Acceptance, Actually

The path to healing is supposed to involve "acceptance".  Sometimes this is called "surrender", a word which I hate for its connotations of cheesy romance novels.  So I'll talk about "acceptance".

Since my psychotic episode I have struggled mightily against my illness.  I felt like I had to; I couldn't afford to go back there, I couldn't afford for my mood to get any worse, I couldn't afford another mistake with my meds.  I've struggled against everything that's gone wrong with my life over the last two years.  The jobs I've lost.  My relationship problems.  The loss of my cats.

Then, the day before my cat CC died, I was overcome with a sense of calm.  The universe is kicking my ass right now, for whatever reason.  There's nothing I can do about my illness except what I'm already doing -- taking care of myself as best I can.  The job stuff, my cats -- those situations are both out of my control.  My relationship -- well, that needs work, no question, but we're finally ready to start that work after healing from the trauma of our previous, fraudulent couples counselor.  So there, at least, there is something I can do, and I am damn well going to do it.

I don't know why or how I attained my sudden sense of calm.  I just know that for the first time in two years I feel like I know what I can and can't control, and I feel deeply that things will get better.  It's a damn good place to be.

Getting Out of the House Helps

I haven't been blogging a lot lately.  It's because I decided to take my shrink's advice and get out of the house.

His theory was that moping around the house wasn't good for me.  It wouldn't be good for anyone, but in my case I'd been housebound for months while taking care of my late lamented kitty.  Being here all the time, he thought, was probably retraumatizing.

So I pledged to get out of the house three days a week.  I have to go to physical therapy anyway, and PT is close to my volunteer gig at the animal shelter, so I'm spending more time thinking about cats than my own misery.  When you're depressed, this can't help but be a good thing.

Grieving the Relapse of Chronic Illness

I've been struggling a lot lately with the issue of how to live with a chronic illness.  As i've said before, I'm having a hard time caring for myself -- I was doing a damn good job of taking care of myself when I had my psychotic episode.  I was eating right, exercising, getting enough sleep, taking my meds, avoiding caffeine and sugar and alcohol, and I had the worst mental health crash of my life.

A few days ago, I found a post about grieving the relapse of a chronic illness by Dr Aletta of Explore What's Next.  Like it or not (and I don't like it, believe me) mental illness is a chronic condition.  We will do well for awhile.  Maybe we'll decide that we can handle a bit more stress in our lives.  We'll stop saying "no" to things we really should.  And then we'll relapse.  It sucks.

Dr. Aletta's post did three things for me.  First, it made me realize that there was something I wasn't doing to take care of myself -- I wasn't managing my stress levels.  Of course, I'd been under worse stress in my life, so I thought I could handle it.  Still, I was under a lot of stress.  Between that and my lack of sunlight, it seems I doomed myself.

Second, she writes candidly about hating to take the meds required for her condition.  She did what she advises her patients never, ever to do -- she altered her dosage so she took less of the medication.  I've never done this myself, but the temptation is always there.  I felt a lot better just knowing that a psychologist can make the same mistakes a lot of us do as we try to live with the side effects of our meds.

Finally, reading this post made me realize that my recent frustration and depression is normal for someone having a relapse.  When we have a relapse it's natural to grieve.  It's normal to be in denial, to get angry, to get depressed -- though that last one is bitterly ironic for someone with a mood disorder.  I've spent a lot of time lately feeling very angry and resentful.  It's not fair that I have to live with this chronic condition, that I have to put so much energy into caring for myself, when others can just go about their lives.

This is just a synopsis of Dr. Aletta's article.  I highly recommend reading the original.

More About Meds and Tooth Decay: Brush Several Times A Day

One of my most popular posts is the one about the dental problems that can result from taking meds for your brain.  As I said in that post, tooth problems aren't something that most pdocs even know about, let alone warn us about when we start taking crazy meds.  So you start a bunch of new meds for bipolar, depression, or ADHD, and suddenly your previously cavity-free mouth looks like that of a meth user.

I was at the dentist last week and learned something interesting, and a little counterintuitive, that I thought I should share with y'all: Drinking more water doesn't help your teeth.  I'd sort of assumed that it would.  I mean, if the problems are caused by your mouth being dry, wouldn't it make sense to make your mouth wet?

The problem with my hypothesis is that tooth decay, of course, is caused by bacteria.  Your mouth fights bacteria not with water, but with saliva.  Saliva has antibacterial properties.  Water does not.  Saliva also remineralizes your teeth, filling in any tiny pits that could develop into cavities later.  Water does not.  As my dentist said, "It just means you have to pee a lot".

My dentist recommends a lot of ways of dealing with this.  There's the high-flouride prescription toothpaste.  There are the mints and gum with xylitol in them, which stimulates saliva production.  Then there's plain old brushing.  By brushing your teeth several times a day, you get rid of that bacteria, and that prevents cavities.

Worn Out, OR: Gotta Have Heart

I am officially sick of taking care of myself.

Why bother to limit my alcohol intake?  Why should I avoid sugar and caffeine?  Why make the effort to exercise?  I worked so hard to instill these habits four years ago because I wanted to get healthy.  And where has it gotten me?

Fuck-all nowhere.

OK, it worked for awhile.  I lost 60 lbs.  I got in shape.  I got organized.  Let me say that again: I, that is to say, Addy Bell, got organized.  If you'd seen my report cards from elementary school you'd know what a miraculous feat that is.  Anyway, as a result of working my ass off, my depression lessened, my ADHD symptoms improved, and I felt better than I had in years.  For the first time in my life, I was in control.

That is, until I wasn't.  Until I went nuts.  Until I had to spend an entire year rebuilding my brain from the ground up.  So much for control.

Lately, I haven't been moody, and I haven't felt sad.  I just feel tired and pointless.  Why put in the effort when past experience tells me that no matter how hard I work, I will fail?  And not just fail, but burn down, fall over, and sink into the swamp?

It would be easier to get off my ass and do something, anything, if I felt like I had any efficacy at all.  But I can't even remember what it feels like to feel a sense of control, to feel like what I do matters, to feel like I can effect the outcome of my own life.  Sure, I can put in the effort, I can work my ass off, but that won't make the Universe take down the "kick me" sign it's had on my back for the last two years.

Maybe if I just lie low, life won't notice me and will leave me alone.

But I can't think like that.  I know I can't.  Because I know that I have to take care of myself, or things will get even worse, and thinking so negatively is bad self care, and is practically a guarantee that things will get worse.  So I need to keep my chin up, stiff upper lip, put on my game face, and all that.  I gotta have heart, right?  Lots and lots and lots of heart!  Gotta keep singing Damn Yankees in my head.

And I guess, for me, for now, that's what success is.  Other people get to feel successful when they land a job, or a promotion, or a raise.  Or when they watch their children sharing a toy on the playground and they think to themselves, hey, I taught them that.  Me?  My success is measured in my ability to talk myself up from the depths of bitter despair, a place where I've landed because, well, my success is measured in my ability to talk myself up from the depths of bitter despair.

Only I can't think like that.  Gotta have heart.  Gotta have heart.  Gotta have heart.

P.S.: Damn Yankees.

Motivational Problems: (Or: My Life Keeps Getting Worse)

My cat is probably dying.

A few weeks back she lost her appetite, then seemed to regain it.  Since returning home from my trip, however, she's no longer eating.  Within 24 hours I was in the vet's office.  My cat, who's been 16 lbs most of her life, is now 8 lbs.

The vet recommended an x-ray, but the results, like the results of the blood panel and the urinalysis, showed nothing wrong.

Great news, right?  Not so much.  When you've got a cat who's obviously as sick as mine -- all that loss of weight and apetite -- you're probably looking at cancer.  The next step is to get a second opinion from an internal medicine specialist.  They would probably do an ultrasound, which would cost about $600, and be one more traumatic experience for my poor kitty.  Since I have yet to talk to anyone who's had a good experience giving their cat chemo, I would probably opt for palliative care.  I'll be talking to the specialist about this.

In the mean time, I've felt really unmotivated.  I need to clean the house, because it looks like a tornado threw up on it.  I need to sell some crap on Craigslist.  I need to work on my stained glass project.

I wondered if my meds needed adjusting, if somehow they'd started to fight with each other ... and then I realized: I am motivated to do one thing, and just one.  I am motivated to spend quality time with my cat.  I will sit on the couch for as long as she wants me to.  That's my motivation right now.

Lamictal 300: Why am I "depressed"?

Hotbrain wrote me a nice supportive note the other day about my mood problems (apparently my comment form is evil, which isn't surprising, since Blogger is run by Google).

I don't know whether my mood problems are caused by some sort of medication poop-out or not.  They may be.  I think it's more likely that my stress is situational.  This is still a problem when you have a clinical mental illness.  Situational stress drags down your mood, obviously, and unlike the mentally boring, we lack the resources to pull our mood up when the situation resolves itself.

I feel like my meds are working.  I feel stable, I'm not normal one minute and then sobbing the next.  But my life is depressing me.  I'm not meeting my goals for this year.  My cat isn't eating (but maybe she's getting better ... or maybe that's just what I want to see), which has led to a lot of unexpected expenses.  I find myself ruminating on these things.  It's hard for me to remember all that MCBT I learned ... and I'm not meditating like I should be.

I've stopped boozing.  I'm back to drinking one drink a few nights a week.  As when you throw away any sort of mental crutch, a painful realization followed: drinking had been one of the few things I enjoyed doing.  Painting seems like too much work.  Music?  Need to tune the instrument first, and harpsichords have A LOT of strings.

In all honesty, the prep for these activities are not that bad, but when you have ADD and depression, they seem overwhelming.  The thing I really want to do is work with stained glass.  But I don't have the tools, and doing it in your house is a great way to spread shards of glass all over it.  I'm thinking seriously of setting up outside on my deck and buying the damn tools.

Not having a part of your day that you really enjoy is ... well, it's depressing.

Lamictal 300 mgs: Down and Depressed

OK, partly it's because it's been gray and cloudy and gloomy.  But mostly, I've been slipping back into feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.  I feel like there's no part of my day that I enjoy.  I feel like I'll never get out of the hole I'm in career-wise.  I'll turn 37 this year, and in spite of all the hard work I've done -- and I mean really hard work, I'm still cripped by mental illness by learning disability.

And RSI.  Did I mention I have RSI?  Yeah.

Lamictal 300 mgs: Too Much Booze

The past several months have been pretty stressful for me.  There's been the relationship drama, the wondering whether I'd go crazy again, and then there's been some unexpected veterinary visits for both my cats totaling about $600.  One of the cats was simple -- yeast infection in her ears.

The other cat?  She has a weird collection of symptoms.  She's off her food, which is really concerning; there's a reason her nickname is "Piglet".  She's lost some weight.  A few weeks ago she was dribbling urine, but that was diagnosed as a UTI and cleared up.  She's having digestive issues.  They did a full blood panel and urinalysis.  It didn't really show anything wrong, except perhaps mild kidney dysfunction.

And she's still not eating.  Cancer can't be ruled out until a full x-ray and ultrasound is performed, and that would cost me $600 to $800.  I don't know whether I would do that test or not given that my next step would be palliative care.  Everyone I know who's treated a cat for cancer says it's traumatic for everyone involved.

Or, maybe my cat, who's pushing 17 pretty hard, is just showing her age.

That's the background information that explains why I've been drinking too much.

A Depressive Makes Some New Years Resolutions

I started this post in early January, but I'm only finishing it now.  What do you want?  I have ADHD, a mutant mood disorder, and some meds that mess with my memory.  Oh, and guess what?  I'm only a few days late for Chinese New Year!  So there.

I'm so glad to see the ass-end of 2011.  There were so many challenges, so much loss.  But it's a new year and I'm not going to dwell on them.

As with every year, I am making New Years' resolutions as a way of setting my intentions for the coming year.  Last year their focus was caring for myself.  I think I did a pretty good job of that, given all the problems I had.

Here are my resolutions for 2012:

• To establish a nightly ritual in which I think of at least one good thing that happened that day.
  I spent much of last year in various states of crazy, deep depression, or profound anxiety about the future.  There weren't a lot of positives in my life, but nonetheless, I know they were there.  I need to pay more attention to them -- this is according to my friend's six year old, who, when we were visiting for the New Year, happened to mention that "something good happens every day, and we should be glad".  Out of the mouths of babes.

• I'm will structure my time and create a schedule.  A few years ago, before my life went to hell in a handbasket, I had something of a schedule that I more or less stuck to.  Work out from 10 to 11 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Do a certain chore from 2 to 3 every day.  Spend only three hours a day on the computer.  Spend at least two hours working on art.  I didn't always stick to it exactly, but I did sort of, and I got a lot more done as a result.

• I will enlist an ADD coach to help me in my search for meaningful work.  Now that I'm past the Solstice, I need to get back to my job search.  In the course of my last one, I realized that I have no idea what the hell I'm doing.  I feel like everyone who has a real job knows something that I don't. 

• My disabilities present an additional challenge here -- I wasn't able to "start at the bottom" as an admin like most people; and at this point I really need to be able to work from home most of the time to care for my mood disorder.  In other words, I need help.  I need real help.

• I will continue to work on my marriage.  I realized last month that, in addition to whatever legitimate frustrations my partner has, he's going through his own shit right now.  It makes him difficult to live with.  But I didn't promise to love and support him only when it was easy.

• I will work on my non-violent communication skills.  As my mood has stabilized, I've gone from the "shock and sorrow" phase of my relationship difficulties to the "really effing pissed" stage.  Thanks to our incompetent marriage counselor, and thanks to my partner's lack of emotional availability, I've spent the last several months holding space for him.  My issues have been ignored.  And this has made me angry.  Like most people, when I get angry I get reactive, and I can be sarcastic and contemptuous and say destructive things.  Since I'm the one with the capacity right now, I resolve to take on the responsibility of communicating my needs and my feelings in a non-violent way that will be easier for my partner to hear.

Happy Year of the Dragon!

More Conflict In The New Year

I posted last week about some difficulties I needed to address with a friend.  Now I need to deal with a problem I'm having with an art student of mine.

I've worked with him for three years now, and I've always been really informal about the cancellation policy.  I asked for 24 hours notice, and didn't charge in the even that notice was shorter.  It happened so seldom that I figured I could use the time for something else.

By now, however, he's a sophomore in high school.  He's busy.  He's cancelled 4 or 5 lessons in the past two months alone.  He cancelled another one yesterday.  After a three week hiatus because of relatives visiting.  For which I only got a week's notice myself.  In previous years, I could count on the school vacation to schedule make up lessons.

This is no longer working.  It's one thing to have a few cancellations.  It's another to wonder every week whether I'm going to be teaching that day.

What I'd like to do -- what all my piano teachers did, for instance -- is to have a new policy where I am paid up front.  If there's 24 hours notice for a cancellation, there will be no refund, but I will make up the lesson.  If there's less than 24 hours notice, I will not make up the lesson.

I feel like this will be a good motivator for my student and his parents to respect my time a little more than they're doing now.  It's also better for the student, to be honest; he'll want to put together a supplemental portfolio for college, and that simply can't be done with the kind of time he's putting in now.  And that's not even mentioning the momentum that's lost when you lose a whole goddam month of instruction.


I guess the New Year will be about setting boundaries.

Lamictal 300 mgs, Abilify 5 mgs: I Feel Like Myself Again

Last year at this time, though I didn't realize it, I was working incredibly hard -- and all the time -- to manage my psychotic depression.  My mental energy went to reigning in bizarre thoughts, or to distracting myself by fixating on an art project, or by obsessively cleaning the house.  It was exhausting.  The antipsychotic medication helped a lot, but it didn't fix it.

This year, I've been on lamictal, and the difference is like night and day (which is good, since my delusions were about photons).  I was able to see just how hard I had to work last year to keep the crazy at bay, and how this year, I simply didn't have to put in that effort.  Yay lamictal!

Nonetheless, I was still pretty moody by early December.  Overall my mood was better.  I no longer had to listen to cheerful, energetic music to keep myself from becoming untethered.  Sometimes I could even listen to a sad song without totally losing it.

What is it like to have ADD, Part II: The Radio Metaphor

A few months ago Mo at Milligrams requested a post about what it's like to have ADHD.  Since I was writing a blog post, I gave my long, detailed answer

This week I was asked the same question by a friend in my stained glass class.  When people in real life ask me about ADD, I don't give them the long answer.  They don't need to know what my typical day is like.  They don't need to know what it's like to have your mind wander all over creation.  They need to understand the experience of ADHD quickly and concisely.

Since I have trouble with "quick and concise" when I write, I've put the important bits in bold.  The bold face type is what I would say to someone in real life who asks about ADHD.  The rest is just elaboration and explanation, in case you're into that sort of thing.

When someone I know in real life asks what it's like to have ADD, I turn to my radio metaphor.  The radio metaphor looks something like this:

Having ADD is like driving through a rural area with your radio on.  Unfortunately, the radio in your car is stuck in the "on" position and the volume control died a long time ago.  Since you're out in the boonies, your radio is picking up two or three stations at once.   All you're getting is garble and horrible, earsplitting static.   You wish you could change stations, but you can't.  None of them come in clearly.   


I gave this explanation to my friend, who was very sympathetic.  "That sounds really hard," she said.  Another friend who had been listening, nodded and said, "I'm deaf in one ear, and it's a similar experience.   I can only process half of what people are saying, and I can't filter out what's important."

That was on Tuesday, and in the days since, I've been thinking about her hearing loss, and my grandmother's hearing loss, and how similar they are to the ADHD experience.  As with my mental "radio", they have trouble tuning into any one thing in their audible environments.  But I have ADD; I can treat my condition.  What does treatment do for the radio metaphor?

Taking medication for ADD allows your "radio" to tune to a single station.  Finally, you can enjoy some blessed quiet -- only one radio station at once!  But there's a catch (isn't there always?): you don't always have a choice about which station that is. 

For instance, you might open the fridge door, notice that it's pretty full, and decide that you'd have a lot more space if you put the leftovers in smaller containers.  So you do that.  You're on meds, so you can finish the task without getting distracted by something shiny.  Which is great, right?  Yay, a task has been accomplished!

Except that you opened the fridge door for an entirely different reason -- you need to make lunch and eat it before you have to meet someone in half an hour.  In other words, you needed your radio to be tuned to the "making lunch" station, but it jumped over to the "deal with leftovers" station instead.  And you don't know to change it back.  Fortunately, since you're on meds, after you finish the task you remember that you have somewhere to be, only now you have ten minutes instead of half an hour.  So how do you tune your radio?

Pills don't teach skills.  Getting control of your radio is a skill.   

In order to tune your radio to the station you want, you need to learn skills.  You need to learn a lot of them, but I'll use just one as an example: scaffolding.

"Scaffolding" refers to creating habits and routines that support your day to day existence.  For instance, my keys and my sunglasses are in the hat that I wear every day.  I know they will be there, so I don't have to spend half an hour looking for my keys every time I leave the house.  My wallet?  Always in the outer pocket of my bag.  My cell phone?  Either on the charger or in my left jacket pocket.

Neurotypicals can take paying attention for granted.  For ADDers, it takes a ton of energy.  By building the scaffolding I described above (and believe me, that's only a small part of it) I can free up a great deal of mental energy.  I can put that energy toward learning other ADD coping skills.  I can learn how to keep track of what tasks I need to accomplish, and I can learn how to tell which ones are the most important or time-sensitive.  Eventually, when something unexpected happens to disrupt my routine, I can figure out how to deal with it instead of allowing it to disrupt my whole day -- or my whole week.

In other words, I'm finally in charge of choosing the station on my radio.

Happy Solstice, Seasonal Depressives! We made it.

Today I wanted to wish all of you a happy shortest day and longest night.  The sun us is as far as it's going to get from the Northern Hemisphere.  It's all uphill from here.

Of course, for many people there are blizzards and snowstorms to come, and cabin fever, and the grey-brown misery that is February.  You know, I think the only thing I like about California's non-seasons is that February, though often gray at least part of the time, is always green.

We'll still need our sunlamps.  We'll still need to be gentle with ourselves and vigilant about self-care.  But the sun is returning, and bringing with it mood and sanity.

I wish you all the happiest of Solstices.  Remember -- axial tilt is the reason for the season!

Choosing an SAD Therapy Lamp: New Article on Squidoo

Yesterday I finished an review of light therapy devices I wrote on Squidoo.  I really enjoy the Squidoo community and I don't write there enough.  I figured that since I've been learning so very much about different therapy lamps for seasonal depression, I should share my experiences, and my frustrations, with the world.  The article goes into more depth than I have in this blog.

Please check it out!

A Day Without Blue Light Therapy is a Day Without End

After some trial and error with light therapy, I've finally settled on a pattern of using blue light in the morning and my sun lamp in the afternoon.  It's done a lot for my delayed sleep phase.  Since starting the blue light in the morning, I've been waking up around 9 am and falling asleep around 1 am. 

Then, this morning, something came up.  I skipped the blue light.  For just one day.  How much can it matter, right?

You will notice that the time stamp on this message is 3:30 am.  I believe I've answered the question.

Weekly Gratitude: Rats. Yes, really.

This week I'm expressing my gratitude for rats.

Yup.  Rats.

Not the rats that ate my car a five years ago.*  Not the rats that tried to live in my walls two years ago.   Nor do I refer to the kind of rats that carry the plague and grow to the size of small racoons.

(At this point I feel compelled to remark that my rat problems are not a result of living in squalor.  I don't.  I live in a major city in CA, which has no winters to that would kill some of them.  They like my yard because my neighbor has an apple tree that feeds them.)

No, I am not talking about vermin.  I'm talking about lab rats.

I'm talking about the rats who run mazes and endure water tests to teach us about mammalian (and thus human) cognition.  The ones whose bodies are used to test our psych drugs for animal safety.  The ones whose lives are sacrificed, and their brains sliced up and examined, so that researchers can see first-hand the physical and chemical changes wrought by meds or other stimuli.  

Because of these rats, neuropsychiatry is learning more and more about the physical differences that lead to brain dysfunction.  Because of these rats, I have medications that enable me to be a functional person.    Mad gratitude to the rats!


*OK, they only chewed the rubber insulation off the wiring, but saying that "they ate my car" is way funnier.

Is Depression Interfering With Your Potential? This May Help.

http://xkcd.com/987/

I've bitched about a lot of things in this blog.  One of them is the feeling that my life has not turned out the way it was supposed to.  I'm a smart, talented person.  I coulda been somebody!  I coulda been a contender! 

This comic, from the inestimable xkcd, made me feel a bit better about that:

Weekly Gratitude: My Cats, and Cats In General

Fair Warning: I love cats.  I've loved cats for as long as I can remember.  I am a cat person.  In this post, I gush about my own cats at length.  If you're a crazy cat person, read on.  If you're not, this post may make you roll your eyes at the sentimentality of cat people and go talk baby talk to your poodle, Fifi.

This week I'm giving gratititude for my cats.

There are a lot of things I love about my cats.  They're both incredibly well-behaved, with never a litter box problem from either one of them.  They don't shred the furniture.  They don't bite or scratch.  For that matter, neither one of them has even so much as hissed at me in the 16 years we've lived together.  They really are great cats.

I really, truly enjoy my cats' personalities.  They differ dramatically from each other, and complement each other perfectly.  First, there's Piglet, a mellow, affectionate, 16 lb Maine Coon mix.  If I want a cat in my lap, I can just pick her up and put her there, and she'll start purring like a motorboat.  For that matter, she likes being picked up and held on her back like a baby (most cats hate this), and purrs like a motorboat the whole time.  My husband can position her on his chest and fall asleep with his arm around her, and she'll stay there for hours ... purring like a motorboat.  She even allows herself to be used as a pillow.  Did I mention she purrs like a motorboat?

Fortunately, Piglet is so mellow that she doesn't mind being bossed by our other, much smaller cat.  CC is a 9 lb blue tabby.  If she even looks at Piglet in a certain way, Piglet will make a long detour to go around her.  If both cats were dominant personalities their relationship would be a real problem.  But Piglet is happy to back off when CC gets obstreperous.  The cats aren't friends, but they live in peaceful, mutual tolerance.

As for CC can be affectionate, but it's always on her own terms.  She expects obedience from her human minions.  The back door is opened when she asks (she trained me to open it when she rings a bell on a scratchy toy that hangs from the doorknob).  She demands a certain amount of play time every day.  She's sparing in her affection, but if she wants some lap time, she simply takes over my lap.  If she doesn't want cuddle time, there will be no cuddle time.  Until she wants cuddle time again.  Which is usually at 3 in the morning.  Because CC -- disdainful, independent CC -- actually sleeps snuggled in the crook of my arm, and purrs all night long.  (Though possibly this is simply due to amusement; my partner and I frequently wake up to find that we've somehow been crammed onto his half of the bed, and CC is in the exact middle.  CC weights 9 lbs, remember.  My partner and I weigh about 330 combined.)

It's a lot of fun to have one cat you can always count on for some love, and another cat you can tell great stories about.

My cats do have one thing in common.  They both take care of me when I need it.  When my mood begins to crash, Piglet butts her head against my legs until I start petting her.  She crawls into my lap and rests her head against my chest.  CC normally hates to be picked up, but when I start crying, she rubs against my legs and yells at me until I pick her up.  My cats soothe me.  They remind me that I am not my failures.  When I'm feeling useless, they remind me that they depend on me for survival. I feed them and love them and take care of them, that's good enough for them.  I'm good enough for them.

How to Celebrate a Psychoversary

A glass of red wine, and the Hallelujah Chorus played nice and loud.  Then played again, only singing along this time.  In a pretty half-assed way, to be sure, because I was sight-reading and not all of it is easy.

Nonetheless, singing Hallelujah.