Update and gratitude

[stormkeeper_lovesall]

 
First some gratitude

- Lots of daffodils and tulips spotted during my walks

- And my brother-in-law's girlfriend Lety introduced me to these Mexican candies called Vero and I am hooked. They are sour, sweet, hot and so weird and so good

- Fan stuff to be grateful for like....my favorite actor from Spartacus (Antonio) recently posted some shots from a photoshoot. From what I can tell based on the pics and who he tagged, I think it looks like promo shots for a film or TV show. Fingers crossed!

- I survived my trip to Indy and it went well overall! More on that riveting experience below

Not sure if this is gratitude....

- I'd mentioned that Sachin had a new short film added to his IMDB. (The film was called Jonah). I looked the other day and he had yet another one added, this one called "Been Better Actually". Just a short too, but he's billed as the male lead! But then I looked again, and the film "Jonah" was gone from his page, and the role he'd had was listed under another actor! What the hell. I brainstormed with his other fan, and our thoughts are....
1) IMDB can be wrong; maybe he never was going to be in "Jonah"?
2) Maybe he asked to bow out of Jonah so he could film "Been Better Actually", since that one looks like a bigger part?
3) He did tell me he's got COVID. :( Maybe with Jonah being a short, they had a small window of time to film his scenes and they just couldn't have someone with COVID on set?
Let's hope he didn't get into a fight with the director and that's why he's off :)

One milestone

Saw an announcement at work; there's a new employee named Isabelle. I used to work with her mother. Goddamn I feel old. 

Not good, but ok

That trip to Indy. I feel kinda down because I felt some anxiety and took a Xanax.

Okay, here's how my day went. The plan was on Thursday, make the drive to Indy since the meeting was early on Friday. Thursday was A LOT. My computer stopped working and I had reports due, reports I was gonna do from home before heading to Indy. Ended up having to go to the office (to either get a loaner or have IT fix it). They fixed it, I did the reports, headed home, packed, drove to Indy, it rained the entire drive, and the drive took more than 4 hours. Like I said, the day was a lot. Also, on the roads between Chicago and Indy, it's mostly trucks and SUVs. It's hard when you're in a Honda Civic.

Do I wish I had just been able to hit the hotel pillow and sleep, without an anxiety pill? Yeah. But after some time had passed, I felt I needed some help. For one thing, rain was forecasted all day in both Indy and Chicago, so I had another grueling 4 hour drive in the rain to do on Friday and I needed to be alert. I needed some damn sleep. Also, the phone charger in my car wasn't working, so I had fears that my phone's battery would die - and I really like having that GPS up, even though I know the way, mostly. So I took the pill, and I slept well after that. 

The anxiety I do get is mild, and I don't get it often. I think today I'm just gonna remind myself that I'm human and it's ok to sometimes feel like shit and to need help.

Comments

[nytshd3]

Haha, for some reason I read 'candies' as 'candles' and I was like 'are you eating your candles??'

Ooo, fingers crossed for Antonio!

Hmmmm. Interesting about the show. I think all of those options sound possible. Hopefully it was something generally positive.

That sounds like a terrible trip, 4 hours in pouring rain, ugh, AND knowing it's another one the next day. It's totally fine and normal to deal with anxiety in that kind of circumstance, and frankly, sometimes it's hard to get a good night's sleep away from home even without white knuckling the steering wheel for 4 hours.

[stormkeeper_lovesall]

LOL even I wouldn't eat candles, though some of them do smell good!

Thank you...it really was an ordeal. As you said, it can be hard enough to sleep in a hotel room even under good circumstances. Worrying about the trip the next day didn't help. I'm only human and it's ok if I felt anxiety. Since I've been home, the anxiety has been gone, thank goodness.

I do need to think about a policy (for lack of a better term) for future trips. I used to say if a trip is less than 6 hours one way, I'll drive it. For work in the past, I've driven to St Louis and to a town called Florence, KY and to somewhere in Ohio, each of which ended up taking more than 6 hours one way. Those were all a lot, though I survived them. So then I told myself to cap it at 5 hours. Lately I've wanted to cap it at 4 hours. I do think the Indy trip is about my limit nowadays...so if I'm asked to go anywhere further than that, I'm either going to have to push to do it via Zoom instead or to fly. Because 4 hours one way is plenty!!

[nytshd3]

I remember when I was a kid I had chocolate flavored lip gloss. One of my brothers took a bite out of it! I'm sure they were disappointed lol.

Glad the anxiety is better! Really, it was a lot to go through, I think totally understandable that you would be anxious and having a hard time. Especially knowing a repeat of the experience is coming! Rollin was saying something the other day about how xanax is made for short-term use and people often take it for much longer than it's really going to be effective, but I think that's for when you're taking it on like a daily basis.

And yes, I think one thing we get better with over time is figuring out and enforcing our limits. Sometimes a road trip can be a fun thing, but for me, especially if it's just for a day or two, I definitely don't want to spend TOO many hours on the road. Maybe for a weekend away, but even then, it's a lot. Do you have a lot of travel coming up this year? Also if there is a positive to covid, it's that companies and conferences have gotten WAY better about remote options!

[stormkeeper_lovesall]

Some of those lip glosses when we were kids were intense. Wasn't there a bubblegum one that did taste pretty good?? :)

I've heard that about Xanax too - short-term use only. When I was in my 20s, the doctor who prescribed to it to me told me to take it every night. Fortunately, shortly afterwards, I talked to two friends of mine who each had some knowledge of it. One was adamant that it is a short-term usage only drug, and the other reminded me that many doctors are literally paid to push drugs on people. I did take it every night for....I'm not sure how long, maybe months. I gradually reduced my dosage and weaned myself off of it, first snapping the pills into halves and then even into fourths. I had to build up confidence that I didn't need it. That, along with knowledge that half of a .025 dosage Xanax pill is...almost nothing. :) I am very lucky that I had people to suggest to me that this drug couldn't be taken forever.

I went for probably 25 years without taking it again. I had terrible anxiety the night of the Trump-Biden election. So I got an Rx and the next night, I took one .025 dosage. Since the election, I've taken it only twice more. So long story short, I do figure that as long as I'm limiting it to 3 times in 2 years, I'm fine. :) I will be careful to use it only when I feel I really need it.

[nytshd3]

I feel like there was, I think it might have been the same brand that made the chocolate one! It definitely tasted yummy on your lips, I can understand why my brother might take a bite :) I was also thinking the other day about these cough drops that used to be around then that were legit like a hard gummy candy, I don't know if they had any medicinal value but I was always happy to take them when my throat was sore!

I feel like a lot of people take Xanax long term. As your friends said, some docs just push it, but you would think they would at least be like hey take it every night and then come back in 6 months or something (and probably up your dosage!). I don't know, crazy. Also 100% understand why you would have needed it the night of the trump/biden election (and many many other days, realistically!). I didn't think you were taking it all the time, I think Rollin was talking about finding out one of his clients had been taking xanax every day for years. Like, especially after everything that happened with the opioid crisis, you would think docs would be a LITTLE more careful about just prescribing stuff willy nilly?? In the mini series we watched about the opioid crisis they were saying that multiple pharmacies wanted to stop carrying oxycotin because desperate people kept robbing them, and the company that made it would threaten them with lawsuits if they refused to carry it.

I don't think I knew how bad your anxiety was when you were taking xanax, I was probably so wrapped up in my own stuff I just didn't realize it.

[stormkeeper_lovesall]

You know, now that I've had more than 25 years to reflect on it, here is what I wish the doctor I say had done. I wish she'd said 'Let's put you on Xanax for 1 week, and in conjunction with that, let's get you some cognitive behavioral therapy so you can address the root causes here.' But of course our medical system doesn't work that way. I guess I am one of the lucky ones. I never got dependent on the drug and I kinda did some of that behavioral stuff on my own.

As you said, we both had a lot going on in our early years. No where in school did we really learn how friends could support friends or reach out or do more. It's a shame.