Pooping Uphill

This morning as I was driving into class I saw a Golden Retreiver squating on a relatively steep, albeit small, hill next to the sidewalk, with just about all of his weight on his front paws, and trying to go potty, you know, uphill. He looked like he was about to do a handstand.

I hope it all came out okay.

My weight is down to 175.8. But I have good news about this. I met with a case manager today and although I have now discussed the food issue with several professionals in my program, the woman I met with today reminded me that my new anti-anxiety medication that I was put on when I started the program 2 weeks ago causes weight loss! I was so relieved! So it is not all just me! The doctor told me that when she perscribed it but I completely forgot with everything going on. It is probably not all the medication given how rapid it has been, but Theresa (the psychologist I chose to cry all over today) told me is supresses appetite, so WHEWHOO! It is not all totally in my head and that is a relief. It was causing me some additional worry and I really dont need that right now.

Today I ate some crostini (kind of like a big crouton) with some apricot and almond goat cheese, which was really good. I got that from the grocery outlet and I definetly need some more of it! I also had a whole greek yogurt (well, I didn't eat the fruit on the bottom.) And I made some pumpkin raviloi with salt. So in total, I probably got almost 500 calories in me, which is more than I have been able to eat in awhile. I didn't even cook a whole serving of the ravioli and I couldn't finish it, but I am going to try again in awhile when my stomache settles down. I get really bad stomache aches when I eat now, which may be from my body not being used to eating, but two psychologists I've talked to have both told me they think it's from the anxiety.

So, Saturday I shot that wedding. I would describe it as horrible. The ceremony, which is something I hadn't even really thought about, particularly the vows were really personal, and people cried. The groom's sister sang Norah Jones' "Come Away With Me" and she can actually sing. I had to turn away and try to think about something else and basically imagined driving pencils into my eardrums so I wouldn't have to hear it. I loved that song. It made me think of him while we were together and I don't want to hear it right now.

From the couple's perspective, they didn't know the difference and everything went fine and they had no idea, which is the ultimate goal. From my end, I probably took half as many pictures as I usually do, family pictures took 50% longer and I forgot to take pictures of the bride and groom alone before it got dark. I have no idea why. I didn't feel like I was shooting any less, and the groom's family is large, but I am used to wrangling large groups. I don't know. Bottom line, the couple will never know the difference, only I will.

Yesterday and today were really bad. Particularly yesterday. Like I told my dad... it's like you got run over by a truck... after you wake up, the first thing you ask is, "What just happened?" Which is what I have been mumbling for the last couple of weeks. (That and "Huh?" ) Yesterday I started thinking... "...Did I just get run over by a truck?"

I had a panic attack talking to my dad on the phone on Friday night. He said a particular word, and it made me react but I controlled it... and then he said it again and I triggered. I started panting and raised my voice and told him I couldn't hear that because it put me back "in that house" and I couldn't do that. And he was like, "What house? What are you talking about?" And I was all, "WHAT DO YOU THINK I'M TALKING ABOUT?!" It made me SO mad (after the fact), I mean come on, this is the ONLY thing going on in my life right now that I am dealing with. What else would I be referencing? But, I was hysterical, and I am completely hypersensitive and I know that. I ended up hanging up the phone and it was a good 15-20 minutes before I could calm myself down. I couldn't stop crying, I couldn't breathe, I felt like I was dying. At one point I caught myself slightly rocking. That freaked me out. That's what crazy people on tv do. It was awful.

So I asked to see a case manager Monday and I ended up getting held after the program for about an hour crying in this womans office. She told me we needed to assess if my needs were being met in IOP and if I needed a higher level of care and she talked to me about going to a voluntary in-patient facility for awhile. ...That really scared me and I told her I was too scared to do that.

So today I saw another case manager (Theresa) and she commented while I was bawling my eyes out in her office that she had noticed how distressed I had looked the day before and that, basically, I looked like I had been run over by a truck and based on how I held my body and how shallow my breaths were that it looked like I was on the verge of a panic attack and ready to run just about all day long. She also told me that I am greiving and that this is a loss and that this is ok. This is what I am supposed to be doing. Nobody has really said that before. No one had mentioned the 5 stages of grief to me until yesterday and that was mentioned to me by a friend! Then Theresa mentioned it again today and another therapist approached me after class and said the same thing. Theresa reccomended that I read some books on loss and losing a spouse. That that is how this feels. But that this is almost worse, because, when a spouse dies, they aren't rejecting you. They didn't deceive you. You can just love them and miss them and its simple in that respect. This is more complicated. But she said the first step in this is greiving him and the relationship and the loss of our future and our plans together.

And that is how I have felt. And people jumping at me with "You should be angry!" and Why do I still have pictures of him and ordering me to remove them (literally, I've receiving emails and IM's in caps saying that), so many people have told me what a horrible person he is and have listed every negative adjective in the book to describe him. But the man that *I* knew never hurt me. He loved me and cared about me. That's it. And... he went away. Or he died. And all I really want is for him to come home. And I need to figure that out first before anything else. It's been haunting me all day.. He's not coming home. I always thought he would come home to me. And he isn't going to. He isn't coming home.