responding for tabs

For some quirky reason I can't comment on my own blog here so I'm just posting it now: I have emailed and will email people the tabs whose links don't work anymore. Just ask in a comment.

some due praise

Recently I have been increasingly nervous around my dad. Mainly because I could tell he was getting more stressed out from trying to find a family doctor for his high blood pressure. Obviously because of living in mismanaged Quebec, he was getting nowhere and I feared his building frustration would explode in my face unexpectedly. So I finally offered to help the other day and started calling numbers and googling. I also prayed to the Lord in the morning asking for His providence, knowing that without His blessing I would get nowhere. Meanwhile my dad went to the walk-in clinic to see a doctor there that he found to be good from before. Anyways, it didn't take me very long to find a family doctor who was taking new patients and I got an appointment in May! I found something as rare as a diamond in the rough in just a couple hours of searching. Truly thank you Lord. And then when my dad came home he said he was able to convince the doctor at the walk-in clinic to take him as a regular patient! He said the secretary was stunned and told him it was like he won the lottery. In this case twice in one day. Perhaps this is a taste of what it's like when God causes your cup to overflow. I want to be as thankful as possible. Now I can calm down a little around my dad at least.

tragic good-byes

I can only seem to write this in story/anecdote format:
I saw my psychologist the other day and mentioned that because I'm a small Asian woman, I think it would be pretty hard for me to get addicted to alcohol because I just can't drink all that much overall anyways. Then he mentioned a woman named Sandy that I had made friends with at the psych ward. He said, "Do you remember Sandy? She could really drink." Yeah I remember her well; she was skinnier than me and not much taller but definitely could drink since she told me she was an alcoholic. She said she was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder and started drinking young because she liked to party. She got married with a like-minded man but as they got older and had two children he stopped the partying but she didn't and now her family is so fed up with her behaviour that her husband was in the process of divorcing her and one of her kids didn't want to see her anymore. We became good friends while living in the ward together, playing alot of card games and walking together. I worried about her even in the ward since she was often on suicide watch which involves an orderly watching everything you do including sleep. She told me and it was obvious that she was going through a depressive episode. And then, after a visit from her children she was completely different. She smiled and laughed and said she felt so much better. The hospital released her soon after that and though we exchanged numbers, we didn't keep in touch. I figured she was busy adapting to the single life, looking after the kids and on the up-swing. As all these memories came up in my head I asked, "Oh yeah. How is she doing anyways? Haven't stayed in touch with her."
"She's dead. She committed suicide 8 months ago."
This sentence was a traumatic shock to the system, especially since I was expecting to hear mostly evasive small-talk. And then I wept. I know I only knew her for maybe two months tops as my psychologist pointed out when I got angry at how flippantly he told me of her death but I wept because it is such a tragic end for an individual who struggled with a lot. I wept over the doubly destructive power of both mental illness and addiction. I wept for her ex and especially her children who are still in grade school. It must have been so hard for them to watch, depend on and understand their unstable mom while growing up at the same time. I'm not sure what my psychologist's intention was in telling me about this, maybe scare me into behaving or some crap? "Death is always around. But we shouldn't let it take away from the life we have now." I know I know but I can't help feeling traumatized. She was a really kind and friendly woman and I really hoped she would get better. I can't believe she's gone too. And of course I'm reminded of my close friend who passed away in November. I met him at the psych ward too. He had ADHD and myriad addiction problems but again, a really nice guy. Having severe mental illness and addiction issues at the same time is looking pretty lethal and tortuous for everyone involved.

another treatment center

I guess I go through cycles of feeling too worn out and wanting to give up and then picking myself up, by God's grace, to try try again. I think I'm somewhere in the middle these days. I've started at the addictions unit of a hospital downtown so I've got a new individual therapist lady I see once a week and a group session focused on reducing usage to nothing also once a week. The lady is nice but I don't really like the group so much. The man who leads it is lecture-y plus there's only 3 of us but one guy's been sober since November so he'll be changing groups soon and the other is going into the psych ward to detox and stop that way. Which might be a possibility for me too. Anyways, so I'm really the only person in the group. The group leader asked me to give up drinking for a week without smoking more to compensate so I tried that. But I just had to smoke more. The alcohol was helping me keep the smoking relatively low because it's another kind of high. But then St.Patrick's Day threw me off a bit but at least I'm not drinking everyday like I did for the previous 2 or so weeks. I want to be able to enjoy a drink with friends later in life and not slide into trouble. Maybe it's already too late for that hope but it's definitely too late with weed. I know there's plenty of people who smoke up a lot and see no reason to stop but it's different for me. The smoking takes over everything and becomes my number one priority and my main joy in life. It makes it hard to accomplish things/meet goals and obviously stunts my spiritual growth, takes away from my relationship with God and keeps my BPD from improving overall because I can't face it or work on it while high. I have to remind myself of these reasons all the time because I'm always in danger of seeing weed as my saviour. It's my instant happy pill, it fixes everything, makes life livable, turns reality from fear-inducing to fascinating, calms me down, keeps me going... you see what I mean.

eeeehh

heeey, pretty out of it right now. hello me how are ya? mostly drunk otherwise i wouldn't be writing this right now. weed makes it hard to do anything including typing. but somehow alcohol gives you more energy to do what you really feel like doing. Geez. help. i'm too scared of life. i don't know how i managed before. all the living on the edge, just making deadlines by this much doesn't work anymore. i was super repressed and in denial and that's how i functioned. i thought i was the opposite of what i really was. my case manager says i fell off the horse hard and got trampled too with a few wounds. yikes. now to get out of this mess which i truly do want to do. it's just i'm tired of trying so hard. i tried so hard in rehab, then it was my mom's b-day and then i had nothing left. i need to recharge somehow. i DO want to be sober but at the same time, it's like what's the point? it takes so much effort to feel clear-headed and miserable. but i know that God wants me to be sober and then help others so it has to be a top priority to stay clean. arg.

what I did

I tried. I really did my best to take care of myself as it became my mom's b-day. I had a few clean friends come over and that was really nice, I cooked for them. Couldn't go out much though because I wasn't clean myself. I spent a week and a half mostly in a sort of trance, tripping balls, riding a roller-coaster I can't remember too well. But, as I reasoned with my psychologist, I figured that would be better than going really nuts and succumbing to the destructive delusional ideas in my head. I was this close to going to the mausoleum, breaking into the glass case of my mom's spot, eating some of her ashes and spreading my blood there. Somehow in my brain I truly felt that that would make everything better and I would feel better too. But of course, there's the more rational side of me which could see that it was a crazy idea. If someone caught me doing it, I'm sure they would have called police, I'd end up in the hospital again etc... plus I would have had to fight my good friend who would have accompanied me since I'm sure she wouldn't just stand by while I snapped. I guess this all makes it pretty obvious how sometimes I really do feel like I'm crazy but at the same time I'm not completely crazy because I can see it. It's confusing. So anyway, I got stoned and tipsy instead. But now, I don't like being sober again. There's too many sharp edges in experiencing life. My mind tortures me. Being sober sucks. Did I even really belong in rehab? I never stuck needles in myself nor was I dying from too much alcohol/crack etc.
But obviously this is a relapse. After only a month since rehab. I feel like I failed. I see people in the 12 step meetings and from rehab who are still clean and so content with their lives. So much happier and free than they were before. One girl with BPD too from rehab said she was chosen to be a speaker at an AA meeting. She suffered way more trauma in childhood than I did, got more addicted to stronger stuff than me and for longer and now she can speak at a meeting while I can't even stay clean a few weeks. And I can't stay friends with most of these people neither because I don't want to trigger them or influence them to slip too. I don't know what to do about my group therapy thing. I'm not sure I want to or can stay completely clean anymore. I'll go crazy without drugs but they will make me more crazy. Damned if I do and don't. Well, one good thing is that it's not February anymore.