Mental Health – This is Another Story

#WeekendCoffeeShare – Birthday in Canada

Published on September 24, 2022 by Yinglan23 Comments

Good morning! I am on the road to Ottawa today from Toronto and since it’s my birthday, Starbucks is giving me a free drink. So take yours and join me on the road.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you I have a feeling this would be a special birthday because I’m in Canada. Hopefully, mom will not ruin this day like she had ruined day 3 of the trip aka Thursday, September 22.

Today is day 5 of the trip and we are already a mess. My gums has been swollen since arriving in Buffalo, New York, probably from being dehydrated from the lack of drinking fountain in Canada. I can barely talk at times because of the pain and I’ve been irritated by the way mom makes me shout sometimes just so she could hear me even though shouting exacerbates the pain in my mouth.

Mom was having on and off fever yesterday, which she thinks might be an infection somewhere and not COVID. She was having pain in her legs before we left on our trip, which caused her to barely able to walk. Having walked almost 30 miles since Tuesday, she’s almost constantly complaining about the pain in her legs and guess who had to put up with it?

I swear, if we were a married couple, I would be the husband, putting up with all the complaints and temper tantrum and never getting what I want while needing to do everything else like keeping an eye on Google Maps while paying attention to the road signs because it seems like, when in Canada, one is unable to read road signs and drive at the same time. I hate being the navigator because sometimes, I have trouble reading the GPS and sometimes, the GPS has trouble pinging my location. That’s when the one-sided shouting matches begin because mom wanted everything to be perfect.

Unfortunately, I’m far from it.

Last night, she actually called me selfish for wanting to finish the trip. 4 days in and she’s wanting to go home. Well, we can’t because our plane tickets are non-refundable and to modify our plane fares cost more than the original plane tickets alone. She also suggested we could go hole up in Richmond or Philadelphia. Who’s the selfish one now?

I knew this would happen, why did I even agree or be excited to go on this trip in the first place?

Anyway, here are some of the memorable photos I shot on the trip so far. I have posted an entry for Day 1-3 of the trip so far, you can read each one by clicking on the links.

#weekendcoffeeshare is hosted by Natalie of Natalie the Explorer. I appreciate you stopping by and hope to chat again same time next week.

Share Your World – Week of September 19, 2022

Published on September 21, 2022September 20, 2022 by Yinglan7 Comments

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US-Canada Trip 2022 Day 1

Published on September 21, 2022September 20, 2022 by Yinglan13 Comments

The last two days has been absolutely crazy. On Monday, I worked almost 12 hours before continuing on Tuesday with a little over 4 hours to complete my 16 hours of the 40-hour work week.

For the first time in a long while, I felt hectic, trying to get every customer billed and all the payments reconciled. I am a billing and accounting specialist, in case you haven’t figure that out. I send bills to customers and reconcile payment for a living.

I am writing this post prior to getting on my first flight from Salt Lake to Las Vegas. From Vegas, I’ll have a 4.5 hours layover before boarding another flight to Buffalo, New York. Of the airports I have been to so far, the Salt Lake airport has the best Wi-fi. So I’m taking the opportunity to type this on my laptop with a physical keyboard.

Anxiety-wise, I think now that I’m sitting in the airport, sipping on an iced chai latte, I am feeling a better, not near-hyperventilation like a few hours before. In fact, I had been near-hyperventilation for the last few days.

I was getting cold feet about trip. There’s so many worries. As much as I tried to relax and look forward to my long-awaiting trip, my anxiety, as always, was holding me back. Darn you, anxiety! Always causing misery. Why can’t you leave me alone?

So many things to do, my brain kept telling me. You can’t go. I barely slept the night before my flight. My brain kept me all night with about a million thoughts. Why didn’t you purchase carry-on luggage for the flight? There’s no way you will bill all these people before your flight. You can’t place your trust in those people to take care of your garden.

All night long. Just thought after thought. Ugh!

I spent Tuesday night on the flight to Buffalo, New York and will be there at 5 AM. Hopefully I will get a few hours of shut-eye during the flight.

#WeekendCoffeeShare – 4 Days ’til Road Trip 2022

Published on September 17, 2022September 16, 2022 by Yinglan16 Comments

Good morning! Come on in, sit, and enjoy a drink. I discovered something good this week.

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Friday Thoughts

Published on September 16, 2022September 16, 2022 by Yinglan12 Comments

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Share Your World – Week of September 12, 2022

Published on September 13, 2022September 12, 2022 by Yinglan3 Comments

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#WeekendCoffeeShare – An Exceptional Long Week

Published on September 10, 2022September 9, 2022 by Yinglan19 Comments

Good morning! Come on in, sit, and enjoy a drink.

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Losing a Friend

Published on September 9, 2022September 8, 2022 by Yinglan33 Comments

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Share Your World – Week of September 5, 2022

Published on September 6, 2022September 5, 2022 by Yinglan5 Comments

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#WeekendCoffeeShare – September 2022 Garden Update and Anger Management

Published on September 3, 2022September 3, 2022 by Yinglan35 Comments

Good morning! Come on in from the heat and cool down with a drink.

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Share Your World – Week of August 29, 2022

Published on August 30, 2022August 29, 2022 by Yinglan13 Comments

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#WeekendCoffeeShare – Something Good this Week

Published on August 27, 2022August 26, 2022 by Yinglan16 Comments

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Avoidance

Published on August 24, 2022August 24, 2022 by Yinglan13 Comments

I thought I would be okay now that the nightmares have subsided. I thought I would be okay to drive to my doctor appointment on Friday (two days from now).

Maybe not because I find myself stressing out just to step into the garage. I can’t even go into the garage to retrieve some insect powder for the garage. For some reason, every time I put the thought of “go to the garage” in my head, my brain would automatically override the thought with another like “walk 1000 steps” or “watch TV”.

I have already reschedule the appointment for next Thursday and part of me want so much to reschedule Friday’s appointment. You can’t, a voice says firmly. Friday’s appointment is a dietitian/counseling appointment and I need to talk to somebody who understands what I’m going through. Maybe then I can have the strength to get back on the road.

Curiously, I googled “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms” and one of the symptom that came up was “avoidance” and it includes:

Trying to avoid thinking or talking about the traumatic event
Avoiding places, activities or people that remind you of the traumatic event
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20355967

I remember when I went grocery shopping with mom on Sunday. It took all my strength to hurl myself into the garage and into my mom’s car. The house key was in my pocket and when we returned, I entered the house through the front door instead of the garage.

My mom didn’t understand this. She doesn’t understand I can’t stand to look at my car – the missing fender, the hole in the door, all of it. She doesn’t understand about PTSD.

I have been in accidents before, none was my fault, but I couldn’t recall having such a strong reaction as this time. I was able to step into the garage. I was able to get in the car and get back on the road. Why is it so hard this time?

Meanwhile, mom isn’t making this easy. Not only does she keeps talking about it, she’s saying it’s my fault that I got into an accident which prevented us from taking a trip to Cheyenne, Wyoming last weekend and possibly any trip in the future because of the deficit I’ve spent on getting the car fixed.

She also wants me to call the auto body shop and ask them to give me a quote to add blind spot detection to my mirrors. I don’t see why I need it. It was never a problem and I don’t want it to be another crutch for me to rely on. To be honest, I hate all the gadgets cars have these days and I’m glad my car doesn’t have features like lane departure and blind spot detection because it makes us more distracted and reliant on these feature instead of focusing on the road and drive.

I emailed the person who did the quote for my repairs but he hasn’t gotten back to me yet and I doubt he will. His business card is in my car and given my current dilemma, I don’t know how I can retrieve it.

This will take a while…

Published on August 19, 2022August 18, 2022 by Yinglan17 Comments

Please note that this is quite a long post. I won’t be offended if you skip this one.

Physically, I’m fine but mentally, I feel like I’m once again at a breaking point. It will certainly be a while until I’m truly comfortable driving again…

Yesterday was supposed to be a day of fun, a day which I head into the forest once again to seek solitude, a little time to myself, and to enjoy nature but it looked like someone had another agenda for me.

This week has been a series of unfortunate events with the biggest one of them all on Thursday.

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