you know how when you cry, afterwards, when you breathe in, the breath is still kinda "sobby" ? - that's how my breathing is when i take a deep breath. i am bundle of NERVES! have started taking a significant dose of my benzo in the evening. it helps but is not helping during the day. it will take a while to build up though.

for the first part of the day i am dead tired. it's all i can do to keep myself in coffee. i try to get up and make the bed so i don't lie in it. i am trying to "do the right things" or as many of them as i can muster.

it's HARD. i feel exhausted and crabby most of the time.

if i do nothing though, i feel less exhausted but still crabby... and also guilty about not doing anything.

then in the afternoon (after enough coffee) i usually do stuff. either go to the store or clean or cook.

my most significant recent contribution to the household, has been in cooking. i have really ramped up the cooking... been doing all of dinner pre and post (table, washing up, putting away). i end up doing things which require a fair bit of patience... today i spent 5 hours on dinner! my parents enjoyed it, and they didn't have to work for it either, but emotionally, it still feels superfluous.



sheez i can't even seem to feel useful when i know in my head, that i am behaving in useful ways.

and i am POOOPED.


~ waves ~

wow! 5 hours you must have created a masterpiece! glad that your parents enjoyed it. I hope you did as welll.
tell me what did you fix?
bizi

Dear Waves,
I'm coming back to the board in a little bit.
For right now I want to comment on your word "useful."
Your post has lots of mood related descriptors -- talk of feeling crabby, feeling exhausted, needing caffeine, . . .

. . . but this concern about being useful is not necessarily related to mood issues. I wonder what that is about.
What do you mean when you talk about being useful?
Do you think that this is about your existential / situation issues? Or is it something else?
Is it something that you can re-frame /re-think so that you can feel better?
Have you defined yourself in the past as being useful to yourself and others?

=-=-
I think I do not really want or need to feel useful. But if you asked me if I like to feel "needed", I might say "yes" depending lately on what moment you you asked me.
I have spent most of my adult life trying not to want to feel needed. This is something from my childhood that I am able to drop a little bit each year as I get older.
=-=-=-
I do feel the need to "connect" with people. I think connect is a word for me.
At this point in my life if I could not connect with others to some degree on some level, I might be unhappy.

Is my "connect" similar to your "busy"?

I am not asking this to be difficult or give you lots of quiz questions. I'm wondering how you could feel better about yourself.

M.

Dear Waves,

I'm sure that your dinner (including the prep and the clean up were wonderful and that they appreciated it.
I'm sorry that you are feeling That probably was tiring work.

I wish you could get good sleep and not be tired. Sleep seems to be key to lots of things.

Keep posting. You will be able to look at your posts and see progress.


M.

thank you both. (((hugs))) i have to make separate posts since there are so many things...

cooking for Bizi...

oh and btw 5 hours prep/cooking is not that unusual for me lately... typical is maybe 2-3 hours. it's all the finely chopping of this and that plus i wash up while things are cooking so it isn't all piled up afterwards. i could not face having 4-5 pans to wash in one go.

what i fixed last night:

(the idea was to "use up" left over sausage from when i made stuffed bell pepper boats (another 5+ hour dealy )

- platter of "home fried" potato wafers, with a centerpiece of......

- sauteed sausage with carmelized onion and fennel seed, topped with steamed peeled n crushed cherry tomatoes,

- spinach with garlic for my dad (not enough for 3 people)

- beet greens w/ garlic, clove and ginger and mustard for mom and me (dad no like)

- julienne carrots with hot paprika, ginger, garlic and bouillon

(the potatoes i cut into semicircles, 1/4 inch thick, and browned them in a single layer using minimum oil and less than a tablespoon butter total. they couldn't all fit, so it took 2 rounds with the fry pan, and one hour, just to do that. and it would have taken longer if i had not partly cooked them whole, in the microwave, before that... i think, not sure.)

i chopped some parsley that was otherwise going to go bad but we didn't use it.

~ waves ~

dad did not say anything until i asked him if everything was 'ok' and then he said it was fine. later he said the spinach were a little watery (i'm ok with that - that is good feedback) and the carrots were tasty. he didn't comment on the flavorings or presentation of the "main dish," which was a bit disappointing even though he is the one who usually appreciates presentation....

i wish i didn't need such explicit acknowledgements ... i seem to be kinda needy that way...

mom is very supportive. and she thanks me all the time, and i can see by how she looks that she genuinely appreciates it. last night she even made a fuss over how pretty the potatoes were. mind you we don't usually have potatoes this way because mom and i like to avoid the cooked oil. monday, dad requested them sauteed - and i made them... but then he insisted there werent enough and i should make more (hello??? SHARE!!!), even though i wasn't planning on eating more than 2-3 pcs so mom said she'd have a baked potato and only had a few pieces herself. i thought that was rude.

it is, somewhat. and yesterday was worse, because i was hungover - queasy, generally achy. plus mild headache.

but i'm tired even without doing anything at all. not always sleepy tired... just a beat-up sort of feeling.

other than those few nights when we had the people coming (ugh!) i am getting good sleep. 5-6 hours contiguous, and then sometimes i sleep another couple hours in the morning.

moving on to the the "usefulness" concept now...

~ waves ~

Dear Mari

i think you put your finger on a rather knotty issue. maybe (k)not one i can untie, but perhaps this dialog will help me loosen it some. let's see...

that is true. i think it is about being unemployed and mooching off my parents and trying to "pull my own weight." but you know, i think it means different things at different times.

before then, doing software development, completely self-sufficient and with a "promising" future, i felt empty about my work and my life... it felt like a lean mean money-making machine. it was all about pushing product that would boost client performance and therefore make the customers money and therefore us.

i value the the ability to invest one's talents in a way that is beneficial not only for the self, but for other living things (doesn't have to be people necessarily).

-- at one time, i defined my mission as "to create beauty."

-- later i amended it as, "to create and appreciate beauty."

beauty is not intended (only) as art, although that was my primary focus. it can be artistic or physical beauty, practicality of design, mathematical elegance, inner beauty (eg kindness, compassion) ... very broad concept.

i thought of this because lately i have thought more about this 'useful' thing than about 'beauty.' perhaps the cooking is a way of bringing beauty back... i cook carefully... i tend to use low heat... i sort of cultivate the dish as it goes along. i pay attention to health concerns, chewability and other personal requirements, complementation of flavors (sides/main)... and finally presentation.

when i was not doing anything, and feeling useless.... it was understandable. that my former occupation was mechanical, not-closely-life-oriented, as i would have wanted it to be also understandable. in other words, in both those situation, the feeling corresponded to a reality.

cooking, cleaning etc... is, objectively, useful.

so i don't understand feeling useless. unless it is related to mood - in the same way when we get depressed we have a low sense of worth no matter what, feel guilty about nothing.... e.g. i put a little too much milk in my mom's tea the other day and apologized over and over again... i felt really bad about it. my mom was like well it happens occasionally, don't worry... and me going on and on yes but i'm sorry....

i am not sure that i feel needed but i probably do need that. my feeling 'useless' might be a 'flavor' of needing to be needed.

conversely, i feel very needy. i thought i had grown out of it. maybe i have grown into it again or maybe i was kidding myself and never grew out of it.

i need to connect with people too. first couple years in california, were hard, because i had left all my friends in florida. there, i made some friends and then it was better. (ok, that's after the first 3 months when i was manic and too busy to 'try' to socialize - writing/playing music (during the night much to the annoyance of my neighbors who had a newborn), shopping, making waves and getting in trouble at work, neglecting my mail and not hardly sleeping). here, after 10 years, i still feel a social island. i can't really relate to people... i can't connect. and that bothers me immensely. thankfully i do keep in touch with folks "back home" (haha ) via IM and occasionally people call. and of course i have this forum. these are all people i can connect with. folks who, when we interact, i get them, and they get me, each in different ways sure, but each in valuable ways. i would like to feel more connected in RL - i have my parents... again something. i do have enough to feel grateful though. but that is different than the whole usefulness bit.

thank you, Mari. your questions, thoughts, suggestions are very thought-provoking. (useful )

~ waves ~

I was talking to a friend early yesterday and told her i felt i had no purpose now. She said her husband who is a Rabbi said there was a very wise Rabbi who felt that the purpose of life was to work on getting rid of bad traits and not accomplishing deeds. I hope this helps
love
bobby

that is interesting bobby, but who decides what are bad traits?
bizi

that is an interesting question especially if one is self critical
bobby