When the pressure cooker explodes



Breakfast at Tiffany's

 Firstly I would really like everyone to take a look at my last post and maybe pass on the message. I would like to see that lovely kitty get a home. If there was a way I could have her shipped to South Africa, I would take her but I know that is impossible.

My half- sister (from my Dad's previous marriage) is in the country and has decided to grace my parents with her presence for two days starting on Easter Sunday. I'm not going to give the gory details other than to say that both my younger sister and I decided several years ago that it would be best if we had no relationship with her. I'm pretty sure she feels the same. We would have left it at that if my mother was not on a eternal quest to bring us together again citing the "forgive and forget" slogan with some pretty disastrous consequences. This woman has treated my mother atrociously in the past and I have to admit finding my Mom's easy forgiveness of her and forgetting all that happened rather disturbing. It's like my Mom is intimidated by her and feels responsible for the rift between her and my Dad which couldn't be farther from the truth.

Anyway enough about that, this week as been stressful enough mostly because of finances, my up coming exams and my grandmother (again a whole other post). And ( Sorry guys! ) it's been that time of the month. I'm on the pill and for the past few months I have been using the pill to stop my monthly "pal" from dropping by. For about eight days around and during my period my antidepressants stop working my anxiety levels shoot through the roof and I become a shouting, screaming, kick- boxing wench and during the rare periods of calm I experience an overwhelming- unable-to-breath sadness. So I have really been using the pill to stop the awful pms-ing.

Well this month I couldn't do that because I didn't have money to get my pill on time. Yesterday I had a counselling session in which we talked a lot about the past, the abuse and how ****ed up my family is, so I was feeling a little emotionally sore. I then had to spend two hours in a hospital waiting room for my grandmother to see the doctor. And of course my grandmother was yelling and talking utter rubbish as she usually does, irritating everyone there. Eventually we were asked to take her outside. During this time I read the story I posted above about the kitty, Precious and it really upset me. So the stage was set for a rather big explosion. And the one who set it off?. My mother.

I have made it clear that I don't want to see my half- sister and have made plans to go and stay with my younger sister when she is here. After seeing the doctor we bundled my grandmother in the car during which my mom told me my half sister would be coming on Sunday. I replied that I would be going to my younger sister. My Mom said then that she had a "simple request". That was the match that lit the dynamite and knowing what she was asking I exploded.

I just started screaming my lungs out!. We were parked in a disabled parking quite close to the hospital entrance and people actually stopped and stared. A group of nurses walking towards us gave the car a wide berth. I was so furious that I kept on shouting all the way to my Aunt's house.

My Mom knows how bad the relationship is between my half- sister and I. What's worse is that I have told her everything that happened but she always forgets and keeps on asking me over and over again. I have given my reasons for not wanting to see  her but she doesn't respect my decision and keeps on nagging and demanding that we become freaking best friends because we are "sisters". Her coming to stay has really been stressing me out this time and my Mom has been more demanding than usual. This all coupled with everything else that was going on yesterday pushed me over the edge.

Today I'm a little worried because that explosion yesterday definitely caused me to take a mental step backwards. I can't describe it, I feel like a switch has flipped and something is different. I was meant to volunteer at the welfare today but this morning I couldn't get out of bed- I had a nightmare about my half- sister  last night. We were all at some big party and I spent the entire time trying to avoid her until eventually she confronted me and was crying and throwing a tantrum. I remember she had awful teeth. Ugh!. I woke up this morning feeling really disturbed and paranoid. I decided I didn't have it in me today to face those awful welfare ladies once again and stayed home. I failed today.

So I have spent most of today in a anxious state of paranoia and feeling angry and hurt at my mother for putting me there. I told my Mom how I was feeling this morning and her response was to pray for me. She's now acting like everything is hunky- dory. She knows that something is terribly wrong unfortunately before she takes action she goes into a state of denial first.

This might make you laugh. The final slap in the face?. My half sister will having a roast lamb dinner with my Mom and Dad. My grandmother's side of the family owns a sheep farm up in the Northern Cape. Every once and a while the send us lamb, very popular in South Africa and Europe and my favorite. They used to send lamb down a lot but after my beloved great uncle died they now only send it down about twice a year. It's way to expensive to buy in the store. We have had this leg of lamb in the freezer and I have literally been waiting with bated breath until we can have a roast lamb dinner. Well guess who is now getting the damn dinner?. Guess who will be sitting in a flat with her sister eating sandwiches?. Uh- huh.

Hope for the flowers part 4.....

When I got to the doctor the nurse took my temperature, blood, pressure and pulse. My blood pressure was sky- high and when checking my pulse she said, " It's amazing, you look so calm but your pulse is racing".I remember she was looking at me like a crazy person. Even though there was a patient before me, she called the doctor to come and see me first. I was actually embarrassed about seeing the doctor, because, where I came from you don't see the doctor just because you were nervous. But she told me it sounded as though I was suffering from Generalized anxiety disorder and most likely depression and she said that it was actually quite common.

She gave me prescription for 10mg Lexapro (antidepressants) and then a small prescription for Xanax (sedatives) - to help until the antidepressants worked their way into my system (about six weeks). I took both pills as soon as I got home. I had never taken a sedative before and boy, it didn't waste any time working on me. Within 15 minutes I could feel all the horrible tension start to leave my body and it had some consequences. I had been so hyped up that I didn't feel the aches and pains from completely overdoing it at the gym the day before and it was only then that I realised how badly I hurt my arm- I had stretched the muscle so badly that I could hardly move it. I fell into drug- fuelled sleep. The next few day were spent in a sedated haze that I can barely remember now.

A few things before I go. Generalized Anxiety disorder and depression are two disorders not to be messed around with. In reality I believe, firstly, that if I had gotten help sooner, even from the people around me it would never have gotten that bad. My stubbornness got me so sick that it nearly killed me. I believe that I should have been hospitalized (and at one point the doctor did suggest it) but I wasn't fortunate enough to have health insurance. Secondly, even though I am still on antidepressants now, I think this should be used at a last resort- you can't rely on drugs to keep you calm and happy for the rest of your life, you need to get to the source of the problem and develop some coping skills. Antidepressants treat the symptoms and not the cure. That being said there are times when they are necessary and the refusal to take them can be detrimental, my problems started because of a of two reasons- past events that had never been resolved were starting to take it's toll but a big part of what happened in America was a chemical imbalance- I needed medication at the time to correct it. What happened was no ones fault- with me being so secretive about it the people around me acted in the best way the knew how.

Thank- you for enduring such a long post, that's the majority of the dark stuff told. I am determined to make this blog more uplifting, but need to get some stuff out of the way first.

My hope for the flowers....Part 1

On the 2ND January 2007, I woke up suddenly at 2am to a very eerie bedroom and the strangest feeling. Everything was dark and dead quite- I was lying on my stomach peering out the window- all seemed normal but I felt like something was terribly wrong. Then the weirdest feeling- how I can best describe it, it was as though an ice- cold claw slowly curled round my heart and held it in a vice -grip. A feeling of horrible fear and dread filled me- so much so that I actually stopped breathing and was paralysed. I told myself that if I could just move and get some noise and light into the room then it would just go away. I forced myself to get up, switch the light on and turn on the T.V. I walked around the house to get a grip. Everything seemed normal but it wasn't- that episode had freaked me out so much that I slept for the rest of the night with the T.V and light on. I was afraid to go to bed after that and if I did attempt to I always slept with the light on.

At the time I was living in America, I had left home nearly three years before, spent two years living in London, UK before moving to California. I was on a great adventure but I had been away from home for a long time.

After that night in my room something had changed, it was small at first but day after day it began to take over my life. I was nervous, terrified all the time for no apparent reason. I began to get sick- my asthma flared up for the first since I was a child, I suffered nausea, headaches, my hair started falling out. I had heart palpitations which shocked me- didn't that only happen to older people? How was it possible that I could have heart attack at 23!?.