I started this ZenDoodle yesterday and could not finish it. I got all the orchid and blue zigzaggy lines colored in but there were were five little holes staring up at me and I just couldn’t think of a single thing to put in them. I shoved it aside but it stared at me all day long. Tonight it hit me. My ZenDoodles need to be about truth-telling, they need to be the story of my life on a particular day, no matter how embarrassing they are (Remember the one with the bottle of xanax and wine?).

Okay, so what is in today’s Zen-Doodle-Odd-Little-Square-That-Is-A-Perfect-Picture-Of-My-Life?

*My iPhone without which life would not be livable. I’m serious. I don’t talk on the phone much. I text a little. But I read Kindle books on it, I listen to Audible audiobooks on it, I play Klondike Scrabble when life becomes too much and I have no words and I don’t want to be around anyone and especially before I go to sleep. It’s the crossover thing between a day of anxiety and depression to “Oh my God I made it to the chair with the pugs, another day is done.” My brain kind of untangles and anxiety falls away. I have a notepad on my iPhone which I use for my grocery lists and for taking notes for my writing, you know, those things that come up in the night and you don’t want to forget them. I have The Weather Channel app which has been a godsend this last week and Safari where I can look up all manner of things that I absolutely HAVE TO KNOW at 2 a.m. and on which I found live streaming MSNBC and nearly cried from joy. I had to get rid of cable t.v. because the bills kept going up and up and I could no longer afford it but truly almost the only thing I’ve watched in the last year or more from 9 or 10 until 12 or 1 has been news shows on MSNBC. When I could watch Rachel Maddow on my phone I said prayers of thanksgiving! Now I have the long iPhone charging cord that I wrote about last night so I can watch my news shows without running down the battery on my phone. And I never had an iPhone before this past April. I always had an android and they work just fine. BUT when 2 of your children live out of town with 3 of your grandchildren the kids grow up not even knowing you. (Thankfully I have one child and grandchild here + my darling son-in-law. I would be so lost without them I just can’t tell you.) I think as soon as someone becomes a grandparent they should be issued an iPhone for the FaceTiming. My grandchildren are getting to know me now since they only come home 2 and sometimes 3 times a year. I have never felt this way about a cell phone since I got my first one in the year 2000 but I’m here to tell you that iPhones ARE worth it and I never want to be without one!

* NO. Cultivating the ability to say no, kindly, but firmly, can save your life, especially if your brain is doing the tango all day and is prone to taking dips. Life can be hard, and the mentally ill feel so guilty all the time about everything it can be hard to say No. When you learn to say no to things people try to guilt you into doing you just have really accomplished something. Teach other people to say no too, when it’s needed. No, no, no.

* Ibuprofen. Ibuprofen is saving me. The doctor gave me pain pills for my tooth and I’ve taken some. She said take one or two. There were only 21 in the bottle and they were not refillable. I found out that one alone really does no good and two makes you feel, well, kind of funny. And I’m on so much medication for my mental well-being anyway that I get nervous adding something to the mix, especially hydrocodone. And then there’s the whole thing about you just went to a new pharmacy to have your dog’s hydrocodone pills refilled (For his collapsed trachea, bless his heart, it keeps him from coughing his whole trachea up. I never heard of giving a dog hydrocone before but I have heard of several cases since, and it helps him a lot.) and now less than 2 weeks later you bring in another prescription of hydrocone from your dentist. Now this is all legit and actually his is stronger, mine also has acetaminophen in it, but, while I have never done any form of illegal drugs in my life I felt guilty standing there and like the pharmacist was going to say, “Hey, what’s up with this, you just got hydrocone for your dog and now “a dentist” is filling it for you?” I sat nervously waiting for them to fill it expecting them to call me up to the counter and look at me suspiciously and say, “Ahem, mam, we don’t think we can fill this since you’ve already GOT hydrocodone “for your dog.” But it was just my anxiety disorder kicking in after an awful appointment with the dentist when I was in a lot of pain and they wanted a million dollars to fix the tooth. And you know what? 4 ibuprofen, which I was supposed to alternate the hydrocodone with, helps the pain as much or more without any iffy side-effects. I’m sticking to the ibuprofen. It’s much safer all around.

*  Cheetos. Well, into each life a little rain must fall, and we had a lot of rain expected what with Hurricane Irma on the way and Hurricane Jose coming up right behind her. At the store I thought I needed something I’m not supposed to eat but which affects the serotonin in my brain more than my Prozac. Yes, Cheetos. I rarely ever have them, in fact can’t even remember the last time I did, but this hurricane called for some. I blame Effy Wild (Who is sponsoring this wonderful September Blogalong Challenge With Effy), because the other day she wrote about eating “Cheesies” and she showed a picture and I have not been able to get them out of my mind ever since. But I do have to thank her. They helped a lot.

So now I have finished my Day 12 post for the blogalong and shared probably more than you needed to know about me. The thing about these ZenDoodles is that they seem so innocent but things lurking about in your iffy brain just will pop out. Ink blot tests were so long ago. I did them when I was 10 years old at the first psychiatrist’s office I ever went to. Forget the ink blot tests. Get a person to do a ZenDoodle and you will know more than you ever wanted to know about them.