting fur to fly.

At the last moment this morning, we were invited to go to the Food and Wine Fair at the CTICC. With the hope of meeting Buddy The Cake Boss…….off we went.

CTICC was mega packed. I do not do well in crowds. I hate waiting in queues. I hate being pushed. I super hate being bumped into.

The CTICC was all of this and more.

Some rare photos of Tweenie and I smiling at the same time:

Not my finest parenting moment

Driving home from work today, I was really looking forward to seeing Tweenie. During the day I managed to weedle some leave and have booked a long weekend off in her school holidays with the intention of treating us to The Caledon.

Feeling Good Friday.

But this boundary stuff throws in curve balls.

Get to Tweenie’s school and she wants to go to the car barefoot. In the pouring rain. She’s been on Benlyn syrup for a week. Get my drift.

Diddy – please put on your shoes

Tweenie – I don’t have any

Diddy – you didn’t come to school barefoot. Put on your shoes.

Tweenie – No (already outside and going to the car)

Diddy – we are not going home until you put on your shoes

I go back into the school and wait it out. I’ve set the boundary. Now it is a battle of the wills.

I don’t budge.

She don’t budge.

After 5 minutes she slops back in, squashes her school shoes onto her feet. Proceeds to walk to the car with her heels on top of her shoes squashing her shoes and basically stuffing them up.

I am furious. We are chirping each other all the way to the car.

Diddy – right that’s it, your cellphone is gone for a week.

Tweenie – but I put on my shoes

NO YOU DIDN’T. YOU DIDN’T PUT THEM ON STRAIGHT AWAY. IT TAKES A WHOLE LOAD OF FECKING DRAMA. DON’T PRETEND YOU JUST HAPPILY PUT YOUR SHOES ON.

YES I DID. I PUT MY SHOES ON !

ETC ETC ETC

We proceeded to have a screaming match half way home.

Then when we get home, she zooms inside and locks herself into the bathroom with her phone…..

No phone for a month now.

How to get back at a teenager 101.

Boundary setting ain’t easy.

 

 

“You will do what I say ! Oh OK, you won’t” and other stories from an enabler’s diary…….

There is a saying that “God will only give you as much as you can handle”.

This is just to make you feel that you should be able to cope with your lot in life. When it all feels JUST.TOO.MUCH !

Kind of like saying it is lucky if it rains on your wedding day. It’s a saying that people have made up as a silver lining to a really shitty thing.

Well my God certainly has high expectations of me. He must think I am a machine of note.

I do not feel like this all the time, but sometimes I feel like just one more fucking thing on my plate will send me off to those nice nurses at Kenilworth Clinic.

But that feeling passes…….until another mini crisis comes my way……..and I can feel that feeling that this is all just too much for one person and I want out.

As I speak write I am obviously not in runaway mode else I would be 123km down the road on my bike at my most favourite of places, the Caledon Hotel and Spa (it is frikking heaven to me and Tweenie). I forget all my worries when I am there. All I have to worry about it which temperature hot pool to put my ass in and whether I want red wine or dry white.

Anyways……..besides the usual work stress of me being a perfectionist and having a bitchy boss that I constantly try to please…………………………..I have been trying (unsuccessfully) to set boundaries with Tweenie. This is after discussions with Tweenie and Dr Sweet at a family session. Dr Sweet says that Tweenie must start taking more responsibility for herself and her feelings and start doing things on her own very slowly.

I have been setting little boundaries that may appear so tiny to those outside Diddyland, but none the less have caused arguments here.

Bottom line is that Tweenie is comfortable/safe/used to things going a certain way (also read as “her way”) and this has been our mutual coping mechanism for survival where I do want she wants to lessen her anxiety and let her carry on with some normality. We are in a dance of co-dependence with me enabling her. It has not always been like this. Or perhaps it has. This seperation anxiety and mini agoraphobia has worsened and crept on us until we had to be really stupid to see it was not age appropriate or a problem.

• Anxiety about a party – no worries Mom will come and sit there for the two hours and feel like a Big Fat Lemon Mom who cannot leave her child alone for a second. Meanwhile it’s Tweenie. However in the light of day, she has this mask and she acts all happy da dooooo la while I am easy reach (does this make sense ?), but has a fully fledged panic if I try to leave. Even if I try and negociate only half an hour away (this is not because I want to escape you understand, but this is because Dr Sweet is recommending a withdrawal of my Tweenie anxiety busting ways).
• Does not want to use the button on the door to unlock the car door ? – Always wants Mom to do the central locking thing. Refuses to use bottom el manual ( I can launch into “when I was young we didn’t even have a fecking car” story if I am given half a chance)
• Needs a newspaper for a school project that evening ? Forgot to mention it at the Spar when we were there on the way home. Please Dear Dear Tweenie go to the neighbour in our secure townhouse complex and ask for their copy of the Sunday Times. Nope. Mom must do it. Refuses.
• Mom is running late of work. Asks Tweenie to please walk herself to class as there are loads of parents, teachers and kids around. Refuses. Even though I can drop her off 5 metres from the school office door. So Mom has to find a far away parking and take her up two storeys into her class and deposit her with her preferred person.

Most things in my life around Tweenie right now cause stress. I am trying to set boundaries, change things a little and she is digging her heels in.

I’m trying to be the loving Waldof Mom I want to be, but I am falling way way short.

I’m tired and irritable.

But hey…..God only gives you as much as you can handle !

 

Suicidual cow. It’s all about perspective me dears.

Flu and sniffles have hit Diddyland. I can’t express how busy I am. My boss was overseas, came back with a flu bug and lasted one day back at work before hitting sick bay at home. Effectively, she’s now been away 4 weeks. That’s a shit load of time to be doing two or three people’s work. At a company you’ve only been at 8 months.

The troops are dropping like flies. Another co-worker is also ill.

Me ? I generally only miss work if I am at death’s door or having a mental wobble. I have to be physically missing a limb not to make it to work.

But I am an adult child. And let me tell you. We work well under stress. We thrive I tell you ! Thrive !

So my exodus from all things medication continue. As I am still in the busy tail spin.

A local artist is a parent at Tweenie’s school. I did my hour or two parental shift at the tea garden this past Saturday as it was……ta dahhhh ! Market Day at school.

I came across this card by said parent artist. I promptly bought it because I love all things cow. I promptly named it “suicidal cow” as the cow appears to be about to throw itself off a cliff. Like you do.

Got home and read the back a bit.

The picture is actually names “the cow that loves the sea”.

Just shows you it’s all about perspective. One man’s loved up cow gazing at the sea, is another lady’s depressed bovine who wants to end it all.

The artist’s website advertises prints (not particularly of the sad cow). Me thinks sad cow print should come live at my house as a reminder of perspective.

Over and out and back to work.

How to get off anti-depressants without realising it

Step  1

Tell your boss to go away to Bali for a month. Or anywhere like Bali where you cannot make contact. The moon ? That would also work.

This will make you so busy at work that you will not have any time for self pity or depression or taking  any pills.  You will barely have time to wipe your arse more than once per sitting. Either getting up at 5am or working until 11pm will soon make you soon forget you need to take a pill to survive. Survival mode turns into making it back home into club duvet.

Step 2

Lack of time will mean lack of time for all things carnal and bedroom related. This will reduce sexual anxiety making it easier to wean yourself off your medication. Something along the lines of taking away one of the causes of the anxiety at the source !

Step 3

Plot your menstrual cycle very religiously. Suicidal feelings and feelings of extreme hatred and boredom towards your partner and your life in general can  be blamed on hormones. Because it will be your hormones. It is usually PMS with me. I seriously get suicidal.  Really I do. I don’t think anyone believes me. But I do. Drive my car into a wall sort of stuff.

Step4

Be a trustee of a complex that you live in. That way when you are eventually unshackled from your desk at 9pm, you can come home to lots of shit because the electric gate does not work or because Paul the gardener wasn’t paid on time. You will also receive ten calls a day about the stupid gate. Again less time to take your pills means you don’t take them.

Step 5

Stop reading decor magazines no matter how much you love them. It just shows you on a continual fucking  basis what house you do NOT have. Who the hell can afford a R5000 dining room chair anyway ? Totally unobtainable most of it. And I fall for “I want that” all the time. No more Associated Magazines !!!! No more I cry. I’ve seen the light !

Step 6

Give your own therapy a break. Bleating at my therapist every week got me stuck in bleating mode. I’ve given it a break for three weeks. Mainly because of lack of time and because now Tweenie needs to go once a week and I cannot fit it all in.

<I say that, but I am going to go bleat at Tweenie’s therapist on Wednesday. Whatever. I’m not bleating about my own shit for a change I suppose. Could this be called deflection ?>

Step 7

Have some anxiety meds handy for emergencies. I’m off anti-depressants, but have taken a couple of Esperides inbetween when the desire at the office is to take my handbag and run the fuck out of there.

Tha….tha….that’s all folks.

Watch this space. I’m not saying I’m successfully off meds. You never know when the wheels might fall off.

But….I’m feeling chuffed about how I’m feeling. No apparent wobble in sight.

Can art help people deal with the pain of their sexual abuse ?

I think so…..

Powerful freaking stuff…..

http://projectunbreakable.tumblr.com/

Let the therapy begin…..

Email – 1:31 PM (8 hours ago)

Hi Dr Sweet

Just a mail to confirm which day next week for me to join in on a session.

Any day except Monday.

Also do you think meditation would be good for Tweenie ?

I was thinking of taking her to the buddhist centre in rondebosch for mediation classes. I will join her too.

Rondebosch classes – Tushita Buddist Centre

Thursdays 6.30-7.30pm with Gen Pagpa

Venue: 21 Loch Rd, Rondebosch

Diddy

x

From Dr Sweet

3:39 pm to me

Hi Diddy

Tweenie seemed to benefit from the meditation we had together.  Perhaps though it would be better if we found something that Tweenie can participate in wthout you – difficult to find I know!  You also need your own space!

Her meds are prescribed for ADD but are also useful for anxiety.  However, I do think that there may be something better for her now.  Again we can chat on Weds.  Do you want her to see the same same specialist as before? with regard the meds?

love

Dr Sweet

PS weds 4.30 please

Diddy 9:46pm to Dr Sweet

Hi Dr Sweet

Wednesday 4:30pm confirmed.

Re: Tweenie doing meditation on her own. Tweenie refuses to do anything on her own. She starts to get very panicky, cries and refuses. Most activities end in disaster.

I booked her into a term of children’ art classes at the beginning of the year (she is very good at art). She didn’t want to go after the second class, but I try and make her stick to committments (she wanted to do art). The class was on a Saturday and the only way i could get her to do the class was if I waited outside for the duration of the class. She hates being with new children. Even though the class was very small. After about six classes I gave up forcing her to go as it was a bit of a bind me sitting outside for two hours each Saturday and with her hating it anyway.

I also tried to drop her off at church youth this past Friday. She had a friend sleepover at me so she wouldn’t be alone at church. She was also meeting another friend there. Within 2 minutes she was in the toilet with cramps, crying on the phone that  I should come fetch her and her friend. She knew I was two blocks away at a pitza place. It was all anxiety and the stomach pains were all gone after I fetched her. I never know whether to let her be or fetch her.

We can discuss her doing meditation classes or other sorts of things without me when we meet, but she does not like to leave my side unless it is with Porra. The only way at present she can “experience’ things is if I am there. So because I would like her to experience things, I follow what she wants to reduce her anxiety. I suppose this would be enabling. She won’t go into a movie with a friend without me. She won’t sleep over anywhere. The Saturday classes were a disaster. She won’t even walk into school on her own without a fuss. I can’t even go to the garage in my townhouse complex to get something out of the car without her

I am not sure about Tweenie seeing Dr ADD MEDS again for meds ? She diagnosedTweenie with ADD so is the diagnosis now that it isn’t ADD ? I’m not sure how this would work so my gut feel is to go a different doctor.

Apologies for the long mail.

Kind regards

Diddy