Scumbag Brain

My mom worries about me sharing too much of myself over the internet. She cautions me to play my cards closer to the chest and not let anybody in on what's going on with me. While I can see where she's coming from, that's just never been me. I've always been emotional. I've always been a sharer. There have been times in my life that I tried to be different and it made me miserable. It made me depressed. I can't just hold things in. I need to tell people what's going on with me. I need the honesty. Sure, it opens me up to judgements and criticism but I'd like to think I've done a pretty good job at eliminating people from my life who can't be understanding or supportive. Plus, I've gotten pretty good at taking an appropriate perspective when something negative gets through anyway. Usually I'm able to say, "That person doesn't know me/what they're talking about" or "That person is obviously going through their own stuff and this has nothing to do with me."

So, that offers a bit of context about what I need to write about. Alex is unhappy. I knew he was unhappy when my alarm went off. It was storming so I obviously couldn't do my five mile run. I turned back in and I could hear the annoyance in his voice when he asked it I'd do some other exercise. I went back to sleep and had a wedding nightmare - everything went wrong and time was flying and I was about to scream when I woke up. Scumbag brain. I'd been freaking out about the wedding on and off for various reasons, but I had recently gotten a hold on it. Anyway, Alex was coming back into the room from his shower and I told him about the nightmare. I could still hear that same tone in his voice but I was able to dismiss any further thought process about it because I knew he'd been out of his medication for a couple of days. I figured this was just his normal funk when he's out of meds. He figured that, too.

... then he started texting me and letting me know some of what was on his mind. He was concerned about my skipping out on running (which I did do a bit last week as well). He was annoyed at my messiness. He was concerned about the time I spend watching shows and on my phone. He doesn't know what I'm passionate about, why I don't spend time on things I'm passionate about in the house. What bothered me more than anything else he had to say is that he didn't think he could say any of these things to me. He had received the message at some point that he can't say certain things to me or at certain times. I know this is a message he's received from his upbringing and it has little to do with me, but it still hurts to feel like I'm being compared to the monster of his childhood. Here comes scumbag brain again, chiming in with, "You know, he's been off his medication for a couple of days and all of a sudden he's letting you know things he doesn't like about you. I bet he's not even depressed. I bet he just hates being with you, and you make him depressed." Augh. Way to hit me right in the self-esteem, scumbag brain. I mean, I was able to defeat the thought pretty quickly but too late. Damage done. My heart hurts and my eyes are tearing up.

This is why I hate being an adult sometimes. There are times like these I want to pout and stamp my feet and crawl away inside of a hole and never come out. I can't do that. I have to go back to work and I have to be productive. What's more, I know better and I've learned skills around coping with these thoughts. I really don't have the luxury of indulging these immature feelings and thought  processes but you know what? Sometimes I wish I did. Sometimes I wish I could. Sometimes I just don't want to be an adult.

... but that's just what scumbag brain wants. It wants to derail me and destroy me and make me think it's justified. Because I suck. Because I'm garbage. Because no one ever has or ever will love me. Because there's something wrong with me. Ugh, stop it scumbag brain. This is so childish.

Alex is worried about my mental health. He thinks I might be depressed. I'm a mental health professional, and I'm looking over the DSM V thinking, "but I don't meet this criteria." Then again, I did feel a slight mood lift at the same time I started taking the Wellbutrin compound medication. I don't know. I'm always telling my clients that you are often the worst person to observe yourself because the biases are inescapable. Maybe I'm too invested in believing I'm not depressed. I really don't know.

What I do know is, I hate my scumbag brain and I need it to shut up right now. The adults are talking. The adults are working this out.

Running Revelations

It's strange to me that I took to running the way I did. I've never been particularly athletic or ambitious in that realm. I didn't think I was built like your typical runner. For a long time, I didn't understand why it had become one of my things, but I've slowly come around to understanding.

You see, swimming used to be that thing for me. I love the water, always have. Under the water the noise of the outside world is gone but so is the noise inside my head. For a little while in college I was dragging myself out of bed at ungodly hours of the morning in freezing temps to do 30 laps in the University pool. I never guessed that I'd achieve that kind of peace with running, but I did.

I had a lot of personal revelations in those 30 laps back in the day, and now that I run I get them between miles 3 and 6. Yesterday it was a revelation about what I had called "my anger problems" for most of my life. As a teenager, I was really angry. I had been betrayed by people I trusted. I had been hurt by people who were supposed to love me. I was a scared, hurt little girl who thought that it was better to be angry than sad. You can do something with anger. You don't have to feel so powerless. For a long time, some people only experienced me as That Scary Angry Girl. I carried that around like a badge of honor, like armor against those who could hurt me any more than I'd already been hurt. Fine. This is who I am. Now stay away.

During my 8 mile run yesterday, I had a random thought. Although I know I've grown up a lot since then, I think a part of me held on to that identity. I am passionate and feisty and strong-willed. I thought these were hold-overs from my angry teenager phase, but no. Those qualities are part of my true self. The anger was a traumatized and abused little girl trying her best to hang on for life to get better. It did.

This is important to me because I am often worried about what kind of parent I'm going to be. I worry my anger will get the best of me like it did for my mother and I'll end up hurting or traumatizing my children. But I'm not That Scary Angry Girl anymore. She was never who I really was. I can let go of her because she did her job and life got better and I'm okay now. I'll be a fine mother one day. I know I will.

This is what running has given me.

It Hurts My Heart

 It was a mistake. I knew it was a mistake when I clicked on it, but the therapist in me was curious and the survivor of abuse in me never wants to be alone. I had done a stupid thing and left Alex's headlights on when I borrowed his car, draining his battery. I had nothing better to do while pinned in my car between his car and the house in our barely-wide-enough driveway, foot halfway down on the gas, trying to feed enough power over to his car for about 25 minutes. I clicked on a story about a child sex slave. This story. I wouldn't recommend you read it if you don't want to hate people today. I cried. Let me explain.

I've been in therapy ever since my Ahjashi died. He was a man who was every bit a father to me. When he died, I was devastated. I wasn't prepared, as much as people tried to let me know what was going on. I didn't react the way I thought I would. I didn't cry at first. I just screamed. God, it was so unfair. I was a senior in college and he was supposed to see me walk at the end of that school year. He was supposed to be there for me and be proud and I just couldn't fathom that he wouldn't be. I couldn't get it together, so the Residential Director of my dorm room couldn't help but notice and walked me down to my college's counseling center. There I met an awesome therapist who helped me so much during that difficult time and I've changed hands a few times since then, but more or less I've been in therapy since September 2009.

I thought I had it pretty together. I thought I was strong enough to overcome what I had gone through while I was growing up. I was wrong. As soon as we processed through my grief, my therapist showed me everything that was lurking underneath my surface. It was terrifying and painful. I was and had been for some time an angry little girl who struggled to accept her feelings. It wasn't until I had been transferred over to a student after my first therapist had maxed out his available sessions with me that I started really feeling that anger. This is what I share in common with the girl in that story.

There were many adults in my life who could see what was going on, or were so close, or worse yet completely turned a blind eye because it was too hard or not proper or embarrassing. How dare they. How dare they. I was so angry when I finally got around to feeling this. How could they not help me? How do you look at a child, know they're hurting, and say to yourself, "Not my problem?" I couldn't fathom it. I was so full of rage, but mostly I cried and mourned for the younger version of myself. I didn't deserve what happened to me.

What made it worse was when I moved into my apartment away from the campus proper. It was the top floor or a two-story house, and it was lovely. It turned out that my bedroom was directly over the bedroom of the little girl who lived downstairs. It was amusing to sometimes hear her get ready in the morning, singing her favorite boy band pop songs at the top of her lungs. The downstairs neighbors were lovely people. We rarely had problems. Then one day I happened to be home when the little girl came home from school and I heard her getting punished for, as far as I could tell, bullying another girl at school. I was paralyzed, frozen in place, listening to this all happening below me. I wasn't there. I couldn't say for sure, but it sounded like her mother was really laying into her. I could hear the smacks through the carpeted floor. I could hear the little girl painfully crying. And I did nothing. I didn't go down there and stop it. I didn't call CPS. Nothing.

I was a mess at my next therapy session. God, that was so painful. My therapist, god bless her, she tried so hard to help me understand that it wasn't my fault and I couldn't help and maybe I would've just made things worse and maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought. I mean, I had never heard the mother punish her child like that before, nor raise her voice. All evidence pointed to the fact that it was an isolated incident, but this clearly wasn't about the little girl who lived downstairs. This was about me. I was that little girl living downstairs and I know damn well the upstairs neighbors heard what was going on on more than one occasion and no one did a damn thing. God, I was so angry. How could they? Why wouldn't anyone help me?

I once let it slip to an elementary school counselor when I was in kindergarten or first grade, and it went about as well as it did for the girl in that Cracked article. I was once caught in an unconvincing lie about why I had bruises on my arms. My tutor didn't press further. Some people even walked in on it happening and pretended they saw nothing. A pastor was told from the source and played a major part in making sure we all pretended to forget what happened. This was all so painful to recall, but I got through it.

I started crying when the girl in the Cracked article talked about scars, because I know what she's talking about. I am unloved and ugly. I am unbearable and a bad person. Except I'm not. I know I'm not - most days. Therapy helps. Time helps. Amazing, supportive friends help. Alex helps. I still have bad days.

So why did I click on the article? Well, it's nice to know that you're not alone sometimes and hell, I'm a therapist. I got into this field for a reason. It is part of my job to listen to and sit with my clients' traumas. It is also part of my job to call if I have any inkling of neglect or abuse of a child. I do both gladly. I will not be the adult who ignores. I will do my job and, if possible, extend further help. My experience in the field and especially in my graduate program, where I had the privilege of getting to know like-minded people who were also in this field for a reason, has shown me that I'm exactly where I need to be.

I just have bad days, that's all, days when my heart hurts. A lot.

My Weekend with Contrave

So, I took my first dose on Friday morning. I've been taking one pill in the morning ever since. Maybe it was because it was the weekend, but my anxiety and nausea were nowhere to be found all weekend.

I went for a run on Sunday after getting new shoes and gear Saturday. I played games with my friends and roleplayed on my new LARP's forums and I felt good. I felt calm. Maybe it was in part channeling this new, mature, calmer character for the LARP. Maybe it's a placebo effect. I am taking Wellbutrin, though as far as I can tell it's not at a therapeutic dose for depression.

My supervisor pointed out today that sometimes people just don't know they're depressed until they get better. Maybe I've been depressed all along. Maybe that was always the missing link. I'm considering staying on an anti-depressant after I'm done with the Contrave. Maybe it will make a difference for me. I don't know. What I do know is that I had a good weekend.

Also, take a look at my breakfast smoothie recipe:

 

Holy cow! It was a bit thick, so I'm adding honey and eliminating the greek yogurt. Better to use that stuff as a snack later in the day. Had to buy a new blender because I burned out the motor on my old, cheap version by blending a bag of kale with a 1/2 liter of vanilla almond milk - that's my "green base."

Oh, and I'm down in weight from last week. Like, 0.8 lbs, but still.

Onward!

And Now For Something Completely Different!

I've tried. Look back and read and see that I've tried. I've tried getting advice, not getting advice, and blogging. I've tried calorie counting and exercise and taking pictures of my progress. I've tried over-the-counter pills and daily weigh-ins and monthly weigh-ins. I've tried 12-step meetings, Facebook, and reading everything I could on the matter. I've tried. It hasn't worked. I'm not saying I've been faithful to any of my programs. In fact, that is a symptom of the problem I will be discussing in this entry.

My appetite is out of control and has been for some time. It doesn't matter how hungry or full I actually am, I'll just keep eating. I wouldn't say I'm addicted to food. I certainly have some symptoms that point in that direction, but addiction to food is as controversial as addiction to sex. How can you be addicted to something that's a biological imperative? You can, certainly, but I don't think my relationship with food as ruined my life - yet. Real talk? I'm afraid, terrified actually, of developing diabetes and heart disease. I've been in the 230 lbs range for a while. I'm young and, remarkably, healthy. I've had recent blood and urine tests that say as much, but how long can that really last if I keep going this way? I don't want to have to inject insulin into myself. I don't want to develop neuropathy in my hands and feet and eventually risk amputation. I don't want to keel over from a heart attack before my time. I don't want to die at all, but certainly not before my time. This is a problem. It needs a solution. What I've been doing isn't working. It's time for something new.

Enter Contrave. I've been considering this for a while, but yesterday I finally went to see my doctor and had the talk. I told her all of the above and some of my thoughts. She prescribed Contrave (combined, extended-release bupropion - also known as Wellbutrin - and naloxone). If you know anything about brain science (I myself am a brain science groupie/nerd) then you know why this combination of drugs makes sense. I poured over all of the literature and studies material they gave me with the prescription last night. The side-effects are mild, but still scary. The primary side-effect they warn about is nausea, but they also warn about blood pressure issues and suicidal ideation. Since I have no history of either of those last two things, I decided this was an appropriate decision.

What's great about Contrave is that they pair the prescription with a (voluntary) behavior modification program called "ScaleDown." The ScaleDown program sends you a wireless scale free of charge that encourages you to weigh in daily and then sends this information to the program, which them sends you daily text messages with support and advice based on your weigh-in. No calorie counting. No judgement. Just support. This is not just about taking a pill to fix all of my problems. This is about changing my behaviors in the meantime so, less than 6 months from now when they take me off of Contrave, hopefully those habits will endure and I'll keep the weight off.

I stopped drinking after March 8th for various reasons, but Contrave gives me another reason not to drink. The seizure risk is greatly increased by massive alcohol consumption (I would say my drinking behavior trends toward "binging"). The literature also recommends taking the prescription with a low-fat meal. According to my research, that would be 3 grams or less fat per 100 grams of food, or 3 %. I'm just taking a morning dose now but eventually I also have to take it at night, so that means I really should have a low fat breakfast and dinner with some leeway for lunch. This morning I had egg whites with steamed broccoli. I actually find this delicious with a 1/2 tablespoon of butter and some spices.

I'm scared. I took my first dose this morning and I already went through a nausea episode. Also, I'm feeling anxious, which is side-effect. I'm pretty sure both of these symptoms will decrease over time and because I'm experienced and educated, I know what to do to deal with both of these symptoms. For now, I could use some support. No judgement, just support. I don't want obesity-related illness. I don't expect everyone to believe me, but this really isn't about being skinny. I like my body most days. I truly am really afraid of obesity-related illness and I really want to be healthy. Please give me encouragement and wish me luck on this journey. I appreciate it.

Life with Soylent: Week 1

So, the first week came and went and it was actually pretty good for generally being the worst week of the month for me. I found that after I got over my toxin release headache that I had a lot of energy because my body wasn't wasting energy breaking down bad food.

On day two I came home and ate half of a bag of chips and some cheese sticks. The salt cravings were strong. On day three I ate more cheese sticks and tossed out the remaining food in the house. On Saturday we had pizza, snacks, and drinks and on Sunday we got a couple of subs. We decided we're okay with this. Soylent works well to fill the gaps between the treats.

And now I have a puppy. The thing cried all night Saturday and Sunday because we're crate training him. It's hard to have cravings when you're struggling with keeping your eyes open and looking engaged for your clients. I need coffee.

Oh, and I'm down weight. No big surprise. I'll check in next week.

Soylent: Day 1

So the Soylent delivery arrived on Friday and I got so excited that I immediately ripped into the boxes and took some crappy pictures:

 

 

And, of course, I posted this to Facebook.  This was immediately followed by a link-response which I imagine was designed to discourage my excitement.  Whatever.  Still excited.  I was in the middle of packing for the weekend away, so I left everything and resolved to get excited again upon my return on Sunday.

Alex was, of course, being positive and responsible.  He helped unpack and stock everything while I blended and stored Day 1's half-gallon "meals." We did a taste test and it was a bit chalky but otherwise just as Alex described from his research: just as non-offensive as possible.  We then went to the local hibachi restaurant for a decadent solid food send-off that included a drink called "The Scorpion" for the fiancé. I have never seen the man turn so red so quickly. It was delightful.

Breakfast this morning was an interesting experience. Ordinarily I'd wake up and head straight for the kitchen to cook us up some solid omelets, but instead at 7:20 AM I just poured out 16 ounces of Soylent and sat around, not knowing what to do with myself.  With the overnight settling, the Soylent had become less chalky and I could appreciate the very slight vanilla flavor of it.

Eventually I decided to spend a luxurious amount of time straightening my hair and applying my makeup while Alex talked about plans to enroll in the local gym with a trainer and everything so we can continue to be serious about our health. I like this plan. I like that I had time to be as pretty as I wanted.

At approximately 9:00 AM, upon getting to work, I poured myself 8 ounces and slugged that down while meeting with my first client. I texted Alex between this client and the next one because he asked me how I was doing so I told him: not full but also not hungry. It was a little weird.

Lunch came and I was positive and happy, but I'm told I tend to come off that way anyway. I merrily recounted my fabulous weekend with a co-worker over 16 ounces.

It was around 3:00 PM before I decided I should probably re-up with another 8 ounces. At this point Alex is texting me saying his day has been busy and he has a lot of Soylent left. I do not. I have probably another good 16 ounces left for dinner.  I'm not hungry. I'm not tempted by solid foods. I'm good.

6:00 PM I consumed my last 19 ounces after coming home from work and being faced with a couple of half-full bags of chips. Still not tempted. Not bad for day 1.