I’ve made an e-mail address specifically for this blog, instead of using my personal e-mail. It’s pleasewritemedown@gmail.com.
For anyone looking to contact me for anything, to ask questions or to tell me anything privately instead of publicly on my blog. It’ll also be for me to use to contact anyone on WordPress that I’d rather speak to privately that has an e-mail address as well.
As always,
Love & Regards.
When I saw my therapist on Wednesday, we were discussing my sleeping habits. Since depression and anxiety came into my life when I was 13, they brought another friend along called ‘you’re never getting another night of suitable sleep as long as I’m around’. Makes for quite the introduction, I know. Anyway, over the years I’ve gotten pretty used to this plaguing issue, but the horrid look that came over Pam’s face as I depicted a typical night’s sleep made me think it may be more serious than I thought. “How could you possibly have any energy to do anything throughout the day?” she asked me following a pause, along with that unexpected look of bewilderment, after I gave my description. As I’ve said, I’ve gotten used to it for the most part throughout the years, but I do sometimes find myself asking that same question.
When I do get sleep, it’s nothing close to solid sleep. I forget what that even feels like. On average, I get about 5-6 hours sleep, but I wake up about every hour or so throughout the night. When I do wake up, sometimes I’ll be back to sleep within 15 minutes, sometimes it can take a 1/2 hour, an hour, 2, 3, or I might not even get back to sleep at all. My dreams have an impact on how long it can take as well. I’d say about 90% of my dreams are nightmares, or “bad dreams”. At times I’ll either wake up in a sweat, with my heart racing, gasping in shock, instantly crying, or any combination of those things. Yeah, it can be pretty distressing when that happens. I hate those nights.
Pam asked me to keep a log this week of how long I sleep, when I wake up in the duration, if my dreams are having any effect on my sleep, etc. Keeping this log for the past 3 nights, I kind of realize why she had that awful look on her face. I mean, seeing in print what’s occuring through my night’s path, has me slightly taken aback. It’s weird, because I obviously KNOW what happens when I sleep. I’ve known for years. In spite of that, actually reading it on paper has me wondering how I’m not a complete zombie. How has this not caught up with me in 10+ years? Maybe my body has simply adjusted itself to the routine. Then again, I do have my days where I feel like I have to pry myself out of bed with a forklift… but is that from the lack of sleep, the anxiety, the depression? Or a combination? Fuck if I know.
I’m kind of nervous to see Pam’s reaction when I present my notes to her. Just from what I told her on Wednesday, she already suggested that anxiety is most likely causing the disturbed sleeping. I heard somewhere though that people with depression are prone to having excessive nightmares, in turn causing lack of sleep. Well, next Wednesday should make for a fascinating appointment… we shall see.
Love & Regards.
Today marks the 18th time in 129 years that Mr. Groundhog (or Punxsutawney Phil) hasn’t seen his shadow! Let’s hope that he’s actually right; apparently his predictions have only been correct 39% of the time over the years since 1887. Pull it together, Phil…
We HAVE been having unseasonably nice weather here in Massachusetts this winter. We’ve only had one big snowfall so far, and just yesterday it hit 60 degrees. Pretty unbelievable, considering last winter we had about 50 snow storms.❄⛄ 😝 Of course I’m exaggerating, but it WAS literally one after the other. I, for one, cannot wait for spring and summer. Bring on the heat! 🌞
Love & Regards.
*I gathered some of my information from this site.
Today I’m going to post about a big issue of mine that I’ve dealt with for a long time. It’s deeply affected my life in many different negative ways. My indecisiveness, & not being confident in my decisions. This isn’t just the typical ‘I can’t decide what I want for dinner’ or ‘should I wear the white shirt or the red shirt?’ indecisiveness, it’s much deeper than that.
Any time I get a conflicting opinion from someone about what I’m doing, it makes me completely second guess that thing, as well as my abilities. Not usually from people I don’t know, most times it’s the people who are regulars in my life that have that effect on me. It gets to the point where it’s able to make me change my mind about whatever decision I made. Sometimes it makes me feel like I don’t even have a mind of my own. I get utterly depressed even talking about it. How can I let other people’s opinions influence me and my life to such a degree? Here’s a couple of examples…
I went to a vocational high school, and when I started, I decided that I wanted to pick building maintenance for my shop because painting was one of the things they taught you about & I wanted to paint and learn more about it. Let me also say that there wasn’t an abundance of choices for shop. My parents, more specifically my mother, had a big problem with this. She wanted me to pick health careers like my sister did when she went. Well, my sister HATED health careers and my mother was part of the reason she picked it, and she wasted 4 years on something she didn’t even want to pursue, nor did she end up doing so. I didn’t want to do the same thing, I had no interest in health careers whatsoever. By the end of my sophomore year, I convinced myself that I didn’t want to prosecute building maintenance & actually ended up transferring to a different high school to tackle cosmetology. To this day, I tell myself that my life would be completely different right now if I hadn’t done that.
Fast forward a few years… now I decide that I want to go to a cosmetology school to get my license and undertake hairdressing. Yet again my mother chimes in, telling me that there was no way I was going to be capable of doing that as a career; I had no support from her. The rest of my family had also asked me if I was really sure that this was something I wanted to do. With the exception of my sister, who had given me some money for Christmas to put towards school, it was heart-wrenching for me to feel like no one in my family really believed in me.
I went ahead and took out a couple of loans (that I’m still presently paying off) and enrolled, despite how I was already feeling. What happens more than halfway through? I told myself that I really COULDN’T do it and I was wasting my time. I had no confidence in myself at all, so I left the school. I was in such a major bout of depression at this point that lasted for a long time. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore, I didn’t know what my future was going to be like, I didn’t know what my abilities were. I felt that I didn’t know anything about myself. This is now starting to become an all too familiar detrimental dilemma in my life, as it still continues to be in different forms.
Now that I’m seeing this particular therapist (her name is Pam), it’s the weirdest feeling to get so much support about what I want to do. I’ve never had that to such a great extent before, but it’s amazing. Never mind the fact that it’s from someone that’s only known me for a couple of months; I wish I could get it from my family, but it’s a great feeling to get that response from anyone. Pam & I decided that changing the lack of confidence I have in my decisions is one of my major goals in therapy, and she’s steadfast that by the time I’m finished I will be a confident, independent woman. That’s exactly what I want. I want to be able to brush off anything negative or invalidating that anyone else has to say, even if it comes from the people that are closest to me. She says that this behavior I have of being unconfident with decisions stemmed from some of my childhood experiences… well, I’m not really sure how true that actually is, but she’s the professional not me.
I want to go back to school now to get a degree in communications, & maybe get into journalism or writing of some sort. It will be an associate’s degree for now, but may turn into a bachelor’s sometime in the later future. I’m hoping I can really discover what my forte is while I’m in school. The thing is, I feel like I can’t tell anyone else what I want to do in fear of potentially changing my mind and doubting myself. This makes me feel despondent. When you’re excited about something, you should also feel excited about telling everyone about it. Pam agreed with me 100% and assured me that this is something I’ll be able to fix. Right now though, it’s just not something I can do. Other than my sister, & Pam, the only thing I’ve mentioned to people is just that I want to go back to school.
So has anyone else experienced this with anything in their life? If so, how were you able to overcome it? Or are you struggling with these issues right now? Please comment and let me know. We have to support each other in this little online community we have :)
Love & Regards.
This is a terrific post! Sometimes I feel like my train is one continuous, never ending round-trip ride.
I fell asleep so late last night, I think around 4 or 5am, and only got a few hours of sleep… and oh joy, I just happen to wake up with a massively sore throat today. It’s been killing me all day, & it’s only on the right side of my throat. Is it just me, or does anyone else have a problem swallowing cold beverages/food when they have a sore throat? I can’t do it, it makes it feel so much worse. I’ve been drinking tea all day long hoping that it will help soothe it a little, but it’s only been making it tolerable and doesn’t seem to be getting any better. I’ve also run out of cough drops :(
Talk about malaise though… I’ve had no energy at all. I hid myself away under the covers not even wanting to see the light of day. My mood is just complete shit, too. I feel very tired and lethargic, cranky, achy, & I tend to get more depressed than usual when I’m not feeling well. I feel sad, and I hate that. Why does the sad meter get turned up just because I’m feeling sick? My brain is a constant betrayer…
I’ll be dragging myself to the kitchen to make myself another cup of tea shortly. I just hope I can fall asleep earlier tonight. It’s already nearly 10pm though, & here I am still awake. Well, off I go to put the kettle on….
Until next time,
Love & Regards.
Okay, so this is the first blog post I’m putting up and just putting it out there that I’m using this as kind of a personal, yet public, typed journal. An outlet, random thoughts, issues, or for whatever I have going on in my non-stop mind. First off, to give you a tiny bit of background information, I’m a 100% full-blooded Portuguese girl. My parents came to Massachusetts from the Azores in the 70s, and they are very old-school Portuguese.
So, now that that’s explained, yesterday I got into an argument with my mother. This is not a new thing for me. We will be having a normal conversation, and at the drop of a hat, the “bombas” start flying. Now, don’t get me wrong, my mother and I have always had a close relationship, but this particular issue has been a recurring one throughout my life. My mother has always had the mindset that she sits at the right hand of God. She does no wrong, and is perfect in every way (these are literal words that have come from her mouth). I don’t think I’ve ever heard my mother apologize for anything… ever. This goes for my father as well, but that’s an issue for another day. If anything ever goes wrong, it’s always someone else’s fault. Even if you think there’s no way she could possibly place the blame on someone else, this woman will FIND a way. She can never take responsibility for anything negative, but if it’s positive, oh she loves to take credit (even if sometimes credit is due to someone else).
As I said to my therapist earlier today, what I said may not have sounded so nice, but I’ve always told my mom like it is & vice versa. I asked her if she wanted to end up in hell for saying that she was as perfect as God because she shouldn’t say things like that. Oh boy, did the mood shift after that was said. Calling me “puta de merda” and “estupida”, screaming obscenities at me. All of this because I basically challenged her drastically delusional and unrealistic perception of herself. Yes, my mother is a great woman in so many ways. She’s done so much for others in her life, and very much including me, but in no way is she a saint or anywhere near Jesus Christ or God. This way of thinking infuriates me, sometimes to the point where it literally feels like my blood is boiling. I pointed out that she is human just like everyone else in this world, therefore not at all perfect.
You may be saying, does she really think that of herself? Or is she just exaggerating? I sometimes wonder the same thing… but I’ve heard it so many times in my life that I really do think that she ACTUALLY believes this. I have every intention of one day asking her how and why… why, and more importantly, WHY does she think that way? I say one day because I don’t yet know if I’ll be able to handle the response that I’d recieve. Believe me when I say I’m a very calm person, and I’m more likely to cry and be sad than to get angry or mad. It very, very seldom happens. Yet by the end of the ordeal, I was ready to put my fist through the wall. Thankfully, I still had enough rationality and sense to tell myself I would surely break something in my hand if I were to do this.
It’s been a struggle to be so close to someone that thinks so extremely highly of themselves, especially when I am the complete opposite of this. My therapist had mentioned to me that she too had a Portuguese woman in her life who was the same exact way, and she had to be cautious with the advice she was going to give me because of countertransference. If you aren’t familiar with countertransference, (because I wasn’t until today, unless you count hearing the word on Law & Order SVU) it’s basically the therapist having their own emotions or experiences interfering with the therapy of their client. Although, she did give me a little insight as to how she handles dealing with that behavior, which was to try to avoid the woman as much as she can.
I’m wondering if this kind of thinking is generally experienced in Portuguese culture with the women. If anyone is reading this that has women in their life that act this way, please feel free to reach out and tell me. Even if you aren’t Portuguese, God, would it give me some comfort knowing I’m not the only one that deals with this.
Love & Regards.
pleasewritemedown 