I found my job in biotech and moved back home to Texas. I liked where I worked as my boss really didn't expect much in the way of intelligence so I just pretended to be a bit less smart than I was. My coworkers were great and work was and still is sort of like a party. I believe in having fun and loving what I do so I force my coworkers along for the ride.
My health seemed fine and I actually had more energy than I had in awhile. It was very spastic, crazed almost manic energy but energy all the same. I also felt like I was kept from the rest of the world by several layers of saran wrap. The world was there and I was here and if I stretched out really far I could see them and talk to them. I also had this odd dull ache right underneath my stomach. It had been there for years but it seemed to be worse now. I also noticed it was harder to "have" emotions. Mentally I would "feel" some emotion but it wouldn't be carried to the rest my body. I just felt sort of empty and isolated. Not sad or happy just empty.
I had gotton off the pill and gotton an IUD with no hormones so I started to notice how much my hormonal cycle messed with my world. I would ovulate and start menses with clocklike precision every 28 days. I had never, ever been so regular. Almost to the hour on the particular day. I also noticed that my mental state would fluctuate in a clocklike way directly related to my hormonal state. The three days around ovulation I would basically be comatose. I was so tired and so foggy headed. I couldn't think clearly. I got to where I hoped those days would be on the weekend so I didn't have to work. The whole week before my menses I would be very cold and callous and a bit irritable. I felt like I had no heart. There were other days where I would be hyper for two and a half days then be focus for three days, then be tired for three days. I mapped it out for five months on a calenander becuase I thought I was going a bit nutty. Finally in one of the PMS cold callous states I calmly explained to my husband that I did not want to live with him anymore or anyone else for that matter. I had even thought about how we would seperate the bills and care of our son. No emotions involved. Three days later I was horrified I had decided all this as in general we have a pretty good relationship. I thought that perhaps getting back on the pill might help even out all the hormonal changes.
I made an appointment with my general practitioner. She is a wonderful person but very busy as all the docs are now days. I tried to explain to her what was going on and after three sentances she gave me some samples of an antidepressent for the PMS. I thought, well, okay. Then she lectured me about not getting bloodwork she had ordered the previous fall. So off I went for the bloodwork and I took the antidepressent for the next round of PMS. I was so happy in a very drunk like state. Everything was so funny-which says a lot cause I think pretty much everything is funny anyways. PMS was much better. On the way to get the bloodwork done I think I remembered asking God-Siva of course-to make them find something odd as I was so tired of feeling so odd all the time. Little did I know...
Sunday, October 23, 2005
From 200 to 7.8 (TSH levels that is.....): part one
So I guess I have spent some portion of my adult life not feeling great but doing okay. As I hit the mid twenties I knew I was hurting for no good reason, depressed, tired and just feeling like crap. I come from a family of women who "wear out" early. We all start having vague unexplained pain and tiredness at right about thirty and when we talk it over with the docs it is said we are just getting old. My mother, my grandmother, my great grandmother, my sister have all been labeled as hyperchondriacs or mentally ill. That's why they feel bad. Fibromalagia, CFS, bipolar, Irritable bowel syndrome, PTSD, you name your favorite vague symdrome and my family has gotton stuck with it.
So when this happened to me I just ignored it. Just imagine going down to the Drs office and saying " I feel tired and am achey" Nothing like being branded a hyperchondriac at 25. Instead of dealing with know it all drs I just ate better, excercised more, did yoga, meditation and mentally prepared to deal with pain on some level and fatigue on some level for the rest of my life. I was just getting old. When I first moved to Michigan I spent the first six months totally exhausted and in constant pain. I figured it was the stairs-I hadn't lived in a place with stairs before. Over the next few years I went through a slow decline in my ability to focusand remember. I ended up with a diagnosis of ADHD and took ritalin for awhile. It did help it really odd ways.
I could focus better and I felt calm and relaxed. I guess I had morphed into a constant state of hypervilegence for some reason. I was always on edge-not in a panic attack sort of way but somehow on a more innate level. When I started the ritalin I was taking aikido-My teacher noticed a huge change in the fliudity of my movements. Before I had been very spastic, even spasmodic, now they were very smooth and integrated. The ritalin also helped me sleep so much better. I would sleep much more deeply and not dream at all. Before this I always dreamed, always remebered my dreams and would wake up every three hours or so with clocklike precision. I would find myself on some nights waking up from nightmarish dreams were my brain would get stuck in repetitive thoughts-an OCD like mesh of doing the same task again and again. My legs would also ache in a really odd way and I would wake up my husband by kicking him as I rolled around. It was exhausting. The ritalin made that stop and I could sleep so soundly. I also learned to "watch" my mental state as on and off the meds I could see huge differences in the way my mind worked. It gave me essential skills in self observation.
On the down side I had to stop taking it after awhile. Normally when ritalin wears off you go through a half hour of hyperactive irritability due to the innate dopamine levels dropping a bit. Your body steps up and restores those levels to normal but it takes about thirty minutes for that to happen. Kids on ritalin will be super spastic when this happens just for a bit. For me this was horrible. I would feel really bad with headaches, eyeaches, stomachaches and exhaustion for about two hours after I stopped the meds. I also noticed the longer I took the meds, the more of the calm effects had disappeared. I would just be more awake. I finally stopped them altogether and just embraced the fact that I was who I was and there wasn't much I could do about it. I found god-not jesus by any means! and focused on mopping up the mess that my graduate career had turned into.
I considered vet school as I realized I didn't want the lifelong PhD research route. My GPA and GRE scores were easliy within range so I took a pharmacology class in my grad program to see if I was smart enough to do okay in vet school. I totally understood the mecahnisms and the underlying science but I couldn't remember any of the drug names. My memory had been in serious decline for awhile so I figured I was just to old and dumb to really pursue that route. Our moms tell us we can be anything we want to be when we grow up. It is a lie but one told for the kindest reasons. I had tried to be a biophysicist but it seems my differential equation limited mind was not quite up to par. Now it also seemed like vet school was not realy a reasonable choice. On that note I worked for another year helping my Pofessor finish up some extra work and left with a Master's degree. A four years master's degree is a bit sad but a PHd would have locked me into a much worse path.
So when this happened to me I just ignored it. Just imagine going down to the Drs office and saying " I feel tired and am achey" Nothing like being branded a hyperchondriac at 25. Instead of dealing with know it all drs I just ate better, excercised more, did yoga, meditation and mentally prepared to deal with pain on some level and fatigue on some level for the rest of my life. I was just getting old. When I first moved to Michigan I spent the first six months totally exhausted and in constant pain. I figured it was the stairs-I hadn't lived in a place with stairs before. Over the next few years I went through a slow decline in my ability to focusand remember. I ended up with a diagnosis of ADHD and took ritalin for awhile. It did help it really odd ways.
I could focus better and I felt calm and relaxed. I guess I had morphed into a constant state of hypervilegence for some reason. I was always on edge-not in a panic attack sort of way but somehow on a more innate level. When I started the ritalin I was taking aikido-My teacher noticed a huge change in the fliudity of my movements. Before I had been very spastic, even spasmodic, now they were very smooth and integrated. The ritalin also helped me sleep so much better. I would sleep much more deeply and not dream at all. Before this I always dreamed, always remebered my dreams and would wake up every three hours or so with clocklike precision. I would find myself on some nights waking up from nightmarish dreams were my brain would get stuck in repetitive thoughts-an OCD like mesh of doing the same task again and again. My legs would also ache in a really odd way and I would wake up my husband by kicking him as I rolled around. It was exhausting. The ritalin made that stop and I could sleep so soundly. I also learned to "watch" my mental state as on and off the meds I could see huge differences in the way my mind worked. It gave me essential skills in self observation.
On the down side I had to stop taking it after awhile. Normally when ritalin wears off you go through a half hour of hyperactive irritability due to the innate dopamine levels dropping a bit. Your body steps up and restores those levels to normal but it takes about thirty minutes for that to happen. Kids on ritalin will be super spastic when this happens just for a bit. For me this was horrible. I would feel really bad with headaches, eyeaches, stomachaches and exhaustion for about two hours after I stopped the meds. I also noticed the longer I took the meds, the more of the calm effects had disappeared. I would just be more awake. I finally stopped them altogether and just embraced the fact that I was who I was and there wasn't much I could do about it. I found god-not jesus by any means! and focused on mopping up the mess that my graduate career had turned into.
I considered vet school as I realized I didn't want the lifelong PhD research route. My GPA and GRE scores were easliy within range so I took a pharmacology class in my grad program to see if I was smart enough to do okay in vet school. I totally understood the mecahnisms and the underlying science but I couldn't remember any of the drug names. My memory had been in serious decline for awhile so I figured I was just to old and dumb to really pursue that route. Our moms tell us we can be anything we want to be when we grow up. It is a lie but one told for the kindest reasons. I had tried to be a biophysicist but it seems my differential equation limited mind was not quite up to par. Now it also seemed like vet school was not realy a reasonable choice. On that note I worked for another year helping my Pofessor finish up some extra work and left with a Master's degree. A four years master's degree is a bit sad but a PHd would have locked me into a much worse path.
Saturday, February 26, 2005
science fair and rejection
Dumplings project went to the regional science fair. It really bugged me that they gave out awards rather than just letting the kids present and all get a ribbon. Ike got a second but I am really disturbed by the whole thing. As a cranky parent I have to say that the awards were placed according mostly to presentation not originality or actual scientific thought. Ike's was really messy cause he did it himself and I let him cut and glue like a maniac. We also spray painted the whole thing gold so I cant say most the TJs in the world can appreciate that. It was really screwed up as there were maybe 50% firsts, 40% seconds and 10% thirds. What does that tell the kid who got the third place. It is one thing to have one first place-only one kid out of fifty gets it. It is a whole other thing to have three thrid places out of fifty. Basically they are telling you your prject sucked ass. again it seemed that the third place really was just a matter of pretty presentation rather than truely bad ideas. Maybe I'll write somebody an angry letter.
I have been so depressed and irritable the last few days. Crabby , crabby. Meds help a little but I don't like to take them. I am also super sensitive to rejection due to being moody. I read a blog I like and I emailed the lady a question which she didnt answer. I am sure she is very busy and just overlooked answering it or didn't have time to, however I go and get my feelings hurt. Then I want to crawl under a little space between the stairs and hide from the world. It is so funny to be so old and still care what other people think. I ignore all the Ss in life but when I make overtures of friendship to the Ns and get rebuffed as being a wierdo it makes me kinda sad. How do you not be a wierdo? S at work said the popular people have Nerdar that kicks in when we walk in the room. Not only am I a big dork but I just get so intense about things sometime. When I do something I guess I go over the edge and look like a psycho. I luagh louder, talk louder, feel more, am more sensitive. When I play, I play harder. Then people think I am wierd. A friend had me reading Ananis Nin and she seems a bit more nuts than I could ever hope for so I guess I am in okay territory.
Part of growing older seems to be a self realization of sorts where you become detached from others around you to find your true self. Unfortunatly I spent most of the early years detached because I couldn't unerstand how to interact with others. Now I interact but not always appropriatly. I find myself wanting to detach but I question if its for the right reason. Am I hiding from other people because I screw up whenever I am around or is it really a step in spiritual growth?
The science fair today had me really back on the idea od pride and why we feel it. How many people in the room really understand why thet are overcome with so much pride when thier little one does something good or so sad when someone slights thier little one. If my little one does good things it enhances his and my social status in my tribe and we get more of the food bounty and better mates. The greater his accomplishments the better position he achieves in a social hiarchy. I then feel a little ashamed of feeling a bunch of pride . I try and temper my pride and instaed support his growth in positive directions. He is very emapthic and loving so I guess I am doing something right.
I have been so depressed and irritable the last few days. Crabby , crabby. Meds help a little but I don't like to take them. I am also super sensitive to rejection due to being moody. I read a blog I like and I emailed the lady a question which she didnt answer. I am sure she is very busy and just overlooked answering it or didn't have time to, however I go and get my feelings hurt. Then I want to crawl under a little space between the stairs and hide from the world. It is so funny to be so old and still care what other people think. I ignore all the Ss in life but when I make overtures of friendship to the Ns and get rebuffed as being a wierdo it makes me kinda sad. How do you not be a wierdo? S at work said the popular people have Nerdar that kicks in when we walk in the room. Not only am I a big dork but I just get so intense about things sometime. When I do something I guess I go over the edge and look like a psycho. I luagh louder, talk louder, feel more, am more sensitive. When I play, I play harder. Then people think I am wierd. A friend had me reading Ananis Nin and she seems a bit more nuts than I could ever hope for so I guess I am in okay territory.
Part of growing older seems to be a self realization of sorts where you become detached from others around you to find your true self. Unfortunatly I spent most of the early years detached because I couldn't unerstand how to interact with others. Now I interact but not always appropriatly. I find myself wanting to detach but I question if its for the right reason. Am I hiding from other people because I screw up whenever I am around or is it really a step in spiritual growth?
The science fair today had me really back on the idea od pride and why we feel it. How many people in the room really understand why thet are overcome with so much pride when thier little one does something good or so sad when someone slights thier little one. If my little one does good things it enhances his and my social status in my tribe and we get more of the food bounty and better mates. The greater his accomplishments the better position he achieves in a social hiarchy. I then feel a little ashamed of feeling a bunch of pride . I try and temper my pride and instaed support his growth in positive directions. He is very emapthic and loving so I guess I am doing something right.
Thursday, February 24, 2005
teamwork
Everybody is so cranky sometimes at work. None of us seem to understand that to make the silly company successful, we must work together as a team.
Sometimes I find myself hating other people-like super dislike due to how I have interacted with them. I make a mistake and then I became angry at myself over it-embarresed-and thus dislike them. How old will I be when I realize that what other people think doesn't matter. Not simply insulating my emotions deep undewr what I am but seriously really not caring. Inside I fly around like a little happy bee. I flirt from flower to flower and see all the beautiful things around me-one of which is not this mac keyboard as the keys are all too sm,all and pressed down. My big floppy fingers hit them in all the wrong places. Anyways there are days that I wish I was invisible so noone could have an opinion of me. I could just observe thier silliness and make my own way. Then there are days when I want to be noticed and be unique. Thats all biology telling me to be the center of attention so I get the best mate but it is still there. Also the sense of power sometimes seems nice. To be incontrol-biology again.
Sometimes I find myself hating other people-like super dislike due to how I have interacted with them. I make a mistake and then I became angry at myself over it-embarresed-and thus dislike them. How old will I be when I realize that what other people think doesn't matter. Not simply insulating my emotions deep undewr what I am but seriously really not caring. Inside I fly around like a little happy bee. I flirt from flower to flower and see all the beautiful things around me-one of which is not this mac keyboard as the keys are all too sm,all and pressed down. My big floppy fingers hit them in all the wrong places. Anyways there are days that I wish I was invisible so noone could have an opinion of me. I could just observe thier silliness and make my own way. Then there are days when I want to be noticed and be unique. Thats all biology telling me to be the center of attention so I get the best mate but it is still there. Also the sense of power sometimes seems nice. To be incontrol-biology again.
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
the sun is out again
Ahhh, finally the sun is out again and I can return from hibernation to post in my diary. I get so distracted and it is hard to post in a diary when we only have one computer and my husband would so make fun of posting in a diary.
It has been so sunny the last few days. And as usually I have suddenly had so much energy. Returning to texas was a good choice as I really can't take the dark MI winters. Even here I got tired and sleepy andhad no sex drive at all.during the dark months. Now all my plants are peeking out again-okay they are all really green and most of them were green all winter. It is Feb 22 and it is basically early summer on a MI scale. I love the way the dirt smells and the trees . Even the bugs are all good. I just want to rub my hands through it all and bring all the yummy plant roots and stuff to the surface. If I didn't live on a fucking rock that is. The house is totally on limestone so I had to bring all the good dirt from the forrest down the hill and mix in some peat so I can grow most plants.
Work is fun. I have a lot of good talks with Sunny about personality, creativity and what makes us who we are. I honestly never throught I was very creative or spontaneous. Till I was away from my family and around people who really accept me. They think I am crazy but they accept me without much question. I honestly expected to have to be a conformist out in the real worll but it seems that these guys are more open to different types of people than the academics. Like in academics we were all similiar. I was more of a feeler than most of them so I seemed flaky-I am. However they were such skeptics and so critical-not intentionally but just inhearently. They cannot let illogical things slide past the radar. If it isn't true it must be pointed out, analyzed and corrected. I say many things that aren't necessarily logical. wow I think I just spelled necessarily right. Sometimes logic is overrated. More about that later. At any rate, my new companions are very different-INFJ (people pleasing mom like kindest, most giving but with some set ideas about things), ENTP (keen, open to wide ideas, talkative, very flexible), ISTJ (talk about wierd), and ENTJ (my lover of protocols and correctness. So we can viably discuss things like tarot cards without an immediate condemnation. Logic isn't always required. There are even some republicans at work. Talk about having to be open minded and understanding of others differences.
I think I like handwriting better than spelling as I can just slur over mispellings a bit easier.
So I have started to have fun god thoughts as of late. I have been reading some on string theory and complexity theory. The string theory purports to understand how things work at 10-33 meter. I guess it all gets kinda funky down there. At any rate it looks like you have to have more than four dimensions to make that work well-like ten or so. Even more entertaining is the idea of these twistor things that Roger Penrose invented. Acording to that theory we are the complex conjugate of a real and imaginary dimension. What imaginary space would be like could be interesting.
So then complexity theory talks about basically the fact that you can't predict the way a complicated changing system will behave by studying its smaller parts. The whole seems to be more than the sum of its parts. You have a system with millions of interlocked "gears" which will have many small movements, a few medium size movements and the occasionally large scale explosion. Earthquakes, avalanches, traffic, piles of grain, weather all follow these statistics.
So we may have dimensions floating around, interweaved somhow in our daily exsistance but unobservable and we can't really predict how a dynamic system will behave because the sum is greater than its parts. It seems like combining those two definitly leaves room for god somewhere in the mix or at least things far outside of what we as humans can easily "see".
I at work of course, cause that's what they pay me for, :) conducted a statistical analysis of horoscopes the other day. It seems like you can match up a given horoscope with a given person with a much higer probibility than random. Sunny got 5 out of 7 and D got 4 out of 7. Granted it is small but leans toward some significance. I tried myself matching the in laws up but it seems flawed as thier inpenetrable will likely prevents astrology from playing any role in thier future. They are tough ass people.
So I moved on to Tarot cards- When using the whole deck I got answers that made sense and that I didn't like. It told me things about me and what others might think of me. It freaked me out a bit so I waited a few days to try again. This time the results seemed skewed. Later I realized I had dropped one of the cards in my car and didn't have a whole deck. The lady at the store said that would make a difference(they sold me a sample deck so she checked the count).
So could it be that there really is more to the whole than we can see. Anias nin seemed to realize you couldn't force the world to become like you so you make a place for yourself that works for you. You create your own world. The world may be much more adaptable and malleable than we realize. Could it be as the kasmiri shaviates thought, that we are god and god is us. That by defining what we are and "creating" our own reality by our beliefs, we could alter the "whole" by some large or small amount. How much can we change what is around us by our thoughts, feelings beliefs. How truley focused and enlighted will I have to be to use things like tarot and horoscopes to peer under some outer layer I can't "see " past. How enlighted before I can alter that?
It has been so sunny the last few days. And as usually I have suddenly had so much energy. Returning to texas was a good choice as I really can't take the dark MI winters. Even here I got tired and sleepy andhad no sex drive at all.during the dark months. Now all my plants are peeking out again-okay they are all really green and most of them were green all winter. It is Feb 22 and it is basically early summer on a MI scale. I love the way the dirt smells and the trees . Even the bugs are all good. I just want to rub my hands through it all and bring all the yummy plant roots and stuff to the surface. If I didn't live on a fucking rock that is. The house is totally on limestone so I had to bring all the good dirt from the forrest down the hill and mix in some peat so I can grow most plants.
Work is fun. I have a lot of good talks with Sunny about personality, creativity and what makes us who we are. I honestly never throught I was very creative or spontaneous. Till I was away from my family and around people who really accept me. They think I am crazy but they accept me without much question. I honestly expected to have to be a conformist out in the real worll but it seems that these guys are more open to different types of people than the academics. Like in academics we were all similiar. I was more of a feeler than most of them so I seemed flaky-I am. However they were such skeptics and so critical-not intentionally but just inhearently. They cannot let illogical things slide past the radar. If it isn't true it must be pointed out, analyzed and corrected. I say many things that aren't necessarily logical. wow I think I just spelled necessarily right. Sometimes logic is overrated. More about that later. At any rate, my new companions are very different-INFJ (people pleasing mom like kindest, most giving but with some set ideas about things), ENTP (keen, open to wide ideas, talkative, very flexible), ISTJ (talk about wierd), and ENTJ (my lover of protocols and correctness. So we can viably discuss things like tarot cards without an immediate condemnation. Logic isn't always required. There are even some republicans at work. Talk about having to be open minded and understanding of others differences.
I think I like handwriting better than spelling as I can just slur over mispellings a bit easier.
So I have started to have fun god thoughts as of late. I have been reading some on string theory and complexity theory. The string theory purports to understand how things work at 10-33 meter. I guess it all gets kinda funky down there. At any rate it looks like you have to have more than four dimensions to make that work well-like ten or so. Even more entertaining is the idea of these twistor things that Roger Penrose invented. Acording to that theory we are the complex conjugate of a real and imaginary dimension. What imaginary space would be like could be interesting.
So then complexity theory talks about basically the fact that you can't predict the way a complicated changing system will behave by studying its smaller parts. The whole seems to be more than the sum of its parts. You have a system with millions of interlocked "gears" which will have many small movements, a few medium size movements and the occasionally large scale explosion. Earthquakes, avalanches, traffic, piles of grain, weather all follow these statistics.
So we may have dimensions floating around, interweaved somhow in our daily exsistance but unobservable and we can't really predict how a dynamic system will behave because the sum is greater than its parts. It seems like combining those two definitly leaves room for god somewhere in the mix or at least things far outside of what we as humans can easily "see".
I at work of course, cause that's what they pay me for, :) conducted a statistical analysis of horoscopes the other day. It seems like you can match up a given horoscope with a given person with a much higer probibility than random. Sunny got 5 out of 7 and D got 4 out of 7. Granted it is small but leans toward some significance. I tried myself matching the in laws up but it seems flawed as thier inpenetrable will likely prevents astrology from playing any role in thier future. They are tough ass people.
So I moved on to Tarot cards- When using the whole deck I got answers that made sense and that I didn't like. It told me things about me and what others might think of me. It freaked me out a bit so I waited a few days to try again. This time the results seemed skewed. Later I realized I had dropped one of the cards in my car and didn't have a whole deck. The lady at the store said that would make a difference(they sold me a sample deck so she checked the count).
So could it be that there really is more to the whole than we can see. Anias nin seemed to realize you couldn't force the world to become like you so you make a place for yourself that works for you. You create your own world. The world may be much more adaptable and malleable than we realize. Could it be as the kasmiri shaviates thought, that we are god and god is us. That by defining what we are and "creating" our own reality by our beliefs, we could alter the "whole" by some large or small amount. How much can we change what is around us by our thoughts, feelings beliefs. How truley focused and enlighted will I have to be to use things like tarot and horoscopes to peer under some outer layer I can't "see " past. How enlighted before I can alter that?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)