Ben informed me tonight of his dislike for the word ’swoon’. When I asked him to explain he said it’s because other than the fact that the word just sucks, I am not a “swooner”, I don’t swoon.

What?! I SWOON! I think I’m just different than most girls and I don’t like to ANNOUNCE the fact that I’ve just turned into a bucket of emotional goo because I’ve taken great care for a long time not to let people see me weak or emotional. I’ve never wanted to be one of “those” girls.

Example:
The other night when I was right in the middle of reading New Moon Ben wanted to go to dinner. I would have gladly skipped dinner to sit and read and pine and hope that Edward would FINALLY make his way back to Bella so I could stop wanting to hate her for leading Jacob on and, SERIOUSLY, FOOD!? I was being difficult, no doubt. I wanted Mexican, he wanted the Irish Pub and finally I agreed and said FINE, LETS JUST GO THE DAMN PUB SO I CAN GET HOME AND CONTINUE BEING AN EMO VAMPIRE WORSHIPER. He asked me if I was sure the pub was okay and I yelled back calmly answered I’LL GO WHEREVER YOU WANT!

When we turned into the parking lot where the Mexican place was I asked him, “What are you doing?” And he just responded, “Going where I want to eat.”

*swoon*

He really didn’t want to go eat there but he did. And the only reason he did it was to make me happy. The car was dark and I looked the other way when the blood hit my cheeks, but trust me, it happened.

Another Example:
This is the conversation that happened tonight. To say I’ve had a few rough days would be a drastic understatement and I can’t tell you how supportive and wonderful Ben has been to me. I’ll explain all this later when I’m not feeling so ‘raw’ but he’s kept my head just above the water and I’ve never loved him more than I do right now.

And I might have taken a bit of advantage of his unwavering support when I asked him this question…

Me: So, will you go see Twilight with me this weekend?
Ben: Sure!
Me: *blink* *blink* What?
Ben: Yes.
Me: …seriously?!
Ben: Yeah.
Me: *stunned*
(a bit more unrelated conversation about Bon-Bons)
Me: So you’ll really go see it with me?
Ben: Yeah, I think could be good, I watched the trailer*.
Me: Did you swoon?
Ben: NO. And I hate that word, every time I hear it I want to throw up.

*I don’t actually believe that he thinks it’s “good”. Or even “not bad” which I think might have been the words he actually used. Either way, Twilight is NOT the kind of movie that he would choose to go to. As a matter of fact, I know, without a doubt, that Ben’s really wanting to see Quantum of Solace.

Ben, you’re choosing to partake in my idiotic 13 year old vampire on mortal love obsession because… I don’t know, I really need you right now? You love me? You know that it just means a lot to me to make a ’sacrifice’? Because you are scared to let me loose on the general public right now? For whatever reason, I know that it’s not because you are excited to see this movie IN THE LEAST.

And I swooned.

I just turned around and stirred the food on the stove so my back would be to you when I blushed. As much as I love it when you tease me when that happens, when you see my cheeks turn red and you smile and point out to me that it’s not just cold green acid flowing through my veins, I was scared that the sudden adrenaline flow that usually follows would probably be crippling enough for me to fall to the floor and cry for three hours straight.

I do swoon and to prove it to you I’m going to make it a point to be more like those silly girls and when I swoon I’ll find a way to gracefully flaunt it in your face.

I love you.

So a question was posed on a message board about your feelings and if you share them with your S/O and it reminded me about a conversation that Ben and I had one night over margaritas and mexican food. I don’t remember EXACTLY the situation I had explained to him but I remember telling him how I had over reacted to something he had done but rather than tell him, decided to wait to see how I felt later that day. Looking back I could see that I was acting slightly nutcase-ish but we were talking about my mood swings in general. The gun part of the conversation is real and makes me crack up even today.

Copy/pasting my forum post:

I trust Ben explicitly so he’s always who I turn to when I’m feeling like I need to talk.

I’m not always the best person to be “in tune” to what I’m actually feeling about something in the heat of the moment. I suffer REALLY bad mood swings when I’m PMSy (like bordering on PMDD) and there are times when I know that I’m probably over reacting in the “feelings” department so I usually wait an hour and reassess how I feel. Sometimes I’m like, WOW TOTALLY OVER REACTED THERE! Or if I feel like I was justified in feeling the way I did, then I can tell him and he’s always REALLY open to listening to me. There are even times I tell him about the over reacting.

Me: Hey guess what. When you were doing the dishes earlier and you put them in the dishwasher wrong even though I’ve explained it you to a BILLION times I wanted to take the turkey baster and shove it up your ass, suck out your internal organs and feed them to you for dinner. HA! ISN’T THAT FUNNY!?
Ben: *blink* *blink*
Me: But see, I THOUGHT about it and looking back I can see that I was probably being a little reactionary.
Ben: And this is why we don’t keep guns in the house.
Me: To keep me from killing you or you from killing me?
Ben: Yes.
Me: *nods*

I like that we can laugh about the fact that I’m a psychotic nutjob.

It was NOT like this in the beginning. I can’t even imagine how Ben put up with me and my walls. I was so closed off to my own feelings there was no way for me to express them to other people without completely screwing it all up and either pissing everybody off or sounding like a complete jackass. And this is not to say that I’m perfect about this now because I am SO NOT. It’s still something that I struggle with and try to work on. It’s BETTER now but I still have quite a bit of room for improvement and I’m sure that Ben can see that much more than I do because now he can read me like a book and is, in a majority of the cases, better at assessing my feelings that I am.

Yesterday I twittered how every day I’m reminded how lucky I am to have such an amazing husband and it’s true. Every single day he does something to make me love him more, trust him more, value him more… and I know I’m not always the best at reminding him of that. He asked me what I meant when I twittered and I didn’t have the words at the time to properly explain what I meant so here it is:

I’m reminded every day what an amazing man I’ve married… because he hasn’t shot me yet.

19 days ago I started taking Lexapro. I tried to come up with some witty way to start this blog. Some way to lighten the paragraphs that follow. I considered talking about the time I stayed up all night concerned that there were no clean sock in the house. Or how I’ve managed to create 10,000 small To Do piles all over the house untouched for months now and how they’ve started to grow and multiply on their own, creating little ecosystems and flourishing societies…

SEE? That’s how I “deal”. I try to fight a disease with humor and denial.

Five years ago before my first, and undoubtedly my worst, bout of depression, I’d have told you that it was a ‘head trip’. I didn’t understand how anybody could actually BE depressed. You have ups and downs. You grieve, you yell, you have a bad day… it’s a process right? But at the end, there’s always… normalcy? Even as I watched my mom drop 60 pounds in six months and lose the ability to function well enough to complete the most simple tasks, I didn’t believe it was caused by something other than her unwillingness to just DEAL with the cards she had been delt.

That month or two before I move up here to San Jose were the darkest months in my life. I look back now and there are entire days I don’t remember. They are just.. black. I can remember laying on the couch one morning and wondering how long I had been there, what was going on around me, how long did the lapse last this time. People told me about conversations I never remembered having. Cassidy would be wearing clothes I didn’t remember buying. Thank God I’d moved into my mom’s for the transition from there to here.

I remember very clearly however sitting on the couch one night at 4am after not having slept for what seemed like days and days and really thinking ‘How much longer can I live like this? How much longer can I hurt like this? How much longer am I going to punish myself for everything that has gone wrong? How do I STOP this?’ But even then, I didn’t see the depression. I thought, like I always had, that in a few days things would be better. It was just a funk. The distant light at the end of the tunnel was just a mirage placed there to suck me farther and farther into a painful darkness.

When I finally got onto Zoloft after months of denying there was even a problem in the first place it was such a wonderful relief. I’d fought myself up from that dark place but I was still too far from the light. I was just close enough to have moments of clarity, but never close enough to feel certain that I was thinking rationally. Zoloft fixed that. But not unlike a lot of people that suffer depression, the first time around I got better and quit taking the meds. I figured I’d gotten out of the funk. I was done being depressed!!

What a pipe dream.

From Depression.com:

A normally functioning brain is a giant messaging system that controls everything from your heartbeat, to walking, to your emotions. The brain is made up of billions of nerve cells called neurons. These neurons send and receive messages from the rest of your body, using brain chemicals called neurotransmitters.

These brain chemicals—in varying amounts—are responsible for our emotional state. Depression happens when these chemical messages aren’t delivered correctly between brain cells, disrupting communication.

Think of a telephone: if your phone has a weak signal, you may not hear the person on the other end. Their communication is muted or unclear.

Serotonin is one of these neurotransmitters. Most antidepressant medications (called Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors or SSRI’s) block receptor sites from absorbing serotonin too quickly which creates a shortage. The shortage caused by these receptor’s means that the brain can’t send and receive messages the way it should. Depression explained.

I can’t control the depression. That’s a big pill to swallow for somebody that likes to control EVERYTHING. I have a chemical imbalance that, at least for right now, can only be controlled by medicine.

The most recent bout probably became “bad” a few months ago. I don’t really need to go into the details here because it’s not the journey that got me to this point that matters. It’s the journey that I’m on now. Plus, I’m sure that the gossipers will be able to come up with much more entertaining stories than the truth anyway. And that’s fine. This is not something I’m ashamed of. It’s not something to explain why things went they way they did with them the last few months (although I’m sure it will be used as such).

I’m getting better. The biggest boost I got was the other day when Ben told me (without me asking) that he could tell the difference. My fuse is much longer, my thought are much clearer and the sky is a magnificent shade of blue.

And my closet is so organized and clean that you are all totally jealous.

Yes, perhaps. Random jumping from topic to topic to follow. Please try to keep up.

Had appointment #2 with counselor #5 last Friday. I made a third appointment!! That’s farther than I’ve gotten with the rest. When I leave her office I feel lighter and more… me? The first appointment she told me to take off my shoes and get comfortable. I think better with my shoes off. That’s why I wear sandals 99% of the time. It’s a crazy thing so stop trying to understand it!!

Anyway, I’m going to try out some St. Johns Wart. She had a big fancy name for the depression that I have that I don’t remember. Basically, it’s like a hit or miss kinda thing. I have days that I’m fine. Functioning, happy, energetic, pain in the ass, etc. Then I have days where I want to crawl in bed, pull up he covers and disappear and these days NORMALLY happen during PMS. It’s the monthly Dark Period. If this doesn’t help by the next period I’m going to look into Sarafem. Having a uterus is SO overrated.

Also, there are a few whole bunch of issues from the Dark Marriage Days that I’ve never dealt with and need to so she wants me to talk. Talk, talk, talk, talk. (I know, TOTAL streath for me. HAR!) Get it out. Heal. Stop unloading it elsewhere in my life. Let go. MOVE. ON.

Next topic:

Ben wins the prize for “Most random Aflux comment” from his FIRST post to the blog. It said something about Muslims dragging people down and finished with The Serenity prayer. You know “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, etc.” Those of you who know my religious beliefs are getting the humor in this.

He deleted it. I’m sure that if we weren’t bound for hell before, we’ve just bought a one way ticket. But we can’t have the right wing folk spreading The Word here!! I have a *RWLMFPâ„¢ reputation to uphold!!

Topic switch again:

We have a cubicle decorating contest at work for Halloween and Christmas. I started out thinking this is fun then I remembered the 300 catty women. Halloween is Monday. It’s a good thing because the you’d not believe the drama sparked by pumpkins and spider webs… and orange pants.

Last one for now:

I really can’t wait for Halloween to be over. This layout has gotten ‘blah’. I’m thinking something more He Said/She Said-ish to get The Benjamin to post more. POST MAN, POST!

*Right Wing Liberal Media Fed Poserâ„¢

P.S. - Points and laughs at Bush.

I feel much better now that I have that out of my system.

(written by BenTheBoyfriend)
Whenever I experience difficult times in my life, although at the time I may experience the more common reactions …such as anger, frustration, ..when I come to my senses, and my vision clears, I try to understand why something happened. I think this is a common thing. However, what I think is the uncommon bit is I’m usually able to come up with something that to me, …makes sense.

However, yesterday, when my now ‘racecar’ m3 was rear-ended…, I can’t find the hidden message.

So….I’m not sure what the lesson is… (sigh). ….I think this fact is bothering me even more than the fact that I”m going to be without the car for even longer. And maybe, what I”m writing now IS the lesson, maybe I overanalyze things too often, and this in was meant to teach me to let go….

I’ve instructed my insurance company be my ‘army of one’ for this accident, even though technically it’s not my insurance company who will end up paying for it all. I’m going through my insurance…mainly because the other driver was extremely seedy…

His first words, after I parked my car in the nearest off parking area, as I climb out of my Suzuka GT racing seat and Schroth five point harness, stumbling over the cage as I get out, and made my way to the rear of the car, where he was standing:

(seedy asshole, speaking with a heavy romanian accent:
(seed) “…There’s almost no damage”
(Ben) ::in utter disbelief, bends down, looks at damage in three areas of the car, the fact that the bumper is still pushed in, the fact that the sides of the bumper near the tires are pushed down and out…
(Ben): “…..Yes, I’m fine THANK YOU!!!!! I’ll need your insurance card…”
(seedy) ..”Maybe the damage was already there? ::shrug”
(Ben):: still in utter disbelief, getting angry::
(Ben) If you can’t provide your insurance, I”ll just call the number on the side of your van for Elco Electric, since you seem to have been on a work related drive.

He ended up calling his boss, his boss called the police, the police came out and gave him a hard time since he tried to say that I stopped too fast (uh..no), the officer was about to slap him silly.

Anyway…..after all of that, I knew that if I had to follow up with this, I’d be lucky to get payment for the repair by 2007.

The adjuster comes out today ::fear:: …this will be the first time they’ve seen the car ever, and it has a roll-cage installed, no interior, race seats with five point harnesses, a fire suppression system…….and although right now I sit here with a nuclear stomache, …I think that part will work itself out.

My larger fear is frame damage to the car. I noticed this morning as I parked the civic in my work’s parking garage that the big hit most likely occurred dead center on the bumper, and that as force was absorbed by the bumper, the van slid to the rear right. I just really really really hope the frame is not bent. Seeing the car in that shape is so sad….

So, now, the waiting game…, waiting for Elec ELectric’s insurance company, Lincoln General, to accept liability…, I think that in all honesty, it just makes me sick. I just dished out $7500 to make this car ready for the track, as safely as can be…, and the result? The next day I’m rear-ended…., I truly feel sick to my stomache, and i don’t understand.

I look to see if there is anything in organized religion that can bring me coffort…, and I realize quickly, without doing much research, that the answer is no. I think my passion for motorsports runs too deep to be comforted by words like:

“It must have been Gods wish, so, even if you don’t see it now, the meaning will show up sooner or later”
…or…
“You shouldn’t have been so attached to the car to begin with. You want to race, and that is where your passion is, not the car…, car’s can be repaired…”

The last of the two makes more sense to me, but although I dont’ think this was the case before, I think I’ve broken the buddhist golden rule (I’m not Buddhist), …and have attached my happiness in more ways than one, to this …..car. I’m not guilty of that in many aspects of my life, attaching my happiness to a …thing…., but this car is now a member of my family, and as such… I love it… ::shocked:: I think I just reazlied this just now. I guess, for what it’s worth, this is probably one of the biggest factors contributing to my current state of being (Anxious Sadness). I love my car, and it’s hurt….., and like a protective parent…, I want to do whatever I can to make things right….

…but all I can do is sit here…..and wait…..

…going to be a long couple of weeks.