coffeebarconfessions

Oh my head is spinning today! I am so unbelievably overwhelmed with the details of my life. My phone is ringing off the hook with creditors hounding my heels, my mailbox is overflowing with debt collection and delinquency notices. Everyone wants money from me and I don't have any to give them! Having two strokes was expensive, and I have insurance! God bless those that don't, for I can only imagine how much harder this could be. We were already in mounds of debt from CFS and Fibromyalgia and barely hanging on by a thread, and having to quit my job has hurt us badly. We have been watching every penny but when there are more pennies going out than coming in, what's the difference? I am overwhelmingly manic today on top of all this, ADD all over the place. I start 2 things before I finish the 3 I am working on. The power of FOCUS is not my friend! But I refuse to do the Xanax knockout because it will all still be here waiting for me tomorrow, messier, sticker, more complicate...

I am an uptight control freak. As much as I try to relax and let go that is just who I am. I spent years self-medicating it away, hoping if I had enough to drink or smoke or could dull the intense distraction of noticing every little thing and letting it get to me I could find peace. I now believe that behavior only served to complicate its severity. They say its the type "A" personality that get CFS & Fibromyalgia, the over-achievers, the doers, the perfectionists, the driven. I certainly fall into that category. I know now that if I had listened to my body and not pushed through CFS I would not have developed Fibromyalgia. But that is not how I was raised, that was not a society we live in and that does NOT pay the bills! I see many of you out there doubted by those you love the most that have no grasp, no concept of what you are going through. They tell you to tough it out, get up off the couch and go live your life, exercise the pain away, and it breaks my heart. I wa...

Trying to manage Fibromyalgia without a doctor that is compassionate, on your side and willing to work with you is impossible. Simply impossible. I have seen more than my fair share of medical professionals that were doubters, unkind and knew far less about CFS and Fibromyalgia than I did. I would ask them, challenge their knowledge, and find they had no clue. I would set out to each appointment with a glimmer of hope, a bit of optimism that someone could help me, only to leave in tears, sobbing my way home crestfallen and despondent. Yet the information is out there... Let's be honest here, folks, Fibromyalgia is hot! The number of patients are on the rise, as many as 6 million in the USA alone! It is on the cusp of gaining major recognition as Pfizer advertises the life out of Lyrica . We now have 3 FDA approved drugs to manage symptoms, and while they may not work for everyone, at least it is no longer considered "all in your head" by certain sectors of the medical...

My husband and I have been going through one of those "not on the same page" phases marriage knows so well. You know, when you tell him the sky is blue and he says no its gray and within 2 minutes you are either screaming at each other or not speaking? Our communication is just off. We got married Catholic, which means we attended a mandatory premarital seminar that turned out to be really quite interesting. One of the topics they touched on was our different "family of origin" methods of communicating and how that would play into our way of relating to each other, and man 'o man has it ever! My husband is from a hot-headed ethnic family that yell as their fundamental way of corresponding the slightest discord. My WASPish clan was more prone to pouting and the silent treatment. So over the course of our nearly 11 year relationship there has been LOTS of miss-communication. We have it pretty ironed out at this point but it still rears its ugly head 'a plenty!...

For all of you that gleaned a bit of inspiration from my blog "I Have Let Myself Go" I am so proud of you! I have been getting loads of feedback that although the effort is exhaustive, just a few bits of attention to yourself is doing your morale wonders! Tiny little attempts to feel more attractive, be it getting some cuter 'jammies to lounge around while in pain or putting on some jewelry and eyeliner and coiffing that 'do make us feel better about ourselves which in turn, over time, can only be a good thing. Ever hear that expression Dress for the job you want, not the job you have? Well lets take that and Dress for the health we want, not the health we have ! There are so many "girlie" things that have fallen out of my life since I got sick. I was a high-maintenance bitty before CFS & Fibromyalgia knocked my socks off. I was working non-stop and although I did not have the extra cash to spend on expensive beauty treatments, spent it anyway! I went...

I am a "Love Child" in the truest sense of the word. When I first heard Diana Ross wailing out that tune I quickly downloaded it for my cell-phone ring tone. It was perfectly poignant for the phase of reflection I was going through in my life and gave me a constant reminder of my unique and eccentric origins. Picture it: Venice Beach, California, 1975. A guitar player and singer in a garage-meets-lounge band fall in love. The singer was a college drop-out Mid-West transplant seeking fame and fortune in the bright lights of big city L.A. The guitar player was your average San Fernando Valley hippie experiencing the unravel of the counter-culture movement while traveling around the country in a van with his band. They were busy living their youth and dreaming their dreams. Neither of them were stable, settled or mature enough to begin a family, but other plans were in store for them... The singer finds herself pregnant, 23, unmarried and half-a-country away from home. Buying i...

I have heard it said that you will never work as hard as when you are starting your own business. The job that was once a grueling and mandatory part of your day becomes an obsession as you pour every ounce of yourself into nurturing and developing your baby, your dream, your ambition. Well I can tell you I am experiencing that for the first time ever and it is so true. YOU, my readers, have given it to me! You have given me confidence and feedback and laughter and heartache and stimulating thoughts and conversations and most importantly a purpose . If you read my earlier blogs, pre-strokes blogs, you will constantly see me bitching about how unmotivated I was. How I was dreaming of an enthusiasm that would cause me to LEAP out of bed in the morning, ready to tackle whatever challenges were ahead of me. Excited and optimistic and full of life and energy, I needed something to grab my heart and pull me out of whatever physical malady was at the top of the list for that day, overriding t...