How to mess up your life

This is not intended to be an exhaustive list. Use your imagination and you, too can get start messing your life up- maybe even permanently!

1. Get snippy with mother-in-law about how you are not seeing enough of your hospitalized husband. When she defends herself by apologetically reminding you of health issues that leave her easily exhausted and in a great deal of pain, sulk.

2. Cancel plans to see said husband days after making them, due to finding out someone else will be visiting at the same time.

3. Tell husband you've canceled plans to see him, and refuse when he offers to call the other visitor and tell them not to come. Make sure that he cries after he's done talking to you.

4. Feel jealous of everyone you know. People with unhospitalized spouses, people with no children, people who aren't married, people with less kids than you, people whose children appear to behave better than yours, people who get to see your husband more often than you do, anyone he talks to besides you (like, say, his doctor)...pretty much anyone is fair game. Get really angry about how much better their lives are than yours.

5. Feel free to vent the anger that is now a continual part of your emotional life at whoever happens to be handy at the moment...kids, spouse, friends, cats. Again, anyone is fair game.

6. Alternate wrathful explosions with bouts of anguished depression, contrition, and self-loathing. Cry frequently.

7. Increase your emotional sensitivity to the point where a stern look sends you flying from the room in tears. To keep people on their toes, make sure you fly off the handle with them next time.

8. Occasionally, take a moment to project your inferiority complex onto a friend or two- deep down, you know they don't like you anyway. And if they continue to protest that they do, indeed, like you, then you have a convenient opportunity to practice feeling like an ass.

9. Forget to take your medication. It keeps life interesting!