I try telling myself that my thoughts aren't me, but I got into a nasty existential loop of "Well, then, who the hell am I?"

Buddhism says you are the awareness of the thoughts. Like, the thoughts are waves but you are the ocean. It takes time to internalize it (oh look, another lifelong process) but I find it helpful. Also labeling the kind of thought or emotion helps me get some separationsfrom it. Thank you, DBT.

Good call, Amy.

Oh happy day, between my 3% raise, increasing my W-4 allowances, and decreasing my 401k witholding, my semi-monthly take home pay is more than my mortgage payment! Not quite as much as mortgage payment + student loan payment (which unfortunately both hit in the first half of the month), but still, much better than it was.

According to the fuzzy information I've gleaned from the internet, I'd need to be on the Percocet for a few weeks for dependence to become a problem. But honestly, I don't fucking care right now. Deal with pain now. Deal with other stuff later.

Did I mention that not only did the doctor give me Percocet without my asking, I got enough to take it more or less constantly for 30 days? Even though it was only a week away from my surgery. It made me think real hard about ita and other people who have problems getting access to adequate pain management.

And yeah, maybe Aunt Louise had access to laudanum, but that's how the killer manages to slip her the arsenic. I'm just saying.

(Is that executive function stuff?)

Ha ha, yup. I think I've successfully disguised a lot of my executive function stuff by using technology as an elaborate scaffolding to prop up my inner hot mess.

According to the fuzzy information I've gleaned from the internet, I'd need to be on the Percocet for a few weeks for dependence to become a problem. But honestly, I don't fucking care right now. Deal with pain now. Deal with other stuff later.

I was on the maximum dose for maybe 6 weeks before my surgery. And since the surgery worked and all the pain was gone when I woke up in recovery, I just stopped taking the percocet. That was my ticket to Withdrawal Town, where all the occupants are sweaty and jittery. So I had to taper off it, which was fine.

But you've only been taking it a couple of weeks, right?

Only since Thursday.

Edit: It probably just seems longer since I keep yakking about it.

And yeah, maybe Aunt Louise had access to laudanum, but that's how the killer manages to slip her the arsenic. I'm just saying.

Good point. OTOH, maybe she's grumpy enough to slip her patriarchal buffoon of a nephew arsenic first.

Deal with pain now. Deal with other stuff later.

Really the only reasonable way to proceed.

Only since Thursday.

That doesn't sound like long enough to cause a problem. On the off chance that it would, you can taper off by breaking the tablets in half and increasing the time between doses. But I bet you'll be fine.

Hubby had so many prescriptions for Percosets (AKA Perkies) and Lortabs (AKA Lora, yes, we nicknamed them) that he didn't even fill most of them. What seemed to be the most help to him was a shot of Berenjager before bed. My beloved is no one's role model, though, he had reached professional levels of pain drug experience. As Steven Tyler said, roughly, "The drugs were fine while it was just the professionals using, but then the kids got into it."

Buddhism says you are the awareness of the thoughts.

I was in the restroom contemplating thoughts vs. self, wondering what I was if I wasn't thinking, and I went, "Duh, that's what meditation is for!" However, my hips won't let me sit on the floor, and if I sit in a comfy chair and clear my mind, I fall asleep. Which in and of itself might be a good thing.

Was it Ben Franklin who said, if you have a complicated job to get done, give it to the laziest person in the room? Because that is my forte--take something complicated and simplify it and get it done. Which was *so* much fun working with an extrovert ADHD boss who couldn't accomplish anything unless ALL the plates were spinning, and who used to go through proven sequences and ADD steps, just to complicate things.

I had a dishwasher in a rented apartment once. I could have used one, I suppose, when the kids were little, and teenagers, eating like a plague of locusts. But with just the two of us now, half the time the pots and pans are done by hand before we sit to eat, with nothing left but the plates, flatware, and glasses, and those are quickly done by hand when dinner's done. We had a defunct dishwasher when we moved in--getting it out and replaced with a cabinet or bank of drawers is on the agenda.