clickmom

Detective, me.

I have three glorious nights of sleeping without dreaming. I cannot tell you the difference it makes when I dream and when I don’t dream on how I feel the next day.

Waking up from a night of anxiety dreaming is like emerging from a bowl of glue and trying to make my way through the day without sticking to anything. Waking up from a night of not anxiety dreaming while on antidepressants is like waking up before dt is president. I feel fine.

I did dream last night but it wasn’t the kind of dream that stays with me all day brings me down. It was a two-part dream and one part I had to take a test that I was not prepared for but so did everyone else around me and I was going to study and the people around me were not going to study. We had a practice copy of the test and it was on gigantic paper maybe 2 feet wide and one question was in the upper left-hand corner of each page. It was geography related. My worst ever subject. But I hadn’t given up hope. Other people were having all kinds of problems just being able to set the scene to study but somehow I was able to focus and concentrate and maintain my composure. Part of the problem was a flood. I recall looking to see what was wet. But now I’ve woken up and it’s raining outside.

In my second dream I was a police detective and my partner and I were locked in a room. Somehow I knew that other people were locked into other rooms. My sergeant was outside directing people on cutting through the wall of the room to rescue my partner and I. It was night time in my dream N I wondered whether I could or should sleep over the sound of the sauce operating outside the room I was in. And when they got us out it was 8 o’clock in the morning and our sergeant asked us if we were go directly to work because something was happening and we were desperately needed.

I may have been binging cop shows yesterday and I also saw a show where somebody was sawing through An old-fashioned safe to see what was inside.

In other news... This is what the gas lighting in my house looks like. Husband woke up earlier than me the other day. He’s sitting there watching an old episode of ER. A young girl comes in, she is a kidney recipient, might be rejecting it, her potassium is through the roof which caused her heart to stop. They’re giving her the paddles to restart her heart and Husband, who literally has all these problems (kidney failure and high potassium) and takes medication to avoid these problems turns to me and says, I think high potassium is the least of her problems. I ask him if he understands that the high potassium made her heart stop and he just smiles at me as if he’s frozen on the moment he expected me to laugh along with him. He has no idea how a body- HIS BODY- works and how his body is failing him. Willful ignorance? I just don’t know.

mow the lawn

There was one dream in the middle of the night then I woke up and thought to myself wow that was weird but it wasn’t really disturbing and it was a kind of dream that slipA away and as soon as I woke up. The only part of it that I remember was that it had something to do with pairs or doubles. Everything in the dream was related to having a partner.

Then I went back to sleep and had the kind of dream I typically have when something has been on my mind but maybe a bit more distressing. This summer I have been mowing the lawn myself and right now the lawn is really overdue to be mowed except that my lawnmower has a dead battery because I didn’t mow the lawn for three weeks or a month or something. My neighbor said he would come over and jump start it for me which is lovely. He is a helpful guy and I depend on him more than I want to admit but his wife doesn’t share the same political beliefs that I do and I fear that he also doesn’t share my political believes and right now at this place in time I feel like that is a make or break situation. I’m not willing to spend one minute talking to somebody who supports this administration. Anyhow in my dream the friendly neighbor came over and got the lawnmower to work by slapping it all over. It was so weird. He left and I got on the lawnmower and drove it around to warm it up and when I tried to engage the blades they wouldn’t kick in. Now you should know that when the lawnmower arrived at my house in real life the blades would not engage and my neighbor came over and discovered that the wire had been cut so he fix them for me. Only this time I didn’t want to bother him again and I ended up going on some crazy rides on the lawnmower, as if I went fast enough and jiggled the machine enough they’d kick in. I remember I was going down a path that was near a very beautiful and slow flowing stream that was wooded on the other side and I knew that I had lived there at some either point either in the past or in a previous life. Then I was racing super fast against the tall chain link fence, only I was on the outside of my property and my neighbors were watching me race along the edge of their property. They were standing there knowing I was nuts. I don’t know why I did that. Then I was in a house with my lawnmower with a bunch of people, mostly aggressive looking men, and I couldn’t figure out how I drove the lawnmower into the house but the people were making me really uncomfortable and I didn’t want to get off the lawnmower to get out I didn’t know how to get it out because there were steps.

I was dreading calling the neighbor. In my mind he had turned into something sinister. But then I was downstairs in the neighbor’s house and standing on a table. The legs began to bend under my weight. I watched the metal legs slowly curling and collapsing. and I remember thinking I weighed 400 pounds. I was so embarrassed. The wife was sitting in front of her computer with a handsome young man and she clearly was trying to flirt with him and pushed me out of the basement. I went upstairs and saw bags of disposable plates, utensils and other party stuff that I knew I lent to them and this was the left overs. The bags were covered with vegetables I had gifted them. There were big beautiful tomatoes and a bag of cherries. But the tomatoes were rotting on the bottom and the cherries had begun to shrivel. I felt so awful that my bounty had not been appreciated.

But the entire time I’m dreaming all of these things I’m experiencing these sinking feelings in my chest. Like I’m frantic and underwater and can’t breathe.

That’s all I remember.

Today I’m going to look up how to jump start my mower and get some jumper cables and make Josh help me so we can both learn something.

Dream

I dreamt I was digging holes to bury a body but everywhere I tried to dig a hole there was already a body. Where I was digging was where there was a light next to the garage or shed and I figured whoever buried the bodies there also did it at night and needed the light from the shed. The dirt was soft and dark brown and East to shovel.

I waited a couple of days and it rained so the bones were very visible and maybe even cleaned off, but I finally called the cops because I knew that the bones in the backyard did not come from the body that I wanted to bury.

When they arrived with the cadaver dogs there was a carnival like atmosphere and I was acting strangely coy with them. I seemed crazy. I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t want to be weird with them, but I was.

Dream reflects life

Last night I am aware there quite a few dreams strung together but I can only recall the last.

I walked into a place where people were already gathering. I slid into place, near some women I didn’t know. The unattractive woman was telling a couple of other women she is 71. It wasn’t believable. She didn’t have a single wrinkle and had full looking skin. I just watched. The other women marveled at how youthful she looked. I reacted internally. Then she admitted be being only 21. In my head I knew she did that because she was ugly and people would over look being ugly if they thought she was older with a young person’s skin. Then everyone’s attention turned elsewhere, like maybe there was a show happening or some kind of announcement, and the ugly woman looked me over up and down and said “I can see you have worn that layered skirt too many times” except it wasn’t a skirt she was talking about, it was my favorite black top, which was hanging down because it has a long corner. In real life I’ve worn it so much it’s see through and also pilled, in the dream I was wearing some kind of gypsy layered look, so one could barely see the top, only the one hanging corner. For one second I mulled over how to respond and then I said “Fuck you, don’t talk to me like that” and moved a little bit away from her. Everyone around over reacted to the F word and I decided to defend myself (both defending and taking a stand in defense is a big deal for me in real life) I began to explain how incredibly insulting she had been to me because I was seriously feeling out down and judged to the other women around there. They were turning on her.

In real life, I crossed paths with squeaky Pete from the dog park. I don’t like this guy. He’s a know it all. He’s the kind of guy who likes to argue for pleasure. I find him repulsive. His dogs are ok. Anyways, one day squeaky Pete was with another dude, let’s call him brown ogre (he’s not a POC he has a leather couch tan and is, for similar reasons, equally if not more repulsive than Squeaky) and the two of them started to sea lion me about politics. In the end I told them both to fuck off and stomped away raising my middle finger and so angry my head was about to explode.i have since been told they were pulling my leg by pretending to be trumpets but I don’t think that’s funny. I think this is a do or due situation for this country and am deeply distressed by what is happening.

Flash forward a few weeks and squeaky Pete comes strolling in with his wife (can not imagine what this chick sees in him) and turns to me and says “Hi! How are ya?” But you know and I know he never asked me that before and is totally putting on this show of friendliness for his wife. Without thinking I say “Don’t fucking talk to me” and his wife’s eyes get big. Then I say “Tell your wife why I’m not going to forgive you” as I maintain my pace and am walking purposefully away from him and she turns to him with the mother’s look of “What did you do now?”

So, telling people they can’t mistreat me is a new thing. I think I’m processing it.

I had a butler. haha

Here we go again.

I was living somewhere that was designed like a cruise ship- where I lived was my room, but what I recall feeling was that it was MINE. Like I owned it and it couldn't be taken away. Then there were communal spaces, or more like a gigantic space, where everyone who owned rooms hung out. And it was cool- like everything about it seemed to be very chill. There was a huge glass wall, looking over the water, and from where I was, on a landing/balcony (because the space was multiple stories tall) and I could see that outside were the two lounge chairs I kept from utopia which were on a patio and also two of the 8 adirondack chairs (that I wish I kept from utopia) which were on a small narrow dock platform that was maybe 10-12 feet long max. I could see from my perch through the water to the bottom around the dock, so I knew it wasn't very deep. A storm was coming and we all worried, but I was the only one worrying about my chairs outside. In the end I decided to play it safe and not go outside, figuring the chairs might need to be recovered from the water after the storm, but feeling safe that we would be able to see where they had fallen off the dock and as soon as I made that decision a gigantic tsunami sized wave shadowed the window, darkening everything, and then crashing into the side of the building. I held my breathe, terror crept over me as I wondered wether or not the glass would shatter. I was so afraid. then the wave receded. The glass held, we were safe and dry but I didn't see my chairs once the water pulled away from the building. I looked out a side view and saw that other peoples belongings were scattered about but visible and then looked towards where my chairs were again and I realized with horror that the wave which hit that side of us just sucked everything its path away with it, including the earth around the patio area. My chairs were certainly gone forever, but I didn't want to give up hope.

The people agreed it was safe to go out and I decided to go in search of my chairs, thinking that at least if I cold see them I would know where they were even if they weren't retrievable, but first I had to deliver my butler (I know, butler?) to his home so we got on my scooter, me on the seat and the butler had a sort of seat/indentation in the front of it and I was going around confused and panicked and lost and finally realized that I was so exhausted because I was pushing us along with my legs and had not turned the scooter on. Then I realized that the scooter key was not in the ignition and I could not picture in my head where it had gone. But we were already on the streets and they were the dark narrow mysterious streets you see in movies, crowded with sad dark people. I knew I couldn't just ditch my butler because that's not a nice thing to do but he was literally dead weight and I didn't know how much longer I could push him around, imagining how much easier it would be to push only myself around on the scooter, and I just couldn't imagine how I was going to get myself out of that situation.

Isn't it strange that my husband who has historically never lifted a finger to help showed up in my dream as my butler? Also, butler? Hahahaha.

I’ve been covid dreaming

Holy weird dreaming.

I had two weird dreams last night. I’ve been played with them for almost 2 weeks now.

In the first weird dream that I recall last night I was going into a store with my old friend from summer camp. We went into a store and she went to a machine that she put change in order to get dollar bills and we saw that the compartment where the receipt came out was jam packed with receipts. So I pulled all the receipts out of the slot and noticed that some of them were messages left for people. One in particular caught my attention. It had different coins from all over the world taped onto it in specific parts of the message and seemed like quite the necessary and urgent notice. It was dated, and the date had just passed and I worried about the person the note was intended for and wondered if it was now my responsibility to find that person so that they could decipher that note and unlock some kind of mystery. My friend commanded me to discard everything I had pulled from the slot and I frantically searched for an appropriate container. I crammed the thick stack into a small trash bin, feeling like I had just let the unknown intended note recipient down, and then realized that the reason why I felt strange, like I had forgotten something, is because my friend I had been so distracted by our conversation that we had forgotten to wear masks. I pulled my scarf over my face, trying to bunch it up to add layers over my mouth and rushed for the entrance. I looked around and saw all sorts of people taking a maskless chance and knew that they posed the biggest threat to me. I had trouble breathing. It was hard to get enough air through my layered scarf. We hurried headed for the big opening towards the outside.

Did I mention that a couple of days ago I started to have anxiety attacks when I was outside again?

In my second weird dream of the night I dreamed that my neighbor had erected a gigantic thick wooden sculpture weathervane right on the property line and it was clearly visible from my yard. The top of his lien had a replica of maybe his house? The bottom half of that then head to creatures one being a deer (?) ridden by his young son and the other, I forget exactly what it was but it was, but it was something more fierce than a deer also being ridden by a human, which I have also forgotten.

I was very upset by this gigantic wooden sculpture weathervane and was trying to figure out who I needed to contact to get that removed. It was clearly the kind of thing that would haunt me.

Then I was out somewhere with the husband. We have definitely gone straight from our backyard where I was worrying to this place because it was clear to me in the dream that hardly any time had passed between standing in my backyard being at this place. I knew I had to give the husband my undivided attention so I wasn’t paying attention when the neighbor appeared. In my dream he was a young blonde man however the husband started rambling on about having had worked with the neighbor in his professional life and what an intelligent and creative guy the neighbor had been. This made no sense since the neighbor would have had to be way older to have worked with the husband.

Anyway, a lion starts walking through the parking area that we are in and we quickly get into our car. I check to make sure all the windows are closed. We are safe. I wonder if a lion would break through a car window. When I look up from checking my car I can see that the young blonde neighbor has gone into his white sports car and his windows are half open and the lion has his head in the drivers side window and is eating my young neighbor. It’s too late to do anything to help this guy out and I am a little relieved because I know for certain that the next person who moves into his house will take that hideous weathervane down.

Last night a photographer from Montana told us a story about a mountain she crossed paths with while jogging. Also, my neighbors in the hideous house next door put up a spot light that literally shines on the side of my house.

not ok

I'm not ok.

And, as is my standard, I sit here in silence, pretty much telling nothing to no one, as the tears roll down my cheeks and the voice in my head just thinks, Wow, I am alarmingly not ok. 

So, now that this is my 3rd round with a severe depression I am recognizing it early on for what it is. I felt it hitting me in slow motion, as it always does, and I this time around I even knew as I fell in slow motion down that funnel of despair what was happening. I told my newest shrink. Did I tell you I've got a new new shrink? For a couple of months now, I've been talking to someone. This time around because everything was so familiar and yet unfamiliar at the same time, I had warnings. I agreed to go on medication. I don't think that is going to be the answer for me. I don't know what is the answer for me. I just find this depression right now, along with this political moment of doomed insanity, along with the gas lighting experience of caring for a demented husband in a loveless marriage during a mother freaking world wide pandemic (I really don't want to die right now) more than I can take. The last time I looked out the window and felt this way I had a newborn baby and a husband who decided upon the birth of that baby that going to work was easier than being in our apartment, so essentially I was alone all day and almost all night with a newborn baby. That depression lasted over 2 years and was resolved with a second trimester miscarriage. I'm not having a miscarriage at age 55. I would like to speed through this dreadful experience so if pills help I will take the pills. But I feel like there should be a more natural way to change my chemistry. It's totally a chemistry thing. I know that is true. I think I'll make myself some saffron milk. Isn't that supposed to help? Saffron is magical, right?

It's been raining all day here. 

Even a basket of puppies couldn't make me happy right now.

no reserves

I refuse to put the heat on because it is September, but I have spent the last couple of hours alternating putting my hands in arm pits while downloading photos with he cold hand. At least tonight I can snuggle up under covers. It's getting into the 40's at night. sigh. Summer is definitely over. The only goos thing is the lack of mosquitoes.

I can't believe we have gone from winter to spring and summer all in hiding from this pandemic and now we are about to hide our way through a different season. It just seems so freaking insane. I know it is going to be around for at least another year. It kind of makes me think things like: If I happened to be t-boned by another car and saw the light and I could choose to go to the light or come back, I might just choose the light. But the pandemic isn't the only reason for that. It's just the icing on the cake. Life is too hard right now. Its everything. It's just harder than I ever imagined it could be and I don't have the reserves to participate. 

 

Hooch

I didn’t finish off a jar of jarred peaches and inadvertently ended up with a jar of prison hooch. I was so damned tempted to taste it but then I imagined having to admit to the emergency room physicians what I had done and in the name of doing everything possible to avoid trips to the ER in general, but especially during this pandemic, I poured my prison hooch down the drain in the kitchen sink.

I know it’s a good thing not to be familiar with, but still..... I was so close and didn’t have to do it the hard way either. I guess I’ll never know now.

might be scared of other people now

This evening while walking sweet pea I suddenly realized someone was behind me so I turned around to see what was up. I saw a news report last week about dogs being stolen from dog parks, so I’m kind of on high alert. There had been an incident with a creepy looking woman in that same spot where the dog who walks himself barked at her sending her fleeing. It turned out it was a guy who didn’t appear to have a dog. Suspicious. The dog who walks himself wasn’t with me. This guy was coming up the trail behind me. I quickly reviewed the plans I had run through in my mind where I sacrifice my big heavy camera by bashing it into someone’s head, but not before switching it off to protect whatever is on the memory card first. I slid the power switch to off. I stared him down. He squirmed and then started to sputter something out. Turns out it was his first time in the park and he was not sure where he was so he was following me because he thought I looked like I knew where I was going. He was a nice guy, Chris, and I told him my trick to find the parking lot if he got turned around and confused. I also told him I was going to linger in one spot because I was shooting, waved my camera, and made sure he headed towards the parking lot. I warned him about the coyotes that show up at dusk. False alarm. He was harmless. I had to deep breathe to get my adrenaline back down.

The husband has been falling a lot lately. It’s terrifying.

Saw a big fat dude in the big box store today wearing a uselessAmerican flag bandana instead of a mask. My blood was boiling. I was so tempted to walk up behind him and whisper “Traitor. Get that flag off your face.” But he had a kid with him. So instead I made sure to stay an aisle or more ahead of him so as to not walk through his aerosols. I hate people.