9 March 2009 at 8:46 am (parenting)
Tags: depression, Gavin, parenting
I’m being pestered by the Self Esteem Monster and his good friends the You Aren’t A Good Enough Parent Monster and the Your Kid Sucks, Too Monster. Gavin is already four years old and he isn’t yet writing his dissertation on genetic mutations in the three toed sloth! He doesn’t have his paperwork in to be Stephen Hawking’s next unpaid intern! He forgets whether ni hao is Spanish and hola is Mandarin or vice versa!
Ok, seriously, he had his birthday party on Saturday and only two kids of the eleven or so we invited came. Is he the stinky kid no one wants to play with? I don’t *think* so. I mean, we bathe him once a month whether he needs it or not. It annoys me that most of the parents couldn’t even be bothered to call and say thanks for the invitation but we have other plans. I keep trying to tell myself that Gav had a great time no matter who was there. If the other parents didn’t want to take advantage of a free admission for their kiddo to the Children’s Museum, that’s their missed opportunity. Fuck ‘em. I still have those monsters hiding behind me waiting to kick me in the butt, though.
He’s four and counts in his own order. He recognizes his name and the letter G, but anything other than that is a wash. I was reading at his age. He’s still wearing pullups at night because he’s such a heavy sleeper he doesn’t even know when he wets them. Granted, I walk and talk in my sleep so I guess I can blame his genetics for that.
Screw all that! He’s polite. When he sees someone walking their dog he runs up *to the owner* and asks, “please may I pet your dog?” before going near the animal. He’s determined to learn to skateboard, and puts on his pads all by himself and brings us his helmet to put on. He sings silly songs to himself. He’s quick to give hugs and kisses and tell people he loves them. He likes all animals, not just your standard dogs and cats. He wants to play with the snake when we get him out, and he likes the tarantulas, too. He says hello to birds and bugs. He’s learned that we don’t squish bugs just because they’ve accidentally walked into our house. We take them back outside so they can go back home to their bug mommies and daddies. He knows not to leave water running because that’s wasting, and he uses cloth napkins because they can be washed and used again.
Piss off, monsters. There are things Gavin is not, but there are many things he is, and it’s all going to be ok.
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4 March 2009 at 11:09 am (depression)
Tags: depression, mood, music, Pink Floyd
SO YOU thought you might like to go to the show
Music does funny things to the brain. I’m not going to regurgitate this study or that study saying how it affects mood (although there was a funny one with mice listening to Anthrax who all killed each other). My own personal experience means more to me than someone else’s study. My own personal experience makes my heart start pounding hearing those words.
Pink isn’t well, he stayed back at the hotel,
The Wall. My sophomore year of high school I bounced back and forth between mania and depression with dizzying speed. Total obsession with someone kept me oblivious to how I was hurting myself, how I was hurting people who loved me, how I, myself, was hurting. I listened to this music over and over, oddly, because someone else liked it rather than noting the parallels with my own life. It seems I never listened to the words as a whole concept album. Almost 20 years later, the depression and suicidal tendencies of the main character are obvious. At the time I didn’t think about it, but I certainly understood when a friend killed himself a couple years later. Maybe on some level I was listening.
Are there any queers in the theatre tonight?
Get ‘em up against the wall.
And that one in the spotlight, he don’t look right to me.
Get him up against the wall.
I don’t like to hear it today. Any song from that album on the radio gets an immediate jab at any other preset button to turn it off turn it off turn it off QUICK. I have my own wall trying to keep the depression the paranoia the panic away, and that music seems to hold the key to breaking down the wall. I don’t want to remember that time. I don’t want to go back there.
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11 January 2009 at 11:53 pm (depression)
Tags: depression, Facebook, Orlando
When looking at old friends and thinking about old things turns mild homesickness into a palpable ache, it’s time to stop looking at Facebook and start trying to find a house in Orlando.
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12 September 2008 at 7:39 am (Medical, depression)
Tags: Cymbalta, depression, lithium, medication, medication issues, side effects, wellbutrin, zoloft
Fucking great. The lithium combined with Wellbutrin gave me the shakes, so Doc said drop the lithium. Wellbutrin plus Zoloft: weight down, libido way up, acne way up. I’ve already been through puberty once, thanks, not interested in experiencing it again. Doc prescribes Cymbalta. What the hell, I think, I’ll try the next one on the list. Then I find a site like this one of people kvetching about how terrible it is and how the withdrawals are hell, and it scares the shit out of me. Like, scares me so much I’m not sure if I’m going to start taking it this morning or not. Granted, I know people happy with their meds aren’t going to go out and post it on a side effects site. Still. Scary. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
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15 July 2008 at 9:07 am (General, depression)
Tags: Cinderella Castle, dance, Davey Dance Blog, depression, Disney, Gavin, Jeff, lithium, Magic Kingdom, multimedia, Silly, video, zoloft
Been miserable and depressed as hell the last few days, but where’s the fun in talking about that? Had a therapist appointment yesterday and a shrink appointment on Thursday, therapist called shrink and shrink called in a zoloft Rx since the lithium doesn’t seem to be doing it by itself, hopefully things will be better soon.
What is fun to talk about is Gavin dancing around (and getting me to dance with him) to this “muskick” this morning. I started reading my friend Jeff’s blog, and found myself at the Davey Dance Blog. It’s like this:
Davey Dance-BLOG. A project started while traveling Europe during Spring 2007. Armed only with an ipod and a Canon PowerShot, Davey picks a location and a pop song. Then Davey records an improvised dance.
The most recent one is in front of Cinderella Castle at the Magic Kingdom. This guy is hilarious, and I love how random people come join him in his dance. Bear in mind that the other people can’t hear any music, and it’s just classic. Check out the little boy dancing in the background, and you’ll get an idea of how Gav was while listening. Go on to the rest of his blog and see everything else we listened to — and danced to — this morning.
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6 June 2008 at 9:30 pm (depression)
Tags: depression, spam
Title courtesy of a spam email. Sometimes it’s entertaining to read the subject and first line or so of your spam emails. In addition to being made of honor, someone is also anxious to tell me the goodiest suggestion. But you wanna know the best part about depression? Not wanting to do anything. Yeah, that’s fabulous. In case you’re looking for me, I’ll be the slug on the couch. :)
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3 June 2008 at 9:02 pm (Medical)
Tags: bipolar, depression, doctors, Medical, US vs John Lennon
Went to what I thought was my new shrink today, only to find out she’s a therapist and not the sort who prescribes meds. Grr. She did enlighten me a bit, though, telling me all the drugs I’ve been on have been for depression and not for bipolar. Explains a good bit. My depression has been relatively stable but the hypomania has never changed. Goes back to me wondering if my previous shrink was prescribing what was good for me or what the drug companies were suggesting he prescribe. Whatever. In the meantime, I have no drugs for my confused little brain. I’m hoping my primary care physician will write me a short script to tide me over until I get in to see the drug doctor my talk doctor recommended today.
I think I’m going to go watch The US vs John Lennon with Steve and knit at the same time to keep my hands busy.
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30 May 2008 at 8:50 am (dad)
Tags: dad, depression, knitting
Last night I was trying to work on my dad’s afghan to get it done before he dies and I just got frustrated with all of it. I decided the square I was working on was too much work for a pattern I didn’t really seem to like, and then I decided I hated every square in that book and didn’t want to do any of it. I think I’m really just overwhelmed with the idea of finishing it. My mom tells me he’s sleeping more and more because his pain meds put him to sleep but he can’t stand to be without them. They went out to eat the other night and he had two hours’ worth of oxygen with him, but they ran out while they were on their way home and he was sitting in the car gasping. Mom needs me to show her how to turn on the closed captioning on her tv because Dad can’t hear it anymore. She said he’s forgetting more and more, which means I really need to write down all the things that are in my head, the stories he’s told me over the years. I don’t want to hear any of this! Can’t I just stick my head in the sand like an ostrich in the cartoons? La la la la la, happy place, happy place.
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20 May 2008 at 10:27 pm (depression)
Tags: depression, Evanescence
Don’t cry to me.
If you loved me,
You would be here with me.
You want me,
Come find me.
Make up your mind.
You never call me when you’re sober.
You only want it cause it’s over.
Was listening to this song earlier tonight. Haunting voice, haunting lyrics. Depression is like an old lover, teasing me with a caress, a whisper, fingers in my hair that lightly turn to a clinched fist with a delicious stab of pain that brings heat to my skin. How easy it is to turn back to those arms that know how to touch me. How easy it is to forget that the promise of an embrace is an empty one.
Blurring and stirring the truth and the lies
So I don’t know what’s real and what’s not
Always confusing the thoughts in my head
So I can’t trust myself anymore
So easy. Like a return to a first love, the one that has always been in the back of the mind, the shadow just out of sight. The movement that catches the eye, distracting it, then the wistfulness at realizing what is missed. How can sadness seem so welcoming? Deceptive depression. But how nice it would be for someone else to take the reins for a while.
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19 May 2008 at 8:23 pm (General)
Tags: artistic block, dad, depression
Blocks of the writing sort. Blocks of the artistic sort. I wouldn’t mind a depression block. That would be pretty groovy, actually. I have to find a new shrink since my last one had rude office staff and I don’t think he was listening to me anymore, anyway. It just gets a little weird when every time a drug doesn’t work he puts me on a new one and all the ones he suggests just happen to be mentioned on the notepads, pens, stress relieving squishy things, etc, scattered around his office. Makes me wonder if it’s right for me or just what he’s getting strongly nudged to suggest.
In the meantime, I sit here with Photoshop open and nothing going on. At least I’ve managed to babble something here. My dad’s dying and I’m trying to finish his knit afghan in time for him to enjoy it. All other knit projects are on the back burner somewhere. My brother-in-law’s girlfriend is pregnant and her mother just killed herself. What’s going on with you?
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