Being drug free and bipolar

Today marks 14 days off my medication. I've noticed several changes:

First, I've dropped a shocking eight pounds in two weeks. Most of that was probably due to water retention from the excessive amounts of food I was eating because of the med's effect on my appetite. However, my eating disorder says hello and wants to let you know that this piece of information is very important to him. My urges to binge are almost completely gone. My appetite is back to normal, I have not restricted, ED is pouting. I did have one binge, but it was not from medication-induced excessive appetite. Unfortunately someone I'm close to was in a motorboating accident this weekend. Though he escaped with minor injuries, the accident was very bad and could have been tragic. I completely freaked. But I know the med was not why I binged. He's well, and I'm calm again.

I've tried supplements to keep my mood lifted and stable. That's all good except that when my mood drops, it's bad. Really, really bad. Thoughts of wanting to end it all flitted in and out of my brain. I've been able to beat them down instantly, but this was still too scary. 

It's a lifeblood-sucking low that reminds me of the dementors in Harry Potter. I sank to this low during four days of the last 12. My therapist was right: it is very hard to be bipolar and not be medicated. But that's what you get when you get rid of an eating disorder. I'm finally feeling my emotions because I don't numb them out with food anymore. The depressive spell was scary. It made me admit that I do need the medication.

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to the psychiatrist we go...

It's been hard to digest all of the side effects I had on the meds so I made this table for my psychiatrist.

click to make it big enough to read

The meds highlighted in yellow I discontinued because of the weight gain. In light of this we decided to try me back on wellbutrin at the dose where I was stable for over a year. It was only when I started on the double dose that I got a rash. The rash was just dose-sensitive and I am only slightly itchy. It's nothing Claritin can't handle. It hasn't ever turned to anaphylaxis (trouble breathing, hives all over, you know, the kind of allergy people get from peanuts) so my doc thinks this is the best choice for me right now. Unfortunately it's still not enough, my mood is still depressed -- but I don't have fleeting thoughts about wanting to die anymore.

As for my weight, ED and I may be making peace soon. I trust my body on Wellbutrin. My weight was extremely stable while I was on it -- I only wavered 1/2 pound up and down during a three-month monitoring period. I think I can sit back and just eat my damn food and I know that my body will find its place. While I didn't know it the first time I was on this med, I can see now that I looked pretty dang hot at my stable wellbutrin weight.

There's another word for hotness in my book: recovery. I'm finally able to appreciate my body. All of the weight I've gained has made me re-evaluate and appreciate what I had. It may not be the weight ED wants me to be, but I was stable and I wasn't letting food rule my life.

I'm feeling hopeful. Then again, I'm bipolar, so we'll see how long that lasts!

I found the source of my hunger!

It's the med. I have no doubts.

Yesterday I was even hungrier than I was over the weekend. By 11 am I'd consumed a bagel with cream cheese, two lattes, two mini pieces of chocolate, a handful of dates and an Italian wrap sandwich and I felt like I hadn't eaten enough. It was absurd. I called my psychiatrist and he told me to stop taking the medication.

In some ways I'm crushed. This was the ninth medication we've tried me on for depression / bipolar disorder. It actually worked and was one of the few that did. But at the same time, it has been wonderful to wake up today, eat a single slice of cold pizza for breakfast, and discover that two hours have passed and I am not the least bit hungry.

What now?

My pdoc wants me to wait a few more days to get the medication completely out of my system. From there, do I wait until my weight drops back down before starting the new med? I hopped on the scale this morning and discovered that five additional pounds went on in the last week because of all of the overeating, officially putting me at my highest weight ever. Do I risk going even higher on a new med? Do I tough it out?

I'm leaning towards toughing it out. Giving myself a couple months to get re-acquainted with my hunger-fullness signals will help me better spot any weight and hunger-related problems with the last med. I also plan to only give a medication a 3-4 week trial period. In the past, I've gone as long as nine months before I put my foot down about medication side effects, hoping I could tolerate them.

In the meantime, I will be supplementing my diet with 1200 mg of omega 3 acids in the form of krill oil, and 15 billion colony units of probiotics daily. I will add in acupuncture if necessary. I have found acupuncture to be helpful for the treatment of depression in the past, and looking like a pincushion is pretty funny to me!

There is some evidence in the literature that the high levels of omega 3 acids and probiotics help with depression as well. At the very least none of it will do any harm. I will continue to keep the sugar substitutes out of my diet as they are not helping me understand my fullness signals.

On the plus side, I love my acupuncturist and will be happy to see her again!

No sugar substiutes challenge days 2 and 3

Life always throws curveballs at just the wrong time.

I've  got an eating disorder, which means my emotions rule my eating. If I want to find out whether my med is causing my binges, ideally I need to have a period of very calm, emotionally-stable days.

No such luck!

Yesterday my eating went pretty well. I was shocked how long a normal-sized breakfast of a bagel and cream cheese kept me satisfied. I half ran/half walked the 3k loop around campus at lunch. And then I found out that my project leader is leaving work.

I'm super-sensitive to changes in leadership at work. I've had an abusive boss before and I'm terrified of having to work for another one. Immediately I turned into

And I had visions of getting kicked off of the project, living with an abusive replacement for the next year until she returns (she'll be on temporary assignment), being terrified that we'll be losing her permanently...oh, yeah. Truly ridiculous.

But I took care of myself. I went out to dinner, let myself have a stiff drink, a healthy salad, and a protein-rich entree. I then went and put an hour in on the ice rink. I came home feeling calm and like I handled the situation well. No binge, right?

And then came home and baked my stress away. And of course, woke up at 2 am with a case of the munchies, and proceeded to eat the treats I made. In a reasonable quantity, but still. 2 am. Me. Food. Not good.

Today I've been ravenously hungry. Maybe this is because I put in a double workout yesterday. I didn't do it to punish myself. I love skating, I like running. I needed the stress relief. But today I've been fighting off bingeing since the morning. I had to run a major meeting that lasted six hours today; and in the middle of all of this I realized that I lost my cell phone. I can't find it. Anywhere.

Needless to say, I'm stressed about stuff that I'm blowing way out of proportion. I had a protein-heavy dinner  but I still wanted to eat way beyond being full. I've been eating every two hours. Is it the med? Is it the stress? I vow not to binge, but damn, why can't I stop thinking about food? I haven't had any stevia, and I kept my caffeine intake minimal. I don't know. I need to keep going. I will keep going. And perhaps take another anxiety pill.

Fat and happy, or skinny and depressed?

It's a choice I'm worried I'm going to have to make. Trigger warning for eating disorder behavior and weight discussion.

I've been through 14 different medications since I started treatment back in 2011. Each one has had some major problem: two gave me violent tremors, one I was allergic to, two others made me sleep all the time, one made me drunk, two others put 20 pounds on me in four months....

Did I mention I have an eating disorder?

Six weeks ago I elected to go back on medication for my bipolar disorder. This was because I realized that although I was losing the weight I'd put on from the Seroquel, I was fighting a daily battle against the part of me that thought it was a good idea to jump out my 10th story window. This obviously was not an option. Back on the meds I went.

I was put on something called Saphris. I noticed that in two weeks I gained ten pounds and I was bingeing almost constantly. When I was off the med I was only bingeing once a month. The doctor dropped me down to the pediatric dose. I am down to bingeing once a week but I am eating myself out of house and home the rest of the time. Some of this may be that I skate three times a week and sail once a week. I am very athletic, more so than ever before. But I'm bingeing, still, far too often.

I am in a position now where I need to quickly figure out whether it is the med that is making me continue to binge once a week. The med works brilliantly and I desperately do not want to quit it. But I still don't know what's going on with the eating disorder. I have an idea though.

I think this stuff is to blame.

You see, I've never been able to shake the artificial / sugar replacers from my diet. It's part of the eating disorder that still lingers. Yet when I looked back at the last two weeks I've only binged twice. What happened the night before each of these binges? I had a beverage sweetened with stevia.

So I'm going to do a little challenge for myself. I want to see if it's really the stevia messing up my recovery, or whether it's just the med that's making me binge. So if you'll put up with ten days of posts on my progress, hopefully I'll have an answer about whether I have to choose between a med that makes me binge, or whether I can finally be happy and not have to worry about out-of-control eating. So that's it. No stevia, no diet sodas, no aspartame, no splenda. Nothing for ten days. Will I notice a change? Today is day 1. Here we go.

Paging Nurse Ratchet

The girl who used to post almost every week suddenly stopped writing, with no warning. So what happened?

My bipolar disorder pushed me to a breaking point, so I spent 5 days on a locked psych ward. Voluntarily. And in some peculiar way it changed my life, for the better.

It's been a while, a lot has happened since then, but I think I'm ready to write, and to respond to the folks out there who have shared your words of strength, support, and affection with me.

Oh, and to get back to writing about uncluttering and de-hoarding. Because my closet is a disaster :o)

Thank you all again for your support. Look for more from me in the coming days!

Where debt and my eating disorder meet

Ever wanted to know what it's like to have a binge? Well, here you go.

*Trigger warning for those with eating disorders.**

from shirt.woot.com

This morning I continued a conversation with the Chief Engineer, one we've been having for a couple weeks now. Do we cancel our trip with my aunt and uncle to Williamsburg or not? Cancelling it will save between $200 and $300.

I absolutely love the foot race that's the reason we go to Williamsburg every year. The race in 2012 was the first time I completed an 8k while still struggling daily with my eating disorder. It was a huge win for me, proving that I can still run even though I'm not thin anymore. Last year it was even more special because I don't have a relationship with most of my family anymore, except for my aunt and uncle, and I got to spend a lot of time with them.

The CE and I informally came to the conclusion that Williamsburg is probably an unnecessary expense right now. It left me seriously depressed the whole morning. My mother is also coming to visit for this mother's day, though I'm still so angry that she refuses to divorce my abusive father that I can barely talk to her anymore.

By 10:00 this morning I was so upset and so unsure of what to do with my feelings. The idea of going to see my aunt and uncle at another time just doesn't seem to live up to the fun we always have in Williamsburg. And besides, ED says that if we we're not going, then I have no reason to stay in shape, right? No reason to eat well, right? Go ahead and binge.

And that's exactly what happened.

First it started with the chocolate in one cabinet. Then the chocolate in another. Then it turned into the ice cream in the freezer. Then to the chips. Then I stopped. I was more or less out of interesting food. At this point I turned to the vending machines, but stopped. I had promised myself that I would skip the vending machines until our debts were paid off. So that's what I did. I can spend $10-$20 on binge foods in a typical binge. I kept eating what was around the house. Telework days are not good for my eating disorder. My "no vending machine" rule also helped.

The Chief Engineer won't be home in time for dinner today which leaves me on my own. There's not too much interesting to eat at home, so hopefully this will help slow down or stop the binge. But I really want tomorrow to just get here and fast, so that I can make peace with not going to Williamsburg and figure out how to motivate myself to run or go to the gym without knowing I have a race to prepare for.

The obvious solution is to call up my uncle and just ask if we can visit a few times this summer. It just doesn't feel the same though. But I don't wanna.

What would you do? Go to Williamsburg because it's good for your mental stability? Or go to your aunt and uncle's place more often?

Why working out at a military gym has been key to my eating disorder recovery

In recent years I felt that going to the gym was a chore. I felt like I never had time for it.  I always had too much to pick up at home, too many errand to runs. Now that I've accomplished most of the decluttering, organizing, and found some balance in my life I feel like I have the time to go to the gym. It's been an unusual experience.

I used to hate my time at the gym because I would push myself incredibly hard, particularly when I was at the depths of my time as an exercise bulimic. I hated feeling like my body was on display. I hated the fact that the women competed with the women, the men competed with the men, and the men hit on the women. When I went to a women's gym it was even worse, because suddenly all I was doing was comparing my own body to others' (possibly also eating-disordered) bodies. Generally making myself miserable.

But this time I've been fortunate to have one huge change in my workout routine that's made the experience much easier on my eating disorder: I go to a military gym. I've never been a member of the armed services but my company works closely with them so we are allowed to use the local military base's facilities. Typically I'm the only woman in the room. But this doesn't bother me. Here's why.

• None of the men oogle. Ever. Why? Because they have no idea whether or not I could be their commanding officer. 
• The women don't try to prove that they have better bodies than you. When I see women they're often in fantastic shape but they're never condescending about it. Why? Because they also don't know if I outrank them. Fat shaming someone at this gym literally could cost someone their commission if they did it to the wrong person. So no one does.
• The guy on the upright bike next to me had his legs blown off by an IED in Afghanistan. It's impossible to go to this gym and not work out around Wounded Warriors who probably have some serious body image issues themselves. They're still there, giving it their best, staying healthy but not using exercise to punish themselves for what went wrong in their lives. I have no reason to complain about my body. Mine may not be perfect but fortunately it still has all its parts and I am damned lucky for that.
• Fitness is many of these people's job but it's not mine. Depending what you do in the military part of your job description may be to stay in fantastic shape. Those people are duty-bound to spend hours each day working to ensure that their bodies are in particular condition. I'm not training for combat. My physical fitness doesn't have to save my life. If I can't bench press my body weight (when I was in high school, I could, believe it or not), or be toned and muscular all over, it's nothing I need to be ashamed of.
• They have a dress code and they take it seriously. No bare midriffs. No cleavage. Keep your shirt on. Cover up your tush. If you want to show it off, go do it somewhere else. What you can do is what matters here, not how you look. Not to mention that a sexual harassment court martial is no one's idea of fun.
• Respect, respect, respect. Just because I can barely do hamstring curls with a five pound weight doesn't mean I'm looked at like I'm weak. Everyone is willing to help out when I have questions about the weight machines. Everyone seems to consider people where they are because you never do know where someone came from. Maybe the guy who can only bench press an empty bar does that because he got badly hurt in Afghanistan. It's not his fault. The point is that we're all there trying to improve ourselves in a healthy way.
  

This gym's environment is a HUGE help to my self-esteem. Moderate exercise for 30 minutes, 3-5 times a week is no longer an exercise in emotional self-harm. I couldn't be more grateful to our armed services for allowing me to use their facilities and return to a normal life.

Recovering from my eating disorder and cleaning out my closet with project 333

The last couple weeks have been filled with breakthroughs in eating and hoarding habits. I pretty much had a nervous breakdown early last week and ended up taking a full two days off work to recover and visit my psychiatrist to figure out what was going on.

I’d been struggling terribly with my eating disorder since completing intensive outpatient treatment, badly enough that I’ve come to see it as a mini-relapse.  It’s okay, I’m back on my feet and actually better than ever. But something I did on those two days off really helped.  I FINALLY did project 333!

I’d gained a lot of weight since starting treatment three years ago. I used to wear a size 4; now I’m a 12. It didn’t happen overnight and because of that I own a LOT of clothes that don’t fit, don’t feel good, and don’t look good. Forcing myself into those too-small clothes was making me miserable and actually triggering my binge/restrict cycle, which was just making me heavier. When I finally figured that out I realized that I absolutely had to put away everything that didn’t fit and everything that I didn’t love.

I got everything out of the closet, out of every drawer. Here it all is on the couch. This doesn’t include outerwear, suits, or workout clothes.

I was surprised, it didn’t look like much. But it totaled:

43 T-shirts

6 Shorts and capris

14 Pairs of dress pants

4 Pairs of jeans

11 Sweaters

28 Work blouses

3 Skirts

That’s a lot of clothes! 109 items, to be exact. I went through everything and left only what I loved and what fit. I didn’t even make it to 33 items. I was shocked! I actually have to buy clothes to complete my 33 items and so that I don’t have to walk around half-naked, since I don’t fit in any of my shorts and many of my shirts anymore.

This is the huge pile of boxes of clothes that I don’t fit into. And one very exhausted me. 

I’m letting myself go out shopping next week to get three pairs of shorts and two shirts. Normally I would make myself wait or get the cheapest thing. But I realize that I’m probably going to be a size 12 for a long time and that I deserve decent clothes, and wearing clothes that make me look or feel bad can send me right back into the middle of my disorder. At least it’s only 5 items.

Next week I’ll update on my final selections and my completed closet!

You're probably wondering, what am I doing with the huge pile of boxes? It’s gone back into the closet. My dietician feels that I’ve probably topped out at my weight and she expects a bit to come off in the next year as I shake the last of my eating disorder and settle into my natural weight. The clothes that don’t fit will go out next May 1^st. Whatever size I am by next May is the size I’m going to be, and no smaller. I know it's an excuse, but it's been an emotionally rough couple weeks and I'm not quite ready to let go of my thin self (and thus, the clothes) completely, just yet. 

Grief and Clutter: You don't need to keep it just because they would've wanted you to

I lied in previous post about only having gotten a TV from Grandmom. The day before she passed away my dad sent me home with some soups from her freezer and her recipe books. Grandmom was a prize-winning cook so I wasn't going to complain. I've made enough peace with my eating disorder that I can bake and cook now without inevitably bingeing.

I finally took those four soups out of my freezer. I heated up the carrot one and tried it -- yuck! Maybe it was that it had been in the freezer since 2009, which I didn't realize until after I'd tried it.  Or maybe I just didn't like the soup. Down the drain it went.

But there were still three more soups left. I heated up another one, potato this time. It was okay. Far too salty for my taste but I ate it anyways. This was a big no-no. As part of my eating disorder treatment I was told not to eat anything I didn't really love. This is to help me get over years of only allowing myself to eat diet versions of food which I couldn't stand, but only ate because they would keep me thin. If I'm only eating what I really want to eat, I won't be eating the awful diet food while craving and then overindulging in the the good stuff that I'm "not allowed" to have. Eating a soup I didn't like was akin to eating diet food again. This was risky and could've set off a binge. I ate it anyways.

Last night I opened up the second container of carrot, vintage 2012, this time -- this one seemed better, but still not great. I had to stop. Why in the world was I going to eat something I couldn't stand?

Oh, right. Because I could hear Grandmom 1.) being insulted about me not liking something she made and 2.) being furious at me for wasting food  3.) reminding me that this was the last dish she would ever cook for me. 

Grandmom is the one in the family who gave me and my father the idea that fat is ugly, lazy, and reprehensible. Grandmom is the one who kept telling my father that he needed to get my normal-sized mother to lose weight. This kept Mom in a pattern of disordered eating for decades, and now that her eating has normalized her hoarding has gotten worse to make up for the loss of the eating-disordered behaviors. Grandmom is the one who would make oinking noises at me at family dinners and then, in the same breath, would turn to my skinny sister and tell her that she needed to eat more.

I dumped the soup down the drain.

My eating disorder voice panicked -- You're wasting food! And Grandmom's gone, you'll never get to have it again!! You have to eat it whether you want to or not!

I grabbed the fourth container and dumped that down the drain.

I kept the handwritten label from the soup and stuck it into my recipe book. Grandmom did teach me to cook and bake and helped me make my own wedding cake, which was a necessity with the Chief Engineer's and my food allergies. The good memories I have of her are, ironically, in the kitchen. The sticker is a reminder that Grandmom was a good cook and she lives on through her recipes, which will never disappear. And the last meal she ever cooked for me? Well, she didn't cook it for me specifically, and she's in the ground now, so it's not like she can actually know what I did with her soups. I have the recipe for both of the soups and I can make more, the way I want, with far less salt.

I'm doing what's right for me, and not doing what she told me. And she can never make oinking noises at me again. Woo hoo!

(The slightly more empty freezer is a plus too.)

That one on the left? I made that,
with instructions from Grandmom. I did learn
something good from her afterall. And tastier than the soup, to boot.

Grief and clutter: Getting rid of an object doesn't mean you're getting rid of the memories

About 2 months ago my second grandmother passed away. I was not attached to her, and in many ways I still blame my eating disorder on her. Her incredibly critical attitude about weight fed into my lack of self-confidence and I went down a very unpleasant path.

The task of cleaning out her condo fell to my parents. Doesn't that sound like a great idea? Give my hoarder parents responsibility for emptying out a 1400-square foot condo loaded with stuff. Grandmom was the organized one in the family. Like, she gave Martha Stewart a run for her money.

Everything had a place and a label...problem was, there was an awful lot of stuff. 

Anyways, my mom called me and asked if I wanted anything. I asked for a TV. My aunt was apparently fighting over who got the TVs (and everything else), so my mom got snippy when I kept saying how much I really wanted the bigger TV of the two. Now, my grandmother is my father's mom, not my mom's mom and yet my mom got feisty and ended up saying, "you know, when someone dies, most people don't just care about getting a TV."

Well, she's right. Except most people's deceased loved ones didn't contribute to their eating disorder. So yeah, I'm in the anger stage of grief. If all grandmom gave me was an eating disorder, the least I could get from her was a single TV in exchange for my misery. It's not true, she did give me more than an eating disorder, we did have some good times, and maybe I'll get past it in a few more therapy sessions.

The Chief Engineer and I have a single TV (we're down from five, originally, all of which were hand-me-downs from family) is 25 years old and is a 28" CRT, box-style TV. I inherited it when Gram died. Gram was my other grandmother and she was sort of a mom/sister/best friend all wrapped into one for me, so I'm overly attached to her stuff because I was attached to her. I've mostly gotten past this, but I'm still a little touchy about the TV.

In the end my Aunt got the bigger TV and apparently most of the contents of the condo (hm, the attachments to stuff run deep in this family).  I didn't get the big TV I wanted but I did get one. It's actually a perfect fit, not too small and not too big so I guess I'm glad I didn't get the bigger one. It arrived last week and we decided to keep only one television in the house. Grandmom's TV would replace Gram's.

But every time I walk into the living room now all I can see is Grandmom, and how she's replaced Gram in what is front-and-center in our living room. *Ohh, irrational thoughts! Danger, Wil Robinson!*

Just because we get rid of an object someone had doesn't mean that we're getting rid of them, or our memories of them, or our feelings for them.

Now when I see the TV and have bad memories of Grandmom, I try to either think of good memories of Gram, or to sit down and enjoy watching Star Trek on the TV. It's hard to be angry when I'm watching Connor Trinneer being gorgeous and generally brilliant on-screen, now that I have a TV screen clear enough even to see the color of his eyes! (Amazingly blue, btw.) I did get something good from Grandmom after all, and I still have all the good memories of our time together too, even with the bad.

How can I be angry at anything when I'm watching Commander Tucker being cuddly?
What can I say, I have a thing for engineers.

I also had the opportunity to let Gram continue to help the needy. We dropped her TV off at A Wider Circle, a DC-area charity that takes furniture and uses it to furnish first apartments for homeless families. So Gram, I'm glad we were able to give a homeless family part of a cozy living room. You're gone, but we're still making memories. I don't need to keep your TV to keep my memories of you.

On the plus side, I no longer have the affluenza-influenced desire for a brand new TV and I get to hold on to my own personal record of never having purchased a TV for myself.

Gram's TV, upside down on our ottoman. Now in the home of a formerly homeless family, and we stay object-neutral with just one TV in the house. Everybody wins.

That was my conflicted mother's day. If that's how complicated things are with my grandmothers, you should see how my brain works when it thinks about my mom and my MIL.

How was your mother's day?

urge to splurge

Have you figured out why you shop? I shop when I'm feeling great, to heighten the awesomeness I'm feeling. I shop when I'm feeling sad, to cheer myself up. Today, I felt fat. Fat apparently isn't a feeling, or so my therapist says. Translation? I felt incompetent. I felt ugly. I wasn't willing to let myself binge to make myself feel better (go me!) but all day I had a building desire to go to Ann Taylor. I needed to go. I was going to go crazy if I didn't.

On Thursday nights I take a class downtown. (In)conveniently, Union Station happens to be a fine place for me to hop off the train and walk to class. But this is America, so it's not just a train station...

 

It's also a mall. 

 With laser-beam focus I hustle my way up to the Ann Taylor on the second floor, with visions of 4" heels floating in my head....

Wait, WHAT?!? Closed?

 *Gasp.* Panic. How can Ann Taylor <3 DC if it's under renovation? How dare they!

My plan was foiled. But the desire to acquire is still strong with this one. So I turned around and sulked my way down the hallway. Until I found this.

No, it's not a dentist's office in a mall, though I've heard they do that. It was eyebrow threading. I have big, dark eyebrows that would make Sesame Street's Bert jealous. I hadn't had mine done in ages and these were only $12. I had been trying to save money by not getting my eyebrows done but I think I was just making myself feel worse about my personal care. But this was half the price of what I usually pay. *This* was something that would make me feel better!

Ten minutes later I felt much better, much more put-together and presentable. And my desperate need to go buy something? Well, the desire was still there. But it wasn't screaming at me anymore. I headed outside and enjoyed a relaxing walk across the National Mall to class.

Just another walk to night school. I love this town.

I feel like I won in every way possible. I gave ED a kick in the rear end, I don't have a $100 charge for shoes on my credit card, and I don't have yet another pair of shoes I don't need cluttering up my closet. Hoarding habits AND ED beaten with just a $12 eyebrow job. Taking care of myself has so many rewards.

My mom always put my sister and me first. Always. And while that sounds like a good thing, I realize now how bad it was because it meant that she never took care of herself. You can fight hoarding with meds. You can fight hoarding with therapy. Or you can fight hoarding by taking care of yourself.

Please take care of yourself, mom.

(last) Friday's Fashion Fallout: oh, but they feel so good!

Okay, just the fabric feels good.

Sorry for the delay folks, work has gone crazy this week *and* the hubs is out of town so I'm stuck doing my own dishes <whine>. Free time is not as abundant as it was.

Last Friday morning I realized that a piece of clothing can feel good...while feeling absolutely awful at the same time. Here's the little conversation I had with my jeans at 6:30 AM last Friday:

Jeans: ooh, it's Friday. Wear me, wear me!
Me: Okay, I think you're too short...
ED: You're too fat for them...
Me: Oh hell, let me just try them on.
(puts jeans on and successfully buttons them with minimal agony)
Me: See? The fabric feels great.
ED: They make you look fat.
Me: ED, fat is not a feeling.
Jeans: Keep us! Keep us! Feed me, Seymour!
Me: I have to go to work...no time to talk to inanimate objects!
Jeans: Before you go...did you realize we display your beautiful ankles when you walk so everyone can see them? And your belly button too? And make you look like you took up a side job in plumbing when you bend down?
Me: uh.....okay, these don't feel so good after all. I think I've found my weekly item to discard.

Lesson learned: there are lots of things that we judge a piece of clothing on when we play the keep/toss game. If it doesn't pass every test (fabric, fit, length, height, tightness, whether it talks to you....) then it probably needs to go. The space in the closet is worth it.

I'm now down to my goal number of jeans: just three! One junky pair for painting/camping/etc, one really good pair for work and a spare for when the others are in the wash. 

Item 133: Jeans that never really felt good. Money wasted: $25.

Total money wasted on stuff this year: $1437.00.