Sunday, October 19, 2008

Domestic Partnership

Next Wednesday morning Keith is going to FL. to visit his family. I am going to drop him off at the airport and he returns on Sunday afternoon. We have been together almost 5 years and this will be the first time we have spent more than 24 hours apart. Since I tend not to leave my house much I am sure I will be a bit lonely. Being a nervous person I am worried about other things as well like him cheating on me, his plane crashing or him seeing how good life is away from me and no longer wanting to be with me. I will just be glad when he is back home.

While he is gone I am going to try to stop smoking. I figure I might as well go through the withdrawal alone. I get so angry and pick fights with people every time I stop so this way there will be no one here to yell at. I think I will actually have a fair shot at stopping if I am left alone and nothing major comes up in my life. Since Keith smokes he said that if I quit smoking while he is gone he will start smoking outside.

I think I am actually hooked to my Xanax. It is a very low dose and I have no plans on stopping anytime soon so I am not stressing over it too much. The reason why I feel like I am hooked is because if it is time to take my pill my body will actually wake me up. Sometimes I even feel a bit ill around the time I have to take it. However as bad as this is to say I have much larger demons to worry about than a Xanax addiction right now.

I went to my student therapist last Tuesday and I think I finally got through to her. Each person I have ever seen talks about me being cured from medication, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or whatever happens to be in fashion that year. I have done many programs all claiming a 70%-90% success rate. None have worked on me. She wanted to do CBT again and at first I was going to, but the more I thought about it it just seemed like a waste of time. I have already done CBT three times with no success.

A large part of treatment seems to be getting to a point where you are not scared of the feelings you are having. The problem is most of the time I am not scared of how I feel. I have lived with it for so long that I am pretty use to it. Now to be fair if I have a very strong panic attack, which happens rarely now, it might take me by surprise by being so intense and that would scare me. Not because of how I feel, but because I don't want to really be having a heart attack someday and instead of going to the Emergency Room sitting here at home doing deep breathing and drop dead. That is one thing no one can give me a straight answer on. How do I know when there really is something wrong?

Anyway, my therapist and I are actually going to be trying something new...acceptance. Acceptance of me always having anxiety and most the time feeling like crap. I actually like that idea and will see how it goes. There is a lot of anger inside of me because I keep being told I can be well and then never am. I look at it this way. If a person was in chronic pain they would have to learn to live in chronic pain. Well I am in chronic pain...just not that kind of pain, but pain nonetheless.

You guys, sometimes I get so tired of dealing with it and I am sure many of you can relate. Like I said before most of the time I am not even scared of the "feelings". However I am so tired of throwing up before I see a doctor, dentist or anything my brain deems too stressful. I am not scared of being lightheaded, but I am tired of being lightheaded. I am tired of being tired.

New York State does not allow gay marriage, but it does allow domestic partnerships. Keith and I have talked about it and it looks like I am getting "married" soon. We are going to see if prenuptial agreements are needed for domestic partnerships and how they work compared to marriage. We just want to make sure should we split what is mine is mine and what is his is his. Especially since our parents are getting on in years and if they should pass away we want to make sure the other can't get it in a messy "divorce" situation. I can't see him taking everything I have and I don't think I would act that way either, but better to have a prenuptial because as many people know love can turn to hurt and sometimes that leads to revenge on the person we once loved.

This is a sucky reason to get "married", but if we do I can have health insurance finally. I can go under his health plan and it will only be $176 a month. Maybe I can finally see a real therapist and get some tests run at the doctor that are long over due. As any reader of my blog knows every year or so I need to get a chest x-ray since I had lung surgery. Last year it cost me $600 for the x-ray. I just do not have that kind of money. Not to mention God forbid if I was to get cancer or was in a car crash. How would I ever pay that back?

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