Tag: Mental Health

  • Creeps will be Creeps

    So I had someone reach out to me who should never have tracked me down about something that was none of my business two days ago, and it’s not important as to how it happened, but it did. Not disclosing details because I respect the entity that allowed it to happen.

    And it creeped me out even though I responded cordially to begin with– I did that before I really realized what it meant. I responded as I would respond to someone who reached out my inquiry form which is what happened, instead of really stopping to think about how this person even got my name to begin with.

    It creeped me out such that night before last, I dreamed I was being forced to marry someone who wanted to be violent with me. And despite whatever ways I tried to disentangle myself, the person in my dream was persistent and ultimately prevailed. I woke up before I was killed in my dream, but not before I was hurt– there was violence with a knife in my dream.

    And apparently the person who tracked me down and reached out via my inquiry form on this blog decided, for no really great reason, to follow me on social media, as well. Luckily, I figured it out and was able to block the person. But given the particulars of the situation that admittedly I know I am being vague about, that was top-level creep-factor. Though it is hard to say which was creepier– the social media follow or the inquiry form contact.

    I am being vague on purpose not to protect the creep in question, but to protect my relationships with others.

    And for about 13-14 hours, I decided to make this blog password-only, because it felt like a violation. I was unsure as to whether I even wanted to keep blogging.

    And then I decided that creeps will be creeps, and just like with people from my past, I am not going to let one really weird creep determine whether or not I like to write publicly or not.

    And, I happen to like blogging. So, I am going to keep blogging. And I’m not going to worry about the creeps. The creeps don’t get to win.

  • Facing a Fear: I Did It

    I do not like dealing with my toenails. At all.

    When I was a little girl, my Mama had to hold me down to let them cut my toenails.

    It was bad. Really.

    The issue is compounded by the fact that with the scoliosis and spinal fusion, I actually can’t get to my toes super well at all. I can cut my own toenails as an adult, but it is not the easiest thing in the world.

    So when my big left toenail became fungal three years ago, I was filled with a sort of existential dread.

    And immediately, within the month, I went to a podiatrist, who promptly told me it didn’t look like a typical fungus and that I should come back in a year if it was giving me trouble.

    Three years later, it had mostly stopped growing the entirety of those three years and it was clear it was indeed a fungal infection.

    So last September, I faced it and went to the podiatrist, sure they would remove it that very day.

    Turns out podiatrist offices don’t work that way.

    She gave me some ketoconazole and told me to use it and Vicks and she didn’t know how long it would take to clear up; when I mentioned removal she said it was an option.

    Then in December when I mentioned the whole episode to my dermatologist at my appointment there, she said that the ketoconazole was going to do nothing, and gave me some weird enamel paint stuff that made my nail hard and told me to file it weekly.

    That stuff took away permanently any hope of actually cutting my toenails, and actually, for some reason the toenail started growing into the base of my toenail bed, backwards.

    And the backwards growth was what promptly sent me back to the podiatrist last week, begging to have the whole thing just taken off permanently.

    Which is no small thing, because of that whole fear of people messing with my toenails.

    And in fact, the fear is so bad that one of my greatest all-time primal fears ever has ever been someone prying off my toenails.

    So yesterday, as I sat just after having my left big toe injected with local anesthetic to deaden it, I posted this on Facebook:

    “So one of my most primal fears is having my toenails, specifically my big toenails, pried off. No joke, in the midst of the only time I had to be restrained due to psychiatric reasons, the delusion of the day was that they were restraining me to pry my big toenails off.

    So what am I sitting in the podiatrist’s chair waiting on? To have my left big toenail removed, permanently.

    It’s been fungal for at least 3 years but it has given me trouble with ingrown issues since I was a child.

    I am ecastatic it will be gone permanently, and not worried about the cosmetics, and I guess technically today is an achievement and exercise in facing one of my worst fears, all by myself since Jared is at work.

    And the dr says I made it through the worst part, which was the deadening injections.

    And I can go shopping for stuff for the weekend’s weather, too.

    I don’t normally keep my phone with me during Dr appts but she said it was fine for distracting myself.”

    The doctor said afterward, with my having told her about the fear, and told her nurse about the fear, beforehand, that she’d made sure she deadened it well and made sure to let it sit long enough to for sure be effective because she really didn’t want to have to come back in and poke me with a needle again after having hurt me with the procedure.

    But sure enough, the procedure itself took like 5 minutes, maybe 10 max, and it was not bad at all. I took a photo I will spare the world after, in fact– you know, with photography being my coping mechanism for everything and all– of the exposed toe bed before it got wrapped up in the bandage post procedure. I’d taken a photo of it before the procedure started, too, for posterity.

    And pretty much the rest of my whole morning and yesterday during the day was set up for success, because I’d done the very thing I was afraid of most as a child, probably. And that’s saying something considering they cut me open on front and back and messed with my innards in a very dramatic fashion for that scoliosis surgery.

  • Randomness

    You know what? I sure have missed writing.

    Also, randomness: I’m pretty darn good at Russian on Duolingo. Apparently there were hidden subconscious benefits to spending a good amount of time in my toddler years in a college language lab, as Russian, Greek, and Spanish are all fairly intuitive in addition to the French I did actually study.

    And, there’s a new job to get ready for, and I am glad.

    And it’s nearly tax season, and I am glad about that, too.

    But, it’s bedtime. And with said job on the horizon, routine is becoming super-duper important.

    And apparently my back is really messed up. I don’t know why my spine is a corkscrew, but it is.

    Poor Abby has to have a dental on February 2; she has an infection in her mouth and will have to have several teeth pulled too. I guess that comes from us not brushing her teeth– sorry girl. She’s been a trooper but we finally got her to the vet today. I am so thankful my therapy dog only has to have a dental and it was nothing worse to worry about. I was afraid she had kidney issues.

    Aside from the trip to the vet, it was a good day.

    I’m thankful to be getting back into the headspace that I can concentrate on writing. It’s been a long winter and I am grateful that the fictionalized memoir is still a project on the horizon. It may take me a decade to write, but will be well-worth it.

  • Bye Analytics, It’s Been Fun

    Some one (or more likely, some bot, or maybe some bot programmed by someone though that is a stretch I know) has been really interested in finding old content on this blog, content that doesn’t exist on this blog because it is old content that I wrote years ago at both other hosting, on other domain names.

    And admittedly, I’ve let the mystery drive me nuts for several weeks now. But the game is getting tired, and honestly, I have much better things to do. And it’s stopped me from doing what I really like to do anyway, which is take pictures and write.

    And we’ve tossed, Jared and I, theories around. Could it be someone poking around at my old Tickle the Sun domain? Not possible at the moment, as that points to Substack. And, I didn’t even own carolineprice.com the domain name until 2020 or so, or maybe 2021 (I don’t remember), but I know it was at least March of 2020 because we were sitting in the office (which was the dining room really) of the Holmes Drive house, while Jared was working remotely during the pandemic, when I bought that domain. So the content, which I did write and which these are titles or names of pictures of content that I did write, was never hosted at this domain name.

    And I’ve never had solid luck uploading old XML files with old blog posts into new iterations of a blog, so I gave up on that probably 5 years or so more ago now.

    So, my best guess is that someone somewhere out there has taken to the Wayback Machine to look at my old blog posts, and somehow those are being fed into some bot that is scraping my current site to see if any of it is active.

    Why? I have no idea. I can only think of one person with the motive and expendable finances to do something like this, and that person hardly needs to haunt my analytics in some backward attempt to find. a way to make me look more unstable. I manage to freely admit that fact myself.

    And so….. with that, I’m giving up the ghost and while I am not unhooking Google Analytics, I’m certainly going to take a long break from looking. It’s not that fun a game anymore.

    But, the “My Me Too” post was one of the pages that was attempted (and doesn’t currently exist) two days ago, and seeing that prompted me to remember that it wasn’t here, and yes, I do actually have a copy of that post, and I think that’s the next up for re-publication.

    I don’t know what’s up with my analytics; I know my life is not that interesting, my following is tiny, and anyone who might be inclined to haunt my analytics in this way should know me well enough to know that any antagonization will just make me double-down in my talking about the past and the really bizarre things I have experienced in my life.

    And thankfully, before I posted this, I had a long chat with Jared about my history with paranoia and that yes, I really am okay, things really are weird with my analytics, and maybe it’s just time to get back to writing and taking pictures and in general enjoying my life. I really have gotten quite delayed in writing that lightly fictionalized memoir I am writing.

    And in the meantime, my husband is being the safety professional at home that he is in his work life.

  • On The Bus

    I’ve been on the struggle bus for a while now.

    For years and years, actually.

    Jared is the one who named it the “struggle bus.” 

    This winter is actually slightly more bearable because of the shears in the house. 

    Light helps.

    And even though I am on the struggle bus, there are small mercies.

    A new job.

    A fun New Year’s Eve.

    New tires on my car that make it formidable in the rain.

    Mastering the French pin up-do.

    Figuring out that why yes, I can live without cheese in my life. And be happier for it.

    Figuring out that why yes, I can be happier without some people in my life, too.

    Figuring out that even life without the GFX is pretty darn great. 

    My hair is growing. It’s longer now than it’s been in probably 11 years or so. I forgot that when it gets to a certain length, the ends in the front underneath get curly on their own. Completely forgot that at all. It’s well on its way to being as long as it was on the 404 page.

    And there is terror, and I haven’t been writing.

    It’s mostly been survival mode.

    There are new routines with the new year, and the future is bright. 

    Maybe life is the struggle bus.

    It’s a pretty darn wild ride.

    There is hope. At least I’m on the bus.