Falderol

Days of Grace, 2 of 365

1. A warm cat on my lap at the end of the day.
2. Sunlight for the first time in about two weeks.
3. The sweet taste of a green tea latte.
4. Feeling relaxed for most of the day.
5. Laughing with friends over an inside joke.

Back online

I want to keep this blog anonymous, at least for now, and I think I'm finally ready to start writing again. I'm going to begin by following Schmutzie's 365 Days of Grace regimen:

It's too easy for me to become bogged down in how I think things should be, instead of realizing how good things actually are. Last year was incredibly rough yet rewarding, but now I find I'm stuck in second gear, ruminating over the remnants of the rough spots instead of enjoying the sweetness and light that grace me on an almost daily basis. So, here are my five for today:

1. The recent four-month anniversary of welcoming Princess Lily Queen of Belly Rubs into our home. Never has such a diminutive dilute tortoiseshell kitty become house leader so quickly.
2. My trusty Queen Bee purse, which I love and adore. It might even love me back, despite the constant bashing against car doors and scraping against tree trunks.
3. A great conversation with my acupuncturist. It's nice to find out that someone so centered has dealt with anxiety levels I can understand.
4. My husband. He'll be on the list frequently. Tonight, it's for loving me at my most anxious and fractious.
5. Finding out that a prospective employer wants to check my references. It's a good sign.

Digging in

There's so much to write, but somehow I can't find it in me to put it down on paper. For now, I want to link to two articles that anyone who's ever dealt with depression should read -- or anyone who knows someone suffering, because it might provide insight into that world.

This one, found by Dooce, gets it all right. The guilt: why me, when so much is right in my life? The pain: constant, buzzing, debilitating. Read it here.

This one, by Judith Warner, made me want to fly to New York to hug her. In a world where we're convinced that all Americans are overmedicated, going on depression meds can be a harrowing experience. You feel like you're caving in, like you should be able to heal yourself. There are friends you can't talk to because they are too quick to speak out against medication. But Judith gets it right: maybe we should stop viewing it as an all-or-nothing issue. Perhaps the truth is closer to this: that for the first time, we're able to help people who used to help themselves through alcohol, drugs, dangerous behavior, isolation, or suicide. If meds can bring people like me back from the human mind's darkest corners, should we be so quick to condemn them?

I'm not okay yet. I've been on a full dose of my SSRI for about three weeks, so I still have days like yesterday where I feel like I'm backsliding into despair. But I'm clawing my way back, one slow dogged scrape at a time. I want to write about it -- it's the most therapeutic tool I have at hand right now. But I don't know if anyone's out there anymore. I don't know if anyone wants to hear this stuff.

You just did just what I thought you were gonna do

On a much-needed break last weekend, my friends and I drove to the beach for a two-day retreat from reality. We holed up in a chalet surrounded by marshlands, where the surf sounds drifted to us over red-osier dogwoods and gentle hills. Between the board games and ballgames, we almost neglected to find the beach at all -- on Sunday, we finally decided to follow the homeowner's handwritten directions to the shoreline. It promised to be an easy, 15-minute walk across the marsh...

...Except we forgot that it had rained recently, which meant the marsh was...marshier. Our trail petered off into a giant lagoon, and we decided to turn around and walk back to the house, where we could follow the main road to another beach entrance further south...

...Except somehow, we didn't follow the right trail. A few minutes into our trek, we ran into another lagoon. And another.

"Shit," one of my friends said. "Is this even possible?"

We thrashed about on various deer trails and manmade trails for another 20 minutes, following one promising lead after another until each one ended in muck. I was the only one wearing hiking boots, and no one else had a second pair of pants. Because the reeds were waist or shoulder-high, we often couldn't see the water until we were in it up to our shins. Like the bright, 21st century humans we were, we continued shoving through the brush.

"This is ridiculous," another friend said. "I can see the goddamn house from here!"

It hovered over the horizon like a mirage. We could actually hear the neighbors talking on their back porch, but we were damned if we were going to start calling for help. As we stumbled around, we started texting friends and updating LiveJournal accounts. Because those are the survival skills you amass in modern society.

"How many years of education do we have between us?" I asked.

"Can you imagine the search and rescue call we're going to have to make? 'Help, we're stuck in a swamp! What? Oh, about 100 yards from the house.'"

"Can't we just pave the damn swamp?"

"Maybe we should have driven through it."

"Yeah, that'd be good. Hi, AAA? Yeah, could you come tow my car out of a swamp?"

"I bet there are coyotes out here. Really hungry ones."

I broke off from the group and tried climbing straight over the hills, but I only managed to snag some deadwood and tumble into a cluster of reeds and pokey things. Finally, after an hour, we gave up and turned south, deciding to soldier on until we found the main road to the beach. Exhausted and triumphant, we burst onto the trail with a rousing victory cry, only to discover several bystanders and dog walkers who'd been watching our trek with some bemusement. The beach was freezing and awful and awash with SUVs (whose bright idea was it to make our state beach a national highway?), and we spent approximately 10 minutes there because we figured we had to after all that.

As we walked home, we surveyed our surroundings. "Oh, hell," someone said. "That wasn't our house."

I turned around. "What do you mean?"

He pointed in the direction of the house we'd been trying to reach. "That house is too far south. Our house is over there."

We stopped in our tracks and stared over the horizon at the cheerful peaked roof of our chalet.

"Fuck it," my friend muttered. "I'm staying in and watching football for the rest of the weekend."

Hold on to yourself

Things are bad here at Team Falderol.

I'm six days into my first round of antidepressants. One of the early side effects, which will diminish in a few weeks, is increased anxiety. In my case, this means increased increased anxiety, the kind that made it impossible for me to get out of bed until noon yesterday. It's probably good that I only have a part time job right now.

When I'm up, things are fine. But these bad spells, they come out of nowhere. They're getting worse. I know I just have to be patient, but when I spend an hour on the couch in my mom's arms with racking sobs...well, I'm having trouble here.

So, now I'm on another drug to battle the anxiety. Hi, my name is Lady F, and I'm a former holistic med-head gone pharmaceutical cabinet. But you know, this drug made me get out of bed today. It's too numbing for me to be comfortable with it for any length of time, but it will suffice for these darkest days.

And it's lonely out here in the gloaming.

Pest control

CB is gone, off visiting different cities to investigate postdoc opportunities. Rather than dwell on it (OH MY GOOOOD IT SUUUCKS), I will entertain you with a story from my latest workplace.

I write and edit materials about plant conservation for a Very Important Institution. We have gardeners on-site to manage some of our exhibits, and yes, I'm being vague in the hopes it will take you longer than 30 milliseconds to figure out where I'm employed.

Just after Christmas, one of the staff gardeners let out a bloodcurdling screech from the shed where he kept his tools. Moments later, he came into the office looking several shades paler than normal.

For background information, this is a nutria. It looks cute, but it's actually slightly more evil than European starlings. Or your worst relative, in case you are a normal person who doesn't understand why starlings are the spawn of Satan over here. Nutria are an invasive species who happen to be champion eaters, so they inflict irreparable damage on our native wetlands as they munch their way across the United States. This is why you can find all sorts of interesting information online from people who hate nutria...like this handy book of recipes...

Anyway, our gardeners hate nutria. Haaaaate. And while we environmentalists are all supposed to be hippy-dippy treehugger types, the truth is that we get downright pissed when invasive species show up and throw one more wrench into our sputtering ecosystems. Apparently, we aren't too good at keeping quiet, because someone figured out that our group is anti-nutria.

The gardener, he found a box outside his tool shed. After cautiously toeing it, thinking it might be some kind of misshapen bomb, or maybe even full of puppies, he opened it. And screamed. That's right: Santa brought us a dead nutria for Christmas.

Welcome to my world. :)

One step closer to knowing

One of the most disheartening aspects of depression, at least for me, is the self-doubt it creates. Suddenly, you begin to question everything, from your own state of mind to your future. Logically, rationally, this is something I can treat. It isn't severe, nor is it disruptive to the point where I can't go to work or take a shower. Well, on occasion taking that shower might involve an hour's work, but at least it gets done. (And hey, I'm damn clean after all that time.)

And yet. If you ask me how I feel right now, I'll debate whether to tell you that there's an undercurrent of anxiety running just below the surface. I know full well that I will get over this, but I haven't quite internalized that message. Instead, I find myself asking the questions that a lot of depressed people ask. What if it doesn't get better? What if I'm doomed to repeat this cycle again and again? When my life is relatively pleasant, why can't I just be happy? What is wrong with me?

When you have a thyroid condition, it takes awhile to adjust. There's always a little part of you monitoring every weight fluctuation and energy shift, wondering if it's time to get the levels checked. Normal becomes a relative term. I'm afraid that this could be similar. Will I be looking over my shoulder now? Wondering if my latest crying jag is just frustration, or the sign of something bigger? I don't want that to happen. I won't let it.

I made a difficult decision yesterday to go on antidepressants. It's funny: by definition, depression messes with your brain. Yet, choosing to mess with it -- even if it's to clean up the original problem -- rattles me. I'm very, very scared of antidepressants. I'm afraid of their side effects, and of what happens if they don't work. I'm afraid of what happens if they do.

I'm also a little tired of explaining it to people. Yes, the medications are prescribed too often...but sometimes, some of us actually need them. If I thought I could do this myself, I would. Believe me: I've been agonizing over that for two months -- probably longer, on a subconscious level. If I knew how to fix this, I would. But even when I'm having a run of good days, as I've been, there are signs that I'm not entirely in control here. I'm still too anxious. I still jump to wild conclusions about the future on no evidence whatsoever. I have little OCD tics that flare like signal fires in the distance. Even today, when I was reeling from the first pills and wondering how I'd make it through the adjustment period, I thought about trying to go it alone again. But deep down, I know I need to try this now. Alone is too big, too much. I might be okay, but I wouldn't be all right.

CB leaves tomorrow, and I don't want him to go. He is a calming influence right now. I love my family, but they can be intense and stress-inducing; they don't know how to react, and so they get bigger and louder, talk about everyday things like bird feeders and television when I just need someone to tell me that this is going to get better. CB isn't like that. I know he doesn't know what to do, but nine times out of 10 he manages to be as supportive as anyone I can imagine. He is my rock, while the rest of us are just waves crashing around him. I feel terrible about the mixed emotions I have regarding my family. They've opened their home to me after a long time of being on my own, and they are doing the best they can. But I've been independent for so long, and I'm nervous that I might let myself become too dependent when I'm in close proximity to them. Being so connected has its disadvantages. So, living with the family is a mixed bag, but I can't go back to England right now. I need to work on me before we move for CB's postdoc. I know this, and I agree with it...but it doesn't make his leaving any easier. I wish we could be done with this LDR already, even though we're more than halfway there.

I know things will work out. I have to believe that, because I need to keep the right state of mind to move through this. It'll happen, and I just need to learn to be patient. But lord, sometimes I wish I could just skip to the part where things feel right again.

If you've lived here, you know what he means

From Adrian Ryan's tales of Portland:

One moment you would swear before God in a court of law that Portland was just about the darlin’est little place you ever did see: everyone is beautiful and smiles at you, the sweet smell of coffee, books and young Democrats wafts upon the breeze, the roses yawn wide to serenade you as you frolic with the roaming deer and so forth. The next moment—SNAP! Everyone is looking at you like you have crap in your hair, even the squirrels are vaguely antagonistic, the city turns ugly and small and desperate and cold as a frozen hooker’s ice cube tray, and you really just want to die. I’ve lived it. I know.

Step one

One of the most frustrating things about depression is the inability to predict when it will strike. While life hasn't been great lately, I wouldn't call it particularly taxing in recent months; perhaps that's why it arrived this fall, when I'd let my guard down after a difficult year. Now, it's become cyclical. A run of good days, followed by a couple where I fulfill all the stereotypes (head in a fog, trapped in a hole, unable to get out of bed...you name it). Every time it eases, I think I might be over the hump. Every time it returns, it's a little more demoralizing.

This blog is not going to be about depression, but depression is part of this blog. Writing is one of my biggest coping tools, and I'd be a fool not to use it. At the same time, there are a lot of details I'm not sure I want to share -- you never know who might find you in the blogosphere, and I also hesitate to tell my friends just how messed up things can get over here. I might write a lot of posts and never publish them, which seems to be the case as of late. Eventually, as I climb back out of this ravine, I'll start publishing more often about a wider variety of topics. Now, though, it can be a protracted struggle to do anything beyond what must be completed on a given day. Too, I find I'm guarding my emotions, because depression makes you mistrust everything you think and feel. For someone going through it the first time (or maybe the second -- I'm still not sure), it's extremely challenging to sort out what's you and what's the depression when your thoughts tumble like rags in the dryer.

This is uncharted territory for me. Please don't read if you don't want to know or if it makes you feel uncomfortable; if you know me personally, it might be easier. I'll post everything that isn't about depression to my other blog. If you do continue, I hope I find ways to make the trip worthwhile.

A post worth reading

Jon Armstrong's "How I Do" -- for anyone who's had to be there during a partner's struggles with depression.
It's been a difficult year, and posts like this help me feel less alone. Of course, so does CB, who holds onto me when my worse self is pushing him away.

Happy holidays, all. Be kind to yourselves.