I’m Sad and I Don’t Know Why

Conversations between me and my husband:

Me: I’m Sad
Husband: Why?
Me: I don’t know, I’m just sad
Husband: *gives hug*

I’m bipolar with an anxiety disorder and PTSD. I get anxious and depressed rather easily. I’ve had therapy and on medications, so for the most part I’m really good. Far better than I was the years I tried to just suffer through it thinking I’ll be fine eventually. There’s a lot of misunderstanding about depression, mainly that there’s something causing it.

Now depression can be caused by events. If say a loved one passes away or you lose your job and are struggling to survive, you can easily sink into depression. In such cases therapy can work, and maybe medication for a short time. But if depression is due to a chemical imbalance in the brain, then you can have a great life and it still hit you. I have a great life now, but I can easily sink down and have anxiety problems. My previous exes dealt with me like I was nothing but a burden and that I needed to get over this junk, which just made it all the worse. It was something that made me nervous when considering dating again after my last divorce. So pretty much the second or third date with my now husband I laid it out for him. I’m bipolar and I cry easily.

In the beginning of our dating, the last time I tried to have a full time job, I started having sever panic attacks, and would call him and he’d come running to help me. He told me one time for some unknown reason as he rushed to my door he ripped open his top shirt like he was Superman ready to kick down my door. Luckily he remembered I’d already given him a key. I do temp work now, but my PTSD can still cause problems. I was at a retirement facility when we all had to crowd into a hallway due to a tornado warning. The biggest trigger for me is having my exit cut off. I’m surrounded by nurses and people in wheel chairs and logically I know I’m not in danger, and yet there I am about to freak out. I call my husband right quick and he tells me to pull up my Words with Friends app and he’d stay on there and play with me and to just focus on that, while he texted me funny things to keep me calm.

And now there are times that I can’t help it, I just tell him I’m sad and he just holds me till I feel better. It lets me know that there’s nothing wrong with being sad, even when there’s no actual reason for it. It’s not good to stay there and wallow in it. It helps to have someone who can help you through it, and that’s what I have now. I was previously married for 7 years and honestly I never once felt like I was married and I could never figure out why. After dating my current husband for only a month I felt more married than ever, and I realize it’s because I’ve found a partner I can count on.

Depression is serious, and it’s best to always seek help. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, because we’re human and we have emotions and some of those can get too much to handle on our own. If someone makes you feel ashamed, then either they don’t truly understand what you’re going through or they just don’t care. Make sure to surround yourself with people who can hug you because you just need it, and distract you when your mind is playing tricks on you.

If it’s one thing I’ve learned through 3 marriages, it’s that you have to be honest to begin with. If you have these issues you need to let the other person know, because it is a part of who you are. And if someone admits to you that this is something they suffer from you need to understand what you’re getting into. Not everyone is a care giver. As my dad says, some people are givers and others are takers. Everyone is to some degree both, but there are those that love caring for people and there are those that need to be cared for. It’s okay if it’s not in your nature to take care of such a person, but it’s not okay to make them feel bad for things they can’t control. Be honest with who you are so that everyone can find the right person to love.

Accidentally Dieting

You’re probably wondering how someone can diet by accident. I guess it’s not really an accident as much as it wasn’t my intention or choice. As previously written, I had surgery on my nose, because of this it made it hard to eat. First off, your sense of smell is half your taste. Salty foods tasted about right, but mostly I either couldn’t taste it at all or it didn’t taste right, which really takes the enjoyment out of eating.

The main thing though was that it was hard to eat. It is hard to eat when you can’t breathe through your nose at all and so every bite is you basically suffocating which leads to tiny bites immediately followed by a gasp of breath. Eating slow is good because it allows your tummy time to let your brain know when it’s full. But also with splints and sutures in my nose, it was painful to move my mouth too much, so opening my mouth or chewing was hard. This meant eating either soup or food I could tear apart into tiny pieces. I ended up with a lot of potato soup and eating about 2 tiny meals a day and one of those small cups of vanilla ice cream for a snack.

This is not a healthy diet at all, but the portion control and cutting out constant snacking cut down on my calorie count. This has been going on for 11 days now, during which time I’ve barely been out of bed and had to be careful with any movements as I easily got dizzy. But even so I managed to lose 5 pounds. Maybe not a lot but in the past several months having tried to lose weight and only managing 3 pounds, this sudden drop of 5 is a big deal.

I finally got my nose splints out today and can get back to normal life, but this is the time to keep these better habits to hopefully continue losing weight. I’m no longer going to live off potato soup, as a well rounded diet is far better for you, and I want other foods for sure. However as I’ve now gotten in the habit of eating smaller portions and less snacks now is the time to keep it up. I know it’ll be all too easy to go back to how I was but I want to get healthier. I’m still 20 pounds away from my goal weight and honestly losing 30 pounds would be better but I want to set what I can maintain in my state.I hope with the added ability to be more active, this can lead to an improvement in my life as a whole.

Also, do not take this as an endorsement for starving yourself. I still ate everyday, and obviously potato soup got some heft to it, unlike something like chicken broth, because if it was going to be a small portion I needed to make sure it had enough calories to keep me from passing out or sugar dropping. But it’s always something to keep in mind. Losing weight requires you to burn more calories than you eat. I need food to live but due to old injuries it’s hard for me to be that active, something which I’m working to improve but that does mean that I don’t need big meals and lots of snacks to function as I may have when I was younger and extremely active (which led to my injuries).

New Year, New Nose, Same Insecurities

Before you think I got a nose job to make myself prettier, I got nasal surgery so I can actually breathe. I’ve had trouble breathing for years now, and they finally realized it was a deviated septum that they could fix through surgery. Honestly didn’t think it would be that big of a deal. I’ve had major surgery in the past, and this is just my nose. No biggy.

Turns out the nose is very important in your everyday life, and has thoroughly put me out of commission. The surgery was this past Friday, so right before New Year’s Eve. My husband had the whole weekend off, thank goodness. But there I am with a bandaged up nose, unable to lift anything, can’t move too much or it feels like my head will explode, and I sneezed once and saw my life flash before my eyes. Just sucks. And my insecurities are through the roof.

I’ve had bad relationships in the past, and I’m finally in one where I’m happy. Logically I know this need to constantly be doing something to make everything perfect is cause I’m scared of losing my happiness because it is precious to me. I have the life I always wanted with the best husband ever. But that’s the thing. I’m usually the one taking care of everything. I cook, clean, run errands, and try to make sure things are good and happy so there would be no reason to leave me. Now here I am having to be brought my food in bed. Not to mention, I can’t wear my glasses so I’m blind rendering me even more useless. It’s scary for me knowing I have to be taken care of now.

However, it has shown me even more what it means to have a good relationship. I’m laid up and look like shit and can’t do anything besides try and see what’s happening on the TV and play on my phone since I can hold it close enough to my face to see what it says. My husband is here waiting on me hand and foot, being as sweet as possible, insisting I don’t move. Then come Saturday and his friends want him to go out for New Year’s and it’s not like I can do anything. He got me all set up, fed, and ready for a night of chilling in before he went out. He was gone for all of 15 minutes before coming back home to say he couldn’t leave me alone when we should bring the New Year in together. He laid in bed and held my hand while we watched some Twilight Zone.

He’s sitting there, looking at me like I’m the best thing in the world, and making me feel loved. Because it doesn’t matter if I can clean or even see anything further than 6 inches in front of my face. When you have someone who loves you, they love you no matter what. They love you at your worse the same way they would at your best. It’s hard to accept sometimes, but that’s how a good relationship works. It’s not about what you can do for them or them for you, it’s about the fact that you’re happy just being with that precious someone.

Why Raj ended up alone on the Big Bang Theory

Big Bang Theory seems to be one of those shows people either love or hate, no middle ground. But my husband and I love it and so we’ve watched it over and over. And one thing I had liked was in the final season when he started dating Anu. She in some ways seemed perfect for him, and accepted him the way he was. I didn’t mind that they had an arranged marriage as it’s something that was a part of their culture, and they seemed happy. Though I liked it more so when they decided to date instead of rush into marriage to really get to know each other. And so I was rather sad when she moved away right there at the end and they ended up breaking up. I didn’t understand why of all of them, the one who pursued love the hardest ended up alone. Then I thought, maybe that was why.

Raj went for every girl he could get, with no discrimination. It may sound good to perhaps not get so wrapped up in looks or other shallow notions that might hold you back from dating someone, but it isn’t good when you don’t care about anything about them in particular as long as they’ll date you. Sheldon, even in all his naivete, pointed out to him that in every relationship he’s had he thought every single girl was his soul mate immediately. He was incapable of being alone.

His relationships consisted of:

A girl who was going to use him to hide the fact she was gay from her parents, who he almost still married if not for his friends

a girl only using him for his money, who he dated until his parents cut him off and so she left him

one that was so pathologically shy that his overbearing and pushy attitude ran her off

A girl who’s creepy obsession with death and murder scared him and who he only eventually dumped when he thought he could hook up with another girl but she turned him down, which led him to try and go back to the creepy girl even though he hadn’t been happy with her regardless

And then Anu, who had no interest in music, romantic ideas, movies, or basically so many things that Raj loved, and yet it was his friend who once more stopped him from getting married.

I believe his admission at the end of being scared of never finding anyone is the heart of the problem, and a terrible reason to get married or even date. But his choice to stay with the friend who did love him and give himself a chance to find someone who will love him just as he is and will actually have common ground is real character growth.

Love is worth pursuing, but that’s not the same as settling for any relationship you can get. Ultimately you’ll become unhappy in the end. Even with someone you love, marriage is hard. I mean life is hard in general and now you’re bringing someone in to work together and you need to trust and agree with enough in order to continue forward together. That’s why I see the fact Raj choosing to stay with the friend who he knew he loved and trusted, even if not romantically, rather than settle for a marriage that would be easy to settle for, showed him realizing what he actually needed to be happy.

Sexism: Men Don’t Do Housework

I feel like I talk about junk I see on Facebook way too much, but I have a tiny world so that’s what I got. So let’s cut to a video where a man is angry at his wife for apparently refusing to take out the upstairs trash and he’s tired of doing it. To this the wife immediately takes off her panties and tosses them at him after which his whole demeanor changes and he happily runs to take out the trash. Obviously it’s a joke, a set up skit meant to honestly show that she’s the boss and knows how to get him to do whatever she wants.

I’ll admit that if it was real, his tone while straight up yelling isn’t appropriate in real life. No spouse, man or woman, should ever talk to their significant other like that. However, everyone in the comments section immediately said the man should’ve just done the trash and never asked her to help to begin with, repeatedly accusing him of treating his wife like she’s his mommy and that he needs to learn to take care of himself. I’ve seen this several times in other videos whether the video is meant as a joke or to actually criticize how men act. Namely everyone seems to be under this assumption that men don’t do housework, which I’m sure some men don’t but you can’t act like that’s an absolute, especially based on one little snap shot of someone’s life.

There are so many stereotypes insulting men that it’s hard to keep track, and the hypocritical side of that is if anyone sort of implied the same thing about women those people would get death threats and be forced off the internet. So why do men get treated this way. I feel like I must be viewed as anti feminist at times because I feel the need to take up for men so much, but maybe it’s because I know so many great men.

My dad is a landscape photographer, while my mom works long hours as head of a hospice organization. Before that when my dad was no longer capable of working a regular job and my siblings and I were still kids, my dad stayed home and my mom worked as a seamstress. Because of this dynamic even to this day, my dad took care of us kids, cooked, cleaned, did laundry, and yardwork. This truly destroyed my idea of gender roles that I still don’t understand this supposedly enlightened world holding on to.

But let’s talk about my husband. He works a job. He worked full time up until recently, now that he’s going back to school his hours are cut back but not by a lot and honestly whenever they need someone to work more he still does. And when he gets home he takes out trash that sometimes I’ve left at the door cause I didn’t feel like walking a few feet to the trashcan outside. Sometimes I haven’t even got them out to sit by the door. He does dishes most of the time because I can’t stand doing them. He’ll put clothes away and straighten up. By the way I don’t work, I’m always home. I have the occasional short term temp job but it’s been a while since I even did one of those.

I really want to stick up for myself now and say at least during the summer I do a lot of yardwork but our yard, both front and back, are pretty tiny so I’m not sure if that helps. But the thing is I do have my physical problems and he never complains he just helps out.

Now there are guys that think it’s women’s work even if that woman has a job, but it’s not all, it doesn’t even seem like it’s most. Every house dynamic is different, but a man asking for help doesn’t mean he’s lazy or that he’s treating his wife as his mom or maid. Maybe he’s just frustrated or tired. Shouldn’t his side of the story matter? Should we always assume the wife has done everything to begin with? More than anything, don’t we as a people need to grow a sense of humor and realize those stupid videos aren’t real but scripted pieces created for likes and comments.

Trying to Lose Weight After Surgery Sucks

In a previous post, Turns Out Getting Chunky Messed Up My Sleep, I talked about how important it is for me to lose weight soon and how my physical problems do make that difficult. Let’s also add if you’ve had surgery where they cut into your stomach, that’s gonna make it suck so much more.

I had a surgery back in January and I healed up fine. Had a little soreness around my belly button due to where they had to cut in is exactly where I’ve been cut into before for a different surgery, but that was it. Then I go to lose weight. I’m in bad shape so I wanted to start out pretty basic. I got one of those apps where you’re supposed to be able to tone your tummy in 30 days, which I don’t believe for a second, but it at least gives me a set of different exercises to work through.

I wasn’t even doing it daily like I’m supposed to, and had to replace several suggested exercises for easier ones, and yet I about died (figuratively). I started having intense sharp pain in my stomach right around the incisions. It hurt to move. Even basic tasks would start making it hurt. I was freaking out. Finally went to see the doctor today and they’re like you’re fine that’s just the nerve endings growing back, so keep working out.

Would it be too much to ask for anything to be easy in my life 😩? But at least I know I didn’t actually damage anything. Though wondering if there’s a better route to go? Core strengthening is about the best thing I can do for myself, not necessarily just for losing weight, but my back injuries are eased the more I’m able to strengthen those muscles. But my core is where my tummy is and that really makes me want to do anything but that.

Regardless, probably might be better to just start walking and see what happens. Sharing my pain with you sweet strangers just makes me feel better.

I Have 2 Degrees in English and I Love Manga

I want to state that I have a Bachelor’s in English and a Master’s in English and Creative writing. I have studied the evolution of language and stories written throughout the centuries. I’ve read Great Literature that has withstood the test of time, the variances of fairy tales that speaks across all cultures, not to mention the essays and manuscripts that have built the foundation of many a civilization, including our own. In a nutshell, I’m well-read.

People often see things like comic books, graphic novels, or manga and think it’s only for kids or you must not be educated enough to read real books. I was just reading a post the other day on social media where this man was concerned if it was okay for him to still read his manga because he had a girlfriend telling him he was too old for these things and he needed to grow up. In my experience, reading is reading. Now I will say, you get more from a traditional novel than you do from these other forms. You are then forced to use your own imagination as well as expand your vocabulary. The world building can be far more detailed, and you’ll often just get more out of it in general. But not everything you read needs to do this for you. Sometimes you just want something easy to relax to, or you enjoy the artwork, or the progression of the stories over the years with things like comic books.

In fact, the thesis I had to write for my Bachelor’s degree was on the importance of comic books in American society. Comic books actually became popular in the past with the influx of immigrants who didn’t speak much English. The basic writing along with the pictures created stories that they could enjoy as well as relate to them. Superman was created by the sons of immigrants, and Superman was the ultimate immigrant having not even come from Earth at all. They connect to our society, and in a way instill our own morals and beliefs. This is in the same way that things like Greek mythology was created. Their stories were written to spread their own beliefs, and often took real events and exaggerated them to become epic tales. Similar to how Captain America was a driving force in getting Americans behind joining WWII, as he was seen fighting the Nazis.

We cannot and should not disregard these stories as being lesser simply because there are pictures in them. And for me, it’s not even like it’s a beloved childhood activity or something. I just in recent years began to read such things. I blame Facebook ads that kept showing interesting looking stories on the Webtoons app. And once I got hooked on those I ended finding more apps for other webtoons or manga. If anything it’s actually helped educate me about other cultures, the everyday terms they use, and how they function (at least for those that aren’t in a fantasy setting).

When it comes down to it, life is just hard. So many days are going to suck. We should be allowed to enjoy whatever brings us entertainment without folks acting like you’re too old to have fun. Really, what is this idea that after we become adults we need to only be serious. That’s boring. I got my own money now, I’m gonna buy silly things and live off cookies if I want to.

Cats Can Love Too

I just wrote about losing my grandfather, and spent the day crying on and off. I’d be fine for a moment, find something to amuse myself with, even laugh, and then suddenly I’d think about my loss and start crying again.

Random note: I do have a cat. I’ve always been more of a dog person, had dogs growing up and had my own dog for 9 years before she passed away. My sweet doggy always knew when I was sad or sick and came to snuggle on me. I especially loved it when I had stomach aches since she was a small dog and laying on my tummy made it feel better. But my husband loves cats and now we have a cat. I love her too even if she’s an asshole like all cats.

During my moments when I was somewhat calm I was teasing the cat saying that if she was a dog she’d be more comforting. This was while she refused to come snuggle me and stayed just out of petting reach. To understand this you must know that when she had the choice between me and my husband she will always choose him. Oddly enough, him being the cat lover, he gets tired of her laying on him real fast and is constantly moving her away from him. Why do cats always want to be with the person who doesn’t want them, when I would happily snuggle her so much😩.

Of course, after finding out what had happened, I’d pretty much just been in bed. Got up to eat a bit and then went back to lay down. My husband had been sticking by my side, but predictably fell asleep after he had laid down next to me after lunch. And of course the cat is right on top of him giving me that normal look of he’s mine so stay away.

I wasn’t about to fall asleep so I was just laying there and started getting upset again, and not wanting to wake him I went to my step daughter’s room since she’s not here today. Surprisingly the cat followed me in there. Jumped up gave me the perfunctory bite on the foot and curled up to go to sleep by my side. As much as she’d rather be laying on my husband, I realized she actually had been following me around all day, even if it wasn’t in the most snuggly fashion. It actually made me feel better in some ways knowing that my asshole of a cat, who does everything she can to constantly startle me, attack me, and be a pain only to me, still seems to be trying to comfort me in her own bitey way.

Sometimes it’s the little things that remind you everything will be okay.

I’m Not Sure How I’m Supposed to Grieve

My grandfather just passed away. He was my dad’s dad. He had been in the hospital for a few weeks, he was bad when he went in. He was having trouble breathing and that caused a mild heart attack. But he was getting better. I think that’s what’s making this harder. He had been getting better, sitting up, joking around, and then suddenly he’s gone. I’m lucky to be in my mid thirties and just now losing a grandparent. I’ve never really lost anyone that was close to me before. I had 2 great-grandmothers that I remember. One passed when I was in middle school, and the other after I was in the military. I knew them but didn’t see them often, and maybe that’s why it wasn’t so hard when I lost them. The first one had been having trouble for a while and had essentially chosen to give up treatment and go ahead and pass away. The second, I didn’t even know about until after the funeral had happen since I was on the other side of the country. They were both in their 90’s, and my grandfather was in his late 80’s. They lived good long lives, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.

I feel so guilty about all the times I could’ve gone seen him and hadn’t. I did recently get to take my step-daughter down to play with them and I’m happy they had that time. But then I think about how we’re trying to adopt and now that’ll be a child that he’ll never meet. But I feel guilty that I had slept in late today because the cat had kept me up and had missed my mom’s call, and I’m lucky my husband was home so she had called him to let me know. And right now I’m not sure what to do. I keep crying, but crying isn’t going to make anything better. It just makes me feel sick. But acting like everything is okay feels even worse. Like I’m saying it’s fine and I’m just going to go on like nothing happened.

Honestly I’m not sure if it’s tacky to be writing this. Like geez my first thought after I somewhat calm down is to go online and share this with a bunch of strangers. But as a writer, writing things out kind of helps, and this bit of anonymity makes it feel safer to say what I’m thinking. I just don’t know how to function today. My husband was supposed to go in for a brief shift at work, and luckily since he was just an extra it was no big deal to call out, but now I feel bad about that too. What’s he supposed to do other than sit here and watch me cry. I’m not sure if his non-stop stories about all the family members he’s lost really helps, though in some ways it’s kind of funny seeing him trying to be so sweet and doing what he can to make me feel better.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do for my dad. My grandfather was like his best friend. He’d been going down at least once a week to help over the past year, and often more than that. My one thought was that I know my grandfather was probably happy to have not outlived his own child, because with my dad’s health problems I know for years that was his parents worst fear was that they would outlive him. He’s beating the odds though, and heck is in better shape than me, but now he just lost his dad and I don’t know what to do to help.

I just feel lost, and afraid of how much it’s going to hurt when this happens again.

Turns Out Getting Chunky Messed Up My Sleep

I previously wrote a post called But I’m Not Sleepy, where I was basically complaining about going to a sleep study and worried that I wouldn’t be able to sleep and my husband wouldn’t either while I was gone. Turns out I was right. I did manage to dose in and out some mostly due to my sleeping meds, but all I did was dream non-stop about them taking off all the junk they’d plugged on me. At most I slept an hour at a time and the next day they were like are you sure you snore? Have to sleep to snore though.

I got a call today letting me know that whether or not I snore was a moot point, because I managed to stop breathing 10 times in an hour. That’s bad. Both a silver and a sad lining here though. It seems that I’m not that bad but I need to manage to lose at least 15 pounds in 6 months or they will have to put me on a CPAP, which I don’t want. I’ve been trying to lose weight for a while and now I got a deadline, so that’s no fun.

It’s good to know that there’s a fix that is technically doable, but it sucks knowing that I’ve been suffering when I didn’t really have to. A lot of my weight gain is due to my physical issues. The left side of my body is really weak from a wreck I was in years ago. Plus, years of overstretching (my muscles always feel tight so I’m constantly stretching and are extremely flexible even now) have basically destroyed my ligaments, meaning there’s not much holding my joints in place. Because of this it’s easy to get hurt whenever I do a bit too much physical activity. The vicious cycle is that the more weight I gain, the more strain is put on my body, and the easier it gets for me to be hurt while trying to lose weight.

To top things off, my 61 year old dad called me today bragging about how now that he walks 3 miles every day like it’s nothing he has real muscle definition for the first time in ever, but his muscles are getting tight and wants me to come teach him the proper way to stretch. You know that one thing I’m good at. 😭

Either way, this girl has got to figure out how to get healthy and fast. I’m open to suggestions.