Struggle

I'm back in the gym and trying to play roller derby but having absolute hell overall. Lots of depression issues due to my bipolar. These are made worse because I am facing losing my health insurance. I can't afford the premiums I will have to pay plus my meds and appts. and I have no idea how I'm going to handle all of it. Essentially I am barely functioning and JD is doing a lot to help me keep it together. I feel like I am letting my derby team down, myself down, JD down, my job down, and basically turning out useless to everyone. I'm also running the front desk at work this week and that is a whole other level of stress for me. Also I haven't been to the gym in days because I have been so depressed. *sigh* So...yeah...things are a mess and I don't know how to deal or what to do. Also, mobile posting sucks.

Anxiety update

Yeah, I’m a slacker, as usual. At least when it comes to keeping up with my writing. I shouldn’t slack so much. Sometimes being able to write out my thoughts can really help. But I have been doing other things.
Specifically going to the gym 3 days a week at least. And setting that goal has been good for me. I have stuck to it for the most part; I am weightlifting and have seen definite progress. Cardio is not my favorite thing but I make myself do a little bit of it every time I go. I’m fighting leg pain/cramps and shin splints though and it sucks. I just push through it as much as I can. I’ve increased my time on the treadmill by 5 whole minute, but I struggle to get above 10 minutes on the elliptical and that frustrates me. I am also going to be getting back into skating seriously as soon as my kneepads arrive (probably tomorrow), but I am absolutely terrified of being a failure at it after being off-skates for several years AND having gotten really, really out of shape. Thinking about it is actually making me anxious. By tomorrow afternoon I might be ready to just run and hide and not go to practice. I would almost rather lift weights than go to practice and feel like I’m failing or not trying hard enough because I’m either too out of shape or my body won’t let me push myself as hard as I feel like I should be able to or as hard as I want to. I have no idea how to handle these feelings.

Winter seems like it is FINALLY starting to let up. And as it has eased my attendance at work has been better. I had a mid-term review with my supervisor this morning and it was OK. I wish I were better in this regard as well though, except for the idea that I need to “Improve my Relationship with Co-Workers.” That one just annoys me because I am quiet and introverted and a loner and I am here to work, not to make friends. And I also just generally don’t fit in. But now I’m left wondering if I should make more of an effort and how I should go about making said effort, even though I really don’t want to. There is a 5K that the office is planning on doing as a group in September, but I cannot afford the entry fee (and I told my supervisor that), but I’m sure that’s just going to be one more example of me not fitting in. Nevermind that the last time we did a group activity like this, which was a different 5K, I was left behind by the group and ended up having a panic attack and got a ride back to the starting/finish line in an ambulance. How much of a fail I felt like then. And how much of a fail I don’t want to feel like anymore, both at my job and at derby.

 
*sigh* My anxiety level is creeping higher and higher and I just kind of want to go home and hide now. And that will be tempting to do tonight, but it is a gym night so I’ll suck it up, go lift heavy things, and try to calm my mind. And if that doesn’t work I don’t know what I’ll do because it’s not like I can take an Atarax and go skate. Given how loopy and tired they make me that would be a terrible idea anyway! But I’m so tired of fighting with this anxiety when all I’m trying to do is live my life.

Stupid injury, getting fit, and getting rolling

So there is a new derby league forming in the area (there was an interest meeting Tuesday night) and since I am tired of the drama. and nonsense in the league I originally skated with I was looking into joining said new league. So on Wednesday night I went back to the roller derby fitness group that is NOT league affiliated. And I cannot skate. I cried. Like seriously. At the rink, in my car, and again when I got home. Apparently I have shin splints they think that skating is stupid. And despite having started a new gym routine just a few days before this I was devastated. Not because I had expected less than a week in the gym to really help, but just because I am making these plans to work this hard and get back on skates and do something that I love and then...well...fail. It was frustraing and made me angry at myself, depressed, sad, and anxious that I'll never get my skates back and moving the way I want.

So I was exhausted Thrusday because of my emotional roller coaster ride and basically slept from the time I got home around 6 pm Thrusday night til the time I had to get up for work Friday am. Then I came home Friday and was so depressed and apathetic that I couldn't be bothered to eat, much less go to the gym. And then, of course, I felt bad for not going to the gym. Nasty loop to get stuck in. But instead of hitting that loop and being stuck in it for days or weeks and screwing my gym plan that I have going I got myself back together and after a nice, quiet, and lazy day spent with JD around the house, followed by dinner, I went to the gym and worked out. At midnight. And it was glorious. I made sure to stretch well, climbed a few feet on the Jacob's Ladder, walked on the treadmill as best I could for about 10 minutes, and then lifted weights like a beast! I detest cardio, unless there are wheels on my feet, but I know that doing it, even for short bits of time at low speeds until I get stronger, better, and faster is good for me. I also know that OVERDOING it is a bad idea. So when I felt my shins starting to tighten up and pull I pushed just enough to get that 10 minute mark and I stopped. I stretched my shins back out a bit, let them ease down from being annoyed and started my lifting routine.

I am doing 5x5s and since I missed a couple days I did a bit extra on top of my regular set, but again didn't want to overdo things. That said, discovering that I can both curl and row 40 pounds was cool. Next time I benchpress I think I will go for 40 there as well. Even better was deadlifting 55 pounds, several times, with improving form. Given my size I know that these numbers may seen low and they might be, but I would much rather start too low and get better form than start too high/fast and hurt myself because I have shitty form. And I expect that I will likely plateau soon on pretty much everything, but I am fine with that. It is still progress. If I get stuck at a 60 pound squat and spend two or three workouts getting up to my 5x5s, but then suddenly I can do 65, well clearly that is progress. That said, I think eventually, if I stick with lifting I am going to really make some gains and be able to handle some heavy weight. But I know that it takes time. I am finally making progress with the idea that fitness takes time. It took too many years for this to sink in all the way. And I hate having to fight with own apathy, depression, and other mental health issues to keep moving. Sometimes (often) that is harder than the workouts I do.

But I am doing it and I want to keep doing it. I feel like lifting weights to start, where I can see my improvements faster and adding cardio at a pace I can handle is going to work out better in the long term for me. Because I do very well if I can see progress and lifting progressively higher weights is progress even if I don't see or feel weight loss. Although, I did notice earlier that my butt is already firming up a tiny bit from the squats. I laughed about it for probably 20 minutes. That's what I call progress!!

Anyway, doing things my way, even if it isn't typical or how other people would do it or anything else and having it work for me is what matters. I had an entire conversation with myself on the way home about it. And I felt good. And I want to keep feeling good. Here's to progress, big lifts, and getting rolling.

Of course, to get rolling again I need new pads that I don't have the money for. This makes me sad. But it means that I can take a month or two to focus on my fitness while I save gear money. Then I can go back to another night of derby fitness and see how my shins are healing and have appropriate gear and if things look/feel/roll better, well then I can pay my dues and officially get back to playing roller derby. Here's hoping things go so smoothly.

Is there a stronger word for depression than depression?

Depressed doesn't even begin to cover how I have been feeling for the better part of the last...week or so I guess. Maybe longer. It gets hard to tell after a while. I can't find a single reason for it. I just know that I feel soffocated under it, with no motivation, no spark, nothing. Even good sex didn't shake me out of my funk for more than a few minutes.

I don't actually know what to do. I don't know how to fix this. I've got absolutely nothing in the way of a clue to figure out while I am so so so so so so down. Everything feels like effort, even sleeping. But I have a job to do and a house to try and take care of (I'm terrible at it) and a cat and a man in my life who loves me and errands to run. But all I want to do is curl up in a ball and do nothing. Because the idea of doing anything is just so much effort that it doesn't seem worth it. Even writing this post has taken me days to get around to because I know that no one really follows this and I don't know why I'm bothring because it isn't going to make me feel any better to put words to a page.

Drinking myself into a stupor might even be preferable to this empty nothing kind of feeling. But you know what, drinking that much seems too hard, just like everything else. I guess that I am going to go lay back in bed until I finally fall asleep because my eyes close on their own.

Rambling to get thru my day at work

I have been really stressed out lately, but not to the point of non-functionality, just lots of frustration because two (three?) of the things that are bothering me are ones that seem like (or are) things I can do nothing about.

I have always been heavy and since I hurt my knee in October I have only gotten heavier because I couldn’t workout or even get around very well. I have finally ditched the cane and am doing much better, but I cannot seem to find the motivation to do anything like go to the gym and workout. I stepped on a scale the other day and almost cried and for a day or two I was able to brush it off and pretend that it didn’t bother me nearly so bad as it did. Then I saw a photo on FB from the early days of my roller derby career and I just really felt sad and awful at the state I have fallen into.

And sure, the long term solution is diet and exercise, but I struggle with keeping motivated anyway and when I don’t see progress then I REALLY REALLY struggle with my motivation. But at this point, if I don’t figure out how to motivate myself to keep going I am going to be stuck in sweat pants and oversized t-shirts before too long because nothing else will fit me. Well, not anything I will be able to afford at any rate.  So here I am, stressed out and depressed over my weight and the toll it is taking on my physical, mental, and emotional health and I feel like there is nothing I can do about it. I’m at a bit of a loss because I cannot even find the motivation to get started.  I feel as though it is of no use because I can never see any progress and I just seem to get bigger. Doing it alone is even harder I think, but I am in such awful shape that I was be self-conscious and ashamed to have any of my friends work out with me and I know that JD absolutely hates the gym and would be miserable going with me. I mean, he will support me and encourage me and applaud my efforts and having that support helps a lot, but for some reason it gets harder and harder to go it alone in the gym and I don’t know why.

And secondly, my job isn’t bad. Some days I really enjoy it. But it doesn’t pay enough for me to take care of my bills AND be able to save money. This means I can’t save to move into a nicer apartment or for a down payment on a house, or even to go see my family in Texas. Obviously, I can do something about this, which is job hunt, and I have been doing so, but it seems like there is nothing local to me and everything I apply for that is even semi-local I don’t even rate an interview for. Plus, there again is the moving issue if I were to find a job a couple hours away. I work and work and work and I don’t seem to get anywhere. I mean, in a lot of ways I am lucky because my workplace is very tolerant of my mental health issues and the fact that some days I just don’t make it out of bed or I come in late so there are definitely some upsides, but I honestly need more income if I am ever going to do anything beyond just scraping by.

There also seems to be a third thing that bugs me as it isn’t entirely related to my poor job prospects and that is the fact that my family is so far away and I don’t see them and it sucks and causes major depression sometimes. Having people on my case about moving closer to them on a regular basis doesn’t help. It is like they don’t understand that I cannot afford to move, it isn’t just me that I have to think about, and that I am not willing to give up everything and move home (Texas will always be home) without things like a job prospect, a little extra money set aside, and a way to get on my own feet in a relatively short time frame. Not to mention the logistics of making sure I had access to my medications and making sure that JD had everything he needed as well. Oh and not factoring in things like his hatred of hot weather which is damn near the only kind of weather that Texas has. And this particular issue is incredibly frustrating because when it gets brought up I feel as though there is nothing I can say to stop the conversation because if I do I am only going to cause hurt feelings and problems and that is simply another stressor that I don’t need on my plate. I simply cannot win here and don’t know what to do or how to handle it. I’m not willing to just bend over backwards and give in to the things that other people want me to do because it is what they want or what they think would be best for me. Especially not when I have more to consider than just my wants and needs; that’s just not how my life works and I am fine with that, but I am tired of other people seeming to not be fine with that. *sigh*

I am just getting more and more frustrated as the day wears on and just don’t really know what to do. People talk like going to the gym or finding a new job are easy things to do, but the reality is that they are not easy for me. I don’t know what to do to make myself more marketable in a marketplace that has an abundance of workers and not enough jobs, I don’t know how to structure a work out or diet plan so that it works and I can stick to it, and I just feel really stuck because I don’t know what to do and I don’t really know how to let other people help me either. Of course, even if I did things like resume assistance/job counseling and working with a nutritionist or personal trainer both tend to cost money that I do not have. If I had that kind of money I would probably not have so much debt and drive a nicer car and not worry come the end of every month how we are going to get by until the next payday.

Introspection

So I had been really down on myself, about my hair and about thing in general and I was trying to puzzle through it all. I sorted my hair out in my head...not sure what that was about. I applied for a few jobs, but it doesn't look like I am going to hear anything back about any of them, but that's OK because at least I applied and that is where I start. My knee is feeling better and that is leading to increased motivation to workout, although I haven't strted because I am a little scared of reinjuring my knee (and I want to give it time to be all good.) So for right now, despite the fact that I was utterly exhausted by noon Friday and still had the rest of my workday to get thru and despite the fact that I did NOTHING on Saturday because Friday night's nightmares were bad enough that I woke up screaming twice and then napped for several hours Saturday, I feel good. I'm not super sown about nything, I'm not bodering on manic, and life is just chill. OF course I still want a better job and to pay off debt and to all of those things, but they are all works in progress. And so am I.

It took a bit of introspection, but when I really thought about it one of the things that had crossed my mind was how I fit into and identify on th LGBTQ spectrum. I recall starting out in HS and deciding that I was bisexual, even though that wasn't quite right; it was the closest descriptor that I knew of to describe my sexuality. And I stuck with that for a long time because I was married to a man and didn't have relations with a woman and whatnot. The I divorced my husband and I told him that I wanted out because I had decided that I was a lesbian. Deep down I knew that I wasn't a lesbian, but I was pretty much over being with a man because my ex and I had some serious issues and they caused big problems and there was a lot going on that was wrong and shouldn't have happened and whatever. It was during that time that I missed my chance to sleep with a gorgeous girl that I adore and I am glad that she seems to be happy when I see her FB posts.

So I ended up with JD. JD is male. We have a pretty unconventional sex life and it works for us. Perfectly well, although we have had some bumps in the road (who hasn't?) and I did a small amount of searching and settled on the idea of pansexuality, which isn't invalid or necessarily incorrect, but over time I just got more and more annoyed by the label and trying to explain it because it just isn't something that a lot of people understand And that had been bugging me for a while. Cue an angsty fit, some real introspection, and finally the conclusion that who gives a fuck. Obviously, I am clearly not heterosexual, although I probably appear to be your average hetero cis-female. Why not simply go with the idea that I am queer and leave it at that. Because who cares, really? Who is going to ask? Who needs to know? I mean, I need to know because I need and want to know myself, not because I feel the need to label myself, but that's just me being me.

And I feel better. I don't think I will ever suddenly become a stereotype of the queer community either femme or butch or anything else and I may always present to people as straight. I don't care. I wear jeans and boots and t-shirts and I wear flipflops or chucks in the summer. I don't thrift for awesome clothes (mostly because plus size thrifting in a small town is hard ya'll.) Sometimes I do my make-up, but most of the time I don't. When I do wear make-up it tends to be either quite subtle or wildly overdone. I make sure I am presentable at my job. I'm not a fashion plate. I had a mohawk once. It was red and blonde and looked like fire and it was glorious. It was probably the one time in my life that I might have looked queer. At the time I was still maried to my ex-husband, although I won't say that we were happy. If I didn't have an office job where I need to be put together and sometimes wear a nice button down shirt I might have a mohawk again. I really enjoyed it.

So yeah...I have always said labels don't matter, but knowing oneself is something entirely different. I feel like, finally, I am getting there.

Is there any creature on earth as unfortunate as an ugly woman?

Typically when I get a haircut it makes me feel much, much better. Especially if I have gone a while without getting one. But this time it didn't have the same effect. The hair color I applied a couple days later also didn't really do much for me. I'm not really sure why on either note, but it is a bit depressing.

I am often kind of down about my looks and see myself as anywhere from a monstrosity to simply just OK, maybe average on a good day. Getting my hair and eyebrows done always makes me feel better for a little bit, but this time it just didn't help. I don't know why. I do know that it has been bothering me since I noticed it, but I still can't figure it out. My hair looks good, the color is appropriate (if a bit redder than normal), and I have eyebrows again instead of what feels like two caterpillars resting above my eyes. But I feel just, not awful really, but I haven't gotten that spike of look at me I feel almost pretty. I had gotten used to that.

And it bothers me a little that I had gotten so used to that superficiality that now that it is gone I am bothered by it. I seriously have no idea what to do or how to handle this or what will make me feel better. Not even the slightest clue. I mean, if I thought that buying a new outfit would help and I could afford it I might try that, but I don't think it will and I can't afford it anyway. I wondered about a new piercing or tattoo, but again I lack the money to do so and the desire to fight with the hassle of it. But mostly the money is an issue here because I ALWAYS want a new tattoo. That said, I still don't think it would make me feel any better.

As I sit here and I think about it I am almost starting to wonder if perhaps my weight is what is causing the discontent. But solving that problem is going to take some time so I won't know until I get back on the exercise wagon. Which won't be as soon as I might like, but I will say that my knee is getting better and I have been out and about without my cane quite a bit in the last two days or so. If I can get myself together I am going to start with some body weight work and maybe the gym a couple times a week, even if all I do is the treadmill or something for a short time. Maybe it will help...I hope something does. I feel like even more of an ugly duckling than ever, but I have never been a swan in my life. I'm pretty sure I never will be and I wish that I could be the kind of person who isn't bothered by that. I try very hard to accept myself for me and tell the world and their beauty standards to fuck off.

But even with doing that I still don't feel as though I fit a non-traditional or even my own sense of beauty. So even if I ignore Holloywood and the media and what people's expectations are I feel like I still don't fit. It is a lonely and alienatng feeling that I don't know how to fix. I wish I did.