Feeling better, thank goodness

I have started getting back to feeling good over the last few days, and after almost 2 weeks of depression, I am very grateful. I got a much needed break from both kids this weekend, as Galen stayed over at Alex's and Tessi over at Gen's. I really needed it, and I made good use of it too. Saturday, I went to my first ACoA meeting, and it was very, very good. I am definitely going to start attending regularly. It almost reminded me of some of the better Knights retreats I went on, where people got real honest and expressed a lot of emotion, a lot of hurt and pain. I could TOTALLY relate to what people shared too, and that was nice. So I will definitely go back again this Satruday.

Then, Sunday night, Todd treated me out to the Jack Johnson concert. I am not a big fan, as his music all sounds too similar for my taste, but it was a very good show, and I always have a good time with Todd. He had told me there would be a lot of good looking single women there, but in fact, it was mostly couples. Not hard to imagine why - seems like his music would be good to listen to with "your sweetie". But no matter - it was a good show, and I especially enjoyed one of the openers, G-Love, and really liked it when he brought G-Love out and they did a few numbers together. That was pretty rockin'.

Yesterday, I took the day off on PTO, and Tessi wasn't feeling well, so she stayed home (probably overtired from staying at Gen's, but whatever). In any case, I was trying to take a nap on the couch around 11:30am when she came out and said "Dad, I found a bedbug on my bed." So I went in and checked, and sure enough - she too had bedbugs. There was a little on crawling on her pillow, and when I lifted up her boxsprings, we saw at least 3 or 4 other ones. I really can't afford to buy another new bed -  not to  mention that bed is only like 3 or 4 years old - so we went to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought some bedbug-proof encasements for both the mattress and boxspring - $160 worth, which I really couldn't afford either, but it's cheaper than a whole new bed - and did the whole drill with her room : packed everything up and went to the laundromat to wash and dry on high and cleaned up and vaccumed the hell out of her room. We also bought some spray stuff to put on the baseboards and the bottom of the boxspring before we encased it. Hopefully that will at least keep them off her when she is sleeping. Oh yeah - we also did my "redneck bug tape trap" to her frame legs too to hopefully keep them from crawling up onto it.

This whole bedbug thing is a bit nerve wracking, but I am trying to keep it in perspective and not get too freaked out about it. I know I sure was at first, and Tess was pretty freaked out about it yesterday. She had a bit of a hard time relaxing and getting to sleep last night, and I can't blame her really. She noticed that the encasement on the boxsprings was touching the floor, so we pulled up all the slack and tucked it under the mattress. She was also the one who asked f we could do the tape job to hers. I feel bad for her, because I know how it feels - the total heebie jeebies. I joined an online forum called bedbugger.com, and some people have literally been driven to the point of madness or contemplating suicide from these things. I guess if it was some other kind of bug, it wouldn't be so bad. But just knowing that they live to sneak onto you and suck your blood while you are sleeping - I guess it's just to creepy and disturbing; not like a little beetle, or even a roach that is just crawling on you; but something that actually FEEDS on you. Yuck!

Other than the bedbug issue, things are going much better. Galen and I have actually been getting along pretty well, and I have quit bugging and nagging him about school. I have implemented some of the rule/reward systems that Diana and I talked about, and they seem to be working well. I am still a little down about the dating situation, but have been staying in contact with friends and even got a really nice card from Ty. So I am grateful. Grateful to alive, greatful to have some sense of peace back in my head, grateful to have a good job, grateful to be getting along with Galen, grateful for a daughter who behaves as well as she does, grateful for friends, grateful for the Program, grateful to the Universe and grateful to be sober. I need always remember that - to be grateful for everything, as I for one know just how fragile it all is, and just how easily it can be taken for granted or forgotten. Let me not forget...

Darned bed bugs

I had a nice session with Diana last night and came out with some great material I am going to use to create some "scripts" for me to use to help reprogram my thoughts and get unstuck, and away from all the negative self-talk. She took me through some rational self-analysis exercises and we focused on 2 primary areas : dating, and Galen. So there is some good work to be done there. But today, I am more interested in capturing some other interesting, albiet unwelcome news, about my life : bed bugs in my bedroom, and the headache they have created.

Actually, instead of retyping all this, I am going to refer myself (recursion - nice!) to a post I put on a bedbug forum : (put the link here...)

Last night, after getting the new bed and boxspring, I found a bedbug again - under my pillow. So I called Burns Pest Elimination, and they said they can send a dog out, that it costs $150, and $20 per room. So basically, $170 to just do my bedroom. After spending over $750 on a new bed and bedding, all I can say is yowch! I think I am going to stick out for another week or 2 and see if I come across any more of the critters. If I do, I guess I will have to bite the bullet and have them come out, because I can't stand knowing they are around - a SERIOUS heebie jeebie thing!

So I am praying that I don't find any more. I am thinking that tonight I am going to take the new pillows I bought - the 2 bed ones from JC Penney, throw pillow from WalMart, and seat pad for meditation from Ross - to the local laundromat and dry the hell out of them to kill any bugs or eggs that may have come from them. I have a sneaking suspicion that they may have "ridden in" on one of those pillows. Lord I hope so - I really don't want to have to cough up a ton of cash to get rid of those things. I wonder if this is one of the "plagues" that the Bible warned about - first locusts, and frogs - now bedbugs. Can I request that we get the locusts back please? At least you can keep them out of the house and still get  a good night's sleep! Lol : )

On the down low again

Just like the cyclic nature of the seasons, my depression has returned again. I suppose it's somewhat inevitable that it would given the fact that the same set of circumstances keeps recurring in my life : horrible luck with the whole dating thing, troubles with Galen, the holidays coming up and being single - AGAIN - all of this stuff tends to get me down. I sometimes like to think that I am doing better, and perhaps I am. This time around, although I have been down and had a few passing thoughts of killing myself , I have not been obsessed with it as much as I have other times I have been down.

I have come to decision that I am simply not going to even attempt to be overly happy for awhile. It really seems like a sisyphean task, and I am really tired of pushing that freakin' boulder up that hill. I think I am just going to focus on not getting overly depressed and staying out of the "I hate/want to kill myself" thoughts. That can be enough for now. It's going to have to be. Because even though I want to be happy (or at least I think I do), it is extremely hard when I feel "trapped" by my 14 year old son.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, Galen is back to his old behaviors again, giving me a real headache. I told him last night that I just don't care anymore if he goes to class or whether or not he fails. I just can't go on tying my happiness to that, especially considering the fact that I am trying to care for something he doesn't give a shit about. At this point, I just wish he was 18 so I could be free of my societal obligations to him. It sounds terrible, but I just don't want to be responsilbe for him anymore. He wants his independence, and I would so love to give it to him. He made it even worse by bringing up the fact that I "have to give him a place to stay" - so now he is actually shoving that in my face. Wonderful.

There is one thing I can do, one behavior of my own I can change in all this. And that is my constant return to being "nice", and giving in to him - e.g. giving the phone back, buying things for him, treating him out to Yogurtology, giving him money, etc. I vow, at this moment, to end the cycle of "giving in" and spoiling him. Because that is what I am doing - spoiling him. He knows that no matter what he does (or doesn't do), no matter how bad it is, if he just waits a little while, straightens up his behavior for a minute, and turns on the charm, I will give in to him and he will get it all back. Not this time - not this time.

In other news, and adding to my dishevelled mental state, I have bedbugs in my bed. I started noticing some dark spots on my sheets some time back, but thought maybe they were blood spots from hangnails or something. I kept finding more and more of them, and then one day, noticed a little tick-like bug crawling on the bottom edge of my mattress. I had heard about the 'bed bug invasion' on the news recently, so I finally put 2 and 2 together, did some research, and found out that I might jsut have bedbugs - and the dark spots all over my sheets were telltale signs that I did. So, I started examining my mattress and boxsprings, and guess what I found - bedbugs. I found a number of them under the corner of the bed where I lay my head at night, as well as at the bottom corner of the mattress on the same side.

I tried doing a little cleaning to get rid of them - lifted the mattress and vacuumed the are between the mattress and the box springs, and sprayed some rubbing alcohol in the areas I found them as a bit of a stopgap. But they are still there. And as a matter of fact, I was awakened this morning by a small one crawling on my pillow, and a larger one crawling on my mattress down by my chest. That was about 5am, and yeah - it was basically impossible to go back to sleep - talk about the heebie jeebies.

So today, I decided to work from home so I can figure out some way to take care of this. I am pretty sure I am going to end up getting a whole new bed and just getting rid of the one I have now. It is the big pine one that was Marshal's when he went to college he guess, and then mom gave me when we got a bigger place. From what I have found out about bedbugs, they like to nest in wood. So I don't think it is even worth trying to save any part of it. I am just going to hag it out. In reality, that sounds good to me, as I have never really liked that mattress anyway. On top of that, it has a lot of memories and events tied to it, making the thought of shitcanning it very appealing. On top of all that, it is pretty old - it has definitely had its time.