The puppy had a rough weekend. Thursday night, he scratched open a stye on his eyelid, and after putting socks on his paws to keep him from doing more damage (they lasted about an hour, honestly, but good effort Jady!), I called the 24 hour vet and under their advisement, took him to the regular, not as expensive vet the next day. He got his eyeball numbed and goo squeezed out, I WILL SPARE YOU THE PICS, and now he’s on antibiotic eyedrops for the next ten days/ two weeks. Poor guy. The saving grace of the entire affair is he got a full check up, and the ol’ boy is doing great otherwise. For a 15 year old, he’s spry as a….ten year old? yeah. Maybe a bit slower than his salad days, but doing very well. He’s holding a hell of a grudge about the eyedrops, but he gets them every 12 hours no matter how much we both dislike doing it.

SO. Anxiety has been a creepy little monster lately, and I’m getting fed up with feeling like the world is ending on the daily. I’m blogging, which is good, and charting my meals, which is annoying but necessary if I do want to lose some weight. I’m also working 45 hours or so a week, since my company asked clinicians for a little extra side-work to get our admissions up. I’ll be doing interviews for new residential and outpatient clients, which is not my normal job, but it’s a good way to learn how people appear in my office as clients. It’s also pretty complicated and they assured me they’d hold my hand while I learned all the data entry side of admissions. I’m nervous about messing up (aren’t you always, Jady? Hush you.) but I want to be as valuable an employee as possible, and learning new things is good for your brain, right? Right.

Alas, Anxiety lingers on, not so much when I’m on the job, but in those quiet moments at home when I should be relaxing and not considering the tiny infractions that make me an imperfect and possibly terrible human. I consider myself a perfectionist, but not a particularly good one. It’s simply a feeling like I should constantly do things right, or I am wildly superstitious that things will go wrong and it will be my fault. I don’t really glory that much in my accomplishments….I stressed my guts off during my masters, but graduation was less than spectacular. I got an amazing job, and I feel unworthy almost always. My loved ones love me ever-much, but this time of year, just try to convince me that I’m an acceptable person. You’d think that it would get easier the more I learn about the workings of the brain, or the mind, or the human condition. But I outsmart myself into thinking I’m specially un-special. And knowing/calling out my own thinking errors offer little respite. I’ve even been using my limited supply of anti-anxiety meds, which I LOATHE. It’s hard to draw the line between self-medicating and judiciously altering brain chemistry so I can sleep, at least in my mind. Yet I suggest my clients visit their primary medical provider when their chemistry is out of whack, so perhaps I should take my own advice. (but I’m special and no one can fix me! oh right, thinking error. gotcha.)

There you have it. I need to visit the doctor. It only took one blog to write it all down, read it back to myself, and take the advice I would give to anyone else. My Brain and I are seeing eye to eye, and I’m not about to let things get worse. I’m not playing chicken with my sanity. All nonsensical worry considered, this is a very distinct point at which I can choose to get professional assistance, or I can choose the rabbit hole. Been down there before. Not the greatest adventure. Not fun at all, really. Familiar, sure, but unpleasant. February is happening whether I’m ready for it or not, so I best get my mental self into shape. Or all the weight-watching, blogging, healthy choices galore, won’t pull me out. And then I truly will have no-one to blame but myself.

Fuck. I get that thing about being annoyingly correct now.

But Puppy needs eye drops and I need a tune up, so as my darling mother would say, ‘suck it up, buttercup’. Go to the goddamn doctor. Stop stalling. Take your own advice or return that fancy Master’s degree, because clearly you didn’t learn a thing.

Ugh. I can be such a brat sometimes. I just know I’m gonna be smug as fuck when I get this brain sorted out. Smug to myself and only myself, but still. Smug.

Ok. it’s 9 hours until I can call to make an appointment. time to attempt sleep. Wish me luck.