The journey home from the depression outposts in the brain is long and tedious, frustrating and sometimes boring. It’s hard to write about because you realize that it’s such an internal process and really can’t be that interesting to other people. It’s repetitive and introspective and most certainly centered on yourself. Also, it’s damned hard to find the will or the energy to put together more than a few sentences and when you do manage to get something down, you’re filled with doubt about its worth. So you delete it.
Winter is here. Fuck winter and the grey days and early sunsets. I used to relate to the myth of Persephone and her yearly underworld journey. That pervasive feeling of being lost and trapped and hopeless. I’ve recently re-read the story and had a real shift of perspective. It’s not Persephone who suffers loss and hopelessness but her mother, Demeter. Mostly, this is neither here nor there, just rambling observations and a new perspective on a story that I read often.
But! There was a corner turned (as the title of this post would lead you to believe). There have been many little successes in therapy over the past year, different ways in which I could see my progress, but recently I had a moment of revelation and a feeling that there is more than hope at the core of this journey.
What is this corner I turned? How have things changed?
First, the set up: Let’s say I’m watching a movie where a main character is struggling to survive, maybe she’s being chased by an chainsaw wielding lunatic. She’s running and screaming and there’s goodly tension and the audience is scared for her. For years, while most of my brain would be pulling for her to survive, there was a part of my brain that wasn’t. Part of my brain was quietly saying, “just stop. Stop running, stop screaming, just stop, turn around and give yourself to the monster (or let go of the ledge and fall or stop repairing your space ship and go to sleep). Death was scary, but it was also a major relief. I would look at these characters and think, “death sucks, but man, at least this shit will be over and you can rest.”
Just let go. Let go and free yourself from this misery. Release is yours if you want it. Of course, it’s wasn’t just movies and books but also in my day to day life. Logically, I knew I did not want to get into a car accident or get hit by a bus or slip in the shower…but part of me always sort of hoped it would happen. Quick and passive and then it would be over. Then I could find relief.
Then, something peculiar happened. David and I were watching a movie, can’t remember what it was. At some point there was some sort of tense movie shootout something or other and a lot of tension regarding the survival of one of the characters. I’m watching this and that part of my brain that so reliably says, “death isn’t such a terrible things…” isn’t there. It’s gone. It’s been replaced by a much louder and more insistent, “HOLY SHIT! Run! You’re….I’m not ready to die!”
I’m not ready to die.
I do not know how it happened or when it happened but my mind turned a corner. I do not want to die, not even accidentally. I do want relief, but now, for the first time in years, I can see and believe that relief is possible in this life. I can be alive and be relieved of this burden in my head and my heart. For the first time in years I believe that today might suck, and tomorrow might suck, but the day after that might not and it actually is worth it to stick around and find out.
Was it the therapy? The meds? The cyclical nature of depression? I honestly don’t know, but I suspect it is a combination of all three working together. I don’t think it could have happened with one of those elements missing, it had to be a combination of those and probably other factors that I don’t even know about. But there it is, some hope.
Winter is hard. It’s a grueling grind for me every year. This year I can definitely see the effects of the season on me in my lack of motivation and my urge to sleep all day. I can see these effects but I can also see that they have limits and boundaries, they are not all powerful and they are a burden but they won’t sink me this year. They can be managed and overcome. I can survive this and this time, I actually do want to survive it.
Category Archives: Blab
Facebook makes me lazy.
Maybe it’s not Facebook’s fault, maybe it just feeds my already inherent laziness. I don’t know. I’d like to put all of the blame on Facebook, seems like the easiest thing to do.
There are a couple dozen good reasons why I haven’t been updating my blog. Some of them are sort of boring like, “I’m not really doing anything interesting enough to write about” or “the combination of my depression and the specific meds that I am on make it really hard for me to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes at a time” or “I can’t write about depression on every post because that would be tedious and boring”.
But then there’s Facebook. Facebook, which takes inanity to a whole new level. Used to be that I would get an interesting thought or idea and I would tease it out and write a few paragraphs about it. It took some time, usually something would simmer in my head for a few hours and once I’d worked out a theme and structure, maybe looked up a few things, I could sit down and write it out. Not anymore. Now when I get a thought or idea I don’t have to think about it, I just pare it down to about 400 characters and barf it into a little box on my screen. No need to think about it, no need to work it out, just peel the plastic back and pop it into the microwave for 3 minutes.
What have I done this summer? I went to Louisiana, that should have been a number of posts. There was a lot to say about the trip. I could write about the heat, the alligator, and the aquarium. In my head I’d worked out a post abut how hard it is to be in ‘vacation’ and not have a reliable source of personal transportation. That was actually a big deal because it was hard to make plans or go out and do things without either a car or public transportation. I had a lot to say about dependence and expectations and how things change. Instead of writing it all out I just threw a few blobs on to my Facebook account and was done.
On our way back from Louisiana David and I were able to stay with some Pantsters and got to meet so many wonderful people. We also drove a car from Louisiana to Minnesota without a single bit of identifying info (no license plates, no temp plates, no little yellow piece of paper in the back window. nothing) and we were not pulled over once, much to my surprise (I had assumed we’d be pulled over in every podunk burg with a budget crisis and an overeager police force).
What else? I got 4 stitches in my face. There was a lot to say about that, like why I had 4 stitches on my face (if you adopt a dog that is high strung and has problems you should probably not startle him when he is sleeping), or how things went in the emergency room, or how hard it is to eat when you have stitches on your face. Also, there was much to say about my insurance situation and how that affected my trip to the emergency room.
Instead, I threw a picture up on Flickr. Easy.
Then there was the little nephew born yesterday. David’s sister had a baby and the summer was filled with anticipation and excitement. I am, of course, crocheting many baby things and I could be here writing about them or writing about the excitement of a new baby or anything like that.
I hit my one year in therapy mark this month. That in itself should be cause for many opinions and much reflection. You’d think I would have a lot to say about it, many opinions to share. I do! I really do, but I never get around to it. Truly, it is hard to concentrate on longer, more serious posts, but damn! Something could be written! Something should be written simply because I made a commitment to share my experiences with depression so that those that suffer in silence don’t feel so alone and also so that people who do not have experience with it might have a better understanding of it.
Right now my hair is bright orange! Over the summer it was 2 different shades of pink. I tried out a new brand of hair colors and I love them.
I mean that’s pretty interesting, right? At least in my life it is.
I’ve worked out a couple new recipes and I’m working on the perfect peanut butter cookie recipe. I should have written those down and posted them. But it’s much easier to just type, “peanut butter cookies FTW! Woot” and leave it at that.
And of course, there’s this:
Seriously, what the hell?
I promise to do a better job writing here…I hope.
oh right, a thing happened
I went to Louisiana! On the way home I met an elephant.
I have much to write but it’s been exceedingly difficult to do all the things required to make a post, like form complete sentences, write the sentences, formulate coherent thoughts, type, breathe…
I probably need to take my welbutrin for a few days, it’s like ritalin for the slow people.
Also, I am still the queen of the homemade ice cream sandwich!
Spin Monkey
In February 2008, on a whim, as a joke, with no real purpose in mind I started a little group on Ravelry.com. I called it “Bubbo’s Pants” with the idea that everyone who joined would automatically be in my pants. My pants are huge, voluminous even, they hold lots of people.
I didn’t make any hard and fast rules about the group or its focus, to be honest, I did not expect the group to go past the ‘silly joke’ phase…except it did. Still, though, no real ‘rules’ were set down. Mostly, I figured there were enough places on the internet where people could be unabashed jerks to each other, places where ‘honesty’ was considered synonymous with ‘douchebaggery’. I didn’t want my group to be like that. I wanted something different. And I got it!
The Pants, as the group is called, has grown into quite a juggernaut of awesome. It’s a place where people who need help or support can go to find it without judgment or criticism. We give advice, comfort, opinions and support in an open and somewhat playful manner. In short, the group is everything I had hoped it would be.
So, what does this all have to do with the pictures above?
Well, the People of The Pants are a sneaky lot! They will form secret, private groups away from the main group! They will use these groups to coordinate secret plots to help bring cheer and love to someone who is going through a particularly rough patch. Sneaky little monkeys they are! As my birthday approached, they formed one of these secret groups. Their secret plot? To get me a spinning wheel. Oh yes, a spinning wheel! I’d been missing the spinning wheel I had, one that was borrowed and had to be returned to its owner.
I love spinning yarn. It’s rhythmic and relaxing, it’s an act of comfort as well as an act of creation.
They did it, these Pantsters of mine, they coordinated their efforts and for my birthday they sent me a Louet S10 spinning wheel and a bunch of delicious fiber as well as a giant birthday card, a painting of my Rastapotomus (more on that later), gift cards and so much more.
I have a spinning wheel! My own spinning wheel! I can sit down and create yarn once again.
They keep me humble, yes they do. Whenever I stop to think, “hey! I made a pretty cool community!” they surprise me with acts of generosity and love that I can not ever take any credit for. It is a group that is somehow greater than the sum of its members. I am immensely proud of my association with them.
I cannot thank them enough for this gift, not just the spinning wheel (which is awesome) but the gift of this community, the gift of their friendship and support and love.
Fat is the new Gay
Recently I’ve been involved in or witnessed a number of debates regarding obesity. In one situation a person found a note on another person’s car. The car was legally parked in a handicapped space, the note said, “Being fat is not a handicap”. The person removed the note from the car so that the owner would not find it and face the humiliation of anonymous denigration. And so, the debate began, and within that debate the fat hate rolled fast and furious.
To start, I’m appalled, absolutely appalled, that someone with the most minimal of information would decide that the only reason the person had for receiving the handicapped designation was that they were fat. There could be any number of reasons for the person’s handicapped designation, many of them completely unrelated to their weight. But that’s not the point, really, it isn’t. Whatever the reason might be, it’s none of your business. How cheap is your mind that you can waste its efforts on policing handicapped designations? What an asinine conceit to believe that you are the one who gets to decide based solely on a few moments observation who does or does not deserve to park in such a spot. That you, above even the various state guidelines, should decide and these people must justify to you.
Fat bashing is an easy sport these days. While there are certainly a number of medical reasons for why a person has the extra poundage, it’s readily agreed that most people are overweight because they eat too much and exercise too little.
In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a total fatty. I’m fat because I eat more calories than I expend. I have no excuses to offer up.
Picking a group to hate on is relatively easy. One only has to find people who are different in some way and then expound on those differences. Used to be we could attack natural differences like gender or race or sexual orientation, but not so much anymore. We’ve learned (some people slower than others) that ostracizing people for differences they did not choose is pointless. But fat people are different, they made choices! Choices that the skinny people would not make.
When a fat person goes out, every pint of ice cream, every cheeseburger, every slice of pie, every milkshake, every tub of popcorn, every bad choice they’ve made is on display to the world. People can look at the fat person and see a clear history of ‘bad’ choices. And so, safe in the anonymity of their own choices, they attack. The attacks are cheap and easy, they don’t require much effort at all. They can snort in derision if the person is there or later they can play Internet Tough Guy, logging on and vomiting out everything that is wrong with all the fat people they see. And the fat people, how do they defend themselves from such attacks? Sure, a few can rightfully proclaim medical conditions, but even those protestations are often met with, “yeah? well I have a medical condition that is entirely different but decidedly worse and I’m not fat!”
For the rest of us, there is no defense. We know we’re fat, we know why we’re fat, denying it rings as hollow as the arguments for intelligent design. So we take it. We take it because there is no other choice. If we didn’t want to be mocked we shouldn’t make bad, mockable choices, right?
Right?
But that’s the thing, our choices are highly visible, you can see them. What if every one of your bad choices were laid bare to the public? What if your credit score was on the back of your shirt for everyone to see? How about the details of every one of your failed relationships? Your sexual urges? Your poor performance reviews from every job you ever had? Would you be so quick to judge and mock someone if they could see that one time in college you intentionally gave a chick too much to drink so you could fuck her with little resistance? Would you be keen to remark, “You just have to eat fewer calories than you use! I don’t see what’s so hard about that!” if someone else could say, “you just have to spend less money than you make, I don’t see what’s so hard about that!” every time you left your house?
Fat bashing is cheap and easy, it doesn’t require much thought and you know the majority of the population will back you. But what I want to know is who the fuck are you to climb on such a high horse? Sure, you can spout off all the statistics about obesity and health issues, but really, who the fuck are you? Are your bad choices any better? Or are your bad choices just less evident?
Don’t worry, if history tells us anything it’s that soon enough, your bad choices will become evident and the majority will turn on you as well.