Angry all the time

I have been feeling such anger over the last few days. First, my anger at my mom has been rekindled by some of her recent behaviors. And now, I am incredibly angry at my partner, Aimee. Anger is so exhausting, and it drains me, but it is also a great motivator to get changes made and fix problems.

My mom has been creating drama in her own life continuously since I started having a relationship with her again, and I feel like she is using me as a weapon against Jerry. She has also been completely making up problems and telling them to me to get sympathy. For example, last weekend, I had to get the starter on my car replaced, and my mom had to drive me to work on Saturday and help me drop off my car at the shop. When my car was ready, I gave the mechanic my credit card info over the phone, and my mom and Jerry were supposed to go pick up the car for me since I was at work. Well, my mom complained to me that Jerry was not cooperating and refused to make time in his schedule to help, and then she could not find anyone of her friends to help her get the car. And, of course, this was Jerry's fault. I had a very long talk over things with Jerry, and he said that he offered several times to help my mom get my car, and to try to work with both of their busy schedules that day, but nothing was good enough for her, so she refused any further help from him. My mom also admitted to me that she did not even ask any of her friends to help her get my car. She only asked Jerry then complained that no one in the world would help her. Therefore, she gets to make Jerry look bad, and she gets to be the victim. Also that same night that she told me that, she also made a comment about how she and Rachael were never going to have a friendly relationship. I told her, again, that that was completely up to her, and that it was HER job to foster a friendly relationship with her daughter. My mom continuously refuses to admit her role in the bad relationship, her responsibility for hurting Rachael, and the legitimacy of Rachael's feelings. All she wants to do is blame Rachael for hating her and not immediately forgiving her for years of emotional and some physical abuse. Now, I find out that my mom is using me as weapon for hurting Jerry. She sent him an email yesterday claiming that he had hurt me greatly my not helping her get my car and making me do it myself (not true), and that if he did not want to consider me and Mitch as his children anymore, then she was going to make Scott move out of her house (He is living with Mitch in the old house). So my mom is trying to hurt Jerry and is inventing reasons to be a victim. Jerry in reality is trying to leave her alone, so she has to create things in her brain to convince herself that Jerry is a villain. It makes her feel better. But if one thing really gets me it's the victim mentality.

Now, I have to deal with all this crap with Aimee at work. I guess tensions have been building up for a while. I don't exactly know what her complaints are with me, but I have had complaints of my own. I have been frustrated for weeks over how much of a control-freak she is, how hyper-critical she is, and that she treats me like I am an incompetent idiot at times (granted it's not always). Aimee is an EMT-basic, and she is an FTO (she trains new employees), so we very often have new-employee third-riders on our truck. There are two sets of keys to the truck, and three people. She always gets a set of keys (and she HAS to have the set with the remote on it) and the new-hire gets a set of keys. I don't get one until the new-hire goes home, even though she is everywhere that the new-hire is and they ride in front or back together so she can keep an eye on him. That would frequently leave me locked out of the truck. After several shifts of this, I found an occasion when she wasn't there, and I went to Wal-mart to get a copy of the cab key made. I can't get a copy of the box key made, but at least now I'm not locked out of the cab. I also am not allowed to have any role in teaching the new-hires how to do their jobs. If I say anything of training value to them, she immediately says something to undermine what I just said. And she is constantly reprimanding me for doing my job, because she thinks that the new-hire should have done it. But I am not allowed to train them, so when I see them NOT doing something that needs to be done, and it is traditionally my job, I do it. And then I get in trouble. But Aimee does the exact same thing. So it's ok to do it when she does it, but not when I do it. Anything is ok if it is Aimee's idea, but when it's my idea, it is a hassle or she finds some reason why it was wrong. For instance, we frequently stop for food on our way to a call, since we are always on our way to a call and we need to eat sometime. So, when Aimee says it's ok, we actually go inside a restaurant and sit down to eat while we are "enroute" to a call. This can take up to 45 minutes at times. Well, one night at about 2 am, I was starving and getting sick to my stomach. I hadn't eaten in over 10 hours, and I wanted to stop at a Taco Bell just down the street from the hospital where we were picking up our patient. There was a long line at the drive thru, so it took about 15 minutes to get my food. It was not her idea to stop, so she bitched about it the whole time. She kept saying, "this is taking a long time, can't you eat after we run this call?" "I really hate delaying our enroute time." "You know how much I hate taking forever to run these calls." And on and on. And yet, when she is on the phone with one of her kids or her husband, she sees no problem with sitting outside a hospital where we are picking up a patient talking on the phone for 20-25 minutes while I am waiting to go upstairs and start doing my paper work and pick up my patient. So it's ok when she wants to do it, but not when I want to do it. All of this has been annoying me since I started working with her, but I don't say anything, because that's just the way she is, and I want to keep the peace. I know I can be controlling at times, so I try not to fault her for it. I generally can get over this stuff. But last night we had an incident. We didn't do anything until 11am, when we had a false call for a neonate transport. We got posted in various locations then got sent on another neonate call. Aimee wanted our trainee to drive so I was in back for this neonate transport, and I wrote the chart for it since I had nothing else to do. Linda (trainee) wrote the charts for the next two calls and I drove. She and Aimee were in back the whole time, even when we weren't on a call. When we got our third call, it was from a residence so it was automatically a paramedic level call making it my call and my decision who runs the call. From the description I though it sounded very benign so I thought it would be good for Linda to do the initial assessment- it wouldn't be anything over her head. But I was tired of driving, my eyes hurt, I was sleepy, and I was bored, so I planned on still riding the call into the hospital. We went into the house, I started the chart while Linda assessed this lady's knee and got vitals. I collected all the pt information and got the story of what happened from the woman running the group home. So I asked Linda what her assessment was of the pt, and Aimee said, "I'll ask her that. I can take this call" basically telling me that she was now running this call because it did not require ALS care. Whatever, so I was driving again. Aimee didn't even let Linda run the call, although it would have been good experience. So after the call, at the hospital, I got in the back, and when they came out of the ER Aimee asked "who's driving?" I said, "Not me. I need a break from driving for a bit." Instead of asking why or what was going on, she started yelling at me. "Oh, so now you can't run calls AND you won't drive! I've been training Linda all day and you haven't done anything, and now you can't drive either!" So I got defensive and shot back that I had been working; I had been driving continuously for 6 hours with no one to talk to or keep me awake, and I didn't say that I wasn't going to drive anymore, I was just asking for a break. I had taken a call, even though it was "only" a neonate call, and SHE was the one who decided that she was taking that last call after I had already started writing the paperwork for it. She pulled out of the hospital (which she claimed she knew how to get to and tried to give me directions to when I was driving) then she started screaming at me "Liz! Are you going to tell me how to get out of here since you can't do your job and drive! Linda, you aren't supposed to have to drive after you run a call so don't ever let any partner treat you like that." So I yelled back the directions to get to the highway, thinking she had already turned onto the street, and she interrupted me yelling back, "Just tell me which way to turn!" And she is the one who knows everything and talked down to me because I didn't know how to get to this hospital and she did. Well apparently she knows how to get to it but not how to get out of it. Or else she was just being pissy at me because she wanted to ride in back and talk on the phone and I beat her to it. And all I did was turn the lights of and rest my eyes, just as I intended.

But I am so tired of it. I don't let my mom yell at me; I certainly am not going to let her yell at me. Especially not because I needed a break from driving because my eyes hurt and I was falling asleep. I am not her child and I am not her subordinate, and yet that is how she treats me. We had one fight before that I started because I didn't like how she treated me, and she apologized later. This time there was no apology from her. We had to run two more calls after this incident before we got to go back to the station, and she tried to make small talk as if nothing had happened. I just did my job exactly as I always do, and I didn't talk to her unless it was necessary. I gave her the cold shoulder. I think she expected me to just go on as if nothing happened, forgive her by pretending it didn't happen. I won't. And I won't do it next shift either. The only way I am going to get this to stop is to just have it out with her. I am under no obligation to forgive her without her asking me to. And I'm sure she'll come up with some complaints on me too, so we just need to get it all out. But oh it pisses me off just thinking about it. I know what to do with my mom: I'm going to write her a letter, make it as nice as I can, but be truthful, and be there when she reads it so my thoughts and arguments are clear and concise, but then we can discuss it if she wants or she can disown me again if she wants. But with Aimee, the same thing won't work. I don't quite know how it's going to go down. But I hate it.

sorry so verbose, but you know me.

Moving

So, I am moving. I got a notice last Wednesday stating that my apartment building needs to be vacated to have the foundation fixed. So since I have to move out of my apartment by March 12, I decided that this is the time to get a bigger apartment. My new apartment is in the same complex, but now my kitchen is twice the size and I have a study. I decided that now is the time to get this move over with, rather than waiting until the end of the deadline. More than half my apartment is now in boxes. I have to eat out all of my meals tomorrow. The movers come on Monday. I am excited about my new apartment, but I do not handle stress well lately. It seems since this whole fibromyalgia thing started up, I just cry at the drop of a hat. I am so grateful to my mom and Jerry for coming over today and basically packing up my entire apartment for me. I really don't have much left to do, but I could not have gotten all of this done in four hours like they did, much less two days. I will post some pics of the new place once I'm moved in.

No, I am not crazy

I originally had an appointment with the Fibromyalgia and Fatigue Center on the 15th, but there was a scheduling problem with the doctor. So the receptionist called me and asked to reschedule, and she offered to move my appointment time up. It was moved up to yesterday, and I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and acute fatigue. It has not progressed to chronic fatigue because I didn't wait to get diagnosed and treated. The AMA has identified 18 tender points that are used to help diagnose fibromyalgia (you should have something like 11/18 for diagnosis) and I have 18/18. There were other factors that I didn't know were related that were used to diagnose it, like my chronic IBS and my sleep problems amongst other things. The good doctor also has diagnosed me with hypothyroid, according to physical defects. I had about 28 tubes of blood drawn, I was given doses of supplements to take, and I was told to take melatonin and a half dose of trazodone to keep me from waking up through the night. At my next appointment, we will review my lab tests and see what my numbers mean, then treat those.

It's nice to finally have an official name for why I feel so crappy and hurt all the time. I don't feel like a hypochondriac. And I have someone to confirm that I have hypothyroid, like I've suspected my whole life, instead of doctors repeatedly telling me that there is nothing wrong, and I am just not trying hard enough to lose weight. As if eating only 1,200 calories a day and exercising for 1-2 hrs isn't trying hard enough. Whatever. I look forward to seeing how these treatments work and getting back to feeling like normal. And I really look forward to having energy and getting back to the gym. Yay!

Bad news, good news.

I have been having some unsettling problems lately. Off an on, starting around the first of the year, I have had some excruciating back and leg pains. The first time it happened, it started at work, and by the time I left in the morning, my back hurt from my neck to my butt, and I stayed in bed on a heating pad for most of the two days I was off. Since then I have had random pains that came on slowly for no reason, in random places, then just went away without anything specific that I did making any difference. Over the last two weeks I have been in pain more than not. Last Thursday, I went to spend the evening with my Mom, and I was in so much pain I could barely keep up with her when we went grocery shopping and to the book store. I had not really thought anything of the pains until then. I thought I was just hurting myself at work or at the gym. But the pain has not fully gone away for over a week, and it was so bad at work the other night that I could barely do my job.

There is no cause that I can find for these pains. I eat healthy foods, I take my vitamins, I exercise, and I am in very good health. I have not had any heavy lifting at work, and I have actually toned DOWN my workouts. So I have done my research, and the only thing I can find that might be causing this is fibromyalgia. I went to the Fibromyalgia and Fatigue Center's website, and I have many of the symptoms. I had not linked them together before. So I made an appointment, but it's not until Feb 15th. I guess that gives me plenty of time to fully explore all the aspects of my worsening symptoms.

I am worried this is going to continue affecting my work. I am also worried about one of the symptoms I saw on the website: depression. When I read that one, I blew it off. I am normally a happy person, and things going wrong dont usually damper my optimism. I woke up crying this morning because the pain was so bad, and now that the paid has gotten a little better today (like it usually does) every little thing still sets me off to crying. A twinge of pain when I stand up, the thought of taking out the garbage, a stupid tv show or commercial. I cry. I am worried that all of these symptoms are going to get worse. And I have over two weeks until my appointment.

Ok, this is not going to be all bad news and feeling sorry for myself. Last Thursday, I spent several hours with my mom. It was the first time I had seen or talked to her since Hanukkah. It was nice. She seems like she is doing well. She has started making more friends, she has lost 60 pounds, and she is going out and doing things. The divorce is finalized, but I think she is still holding on to Jerry, or he is holding onto her. I am not sure. But overall she is putting her life in perspective. We went grocery shopping while we waited for her prescriptions at Target. Then we got dinner at Rockfish and went book shopping at Borders. I love that place. Despite the pain, we had a good time.

Oh, one more bit of bad news. My grandmother died on Friday early in the morning. We had been expecting it, as she had been in the hospital in a coma since Tuesday. She went in for a bad case of shingles, had a heart attack, went into a coma, was put on an external pacer, and went into kidney failure. She had been ill and in very poor health for a long time. There is not going to be a funeral. She was creamated. We will be spreading her ashes sometime in the spring after everything in Michigan thaws. My mother's family started cleaning out her apartment before she was dead. They have already divided all theri booty. So I doubt that I will be getting any of the things my grandmother had promised me during my childhood. My opal ring was given to my mother's aunt by my uncle. Once again, anyone related to my mother gets nothing. I just wanted that heirloom that I could pass on to my daughter. But I guess I shouldn't expect things to change just because my grandmother has died.

I am being social

So one of the best things in life are good friends. And I am out to cultivate and create friendships. I have reconnected with my friend Leanne from A&M. She moved back here over a year ago after trying the post-college thing in up-state New York. I hadn't seen her since the weekend before staring to date Jeremy again. I must admit, it was my fault because I just sorta stopped hanging out with other people when we started spending lots of time together. And I promise that will never happen again! So I got in touch with Leanne when she sent me an Evite to go to this Hadassah thing (Jewish women's orgainization). So last Thursday we went to "Martini's and Massages" at this place called the Facial Shoppe off of Preston and Royal. And then today we went to the Natural Science Museum to the Body Works exhibit. Then we saw an IMAX movie, and then we went to dinner. Dinner lasted for three hours. We did a lot of catching up and storytelling about old friends and stuff. It was great. I decided as soon as I broke up with Jeremy that I was going to let my friends take up most of my time instead of new guys. So I joined Hadassah, and I am going to join a young professionals group at the JCC, and Beth Torah is starting a similar group also, based mostly on casual socializing. Leanne is also including me in on this Wednesday night dinner that she and some other Jewish women do every week. I have been really needing this. I need something to replace the void that Hillel left when I graduated. I need Jewish friends, and I need to get back into a Jewish frame of mind and start going to services again. That is the only way I am going to meet a quality Jewish man. I am realizing that Jdate alone is not going to cut it. So, maybe that is my New Years resolution (I did not think I was going to have one this year): To have a kick ass social life and have a lot of fun!

What have I been missing out on?

Ok, so since I broke up with Jeremy, I have been inundated with men. It's like they were all laying in wait in Jdate for me to reactivate and start paying for my account again. In the last week, I have been corresponding with 5 guys. They all want to talk to me on the phone, meet me for coffee, trade real email addresses. And they all seem nice. I don't know how many of them are prospects, since I haven't met any of them in person yet. But at least there is hope.

This being single thing is easier this time that it was last time I was single. And now I am crazy busy with work, friends, family, and such. I think it did me a lot of good to break up with Jeremy. I know what crazy is now, and I think I am less afraid to run away from it, so when I meet the next Mr Wacko, I am not desperate for something to do with my time, and I can easily walk away from him if he isn't what I want.

So nothing really has happened with any of these guys, but maybe something will happen with one of them. I'm hoping to at least get a couple of friends out of this, even if they aren't boyfriend-worthy. We'll see. And being on Jdate all the time keeps me at my computer, so I am actually checking my email. I am current on both of my email accounts. No more three month old mail. Who woulda thought?

Happy New Year

I broke up with Jeremy on the 29th, last Friday. I don't think he was surprised, considering we hadn't talked in two days since a discussion we had had about having nothing in common. The discussion is not why we stopped talking. We had been on a date and our movie plans got cancelled so he took me home early. The dicussion happened on the way home, and I asked him to come inside so we could finish it. He got pissy when he found out that I wanted him to come in to talk, and said he had to go buy something at the store for his mom. So I said "Fine," and slammed the door in his face. Just another good example of why things would never work out. His idea of fixing things is running away and ignoring them, and his mother will always be more important than me.

Of course I am a little sad that things did not work out. He is a good person, but he has too many problems, and he does not want to fix them badly enough to actually fix them. He would rather take his mothers advice over mine (and hers is always opposite of mine) when it was his mother's advice that got him where he is today, namely nowhere. He thinks I am just supposed to wait around for him to decide that he is going to grow up. Hopefully, he will eventually grow up. I won't be there. I want someone who can ALREADY make his own decisions and take responsibility for them.

I didn't think it would be that easy to end it. I just walked in his house, sat down on his bed, and said, " I don't think things are going to work out." He was sullen, but not visibly crushed, thankfully. I already pity him, I didn't need that. I told him he needed to work on his issues and he didn't need me around for that. I told him to stop dating and stop letting his mom force him into dating. I gathered my things and took him outside to give him his things. I said goodbye and I left. Well, I had to go back because I forgot to get my apartment key from him. His mom tried to tell me that they weren't running a social security scam! She said that she did not apply for it, the hospital and his father applied for it, and he got it because of his anxiety and ADD! Not even a week ago, Jeremy had told me that he got it because of the falsly diagnosed bipolar disorder. And he had always said that his mother was the one who arranged it. I can't believe she expected me to keep buying her lies. Why would they grant disability money for someone with ADD? Maybe I could get on disability... Jeremy had never lied to me and I have no reason not to believe his story.

Anyways, 5 days later and I still don't regret breaking up with him. I do miss him as a friend. I miss having someone to call and talk to every day. I miss having someone to hang out with on my days off. I don't think we have been friends for a while though. I couldn't trust him and I didn't respect him for the last couple of months. But I still miss back when we were friends.