Aiming for the gate

Some of you know that I am passionate (obsessed) about learning to ride horses.  Or really just one horse, my boy Mo.

Mo is a show hunter, which just means his day job is to go around a course of fences in a steady, rhythmic canter and jump over the fences looking graceful, obedient, relaxed, a pleasure to ride.

More on hunters and the hunt seat style of riding …

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_seat

Mo showing in a hunter competition with great riders Cathy and Kristin (who are not me) — this is what I aspire to.

Mo is a veteran — he knows his job and loves doing  it.  He is a Cadillac of a horse — smooth, obedient, patient, “push button” (easy to cue to specific movements or gaits).  He is very well-trained and athletic.  He knows what kind of rider I am, and he demands that I ride him correctly.  Or Else.

My trainer Alejandro has been working with Mo and I for what seems like eons to get me over the Heebie Jeebies about jumping.   After all, I paid the equivalent of a new car for Mo because I wanted to jump and needed a mature schoolmaster-type horse to teach me.

Lately we have been working on getting me comfortable with Mo’s Big Canter, the one he needs to jump well, to cover the ground in the correct number of strides between fences so he takes off at the right spot in front of the fence, and lands at the right spot on the other side.

For our training, Alejandro sets some poles on the ground with a given number of stride lengths in between.   If Mo isn’t going Big enough, he can’t make the distances between poles smoothly — he has to add or subtract steps — which makes the ride disorganized, choppy, bumpy, stumbly, or in the worst case, the Or Else thing.

Big means a bit faster than I typically want to do, and with a longer stride.   And when Mo goes Big,  I go Heebie Jeebie.  Which complicates matters, since Mo senses when I’m fearful or not up for something, and he shuts down in response.   This is the veteran horse behavior — he is not going to expend any more effort than I ask him to expend.  If he thinks I’m shutting down, he is more than happy to accommodate me by slowing down.

The thing I fear most is really an unknown — I am not really afraid of going fast.  I have reasonably good form and balance for an “advanced beginner” level rider.  I am not afraid of falling off.  I have fallen off horses many many times.  I know how to fall off and I do it very well.  I suppose I might be somewhat afraid of getting injured, but in the environment I ride and with Mo being Mo, the risks of serious injury are truly very low.

Alejandro asks me to ignore the individual poles.  They are there and we need to jump over them but I need to set my sights above and beyond each pole.  He tells me that I need to look up and  aim for the gate on the far side of the arena, and to the scariest thing of all … ride Mo as if to tell him to fly right out of the gate.

So I am learning, as with all other Things Horse, the way I conquer the Heebie Jeebies about riding is to ride.  This annoys me.  I need to ride even though I am afraid.  And keep on riding with the fear astride.  Keep asking for More from Mo.  Stay with it over the poles, as bumpy, stumbly or face-planty-in-the-dirt as it gets.  When we get the Big canter, ride it.  And then ask for Bigger.

So then I think … hmmm… is this what living with anxiety and panic is about?  Instead of living in fear of the fear, which is what anxiety and panic stem from, fighting and asking it to go away and always losing the fight … ask for More, and Bigger?  Aim for the gate?

Hell Hath Another No Fury* …

… like a claustro-socio-group hug-execuspeak-“now pick a person seated at your table as your partner for the next activity”-phobe trapped in a gigantic Hyatt Regency ballroom with no windows, seated smack dab in the middle of 600 other Company Conference lemmings all shouting at the same time at the tops of their lungs because they can’t be heard over recorded Adele belting out “Rolling in the Deep”  at concert-mega-decibel-belt, this choice of music I have no doubt chosen to elevate the Hip factor of the event, the chooser oblivious to the fact that Hip Company Conference has been, by the laws of physics or something, long ago rendered inexorably an Oxymoron of the Highest Order.

there are no words

Don’t get me wrong.  Adele is one of very few contemporary artists that I enjoy listening to. In fact, next to Bonnie Raitt she is my favorite female singer.  Not just because she can sing.  But also because she pulls off gorgeous-with-pudge so very beautifully.

TURN IT UP.

awesome performance.

How.  Ever. I know what you are up to, Company.   Don’t treat me like a moron and try to snake-charm me with Adele.   The message of this two day Leadership Conference is what the message always is:   Do More With Less.  You can call it New Company Culture, Agile and Nimble, Trusted and Trusting, WTFed and WTFing, whatever the F  you want to call it.  You didn’t need two days of me held captive in a hotel next to a freeway with sirens and too many people and too much noise and too much talking and not enough air and not getting my real work done and counting and recounting and splitting and resplitting my few remaining Xanax doses¹, that Safeway won’t auto-refill, because my nurse practitioner, who put zero refills on the Rx even though she wrote the Rx as “1/2 to 1 pill twice daily as needed”  and who “wants to see me” before she oks what she already f-ing prescribed, and who is getting fired btw, for that.

All you need to do, Company,  is say “Carol, Do More With Less.”   And I will try, since you are the Company and you hired me to work for you.

But working for you does not include attending conferences at which I cannot actually do my real work.  Particularly since I stepped down to 10 mg Paxil, where the roller tends to be on the downhill side of the coaster when I am not getting the peace and comfort I get from being stressed out by my real work.

The nutshell, which I know normal people usually do first:  I rendered myself inexorably AWOL for all but 90-stuck-in-ballroom-basket-case-minutes of the two-day conference.  I worked in my hotel room.  Or parked myself and my laptop inconspicuously in an out of the way sports bar with windows one floor above the gigantic ballroom and therefore out of clear view of the Conference Attendees Police, and worked there.  Also successfully AWOLed myself from the Dinner and Party-to-Follow segments of the Agenda, via Room Service.   Which was pretty good.

I thought I had Gotten Away With It too.  Until they unloaded us from the Company-provided bus after the ride home.  My luggage was not on the bus.  Because I didn’t put it on the bus.  I assumed that since there were courteous and friendly Luggage Dudes who took my luggage from me, carefully tagged it and carefully stored it in the Awaiting Bus Departure luggage area, there was an implied commitment on the part of the Luggage Dudes  that they would also carefully stow it on the bus for the trip home.  But, because I was AWOL, I missed an announcement during the Closing Ceremonies or whatever that had something to do with attendees putting their own luggage on the bus.

Thankfully, the bell captain found my forlorn forgotten bag in the Awaiting Bus Departure area and the concierge is shipping it to me.  At my expense.

The moral of this story:  If you go AWOL, you will have to do without your favorite moisturizer for a few days.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* previous Fury

¹  ala  Raiders of the Lost Ark, Marian Ravenwood (trapped with Indiana Jones in the Well of Souls, surrounded by thousands of poisonous snakes kept at bay only by a single torch on its last remaining sputters):  “Indy …  the fire is going …. OUT …”

the toolbox

first, there is some movement on the fat front.  movement away from me, which is good.  but i’m not allowed to know how much movement until end of this month.  In the meantime, it is very interesting to feel parts of me shifting around and not being there anymore, or not being as big as before.  I can tell this because i am able to pull up the waistband of my underwear to just below my bustline.   When I can get the waistband up and over the boobs, real progress.   And a trip to Walmart for different underwear, I suppose.

For now, though, I wanted to go through my disorder repair toolbox — I need to cowboy it up a bit, I think, given the Paxil withdrawal experience and learning how to live life with GAD  in new and fun ways.    I’m thinking about what stuff needs to be added, but here is the list of the most frequently used items:

1.  Mo:  The best and biggest tool.  He can be the best person on my planet one day, and then the biggest moron the next day.  Heart pounding cardio and hypnotic rhythm.  Self-confidence and humility.  Fresh air and dirt.   Cuddles and nods.  Physical strength and wimping out.  Powerade Zero and peppermints.  Slender legs and helmet hair.  The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.  or deseat.  which is on the way to de ground.

2.  Deep breathing exercises:  These are for anxiety and they work.  I am learning pranayam from my co-worker.   It is a set of peaceful, meditative breathing exercises that improve the flow of oxygen and reorder my chakras or something.  I suppose.  I am not 100% convinced of chakras but I do feel more reordered somehow after I do deep breathing.  I also feel more anxiety from doing deep breathing.  This is another Murphy’s Law, or maybe a Catch-22.  When I do deep breathing I feel like I am doing something good for myself.  But the fact that I need to do deep breathing means there is Something Wrong, which the Heebie Jeebies read as a Welcome mat.  I think I just need more practice.  And perhaps a half hit of # 9.

3.  Cigarettes:   These work well.  They are especially effective at counteracting both the benefits and the stresses caused by #2.  And Yeah Yeah, I KNOW.  I am just not going there until [1]  significant fat loss, to make room for what I am going to gain back when I quit and  [2] the  100%-off-Paxil date plus a yet-to-be-calculated probationary period.   In other words, not in the very near term.  Get over it.

4a.  Music.  Old skool R&B, classic rock, blues, Latin and classical.   Stuck in the 70s mostly.  Except for Chopin, who wrote Nocturnes while he was stuck in the 1800s.  The Nocturnes were my favorite pieces to play when I studied piano.  This was before my planet invented horses.

4b.  Old Movies.  1930s-50s.  Film noir, crime/mystery, Hitchcock, Bogie, gangsters, westerns.  Roy Rogers and Trigger.  Another sickness of mine — I have collected 88 of the total 90 movies that Roy Rogers made.  Also have CDs of all of his early radio performances and releases with the Sons of the Pioneers, before he became Roy Rogers and got Trigger.  Don’t get me started on this topic, btw.

5.  Knitting needles and yarn.   To keep my hands moving — moving my glasses from my nose to the top of my head and back, back and forth until the glasses get Put Down Somewhere and then … you know this part already (see headaches).

6.  Chopsticks:  These are sticks like knitting needles, except they are prettier and fun to eat salad with.   So, good for both mental and physical well-being.

7.   Lily, Lulu, Rainy, Stormy, Ody, Roushone, Dudie, Tinkie, Pootie, Phooey, Babalooey and Izzyboo.  Having furry ones at home to care for helps focus me on other things besides mild vertigo, brain zaps, housework, and my newly developing anxiety about doing deep breathing.  (see #2).

home

8.  Job:   On a good day, a good anxiety fix.  On a bad day, still a good anxiety fix due to throwing things and screaming expletives.  Although sometimes, rarely, throwing things and screaming can sometimes make me feel a wee bit out of control, which can cause an Episode, most times throwing things and screaming make me feel utterly normal and happy about life.

9.  Xanax.  Duh.

10.  My Bible.  Ditto.

11.  My Book.  This is actually just My Storyboard at this point.  But it is a real storyboard taped on my real wall with real things on it that contain the whispers and nudges and glimmers of possibilities of a real mystery novel.   If ever I learn to write like a real writer.

If Living Well = Best Revenge, I’m going to need a bigger car

What prompted me to write yesterday’s post was a fairly severe episode of anxiety/panic yesterday morning.  Got through it of course, but sheesh.

Then a major meltdown during my riding lesson tonight.  The  lesson itself was nothing really out of the ordinary — I’m trying to get back some lost time learning how to jump and jumping for me is scary but I had been doing pretty well with my comeback.   Tonight a few canter strides over poles on the ground went a little rough, I pulled back in fear,  Mo got a little amped in response, and I lost it — I didn’t fall or get hurt or anything,  just got scared and broke down.  Eventually, with my trainer Alejandro’s  patience and encouragement, I composed myself, worked on something else, did okay with it, and finished the lesson. A few weeks ago, I would have just talked with him about what went wrong, and tried again, perhaps still a bit fearful but ammoed-up by his coaching  for the next attempt.

When I was first diagnosed with panic syndrome in the late 80s, then general anxiety disorder in the early 90s, I did not recognize any specific causes, such as triggering events or difficult circumstances or what-not.   Still don’t — definitive causes have remained a mystery.   The shrinks I have seen over the years theorize that I am a type of a Type A personality that needs to be continually building something to be happy and feel productive, needs a lot going on at once, and can handle all that cheerfully with ease, then get even more overloaded and still keep on truckin’.    The disorders are my chemistry’s rebellion when the all-that  finally gets to be too much.   What the shrinks have not been able to tell me is what the too-much point of the all-that is.  And after all-that-money I have indirectly invested in La-Z-Boy (Live Life Comfortably) to upscale the leather factor of my shrinks’ offices.  That I could have just spent directly on new leather sofas for my own living room so that my dogs can turn them into upscaled dog beds so that they can Live Life even more Comfortably than what the present ultra-shabby-crappy-ragged-cat-shredded-dog-smashed-chic decor can offer.

For years I have been telling people that Paxil saved my life.  Its symptom fix absolutely did make my living so very much better.   Of course, with my steps down in dosage, the symptoms are back with a vengeance.  And with each step down, they are more frequent and more determined in their quest for vengeance.

Is this what life off meds is just going to be like?  I am just going to be This Way from now on?

If that’s the case, ok, I say Bring It (I say that from the relative safety and peace and good coffee and dogs sleeping at my feet of my home office).    I am getting off Paxil and not going back on.

I have to find a good life without it,  in spite of  This.  Maybe I just have  to accept This as my constant companion.   Sort of like a nervous and jerky backseat driver who is always in my car, unleashing a continual screaming barrage of warnings and gasps and “Turn-HERE!”s and “Don’t-turn-THERE!”s and “Slow DOWN!”s and “Go FASTER!”s and  “LOOK-OUT!!“s … who refuses to get out the car even though they think I am such a bad driver, and won’t shut the fuck up and just let me drive.  And who may be pointing a gun at the back of my head besides.   If I could just stuff them in the trunk.  Or have a very large vehicle with many rows of back seats, sort of like a limo-cum-movie theater, and stick them way back in the farthest-back row so their shrieking can barely be heard.

Drawing this image of the unwanted screaming meemie lethal-weapon-toting passenger has given me some ideas …  Time to get out the toolbox and check the inventory …

10 is Not Enough

… 10 mg of Paxil, I mean.

Let’s begin with a review of the Paxil withdrawal symptoms I posted a while back — in Blue are the ones that I am currently experiencing off and on:

1. intense insomnia
2. extraordinarily vivid dreams.   This confuses me, given #1 above.  Unless this is extraordinarily vivid daydreams.  Which I have always had.  So, normal.   
3. extreme confusion during waking hours.  This one also confuses me.  WebMD or whoever you are — what other hours are there beside waking?  (see #1).   
4. intense fear of losing your sanity.  Fear, not so much.  Let’s call it Intense Acceptance.
5. steady feeling of existing outside of reality as you know it (referred to as depersonalization at times).  This is the one of the main things for me.  It would be the worst thing if there was no panic.  
6. memory and concentration problems.  I take this to mean lack of memory and/or concentration.  I have the opposite.   Over-memory and over-concentration.  Which are problems.  So which is it?  Again I am confused.  thinking about making #3 Blue too.
   
7. Panic Attacks (even if you never had one before).   This is the worst thing.
8. severe mood swings, esp. heightened irritability / anger.  This is the most annoying thing.  
9. suicidal thoughts (in extreme cases).  Not a chance.
10. an unconventional dizziness/ vertigo.  Yes. Like what you might feel when you are experiencing an earthquake.  A brief warning — something’s up — and then imbalance, rocking and rolling.  Very strange.   I am getting used to it.  And I can make it look like my normal penguin walking so people don’t think anything of it, except perhaps to wonder why I walk like a penguin.  See #12.
11. the feeling of shocks, similar to mild electric one, running the length of your body.  This goes with the above.  It is what they call the Paxil brain zaps and these come immediately before onset of the earthquakes. 
12. an unsteady gait.  This I have but I do not attribute it to withdrawal.  I attribute it to my walking like a penguin.    I walk like a penguin because the share of the medical community that I have available to me for treating my bad ankle is not actually treating the bad ankle, and is therefore a moron.
13. slurred speech.  Not Paxil withdrawal, but work-related due to conference call overload.  
14. headaches.  These I have always had.   I do not attribute headaches to withdrawal.  I attribute headaches to wearing my glasses on the top of my head instead of on the part of my head that contains my eyes.  Or wearing the wrong pair of glasses for the task at hand — short vision for reading, medium for computer, long for driving/riding.   Sometimes I choose wrong.  Because of the Murphy’s law of glasses.  The pair you need you cannot find when you need them.  You need them because you cannot see.   Therefore, in order to find them, you have to see them, and in order to do that you have to have already found them.  This and being left-handed are the two primary reasons why my actuarial life span is about 9 years shorter than average.      
15. profuse sweating, esp. at night.  Nope.  just profuse #1, esp. at night.
16. muscle cramps.  Yes but I think due more to penguin walking.  Or due to Mo when he decides to be taking a nap while I am trying to get a big canter from him.  This causes me to work my legs extra hard to floor Mo’s accelerator pedal, which causes my muscles to overwork and later cramp.  Or this could also be due to Mo when he decides to spook after he has gotten into the big canter, which usually ends up with me overworking my muscles by trying to hang on for dear life,  or by trying to get up after landing on my butt.  
17. blurred vision.  Yes but not withdrawal.  See #14.
18. breaking out in tears.  yes.  this is new since the step down to 10 mg.  
19. hypersensitivity to motion, sounds, smells.   Nope.
20. loss of appetite.  absolutely, significantly.  not entirely a bad thing because of my other goal.  
21. nausea.  especially in the morning.  
22. abdominal cramping, diarrhea.  Nope.
23. chills/ hot flashes.  I have noticed some brief chills.  But I think they come  from when I stand for long periods in front of my fridge with the freezer door open, staring inside and not deciding what to make for dinner, because of #20.  Otherwise I am and always have been too hot.  I am thinking this will change when I am no longer carrying extra heat-retaining blubber, like that of whales, the beached group of which I am an honorary member of  when I wear my dressage whites.    

The past week, since my step down to 10 mg, some of these have become more noticeable or frequent – breaking out it tears,  loss of appetite, brain zaps,  anxiety/panic episodes.

Now I’m sure  you already know what the drug Paxil and others in the SSRI class are believed to do … which is increase the extracellular level of the neurotransmitter serotonin by inhibiting its reuptake into the presynaptic cell, increasing the level of serotonin in the synaptic cleft available to bind to the postsynaptic receptor.   Withdrawing the SSRI decreases the extracellular level of serotonin.   Translation:  Both the SSRI itself and the withdrawal from it are f-ing with my head.

Which is really pissing off my brain.   So it is throwing all these temper tantrums, thinking it can wear me down and make me come off my high horse and just go back on the drug already.

Well, I don’t respond to temper tantrums.    If you think throwing a tantrum is going to have the effect of getting what you want from me, Brain, think again.

FFFF Hall of Fame – Jan

She tells me I can do anything I put my mind to.  She has been telling me this for many years.  Somewhere along the line I decided to believe her.

Jan is my mother.  She is middle-aged-plus some years.  She has spent most of her life on the fit end of the fat-fit continuum.  She shares not one of my bad habits.

my father, mom, sister Linda and me, 1957

I remember believing when I was little that my mom was a Movie Star on vacation.  I am not sure why, except she has always had this bit of star quality about her.  Her mother, my grandmother Dorothy, saw it first perhaps — getting my mom into voice, piano and dance lessons when she was a young girl growing up in Indianapolis.  Somewhere in the family archives there is a photograph of Darlyn (my mother’s middle name and the name she was known by) on stage in a short flouncy little dress and Shirley Temple ringlets.  If I had that photo you would see it here.  And I would probably be in Big Trouble and have to Go To My Room/Farm.

Jan and her brood, c. 1963

My mom has always loved music and is a fabulous singer although we don’t get to hear it much.  Somewhere also in the family archives are recordings she made as a teenager.  She is a fan of all types of music, Dixieland Jazz a favorite.  She is also an accomplished ballroom dancer and for years she made a point to be out dancing a couple nights a week.

out dancing … 1990’s

I don’t favor my mom physically.  Her heritage is Mediterranean French.  I favor my father’s side, Anglo/Scot/Irish/German.  She is small boned, slender, and has a light olive complexion.  I am larger-boned, slender only from the hip down (thanks to Mo), and have my father’s ruddy complexion.  Although lucky for me, I got her Good Skin gene.

I did not get her genes of Self-Discipline, Healthy Eating, Good Housekeeping, or Pretty Hands.  But I did get her Mystery Fiction gene, Coffee gene, Jewelry gene, and Lancome gene.  From her, I also got my love for music and my desire to study piano  (the desire that disappeared in a flash when I discovered there was a thing called Horse, and sold my beautiful baby grand to be able to afford my first horse mistake).

The reason my mom is one of my favorite sources of inspiration is that she is a survivor. For most of my childhood and adolescence, she was a single working mom, mostly on her own raising four kids — who all turned out to be reasonably productive and responsible people, btw.  If not, each in their own right, just a tad bit wackadoo.

She survived bumps in the road — maybe stumbled a bit here and there, but she  always landed on her feet.  She survived difficult marriages and divorces.   When financial times got tough, she worked second jobs.  We kids always had plenty, and her abiding example that we could have a good life in spite of difficulties if we were willing to work for it.

She survived going back to college during her 40’s and earned her AA degree, all the while working and raising four teenagers.

daughter Susan’s wedding 1986, with daughters Linda and me.

She survived the long illness and passing of my sister, her youngest daughter and the mother of her only grandchildren  — this with grace and strength that awes and uplifts me to this day.

Jan, daughter Susan, granddaughter Stephanie, daughter Linda
2008

She survives still.  She manages her life and her health and her home, on her own.  She loves reading good mystery novels, taking walks, tending my little sister’s resting place.

Like me, she cherishes her independence and enjoys her privacy as well as her freedom.  She gets my sense of humor.  She gets my contentment with solitude.  We share passions for old movies and mystery fiction.  She encourages me in my  writing, and she will be my Number One reader and critic when I have a mystery baked well enough for her to read.

on a trip to Italy with her favorite ex-husband – 2007

I know she is my Number One Fan.  I hope she knows I am her Number One Fan.  I am so very proud of her.

Love you Mom!