Tag: introvert

While My Ears Start to Bleed

I’m currently sitting at Honda, waiting for my van to be serviced. The waiting room is an ADD sufferer’s nightmare.

Ahead of me, there’s a tv airing CNN. I am trying so hard to follow the impeachment debate. Behind me is a second tv, where some kind of game show is playing. To my right is the dealership, playing Christmas music. All three are equally loud…or quiet. They are competing for my attention, and at this point, I’m the only one losing.

Add to this aural nightmare, the random persons around me choosing to listen to one YouTube video or another. I just heard “ok, I’m going to put potato chips in my vacuum bag.” Now I’m mildly frustrated and confused. Who in the world just puts potato chips in their vacuum?? Potato chips are for eating. And who are the people that are clicking through videos and stopping to view such atrocities (in this case, it seems to be a 3 year old. Whatever makes you happy, kiddo).

I simply don’t understand what causes people to feel entitled to making their presence be audibly known. Maybe it’s because I was raised by a Ballschmieder, with the understanding that in public, you remain quiet. Perhaps it’s my introverted desire to disappear into the background and remain unnoticed. I will never be the person who puts my phone on speaker in public. I will most likely not even answer my phone if I am in public (I probably won’t answer my phone even if I am alone, because I’m not a fan; I never have been).

Back to the initial earsore. I envy the individual who can sit with multiple distractions around them and focus on one item. I hear them all at once, and it ends up a jumbled, “air freshener leaves us with a blanket denial,” and I’m left having to decide if febreeze is in denial, or if it’s the Republicans. Give me closed captioning so I can turn my ears off and read what I want to be hearing!

Don’t Tell Me to Stop

So, my blood pressure has been astronomically high since…honestly, I can’t pinpoint the exact moment, but back in February, my dentist pointed out how dangerously high it was. I take nothing seriously, so at the time I said “ok. I’ll look into it.” A few weeks later when I went back to get a few broken fillings replaced (nighttime Sam has spent over 3 decades sabotaging her smile with grinding), the dentist informed me that my blood pressure was so high, she would only do work on me if I got nitrous. Which was strangely like being drunk at the dentist (honestly, I slept through my dental work). She once again asked me to please see my doctor.

Meh.

Well, here we are, 4 months later. It’s still high in the sky, and I still rarely take these things seriously. Until my doctor last week (during a completely unrelated appointment) said, “I want you to stop taking your antidepressants.”

Umexcusemewhat??

Deer in headlights.

“How long have you been on the Effexor?”

“Um…4 years?”

“And how long has your blood pressure been high?”

“Um…”

“4 years?”

After coming out of the haze of the initial shock, I agreed that I have felt lately like it wasn’t working. But I had mostly chalked that up to other issues: my husband is on the other side of the Earth, I am a year into the full time working mom gig, 9 months into my single working mom stint. I’m a serious introvert, with a lack of a local support system. I am terrible at multi-tasking. And I inherited my Mom’s overactive tear glands.

But really, I get too overwhelmed. And if I cry any more, I might dry out and turn to dust.

I guess. I don’t know. Just when I start thinking, “maybe this week I won’t cry at work,” I have a nervous breakdown in a parking lot over a dented bumper.

So, in order to address my super-high-for-unknown-reasons blood pressure, I have to be unmedicated. For the first time since…shortly after Xander was born. That, to me, is scarier than any blood pressure, heart issue, scare.

I have dealt with/suffered from depression since I was……9? 5? Always? It’s hard to say. Meds have come and gone, and none will ever make me “normal,” but they sure do keep me from shattering plates on the floor because Justin paused too long before telling me what he wanted to drink with dinner (can we talk about the hero of this story for a minute? Because the partners of us mentally unstable squirrels are by far the most under-appreciated at times. And mine has put up with a lot in 13 years, and still sticks around to help keep me sane).

Also, the unmedicated, barely-functioning depression I suffered through while pregnant with Shea (while Justin was deployed), springs to mind. I could be a non-functioning blob before kids–that is not really a state I can enter into while having to be responsible for tiny humans.

I am officially one week into the process of slowly cutting back (so as not to be launched into the head pounding, nightmare-inducing, vertigo causing, withdrawal that this particular medication is known to cause…in me…after one missed dose). I’m still overwhelmed. I still cried today at work (literally because I was told I had to call the help-desk to sort out an employee’s timecard. And then I couldn’t find the number. And then my phone cut out. And then…tears). My blood pressure is still high.

Deep. Breath.

Stay positive.

You can do this.

Dental Therapy

My Mom is by far, the best Dental Hygienist in existence. Of course, I’m possibly biased. All I know is, once upon a time (close to 30 years ago, to be precise), I had my teeth cleaned by a different hygienist in the office where my Mom worked; the experience was not fun. She stabbed my gums a lot, asked a million questions while her hands were in my mouth, and was less than understanding of my small mouth and my jaw’s need to occasionally close.

In the 12 years that I’ve lived away from home, I have still continued to get my teeth cleaned by my Mom during visits home. If I needed work done, I would even wait until visits to do that as well. I have no issues seeing other dentists–it’s the cleanings that worry me. It’s probably the one thing that makes me want to cry like a sleepy toddler: “I want my Mom!!!”

In December, she cleaned my teeth. And pointed out 2 broken fillings (I have some serious clenching/grinding issues). It was time to put my big girl panties on, suck it up, and see a local dentist.

After two months of putting it off, I followed the recommendation of a lifeguard who spent her senior year doing CP (career practicum) in a dental office. And, wow.

First of all, I had a minor panic moment when the hygienist said she was going to take a panoramic x-ray and asked if I had any earrings in–and then looked and said, “oh my gosh. Ok, so, we’ll do everything else, and you can take those all out and we can do the x-ray at the end.”

Of course I had decided to put 90% of my earrings (or 20) in that morning.

You know you’re the daughter of a hygienist, when you become so relaxed during a cleaning that you almost fall asleep. Who needs a massage!? Can I just get my teeth cleaned once a month?!

I have officially met the second greatest Dental Hygienist in the world.

And guess what? Yup, I clench and grind. And broke 2 fillings. And also: Jaw arthritis. Jarthritis?

As an introvert, I think I will use that as an excuse to not have to conduct job interviews: “you know I would love to talk to this kid about why she thinks she would make a good sales clerk. But my jarthritis is really acting up today, and what happens if it stops working and I end up mumbling!?”

Deployment Law

First of all, Justin is not deployed. He’s just stationed 7,000 miles away from us.

Also, I had intended on writing a post about me getting peer pressured into doing the Reverse Sprint Triathlon. It will start out that way, but then thanks to “Deployment Law,” it will all go terribly wrong.

Thursday at work, I was convinced by a co-worker to do the Reverse Sprint Tri–I did it last year, so why not?! I hired a babysitter, threw my bike rack on the van, put air in my bike tires, and went out for a 4 mile run. I was ready!

Or was I?

This morning I got there, and got everything set up. I went into the pool’s guard room and dropped my stuff off. 5 minutes into the run I thought, “wait–did I bring my bike helmet into the guard room?! Surely not!” Oh, I surely did.

So, after adding a good 2/10 mile onto the already 3.4 mile run, I hopped on my bike and away I went. Biking has never been so hard. No matter what I did, I really felt like I was putting WAY too much effort into it. At 3 miles I realized the back tire was making weird noises. At 4 miles, I hopped off to see what was up.

My tire was flat. Painfully flat. I pulled out my phone and thought about who I could possibly contact. My list of acquaintances is short, consisting mainly of people I work with–people currently working, or racing. But the truck that was bringing up the rear was rapidly approaching. Quick! Act like you’re calling someone!

I panicked, and FaceTimed Justin. The truck pulled over and asked if everything was ok: “Oh, it’s fine. I have a flat tire.”

“Do you have someone coming to pick you up? Are you sure you’re ok?”

I am a big fat liar. I told them it was fine–I just lived down the street. It’s not entirely false. I do live down the street…and then another take a left and go another 2 miles. Either that, or say, “it’s cool, but I don’t actually know people.”

Introvert problems.

I cried a little (ok, I cried a lot) to Justin: “why does this crap have to happen!?” It’s the second race I’ve failed this year. No, this wasn’t a panic attack-induced drop out, but still!

After letting him know what happened, I was offered a ride from Dom, aka the co-worker who talked me into this in the first place. I told him it was no biggie; I was almost home. Also not a lie, but I did still have a 3 mile walk back to work so I could get my car (sorry Dom, I’m a liar).

This is what we in my family call “being a Ballschmieder.”

No no, everything is fine! I am a thousand percent ok with walking my bike home, and then all the way back to work to get my car. I don’t want to be a burden–just don’t wait for me.

So, Deployment Law: basically, if it can go wrong, it will, while your husband is TDY, or deployed, or stationed on the other side of the world. Ask any army wife, and they will tell you a horrible story of something going terribly wrong while their husband was gone. It might be the same in the civilian world too, who knows. I was thinking this morning about the fact that we’ve gone a full week, and it’s been going relatively smoothly. I’m staying positive, because my worry is that it’s all downhill from here.

Or uphill, on flat tires.