Getting Help Isn't Easy

A couple of weeks ago I made my appointment to speak with a counselor. I read through all the bios of people and I picked someone with a PTSD background. I made an appointment to meet with them, and I have had to wait close to three weeks to get an appointment with this person.

On Monday I got a call asking me to reschedule my appointment (originally set for today) to tomorrow at one. I agreed. No big deal, but I was slightly annoyed.

Today I get the reminder call....but the lady calling me told that my appointment was NOT with the person that I had been waiting three weeks for, but for someone named "Fritzie". When she said "Fritzie" I thought she was joking (partly because I pictured a hamster when she said the name) and I asked if that was a nickname or something. No, that is the actual person's name, Fritzie- her professional name.

Apparently the person that I have been waiting for, that I specially picked because of her background, is leaving...and Fritzie is taking over her clients. This new person doesn't have the background that I need...it is just some family social work background. I need someone who has a background in PTSD and/or sociopathy, I need someone who can help me understand Mr.3 so that I can get passed this. And I don't care if Fritzie is nice and that "I will like her" as the anonymous office person on the phone said.... I want who I chose. I want the person that I was waiting for.

I guess that the Employee Assistance Program doesn't feel that it is necessary to tell their clients when there is a major change. They are only there for their emotional health anyway, right? Because we all must be clearly stable enough to handle these sorts of things. The last time I went in, which was literally the WORST day of my life....the day that Mr.3 was arrested and I found out about his real name....I went in to them for emergency help. The "therapist" had never heard of PTSD. I had to explain it to her. The session was awful. It did me more harm than good.

It is because of that experience that I have been reluctant to get help up until this point. And to be treated like this. Last time I went, the "therapist" blamed me, yes I said BLAMED me, for being supportive to my husband. And now.....now when I was feeling so confident in going...and actually so confident lately about myself that I almost canceled the appointment....now I am to be thrust on to someone who I don't know if they can help me.

I'm crying in my office again.

I can't emotionally handle going through a bad experience again....I can't. I've been doing so well with picking up the pieces that if I break again I don't know if I will be able to glue myself together.

sunday blahs

I'm not updating as often as I should but I think that is because I am becoming obsessed with Twitter. So I guess if anything, you can always look at the Twitter updates on the side of the blog.

Things seem to be going well. I have been going out with friends (notice the plural please) and have been excited about some of the "new acquaintances I have been forming" .....I've been reading Jane Austen lately and I am still thinking in that vocabulary...hence "new acquaintances" rather than just saying that I am super excited -and oddly twitterpated- over a new friendship that I am developing. He's really nice and interested in me and what I have to say. The attention that he pays to me is something that I haven't experienced in a long time. I don't want to say too much at the moment...partly because I don't want to jinx anything. Also, I need to remind myself that friendship is what I need at the moment, and not another emotional entanglement. Not that I wouldn't mind being entangled.....

I'm done with the second batch of antibotics, and I feel better but I think that my ears are not fully healed. I've got a doctor's appointment on Monday for a follow-up. I've finally managed to fully clean the house. It looks beautiful. And cleaning up the physical clutter has done wonders for the mental clutter.

Even though I would say things are doing better now than a month ago or two months ago..... all of the working is really getting to me. I feel weary. Yesterday I signed on to job 3 and could only manage one hour....today I am not sure how far I am going to get. I don't really need to be working as much....but I have extra expenses that I am saving up for...the divorce (on track for the end of the month for filing!), taxes, and I really need to do something about my brakes. I think that this pace will continue for a while. Hopefully, next month won't be as hectic as this month at job 1. We have had 2 to 3 events each week that require long days, add preparing for podcast interviews, and the tedium of trying to manage everything needed in under 30 hours a week .... it's enough to make you crazy.

And really all I want to do is contact el-new friend and talk...but it isn't really appropriate to do so yet. Guess that I should just get back to work anyway.

Getting Some Frog Action

Jimmy brought home a tree frog the other day. His name is Phil. And I think that he is my favorite of his pets....he is more cuddly...and he likes me better than Jimmy. His favorite place to snuggle and fall asleep in is in my cleavage (we'll take a picture soon). Oddly enough, the turtles like that spot too.

It must be soft and warm in there. :)

The Blessing and Curse of a Paid Holiday

I don't handle free time very well anymore....weekends sorta freak me out because I only have to work one job and I am left with all of this time to do stuff...so I end up sitting. National Holidays really mess me up. Today I have a list of things to do. One of them is cleaning. I haven't really cleaned the house since I heard about Mr.3 (although I did rearrange all the furniture in the front room) and I need too. The clutter is not only an eyesore, but emotionally it just makes me feel bad. In planning my day today, I estimated how much time it would take to do this task or that and with the cleaning and working job 3 I have about 9 hours (or less) of work ahead of me. Which means that I could in theory sit on my ass for another 3 hours. Which freaks me out, especially as I haven't really done anything productive this morning except bathe. I guess that I am too used to working 10-11 hour days between the two jobs.

I am also frustrated that things are closed today. I need to talk to the people who manage my student loans. I received a letter from them detailing the payment schedule and the amount. According to the letter I have a large loan payment due on the 20th. I have not received a bill yet so I have no clue where to send the payment. And, to add to the frustration, their automated system says that no payment is due at this time. They are closed today, so I can't straighten this out. Normally it wouldn't be a big deal, but I did my taxes yesterday and found out that I owed money. If I don't have to pay my loan payment this month, I can pay my taxes and get that all over and done with..... and waiting until Tuesday to find out is unbearable at the moment.

Plus, I need to pick up a book from the library and it is closed too... :(

It would be my luck that the day I have time to do errands everyone is closed.

In other news, I did put up a classified ad on Craig's list to sell my wedding dress, I hope that there are some takers. It's a shame I only wore it for the ceremony, I didn't even have it on for more than an hour. It was such a beautiful dress. I hope that it can bring someone else some happiness....while at the same time, helping me pay for the divorce.

My Point Exactly

Last night I was telling my brother that I had to go to bed early because I didn't sleep well the night before. He asked why, and I told him it had been because I was crying. Then the conversation went to the normal "why were you crying, you can always talk to me about stuff" line that ensues when I tell anyone anything. I told him that I don't really talk to him because he has been hurt by Mr.3 and that he can't really look beyond that.

He then told me whatever Mr.3 had done to him was nothing compared to what he did to me....and then he spent the next fifteen minutes talking about how he really wasn't that upset anymore and blah, blah, blah. He is still upset, if he wasn't he still wouldn't be trying to prove that he wasn't. And if anything, this part of the conversation still confirmed my statements from earlier saying that I really can't talk to friends and family about stuff because it doesn't become about how I am hurt but about how they are hurt.

So a little later in the evening I had read something that I wanted to tell Jimmy about. Not for him, but for me....I needed to tell someone that I had been validated in some way. I'm currently reading "the sociopath next door" in order to find some answers. If Mr.3 is a sociopath, he plays games with everyone. ( I sorta wish I knew that now and I would have been able to react better....but that is hindsight anyway. ) In the book it said that most sociopaths choose their victims for the challenge. They regularly choose people who have a strong moral consciences, people who are really strong....because the challenge to break those people down is greatest. They also mentioned that the challenge is strongest because sociopaths envy those attributes in other people as they do not possess them themselves.

I tell Jimmy this. His response was that "Oh, so he stole my identity because he is envious of me?" And I said possibly, but that what was more important was that it really meant that I am not an easy mark. We didn't invite this upon us, I didn't invite this upon me....we were a challenge. He didn't seem to hear me though and just kept talking away about how Mr.3 must have been envious of him.... it was like I wasn't even in the room.

Proving my point from yesterday exactly.

Freeing Magenta

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Death of an Extrovert

I think that alot of people consider themselves as extroverted....and at one point in my life I would have said that I was. Not now anyway. I still have no problems speaking in front of large groups...but that is different. Public speaking is impersonal and therefore easy. Speaking in group situations smaller than that is difficult.

Last night I went to dinner with Libby and some friends from Cactus. Libby and I were there first and I was just chattering away. Then Sara arrived and I clammed up....and I was pretty much silent by the time everyone else arrived. It isn't like I don't know these people....I've worked with them, we have hung out together on numerous occasions....and yet, I seemed to have developed this disturbing shy streak.

I think that I have grown into the mindset that I don't have anything interesting to say to people anymore. One on one, you can't shut me up....but in small groups...I just don't feel comfortable speaking out anymore. I think that part of it might be that when Mr.3 was around and we were in groups that he did the talking anyway....and whatever he had to say, whatever life experiences he had to relate were always more important that anything that I have ever had happen to me.

I feel like the conversation always gets interrupted when I speak...and that I never get back to finishing what I was saying. I don't even fight to bring the conversation back to me anymore because fundamentally I don't feel like it would have mattered to anyone else at the table. Libby tries to bring the conversation back to me....but I feel defeated anyway. I feel defeated most of the time. It has become the new status quo.

Craig- one of the people at the dinner- asked me how things were going. He knows what has happened because Libby told him, and I assumed that everyone else knew too. All I could say was that I was managing....then there was a pregnant pause and the conversation turned elsewhere. I don't know why I don't really tell people what is going on anymore....I think that it must be because I am petrified to be one of "those people"--- who lay out their life story and all of their problems to whoever will listen. I don't want to be a burden....so I suppress it. And I don't really want to be a burden to close friends and family either...so I suppress it. The blog is probably the only place where I feel like I get even close to revealing what I am thinking or feeling about...but only just. The blog is still this personal/impersonal space where I can lay everything down but manage to spare myself the humility of having people see me cry.

It isn't enough anymore for me to "know" things. Like I know that I have led an interesting life and done interesting things....even outside of Mr.3. I'm trying to pick up my life....I'm trying to blog more and I even wrote an article for Global Voices this weekend (my first since October)... but even through all of the trying. I still feel worthless.

Being Sick All Over Again

Last Sunday, Jimmy came home with a cough and gave it to me. Of course, I had finished my antibotics on the following Friday...and since my immune system was weakened, I of course got some mutated form of his cough and I have spent the last week being close to deathly ill. Well not deathly....but sick enough to wish for death. And sick enough to have to go back to the doctor...and find out that I either have two new ear infections or that the first set never left.

So...back on antibotics and a slew of other medications.....but this time, with a wonderful cough that makes me hack so hard I pee my pants.

Did you know that too many Ricola cough drops can cause a laxative effect? There is a warning on the bag, and apparently my limit is four. It isn't pretty. Neither is the echo of my cough so I am at a loss on what to do there. This cough is impervious to cough syrup...oh....its that fun.

I guess being this sick has also afforded me the luxury of being so sick that I haven't been able to be emotional....as yesterday marked my second anniversary and officially one year since I have seen my husband. That is also one year of forced celibacy....which annoys me greatly. I was once celibate for four years....but that was my choice, this however wasn't. I had thought that if I was ever going to hear from Mr.3 again it would have been yesterday, but no go. Not that I would know what to saw to him anyway....but if I did see him in person I would have gone to whatever lengths it would have taken to give him my cough.....because that would have been quite satisfying.

Finding Help?

Most days I think that I am doing pretty well with the Mr.3 situation and then I have one of those days when you realize just how wrong that you are... Such as Monday when a friend came to talk to me in my office. Somehow I just started talking about Mr.3 and how confused I was...and I kept telling myself to shut up, "you're saying too much", "he doesn't need to know this", "shut up, shut up, shut up!" But I didn't. I kept rambling on and on....and I think that I scared him a bit and he definitely didn't deserve to be dragged down into me talking about it. Sorry Dylan.

I think that to some extent that it frustrates my friends and family (who want to know) that I don't talk about it much. Most of the time when I do everything seems to be spent on me trying to help them understand what has happened and trying to help them cope. This has so many victims...and I know that I am attending to myself last.

I know that I am a smart woman, I know that I did nothing wrong in this situation....I know that I did nothing to bring this on or cause it to happen. Knowing these things doesn't help with the fact that I have to deal with knowing that I had been left. That I had been used and abandoned. It even though I need to put him behind me....I still love him...quite a lot actually.

So I took a big step. I called my employee assistance program and made arrangements to meet with a counselor later in the month. So hooray for me.

Conflicted

I've been thinking about Mr.3 lately...odd things, mostly devoid of emotion. I'll just be sitting there and realize that he was on my mind..and I continue to think how odd that is.

Time and dates have been playing on my mind. My 2nd wedding anniversary is in a week. It will mark a year since I have seen him last. Next week will also mark a month since I have learned the latest truth about Mr.3. I only seem to learn about him through truths and half truths that choose to reveal themselves in their own time.

We got Jimmy's credit report to see what the damage was. $42,000. So he beats Kathy out by $10,000. We were also able to confirm that Mr.3 used my brother's information before he stole the social security card. In fact on the very same day that Zion's bank told me that the infamous school loan check of 2006 was fraudulent was the very same day the Mr.3 started to apply for a series of credit cards using his information and my brother's. The credit report fills in many many gaps, and exposes other 'consistences' in his actions. Such as the purchasing of luggage the day before he leaves and sending it to an address he wasn't ever intending to return to again.
He did that in July on the eve before we went to Denver the first time. There was a purchase of luggage on his credit card which he had sent to the house in Salt Lake. Since it was never delivered to him he had it returned. When he left Kathy he had luggage purchased and had it sent to Denver...where he obviously never intended to pick it up. It completes a philosophical and psychological circle. He purchased luggage so he can go to Denver and then out to the world for a new life, and he ends that new life by sending luggage back to Denver.

Note of advice for the next person in Mr.3's life....worry when he buys the luggage....the hammer is about to fall.

Of course...with each development, the outline of the upcoming book becomes clearer and clearer....so I guess that is a bit of a silver lining.

What New Battlestar Galactica character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as CPO Galen Tyrol You never wanted to be a glamorous Viper pilot. You are happy knowing that without you to fix their birds, they cannot fly. You fell in love with the wrong girl, but is that so wrong? Maybe, but you don't really care. CPO Galen Tyrol 75% Capt. Lee Adama (Apollo) 63% President Laura Roslin 63% Number 6 44% Dr Gaius Baltar 38% Lt. Sharon Valerii (Boomer) 38% Tom Zarek 38% Commander William Adama 31% Col. Saul Tigh 25% Lt. Kara Thrace (Starbuck) 25%