Me and Pat, Pat and I

I think we are doing better.

I still say stupid things from time to time.

But he’s spending more time with me. Purposely setting aside time to spend with me. I don’t think he’d do this if leaving me was the plan. We are playing wow together. I’ve watch his netflix movies with him. I’m going to ask him to watch mine with me. He’ll probably say no, but maybe not. Either way there has been real quality time spent together. And that is a huge first step.

I’m working hard at recognizing when I’m being manipulative and owning up to it. I’m working on not being manipulative. I’m working on not blaming BPD when I deserve the blame. These all go hand in hand. He is suppose to tell me when I’m being manipulative and I don’t realize it so that I can write it down and make a list to take to therapy. There is only one time on that list. So either I’ve caught onto all my manipulations in the past month or he just hasn’t had me write them down. I’m not sure which is which.

I’m working on my mental health. I’m working on PLEASE MASTER from DBT. PLEASE stands for treat PhysicaL illnes, balance Eating, avoid mood Altering drugs that aren’t prescribed, balance Sleep, get Exercise. MASTER stands for build MASTERy.

I’m working on getting my physical health diagnosed and treated: acid reflux, tension headaches, migraines, corns on my feet.

I’m working on getting my mental health diagnosed and treated: BPD ADHD, OCD, severe anxiety.

I’m working on balancing my eating. I’m trying to get myself to 4 mini meals a day. A granola bar for breakfast. Something fast and simple for lunch. Another granola bar for afternoon snack. And a light dinner with the family 3 hours before bed. I just need to buy the granola bars. Next month.

Avoid mood altering drugs that aren’t prescribed. No problem. This includes alcohol. The temptation has been there but so far I’ve resisted. Unless you count the shot of Bailey’s I put into my french vanilla cappuccino. First time in a long time I had booze of any sort and it was a small amount. I’m racked with guilt for even that small amount. I feel like I cheated on myself and DBT.

Balancing sleep is harder. I’m trying to time it so I’m getting 10-8 hours a night. Not any less if it can be helped. And not to much more if it can be helped. I’m one of those people that could sleep all day. But I wake up worse than I was going down.

Exercise. Fuck it. I don’t have the energy or the motivation. Once it gets warmer and Luke is older I’ll take him on nature trails. We have time to kill while Thomas is in school. This summer I’ll take them both. We’ll drag Pat with us. The family will go for nice walks in the park. But right now it’s simply too cold out. Though if we get another lingering snow I do want some nature shots from a park.

Build Mastery. This basically means do one activity a day that makes you feel in control and happy. There are a long list of possibilities. Such things include: bubble baths, photography, playing games, puzzles, sex, cooking, sleeping, planning a career,getting out of debt, reading, losing weight, buying gifts, doing something new, etc, etc, etc. There are 176 items on the list with room to add you own. I am working on this. I try to do something on that list every day. Mostly with my husband. We play wow. We’ve had sex. We’ve watched movies. I’ve read. I’m buying a gift for Luke and Thomas in a few days.

What did all that have to do with me and Pat? I’m working on becoming a better person for my husband. I feel if my mental and physical illnesses are being treated I stand a better chance at being what he needs.

In turn he is doing the same for me. He sees his brand new doctor on Tuesday. He is going to tell his doctor everything mentally and physically wrong and then do as the doctor advises. This will be a long process but he is getting the ball started. It doesn’t help that he loses his medical insurance for about 3-6 weeks right smack in the middle of all this. But we’ll get it straightened out and my hubby will be treated for everything he needs treated for.

We are fixing our individual selves so that together we can be whole and not broken.

Is our marriage fixed or broken? I was broken but we are in the process of fixing it. I don’t know how close to done we are. Just when we think we’ve made progress we find something else that we didn’t realize was broken. But we’re working on it together. I’m seeing progress.

I’m paranoid he doesn’t though. Who knows maybe he’ll enlighten us in the morning. Maybe he’ll write his own blog post. Or maybe he’ll comment to mine. Baby? Balls in your court.

5 thoughts on “Me and Pat, Pat and I

  1. Many thoughts came to mind as I read this, but the one that made me laugh was…….you think you'll ever be done !!!??? Marriage is a work in progress and even long after one of you is dead, you'll still be processing things in your mind. You'll never be done-done. :-)

  2. So glad to hear things are going well with hubby. Fuck exercise? (i'm talking to both of us)…use the Great Indoors!

  3. i understand. "PLEASE MASTER". When i was at "Very Expensive and Useless", a treatment center in Texas, i was in DBT, but only for a few weeks, which made no sense, but anyway, when the Great Powers That Be, The Matriarchy that ran my unit, found out i was trying to lose weight, they made me eat with the EDP girls (another story in its self) and some of them were in DBT too. We used to make fun of the neumonics (sp?) because they sounded so….well…you know…hee. It sounds like it is working good for you, that's great.

  4. I think I'm to the point where I've gotten everything I'm going to get out of it. This is my 4th or 5th time through and it's all starting to sound redundant.

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