First week over

Well my first week being off work and in therapy is over. I have gained insight into living with BiPolar. Organizing the house will help reduce my level of stress which should alleviate some of the symptoms. Hulda and I are working hard towards being competition ready and having a lot of fun with that.

Therapy is helping to pinpoint other stressors and ways to counter them. My husband and family have been wonderful throughout this. One problem that I have is seeing when stress is causing me to behave differently. I am actively working on managing my stress better through medication and increasing my understanding of how the disorder affects me. It is easier for Tom to see the beginning changes than it is for me. I have asked him to help me by pointing it out to me. The problem with that is that I tend to get very defensive about it. So what ends up happening is that he tries to help and I get mad at him. This is pretty unfair to him. A topic covered in therapy was giving permission to a few close and trusted people. Since verbal permission has backfired on Tom I think I am going to try written permission. I think written permission has the potential for being less overtly confrontational. It would give me a chance to collect myself and really hear what he's trying to say to me. I have a wonderful SIL who is always very willing to be helpful. She said she would be happy to address behavioral changes. I know that I am asking a lot of these two. I am very lucky to have such supportive people in my life. There are other changes that I need to make. My style of communication needs help. I'm still working on that. The other is creating healthy boundaries. I'm working on that too. That one is harder. I run between extremes either keeping people from affecting me at all or letting them push me around. My job is a great example of that.

Despite being anxious about going back to work in 3 weeks I'm starting to feel genuinely happy. I haven't felt like I could accomplish something in months and months. Maybe even years. My self image tends to be pretty crappy but organizing the pantry, training Hulda and socializing more is helping. I have this really huge fear that at the end of this month I'll actually be organized and feeling great then go back to work and watch it all fall apart. This scares me a lot. I get really tense and then depressed. Somehow I've got to over come this feeling of desperation.

Training Hulda has been really great. In addition to the class we take on Monday and Tuesday nights I've started taking a heeling class on Saturdays. This class focuses heeling in the obedience ring. This involves getting my footwork right, heeling next to the ring enclosures and making sure I'm not giving Hulda the wrong body cues. All in all its going really well and I'm looking forward to showing.

Saturday night I went to the birthday party of SIL's friend. My adorable neice was there. She was full of fun and mischief. This may sound really awful but I LOVE watching her pull the adults puppet strings, myself included. She's cute, really smart and really loves things to go her way. A triple threat. Naturally she has us in the palm of her hand. She's not really in control but she thinks she is. Ah, youth!

Ownership

I have begun therapy and am working things through. I am beginning with some basics.

I have 2 problems that affect daily life for me. The first is that I am completely disorganized, to the point where I am truly dysfunctional. This disorganization exacerbates the BiPolar symptoms. The other is that I am overweight, obese actually. My kitchen is rarely cooking friendly and when I say kitchen I mean the whole thing; pantry, refrigerator and then of course the kitchen itself. Food is bought and then never eaten. Money is wasted at the grocery store and then again at the fast food joint or restaurant. So this afternoon it is the pantry.

As an aside, there is a genuine flaw in the construction of our pantry. It is so deep that it is really easy to loose track of what's in there. My SIL has the perfect pantry in my opinion. It's large enough for a person to step into but the shelves are shallow enough to keep track of things. My shelves are 2 feet deep easy. That's just crazy making. I'm so jealous of her!

The next step will be the refrigerator and cleaning the kitchen!

Hulda and I went to training tonight and are preparing for our first practice match on Thursday night!

Redirect

I am in a better place today. Last week at work was really awful. The work I do is important, people's lives can be affected if a mistake is made and not caught. I am a fingerprint technician and I work in an AFIS section. Let's say you are a nurse and the mistake I made links you to someone else's criminal record, say a drug conviction. How about this one, you apply to work with children and the fact that you are a registered sex offender isn't caught. There are checks and double checks inherent to the job I do to ensure that even if one person makes a mistake it won't slip through the system. In 8 years of working I have had very few errors. I was actually pretty good at what I do. In the last 3 months I have made 6 errors. That is pretty universally unheard of. This large number of errors require that a formal complaint be levied against me which would likely result in a demotion or possibly firing. Because this is a formal complaint I have the right to defend myself. I don't know why they held some of them instead of dealing with each as they came up but that is what they did. In the last 3 months I have also had a LOT of medication changes to manage the BiPolar Disorder. All of these new meds have drowsiness as a side effect. You can't read fingerprints and not be sharp. If you aren't sharp you will make mistakes. I have always been sharp and good at what I do so these errors which just seemed to be stacking up on me came as a real shock. These mistakes are directly linked to the meds I'm on which is my defense in this matter.

There is another element to this. That element is the environment I work in. It is negative and toxic. There is a pervasive us against them mentality. The technicians hate management and management hates the technicians. There are faults on both sides, neither side willing to ever give any ground to the other. My section doesn't work as a team, it works like warring factions. It is entirely political, you have to be really careful about who you trust and at all times keep in mind that you have few actual friends.

I started working for TXDPS in 1998. I started at the very bottom as a mail clerk in Accident Records. A year later I promoted 4 grades up to a fingerprint clerk. A little over a year after that I promoted 2 grades up to a fingerprint technician 1. A year after that I promoted to a fingerprint technician 2. The fingerprint section has 3 shifts. I started on graveyard, moved to evenings and finally made it to dayshift. Dayshift is where I began to have problems at work. They were minimal at first but have increased steadily over the span of time that I have worked on days. I stuck it out because my husbands health depends on the health insurance that my job provides. I also stuck it out because I knew I could do better, after all I already had. I could not or would not see that the environment I was in was making some of the BiPolar symptoms a real issue for me. I see it now.

When I return to work I plan for it not to be in fingerprints, even if that means taking a demotion. I believe I could mount a credible defense against the formal complaint and keep the job I have. Why would I ever want to do that? People working in other sections in my bureau never look as unhappy or angry as they do in fingerprints.

My psychiatrist has pulled me off of work for one month and put me in intensive outpatient therapy. She is furious with my work for holding my mistakes for over a month instead of giving them to me straight away so the problem could be dealt with. One of the 6 mistakes was given to me in January and she immediately lowered my dosage. Had the next mistake been given to me as it happened the others might have been averted.

So where am I right now? Right now I have a month to transform my life. Right now I get to heal, choose and change. It is a rare opportunity and I am going to take full advantage of it.

Insurance

Well, the badness seems to keep on coming. It seems I can't do my job anymore. A thing I used to be quite good at now seems to be part of a pattern of things I can't handle. Things with details, that require that I be alert and paying full attention. My hole in relation to work seems to be dug. It is directly related to medication I'm on for the bipolar disorder. There are protections I can seek and will but as long as I'm on medication the best I may be able to hope for is disability. I could go off medication but the last time I was full throttle Patti it wasn't always pretty and I made my life messy in other ways. I'm keeping this short because the less I dwell the better. I just wanted to check in.

Really Bad Day

Without going into detail, 3-20-2007 is one of the single worst days in my days of working at a job. Yes, I still have a job. If I had my way I'd tell them to kiss my ass forever. I'll never have my way, I'll just keep working there until the day I have a complete nervous meltdown. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get lucky enough and they'll fire me. I doubt it.

Difficulties in rescue and dog behavior

So, Angel is back. She was returned to us because she was "skittish and fearful". Skittish and fearful? Really? That is not a description of the dog Angel that I remember. I am of course concerned as to what experiences she has had to transform this truly confident and happy dog into something quite sad. I have visited several times. I have known Mr. Evans to be a kind and thoughtful man who treats pets as members of the family. Each time she has greeted me in usual Angel fashion, lots of exuberance, bouncing and energy and a clear recollection of who I am. I am greeted as a BFF in doggy language. I never saw any sign that her personality was deteriorating. This dog is full of energy and life, always ready for fun and love. You know, MY kind of dog.

Monkey could not be more opposite of this description. She is sweet, would rather cuddle than play and is needy. She almost never bounces. In hindsight I would say I placed the wrong dog in the right house. Whenever I left Mr.Evans home after a check in, Angel tried to come with me, in fact she often had to be restrained. Today Monkey couldn't be bothered for a good bye hug. It appeared she knew she was home (finally!) and had no desire to return. I think Angel may have been too much dog for the man. Monkey is perfect for someone older like Mr. Evans seeking a companion. This man is stable, honest and kind. The Angel returned to me is the Angel I left with him. As far as I can tell she hasn't suffered during her tenure in his home. He is more than deserving of a compatible companion. In all honesty I believe that Monkey has found her forever home. We will know for certain the Saturday after next. We are giving Monkey and Mr. Evans a trial run.

As far as Angel goes I still don't know what he meant by "skittish and fearful" but I plan to keep her here for a period of evaluation to see if there is in fact a temperament issue. I also plan to put her through an 8 week basic obedience class. Girlfriend needs some manners in the worst way.

I believe a new home away from here is the very best thing for Monkey. Monkey and Hulda couldn't be allowed to play together because Hulda was just too much for poor little Monkey. Monkey is around 35% smaller than either Hulda or Angel and low on self-esteem (since day one). Hulda used this to her advantage and often, she really just wanted to play but in true Alpha fashion she played to win. She never attacked Monkey she just played so hard that in the end Monkey spent most of her time trying to avoid Hulda. Each play period Hulda sent an unmistakeable message to Monkey, I'm Alpha you're the Omega. This was clearly unacceptable and made living with Monkey very hard as I could never let them both inside or outside at the same time. If Monkey were in a pack she would be an Omega, the low man on the totem pole subject to constant aggression from every member of the pack. Omegas are some of the unhappiest members of a wolf pack and often strike off on their own to start a new pack.

As a result of her ultra submissive behavior she spent time either in her crate or alone in the backyard (her favorite by far). I crated her as little as possible when I was at home but the honest truth is that Monkey was probably quite lonely out there. She has been available for adoption for well over a year, I have spent well over $500.00 in newspaper ads, created her own website and enlisted the help of Bluedog rescue. Monkey was treated less than fairly here but she was well fed, received full veterinary care, had a roof over her head and spent as much time as we could loving her. It is the latter that she did receive but not in overwhelming amounts. The constant separation meant balancing the time between them. This was a real problem for me. The reason for this is that Hulda is my priority. Period. I didn't go out of my way to find a special dog like Hulda just so I could keep her crated or left out in the backyard. Hulda got the lions share of our time and as unfortunate as that was for Monkey I will not apologize for it. Monkey got some time everyday to maintain her human socialization and psychological well being. The only other choices would be to allow Hulda to make her 'I'm dominant' point over and over again or severly curtail the amount of time Hulda spends with us. This would confuse and depress her and I simply will not put her always happy personality at jeopardy.

Before you get the idea that Hulda is some sort of dominance nightmare remember this is pack behavior. Hulda's treatment of Monkey is second nature, if Monkey had come to us with a little more self-esteem things may have gone differently. Hulda would never dream of treating me in the same manner she treats Monkey. I have been obedience training her since she was 16 weeks old, my position as Super Alpha (dog and trainer, not simply dog and owner) is secure and unquestioned. Hulda considers me and Tom members of her pack however our rank supercedes that of simpla Alpha male and female. One of the differences between the domesticated dog and the wolf is that the wolf is constantly testing the human owner for dominance and will directly challenge their human owners for the rank of Alpha. Hulda is by no means a bad dog, she is just a dog, a pack animal behaving as pack animals do with subordinates.

Hulda will soon be competing in AKC sanctioned obedience trials,. She stands a good chance of being a high scoring dog a testament to her intelligence and train ability. I brought up the issue of Alpha and Omega members of a dog pack to explain Monkey's dilemma while here and to discuss the difference between Monkey and Angel. Angel is neither an Alpha or an Omega, if she were a member of a wolf pack she would probably be a Beta. Hulda is taller which gives her a small pyschological edge in pack speak and displays dominant posturing (without overt aggression). She took every opportunity to hump Monkey (when she thought she could get away with it) as a reminder of her status. The interaction between Hulda and Angel is entirely different. They remember each other which is a plus. All they needed was to reestablish who is who. What looks like play is infact in fact a series of bluffs, rank is more about attitude and personality. Outright fighting is rare. Think of these bluffs as the difference between assertiveness and aggressiveness. Hulda and Angel share similar amounts of exhuberance and energy but where Angel is a bit of a spaz who is all over the place Hulda's actions are more calculated. She simply cannot permit another Alpha in her 'territory'. After just a little bit of exhuberant 'play' Angel displayed characteristic active submissive behavior; crouching low, muzzle pointed up combined with constant licking of Hulda's mouth. This behavior mimics the behavior of pups prompting adult wolves to regurgitate partially digested meat. Angel was telling Hulda 'you're the boss'. It is a mixture of groveling and begging which differs from passive submission which does not mimic another behavior (food begging). Once the proper protocol has been observed both dogs go back to behaving like complete idiots as if nothing at all has happened. Hierarchy established both dogs can now play and romp as they please. It this romping fun after establishing hierarchy that makes me think that Angel is a Beta. She has never displayed signs of overt dominance over anything whereas Hulda exerts (well, she tries) her dominance over the cat (who walks off with a 'yeah, right' sort of air about him). Passive submission is more severe. In passive submission the dog rolls onto it's back leaving it defenseless to an attack. Monkey displayed both kinds of submission, I believe, in the hopes that Hulda would accept the gesture and let her be. Oh, well.

I believe she has found a home she can be happy in and it makes me glad. Good luck Monkey and Mr. Evans! Be seeing you Saturday for the first check on progress. You are lucky to have such a wonderful new owner!

Rescue State of Affairs

Well, there is some bad news regarding my efforts at rescuing stray dogs. After more than 6 months in her new home (which seemed to be going very well) Angel is being returned to us. This really seemed to be a good match but it seems her rambunctious nature proved to be more than Mr. Evans could handle. He has agreed to do a switch out and give Monkey a try. I can only hope this proves to be a better match. If it doesn't I am facing having 3 dogs in my house again. This was chaotic to say the least and am not looking forward to this possibility.

Just Drugs

No blood clots in my legs! Let me say it again, no blood clots! I was so happy and relieved yesterday! The whole procedure took hours, I fell asleep between having to turn over now and again. Sometimes I was roused by this rushing sound. "Oh, that's just the blood pumping." Weird, huh? They told me that I had no clots because had they found one they couldn't release me however the full results from the study couldn't be released until the doctor had reviewed the ultrasound. I'll admit that made me a little nervous. Around 4:00pm yesterday afternoon I got a call from the doctor's nurse saying all findings were negative, I was clear as bell. Super huge sigh of relief. She did say that support hose would aid in the relief of swelling. Puke! I only wear hose to weddings and funerals. The horrors we have to face as we age. I immediately called my med shrink and let her know that the Geodon was likely causing some swelling in my ankles and calves. She asked if they had listened to my heart and done a kidney analysis. I told her yes to the heart, no to the kidney. She said I'd probably have to get a blood test to be sure. I also told that under no circumstances did I want to give up on Geodon. She knows how I feel about taking a pill to counter the effects of another pill. I told her in this case I'll make an exception.