Sunday, February 17, 2013

Going up

I changed my availability at work today, so I can work closing shifts-I went from 10:30-8 to 11-11 all week. I think that works because I have some non-closing hours available, but I can close. Plus, 11-11 means my shifts will never be less than 12 hours apart which helps with the anxiety.

Up next is getting of the Xanax. In a perfect world, I'd be off of it when we go to St Louis in June, but we'll see. I just don't like using it for long periods of time, because I don't want it to be a crutch. If I go off it and it turns out I wasn't ready or I need it, fine, but I want that chance to see how good I'm doing without the pill.

I think this is because Xanax is the only pill I don't need to be on-I need the Prisiq, Wellbutrin and Trazodone. I've been without any med s and it only fun if you like suicidal thoughts and that feeling that bugs are crawling out of your skin.

But I feel like I'm going up. I finally have a good Dr + therapist combo, I'm getting lots of sleep and exercising frequently-which is helping the sleep plus its nice to have 25ish minutes a day when I don't have to think, I just think about the walking, the music.

...plus its almost baseball season, so that's going to bring up my mood.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Stan, baseball, and my dad.

So last night I was lying on the couch getting ready to watch the Iowa basketball game, thinking they had a shot to win, it being Chris Street Memorial Night as well. I grabbed my phone to check twitter one last time. There were a couple tweets, and I looked at the first one, then the second. Slowly, it hit me what they were telling me.

"Mom? Dad? Stan died." I didn't have to give a last name. There is only one Stan that counts. My mom said "oh, my" and went to text my sister with the news. My dad immediatly began asking me who on twitter was saying it-I asume he was hoping it wasn't true. I explained that Jenifer Langosh, the Cardinals beat writer for MLB, and Derrek Gould, the St Louis Post Dispatch head Cardinal writer had both tweeted that team had just announced it.

Still my dad started flipping between ESPN and MLB network until he saw the scroll he was looking for "Breaking News, St Louis Cardinals Legend Stan Musial passes away today at the age of 92." In the space of ten minutes, the world had changed forever.

My dad is was and always will be a Cards fan. He raised my sister and me Cards fans-my sister is currently dating a Cubs fan, but she's working on converting him as there is no way she'd ever root for any other team, much less the Cubs.

My dad's love story with the Cardinals began in 1964, he was 7. His uncle, who is only a few years older than him, was rooting for the Yankees in the World Series that year, so dad decided he was going to root for the other team-The St Louis Cardinals. And during that world series he fell madly in love with Bob Gibson, and that was that, dad was a Cardinal fan.

When instead of having boys he ended up with two girls, he still raised us to be Cardinal fans. I can score a game, I sometimes count retired numbers when I can't sleep. 

And when you are a Cardinal fan there is one lesson you can't help but learn. That lesson is simple math. Stan Musial > everyone else. No matter what a Yankee tells you about DiMaggio or a Sox fan about Williams, there is only one Perfect Warrior, one Perfect Knight. And no matter what happens, even now-There is, was, and always will be only one Man.

Monday, January 7, 2013

Drama Drama Drama

I was going to go to Yoga on Wednesday. I am still on the mailing list for a yoga/massage place where I got some massages almost five years ago, and they sent an email that in the month of January, on Wed from 6:30-7:30 they were having a five dollar yoga class. I didn't go last week because I'd been shopping all day and was kind of out of it. So, I was gonna go this week.

Until my dad came upstairs from his shower to announce that the dranes were back up again, and why did this have to be now since he spent money on the fridge and treadmill and blah blah blah he's broke and we're going to end up living on the streets. (Gee, I wonder where I get my sense of drama and anger issues from) So Roto-Rooter is either on their way or about to arrive, I am hiding in the Cave and not giving a fuck.

So, this means that we have to be cheap and poor for a few weeks, and I can't go to yoga because my pills are due on Thursday so we have to run to the doctors office to pick them up Thursday, and going to town two days in a row is a bad, bad idea. So we'll push it back a week. I am trying to look positive and thinking that by next Wednesday I'll have used the treadmill a couple times so I'll feel more likely to survive the class.

So now I am screwing around on the computer and then I will watch the BCS Championship (Roll Tide!) and crash and get up and tomorrow catch up on my tv (I still haven't gotten to last weeks Elementary, much less last night's Revenge and I'll have tonight's Castle to watch) and wait for the fridge dudes to arrive.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

New beginings

This is my third blog in almost two years, but I want to start fresh and be honest and blog about what is in my brain and heart.

My name is Ashley. I am an early-thirties midwesterner, who is mentally ill and still lives with her parents. I am also a liberal feminist, bookworm, grey asexual, sports fan, cat person and Hufflepuff.

Every morning I take six pills: Two antidepressants, xanax, birth control, a multi vitamin, and fish oil.

I have a lot of labels: General anxiety disorder with panic attacks, depression, seasonal affective disorder.

The one I prefer best is survivor. I am going into my 19th year as a menally ill person. This is about who I have been for those 19 years and who I am now.