Note: Corrected title. November and December are kind of a great big gob of trigger territory to me.
No, it didn’t.
Well, it started off fine. But I started to lose endurance around 3pm, and managed to stay mostly sane until 7pm (even after a long commute), only to lose my mind shortly thereafter. It was a combination of rapid-cycling from the bipolar and my PTSD triggering all over the place resulting in being suicidal in both phases, so to speak, with just enough sanity left to keep me from actually doing myself in, and to eventually remember (an hour later) that cellphones exist and you can text people through them when your mind is unraveling and you need help holding all the pieces together.
So basically I forgot all of The Plan.
This is going to be harder than I thought. I forgot how visceral my PTSD can be; this isn’t the brutal force of a level-3 or level-4 flashback, but the subtle insidiousness of a level-2 creeping in, altering my thought processes, which is harder to fight back against, much less detect. ((I mean, I even wrote about it, but I forget to apply these things to my situation.)) But good to know that it actually does inhibit my thinking to the point where I can’t even remember that Valencia is packing Xanax for me for a reason. Or worse, where I remember it, but can’t actually make the decision to use it.
It explains a lot of the previous years, actually. Now if I can just remember that instead of forgetting it instantly, which is what I’d usually do. So I’m blogging it. Hoorah.
So anyways. Tomorrow we’re going to try this again. I did regain my sanity after eating… um, three Leapin’ Lemurs chocolate peanut butter rice bars, three servings of tater tots with generous amount of non-HFCS ketchup ((Simply Heinz. Which is actually quite good.)), and a non-alcoholic pina-colada. I think this diet is definitely on hold.
Also, while I’m sure this is unhealthy, I’m going to occasionally hold my Crimnee ideal close to my mind, even if I have to do it with Creed. Maybe I’ll tell y’all stories about that time in my life. They’re bittersweet, although I don’t think they qualify as “war stories.”
Typing this while buried in cows. There’s even a new cow in the fold: Elmer, who is basically mini-Kaiser (one of Gund’s cow models). The Overcow is pondering careful expansion of the herd so that there’s both an upstairs and downstairs guard of maybe 6 to 8 cows of various sizes. At the moment I can’t bear to leave any of the cows separated from each other for long because, you know, monsters.
Spontaneous ∂erivation 
I think Heinz would be an excellent name for a cow, particularly the black & white Holstein kind.
It’s still a good plan, even when you forget it.
I don’t really see how the events you describe constitute forgetting The Plan. Or more precisely: I can see how, in the throes of a PTSD episode, you can’t think beyond the episode; I don’t see how any of what happened was your fault. The only part of The Plan that might have changed things is if you’d missed a planned dose of medicine. And the only thing I can see as a way for you to make things go differently next time would be if you could notice the insidious onset of PTSD sooner, in time to head it off somehow. Shorter version: not your fault.
Good for you for blogging it. Reminds me of Dracula the novel, wherein our heroes put a lot of effort into documenting what they’re facing, so that even if Dracula wins this time, their knowledge will live on and eventually be used to defeat him.
I was thinking of suggesting you focus on your Crimnee; I don’t know why it would be unhealthy (not prying! Accepting your judgment on the subject!), but if you decide to do it anyway, maybe stories about that time in your life would serve as practice for war stories?
Best wishes. Here’s hoping you get through the next month-or-so intact. Lots of us out here are rooting for you.
The plan is going to take some practice; but like Jae Leslie said, it’s a good plan. Thank you for letting us know how the day went.
Just chiming in to let you know I’m part of the etheric cheering squad. I’m impressed by your capacity to blog in the middle of a hellstorm. Admiring your Bento boxes, and have you ever tried San-J’s Rice Crackers? Their “black sesame” has the slightly bitter umami of good pumpernickel.