As a post script of sorts to the last post, there are some songs that make me feel better.

Love this life
Don’t wait till the next one comes
Gonna pedal my faith
The wheels are still turning round, turn round

Maybe the day will come
When you’ll never have to feel no pain
After all my complaining gonna love this life, gonna love this life
Love this life, love this life

And apparently I can’t embed this one, INXS – Bitter Tears

Bitter tears taste so sweet
I’m seein’ my way for the first time in years
When the love around begins to suffer
And you can’t find love in one, in one another
Push away those bitter tears, bitter tears

Also: fun, Carry On

If you’re lost and alone
Or you’re sinking like a stone.
Carry on.
May your past be the sound
Of your feet upon the ground.
Carry on.

And lastly, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Impression that I Get

This is National Suicide Prevention Week.

As many of you know, my friend Janiece lost her daughter to suicide this summer, and another friend’s cousin committed suicide earlier in the summer, so this week has been on my mind more than normal this year.

First, my thoughts and love are with Janiece and her family, as they learn to live with this terrible loss. Second, I want to note that JR and Stacey are doing a memorial walk in honor of Janiece’s family.

But mostly, I just want to remind people:

 
 
DEPRESSION IS A FUCKING LIAR.
 
 

I’m not just saying that because The Bloggess says it, but because I know it to be true.

I’ve suffered from depression, anxiety, and obsessive compulsive disorder since I was a teenager, though it wasn’t until my late 20s that the OCD was diagnosed, and it I was in my mid thirties before my anxiety was diagnosed.

Uncountable are the number of days where I struggled to get out of bed, struggled to keep from self-harm, struggled to keep going.

Uncountable are the times the voice in my head has told me that I was worthless, that my very existence caused more harm than good for those around me.

I know how hard that voice is to silence, because it’s coming from inside your head–somewhere you can’t escape–and it’s repeating and replaying every cruel thing that has ever been said to you, and every time you have hurt someone, even if cruelty wasn’t your original intent.

I know how your brain can be an echo chamber for all these negative thoughts and horrible memories.

But even still, I know–I KNOW–these things are lies. I know that I am much more than the sum of all the mistakes I’ve made in my life.

For me, what keeps me going is the knowledge that there are people who would be hurt–and hurt terribly–if I was gone. So I keep going, because I don’t want to cause more harm than I already have.

BUT

It’s not all dark days and despair.

To counteract the dark inside my head, I try to look, every day and all the time, for beauty and joy and silliness and happiness in my life, and to cultivate those things, so I have more moments of joy and silliness.

And I try to remember that depression is a fucking liar, and without me, the world would be a far less silly place, and that can’t be a good thing.

Suicide Prevention Resource Center

International Association for Suicide Prevention

How to Help Someone Who Is Suicidal

Veterans Crisis Line

Post Secret on Suicide Prevention

This week has been filled with anxiety.

Not anxiety over something interesting.

Not anxiety for something at work.

Just anxiety because my brain hates me.

Yesterday I spent the evening on curled up on the sofa with blankets over my head (but just my head, because it’s warm and humid here in Mo-town).

Today, I feel like crap.

My brain is in a fog and I’m filled with self-loathing, but I’m going to work, because staying home in bed feels like giving up, giving in.

So, this is really just a note to tell you all I’m here and alive and I’m taking it one day at a time.

It’s really horrifying, how I could believe I had everything under control; as that control slowly unwinds, I watch the bits and pieces of normalcy fall away.

I forget, somehow, that my depression and my obsessive-compulsive disorder are tightly linked, and that the longer my depression goes on, the more severe my compulsions get.

I find myself failing to control compulsions I’ve been free of for years.

Annoying, that.

But, it’s logical, in that strange twisted way only mental illness can be.

As I lose control of my mood, my need for control in other parts of my life ramps up, hence, the compulsions.

My disordered mind finds solace in patterns and repetition, wishing to see there the seeds of order I lack elsewhere.

But of course, as calming as these compulsions and repetitions may be, they only feed my self-loathing: if I were a GOOD person, I could control these things. I can’t control them, therefore, I’m every bit as horrible as the lying bastard depression tells me I am.

Meanwhile, the rational part of my mind is bound and gagged in the corner, yet still attempting to get the signal out (through morose code, of course) to the emotional basket case part of my mind, “This too, shall pass. This too, shall pass.”

So tonight, that’s the repetition I’ll take with me:

This too, shall pass.

This too, shall pass.

I’ve really been struggling recently.

I was sick for several weeks–I thought that was it.

But it wasn’t.

Instead, I’ve been in a downward spiral, feeling miserable, which keeps me from getting anything done, which makes me miserable…

You know, the vicious cycle.

The one I know I’m in, but I can’t seem to escape.

That’s the thing, of course. I know depression is a fucking liar. Yet, when I’m in the throes of it, knowing doesn’t mean a damned thing.

I feel like I’m the most horrible person in the world.

I wish I could just give up, except that I know that doing so would hurt people, and that would make me an even WORSE person than I already think I am, so I keep trudging along.

Get out of bed. Go to work. Feel overwhelmed and worthless. Pretend everything is okay, because worthless or not, we need my paycheck. Come home. Try to distract myself. Go to bed. And the whole thing starts over.

I was IMing someone today who has the same struggles I do. I said that I didn’t want to blog about how hard I was struggling, because I didn’t want to cause people to worry. Because, you know, that makes me even more selfish.

So many people in my life right now are struggling: Two friends have mothers who may have late stage lung cancer. Other friends have family members going through various serious medical issues. My extended family is still reeling from two unexpected deaths in less than six months.

What right do I have to complain? To whine? To talk about my own problems which exist only in my brain?

But my friend reminded me that it helps other people to know they aren’t alone in their struggles. That if I don’t talk about it, then those other people who are struggling might think they are alone.

And they aren’t.

So here it is–my continued struggle.

But it’s something more than that. It’s a reminder to myself that depression is a fucking liar. And that I will keep going. I’ll get up in the morning and go to work. And things will get better.

Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not the next day. But they will get better.

Because depression is a fucking liar, and I won’t let it get the best of me.

And thank you again to my friend who reminded me of these things.

I have to go to a funeral this afternoon; my wish for the new year is not to have to go to any funerals for the whole year. Especially closed casket funerals for people who are younger than I am.

So, cheer me (and everyone else) up. What makes you happy?

(So, apparently a customization I made to my template keeps me from embedding YouTube videos. I’d tried to embed The Blind Boys of Alabama “Way Down in the Hole”. Now you can’t listen to it while you read this.)

Thursday evening, we learned that Mr Brown had died.

Mr Bill and Ms Helen were Grandmom’s neighbors, and the reason she was able to live on her own for as long as she did. Ms Helen took Grandmom to the grocery story. Mr Bill took care of Grandmom’s lawn and took care of her trash cans. Both of them checked on her every day, to make sure she was okay, and got her mail when she was out of town.

Mr Bill had been battling cancer for years now, so this was not an unexpected death; we were told his grandkids had come to visit that day.

It doesn’t seem fair that such kind and generous people should have had to deal with such pain, but, as the saying goes, life is pain.

Last Tuesday (a week ago today), I had my happy doctor appointment.

The short of it is that we doubled my anti-depressant. We’ve left my anxiety meds as they are for now, and he added in a medicine that is supposed to alleviate some of the side effects of the anti-depressant (grinding my teeth and vivid dreams).

The subject of lithium came up as well.

And not for the first time.

This feels like such a damned failure to me; I’ve spent the week ignoring this change, and refusing to talk about it (but I have been taking my meds) but not talking about it doesn’t change the fact that I’m not getting better.

Sometimes I feel like the only thing that keeps me going is guilt: it’s my responsibility not to be a burden on those around me, so I have to get out of bed. I have to go to work. I have to do the things that normal people do, because it’s not fair for me to cause other people difficulty.

But I don’t think that getting up every day because of guilt really qualifies as living. I mean, it’s better than the other options, but it’s not a very joyful of existence.

Not that the depression allows me to believe I’m worthy of joy, but I just tell my brain to shut the fuck up and move on.

I don’t actually have a moral or an ending to this. I wish I had an ending to this. I wish one day I could wake up and be a normal person with a normal brain, but that’s not in the cards.

So for now, telling my brain STFU and moving on is what I’m doing and how I’m doing.

labile
: readily or frequently changing: as
a : readily or continually undergoing chemical, physical, or biological change or breakdown
b : characterized by wide fluctuations (as in blood pressure or glucose tolerance)
c : emotionally unstable

And that pretty much sums up Michelle these days.

Over the course of the day I go from feeling like I can do anything to wondering why I bother because I fuck up everything I put my hands on.

Every day is like this: Up. Down. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down.

I’ve been through a fair amount of upheaval in the past several months, so–as usual–I am having a hard time separating what is from what should be.

I had two emergency dental appointments in an 8 day period of time for broken and cracked teeth, almost certainly because I have been gritting and grinding my teeth. And of course, broken teeth are–quite literally–one of my worst nightmares: the dreams from which I wake up in a cold sweat and am freaked out for hours afterwards.

(Yes, I have a mouth guard for sleeping. Yes, I am trying to be aware of when I grind and grit my teeth when I am awake.)

I’m trying to exercise regularly, and typically have a minimum of 10k steps–that’s five to six miles–a day because I know that exercise helps regulate my mood.

I get a massage every three weeks because I know that helps me deal with stress.

I’m eating well.

But still, the mood swings.

Yet, I’m functional. I go to work every day and do my job (a job which most of the time I enjoy). I do laundry and occasionally cook and bake and clean the house (which is normal).

So I am trying to figure out of these moods are coming from my brain trying to adjust to events from the summer or if something has changed in my brain chemistry and I’ve shifted from Dysthymia to Cyclothymic (Please, no.) and I have no answer. Or, maybe I’ve just become a psychological hypochondriac. Wouldn’t THAT be fun? (Next up: self diagnosis of schizophrenia followed by a self-diagnosis of borderline personality disorder! Wheeee!)

I’ve got more than a month until my next doctor appointment. I believe I should continue “Give it time,” and “Let things continue to settle out.” But a teeny voice in the back of my head wonders if this is going to be the start of a downward spiral.

I don’t know. I really don’t. All I can say is that I’m trying. Every day I get up and I keep going and try to take joy from everything around me and I think that should be ok for now.

The way (I presume) a normal human brain works:
“I wish I’d have switched dentists YEARS ago. I can’t believe I let him screw up that many of my fillings!”

The way MY brain works:
“OMG! My bones are dissolving! I must have some rare disease and will be dead within six months!”

Yeah. And this is AFTER taking my anxiety meds.

In case it isn’t obvious, I broke a molar today, this one on the other side of my mouth. This was one of the fillings that first made me think maybe I needed to find a new dentist. But still–rare bone degenerating disease is OBVIOUSLY the more likely cause.

As previously noted, I’ve been feeling sad and melancholy recently. So, this week’s word association is going to be a one-time thing.

This week, I want you to name someone, and then say one kind thing about them. Doesn’t matter who that person is, and you can come back multiple times if you want. If the person is online and I should know ’em, then link to them.

I just need some kindness in my life, and I’m counting on y’all to come up with some.

Here’s the first, to get your started:

Michael = patient

I’ll try to get back to our regularly scheduled fun and games next week. For now, I’m just feeling melancholy.

And broke.

I feel so all alone
no one’s gonna fix me when I’m broke

A post on depression has been fermenting in the back of my mind for quite awhile, but I’ve mostly been ignoring it, because, at some point, I feel like there’s not a damned thing I can say that I haven’t said many times before, so what’s the point?

But then I feel depression creeping in from the side, sinking its claws in, coming in under the cover of stress or grief or anxiety.

But that’s the thing, you see. How do I tease out depression from all these other things? How do I determine what is an acceptable reaction to events and what is depression being a big fat fucking liar?

As with Grandmom, I am going through periods of intense sadness. Stupid things will make me burst into tears. That, I am pretty certain, is grief.

But in between, I think, are the sneaky tendrils of depression.

I don’t just feel sad, but I also feel utterly alone. I feel as if it’s wrong for me to want to talk about my sadness and grief, that people just don’t want to hear it.

Or even worse, that I’m not eligible for my grief, that I’m not justified to feel so sad.

Part of that comes, of course, from the fact that I feel mortified by my own reactions. When we buried Grandmom, I knelt down to touch her coffin one last time and burst into uncontrollable sobbing. I could not stop myself from what felt like hysterical crying, not matter how hard I tried.

I felt like I was making a huge scene and hated every moment of that lost control just as much as I hated saying goodbye to her.

That’s just weakness, the darkness whispered.

So now, I struggle again, trying to understand why I feel this way.

Why do I not accept my own feelings as valid? Why does this sorrow make me feel like an imposter in my own mind?

Intellectually, I recognize this as my depression speaking. That my feelings are valid and my own reaction and no one–NO ONE–has the right to tell me I’m doing it wrong.

But I can’t stop myself from telling myself that.

Which really fucking SUCKS, let me tell you.

So I’m letting myself feel. And I’m being really damned careful about how much I rely upon pharmaceuticals–but that in and of it self is a Catch-22. Short sleep will kick-start a bout of depression, so I’ve been taking half doses of Tylenol-PM so I sleep, but then I worry that I shouldn’t be relying upon drugs to sleep, that it’s bad to take them, so I berate myself for my “weakness,” which of course makes me depressed.

That’s a fun game that can be played endlessly, let me tell you. (You may remember a similar game I played two years ago when I broke my ankle, over whether it was OK to take pain meds when I was hurting.)

So, we come back to the fact that I know depression is a fucking liar, but it’s like a horrible take on those gawd-awful horror movies–the lies are coming FROM INSIDE YOUR HEAD! If only I could run out of my head to get away. Or even grab a ball bat and beat the living hell out of the vicious invader.

But what I can do is try to keep myself honest. I’m allowed to have these feelings. And if I need to cry, I’m allowed to.

But I also have to remember to search out the joys that exist, and seek out the things that make me laugh. Because just as I am allowed to be sad, I am also allowed to laugh. And it’s my job to share light where I find it, to remind myself and others that we don’t live in the darkness, and even if I visit there, it’s not my home.

Last week on Facebook I made the following comment:

I didn’t cry once when I broke my ankle. I think I gasped during the x-rays, but otherwise? Nope.

How can this hurt so much worse?

When Grandmom died, I had a hard time. I missed her, but it was for selfish reasons. She’d been my North Star for my entire life, and without her I felt lost and cut adrift. Yet I knew she was tired and ready to die. She’d had 93 and a half years and was ready to go.

This loss, Ben’s death, is so very different and so much harder.

I’d mentioned before that Ben was like another little brother. I held him when he was a baby and babysat him when he was older. I went to his high school graduation and drove halfway across the damned country for his college graduation.

Just like a little brother he sometimes annoyed me, and I often didn’t understand him.

That’s an understatement.

In many ways, I don’t think it would be possible for us to be much more different. Ben loved taking risks and trying new things and meeting new people and going new places. I’m family-centered and anxious about everything. I quite literally could not even imagine myself doing the things he did. I stress out when confronted with talking to strangers and will often avoid parties, because the thought of trying to talk even to people I know stresses me out.

Which is kinda funny, because people are the center of my world. The core of my job is helping people, and I love doing it. I love helping people.

I just don’t know how to talk to them unless I’m being helpful.

Which is another part of what has made this so very hard.

I can’t help anyone–I can’t even help myself. I’m full of grief and anger and frustration that overwhelms me. I’d gladly break my other ankle or take any other kind of physical pain than continue to deal with this grief.

But of course, it doesn’t work like that. That’d just give me broken bones AND grief, which I’m pretty sure would suck even worse than what I’m feeling now.

How can something intangible hurt so damned badly?

If you love somebody
Better tell them while they’re here ’cause
They may just run away from you

You’ll never know quite when, well
Then again it just depends on
How long of time is left for you

I’ve had the highest mountains
I’ve had the deepest rivers
You can have it all but life keeps moving

Take it in but don’t look down
‘Cause I’m on top of the world, hey
I’m on top of the world, hey
Waiting on this for a while now
Paying my dues to the dirt
I’ve been waiting to smile, hey
Been holding it in for a while, hey
Take you with me if I can
Been dreaming of this since a child
I’m on top of the world.

I’ve tried to cut these corners
Try to take the easy way out
I kept on falling short of something
I could of gave up then but
Then again I couldn’t have ’cause
I’ve traveled all this way for something

Take it in but don’t look down
‘Cause I’m on top of the world, hey
I’m on top of the world, hey
Waiting on this for a while now
Paying my dues to the dirt
I’ve been waiting to smile, hey
Been holding it in for a while, hey
Take you with me if I can
Been dreaming of this since a child
I’m on top of the world.

‘Cause I’m on top of the world, hey
I’m on top of the world, hey
Waiting on this for a while now
Paying my dues to the dirt
I’ve been waiting to smile, hey
Been holding it in for a while, hey
Take you with me if I can
Been dreaming of this since a child
I’m on top of the world.

And I know it’s hard when you’re falling down
And it’s a long way up you make your round
But get up now, get up, get up now.

–Imagine Dragons

I like to imagine that’s how you felt at the top.

It’s so damned unfair you left the rest of us down here, with a huge aching void.