Stop Watering the Fake Plastic Trees

I moved back home to North Dakota. I'm 38, living with my parents in their basement, and went back to my former job that I loved. I came home without my husband. I'm happier than ever. Purging the stress of my life has been incredibly healing for me. It's not curing me of my diseases, but my ability to live with disease is improving immensely. 

The phoenix of the Northern Lights directly over my house! I have never seen it with my own eyes until now, and I'm treating it as a sign that I can finally see my life clearly.

My priority in life is building peace, meaning reducing stress.

What motivates you to carry on in life? In my experience, people tend to answer status, wealth, skills, education, building an empire, or anything that gives people pride and a sense of accomplishment. These things are not my primary motivators in life. I'm not saying they're not important and that they don't motivate me at all, but I have learned that I don't wake up daily with motivation to keep advancing in these areas until I have my other basic need met. My basic need is peace in my personal life. What motivates me above all else is building a life of peace.

What peace means to me is having a consistent, stable, secure relationship with my loved ones. Peace means putting energy into building meaningful connections with people I love and care for and having it reciprocated. It also means not living with daily stress over things I have to accomplish, but instead flip it around so that the daily things I have to accomplish come from love and joy. I want my peace to come from a healthy marriage, because I'm built for marriage. I'm highly motivated to do work, chores, or tasks, or whatever for those I love. When it's for love, it's not stressful, it's purposeful. I'm quick to give my time, energy, and money for those I love. Because this is my nature, I need to be very careful about only choosing to love those who love me back without draining me. My perception of my marriage was that it was based on managing stress and avoiding conflict, not about building peace together. I did my part of the daily work to keep the peace, not out of love and joy. I need to build peace through deep connection without resistance, meeting each other's needs, and creating joy with each other. That's why living with my parents is working out brilliantly for me now. I love my parents, they love me, they are always consistent, and I feel very at peace here with them. Peace gives me security, and peace and security together are the foundation of what I need to be happy. Being happy because I have peace and security means I feel open and available to pursue my other goals in life without stress. I'm not unusual, especially for women, but I'm spelling it out like this because I think it needs to be said so plainly. So many people like me are trapped by looking for satisfaction through their work and status, not by looking for peace and security by loving relationships. My satisfaction in my work means nothing to me if I don't have peace at home with those I love.

My relationships have been in poor health for years due to my high stress level and lack of peace. My stress level was so high because my basic needs were not being met, and all the stress caused me to freeze up while waiting for my needs to be met. Years went by in which I felt frozen, in waiting, starving for love and connection, but feeling trapped and unable to build love and connection. My relationships with my friends and family all suffered because I felt too frozen up and unable to act. I also acted very defensive, dismissive, uncaring, rude, and distant because of it. My stress was so high that I couldn't give any of myself to anyone. I didn't like who I was or how I was acting, and I knew the stress was ruining me. I needed to end the stress and find peace again so that I could start to love again. I had to move home and live with my parents to end the stress. And over the past few months I've felt myself enjoying the company of people again. I've been able to be patient with people again, instead of defensive and dismissive. I really need peace in the foundation of my life, and I really needed to free myself from people and situations that drain my peace and caused me stress. 

It's not just unresolved relationship stress that destroys my peace. I've been learning how everything artificial degrades my peace. I've known for years to avoid artificial fabrics in my clothes and artificial ingredients in my food, because they make me feel sick. I'm finding it's also the same with artificial relationships, artificial information, artificial intelligence, artificial art, and so on. All the fake information, half-truths, synthetic images and videos, and misguided propaganda on social media and news media is enough to make me sick. The trouble is, it's making everyone around me sick too, and it's poisoning my relationships with real people. It's difficult to hold conversations with people when they think they are educated because of everything they absorb from social media, but aren't interested in hearing other information or points of view. I really value the scientific process and critical thinking skills so we can find the truth on any matter. I want to live in truth. I really enjoy speculation, theory, and creative fictions when they're properly labeled as such. What I can't stand, however, are lies that are told as if they are the truth. Living in these times that are dominated by lies makes it difficult to safeguard my peace, but I can do it as long as I live an honest life at home with my loved ones. (I'm not leaving social media, because there's still so much good it does, but I learned to stop engaging with lies. I unfollow, and move on. I love to learn about the local community through facebook. I enjoy following my friends. I like to learn from trusted people. I like the private support groups. There is a lot of good on social media, but it's getting overrun with a lot of artificial and misinformation.)

So instead of wasting time scrolling through all the deception and energy-draining propaganda on TV and social media, I'm choosing to use my personal time on playing single-player video games, reading books, drawing, listening to music, stretching, going for walks, doing chores that keep my space organized and clean, cooking new things, reading scientific articles (I love National Geographic), and so on. I'm trying to choose peace over anything that amplifies my stress. I'm choosing activities that require focus, not contribute to my brain rot. I'm choosing to spend time with people who can hold a conversation without distraction or looking at their phones, talk honestly and from their hearts, and also want connection instead of just to use me. 

I need PEACE. I don't need to live a life constantly on-guard against lies, manipulation, expectations that don't align with me, and indulging in junk entertainment and junk food. 

So all that said... 

Did I make the right choice to leave my stressful life behind so that I could work on my peace? Is it helping me manage my health issues? Is my health improving at all?

I wrote in my last post that yes, I'm seeing improvement in some areas with my health. I'm not profoundly better, but I'm not crashing as hard when I spend energy. I'm working harder at work than I have in years, and I do come home and have a crash, but they're not as serious as they used to be. I'm able to find the strength to get up and prepare a meal for myself and eat. My heart rate is still jumping up really high when I get up too fast, I'm still experiencing vertigo very easily, I'm still sweating like crazy at random times, my finger tips still go numb randomly, I'm still having adrenaline attacks at night that wake me up violently, and so on. I did really well for a couple of months when I first moved back here, but I think that was my body letting down and relaxing. Now that I'm working again and trying to keep up more of a routine, I'm having more symptoms. But I can see that I'm a lot more resilient because I'm not spending energy I don't have on stress or people. 

Another factor is that my anxiety is gone. I'm calm. I'm not worried about anything. I'm rational, focused on each moment, and not drowning in thoughts. I'm feeling a lot more creative, curious, patient, and interested. I'm not on the defense anymore. I'm not trying to always prove myself. I'm just me, in this moment, calm and collected. 

Something that concerns me very much, however, is the intense gut pain I keep having in the same area. Sometimes it's the pain of lasers cutting through me, sometimes it's sharp razor blades, and sometimes it's a giant sword through my entire gut. I don't know if it's endometriosis, actual gut problems, scar tissue, or something else. It's been intense enough and frequent enough to make me consider seeing a specialist. We'll see. My new Medicare plan begins in January. 


On another note, I found a tea mug that I really love! As you might know, I drink tea all day long.
Amazon.com: DOPUDO Glass Tea Cup with Infuser and Lid, 17.6oz/520ml Large Borosilicate Teacup,Tea Glass, Clear Mug for Loose Leaf Tea, Blooming Tea, Microwave & Dishwasher Safe - Tea Maker Gift for Birthday : Home & Kitchen

I've been trying to avoid using metal in my loose leaf tea, because metal can deactivate some herbal properties. My acupuncturist taught me that, thankfully. I got a little frustrated with the Rishi paper bags for tea, so this pure glass solution is solving all of my tea problems. 

(All ingredients listed below are organic and from Frontier Co-op unless otherwise stated. I buy them from my work place, where we have a huge wall of bulk herbs that I can buy by the weight. So I usually buy $2 or less of each at a time. I don't use exact measurements either, usually just a large pinch of each.)

My favorite winter-time tea has been: 

Cut and sifted ginger

Cloves

Ceylon Cinnamon

Mt. Capra Mineral Whey Powder (I add this to the mug, not the strainer)

  

And my favorite evening-time tea has been:

Blue lotus flower (Anima Mundi brand)

Butterfly Pea Flower

Lemon balm

Damiana 
Mt. Capra Mineral Whey Powder (I add this to the mug, not the strainer)

But right now I need some caffeine and I'm cold, so I made:

Indian green tea

Cut and sifted ginger

Cloves

Coconut flakes

Redmond Real Salt 

Rhodes - Be The Bird

'Cause you can fly

Be the bird

 Fly away

 See the world

 You'll be the news everybody heard

You'll never lose anything you've learnt

 Just promise me you'll keep going

 Just keep going and I'll keep telling you you're flying

(Radiohead Cover) Gin Blossoms - Fake Plastic Trees

Her green plastic watering can

For her fake Chinese rubber plant

In the fake plastic earth

That she bought from a rubber man

In a town full of rubber plans

To get rid of itself

It wears her out

Resurrection / A New Hope

Hello blog!! Yes, I moved. Yes, I have written about it. No, I have not published what I have written. That's not what I want to write about here. I'm not ready to go public about the moving experience yet. 

I moved back to North Dakota 2 months ago. It wasn't possible to stay in SC because that entire situation fell apart. Although there were a few reasons why I chose to return to ND, one of the primary reasons was because I needed to know if I could reclaim my health if I let go of all stress in my life. I came here alone, meaning without my husband, and I'm living in my parent's basement. I'm being taken care of, I don't have the same level of financial stress, I removed myself from the grip of other people's tensions, and I now have the ability to be completely at peace with no intrusions on my peace. I really need to know if I can recover some of my strength in this situation. 

After 3 days of Dad driving the Uhaul, we finally saw Bismarck in the evening. 

So far, it's been an interesting experiment. I have had to do a lot of physical work, but I also don't know if that will ever actually change (or should change.) I had to unpack and build furniture, which took me a while. I'm also helping Dad with some projects. We needed to build a shed, and our backyard isn't flat, so it was certainly a project. I helped with what I was capable of helping with. We drove to Idaho and back to visit my family there. (Yep, within a month, Dad and I drove from SC to ND, then ND to Idaho. So, just a little less than coast-to-coast!) I've stayed really busy. And today I went into my old work place (Terry's!!!) and offered to go back to work, and now I start next Tuesday! Hurray!

Visiting a former job in Boise, ID last month

So keeping in mind that I'm staying busy and active (as much as possible with having ME/CFS and POTS), here are some positive observations:

- I was amazed at how much easier it has been to sleep since coming here, mostly. I've had a few nights of waking up from jolts of adrenaline. A few nights of feeling restless for hours before falling asleep. A few mornings of waking up with a racing heart. A few nights of insomnia. But overall, my sleep has seriously improved. 

- My mind is CLEAR. The anxiety is gone. The depression is gone. The sense of dread is gone. The vibrations of fear that ruled my body are gone. My mind isn't suffocating from too many thoughts racing anymore. Whatever is right in front of me is what gets my attention, and I can focus on it. 

- I'm actually starting to dream about my future, and it's enjoyable and coming to me naturally! 

- I've held my last chiropractic adjustment longer than I expected, considering how crazy everything in my life was. Moving half way across the country, mourning the loss of my birds that I had to rehome, all the physical labor, you get the idea. My last chiropractor was aggressive, but she fixed issues that were probably from my childhood. I do not generally hold adjustments well or for long, but my body is acting more resilient now. That said, yesterday I finally felt sharp pain in my neck that gave me a nasty headache, but there may be more to that.

- I have had a few crashes. In the last 2 months I've had 4 days where I couldn't do anything at all. Many days where I could only work for a couple of hours, but the day wasn't a total waste. That's really not bad for me! That means I've been spending more energy and crashing less often. I have a feeling it's because my mental stress is gone. I'm not wasting energy on the stress of other people. My brain is just calm, clear, happy, and regulating ONLY my own personal energy. And I know this is true because I've had a few instances where I immediately get worse, drained, zoned out, and feeling the old hopeless void when I've had to talk to certain people. 

- My immune system actually seems to be working a little faster. I caught a bug in Idaho and my symptoms developed quickly, and I stayed sick for almost 2 weeks. That's actually a sign my immune system is trying to do its job! I also ate something I was allergic to, and I got hives within an hour, not the next day. Very good!

Ok, but I've also been experiencing classic issues of mine that are not getting any better:

- No temperature regulation! I'm freezing then sweating then freezing then sweating... it's annoying...

- Raynaud's!! My body was red from heat while my fingers were totally numb for a few minutes. 

- My gut caused major neck and shoulder tension that made my teeth feel extra tight. I had to wait a few days for my gut issue to calm down, and all my pain subsided and the tension released. 

- I almost fainted on the toilet last night. I couldn't tolerate being upright. My heart was going to beat out of my mouth and I couldn't catch my breath. I needed to be laying down, but nature called...

- The nerve pain in my heel has been raging again. I'm sure I'm eating too much b6 because I increased how many nuts I'm eating. The solution is to cut back on b6 rich foods again, but the fiber from the nuts is really helping. There's always a problem with every food, it's annoying. 

- The bloating from Endometriosis has been way too severe. Worse than normal. I'm tempted to buy maternity clothes... sigh...

- The sharp razor blade pains in my pelvis has been bothering me more than normal every day. I cannot do certain stretches without feeling intense stabbing pain next to my hip bone. 

So overall, I think this is a lesson that stress levels were making my symptoms worse. The RELIEF I feel has been so healing! I had to start my life over, I had to go through hell to do this. I'll write about that at some point, but I'm enjoying these good feelings too much to revisit that trauma. I do think I'll be able to live a little more than I was before. I think one of the most important decisions I could have made was to choose my own path, alone, and distance myself from that which was heavily draining my energy daily. I was in survival mode for so many years, and it stopped working. I stopped surviving. I had to save my life. I couldn't continue living that life. I had to come home and start over. Going from feeling suicidal for years and only feeling a void in life, to feeling peace and hope and joy... just by leaving a situation that wasn't meant for me. It's incredible.  

It's also just the little things... All of my time belongs to me. I don't have to live by a complicated routine anymore. I choose when to make dinner, how to cook, how to manage my chores, how to keep my space, when to rest and when to move, when to sleep, when to listen to music, when to listen to myself.... My energy belongs to me again. And I'm so looking forward to working again with this renewed vigor (I love my job!) 

Eivor - Let It Come

This Is The End of This Chapter In My Life: I Must Move Again

Nearly 500 layoffs pending as Limestone University on brink of shutdown

Earlier this week I wrote a post about how uncertain my future is. The very next day my husband lost his job because the university he teaches at will be closing. We thought maybe a department or two would close. No, the entire university is closing. They announced this with a sliver of hope, saying if they raise $6 million by Tuesday they can save it. They said may be able to continue as an online-only school. They said this, but they also sent an email terminating all employees and another to help students transfer to other universities. 

This is not surprising because the school was in bad condition, and we had too many signs that it was failing. We were starting to believe that he might get to work there one more year, however, because this announcement is coming at the end of the school year, after all the student transfer deadlines. The jobs at other universities have already been filled for next year. It's too late for anyone to plan. The university claimed they made the announcement this late because they were hopeful that a significant donation was coming to them, but the donation fell through and they will not receive it. That's fine, but they should have been transparent. They should have been giving the state of the university throughout the whole year. They were dead silent. In fact, they even hired a professor a few months ago, who moved here and bought a house that she won't get to live in now. It's unconscionable, disrespectful, and morally corrupt of them to treat all their faculty, staff, and students this way. 

This means that my husband is scrambling to find a job. He has been applying for new jobs all year long, and even had interviews that were very promising. The trouble is that universities across the nation are closing in very high numbers, so the amount of professors and graduates applying for the same jobs is staggering. He's competing against 200+ applicants for any low-paying job that pops up. Higher education is falling apart rapidly. Between the demographic cliff (too few 18 year olds because our birth rate has plummeted), the extreme high cost of education, and very low salaries... higher education isn't an attractive option anymore. It's actually a very risky option, because there is no guarantee that a degree will help anyone earn enough money to pay off the cost of the degree and keep a roof over their head at the same time.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/the-decline-of-the-college-educated-american-man/ar-AA1yUqcI?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=ad27872cfce64626892ef3954d422e2a&ei=31

So this leaves me in quite the dilemma: Should I stay or should I go?

My husband has a couple of job opportunities he could take, but they don't pay well enough to support us both. They both require moving to cities nearby where rent is quite a bit more expensive. My disability and part-time job income will not help enough. He has his doctorate, he qualifies for jobs that require it, but they don't pay enough to cover basic living expenses. If I join him wherever he goes, I think we'll have to rent a very small and cheap apartment that won't allow my pet birds or even have room to keep half of what we own. There are many problems with a cheap apartment for my health: I can't use shared laundry machines, the smell of other people's fragrances will drift into the apartment and make me sick, I would have to live in noise-canceling headphones, they tend to be moldy and don't get proper repairs, and so on... am I entitled? I don't know, but I do know that my health can't handle it. 

I also have the option of separating from him by moving back in with my parents in their home that is safe for me. Financially, we'd both be better off. If I do this, will I ever see him again? I'll be moving 1,600 miles away. What are the odds of him landing a job that can pay the bills any time soon? You might be thinking about how he should change careers and figure this out. It's not that simple: couples can't survive anymore unless they're both making a decent salary and living frugally, and my income is less than half of his. He doesn't - didn't - make a low salary, and most career changes would not help him earn more money. He might have an easier time finding a job in a different career making the same amount of money, but he is paying for a doctorate in this career field. 

My God... where is the humanity? What happened to our nation? This is a nightmare. 

Happy Easter, everyone. Easter is the ultimate message of hope. Easter is the reminder of why we're living. Easter is the reason to keep fighting and moving forward in this screwed up society that doesn't value human lives. Easter is the meaning of life. 


I think this song is relevant... yes, it's about dating, but isn't job hunting dating too? I view it like jobs are looking for the perfect workers and looking for perfect people to apply. They expect people who are not humans to fulfil their insane and inhumane demands. How bad do they want employees? And will any employer pay enough to live off of, but also hire someone less than perfect? 

You can't convince me that the USA isn't heading towards a major depression if we can't solve this. Wages MUST go up and rent MUST come down. If not, we're all going to be homeless soon. How bad does this country want us to be successful? 

As for me, myself, and I... well... I'm lucky to have family who loves me and can help me. I'm lucky to have as much health as I do have, considering I was completely bed ridden at one point in my life. I just want to surround myself with people who can still find the beauty in being alive so we can somehow survive this nightmare. If it's societal collapse, I just want to be with people who love me. If it's the apocalypse, then all I can say is that it's about time. Good riddance. We've trashed this planet, we've trashed society, we've trashed the ability to have a future... I will do my part to try to save this planet and be able to have a future, but if it all collapses, so be it. I'm exhausted. I want to live a life in which it's actually possible to be in love, raise children, and be part of a healthy and functional society. But as it is right now, there's no time or room left for building a loving relationship. Every moment of our lives is pure stress about how to financially survive. 

Stress has kept me from writing

I'm here for a quick update. I realized that the last post I made was about having Covid for the first time, then nothing since. The short answer is that I'm not any worse from Covid, but it took me over a month to get back to my level of normal. It's possible it did mess me up a little, but it's a little difficult to know at this time because stress is my main issue at this point. Since then I have been having stronger allergy symptoms and I got RSV. RSV lasted about month too... I've been sick a lot more often since moving here...

My stress level is so high every day due to issues I can't talk about publicly. It's caused me to fortify myself inside my head. When I do start to talk about it I hear myself getting fearful, negative, and pessimistic quickly. I don't have the energy after work, chores, living in fear and stress, and my husband to come here to write about all the things I want to write about. I think I can't blog until I'm out of this situation and feeling safe and secure again. 

I can explain a little, I'll explain the parts that are public knowledge:

Almost 2 years ago my husband accepted a job in SC, 1600 miles away from "home" (if North Dakota is home now), where our families live. He took the job thinking it was going to finally offer stability, security, and happiness. They offered him the job, knowing how far we had to move to accept it. The short story is that the university that hired him is in a severe financial crisis, and there have been many warnings that he may not have a job next year. They have already cut positions and the salary of all faculty at the university. There have been 4 university presidents in the past 2 years.

We're renting a house that's probably the best (possibility only) deal we will find in the area, and it has mold damage. You may know that part of my story is mold toxicity, and I'm really sensitive to mold. As long as I'm living in mold, it feels kind of pointless to spend money on medical care... and South Carolina is simply just a moldy state. I was worried about that before I moved here. What I didn't expect was that people would be so used to seeing mold in buildings that they don't care to do anything about it.

We've talked about me moving back to North Dakota alone and living with my parents. It's not exactly the easiest thing to do - moving 1600 miles alone when I'm dealing with chronic illness. In almost every plan we make to do it, I have to make some major sacrifices and the expense is a lot. So I've been stalling for as long as possible. The school year is almost over, and my husband doesn't know if he'll get a contract for next year. 

There is more to the story I may talk about some time in the future, but not right now. Needless to say, I've been in survival mode. The easiest way for me to cope is by living moment by moment, taking care of my needs as they come. I enjoy the moments I can. I connect with the safe people in my life. I focus on doing things I love as often as I can afford to. I'm not going blank or numb to all this. I'm just regulating my nervous system by keeping as calm as possible.

It's tough. I'm ok right now, and I do mean that sincerely. Right now I have shelter, food, a job, internet, running water, electricity, clothes, and people who love me. It might be very different in one month from now. 2 months from now I could be living a completely different life. I have no idea. Worst case, I have the ability to fly back to North Dakota and live with my parents. Better case, I have the ability to move my things back to North Dakota too. Even better case, I can keep my pets too. Even better than that case, I win the lottery and become a millionaire and can stop stressing about simply living.