Feeling Down Today

I’m feeling a bit down today.  My uncle had a stroke earlier this week.   Thankfully it was mild and he’s going to be okay.   He’s at the RVH  (Royal Victoria Hospital) in Barrie,  in the specialized stroke rehabilitation unit.   The hardest part for family are the covid restrictions regarding visitors.   He is only allowed two family members per week and visiting time is limited, and has to be booked.   Talking with my cousin about how stressed she is,  “it’s killing me not being able to see him”,  I’m reminded of my time with my own father on the many occasions he was hospitalized.   I can’t imagine having been prohibited from visiting him daily

The ‘not good enough’ gremlins are also after me today.  {sigh}  All my insecurities are at the surface.   Too old, too unattractive, too fat, too poor for anyone to be interested in me.   I start to feel okay about myself and then I get a flash of what I look like  (either in my mind or in a mirror),  and the gremlins say, “have you forgotten what you look like?”,  and I feel dejected.  The gremlins tell me, “your have nothing to offer”;  “no one worthwhile would be interested in you”.  I suppose that means I have a core belief that feels I’m not worthy.

As I was driving back from grocery shopping today I was overcome with sadness and felt the tears welling up.   I tried to think myself out of the funk but then wondered if that’s the wrong thing to do.   Is that not suppressing emotion?   Isn’t that what got me here in the first place?   Years of repressing/supressing emotions?    Ugh,  I feel so confused at these times.   When I feel like this perhaps I should just embrace the sadness.   Let it play out.  Let myself cry.   Would that be the right thing to do?   Is that the way to let go of the sadness?     I’m not sure.   I think I push the emotions down because they feel like I shouldn’t feel them.  Hmmm …. that doesn’t make much sense.   In my head I know what I mean but I’m having a hard time articulating it.   I guess it’s that little voice that says my feeling aren’t  _______  (dang what’s the word I’m looking for).   

Sleep

I know awhile back I wrote that my sleeping habits were improving and I was sleeping longer hours.  Sadly that did not last.   I’m back to waking up every hour and a half to two hours.    And some nights I can’t fall asleep at all until it’s morning, nodding off around 8am for a couple of hours.   It’s getting so that I’m dreading going to bed because I don’t know if I’m going to be able to sleep properly.   Of course, that worry is probably not helping the problem.   As I type this it occurs to me that perhaps my sleep habits having regressed, was a sign of increased anxiety.  Anxiety that is not in an acute form can go unrecognized, especially when you’ve lived most of your life in a state of anxiety.   I don’t know why my general anxiety would be piqued but perhaps I need to reflect on the situation.

Right now in this moment I’m feeling agitated (a sign of anxiety for me) because that awful border security show is on television.   I need to go and turn it off before I get really unsettled.

Another Sleepless Night

Last night was another sleepless night.   I read until I could barely keep my eyes open and yet, as soon as I lay down to sleep, sleep eluded me.  I couldn’t get comfortable and then the jumpy legs started.   On one of my jaunts to the bathroom I stopped to refill the dogs water bowls and dropped my phone,  which I was using in flashlight mode, in one of the dogs water buckets.   Ugh.   Of course I had no rice in the house.  They say to put a wet phone in rice.   I took the phone apart and was relieved to see that not too much water had made its way to the innards of the device.  I dried everything and let it sit out overnight.  Then I took some Gravol to see if it would make me sleepy enough to actually sleep.   I was awake until 6am.  I finally fell asleep and woke up just after 8am and then napped again for another couple of hours.

This morning the phone is not working properly.   I spent some time copying all of my contacts into a notebook but the phone seems to have died now.   It was my intention to copy down all the contacts,  and my calendar so that IF the phone didn’t survive,  I wouldn’t lose everything.   I’m hoping that the information on my phone can be transferred to a new device because I only got part way through the contact list before it konked out.    Now I’m off to the store to buy a new phone.   Good Lord who out there in the universe thinks I have the money for all these big expenses?   Last week a new computer and today a new phone!!    Earlier this week  it was an oil change for the car,  and I still need a new dehumidifier.