RLS as myth

Hmm... As someone who actually HAS RLS, which was diagnosed in a sleep lab, I beg to differ with that opinion. I totally understand the notion that this cannot be a real affliction, that the drug companies have just made it up. I used to feel that way.

Until my RLS started to invade my life.

For about 3 months, I did not get a good night's sleep. In fact, I would fall asleep about an hour before my alarm would go off. This would inevitably make me late for said position of employment. Which in turn made my bosses very unhappy with me.

At times it was so bad that all I could do was pace. My ex stopped sleeping in the bed with me, preferring to get a full night's sleep on the sofa.

I finally had a sleep study done and was told that I have severe RLS and Periodic Limb Movement Disorder (PLMD). I was prescribed Sinemet, a drug used in Parkinson's patients to control their tremors.

The one thing I have never been told is WHY I have this. Why the chemicals in my brain malfunction and cause my legs to need to move. I HAVE been told that this along with my father's Parkinson's means that I am much more likely to have Parkinson's when I get older.

Change

I've been thinking a lot recently about how negative and unhappy I am. Mostly because people have been pointing it out to me left and right. I truly need to do something about this. And my lack of direction in life. I think that they are related. I mostly assume that I am going to fail at anything I do. Thus I keep efforts to a minimum so as not to have to fail. While embarrassment is my most loathed activity, failure comes in a close second.

I am really quite good at it if I do say so myself. Someone asked me recently why I keep taking jobs that I hate and I had to try to explain that my life is about playing it safe and not taking any risks when it comes to things I care about because if I do and then fail it's worse than if I never knew whether the risk would pan out. The only place I ever learned to tale risks was with men. And even there I have mostly become too scared of getting hurt again that I rarely put myself out there anymore. I need to do something about the fear. Because what the hell do I have to be afraid of. Its not like you can find love while sitting on your ass. Or happiness for that matter.

depression

Every year I get to this place. Where I once again slowly acknowledge that I am not cut out for working in an office, sitting at a computer keeping a calendar, answering the phone. That I am depressed. It usually happens in the fall. To coincide with the onset of my yearly bout of SAD.

I have recently discovered that I am more miserable than I had thought. My life is not nearly what I want it to be. There are ways that I could improve it, but I feel stuck. Unable to do anything to help myself. It is a lifelong rut. A feeling of being paralyzed. It starts every morning when I wake up. The alarm goes off. And I lie there. I cannot move. The fear that I am going to fuck everything up even more grandly than I already have is more powerful than any drive or desire that I might have. I lie there and stare at the clock as the minutes slip by, and I get more and more dangerously close to being late to work yet again.

I don't want to be this way. To feel trapped. To feel paralyzed. To feel crazy. I hate that I am unable to get anything right. Not a job, not men, actually, very few decisions I ever make. I'm not even sure what I am passionate about. I know what I profess to be excited about. But I'm not any good at that. Or at anything.

I hate myself. For all of this failure. For not being able to let go of the past. For tall of the anger I carry around. For the paralysis. For the disappointment.

When I was 14, I got sick. Really sick. The kind of sick that without modern medicine you die from.

It was a week before Thanksgiving my freshman year of HS and after a dinner I did not really eat that included stewed tomatoes, I went upstairs to my bedroom and got in bed. My dad, wonderful guy that he is, went out and got me a Fribble at the local Friendly's, hoping to cheer me up. I drank it. It was delicious. But then my tummy got all rumbly and after a visit to the porcelain god that had me checking to make sure I'd not eaten any tomatoes for dinner, I wound up in the hospital with a kidney infection.

I will spare you the rest of the details from that night and the ensuing hospital stay. It was not pleasant.

The infection started as a UTI, continued to a bladder infection and then because of a tiny birth defect that I did not know I had, ended up in my left kidney.

For at least five years prior to this, I had been having pain in my left "flank" right where my kidney lives. I'd been to the doctor several times with this complaint. Usually, we'd eat dinner, and half way though my side would start to hurt. I would go lie on the sofa in our living room until the pain subsided. The doctors kept telling my parents that there was nothing wrong with me. No infection, no problem. Until there was an infection and they found the problem.

Now, why am I telling a story that is 17 years old? Other than that it was a defining point in my life?

Well, I am having the same pain in my left flank. It got so bad last week that I went to the ER and waiting for almost 6 hours to see a doc who told me that my blood and urine were infection free and that the CT scan they did (my first ever) showed no problems. All they could do was give me pain meds and a referral to a urologist.

And this kinda pissed me off. I explained my medical history to them and they told me, yeah, we believe you that you know your body, we'll check out things related to that, but ultimately, we'll give you narcotics and blow you off, NOT attempt to fix what is giving you so much pain.

I am so not looking forward to the ER bill.

moving

I am broken. Sore from my neck to the balls of my feet. I want to sleep for a week or a month at least, but I still have to unpack, assemble and rearrange furniture and do tons of laundry. My knees at turns refuse to straighten and to bend. My hands are cramping while writing this.

But I have a new place to live. One all of my own. With a balcony for my plants, where I can sit and read and smoke. And four pools. And a fitness center. And a room with a pool table.

I can do my laundry all night long if I want. While sitting naked watching DVDs on my iMac in my living room. There is a shuttle that arrives at my door every 20 minutes in the morning and takes me to the metro station where I am all but guaranteed a seat until I get to Gallery Place.

And while the people at the leasing office seem to think I will be fine, I am still not sure that I can afford all of this luxury. There will be a tightening of the proverbial belt buckle. No cable hook-up, no more driving to work unless absolutely necessary, I will start to bring my lunch with me and make my own dinners.

But I finally have a home. A place of my own. And, really, I have never been happier.

What it is like | dooce ®

What it is like | dooce ®

So evidently, SOMEONE reads this (hi Natalie)

It's seven days until I turn 32.

I am not OK with this.

I am not having a major meltdown like in 2001 when I turned 25 and nearly had to be committed. But I think that this might be the most difficult one since then. I'm not sure why. Maybe I am finally feeling like an adult.

Or maybe it the same thing as last time. The whole, what the fuck am I doing with my life. There are so many things that I wanted this life to be. That it isn't.

I am no closer to an apartment or house or condo of my own or going to France or Bali or Australia or getting married and having a family than I was in 2001.

But I am trying. I have a roommate who I get along with pretty well. And a job I genuinely like. I'm on meds that are keeping me sane and letting me sleep. I have a boy who, for some reason, thinks I am pretty great, who I am in love with as well.

Maybe it's complacency. I am afraid that the good will disappear and the bad will come back. I really do dread that. There was so much bad for what seemed like so very long.

I thank God for this every day. Just in case she exists.

I KNOW no one reads this...

... so this is mostly for my own memory, but, I thought I would update about my life a bit.

I have a new job, that I started in July sometime. So, not really THAT new, but whatever. I quit my old job at the old law firm that technically is no more since it has a new name and almost none of the people who were there when I left still work there in June and started temping after a week's vacation.

I was at a really small non-profit that worked with USAID for about a month and then they were going to place me at AU but that fell through so they put me at a BIGLAW firm in Dupont Circle. I told the agency that I under no circumstances wanted to work at another law firm, big, small, in-between, pro-bono centric or corporate.

Then I met the HR-Lady.

I LOVE the HR-Lady.

My temp job was to be a floating secretary. Sounded pretty easy. I found that liked it a lot. No pressure.

After about a month she asked me if I wanted to do it on a more permanent basis. I thought about it for about .01 seconds while she said yes there would be health insurance and promptly said yes. Then they offered me more than I asked for in the way of salary. I had to pinch myself.

Did I mention that I LOVE the HR-Lady.

So they floated me to this one desk with this Big Important Attorney (TM) and withing two weeks Big Important Attorney (TM) asked me if I wanted to stay on as his secretary. I thought about it for a while. Then decided on a yes. And HR gave me even MORE money.

LOVE LOVE LOVE HR-Lady.

I've been here even since then.