Sunday, June 20, 2021

 Sunday, June 20, 2021

 

            Good God. I'm calm and balanced; then I'm off and running again. I'm a mess. The agita is familiar. I remember it from before I met Mike and periodically while we were together. But this is getting ridiculous.   I can feel every cell in my body vibrate when I'm agitated. I think Mike and I had this in common. It shows more on me than it did on him. He maintained a surface calm. It may have killed him.  

            Mike would come home after starting with a new therapist and report he was the most high-functioning crazy they had ever met. I don't know if they used the word crazy, but he lived with a lot of inner disturbance as I do. He resolved his problem with very high doses of medication, above the highest recommended amount. The medication he was on for his anxiety may have caused his pancreatitis. I knew all that medication couldn't be good for him.  

            Mike did try to deal with his anxiety through therapy. He eventually gave up. Before we left Ohio for Hawaii, he found a therapist who used EMDR and reported that he thought he was experiencing some change. When we came to Hawaii, none of Kaiser's therapists offered it. He could have seen someone privately, but he refused to do that. I offered to pay. He refused that too.

            Then I discovered that Kaiser would cover a therapist outside the network who provided EMDR if his primary prescribed it. Our doctor did prescribe it, and he found someone in town. He was seeing this woman and had an appointment scheduled when he collapsed with pancreatitis. The rest is history.

            Besides the Saturday NPR shows, I love some of the Sunday ones too. I particularly like Krista Tippett's On Being, and I often enjoy Justine Willis Tom's New Dimensions. I don't always like Tom's show because I can't stand her voice. There's a whine in there that gets on my nerves a little too precious. But today, both these shows were just for me.

            Tippett's had Alex Elle on Self-Healing. She talked about healing the feelings of loneliness and sadness that started in her childhood. She spoke about how difficult it is to face those feelings and how beneficial if we do it successfully. Facing these feelings unsuccessfully is also an option. Skill is necessary when facing any fierce threat to our well-being. I have some skills, but am I skilled enough to make it through to the other side? I guess I'm going to find out.

            I agree with Alex when she says whenever you work on healing yourself, you are always healing others as well; the closer people are to you, the more benefit. The Buddhists hold to that idea also. Someone can spend a lifetime meditating in a cave and benefit others. The idea that it might help others as well as myself gives me strength. Doing something only for oneself is a thin activity. 

            Peter Russell said something meaningful on New Dimensions; only I can't remember what it was. 

    I took a shower preparing for another round of recording the Phonics discovery system Phase I video. While I was drying, I ground more of the grade Vit. C powder. Even in a container advertised as a cosmetic grade, I discovered that the powder was not fine enough. My coffee grinder finishes off the job. This discovery means I never have to order cosmetic-grade again. I can order a large bag of non-cosmetic grade Vit C granules and grind it down myself.  

            I also did a round of MELT on both my feet and my hands. Sometimes my hands feel like they are going the way all hands with repetitive syndrome go, but MELT pulls them right back from that edge.

       My anxiety was out of hand. My whole body was vibrating. It felt like every cell in my body was doing its dance routine- very uncomfortable. I have no idea what causes it. Does anxiety cause the vibrating, or does the vibrating cause the anxiety? Body changes can cause mood changes- think menopause or, for that matter, adolescence. I finally took a CBD capsule. Then I went out to do one of my mid-day walks. OMG! I was completely calm. I focused on the foliage. It was just wonderful. What a change! I got the CBD after Mike died because Damon and Yvette both pushed it. I was okay back then and didn't need any chemical assistance. It's now that I'm having problems. I wonder if the CBD could have helped Mike with his anxiety. Of course, he probably wouldn't have taken it unless the doctor prescribed it or at least recommended it.

            I spoke to Judy on one of my walks. She was getting dinner ready. They were having dinner at Adams's tonight. It was a significant event because of Father's Day. I drove the fan I had offered them over there. As I pulled into the driveway, I drove over something rough; it made contact with the bottom of my car. I backed out quickly. My electric battery and motor sit on the bottom of the car. As I walked up the driveway, I saw a good-sized boulder about a foot across. Yikes! I hope I didn't damage my car. Of course, I was doing well under five mph. Adam had no idea that rock was there. He came out to check it out and get the fan out of my car. In the meantime, he checked under my car. He said he could see there was a large case there. He thought it all looked okay. I'll have it checked when I bring my car in for maintenance. We'll see.   

            I didn't want to stay for dinner there because I was still concerned about the virus. The family was eating together in an enclosed space. Adam got a container. I got a baked potato, several slices of steak, hmmm, half a corn, some asparagus, and some of Judy's fruit pie.