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Briannah

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  1. Briannah

    21st anniversary

    By Briannah,

    Thank you to everyone on the forum who helped me sort out my feelings, learn, and work things out.  Yesterday we celebrated our 21st anniversary, and I can say we've really rebuilt this marriage and it's going strong.   And managed to get home from dinner through Ohio's surprise ice storm.  Outback Steakhouse is nice food(lobe their chicken tortilla soup) but not worth dying over! 
  2. Briannah
    So I was warm for something like 11 days.  10 really, the second day of the drive home was cold and insanely rainy and foggy depending on where we were.  Managed to not fry my skin or drown in the spa.  Seriously, that was nearly a thing.  We got the spa access package this cruise which we never do, but Nikki's injured back benefitted greatly.  So we tried new things.  Here's how that went, feel free to laugh. 
    ​1) Heated Ceramic Loungers - big ceramic lounge chairs designed by a chiropractor to help align your body properly and they are heated from within.  Being hard ceramic covered in pretty shimmery tiles sounds rather uncomfortable, but holy cow those were comfortable.  And warm.  So this only went a LITTLE wrong for me, as in...got stuck.  They are easy to get onto, but weirdly hard to get back off.  You have to push up in a weird way and the first day I couldn't figure it out.  Of course Nikki rescued me, laughing like a crazy person.  And mid week I might have fallen asleep and had to be woken up as I was snoring rather unfortunately. ​ Other than that they were easy to use, and I realized while I can't quite recreate the chiropractic curves to force the alignment at home, I can take a heating blanket on the recliner and recreate the lounge/heat effect for sore backs at home.  So that's a win.  Really did end up loving these warm comfy trap couches by the end of the week.  Nikki hates the heating pad, even with the cover the plastic part under it somehow makes the skin sweat a lot, and it moves around constantly, so I think this might be a better solution with the blanket/recliner.
    2) Dry Sauna - what it sounds like, a sauna room with no steam.  There was a little fountain emitting the pleasant running water sounds nad pretty.  The benches were the inner heated ceramic covered in shimmery tiles like the loungers, but shaped like normal benches.  The room was VERY warm and nice.  And you didn't have to be in a swimsuit to use this one, so it was nice after walking in the winds on the promenade.  Getting out was easy, just go through the door.  Until you realized the the door makes a dying walrus scream in the quiet lounger room and everyone is not glaring at you.  Really like this, and am aware it's possible to have one in a home, so must look into costs on this thing.  I might actually like one.
    3) Steam Sauna - Pretty much what you expect, but holy cow those were wet.  So very very wet.  It really felt like you were drowning trying to breath.  You could choose different scents for the steam by pushing some buttons, but I was too busy trying to get oxygen in with all the water in the air.  I thought maybe it was an issue with my lungs from the asthma, but Nikki has no such compromising damage to his lung tissue and he couldn't breath either.  So we are apparently not steam sauna people.  The feeling of drowning while sitting on pretty shimmery tiles with a pretty lovely sounding flower fountain was really disconcerting.   On the plus side, the door was quiet to this. No steam if I ever do get a sauna in my house, just no.  No more steam.  Another cruiser later said her spa gives you chilled wet washcloths for your face and that helps with the breathing thing, but I don't think I would like my face being covered like that.  I'll stay dry.
    4) Jungle shower.  So I paid for access to this stuff, I was gonna try it.  What could go wrong?  This was a shower in a circular wall of that pretty shimmery tile on just about everything else in this area, you're inside a column with part of an arc missing for a door.  You shower in your swimsuit, no doors.  There's a soothing green light in the top.  SO I'm in the warm shower, and notice there are buttons.  So what could go wrong?  I push the first button, and woosh!  A monsoon of cold water in the middle of my cozy warm shower.  I shriek because I'm that started and leap out, Nikki thinks I've burned myself, and busts out laughing when he realizes I just ran away from a little cold water.  In my defense it was a LOT of REALLY cold water.  So there is a second button, and now I'm really wary, but I push it anyway.   Maybe it's the warm jungle rain right?  Nope.  A whole bunch of little hidden nozzles drench me in icy cold fog.  So I am definitely not a jungle shower type of person.  Silly me thought maybe the buttons did light shows in the top, or jungle sounds or something.  Maybe aromatherapy jungle orchid scents or something.  It shoulda been called the surprise arctic shower.
    5) Hydrotherapy tub - this is a big tub, 3'9" deep, with water heated to the body temperature and filled with calcium and sea minerals.  There are three sections.  The first is a tall pipe you stand under, and it forces water in a flat sheet down on you, good for shoulders, neck, and back.  That went reasonably well, until the boat shifted suddenly and I got a face full, but easily corrected.  Then there is a metal circle in the middle with a small opening to get inside it, and what looked like a steering wheel in the middle that you apparently grab onto and hold.  The whole area works like a hot tub, with energy saving buttons, so as I was entering the metal circle in the middle of the pool it all shut off and Nikki went to push the button.  So I can see the buttons starting up from the holes in the floor in the metal circle, and I'm ready for bubbles.  Spa lady said this part was good for legs and hips.  Great, I have hip issues.  Bring it on!  Well, it did come on.  This REALLY strong bubblestorm rises up, and swirls around the metal circle.  I was on the far side from the start point, so I had a moment to contemplate this frothing mass coming at me.  Then it hit, and I was standing at some weird angle and managed to force all that frothing bubblestorm not to my hips, but strait up my body and into my face and I'm drowning myself standing up in a tub that only is a little over my waist.  Only me, honestly.  And before all these facial dunkings I had tied up my hair to keep it dry, that was funny.  NOw I look like a drowned rat with a crooked, odd updo.    ​But...once I figured out what I was doing wrong and altered my stance, it really did do wonders for the legs and hips.  Wish I had one of these things at home!  So now it's time to try the last part, this 'couch' of metal tubes (so the bubbles can come through) that puts you in a reclining position in the heated water.  Remember, I'm clumsy.  I managed to bang up my happily bubble massaged legs, hips, shoulders, and head trying to get on to this thing.  But I did finally get in position, and was less impressed.  So I just did the first two, and then sorta free floated in the water loosely outside the metal circle of face water attacking, because I cannot even tell you all how much that calcium and sea minerals did amazing things to our skin.  I had never felt skin so TOUCHABLE.  So very very touchable.  So I was sitting at dinner probably freaking people out around me by petting my own arm in awe. 
    So...I think it was more or less a success.    The ​treatments helped Nikkis back a lot, and I managed to use them without killing myself or ending up permanently trapped by them.  Which is kind a major victory for me.  WOOT!  So now I'm going to look at our local spa options and see what sorta lounger/sauna/tub options they have.  They can keep the jungle showers though.  But I was heated, relaxed, steamed, watered, and massaged within in inch of my life.  We possibly overused the stuff, but it was kinda addicting and easy to get to on a ship with the spa just a short elevator ride up.  It was on our side of the boat! 
    I have to figure out something to do with my hair though.  All the pool, spa, and seawater stripped out the dye really fast.  It's hard(so far impossible) to find permanent dye in the shades of green I favor, so I'm thinking getting a clear cassia (jic sorta like henna, doesn't chemically alter the hair but wraps it in a sheath of clear protection that slowly washes out) after I use the semi-permanent dye to protect it for a few weeks against being stripped out by the pool this summer.  I used to use it when I was younger, it made it incredibly shiny and soft, but stopped when I moved here as it's not easy to find locally, but I have located several online options.  Meanwhile, must hit the supply store tomorrow to get more green.   
    Side note: The current one I'm using has argan oil in it.  So I got a bottle of leave in conditioner with this argan oil (after I looked it up on Wikipedia to even know what this stuff is) and I'm totally a convert.  Argan oil is amazing for hair.  It won't work crazy miracles, but it has done wonders detangling my cotton candy hair and dealing with the bleaching damage.  Supposedly it also helps strengthen hair, but I don't have a lotta breakage issues so I can't really tell.   On Nikki it's done wonders reducing his somewhat unmanageable frizz into soft smooth waves.  I'm often late to the party on these things, but in case I'm not for once I wanted to share. 
  3. Briannah
    SO it's my job to keep an eye on the housing market and come up with reasonable solutions for later, while Nikki full on job hunts and we work together on the actual physicality of packing and repairs.  So...he'll give me a city  he's found a potential job in and I yay or nay based on  housing prices.  But now I have looked at so so many that they have blended into one insane, nightmare of a house riddled with water damage, hideous pink bathrooms, strange flora outside that looks like it want to eat me, and weird inexplicable THINGS I can't identify that my brain hurts.  I am dreaming of bizarre and ugly houses now.  And, of course, getting lost in them.  I do have to say though my unconscious mind comes up with some awesome floor plans, that I can never remember when I wake up.   Cosmetic damage I can handle, water damage makes me really leery of getting involved.  You never know how that will play out long term in a structure.  Although in the one house I am legit confused how the dining room, in the middle of the house with no logical exposure to any of the piping whatsoever, looked like an aquatic bomb of some sort went off in it.  And the rooms above and to the sides are fine.  Just that one room.  Did they run a fountain or something in there???  And what exactly is the deal with people feeling the need to put a weird little wrought iron fence next to the door inside the house?  It just looks goofy.  And don't get me started on what I mistook for a stripper pole but realized was actually some sort of duct pipe from the basement to roof through both stories, that was odd.  One house had columns just hanging from the ceiling, like creepy wooden stalactites, but not touching the floor. I assume a base has somehow gone missing, that's all I got.  One looked like a crime scene happened and never got cleaned up.  And Ohio has a truly terrifying love of the pink, yellow, pink AND yellow, and yellow and hideous green bathrooms. And none of them done well, my eyes.  But unless I'm going to win the lottery tomorrow, I'm going to have to keep my eyes on potential 'this can be fixed down the line'.  I do draw the line at a pink bathroom though.  Just no.  And really just no to the one that wasn't the usual pastel bathroom pink, but some bizarre neon pink-magenta horror that I think should require the realtor person to offer sunglasses to show the house, or at least a warning incase buyers didn't look at the photos.
    And now we're in full on debate of the pool.  I get Nikki's point it's a lot of work if the house sells quickly to have put it up and then take it back down.  However, I also kinda feel it selling quickly is a sorta pipe dream and I don't want to be slowly baking away all summer either without my pool retreat.  One of those utterly stupid decisions you don't really know what the right one is til afterwards.  We don't have central air, only have small window units that sorta work in the computer room and the bedroom, so the pool is the main source of cooling down.  A quick dip in the water makes the summer heat feel reasonable for several hours at a time.  And our town pools have become ragingingly expensive.
    So Nikki met new therapist, and reports that she's easy to talk to and he's happy with her, so that is good. There's also hints that one on one therapy is winding down, on a monthly schedule now that most of the big issues have been worked through.  So maybe it's time to consider marital counseling.  We've been unable to work out some differences on our own, and it's really getting frustrating this 'whatever you want' and then getting mad about what I decided to do ongoing behavior.  And I TRY To find out what Nikki wants, but there is a real in ability to ever tell me he wants anything or offer up some kind of opinion to work with.  Personally, I think either he really truly has no internal wants or needs or his antidepressants aren't high enough to overcome the mental fog yet.  I can't tell which.  Can you sorta...hollow out after a few years of depression and just not come back even with treatment and meds?  I don't even know if my expectations are reasonable or if I'm wanting crazy things, but I'm tired of driving the bus and everything falling to me to decide other than a few big gesture choices (which how they happen then ends up to me to drive the bus on, even his part of the job hunting I've had to start helping out and scouring the net and e-mailing a list) versus a partnership  I know I'm the research gerbil, but either help me out a little or get me some carrots at least.  And yes, you better believe we have this conversation clearly, and often.  I'm not the wife type who whines to everyone but her spouse and then wonders why things don't get better, I tackle it first with him and then brainstorm for ideas/reality checks/empathy/wisdom/whatever comes my way.  I tried refusing to decide and waiting until he did some of it, but literally nothing happened but some tv watching.  For two weeks.  Till I couldn't take it anymore.  I hate tv.  ​Sorry, venting before I explode at my spouse I guess, unless someone has some useful advice, I'll make you cookies. ​  Have tried talking to him with every tactic I could think of, refusing to do it, trying to engage him in every step, just doing it myself, trying to get him to talk about it with his therapist, I got nothing left other than joint counseling it feel like.  But only after he's really done with his single, cant' float two bills right now.  ​ And you know, insurance companies don't value counseling like people do.
    I'm going to try to get some sleep now and snuggle up with my cat.  My cat probably makes neon pink bathrooms less ugly, he's a pretty cat. 
  4. Briannah
    Nikki's passport has wandered off somewhere, again.  And I"m only 60 percent sure mine is still where I remember it being.  I honestly think these things are alive, aware they are at the end of their lifespan, and Really Angry about that.  (I have to renew them next year, and I never renewed them before, and I'm disproportionately freaked out by official things I've never done before).  And I still have to organize excursions (we like to have them ordered and paid before we go, the less we spend on the trip the less we risk whatever they call that when the numbers get big and you start spending like crazy because it seems a little unreal.  There' sa name for the psychological effect but I cant' remember it.  Reason number two we're postponing Assateague til next year when we're not planning to cruise.  I'm super excited to share all my memories physically with Nikki though of that island.
    I'm really excited that there are beaches in my future.  I really miss living on a coastal state.  I lived in the center of the state, nearly the real center weirdly both north/south and east/west so I wasn't right on the coast, but depending on the winds some days when it was warm the sea winds were strong and blowing in ward you could get whiffs of the sea even as  far inland as we were.  And of course, an half to full hours ride depending on which beach was desired and a coupla bucks of parkway money (and I'm so odd, I know, but I loved throwing money at the little funnels and going, it  always struck me as hilarious!) and some really frustrating circling trying to find a parking spot later and you could be on the beach.    I would love to be coastal again.  Even though I have recently learned there is actually a sand crisis on pretty much every beach on the world, and everyone is angry at Africa for not sharing their sand, i guess from teh Sahara?  Crazy right?
    Heck, I have this silly wish to go home, and live in New Jersey again.  Surprisingly a lot of the people from my childhood and early adulthood are still there and in touch.  But it's crazy expensive, and impractical.  But that's what dreams are for right?  I'm such a cliche, I spent all my time in Piscataway wanting out, and now i just want back in.  Go figure.   It's one of the two places I dream of living when I'm not focused on making where I actually live more pleasant, the other being with the palm trees and lizards in Florida.  I wouldn't be sad to have warmish winters.
    Speaking of winter, we're in full swing yo you mode here.  It's rained or snowed ever day for roughtly 9 days or so now.  The sky is angry, and it's mostly been cold, with a few abrupt swings to the 60's.  WEATHER GONE WILD! 
    Oh, and I have to share this so you ladies can all be weirded out with me.  We're out driving, and definitely in town proper, when suddenly...PIG!  A real live, sorta goofy looking, black pig in someone's lawn.  I can only assume it's their pet, but it was outside in an unfenced lawn unattended.  So I guess it's a well behaved pig?  I'm going to guess a female Vietnamese potbelly pig on the basis that it was vaguely shaped like one of those and had no tusks, but I have zero pig knowledge so feel free to laugh at my identification attempts.  It was just so bizarre and unexpected.  And this is from a someone who lives here, where there used to be a guy who kept a bear in a dog kennel by the river. 
    Ya know, the more I talk about it with you guys, the more I realize my life is sorta weird.  Even by my standards.   Pull up a hot chocolate (or beverage of your choice) and enjoy the weird with me.  Share your weird.  It's fun!
  5. Briannah
    SERIOUSLY I hate my job.  Nikki did the math, and barring any unforeseen financial emergencies (I can hear the peanut gallery laughing at the girl who thinks life is going to cooperate and nothing major will break in the last five months) it's looking like August is my exit day.  This week was just stupid.  Paperwork going wrong, customers being weird, half the people on vacation, half of who was left getting seriously ill.  If I have to forcibly tell one more person "I am reception/accounts recievable, I actually can't tell you what is in stock, what the pricing is, or when a tech will be available, you will have to leave a voicemail to get help!" and get "I'm sure you can help me!" I"m going to hide under my desk and weep sadly.  Cuz you know, I have nothing better to do than lie to people about my super amazing telepathic knowledge of where the techs are hiding! 
    I did get a lot of work done this week though with less people dumping still more stuff on me, that was pleasant.  Looking forward to my one day a week off with Nikki tomorrow.  I need down time. 
    I watched Hateful Eight with him yesterday, I admit I was curious to see it, the trailer looked like it was going to be somewhat funny.  However, I went in assuming Tarantino would fail to entertain me, and I was right.  I recognize the mans movie making skills, he does amazing shots and really good technicals, but his stories just fail to engage me.  Nikki loves them, he really really loves Tarantino so getting me to agree to sit down and watch with him (mostly because I really love Kurt Russell despite the really scary mustache) was fun for him.  Tomorrow we have Vin Diesel's Last Witch Hunter (Vin Diesel rarely fails to entertain me, I love that voice) and Insurgent that I picked out, and Ant Man that Nikki wanted to see.  I expect very little of Ant Man, no pun intended.  LOL  I was really surprised I liked Divergent as much as I do. 
    So life is settling down, and Nikki told me to switch my main focus from researching our future with his dressing needs since we've worked out a pretty good system that makes everyone happy, and to start researching depression.  X_X  Okay, so...it's been years since I dealt with it really, surely there has been a lot of progress and new understandings and stuff...and....nope.  So far not coming up with anything I don't already know.  Every article I read on the science of it to the supporting your spouse who suffers from it is pretty much what i already know and do.  I'm sorta disappointed.  I was hoping to find new things I could do to help I guess.  The CD stuff was easier, I could buy him things, come up with new girl/girl role play scenarios, shop with him, watching makeup and other tutorials, get involved.  Depression doesn't really let that happen.  Sure, I'm engaged with him in everything else, but this one there's not so much I can do and he's going to have to fight through it internally.  Meh. 
    It's surprising how much difference not going on a cruise this year made.  We hadn't realized how much the destress of a week of no worries other than what do we feel like doing/seeing/eating right now helps after the long overtime season and cold winter cabin fever months.  We're going on once next year that is going to be a challenge and a half on it's own, Nikki's family is going with us!  At least his dad and stepmom are.  His dad's great, but his stepmom can be...strange.  Like she gets really weird about odd things.  A good example was it was someone's birthday, and they went to a seafood house because the birthday person loves seafood.  Nikki hates it, he ordered the steak.  And she freaked out that he didn't choose some sort of seafood at the restaurant.  And they constantly have to have us doing something, they spend so much money.  I tried to talk to them about it, Nikki would like some time to just hang out and talk to his dad without being involved in some over the top activity, and she was very firm about how ungrateful I was being.  Ri-ight.  I gave up.   So I anticipate some real challenges regarding shore excursions and meals on this trip.  One thing Nikki and I agree on firmly is that the ONLY person who will be sharing a cabin with us if he's able to go is my son.  We are not taking on any of the couples in the family if anyone gets bright ideas.  Nikki would probably deal with it better than I would since it's a family norm for him, but I would go nuclear without a retreat space.  I didn't even want to share a cabin with my own mom.  It's not a space thing, I'd have no problems in a four person room with Nikki and two of a list of my friends.  Purely a personality issue. 
    When we went on the whole family trip with my family, I learned 'how bad can it be, it's a cruise ship!' in the middle of the week when I went absolutely volcanic on my aunt after she was stupid about something to Nikki.  I was in the  middle of paradise screaming my fool head off.  LOL  My aunt was stunned, my mom was trying to be invisible, and my grandma tried to control the situation until I turned on her and started screaming still at full volume and she realized I Was Done and retreated to the bathroom to wait for me to leave.  My other aunt came into the cabin and tried to get involved and her husband yanked her out saying "I have no idea what Jan did, but that girl is ready to eat you for lunch too, let's go dear".  LOL  Then I stormed out and went back to my cabin and my mom called about 20 minutes later and asked Very Cautiously "Am I allowed to come hang out with you guys or not?"  LOL  She came down and found out what actually happened and was all "oh..."   Aunt who had been bitchy was Nikki's best freind for the rest of the damn cruise.  LOL  Nikki has had a shouting match with her in the past too...she means well, but she's one of those people who thinks her way is right for everyone and has no shyness about trying to force it on people for their good.  Nikki's family has even more people like that...so I foresee needing an escape haven.    The worst part is it was my bright idea to invite them.  Ya'll can believe i"m going to try to budget hard and see if we can't afford two cruises that year (it can be done with a really good sale.  And we drive down to the ship instead of flying, so that decreases the cost by $500 to $1000).  One year with a really good sale we literally spent $1992 total.  That included the crusie tickets, tips, soda cards, hotels, gas, parking, food on the trip, spending, and shore excursions.  I kept track becuase I was curious how small I could make a week in the Caribbean.
     
  6. Briannah
    Sometimes I just don't feel appropriate emotions to what is happening.  My best freind's husband is on suicide watch, and I really care for her, but not so much for him anymore.  He doesn't listen to the doctors.  He treats her like crap.  He makes no effort to get better, and spends a lot of time telling me how awful a wife she is, bragging about the time he had an affair, and other things that I honestly would have divorced the dude over, but she just sighs and says that's how he is.  She deserves so much better, but nothing I can do about it. 
    I really don't want her to be in pain, and I don't wish ill on anymore, but I just can't muster it within to really CARE beyond about her needs, ya know? 
  7. Briannah

    Anniversary

    By Briannah,

    So it was a rocky year, but we made it out okay.  Today was our 18th anniversary, and we had a great day.  And the weather was almost nice!    We had a nice brunch out(Nikki is trying to live on my schedule during staycation, silly sleepy boy so we didn't wake up til 11), my aunt stopped by to drop off my birthday card since I was busy yesterday only she actually forgot the card on her counter, then we packed up more tubs and moved them to my moms and stopped and my aunts on the way home, grabbed some dinner, and spent the night gaming together.  It was fun.
    Right now my cat is super high on a catnip stash I didn't know he has, and is amusing the daylights outta me.  Drunk cat. I think he may be in need of Catnip Anonymous. 
    So I bit the bullet and had the we're leaving as soon as reasonably possible talk with the family, it went better than I expected.  Turns out the aunt's interest aligns with our desire to be outta here (She's not eager to be rid of us, but she thinks my mom will have to come outta lala land without us to pick up the slack).  She asked to see some of the houses I saved as potentials, and we had fun looking them over.  She has a good eye too and was helpful picking out little tidbits and we had a good time.  I like my aunt most of the time, but sometimes she gets WEIRD. Runs in the family.  She also thinks we just sorta lingered too long here after Grandma passed.  The deal with Nikki was we couldn't leave unless there was no way around it until Grandma passed, and she went in 2011.  There was a long time of depression where change was a bad idea, and then we just sorta got into a holding pattern.
    It was kinda disturbing when I talked to my mom though, I asked nicely if I could stay with her for a while and before I could finish explaining she got all gleeful thinking I was getting divorced.  It's not about Nikki at all though, don't misunderstand.  My mom married my dad reasonably young, I think they were 21, I"m not really clear on that bit.  I think they were married three to four years before I was born. And only three years after, my dad had the affair I talked about before that he involved me in.  So they divorced, and she literally never did anything again.  No dates, no talking to anyone, didn't even make a single non-work friend, just sat around all the time reading romance novels.  It's creepy to me as an adult, but as a kid I thought that was what grownups did.  And we never got along after my divorce when I didn't sit around doing nothing, and started dating again immediately on the separation (it took me a few years to save up for my actual divorce, but everyone I went out with knew I was legally married but not in contact with my husband at all and why).  And then it got worse when I succesfully married again.  She literally resents me for making it obvious it was her own choices that led her to her current life, that you can get up and start over and find the happy ending.  So I get frustrated realizing how it is, but at the same time I just sorta shrug cuz what can I do?  I can't make her less crazy.  And I'm not going to babysit a grown woman who won't do anything to improve her situation.  I make no apologies for continuing to kiss the frogs til I found the prince/ss. I do make some apologies to the frogettes for not understanding the difference between bisexual and biromantic though, I dropped the ball on that one and hurt some women's feelings and own up that.  But those experiences were part of what made me me, so that's ultimately okay too, I didn't do it on purpose. 
    So sorta creepy in an otherwise great fun weekend.  I think I don't even understand how much pressure and emotional weight will be gone when I am.  Sometimes I back burner things I know I cant' really change, and then am astonished when the situation is gone and how happy I am that it's gone.  
    And let's be real, with the Cheeto destroying everything, lower living expenses to pay the crazy medical fees that will be there since there won't be any protection against my pre-existing conditions or lifetime caps is important.  I may have to go back to college and major in chemistry just so I can figure out it the local water is safe to drink. 
  8. Briannah

    Antideppressants

    By Briannah,

    So last night I asked Nikki to reconsider his resistance to antidepressants and talk to Bethany(our doctor) about finding the right one.  It has been 20 years since I was on one, and my understanding of the modern choices is that the different kinds aren't just different brands, but work differently on different types of issues.  I assume Bethany will know more, she's been concerned about his mental state for a while and wanting him to talk over the options with her.  She's not a pill pusher, in fact she swings the other way, let's try to control things first through behavioral adaptation, if not, then lets start with the lowest dosages possible and slowly increase until we reach a workable effect is her approach.  I trust her not to zombie him out, but help us choose the right medication to ease him back into his emotions so that his therapist can better help him work with them.  The therapist has also been talking about them to him. 
    The more we talked, the more clear he made it to me that he ONLY feels sadness, numbness, anger, or extreme high happy.  All the other emotions of life are just gone.  This isn't unusual for depression, but it does make it such a hard condition to defeat. 
    I have taken them during my first bout with depression, it was what made me able to deal with the actual issues going on in my head and know what I really actually felt about them because it restored my ability to feel.  It took six months and two different prescriptions to find the right one for me, but it was worth it.  The frustrating part was i was a minor and my parents kept me on the one that wasn't working for four months, two months after my therapist told them I needed to be switched because there should have been an effect.  And I think the depression never had a chance to get as deep into me because I was already in therapy for the add and the Dr. recognized the symptoms of the second disorder sliding in and treated it very quickly with the two prong medication and therapy approach.  And taught me how to self treat without the pills once I was recovering.  Which is how I pulled myself out of that I feel nothing pit I was in in 2011.  I don't think Nikki ever pulled out of it, I think he just quietly slid deeper and can't find his way out. 
    I honestly don't know if I'm surprised or not, but he agreed to do so without much discussion, and most of the discussion about antidepressants was me making sure he understood that I wasn't asking him to take the pills as a cure, that doesn't happen, but as a tool to be able to regain his emotions to help him sort out what is happening to him and cure himself with therapy and healthy living.  Still no suicidal issues I can see, but l know what long term lack of emotion does to people.  Been to those memorials. 
    He remembers being happy up until around 2011, even when things were hard, remembers emotional ranges and the sheer variety of feelings and thoughts, he just can't touch them anymore.  That breaks my heart for him.  They aren't something I can find for him.  But I can do my level best to make sure he is trying to get better, and has the tools to do so. 
  9. Briannah

    Autumn Sad

    By Briannah,

    Sometimes cliches exist for a reason, and as excited as I get when the pool goes up, as happy as I am in it all summer, I never really hit the full depth of how much that pool means to me as when I am facing the oncoming autumn and knowing it's about to go away for a long, cold winter.  So I'm frantically swimming as many days at the sky will let me, and trying to store away every moment of pool joy to mull over in my winter blankets. 
    And I'm reminded it's not just a pool.  It was a lifelong dream of mine to have my own, and a project that Nikki and I worked on together (and continuously work on making keeping it easier and better) to happen, but most of the work was from Nikki.  It was a great, big, huge gift to me because he loves me, and that probably makes giving it up each winter harder in my head than it needs to be for something that is just a cycle of the seasons, but I'm like that.  I"m looking at finding a way to haul a stupidly heavy table upstairs to the boy's old bedroom that has sorta been in flux since he moved out while we try to figure out what we want for the house to be the craft table (Nikki does models, we both sew a bit, I do origami, we finally decided we dont' have guests often enough to justify spending the money to create a guest room and we actually do want a craft room) instead of buying a cheap light one because that is the table I ate dinners, played games, made crafts, and just sat at and talked with my grandpa.  That and an old bookshelf he'd made in high school woodshop are what I have and remember him by.  Nikki never even hints at replacing it in the dining room even when he sees something he likes at the furniture store because he knows that table is NEVER LEAVING.  However, I am happy to put it upstairs, and it's even practical, because it's an old table I forget what ti's made of but highly heat resistant, Grandma didn't even have to put down trivets unless there was a table cloth, so it would be good for use with our glue gun and other heat-related projects. 
    I just sometimes need a tangible, real, touchable thing to go with my memories.  And sometimes that brain mechanism makes simple things like putting away a pool really, overdramatically sad.  At least I have Nikki and Halloween fun to bounce back with.  As I'm feeling stupidly resistant to my pool going I'm equally stupidly excited about Halloween.
    And then there is the practical habit we fell into this year, we talk in the pool.  After the swimming and the playing and the splashing comes the floating and talking about our problems, our worldviews, our thoughts, dreams, whatever.  And I realize consciously it' snot the pool, it's being in a place without distractions, so we've set up two weekly us times, one for fun and games and one for talking about everything, both of which are inviolate.  Because without that communication and connection, this marriage doesn't function well in a vacuum, and we both have a habit of being easily distracted.  Relationships are all about recognizing needs and weaknesses, and addressing them as much as they are about feelings.  I think we're getting massively better at this. 
    And I"m a huge fan of the antidepressant pills, probably because they got it right.  They didn't turn him into a zombie.  They didn't change him as a person.  They didn't make him magically happy.  What they did do, which I believe is the actually intended purpose, is fix the chemical balance in his brain so that he feels his actual emotions appropriately to what is going on around him.  He's happy when fun things are going on, he's sad when sad things are happening, he's angry when it's warrented, etc. etc.  Before he just didn't really feel...anything.  THose attitudes all over the internet STILL make me rage, you know the ones, "It's all in your head, pills are junk you just need to walk daily in the forest!".  While exercise is certainly part of it, and nature helps, neither is going to FIX HIS BRAIN.   Both of them have been incorporated into the Healthy Nikki Project, however, they couldn't fix what was wrong until the brains needs were addressed.  And I've got an endlessly simmering anger inside that he does feel ashamed of having dysthymia (a form of long term depression) and taking the pills.  NO ONE EVER should have to feel ashamed of a medical condition or the treatment for it (except maybe the cliche but actually true people who end up in emergency rooms because they lost 'things' in 'private areas', for the sake of all sanity the information how to be safe is all over the net!).  Making people ashamed doesn't help, it doesn't remove the problem from society, and it just makes it harder for people to recover or live happily (not everything can be recovered from).  Gah.
    Okay, I'm done free form thinking now, worked myself up into a rage on behalf of defenseless people.  LOL  WEll, at least it's not sad anymore, adn I think I"ll put on something bouncy like Insane Clown Posse (I know, I"m warped, but Halloween is in my brain) and do some housework or something productive. 
  10. Briannah

    Bad week.

    By Briannah,

    Having a crap week, and am going offline for a bit to sort it all out. 
    ​
    Last week I was feeling...odd.  Especially late at night.  Saturday night I felt really odd, and checked my fitbit, and had a crazy high pulse rate for laying down.  40 bpm above my usual resting rate doing nothing.  So after goofling symptoms off the er I want, were I spent the next five ours waiting to find out if I was having a heart attack, pneumonia, viral infection, acid reflux onset, or a mineral deficiency (and those can be extreme, scariest medical moment of my life as a mother was a magnesium deficiency from the stomach flu where my son literally could not control his body or move on his own, scary ride to hospital, then once the blood panel came back a magnesium iv set him back to normal like magic!).  So the winner is...acid reflux.  So now I take Prilosec generic stuff (and omg what is with the fizzy cough syrup tasting coating on these things?).  It must suck to be a doctor when five such varied causes all have the same symptoms really.  Doctor was lovely, and I'm okay now.  I'll still feel weird with the pulse rates for a bit, Prilosec stuff needs time to work. 
    Then today Murder Kitty was acting weird, and wrong.  So we took him to the vet, and came home alone.  My five year old murder kitty is gone, and I'm trying to process.  I always assumed this crazy cat would be there when Creed (15 and counting)  and Alita (10 years old this summer, pretty old lady dog) went, and just outta nowhere he's gone. MAYBE they could have saved him this time, but he could have re-experienced the issue right away and faced a lifetime of vet care (which he REALLY does not do well with, he lost his mind as usual so bad they had to sedate him fully to even examine him to find out what was wrong) and we can't turn his life into an endless battle royal of endless home and vet medical care he just won't tolerate.  So my Logan went to sleep.  And I miss my cat. 
    So everyone be well, I'm going to go sort through all the emotional turmoil of the week and focus on furthering my health and Nikki's mood, which is at an all time low after this week.  I'll be back after things are better.  *hugs for Emma and Monica on their new journeys!*
  11. Briannah
    Nikki is going through some serious painful topics in therapy, nothing I can do.  Not a thing.  He has to sort all of it out, and it will be good for him, but I'm not stupid, he's hurting and nothing I can say or do can take that away until he works through it all.  I'm here, ready with the comfort and the hugs and the reinforcement, but that only goes so far.  I suspicion everyone here knows that.  The sheer helplessness sucks.  I WANT to be able to help him, to make it all better, and make all the ugly past go away.  The only thing I can do is step back, and let him guide me in what he wants and needs from me right now. 

    Being the partner sucks.  It was easier when I was the one dealing with my disorders/history, I didn't have to stand by helplessly.  I guess he felt like this when I was struggling.  Love isn't always joy.  Sometimes it's just suffering together through life and all it's mess.
    Feeling frustrated and helpless is such an unpleasant combination.  ANd he keeps APOLOGIZING to me about it.  He has nothing to apologize, he's doing what he needs to do to heal so that we can have our happily ever after.  He didn't choose any of this, and I'm not a fair weather wife who can't handle feeling frustrated and helpless for a while.  The fact that I feel that way is because I love my Nikki. 
    I'm going to go kill things in a video game now. 
  12. Briannah
    So Nikki was explaining binaurial tones to me, especially in the therapeutic uses in various diseases such as Parkinsons and so on, and that they are often used for relaxation and sleep aids.  He's not really happy with my out there sleeping habits currently, and he's right, I'm needing the pills too often, and my brain is getting stuck in high gear.  So I've been trying them for while, following the instructions, trying to relax, just the tones, the tones with a hypnosis induction, I WANTED this to work dammit...and...they totally don't work for me.  I felt nothing, I wasn't sleepy, I wasn't any more relaxed than just trying to be, there was nothing.  No changes.  They do for him.  And when we were discussing it he mentioned it was kinda close to hypnosis, and I did some research because this was treading something else... Nikki never really knows how the dots connect in my head until the reaction erupts... and it is kinda a similar effect on the brain.  I'd actually been unable to be 'brain tricked' with some light party hypnosis games before...and now this failure of my brain to accept and enter the state...I'm having to come to terms that I might be one of those 3 in 10 people who can't be hypnotized, something about my brain won't do it. 
    It led to a surprise breakdown.  (for him, for me this was my first little steps into something I'd been thinking about for a decade) Nikki had no idea that was coming, and was really confused why I was crying because I can't be hypnotized.  But it was the death of a dream that was important to me.  I WANTED to go to hypnotherapy, not for my dismorphia or anything, but because the memories of my grandfather are fading.  Not the life lessons, and that is important, but the DETAILS of them.  I can still tell all the stories in great detail, but when I used to do that, I could smell the places, feel the sun or cold on my skin in my head, hear his voice, and that's all fading like an old photograph.  Which is normal.  But I had this wild hope that I could go to one of those hypnotherapists, and he could take me back to those days and refresh the DETAILS and FEELINGS behind the stories.  Telling them over nad over sort of fixed them in my head like menomics, but it's not holding onto the little details.  I don't remember what Assateague Island smells like anymore, although I spent two weeks on it every summer and those were the best weeks of my life.  I don't remember the colors anymore, or the sounds.  I would spend whatever money the therapist wanted for those memories back, to relive it even just for an hour in my head like I was there again.  No room at this particular inn for Bree.  I will probably go anyway, and I still sit in that chair and put my whole heart into following that voice and the instructions, but it will really hurt to fail.
    I didn't call attention to it to Nikki, but when we got robbed and they stole my video camera, they also stole the only tape in existence with my grandfathers voice on it.  And now I can't remember it.  Time steals things. 
     
  13. Briannah
    All the symptoms but the lung congestion have fallen away.  If it's not gone by Tuesday, I'm going to back to see Bethany because I've had things like this turn into Pnuemonia before.   And the last thing Nikki needs just before he starts seeing the therapist is for me to go from sick to 'into real trouble'.  Blargh.  I feel like I want to cough out my lungs, windpide, and or esophagus.  And I have this irrational fear that I"m ruining the weekends girl time, even though Nikki says he's not feeling great and doesn't feel like screwing around with it. 
    I'm sorta in a perfect internal storm of anxiety triggers.  The ongoing struggle with my family, the extra hours at work (my job is awful, and the smoke from teh boss has been driving my congestion and asthma crazy), the paranoia that I'll get my guts twisted up from the severe coughing again (that is how I injured myself into surgery last July), my asthma triggering off the congestion and making it crazy hard to get enough air, and Nikki being really sick and down again are all making me crazy.  Doctor said two weeks is the normal clearout, so waiting til Tuesday unless anything goes wrong. 
    I need to find something to do to get my brain outta thinking mode clearly.
  14. Briannah
    So I think summer has finally hit.  Or it's all a cruel, Bree-squashing joke of the weather and global warming.  But the pool is up, there has been swimming, Nikki's mood is lifting steadily as the Zoloft seems to be taking effect, and there is talk about getting the grill cleaned up and prepped for the season. 
    We planted one of those gorgeous Japanese Seiryu maples on the side of the house, please live little tree, take the transplant well.  Gave it root encouragement liquid (dunno what else to call it) and fertilizer and keep it watered while it adjusts to it's new surroundings.  If left to my own devices I'll turn that side yard into a little grove of nothing but small trees.  I have some sort of daylily I think growing along side the house, gorgeous purple flowers...that are too heavy for the stems and dragging on the ground, amusing Nikki.  Poor plants.  And the Great Detangling of the Honeysuckle must occur once I get off my lazy rear and go buy some new trellis to train it along.  I think it's time to get some lily of the valley planted.
    The overarching scent of my childhood is lily of the valley and honeysuckle.  It was everywhere in my grandparent's yard, and all the memories have that smell attached to them (Unless it was winter).  I love those smells.  It's funny how as children we are racing to get out into the world and away from home, then as adults spend so much time trying to recreate those childhood homes.  At least the plants were easy to care for ones, I'm Death Incarnate to roses and other fussy plants.  Nikki says they literally quail at the site of me at the store, he can see their quaking branches as I pass. 
    Things are very mellow here, he's happier than he's been in a long time, so I'm relaxed and able to focus on Bree things a bit, and only three more months of toxic job from hell for me.  Next summer is going to be even better when I don't have to go there.   
    SO we're all still alive and well here, just knee deep in getting everything set up for summer fun.  Now if you'll excuse me, I have got to go find something for this bug bite rash, they ate me while I was weeding. LIttle insect jerks who eat people alive. 
  15. Briannah
    So...I'm starting to feel like some kinda superhero or something.  Nikki was messaging me all day, he's really upset about how the cat is doing, she's hasn't been eating and getting skinnier and skinnier.  So I told him stop at the pet store and get kitten canned food.  Which he couldn't find, so we settled on Iams.  The reason I was trying to find kitten specific food is that it has a much higher fat content to it, and I suspicion is very tasty.  Yuriko did everything she good to scarf Logan's kitten kibble when he was tiny, and did she ever get fat on it until we got good at locking her in the bathroom while the poor kitten ate.  She was hard to catch back then.  I was kind of wondering all day if it was time to call the vet again, but I didn't want to say anything to Nikki in case my high-fat plan possibly worked.
    And as of right now, it's going well.  The cat is eating.  I repeat, the cat is eating.  She can't manage a whole can at once, so I suggested we offer her food three times a day to make sure she's getting plenty and fatten her back up to a normal cat weight again.  It's the best I can do for her right now, I wish I had more.  I don't want my cat to leave me.  I really really don't.  I know nothing is eternal, not even mountains, but I'm just not ready and need more time.  So does Nikki.  I'll spoon feed her if I have to.  Of course, she's a lazy cat, she may have figured out this is the way to get everything she wants, including spoon feeding.  Hard to tell, she's a smart one. 
    Bring on the next problem, I'll solve that one too. 
  16. Briannah

    Cold Weirdness

    By Briannah,

    Watching Unusual Suspects while waiting to get sleepy(Deadly Women auto qeued this) and I think the cold medicine is making me wonky, but the murder victim's name is Brianna, and despite it being a pen name, it's really creepy to keep hearing "And he murdered Brianna..."  Mr. Plus Turtle says he'll defend me though.   
    I'm not sure I like cold medicine anymore.  I couldn't take anything for years, most of it contains pseudoephidrine, and you can't mix that with the daily powdered asthma control inhaler I was on for years, so I just got used to colds and dealing.  Aspirin if my throat was really unhappy cuz I'm kinda wimpy.  But I don't have to take Advair anymore for like three years now, so I took the NyQuil pills Nikki offered me, and I just feel loopy.  I don't think I feel better, I think I just care slightly less that I don't feel good from the medication. 
  17. Briannah

    Cranky

    By Briannah,

    I have Nikki germs.  Decided to share the cold germs with me, ah the joys of marriage.  MEH! 
    I'm going to go whine at my favorite stuffed turtle for a while. 
  18. Briannah

    CRANKY.

    By Briannah,

    Doing taxes.  Gyah.  Just argh.  Frustration.  Confusion.  HEadache.  And I'm using the Turbotax site that does most of the work for me but this is still irritation.  Nikki's on his own tonight, I'm too cranky to be alive.
  19. Briannah

    Faced a medical phobia.

    By Briannah,

    I have a weird phobia about things being removed from my body.  I even had panic attacks over them removing my wisdom teeth back in my youth, and I'd been raised with the understanding that would happen, there has been no single member of my family who they fit in the mouths.  So last month I started getting severe abdominal issues, and first er said it was food poisoning (cuz you know, has to happen at midnight), but then four days later it happened again, and Nikki had no issues and we eat the same food.  (I cook all our meals, we observer dash diet together, I even send his lunches in bentose that I make in advance). So The second attack I waited til mrning and saw my actual doctor, and started in on the oh, you fit 6 of the 7 main criteria so let's look at yoru gal bladder, youp, you broke it it has to go.  
    Yesterday they removed it.  I really had to suck it up, but one wrong food choice mouthful and it was worse pain than my previous marker, giving birth.  So with a lot of coaxing from Nikki I did and went to have it out.  Was terrified all week because of a known complication, but it went well.  Had four rods and am suffering no post surgical complications other than the anti-nausea patch they put on everyone to prevent incidents in the surgery had to be removed right after, it made the room MOVE when I woke up, so disorienting, and my throat was feeling really abused from the breathing tube.  It was kinda surreal when they kept telling me how great I was doing basically just laying on the or table watching them buzz around prepping.  Laying on a table wasn't hard. : )  Although with my native clumsyness it was a minor miracle I got on and stayed on without falling off I suppose.
    Hope you are all healthy!  
  20. Briannah
    Just thinking about where i am today with Nikki.  THis is probably rambly and nonsensical as my add levels are high today and it's hard to focus.  It thought writing may help, but now I'm not entirely sure.
    So after a crazy whirlwind of two months, things have settled down greatly, progress is being made, and that feeling of living in a crisis (as far as Nikki is concerned, don't even get me started on the cat or the yard or house maitenance!) has mostly dropped away.  Both of us are occasionally getting some weird mood swings, but they're not horrible and we just get though them.  I saw an interview with Helen Boyd and they asked her what advice she would give someone..well...someone basically in my position, and it was "Fasten your seat belt!" Man was she ever right.  Most often now though it's just fun, and trying to balance "what items do you NEED vs. WANT cuz we is poor right now?" 

    There was shock.  There was anger and betrayal.  There was spirally crazyness on both sides.  There are serious mental health issues in the mix on both sides (OMG mixing the usually anchor person who is suffering depression with the flaky attention deficit disorder partner is so NOT going well on the day to day chores front, but we're starting to get it back under control).  It sounds like a recipe for disaster, and anyone in the future reading my blog who might be in a position like me, here's something you should know.  It's only a recipe for disaster if you add the final ingredient...and that is...wanting it to be. 
    If instead, you want to learn what is happening, and work with your partner to find places that work for both of you, it also opens up communication like never before, and in our case, learning to meet each others needs, not just Nikki's like a lot of the narratives you'll see online, and our marriage ended up in a better place.  Yes, my husband enjoys wearing women's clothing, and that's fun for me too.  I like it.  When he's under any major emotional stress it goes from enjoys to needs, and that is okay too.  I am learning to recognize I want to have some girl fun with you Bree from OMG CRAZY STRESS HELP ME.  We ALL have our crutches under stress.  One of mine is to disappear for a while at one of the places I spent a lot of time with my grandfather to calm down.  There are a few places I haven't told Nikki about so I have a bolt hole where no one knows where to look for me even now.  Probably a bad idea in a crazy world with creepy people though.  Our life and our marriage didn't end.  As far as crossdressing, I kinda don't get why so many people freak out about it.  It's just clothing.  90% of crossdressers stay that way according to my reading.  And you wont' find a lot of narratives for them, they aren't online talking about it.  They have their personal family and friend supports, and most of them aren't really struggling with it beyond wanting to talk about ways to further the illusion or discuss makeup and fashion.  Because most of them aren't unhappy.  So I'm leaving my narrative here for you as best I can.  I looked for the narratives, and there are some, but not so many.  There are a great many websites claiming there are no perks to your husband being into crossdressing, and that depends entirely on you spouses.  I have found fun, laughter, bonding, theatricity, openness, communication, and adventure in my new life.  I really enjoy these things, and am enjoying sharing it all with Nikki more than I can say.  Do I have fears?  Of course.  But I wouldn't ever ask him to stop the fun because I occasionally get scared he may change his mind about trying to be a woman in the future.  If that road comes I'll walk it as best I can.  There really isn't another choice at that point.
    And yes, that other 10% is kinda scary.  Future reader, maybe you'll be facing that 10% that it doesn't stay clothing and fun and shared activities that then go back to what you consider the normal marriage.  And my heart goes out to you, that is a lot harder water to navigate.  I can't help you much there unless my own circumstances changes with time and I have to confront the harder realities and choices down the road.  You're entire romantic and sexual roadmap are being drastically altered, and it's not as easy to find support as it is for the person with the gender dysphoria, but you can find it.  This is a great place if you are reading this! 
    I wish all of you who will become 'me' in the future the love, laughter, and compassion from your spouses that mine showed me while I was navigating my fears and learning what it meant for my life as he was and is doing the same. 
  21. Briannah
    So things are starting to happen faster now.  We have moved in with my mom as planned, and I am alternating between helping Nikki move things and cleaning mom's house.  (Seriously, it took three hours to go through the pantry and get out all the expired food from years 03 to 16).  And the rest of the house is insane, but I'm slowly taming it.  Mom is getting the better end of this deal, really.  Free cleaning and repairs and cooking until we sell and buy a new house.  Old house is nearly empty, just a bit more to pull out and then it's painting time.  We're still waffling on whether or not to fix the damaged laminate.  New car is working out great, old main car is doing great, old secondary car is going to the scrapyard, the costs to fix the brake issue and make it sellable are higher than we could sell it for.  Bummer, some extra money would have been nice.  
    It's kinda weird being here again.  I lived here with Grandma, my mom, and my son when I met Nikki.  I had the downstairs basement finished room, although ever since the big flood it's impractical to use as a bedroom anymore.  Which is a same, as it's HUGE and was lovely with lots of space.  Only ever had to come upstairs to use the bathroom.  I was the hermit Bree in the basement!   
    Nikki's girl mode items are all packed away with a decoy tag, he's still very much closeted as far as our families go.  Since he realized transition is not a path for him, dealing with our awkward families is a door he doesn't want to go through.  As in most things (other than anything food related, do NOT EVER trust Nikki's judgement with food, trust me) I trust his judgement and respect his choices.  And he pointed out I won't be at risk for giving myself a black eye again slapping myself with the breast form.  (Didn't quiet get a black eye, but I did have a nice red mark from that oops.  Why do they put it in such clingy plastic?)  Nikki does have a nasty set of scratches across his back, so I've been teasing him he made a ghost angry that we're leaving.  It sounds more fun than I think the cat did it while we were sleeping.  
    I haven't had any really awful burning for a week, had one bad night last weekend, but it's been good since.  Nikki's physical health is solidly great, and his dysthymia has been very much under control.  He continues on his medication, but the improvements in our life have done wonders also.  Once his job is less demanding (they're in the middle of some big changes that take a lot of hours from him) he's going to see about finding a new therapist in our target town and he can just go after work and then come home until we move.  He has to start over anyway since his passed and then we went on insurance hiatus.  He'd rather do it just once instead of twice. 
    It's sorta amazing how far we've come since last years confusion and upheaval.   ​I'm proud of us.  Now I have to go continue trying to convince my elderly cat that moving was a good thing and that he should eat some of his food.  Dog is loving the adventure of a new house (wish she would stop running full speed into doors though, she's traumatizing ME with her poor banged head) lizard doesn't care.  Our lizard is too cool to care. 
     
  22. Briannah
    EmmaSweet suggested I start a blog, and I think she has a point.  And never ask people for advice if you're not willing to try it!  So here I am, sorting out a lot of changes in my life. 
    So today, it's time to tackle a joint issue we both share.  Hoarding.  We're not going to show up on a tv show or anything, it's not the dramatically bad.  However, it runs in my family on both sides.  My mother is a hoarder, and getting worse as she ages.  And my father's mother was nearly tv show ready except that she managed to keep it mostly out of the living room and kitchen areas.  But every other room in the house was filled with stuff.  And I mean filled, there was a tiny aisle to walk through.  And you literally risked your life going into the attic, those piles were not stable.  So I noticed while I was going through my closet looking for things that were worth sharing (a lot of my clothes needed to be thrown out, holes/stains, but there were a lot of good pieces Nikki actually liked), my eyes fell on the shelving in the back.  FIlled with boxes.  That some of them I think I packed to move in with Nikki when I spent the first year in EXTREMELY TINY TOWN and we accidentally ended up living next to the KKK dudes, which was a problem since our son is biracial black/white.  Yeah, that was fun.  Nikki agreed to take us back to the larger town I had been living in for offspring's safety even though he was scared to leave the familiar small town he did it for us, and I think really enjoyed it.   
    I"m sorry, I ramble a lot.  The add makes my brain go from topic to topic.  So I've seen that hoarding is not a sudden behavior, but a long slow buildup just like the junk.  So it's time to deal with this boxes, determine if things in there that I haven't thought about wanting for fifteen or so years are really worth keeping, and if they are but not worth dispaying, then into rubbermaid totes and the basement.  There is a practical side to living with Nikki's newly open reality, he literally has two wardrobes.  It's a really good thing he's into sharing!  I think I have half a wardrobe that currently fits/functions.  But he has a LOT of clothing.  Including eleventy billion tshirts from his job, they LOVE to tshirt people, it's actually kinda creepy how many tshirts come home from work with him.  I threatened to make them into a flag once and hang it from the roof. 
    So after work, we are tackling the closet.  Together.  So it doesn't eat anyone.  Although I"ll probably be the one in the bowels of it on the basis that i"m shorter and it's a slanted closet.  For once my height works in my favor!  But he'll have to scrunch for heavy stuff.  After getting my abdominal hernia fixed when I incarcerated it last summer (man, I scared my poor Nikki, they were talking about me dying if i didn't get that fixed right away) I either pulled it partically back open or ripped a new one just above it.  It's more practical to lose weight and then get it fixed at this point, so heavy lifting is out. 
    It's why we have a rowing machine, it's the only thing that is both strength/cardio that will help me lose weight at all, every other machine is one or the other.  But most importantly, after Nikki put in a serious research binge, it's safe for me to use with  my hernia issue.  It won't encourage another incarceration event (where I basically caught six - eight inches of intestine, but luckily felt sick and Nikki got me help so fast I didn't actually injure my inner bits) or force it to tear open more.  I feel loved, he put so much effort into finding me something that will work and is safe.  I repeat that to myself as I row and fight my inherently lazy nature wondering why I'm torturing my body voluntarily. 
     
    Today's Good mindset: Nikki and I can do anything working together.  We're strong and we will weather whatever happens to us, internally and externally.
    Today's Stupid Fear: I'm intruding on Nikki's private world and don't belong, even though he says it feels supportive and connective to him that I am so involved.  And the squirrel staring at me through the window wants to eat me. 
  23. Briannah
    No one here will be surprised when I mention my need for information to make ANY life choices, small or large, and vacation is not an exception.  I really don't understand my head here.  Researching the options = fun and entertainment to my brain, but actual specific planning sends me into a tailspin of resentment for my time and energy being sucked into the process. 
    So I'm always reading new things about everything I'm into, including cruising, and I like to read those 'things I wish I knew" and 'get the most of f your cruise' type articles, and I did learn a few new things, like despite neither of us like fish Nikki and I are going to try a bit of sushi for the first time ever, we never knew that the Tamarind (one of those you pay extra to eat at places) has no extra charge at lunch, only at dinner.  So we agreed to try it, if only to put a stop to all the 'how can you know you don't like it, you never treid it!  Best place to try suspicous new things is on a cruise, where they will bend over backwards to find you something you like if you don't like the new thing.  It doesn't always work out great, on the Royal Princess i tried the cheese mousse.  It sounded okay on the menu...but on the plate in front of my I nearly lost my nerve.  It smelled like rotten feet, and it visually looked like baby poop.  Other people all around were me eating this thing though, so okay...but no, it tasted like my nose tells me baby poop would too.  I can't believe I ate that. *Shudders*
    So this article is all about getting the most for your money, and has 10 tips, and 9 of them I already knew and vetted, but the one I hadn't tried said that booking through your cruise will cost you up to twice as much, and you get less.  The author then mentioned three third party tour services that guarantee on time return to your ship (because that is one of the big things, a ship will NOT leave you if you are booked on a tour THEY sold you, but if you are on your own they will leave you on time because every minute over costs them thousands in fees at a port).  So I googled the websites, and started looking around, and that author must live in Colorado and have taken a break when they wrote this one point on the list to smoke somethine, because not only was there not more variety (Really, shoudln't there be more OPTIONS at least if these company specialize only in tours where a crusie just vets enough to keep its' passengers happy?) they ALL cost more.  Not one would have saved us any money, and it had LESS options, the rain forest we  are going to tour through the ship cruise in Puerto Rico (El Yunque) didn't appear in anything at all.  If I'm being kind I'm going to assume the author has possibly out of date information, and the cost trends have shifted, entirely possible if a service gets big enough with enough loyal customers they stop undercutting the competition to get started after all and start looking to increase profit.  At worst that author was going to sell us all out. 
    Follow up on that information, this world really is out to get us all. 
  24. Briannah

    Good day.

    By Briannah,

    Today is a very laid back day.  We stopped in at the doctors office to follow up on my lab work since I didn't get the call that the order was put in (The computers were dead at our doctors the day we went, my prescription made it the pharmacy but Nikki's didn't, they were struggling so hard) and no one called like they said to tell me I could go in whenever.  And sure enough the order wasn't in the computer, so the receptionist left a note for our doctor to enter it.  And follow up making sure Nikki's referral got through the computer craziness.  Because after crash coursing on the transgender experience, I also was crash coursing on transgender issues, and it's really scary.  Knowing Nikki suffers depression and has anxiety attacks, it makes me really scared with him not being in counseling to help him overcome those.  He doesn't exhibit any signs that he's a danger to himself, but I have a really paranoid brain and I just get flat out scared of things sometimes.  
    Then we had lunch, and now the best part has started.  Lounging around the house lazily.  Not going outside into the cold.  It is so cold outside that when I left work I actually started crying, my eyes just filled up and flowed over because I was so cold.  That was a WEIRD moment.  I dream of palm trees and beaches in Florida, but with our current situation that's really not practical.  But we dream, right?    I don't even know why I love palm trees so much, they just make me happy as long as they are actual trees and not creepy neon plastic ones.  This week is beginning to make me feel like I have some kind of weird feelings about plastic in general.
    Nikki is still in an up mood, and if it's just from the relief of not having to keep secrets from me anymore like a sort of honeymoon phase, I'll take it.  Please good mood last for him as long as it takes to get into the counselor!  I do like seeing Nikki happy.  Tonight we plan to take the mmo raid scene in our guild by storm, we missed the last couple of weeks on the nights Nikki is working on collecting items to make a weapon because we were doing so much talking and sorting out and redefining our marriage.  I'm now of the opinion that everyone should have a sit down every five to ten years and intensely talk about how the marriage is working and what they want from it.  This redefining period has really helped us bridge a lot of issues for both of us and improve the overall experience of living in it for both of us.  I'm so grateful that I have a really adaptive personality in general, and was able to be what Nikki needed once he'd given me the space to absorb and wrap my head around it.  In our early years Nikki always needed to have every problem solved RIGHT NOW and my brain just doesn't work like that.  I need time to absorb the issue, and even identify what my feelings about it ARE let along be able to articulate them and express concerns that can be 'solved'.  Usually between 1 hour and three days, depending on how complicated the subject is. 
    There are some things I can't adapt to.  I have found the line between being able to adapt to a new thing and knowing I don't want to be part of a thing.  I was in a relationship with a really nice man, it was a newish relationship, and he was up front with me that he was a big participant in the adult baby world and I needed to know if we were going to persue spending any more time together.  He gave me resources to see and understand what it was. I took a few days and looked at all of them, and I understand it intellectually, but I couldn't participate.  I had a very strong 'I did my trenches in the diaper wars years ago' emotional reaction, and wasn't sad that they were gone.  I couldn't imagine my life centered around a perpetual infant-parent interaction, even though I could understand the need for nurturing that people who do participate have.  So I told him honestly I couldn't participate and while I really liked him it was clear I was the wrong person for him, and we parted on good terms.   That's how I know Nikki's reality is something that I"m not playing with because it's new and I"m trying to hold on to what we have at any costs.  I know the difference between trying to force myself to fit and realizing a new thing is okay and I just have to work on making some adjustments.  Somewhere after that marriage I let nearly kill me I learned to finally have a strong sense of self, and who I am, and what I can touch and what I can only intellectually understand.  That is making this period relatively easy for me.  So is the normalization that occurred from my Rocky Horror and anime convention periods of seeing men in full women's dress all over the place.  Which ties into something I posted on the forums, exposure is a huge factor in acceptance, or in some cases at least respect.  I respect ex boy and his choices, even if I couldn't join him, because he exposed me in a positive way that let me understand. 
     
  25. Briannah
    So as some of you know i sort of went on an obsessive research binge to understand transgenderism in general and specific to what is needed to make my marriage successful.  Only what isn't showing is that I'm still almost obsessively researching the social aspects of this.  And I do mean almost obsessionally.  And my friend M asked me why I'm stuck in this, and things gestalted.  I have a huge problem in this marriage that has nothing to do with Nikki's transgenderism, but is being triggered by it. 
    Nikki never has my back in a conflict situation.  I'm always on my own.  I hate conflict every bit as deeply as he does, and i get physically sick from it, and terrified and spirally.  Whenever Nikki gets into a conflict situation, I always have his back and am right there as his first line of defense if it's an untrue or misunderstood issue, or give him space to work with this information if Nikki is in the wrong.  I've never left him alone on the hook, and he's been clear he never wants me to.  And I never really consciously realized it, I couldn't figure out what was wrong in our marriage prior to this coming out, and why the increased closeness and working things out wasn't <b>fixing</b> me in the thought it would.  And why I was so hung up on him throwing me under the bus in our talk with L on an issue i"d worked really hard to correct before any of this came out and was making a lot of strides, and when I explained my problem with Nikki saying now, she basically put it on me that i ask for to much.  So that amkes sense, whenever I ask something from Nikki, he says no.  EVERY single time.  And then does it.  Now, I have no gauge when no MEANS no.  Nikki got angry with me if I accepted no and tried to do it myself or went to do something else if I was asking him to do an activity with me, and he got angry with me if didn't accept no because i literally can't tell anymore.  When L asked what other issues were being worked on, and I brought that up, she brought up I ask him to do many things for me and that I was blaming him somehow when I as trying to express that I am literally confused about what NO means based on his behaviors.  And I said I don't think that was what was going on but I"d work on it, and he literally said nothing until she asked the next qustion, and I let it go because that's what I always do.   But the more I was doing for myself, the less I was feeling in a marriage because I was still on my own when it was hard and not being taken care of in a physical sense to substitute for it.  I know, substitution is never a healthy thing in something like this.  Nikki has been working really hard on that because h'es realizing I've lost my guage and I don't take it in a flirty way, and has been cosciously stopping that.  That helps tremendously with that problem.
    It took a bit to gestalt, but I'm substituting the emotional feelings of 'he cares' when he does something for me to cover the realization that I'm on my own when things aren't pleasant and happy.  And how much I really hate knowing that.  When I asked him about not mentioning to L that I had realized that on my own and worked to get it under control, was he misleading me that I had have great success?  He replied no, he was just uncomfortable with arguing with her.  If he can't say to one of his bets freinds "She's worked really hard on that, it's not part of my thinking it's cute to say no every time she asks for something and confusing her and not hearing that she doesn't find it cute" how can I ever expect him to have my back with my ongoing issues wtih my parents, or in a new social setting like bars and nightclubs while he's dressed? 
    This forum has been beautiful, but some weren't.  Some were really clear to me that I"m just collateral damage or baggage, or that I'm now allowed to have needs or am shallow for thinking that bodies matter and if I love/find him sexually attractive as a male I should automatically be able to do so as a female.   I can choose to pick a forum where I can connect with people emotionally and learn from that interaction in a positive way.  But in a face to face situation I don't really know how to not just want to cry and feel ashamed of being me.  And Nikki honestly admitted I would be on my own.  I don't know what to DO with all this.  He said he'll try to work on it like I have with his new needs, but it's all so confusing.  It tangles up in my head with how does someone value you if they are only really there when it's easy or when the difficulty is on their side and they need you? 
    This is a godawful time to come to this realization too.   Nikki will be home soon and wants to talk about this and I don't even know how to verbalize any of this.  That's why I wrote it down, maybe he'll just agree to read it and then ask me questions so that I can get some sort of internal sense of direction and what I actually WANT to make this better.  I don't even know what is realistic and fair to ask for.
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