A Productive Tuesday

Today I had an appointment with my therapist and with my psychiatrist. Turned out to be a very good thing that my appointment with the therapist came first. I started things rolling by bursting into tears and admitting that I was thinking up a list of people to write farewell letters to for when I killed myself if my medications didn't get resolved.

The session turned into a sort of prep-talk for my psychiatrist appointment and owning that this medication isn't working for me and that it's not my fault, I'm not a failure I just need a different medication. It helped me a lot to sort things out and sort of prepare to speak up for myself because I ended up speaking up a lot more than usual at my appointment and we're tapering off this damned Latuda and hopefully the jitters/akathisia will go away in short order.

We haven't decided to start another medication just yet because my psychiatrist wants to talk with my ECT doctor about using ECT as a maintenance treatment instead of relying on medications-so we'll see how that sorts out.

The hubster was quite proud of me for speaking up in the appointment and we enjoyed a lunch out together before he went back to work and I drove myself home. It was a lot of driving for me today-most I've done in a while-but I managed all right and I'm home safe now.

Next week I should be tapered off the Latuda and hopefully not experiencing such misery (I've been pretty miserable lately with the jitters and trying to cope with them) and we'll see what the rest of the plan is...

Gotta try to focus on one thing at a time.

Deep breath in and deep breath out.

One thing at a time!

Ask Me Anything Answers: Part III

For Part III of my Answers series from the "Ask Me Anything" post I have another jumble of answers from a variety of bloggresses, although these all happen to involve the hubster!


First up is a multi-layered question from Birdie of "Ditching the Black Dog:" Tell us about your wedding day. Where did you have your ceremony? Did anything really go wrong? How many people were there? And what were you looking at in the picture under "Mawwiage?"

My wedding day went pretty dang well, especially when you consider that I was married outdoors in late October and we weren't directly rained on! The ceremony took place in the woods near some private cabins that we rented in Ashford, WA just outside of Mt. Rainier National Park at 9:30 AM. We exchanged personal vows but did not exchange rings-we were already wearing them, so we just did a "ring bump" instead-and we painted a personalized tree as part of our ceremony. There was also a rose ceremony that the minister brought along as part of his sermon. You can see pictures of the painting here and other details from the wedding celebration as part of my original blog post about my wedding :o)

The only thing that really went wrong is that my best friend/maid of honor (at the time she was my bestie, we've since "broken up" as I have some standards now) didn't prepare the wedding music as I requested so our ceremony was held in silence instead. It actually wasn't a huge deal, I think the sounds of the forest were lovely and many guests commented on how beautiful it was to just "be" in the moment without any soundtrack. The weather at my reception got pretty crazy and some people couldn't hang but I thought it was amazing to have sunshine, blue skies, rain, hail, and snow all in one day so I don't think of that as going wrong though I suppose many would.

How many people were there.... at the ceremony we had 25 people (including us, the minister, and a photographer) and at the reception we had at least double that. I knew that I wanted to be very open and honest with my vows and I knew that I would probably be very emotional so I wanted a smaller ceremony with my closest family and friends only. This ruffled a few feathers, but I don't give a damn. We had the ceremony we wanted and that's all that matters.

As for what we're looking at (minus the hubster) in this picture that you can find under the "Mawwiage!" tab at the top of my blog: 

The sky was an amazing bright blue and the sun came shining through that morning and we were appreciating the sun on our faces and the lack of rain in the sky! I think this is one of the moments when I found myself thinking, "Everything is perfect. I wouldn't change a thing. Everything is just right! This is awesome!"

Second up in today's "Answers" post is a question from Barbara in Caneyhead: Will you share with us how you and your hubby met?

Absolutely! The hubster and I were matched via eHarmony.com. We did multiple Q&A sessions and online messaging for quite a few weeks before meeting in person August 7th 2010 at a park in Tumwater, WA. He was in the middle of moving and I lived not too far from this park that was right off I-5 so I recommended we meet there for lunch, he could just stop off on his way north to move stuff... it was convenient although I do remember him putting up a little bit of a fight at the idea of me bringing the lunch, guess he wasn't used to letting the girl buy the date meal ;o) 

Anyways. I remember someone driving by in a big gold van and staring at me and I thought "What the heck is his problem?" and then I thought, "Wait, is that him? He drives a van?" Hah! Little did I know how many camping trips and road trips and explorations we would share with that van and how sad we would be when ole Bessie turned over for her last time.

We had lunch, chatted, went for a walk around the park, tried on each other's glasses, got rained on a little bit, and then he walked me to my car and gave me a big hug goodbye. I remember an awkward moment of hesitation when I thought we might share something more than a hug but my first date rules held firm! No kisses! 

As a sort of test I handed him an envelope to open later. It was a tri-fold hand drawn comic I had made for him about the hazards of hiking trails (he was volunteering with a trail repair crew the next day and I made a funny cartoon for him) and I figured if he appreciated the humor and my quirky craftsmanship than he might just be the guy for me but if he didn't get it maybe things weren't meant to be. He loved it. I continued to doodle and hand write letters and cards to him throughout our courtship and even now I still sneak notes and cards and such into his pockets or pillowcase or underwear drawer for little surprises now and again. 

We continued to communicate online and via phone and mail in addition to more and more in-person dates, eventually moving in together less than a year later and then he proposed and we decided to have a prudent "extended" engagement since our courtship seemed a little whirlwind-ish by our standards. We ended up getting married 2 years, 2 months and 13 days after that meeting in the park which is a funny numerical coincidence since my birthday is 2-13 (I always keep an eye out for 213s)  ;o)  and have been happily married ever since. 

We consider ourselves a shining example of eHarmony success and have never been ashamed of our relationship's origins, although I have noticed that some people are rather uncomfortable fessing up about utilizing online dating or matching services like eHarmony. We found eHarmony to be pretty thorough and appreciated the multi-step process involved in getting to know people. I can't comment on any other dating sites but eHarmony seems to have a pretty good rep. Certainly good in my book :o) 

Thanks ladies for submitting these questions! I certainly enjoyed strolling down memory lane to answer them <3 I'll have more answers to post next Monday from other readers, so stay tuned!