My Best Friend, Sophie

One year ago, I prayed for a companion to keep me company while the girls are with their father as I had a difficult time adjusting to being without them. I scoured the Clist ads for weeks waiting for someone to post a free dog since I didn’t have the money to pay an adoption fee of $200 and set up a household for a dog simultaneously.

Then one day, I saw this ad for a Boston Terrier named Sophie online. I immediately contacted the owner about Sophie and picked her up that day. When she saw me, she vomited on the ground but the lady never mentioned anything about her megaesophagus.

I lifted her into my arms and her muscular body felt like that of a hefty little piglet. As I drove her home, she looked unsure and afraid.  Sophie was not happy to see we had no furniture yet and looked depressed but somewhat relieved that we did have an airbed!

She had a terrible odor about her that washing wouldn’t remove. She was balding on her rear end and on her belly and flanks and her tail was the most pitifully ugly creation of God that I have ever seen in my life!  Her tail bends downward, crooks, and looks as though the fur has been permanently scraped from her tail in several places. When she wiggles her ugly little tail on her balding rump-it is quite a show!

Later, the owner called to check up on Sophie and I learned of her megaesophagus (records and many regurgitations since her arrival) and that she had been hit by a car after running away from home-her shoulder had been broken. Her first owners starved her because they didn’t want her to vomit all the time.

Sophie’s had a rough life in two prior homes, but now that she is with me-I hope her life is blissful and happy.

In the beginning, she tiptoed around us gingerly on the bed when crossing and now she just steps on us on the way to hogging up our pillows!

She farts.

She snores.

She does doggy yoga several times a day and moans as she stretches.

She sighs deeply with dramatic fanfare when I ignore her for too long.

She pukes at all the wrong times, but we just wipe it up and go about the day.

She gets dandruff and leaves allergens all over my bed linens-requiring frequent laundering.

She will starve herself and twitch and shake all over from low blood sugar until you feed her food she deems acceptable on that particular day.

When she sees anything that toddles or wears a diaper-she turns back to look at me as if she’s saying, “Oh, please don’t let that pet me or get near me!”

She’s the best dog I’ve ever had and truly a best friend.

Here’s to one year with Sophie-now 6 years young!  May she be blessed with  many happy years with us!

~Carolina Maine

To Bloom: Change Your Environment…

For years, I thought I could bloom under bad circumstances. I told myself that if I made X concessions then I could improve or advance or achieve my goals.  I told myself that I just needed to work harder to achieve my goals. I told myself many lies. Why?  I don’t know.  Maybe I had been conditioned to that kind of life given how I grew up. Maybe it had to do, in some small part, with laziness. Maybe it was a fear that change would only bring worse circumstances.

Last year, I left an abusive marriage. I was married for almost fourteen years-roughly most of my adult life.  I had tried to leave earlier and failed. With each failure I felt more trapped and resigned to a lifetime of  unwanted entrapment. Did I always carry myself with dignity?  No. I can’t say I did. I’m human. When vital needs weren’t met, after many years of trying to meet them legitimately had failed, I thought I could balance something better alongside the oppressive old. Instead, that choice only crushed me into despair and left me an emotional wasteland.  I suppose this poverty of emotion prepared me for literal economic poverty-the poverty I have endured over the past year.

Leaving my marriage meant starting over from NOTHING.  Most women like me don’t exactly come from generous and loving families so there was no one to rely on in that regard. I guess I could feel bitter about that, but to be honest, I have found it liberating and a major source of my character development .  My children and I stayed in a domestic violence shelter and we found housing through the local housing authority. In the last year, I have:

1. Left an abusive spouse.

2. Successfully handled my own divorce case.

3. Been homeless.

4. Leased an apartment and furnished it from nothing-literally.

5. Learned to be humble enough to accept public assistance (food and medical) until I can recover financially.

6. Applied for and am awaiting a Bankruptcy discharge so that my girls and I can move to something better in two years or less.

7. Because my former spouse said I was a drug addict for taking non-addictive psychiatric medications-limiting my ability to recover-I am now taking a good combination for me-Lamictal, Prozac, Prazosin, and Synthroid.  I’ve never felt more stable and clear headed in my life. If I had stayed with my former husband then I would have never gotten proper treatment for my condition and would be suffering still and feeling resentment toward him because I know what I am capable of achieving in my life.

8. Found work and accepted it-even though I am vastly underemployed given my education. *On the bright side, this job will allow me to get the girls and myself off SNAP and Medicaid, and I will be paying market rent for my unit. This is a step up to something better. In two years I hope to be purchasing my own condo/townhome in a nice community in our area.

9.  Made a financially responsible decision given my economic situation and outlook for the next 5 years to have a surgery that would end my anemia that prevents me from being physically fit and active as well as a more energetic mother; I am successfully recovering from that surgery so that I can lead a normal work life, develop my physical fitness, and be a more energetic mother to my two wonderful girls

I have done more in the past year than I have accomplished in almost fourteen years of  marriage. I am empowered. I am focused. I never lose sight of my goals.

Two years from now, I’ll be financially rebuilt enough to buy my own home. In a month’s time, I will have shifted toward financial freedom from public assistance.

I am proud of myself.  It is hard to feel proud of myself on some days. I wonder if I could have made better choices or stayed in my relationship so that my girls would never know this level of poverty. However, my girls are truly amazing and have grown in compassion and humility given our trials during the past year. I am sure any life lessons they have acquired during this time will spur them to be strong adult women.

As a psychiatric nurse told me after meeting my husband (He told her I was there as a vacation from my duties at home.):

“You’ll never get better until you have some support.”

I refused to believe her. I thought I could recover on my own.

The truth is:

I needed the right support system. I am blessed with a counselor I could never repay in this lifetime, a deacon who has taught me more about the Catholic faith from a mature masculine point of view than I ever though a man could experience, a smart psychiatrist who listens to me about the symptoms I have and has successfully found a good combination of meds for me, and my own relationship with myself has improved. I am not weak or submissive or even accommodating. I am strong, capable, loving, kind, and I know I can recover from this last year because…

I have changed the soil in which I was living. I am no longer in toxic soil. I’m in the kind of soil now that will generate a lifetime of blooms.

Life doesn’t have to be unhappy. You don’t have to resign yourself to entrapment despite failures to change your environment in the past.

Keep trying and find where you belong.

God bless!

~ Carolina Maine

Recovery

Though I have been in good spirits since the medication adjustment to Lamictal, I haven’t felt like writing. I’m not sure why exactly.  I have written privately, but nothing publicly.

I underwent surgery two weeks ago for an issue that is not life threatening. I won’t be able to bear more children, but that is fine in that I have won the baby lottery twice with my two wonderful girls and don’t feel a need to have more children.  If I ever remarry maybe we can adopt an older child from a country like Haiti as I’d rather give an underprivileged child a chance at a better life.

Making permanent life decisions is not something I do well.  I tend to go through freak out moments. I wonder if I’m going to regret a life altering decision in the future…

I have come to realize that even though we live for the future, we do live in the present. We can’t know all possible consequences and outcomes of choices but we can make peace with the ones that we are afraid we might regret later in life.

In my case, I’d like to have more children, but at the same time-I don’t feel like I need more children to be happy and fulfilled in life. I do worry that if ever Mr. Right Catholic comes into my life that my inability to have children will negatively impact our relationship. I suppose he wouldn’t be Mr. Right Catholic if he didn’t love me and understand why I had the surgery to help with my medical issues…

With all of that on my mind, I also started writing Muscadine Wine; it’s a novel set in Alabama.  I think my twelve year old daughter is out-pacing me in writing as she has written over 100 notebook pages of her book whilst I only have outlines, a prologue, and a few chapters! She likes to remind me of how she is the real writer.  My darling daughter hasn’t learned the subtle art of humility but I also find that humorously refreshing!

I have two more weeks of recovery and then I start working. I’m not looking forward to working as much as I am to swimming. I plan to swim every day for the rest of my life! The aquatic facilities here in CO are the only places I feel humid and amphibious outside the south.

Even though I miss the south, I also feel that I’m better at being a displaced southerner.  I can’t imagine going home to Alabama ever again in my life. Too much crazy air there.

Have a good evening!

~Carolina Maine

My Intellect Astounds Me Daily

I can’t resist the urge to share my latest unbelievably impressive discovery:

Have you ever been pissed off that your basket type coffee filter has caved in on itself and ruined your morning cup of coffee with nasty, gritty grounds?

Attempts to use more than one filter failed often but less frequently than using one paper filter. Not only that-my huge stack of filters quickly dwindled, and I found myself purchasing filters in bulk which is not cost efficient.

I experienced a veritable revelation and decided to search for  a reusable coffee filter; I found one just like the filter in the photo at the grocery store for $5.

A perfect solution?

Not so fast.

The grounds stick to that reusable filter like crazy, and I can’t grind them down the disposal as it will cause a blockage in the pipes.

Scraping grounds out of a reusable filter over the trash is not my idea of a purposeful way to spend my life’s dwindling minutes of existence so I pondered this dilemma for several days until another epiphany lit up my entire mind with radiant impulse:

If I take JUST ONE paper filter and put it inside the reusable filter-it is even more less likely to cave in on itself. If it does cave in, the grounds in the filter are minimal and easy to rinse out without worrying about my pipes.

I can throw the filter away simply, and I save money not buying the paper filters in bulk because of needing more than one at each brew.

The best part:

No FREAKING GROUNDS IN MY MORNING COFFEE!!

Yes, this all important celebration of my vast intellect is shared with you today because I know the pain of  sipping nasty, gritty, coffee brewed with one single basket paper filter.

No thanks required.

Just brew on my javan friends!

Ok. So I Might Have Exaggerated!

In an earlier post, I wrote that I hate novels. Emphasized that I strongly hated them. Well, that’s not entirely true.  The writers below weren’t forced upon me in college; I discovered them at various points in my life instead.

1.J.D. Salinger:  He’s my favorite writer. I remember discovering an ugly white book at the bookstore during an outing to relieve my seriously deep depression. While the outing did nothing to lift my spirits-Holden Caulfield did. Holden’s rants on the phonies we encounter in life and the “poor bastard” who cut himself with stones being the only person he thought was genuine in the Bible besides Jesus amuse me intensely to this day-with a mere remembrance of reading his book! I don’t think I have a more favorite novel than The Catcher in the Rye.  

2. Pat Conroy:  What’s not to love about the best modern southern author of our time?  I love how he uses the south’s intimacy to advance the complexity of his characters.  Conroy is my second favorite author. I also enjoy works by his wife, Cassandra King.

3. Jhumpa Lahiri:  While most of her individual works aren’t as cherished by me as the novel, The Age of Siva, by Manil Suri, she is an elegant writer and my favorite female writer of all time.  Few women write with her reticent passion and with such sophisticated clarity.

4. Michael Ondaatje:  I love the level of research he undertook to create, The English Patient, which is a veritable classic of modern literature.  I wish he were more prolific in the writing of novels.

5. Manil Suri:  Suri brings to life  Indian culture and history-especially in The Age of Siva.  The book focuses on a young woman who makes a mistake in passion and suffers in a loveless marriage with only her son as a comfort; this is set against the liberation of India. When Siva’s age ascends, the woman, her son, and India all bloom and develop into mature autonomy with only the horizon as definite destiny.

As you can see, my list is short, but the books and authors I have chosen are present with me each day in their characters, stories, and unique literary perspectives. I find this ever present quality in writers the pinnacle of writing success.

~Carolina Maine

Titrating My Way to Equilibrium

For the last few weeks I have been titrating up on an anti-convulsant medication called Lamictal.  I was expecting it to be a more difficult transition than it has been so far. Currently, I’m at the 50 mg mark and in the next month I will have achieved the therapeutic dosage of 100mg.

I really didn’t expect to feel any improvements this soon so I’m pleasantly surprised with how calming this medication has been for me. I take it along with 40mg Prozac and will add Prazosin in a few days for my frequent and vivid night terrors.

Normally, I would reject anything resembling a medication cocktail because I feel like doctors drug patients up too highly in hospitals and don’t lower the doses after a patient has stabilized or upon release with frequent follow-up care. I don’t think the dosage needed to come down from mania or another intense psychological episode is needed every single day; in times of crisis-yes. Many patients suffer horrible side effects such as heart arrhythmias, lactation (even in males), tremors, and a sensation that feels like you are going to jump out of your skin and you can’t relax at all,akasthisia, on extended high dosages of psychiatric medications. These effects could be reduced significantly by dropping the dose to a maintenance level instead of keeping patients at levels needed to stabilize during a psychiatric episode.

Now that doctors have finally realized I am not in need of dopaminergic medications or high doses of any medication, I am relieved to have such an easy transition to the Lamictal.

I have had headaches and significant drops in mood and energy (I’m more of a depressive than manic.) but, overall, I can say I have been more clear minded and capable of concentrating and organizing information-which is essential as a writer!

I’m sharing this experience because this is a mental health blog and well-we all have to experiment with medications and it can be a frustrating and upsetting experience. At first, I didn’t want to try anything new at all. I have been off dopaminergic medications since 2009 and only on an antidepressant for my anxiety and depression; however, I could not make my life stable and went through bouts of productivity droughts. I am intensely productive for about 12 weeks and then I burn out and that has been a constant struggle in my life and in the goals I have set for myself.

Constant failures do impact self esteem after a while-no matter how hard you try to be inspired by pretty quotes in photo boxes shared on Facebook or Tumblr to keep going and love yourself despite your failures and defeats. Achievements, the ability to provide for oneself and his or her family, and a sense of belonging and purpose in the world are important to each individual and mental health issues can rob you of these joys if you fail to care for yourself as is required by your condition.

While I don’t expect a miracle, I am hoping for a more stable foundation so that I can build productivity and achieve my personal goals daily. I think that would contribute to better and more stable mental health in that I won’t experience as much depression regarding my failures.

As a mom, chores always loom. Today is no different. It is time now to fold the laundry. Yay! As if my life couldn’t be more exciting

Moments like this teach you to be happy you are here and have a chance to improve yourself and your life and to grow-even if you are doing a mundane task like putting away a basket of laundry.

Have a blessed day, and I pray that each of you trying a new medication finds the stable foundation you need to achieve your daily and life’s goals.

~Carolina Maine

Who Knew Cooking Could be Therapeutic?!

I really wanted meal planning to work for me as I actually don’t like thinking about planning meals daily; however, something unexpected happened to me recently:

Cooking is therapeutic. It forces me to be mindful of what I’m doing and it leads to a huge payoff in accomplishment even if I fail as it is usually at least edible.  I never thought I’d enjoy cooking because you  make a big mess and then you must clean it up afterward. I have no dish washer so making more dishes dirty isn’t my idea of a fun time. However, once your dish is prepared-you savor every single flavor. Instead of going out and purchasing a pre-made product that is either obviously unhealthy or supposedly healthy and gobbling it down based on your mood for the dish, cooking relaxes you and as you progress in each step-the smells form happy memories that last a lifetime even if each bite remains most colorful for only an instant in your life.

I stock a hearty pantry and when I’m in the mood for something I usually have the ingredients on hand to make whatever I’m craving.  That’s organized enough for me perhaps.

Enjoy life. Don’t just take it in without savoring the vibrant flavors of each and every bite.

Enjoy your beautiful day!

~ Carolina Maine

Healthy Meals Planner-Download Available

For a long time now, I have wanted to create a meal plan template that is easy to update and is something I’ll actually use.  My days fill up quickly as a mother and even when they are open-I still have intensive chores that can complicate cooking meals. Now that I am also trying to make freelance writing a career, I do think our home life would be more balanced with a healthy meal planning system put into place.

Also, maybe my diet will become more balanced since I will rely less on what I’m in the mood for and more on nutrition.

Our family food plan will include Omega-3 sources such as fish and flax milk as well as spirutein, lean meats,Greek yogurt, beans, homemade breads and desserts from non-GMO flours and organic eggs.  Organic vegetables and some living vegetables will be introduced as I recently tried a living lettuce head (with root attached for nutrients) that was on sale at King Sooper’s for $1.50 and it tasted very much like fresh lettuce. I grew up eating vegetables grown from our garden-my grandfather’s garden was more like a small farm. I have never really adjusted to eating the limp vegetables I find in supermarkets and even in some farmer’s markets.  I discovered that some vegetables are grown via hydroponics (I remember those experiments as a young science student in grade school!) and are fresher as they aren’t chopped off from the roots and dying-they are still alive. Maybe incorporating more of these vegetables into my diet will help me actually start eating leafy greens again!

The meal planner available for download below is not my food plan. It is an Xcel spreadsheet for a month’s worth of meals; you input your own meals.

If you’ve been wanting to update your home organization with a meal plan then this simple Xcel worksheet would be simple and easy to begin using.

I hope this basic start helps you to plan your meals for better mental health based on your unique dietary needs.

Healthy Meals Planner

~Carolina Maine

Living in the Moment

I often think about where I could be, should be, or want to be. This photo is the perfect getaway I have in mind daily as I live in cold Colorado-far from any decent warm body of water! While often unpleasant as I dislike snow, I have come to see the beauty of Colorado and can now more easily live in the moment here without constantly feeling like I would rather be somewhere else.

This is true even in other areas of my life. I never noticed how undisciplined my mind was until I started trying to be mindful of where I am in the present. I am given to flights of imagination, fantasy, and daydreaming. While goofy daydreaming expressions are funny, they don’t always match my environment!

It is still hard for me to be 100% mindful of my present. I still have moments when I flit off to some exotic location and long to be there instead of where I am in this moment. But I do think it is an exercise that, if practiced, becomes stronger and easier with time.

Try to be mindful of where you are right now. Think about what you are doing. What are you touching? Even your keyboard-if you are typing-what does that feel like and sound like? Think about each movement you create with your body and focus your eyes on what you are working on in greater detail-noting even the symmetry of objects as well as their texture.

Practice.

You’ll drift off to a few exotic paradises along the way, but in time, you will become stronger and more proficient at finding paradise where you are right now.

Have a wonderful and mindful day in the present moment!

Knocked Offline by the Flu

Despite that my daughters and I all had flu shots, we developed the flu. Both of my girls took two weeks to recover. While I was not as ill as they were, I still had the flu and was responsible for their round the clock care. In the process, I allowed my apartment to get messy. I was even behind on the laundry and I detest being behind on the laundry as I cannot stand to do laundry in large quantities.

I felt so annoyed and frustrated. I was irritable because I did try to prevent us from being ill. It failed. I also became irritated that I could not keep up with my chores in addition to taking care of the girls.

On top of this, I decided to start spring cleaning at the tail end of our sickness which only compounded the mess instead of helping me feel accomplished.

Finally, I decided to just accept the mess as part of a transition toward a more organized spring and summer.

I still feel overwhelmed by my chores and catching up with them, but I am reminding myself this is temporary and all will be in order for more days of the year than out-of-order.

Both girls are well and recovered, and I am thankful for that as I had read about the pediatric deaths from the influenza this year and like any parent-I was scared.

While I no longer have the flu I still have a sore left ear and jaw. At some point I might have to visit the doctor again, but I’m hoping it will clear up without needing antibiotics.

In the meantime, I try not to freak out that my house is a mess.

I really need to get out more as well.

I’ll write more on that in the upcoming weeks.

Thanks for reading and for wondering why I haven’t blogged in a while now!

Have a blessed week!

~Carolina Maine