SPAM is good for breakfast or lunch but not blogs

Sorry folks,

Almost a year blogging and I rarely, if ever, was lucky that my comment sections were clean. In the past couple of weeks, that changed. Unfortunately Spam could up with me. I've had to change my blog to require logins to make comments. (sigh) I'm sorry, but maybe the Spam wil go away over time.

Thank you for bearing with me as I try to blog more. I feel like my writer's block is starting to fade away.

Doctor, Doctor, Give Me the News...

Doctor #1: When I was having seizures regularly, life was so good. I only had to deal with one doctor (neurologist). The Doc I had put me through a series of tests, including an MRI.

Doctor #2: Time went by and suddenly I had two doctors. Through LA county I was assigned a doctor to examine my mood disorders. I enjoyed time with Dr Jenny. She was both my psychologist and my therapist (which does not happen very often) as a result we met together every week for one full hour. With some time Jenny diagnosed me as having bipolar disorder.
I am familiar with bipolar, so I wasn't freaked out, but also new that I was going to be taking a large amount of drugs, which I wasn't too thrilled about. There is not one treatment for those with bipolar. A drug that works for one person may not help another person. If the first set of drugs don't work, then we tried a different combination, and then another combination and another, etc. It took awhile, but we finally found a cocktail of drugs that worked for me. Unfortunately, it had no effect on my anxiety, which has been in high gear.

Doctor #3: Sadly Doctor Jenny (Doctor #2) finished her residency and moved away. It didn't take them much time to find me a new one, Doctor Marcus (Doctor . I went to my first appointment and and he was one of those 10 minute psychiatrists. When I asked if I could have a therapist also he just looked down and shook his head. When I asked if it was because of budget cuts and he said yes. (Thank you very much, Mr. Schwarzenegger )

Doctor #4: I began therapy with Doctor #4 (Doctor Halverson) I had been his patient awhile back and was really looking forward to being his patient again. He is not the kind of Dr. that tries to get a patient find their inner-child. He worked with me to resolved the problem rather than deal with it. I'm looking forward to working with him again.

Doctor #5: Yesterday I met with Doctor Freeman (#5). He is my GP and a good enough guy.
He did comment on how my weight must of been a reaction to some of the drugs and I agreed.
We didn't discuss what I need to do about it, but didn't discuss any solutions. For solutions I need to ask my new psychologist (Dr. Maria) and make sure I'm taken all the weight enhancement drugs.

So far this week I've been to a doctor 3 times. And I've had appointments made for me. The appointments include a dermatologist, a series of blood tests done, and will have to do an overnight sleep study. I will also be taking another MRI (my 4th time this year) so far the MRI's have shown no problems at all with my brain so they still don't know why I have had the seizures. The best guess I've been given has been that my seizures must have been a chemical reaction.

So there you have it. The joys of living with a mood disorder. To get serious here I want to add that 1 in 5 bipolar patients end up successfully committing suicide.
I feel it's important to add that in since many people scoff at mental illness. My point in this blog is to make people more aware of what it is like and that we aren't all wearing straight jackets in some rotting mental facility. Truth be told, Many (probably most) are able to find the correct combination's for their disease.

There you have it. Fortunately most people with bipolar disorder live normal lives once they get their medications under control. I hope I'm one of them when all this madness is done.

Blessed Be

Reverend Bradley?????

Over the years I've taken many job assessments and have always come up with the same catagories; such as taxi driver, office manager, funeral director and minister.

The jobs I've taken over the years have fallen into these catagories. Most notable was working in a large incoming call center. I had 250 employees. Later after getting sober I began working at a specialized grocery store, and then became manager of a coffee shop. Did I enjoy these damn jobs? Hell no, but changing jobs seemed at lot less scary and very comfortable. Every one of these jobs fell within the results the guidelines from my assessments.

The assessments were lengthy but they all came up with the same list. One item that was always listed, was for me to become a minister. We laughed about it in high school when we had career assessments done. I chuckled at the idea over the years when time after time “minister” would rate highly. The humor was that I was an atheist/agnostic for most of those years. What in hell kind of church would want an atheistic minister? So I would just ignore the idea and move on to the rest of the recommended positions. Some were good and some where bad, but in all situations that I did work just never made me feel I was doing anything important. I needed something more.

I have finally chosen the ministry.

So now I’m starting to finally get my undergraduate degree and then go to seminary school. Yep, all those chuckles I’ve done over the years were frequently to hide the fact that I liked the idea. Finally I’ve broken down and I’m in school to receive my to BA degree and then go off to seminary for four more years to receive my masters degree and become a minister.

What changed? I discovered that I am a Unitarian Universalist (UU). As a UU minister I can be an atheist and be a minister, I can be catholic and be a minister, I can be Christian and be a minister, I can be a Mystic, Wiccan, Quaker, Jew and more and can still be a minister. Unitarians don't claim to have all the answers so it's up to each congregant to work and develop their spirituality For UU's, the path I take in my spiritual life may be completely different than some/many of our congregants. UU’s don’t claim to have the answers, but as UU’s we embrace each other’s ideas so we can help guide them on their journey. The only thing a Unitarian Universalist does not tolerate is intolerance.

As much as this sounds like a New Age type of fly by night religion. Unitarians have been around for 500 years. We don't proselytize so that makes it difficult to have a large following through the world. If you've never heard of us, you, don't be surprisedent. We're pretty low key. After all the chuckles over the career assessments, I have finally found the one that I think will make a huge difference in my life. The minister. What that means for now is that I have to take 4 years of college to receive my BA, and then another 4 years at a seminary near Berkley0 Classes begin around February and I'm very excited. The two ministers at my church have given me their support as well as many congregants who have heard the news. So, that's the tale of my long road to the ministry. I wish I had heard the calling when I was in my twenties, but I guess it wasn't in the cards for me then. Instead, I didn't hear the calling after the new millennium. But I wouldn't haven't been ready then. Today, I know I am exactly where I should be.

Thanksgiving

Gobble Gobble

OMG, My Weight. I must hang my head shame

I joined weight watchers several months ago, Friends kept telling me that it's a great program. Yeah, Weight Watchers is the one that you have to track the number of points in a day.

I thought, "this will be easy. I'm happy I can eat whatever I want, I just have to measure the ingredients which will give me the points value of any food.

Have I lost weight? FUCK NO! I gained more than when I started. I now weigh exactly 300 pounds. That's double what I should weigh. I talked with my pdoc to see if any of the drugs I have cause weight gain. (It was a problem in the past). I never got an answer from him. I think he got distracted.

So...what am I going to do? First, I'm going to continue to walk to a 12 step meeting every morning at 6:00 am. There and back is 2 miles. Not great really, but it's a start. The other thing I'm going to do is live strictly by the points. (sigh). I lost a good bit of food while counting points and was dropped a few pounds. If I don't stick with the plan then maybe I'll quit for now, but I hope not. I'll continue to keep all of posted.

I had another anxiety attack while shopping at IKEA yesterday (IKEA is a huge furniture that always stays packed with shoppers. People were talking, children were yelling, etc. etc. It reached the point that I had before. I was afraid to touch anything. I wasn't really there. If I reached down to pick up an item, then it melt in my hands. I was afraid to touch the walls because I feared they would turn into goo that will cling on my arms when I pull them out.

When these kind of attacks occur, it's best to have Maurice help me. He grabs my hands and talks to me to calm me down and he also walks me to something so that I can see that it's really solid. I'm grateful to have him as my husband. If Maurice isn't around I just have to deal with it the best I can. I'll walk very slowly and won't touch anything. Finally when I find a wall or other objects, I can feel them. It's not fun at all. You feel like you don't belong there or anywhere. It feels like I'm in an isolated world. I'm in a bubble. I can hear people talking but I don't respond back as much because I'm in this bubble. Anyway, it's been a long while since this occured.

The Unsinkable Taste of Cheerio's

I've never been fond of cereal for breakfast. I didn't dislike it, I just never craved it...that is until two months ago when I started eating Honey Nut Cheerios. Who created this? If I wasn't already married, I'd marry whoever made the final decision to stock the shelves with the stuff. When I eat it I'm constantly amazed at how incredibly delicious it is. Those sweet little O's pack plenty for your taste buds.

I've posted before about my love of peanut butter. I refuse to have any in the house because in one seating I would finish off the entire jar. I'm afraid to say that I am now craving Cheerios all day long to the point that I haven't given peanut butter much thought.

For breakfast I have 2 bowls. I finish the 1st bowl but leave plenty of milk for a 2nd bowl. After the 2nd bowl I finish off the milk.

For lunch do exactly the same as breakfast

For a mid afternoon snack I know I should grab some fruit, but instead it's another 2 bowls.

Maurice usually comes home and cooks dinner, so there's no Cheerios at that time, but before I go to bed I frequently have another bowl. Add those up and you get 6-7 bowls a day.

Unlike peanut butter, I've made no attempt at all to curb my appetite so that I don't eat so much of the Cheerio's. Peanut butter, as everyone knows, is loaded with fat. More than Cheerios. In addition, Cheerios advertises that they may reduce you're cholesterol. So it can't be that bad for me, could it? My cholesterol levels always come out fine when they are tested, but good or not, I would never be able to pull myself away from them.

As most of you know, I attend AA because of my drug and alcohol problems. I've been sober for 6 years. I'm concerned, however, about this new addition to cheerios. There's no alcohol in them, and I certainly haven't added any drugs to the cereal. You'll never see me spreading white powder on my cereal. Is this intense craving dangerous. I'm sure it's put on a few pounds, which I'll know for sure after my next weigh in at Weight Watchers.

I have plenty more to add, however, Maurice and I need to go to the grocery store. We have no food in the house at all. Of course, I will be buying more of my Honey Nut cereal.

Depression, Depression, Depression

I apologize for starting the blog back up and then left one post alone for the entire week. As many of you know, I love to blog, but it is extremely difficult when I'm having a very low depression for a couple of weeks.

My goal has always been to post every day except for Saturday or Sunday. Since I only made one post, I'm setting a goal of posting two days next week, and so on and so on...

Hopefully when the funk clears that I don't go into a mega manic state. It may feel better, but it's a bit too crazy for me.