Tag: Mental Health

  • Twenty-One Years

    Photo by Virginia Hall. Re-edits by me.

    The view in this photograph doesn’t exist anymore.

    And I suppose anniversaries can be like that, too.

    This photo is standing close to the arch at Epworth-By-The-Sea at St. Simons Island. We are standing facing the arch, with Virginia facing those beautiful Live Oaks in the background.

    Standing in this very spot now, there are condos in the background now in 2026 where there was only woods in 2005.

    Not all progress is positive. Even if I am a curmudgeon about progress in general, especially when it mostly only benefits rich people.

    Today was not an easy day. I have been really sick (thus the COVID test picture and post that went viral on Facebook, from the other post– last check there were over 309,800 views on that post).

    Today was our 21st anniversary, and I always get extremely anxious on special days.

    And, Jared had taken the day off (and tomorrow) to be with me all day, and Jared got called into work for an emergency. Which I didn’t mind later in the moment.

    But as typical for special occasions, there were fights last night.

    I got scared because Aquaguard came to inspect our crawlspace encapsulation, and this kid that graduated with Porter, who probably hasn’t even been on the job very long at all, tried to tell just that there are problems with our foundation.

    And, there very well might be problems. But probably not to the extent that the kid tried to scare us into buying a solution into. We will hire an independent structural engineer company when we have funds to do so. There are no external signs that there are problems, and with our house being 32 years old, these “issues” may have gone unnoticed for years upon years.

    And that sent me into a spiral of feeling like crap about being unemployable, and I posted a not very wise Facebook post that I have since archived, after Jared and I had been fighting for hours, about 11 PM last night.

    And I woke Jared up after crying myself to sleep at about 2:30 AM, and Jared hadn’t been asleep very long himself at that point.

    So, we were not set up for a very good day together.

    The day was not a loss; we had a lovely time at Gallery Row for lunch.

    But there was more fighting later in the day.

    I have high expectations for special days like anniversaries, and I’m hoping to tone them down for future events so as to not cause problems like happened today.

    But now that the day is over, I can calm down, and we can go back to real life.

    It is Easter weekend, and I am still really not feeling well– I finally called a Telehealth urgent care on Tuesday and got an antibiotic for the secondary sinus infection I have developed. But I’m still far from 100%.

    We may not make it to Good Friday service at church like planned, and I’m hoping for a better next couple of days than the past couple of days.

    I suppose having had 21 anniversaries at this point, there was bound to be a hard day mixed in somewhere.

    Neither of us even made the joke that our marriage is old enough to drink today.

  • I Didn’t Take the Test Apart

    I am sick. Oliver, our youngest, tested positive for rhinovirus last Sunday, and I was the lucky recipient of his germs in the household. Nobody else was as fortunate.

    And I don’t know what it is about colds, but this is not the first time that I have completely lost my voice in the last year, even, when I was sick.

    And because I read that the new COVID variant, ‘Cicada,’ is spreading, after a day of feeling awful yesterday, I broke out one of the COVID tests we keep on hand. Because yes, we still occasionally test when one of us is sick.

    And as I stood there waiting for the test to develop, I second-guessed myself. Had I used enough of the test liquid before I inserted the swab? Had I done the twirly thing in my nose enough? I even found myself, once I was sure the time was passed enough, pushing some more of the liquid up from the bottom of the test.

    And with that, I was re-living the massively anxious pregnancy test years all over again, when I’d wonder if I’d used enough urine to make the test work right.

    So, I went to Facebook and posted this:

    “My potential childbearing years (only counting from marriage on) were 2005 to 2014. But only having a tubal in 2014 didn’t stop me from being paranoid clear through 2024 or so.

    And because the majority of those years were before digital pregnancy tests were not cost prohibitive….

    There is a very specific type of anxiety that arises whenever I have to do a COVID test.

    And I know very well to not even bother going to get Jared to ask him if he sees what I see, because my eyes and brain are VERY well trained to see a second line that is not there.

    Because I think I see one.

    I’ve held my phone flashlight up to it to try to see if that makes it appear.

    And it takes all my restraint not to take the test apart to see if I can see a line that way.

    Whoever came up with the mechanism for COVID tests was NOT sensitive to a couple of generations’ worth of us who did this countless times, trying to will a second line to appear.

    Just saying. 🤣

    And 2026 me can be mildly amused but early 2006 me would have been severely distraught that this is a way we have to routinely test for sickness.”

    I’ve spent a good portion of this week monitoring my analytics: a fruitless exercise, much like taking pregnancy tests apart. But I went to look 24 hours after the post, and apparently I’ve struck a chord with over 12,000 other women who’ve probably taken tests apart or begged their husbands to see a line that isn’t really there, too.

    I’m not used to writing things that people listen to. Or maybe I’m not used to using my voice in ways that are both constructive and vulnerable. I frequently write vulnerable things, but I am equally likely to yell in writing about the injustices than to find something to laugh at. And, now that the years are past, it is easier to see the humor in the very real anxiety I still feel about pregnancy and COVID tests.

    While I’m not really thinking I have COVID, I still wish I could will a second line to appear. I suppose that anxious urge is literally never going away, even though I am almost a year post-hysterectomy.

    And after 48 hours squeaking as I talk, I am ready for my voice to come back.

  • Maybe Recliners Aren’t the Be-All-End-All

    I have severe scoliosis. As in– I started wearing a back brace at age six, wore some variation of said brace through age 13 (think hard plastic shells molded from a cast of my whole torso, made every few months as I grew)…..it was not fun times.

    And at age 13 when I had surgery for an 87-degree curve, I really hoped that was the end of it. I grew from five foot six inches to five foot seven and a half inches in 10 hours. True story.

    But….life happened, four pregnancies and three healthy boys happened, and here I am at age 46 with a secondary thoracic curve that has to be at least 45 degrees in addition to the original lumbar curve, which has settled also at 45 degrees or so.

    Suffice it to say between the curves and rotation, my whole skeletal system is a mess.

    For the past six years, we have loved our Kirkland Signature leather electric reclining couch. We now are at Costco all the time, but we actually scored our couch at a local salvage store for $250, brand new apparently. When we bought it I thought we’d be doing well to get six months of use out of it, and here we are six years alter, and it still works.

    I have been in physical therapy now for months, and after last week’s session I decided I might be done with the couch. I’ve known for a long time that it was not good for my back, so I decided to just take the week and sit, when I sit, in this straight back cushioned rocking chair with the pillow, as pictured above.

    And…..something minor-miracle-wise, happened:

    I found myself sitting less. A lot less. I started getting back on my stationary exercise bike daily. I found myself sitting to do what I was going to do and then getting back up to resume household tasks as needed. And my mental health has been better on the whole, as well.

    I did not realize that what one sits on can literally make a change in lifestyle in the span of a week.

    So, the couch is posted on Facebook for giveaway, and we will find a better recliner for my husband, who legitimately does need one since he sleeps out here in our living room occasionally.

    Yes, we are a couple that does not always sleep in the same room, and no, there is nothing wrong with our marriage.

    I suppose that is another post, though.

  • It’s Just a Toe

    On January 21, I had a permanent matrixectomy on my left big toe. And for eight weeks and two days, I completely avoided posting any public pictures of that toe– it was gross.

    But Friday morning, March 20, I woke up and saw when I looked at my feet that there was no 1/2 inch square scab in the bottom left hand corner as had been there the night before, when I went to sleep.

    So, bored on Friday afternoon, I took the above photo with my phone, and captioned it this on Facebook:

    “It took 1 day shy of exactly two months for my gimpy toe to have the 1/2 inch square scab to fall off, apparently in one fell swoop overnight. My toe feels no different, and I didn’t feel it happen, but my big toe looks so weird without a nail or anything there even though I’ve known for 2 months this was the goal.

    To me it looks like I just have pink fingernail polish on that one toe.

    I spared y’all all the photos I took of the gore as it was in progress over the past two months— it was really gross especially about the 2-week mark. But I couldn’t resist this one.”

    And I thought nothing more about it, until I saw on Saturday that the post had 20k something views.

    As of this writing, Monday afternoon March 23, that post has had 73,212 views.

    The lone negative comment was that I needed clean my shoe, which if anybody knows anything about Birkenstocks, that is a nonissue.

    And honesty time: Had I known that that photo was going to go mini-viral: I would have gotten out the good camera. I would have trimmed on that second toe which is not quite straight with its nail, where the right side of the nail skims upwards slightly. I would have gotten the green strap from my physical therapy off the coffee table behind my foot. I would have probably, yes, worn different shoes or better yet, no shoe at all.

    It’s just a toe, people.

    But it is pretty funny that a stadium or two’s worth of people find it fascinating to look at a toe without a toenail.

    I posted the following as part of the comments:

    “Since people seem to like this post, the back story: This toenail had been giving me ingrown problems at that top left corner since I was 13 years old, and had become fungal to the point it had stopped growing over a year ago. It was so thick that I could no longer cut it at all myself. At age 46, I said enough and went to the podiatrist for a matrixectomy. I did try the prescription anti fungal lacquer and Vicks and ketoconazole cream prior to giving up. 

    I am extremely squeamish about people messing with my toes and especially my toenails. I told my doctor about my phobia, and she was very compassionate both with local anesthesia and patient with me. My doctor was great, and the whole procedure after insurance (admittedly, we do have good insurance) cost about $346 out of pocket. 

    I took Tylenol for the first two days but after that needed no pain meds, and I did have to wear flip flops (not these Birks) in the dead of winter (procedure was January 21) for a long time, and in awkward social situations at times. 

    But, for a lifetime of not having to deal with that toenail anymore….100% worth it.”

    Thankfully, most comments have been kind; a few people have shared their own feet or tips for future use as my foot settles.

    But really, people. It’s just a toe.

    Fediverse reactions

  • February 3, 2011

    Detail of a 2011 Blogger template by Skincorner, featuring artwork by Amai, from the header of my blog at the time.

    “I’m determined to salvage the comfortingly wonderful customs from my heritage while, for lack of a better term, “taking out the trash,” so to speak. Example: Karo syrup makes a really good, easy topping for breads when mashed up with butter on a fork. Fantastic taste to that. However, eat too much of it, and I know I’ll have a heart attack. It’s all in the moderation. I have bipolar disorder and PTSD and I struggle with massive doses of anxiety. Generally, though, I am a pretty happy person. Except when I’m not. :) It’s pretty much just like that. And then I feel like the world is caving in. But the good news for you is that if you know me, unless you spend a lot of time and I really let you in, you won’t have to deal with any of it. Because I put on a really good cover and generally don’t let many people close. I’m slow to trust people right now. Otherwise, I’m mommy to two really funny little boys. They keep Jared and me really busy. My living room is overrun with matchbox cars and little boy-sized desks and chairs.”

    This was the “about” box on my very first blog.

    I finally got up the courage to go scouting through archive.org to look at old blog posts that are now defunct. I pulled this “about” quote from my blog as it was on February 3, 2011.

    And I can unpack quite a lot that goes unsaid between the lines now, 15 years later.

    And it is still, indeed true, 15 years later, that despite living what appears to be a fairly transparent existence online, it is true that I let remarkably few people close (pretty much 1 to be exact), especially in person, and I have learned indeed to put on a really, really great cover.

    In that paragraph, I hear the angst in my writing. I hear the quiet despondency and horror of having had my social sphere knocked out from under me just the year prior.

    On February 3, 2011, Porter would have been four and a half and Liam would have been not quite three. We were indeed in the thick of it with two very funny little boys. I was in no way prepared to give them the attention they deserved.

    In 2011, the world was falling apart in just about every way possible.

    And so, in 2011, the boys went to daycare despite me not working.

    Jared kept all of us going, day and night.

    I had visions of a “Mommy Blog,” and was not-so-quietly desperate to get back to some semblance of a professional life.

    And for sure, whatever beginnings of a social life we’d had the year prior was long gone. Church was kind but most people were distant.

    I was taking on the full identity of “sick Caroline.” And, quietly dying, horrified and terror-filled, inside.

    And in that paragraph above, I was trying to not betray that any one bit of that was actually happening.

    Over the next little while, I’m going to revisit some of those old posts, with updated commentary.

    February of 2011 was the quiet beginning of a new sort of lifestyle: a different kind of childhood for my boys than I imagined, a different sort of marriage dynamic than I’d imagined.

    A different kind of life than I’d grown up dreaming about.

    And it’s been beautiful in its own way. Arguably, my boys had a more present mother because of that season of life.

    And if I could go back and tell the girl, who probably drafted that “about” paragraph in between sobbing episodes, anything at all, it would be this:

    Those two little boys that you worry about: they will grow up to be stellarly wonderful men in spite of whatever shortcomings you have. That man you married, that man that you feel growing ever distant with the stress of life right now: this marriage that is being tested is going to find its own comfortable peace and that man is your safe haven. And the career days may very well be done, and that will always hurt. And you, dear girl, your tears are not in vain. There’s a beauty in the growth going on right now. Do not lose hope.

    That is what I would tell my 15 years’ younger self today. Because it is the same thing I can tell myself today, in 2026.