good for me

Dear readers, you would be so impressed. I was struggling, a few weeks ago, with it all - the three-month wall - and wasn't sure how I would dig myself out of it, but I've tackled one issue at a time, and it's working. Doing the same thing at work, and still in a bit of a hole, but we'll get there.

I knew all the things I had to do, and decided to focus on the most basic first. My sleep was all messed up, and it made the weeks very long and difficult - sleeping WAY in on Saturday morning, naps on Sunday afternoon, then no sleep until 2am Sunday night, 6:00 starts all week, just devastating. I know that the only way to fix this is to keep the same hours every day. So, yes, even on the weekend, I woke up at 6:00 in the morning. Both weekend days. And it's working - at 10:00pm, I suddenly feel tired, just like all the morning people do. And at about 5:50 am every day, my brain finished us the dream it's dreaming and starts to surface. So the whole alarm thing has not been so jarring. The waking up is still difficult, but I've noticed that the feeling goes away in about 10-15 minutes, so my mantra is, "This is just the transition." Not, "I'm so tired I'm going to die and there's no way I can get through the whole day of work, I know that already," but "This is just the transition. When you wake all the way up you will feel different."

The second thing was exercise. Only just starting on that one, after much indecision and procrastination and deals with myself. My dear friend also acted as sounded board and gave me some recommendations, and techniques for getting yourself out there. So, this week I have, finally, enacted my plan - acqua aerobics class Monday night, swimming laps Wednesday or Thursday night depending (this week it was Thursday), and then I will go to the little gym in the apartment complex at some point on the weekend. Swimming is lovely, and will be fun when I get good at it, and getting the heart beating fast is doing wonders for the stress.

Other thing doing untold wonders is a change of medication. This was kind of big, in different ways. Moving here I've had to try to match all my prescriptions as close as I could, but they didn't have quite exactly the birth control pills I've been taking for, basically, my entire adult life. They are a prescription originally designed as acne medicine, which I didn't really need, but I found they worked brilliantly - leveled out my moods, cleared up what skin problems I did have, made my periods almost unnoticeable. Which is why I stayed on them even though I've had sex...let's just say, really not very many times in the past...let's just say a while.

However. In the US the closest prescription to them wasn't quite close enough. I had a bad cold when I started them so didn't notice, but they were definitely dragging me down with side effects. I was bloated, achy, and depressed. I was getting migraines - two in one week, one while I was driving. My skin was bad. Who would have thought that 1 millgram of ethynodiol diacetate instead of 2 milligrams of cyproterone acetate would make such a difference, but by last weekend I was really not myself. Not only was I really, really depressed, and very hormonal, and starting to think negative thoughts quite a bit of the time, I then started getting these riotous mood swings. I could sit and just watch them come, inside me, for no reason - sitting at the Starbucks, I went from completely morose, staring out the window, thinking about how alone I am in the world, to about a half hour later, euphoric, at peace with the world, feeling grand sparkling benificence toward all the Starbucks employees serving the drive-through customers. Ridiculous. I vowed to finish the pack and re-set after that, but at the end of a whole day like this, I could take no more. Went abruptly off them, mid-cycle, body did what it does when you do that (don't want to get all graphic on you), and I have started again, All-Natural, for the last, what, four years of my years of womanhood I have left to experience anyway. And immediately, the very next day, my head cleared and I had my mind back again. I was probably in that depressed estrogen fog for two months, and let me tell you, that's the last thing you need in Wisconsin in February.

So, took all these health issues in hand, and am feeling much better. I think I'm building a good foundation for all the other stuff I need to do to get integrated into the community and build a life for myself here. Are you proud of me? You should be!