Holiday Depression ???

Wow.

I thought for sure I had it all together this year. If you look at my past Christmas time posts, you will see holidays have not been a good time for me for several years, but this year I thought everything was hunkey-dorey.

I willingly participated in looking for a tree, I sang while decorating the house with little ornaments here and there, I even bought all the ingredients to make the goodies I used to make back before depression became a major issue in my life.

Maybe it was still progress that I actually got into it beforehand, regardless of the monster who woke Christmas morning as me? I mean, in the past few years I haven’t gotten into it at all…none…nada.

I cannot put my finger on any one thing yesterday. I was not thinking about any of the sad stuff. I was reminding myself how joyous a time this is. I’ve not been watching the news now for a couple of weeks (periodically I have to stop watching and reading the news because of my tendency toward gloom and doom when the chemicals in my brain are misbehaving). I did not have any blown up expectations of the day (I don’t think I did anyway), but, somehow the DAY ITSELF came along and just wiped me right off my feet.

Uninvited tears were the menu for the day. No appetite for the wonderful Christmas cooking Great Husband had prepared (but yes I forced it down and acted happy about it). I slept a lot, feeling worse every time I awakened.

I am okay this morning, back at work. The tears won’t stop, but so far I have been successful at keeping them hidden.

I’m trying really hard not to let this bother me. I know my illness comes and goes without any kind of warning. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to when it will rear its ugly head, or why or for how long.

I am thankful suicide never once entered my mind. Not one time. That in itself is a blessing for Christmas.

Christmas Eve and State Troopers

Sighhhhhhhh…….

Three years ago today, Christmas Eve, I was getting ready to go to work and found my cat was sick. He had not been long had surgery for bladder stones so when I found him sick again I was afraid they were back. We had almost lost him the first time.

I hurry and get dressed and go to find a vet that was open that early. I finally find one and he says Sebe is running a fever but he doesn’t believe he has developed any more stones. He gives him an antibiotic and sends us on our way.

I am already late for work at this point, and I still have to run Sebe home. Meanwhile, I am on a side of town I am not familiar with. I come to this huge intersection and turn left when the light turns green. I immediately hear sirens behind me and look in my mirror to see the flashing blue lights.

I KNEW I wasn’t speeding and could not imagine why I was being pulled over. Turns out I had turned from the wrong lane. The trooper was really nasty when he approached my window and demanded to know why I was distracted and turning from the wrong lane.

I explained to him I had just took my cat to the vet and was on my way to take him home and get to work and was not familiar with the area. He proceeds to write me a 4 point ticket.

I am 48 years old and have never gotten a ticket before this. Never.

Christmas Eve... 2008…guess what happens this morning on my way to work? Yep, on my way to work this morning, COMPLETE with red Santa hat, I got pulled over AGAIN. Seems my registration sticker has somehow found its way off my tag.

This trooper was very sweet. He had already called in my tag so he knew I had paid my taxes and registration fees, so he gave me a warning and wish me a Merry Christmas.

What is it about Christmas Eve and me? Do I look like a potential Santa kidnapper? Do I look like the Grinch who stole Christmas?

Oh well, I hope you all have a Merry CHristmas and a safe holiday time.

Christmas in the Work Place

The view from my desk....

A Tree...? In the House ?

Like me, my Thomas does NOT like change. Not one bit.

From the day we put our tree up, he has beeing finding mischief to get into. Keep in mind, this is Thomas, NOT Luke. Thomas is the "good dog".

He did the same thing last year when we put the tree up.

Just doesn't like change.

Like a Brand New Christmas

Since 1999, my son has not spoken to me. He is 27. I have two grandchildren who do not know me.

I was married to their daddy for 24 years. During our divorce, his daddy told him many lies, some truths, and in general just things he did not need to know. But, he was out to hurt me in any way he could and he managed to succeed, in the worst possible way.

I hid things from our children all their lives, such as their daddy using me for a punching bag. I never told them he watched the mileage on my car to see if I had went where I said I was going. They never knew he marked our dirt and gravel driveway to see if anyone came or left while he was at work. In general I tried to keep their little lives calm and without drama. I grew up in abuse and drama and I tried to hide that ugly facet of life from them.

Christmas has been HORRIBLE for me since 1999. It was all I could do those first couple of years to sleep through the entire season. I detested walking into a store and hearing Christmas music. The commercials on television with all the happy families with their colorful gifts and the fires in their fireplaces by their Christmas tree would provoke a panic attack out of the blue. Never was I more suicidal than the months of November and December.

It’s been 9 years now. He still won’t have anything to do with me. He still will not answer letters or emails. I don’t even try to call him on the phone anymore. Mothers Day comes and goes, as does my birthday. But this Christmas, I seem to be better.

I have actively helped Wise Husband find a fitting tree. I have bought all the ingredients for the goodies I used to cook at Christmas time. I catch myself humming along to the Holly Jolly Christmas songs.

It is sad that this means I have accepted the loss of my son, and it seems cold to admit that, but it is healthy that I can now say his name without breaking into tears.

Merry Christmas…at least for the next 10 days !!

There are several blogs I read religiously. Most are written by medical personnel types, and some are people like me, who have some type of battle with depression or bipolar.

Yesterday, one that I read on a regular basis, sounded very much like the writer was in a “bad way”. It spoke of suicide in no uncertain terms.

Over the past few years I have been blogging, there was a really bad time where my depression was not under control. I could not see a way out and the future to me looked like more suffering than I was able to handle.

I didn’t hesitate to write about my feelings during that period. It was a good way for me to get the thoughts in my head out in the open. I am not a social butterfly and don't talk to people much - other than my husband. It was healthy for me to be able to "say" these things to that someone who was out there in internet world reading.

During that period, I had some really awesome people write to me through email and through my comment section some very encouraging words. Those people who bothered to communicate to me during those times will never know how much they helped me.

So, yesterday when I read this Suicide is Painless post, I ignored this bloggers request not to comment. She put in the post that comments were turned off. So, I just went to the prior post and commented to her anyway. I told her some of the kind things that people had said to me when I was at my worst and basically asked her to please promise to hold out through the holidays and reminded her that when we feel suicidal it is our brains lying to us.

Today, this blogger has put a rather testy note on her blog that she didn’t appreciate my going to another post to comment.

I’m torn…I didn’t mean to make her angry. I KNOW how hard the holidays are for people like me who deal with depression. If she was truly feeling suicidal I didn’t feel I could just go on to the next on my list of blogs to read without saying something to her.

Was I wrong to comment after she had specifically said not to? Should I have just ignored what sounded to me like someone with suicide in their mind?

10 Days With a Toilet

Phew. I survived.

Whatever the stomach virus is that is going around nearly kicked this ole gals butt.

Ten days (yep – that says 10) of pure agony. Horrible cramping, I’m talking cramping worthy of a hot water bottle and when that wasn’t enough a heating pad. Non-stop diarrhea, vomiting, off and on fever, ugh!

The diarrhea is still hanging around, but it isn’t as often or as bad as it was.

The last Saturday night of it all, I came THISCLOSE to going to the emergency room. I was convinced I was dying. I know I was dehydrated, and I was so thirsty and I was drinking but I was spewing from both ends so much I could not decide whether to sit on the toilet or hurl into it.

Rather than go to the ER and be thought of as wasting their time on a non-emergency situation, I called my family doctor and asked would he please call me in some Phenergan suppositories for the vomiting. No dice. He did suggest I go to the ER if I felt like it tho. That my dear ER readers is one reason you see so much unnecessary traffic through your hallowed halls.

I thought it was very sucky of him to refuse. I have never once called him after hours. I see him on a regular basis for all my medical needs including my yearly physicals so it is not as if he didn’t know me or something. Personally, I think he needs to take off his panties and put on some big boy pants and not be so paranoid. What’cha want to bet I’ll be charged for the phone call….?

My only saving grace was that all this occurred over two weekends and the Thanksgiving holidays so I only missed a day and a half of work. Of course being the weekend and Thanksgiving holidays was also the reason I couldn't get into the doctors office.

I hope you all are healthy and don't come across this nasty stuff. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

P.E.N.I.S.es in the Workplace

Oh shit.

Sorry…that phrase just happens to be foremost in my mind at the moment.

I am sitting here at work, twiddling my ass, watching the clock. The bosses are gone of course, because they “have people coming in”. Well Hells Bells…don’t we all? If that is all it takes to go home early why was I not invited TO LEAVE? Oh…that’s right…because I don’t have a P.E.N.I.S.

It has been such a special couple of weeks lately here at work. One special event was when one of the bosses mentioned in passing some statement about accountability in reference to me and my job. No point trying to explain here, suffice to say he is the most full of you-know-what person I have ever known.

Everyone knows one, or worse still, has one. He knows everything. He has everything. He has done everything. He has been everywhere. I swear if I were to mention how bad my cramps were this month (and I wouldn’t) he would come up with some horror story about how much worse his were last month.

You know the kind, they will come along and take credit for work that YOU did, or pick up on something you are working on and somehow SAVE THE EFFING DAY in the BIG bosses eyes.

Anyway, accountability on my part has never been an issue in the nine years I have worked here. I have the pay raises and bonuses every year to prove that, but being the silent wuss that I am he can come along with one little sentence and stop me in my tracks for weeks.

He preys on people like me…people who won’t stand up, people who don’t quite know how to tell anyone that he is taking credit for my shit. I watch him do it to others. I've heard him lie straight out and put the blame for some stupid shit on me – something that doesn’t even matter in the long run – and I don’t know how to approach it at all. So I don’t. Instead, I just grow a nice large ulcer.

Speaking of pain in the asses…I have had some stomach virus for 5 days now. Nothing has stayed around in my belly long enough for 5 days to even get to know the wall paper in there. I don’t know how much weight I have lost, but I hope it stays off. I have worked through this of course. Well, I was out a day and a half, but otherwise I have sat here, bent over, rushing back and forth to the bathroom where the most hellacious sounds you have ever heard have broken the silence here. Oh…and when I came back from the one and a half days I absolutely couldn’t get off the potty long enough to get here…they had saved the trash and the dirty dishes in the break room for me. Ahhh what it must be like to have a P.E.N.I.S.

Today, I HATE this place. I am so thankful to the Lord to have a job in this time when so many are losing theirs, but this place has begun to suck the life from me. I don’t have many options if I were to leave. I only make a decent wage now because I have been here for a while. I don’t have an education and no matter what skills you have, companies are looking for that piece of paper that I can’t hand them.

So, for now, I guess I’ll just tell you all about my troubles here, and hope that slows the progress of the little entity in the lining of my belly. I wonder if I should name it?

Icing on a cake and a Beating from a belt

When I was 6, my only sibling, a sister, was 15.

Growing up, we had a maid. Her name was Mattie and she loved me to death! She was more mother to me than mother was. She was with us from 6:30 every morning until 5 every evening and she stayed with me when my parents went on vacation as well.

On my sisters 15th birthday, her cake was sitting on the counter looking very inviting. Mother was sleeping since she worked night shifts at the time.

Every few minutes I would walk over to the cake and look at it. Each time I would bend down closer and closer looking, hoping to catch the aroma. Sister was in her room doing whatever 15 year olds do in their room and Mattie was cooking supper.

Finally I couldn’t stand it any longer and I touched that cake. Just a little touch, just enough to get a tad of icing on my finger. Gosh it sure was good. I swiped another little piece, patting down all around where I had snitched so it would not be noticeable I had been messing with it.

Before too long, my good sense went straight out the window and on down the block. Mattie warned me away from the cake several times, but I wasn’t listening, I was enjoying fingers and fingers full of icing.

Around 3, as usual, mom got out of bed to get ready for dinner. When she saw the cake sitting there with not a drop of icing left on it, she went 100% totally ape shit.

As soon as she screamed my name I knew all the icing in the world wasn’t worth what I figured was about to happen to me. Yelling at my sister, she told her to get in here and sit down on the couch. With her belt in one hand and holding on to me with the other, she showed my sister what I had done to her birthday cake.

My sister was mumbling that it didn’t really matter that she wasn’t upset.

Holding me by my hand, she started hitting me with the belt. She would pull way back, as far back as she could, and swing that belt down on my legs and my back and wherever else it landed. We were going in circles as she swung her belt. After several minutes of this I started yelling that I had to pee but she wasn’t stopping. By now, sister was crying, begging mother to stop, please stop, that the cake didn’t matter.

For a brief second mother stopped hitting me and turned toward Kay and told her to shut up or she would get it next. Turning back towards me the screaming and the hitting started again. After several more minutes, I was peeing all down my pants, onto the floor and it was running across the floor. That made her madder and she began hitting me harder and faster for peeing my pants. A little while more of that and I did more than pee my pants.

I was so ashamed. I hadn’t done anything like that since when I was in diapers, now here was sister, mother and Mattie watching me use the bathroom all over myself. I could barely breathe I was crying so hard, I was strangling when I would try to answer her when she would ask if I were ever going to do something like that again.

When it was over, the house was very quiet. Poor Mattie seemed afraid to try to comfort me, and I don’t know where sister went.

Four months after this happened, sister eloped. I was left alone to take all of her madness then.

Maxine - The Rat Who Didn’t Know She was a Rat

I got Maxine in June 2005. She was my very first rat.

I had read about rats and what great pets they made, but I was skeptical, until I got Maxine.

I quickly bought another female so she wouldn’t be alone when I was working and sleeping. They are very social animals and love your company as well as friends of their own kind. Her friend I named Gladys.

It wasn’t long before I had two more, males this time. I kept the males in a separate cage but kept the cages together so they could gee-haw back and forth.

No finer pet could you want. Smart, loving and clean and funny. They will play with anything you give them, be it a store bought toy or something you make yourself.

They slept in their little homemade hammocks. Cuddled up together. They eat anything you give them. Mine seemed to especially love cooked oatmeal, grits, maybe a little ice cream and a chicken bone with a little meat left on it. They eat anything, but these were their favorites.

As of last Thursday, I only have one remaining. Maxine died early Thursday morning. I knew she was on her way and I have prayed and prayed that I wouldn’t have to have her put to sleep.

She leaves behind to mourn her, Rudy, who being an old male (no longer able to reproduce), kept her warm and groomed during her last weeks.

She also leaves behind the rest of my family…the dogs who could NOT understand these critters who would snip their nose if they stuck it too far in their direction, my hubby who had learned to love all kinds of animals because he married a woman who can’t say no to a creature needing a home, and, she leaves behind me, a middle-aged, white-collar woman who soon learned that just like a book – no animal, even a rat, can be judged by its’ cover.

I miss you Maxine, but I wouldn't trade anything for the companionship you gave me the past 3 and a half years.

Thomas and Luke - Animals and Depression

More pics of my little buddies. There are so many things that animals do for you, such as lowering your blood pressure.


Thomas


"Geeeez mom. I'm trying to watch SCRUBS here."

Luke and Thomas

Thomas hates the camera. He always runs to the bed as soon as he notices I have it out. These are the best pictures I have ever gotten of him.

Luke in the waterbed

Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

Oh my gosh! No matter how many times I make these things, it is always like the very first time………. I was introduced to them in elementary school. I’m talking cookies that you would swap your FRIED CHICKEN for!!

They can be eaten as is, or you can put them in a bowl of milk and lap them up with a spoon after a little crushing. Mmmmmmm. No bake and easy!

You will notice after each ingredient I even informed you as to how we’re meeting most food groups with the wonderful cookies. (Okay, just let me enjoy the fantaasy.)

1 stick butter (dairy)
½ cup milk – I have used both skim and whole (dairy)
3 Tbsp cocoa powder (vegetable – well you know, cocoa bean?)
2 cups sugar (I know…I know)

Boil these first four ingredients for 3 minutes AFTER the mixtures comes to a rolling boil. When finished boiling, add the following:

½ cup peanut butter (crunchy or creamy) (protein)
3 cups rolled oats (starch…fiber?)

The recipe calls for a Tsp of vanilla, but I never add it. Just doesn’t need it.

You can either drop by spoonful onto a cookie sheet, or pour it on the sheet and smooth it out to cut into the right size.

DO NOT under any circumstances go to the trouble of figuring the calories or “points”, and for goodness sake if you do, don’t tell me.

Heaven Sounds So Good

So empty inside is how I feel. Blank. Like a zero. Like all there is, is an empty space where a sea full of tears are sitting, waiting their turn.

I try praying and I don’t feel anything that would lead me to believe He is listening. The last few weeks, I KNEW He was there. I felt His presence. Now nothing.

I have had several good weeks. I mean busy, good, happy (mostly) weeks. Out of the blue, like being hit by a semi, this comes again.

I know it will pass, I KNOW that. I’ve been living it my entire life, but I STILL don’t see it coming until it knocks the shit out of me.

I am not actively suicidal, but I prayed this morning (to what seemed like an empty sky) that God would take me on to Heaven. The thoughts of being like this for 20 – 30 more years is so exhausting.

Now I sit here at work, trying desperately not to cry, and of course it doesn’t work.

Men & Dead Crickets

Men !!

One little word, yet most women don’t even need an explanation.

When I was getting ready for work yesterday morning, I noticed a dead cricket in the middle of the shower floor. I am not a morning person and not being the “dead bug” person in the house, I left it.

Last night, when I went to get into the shower, AFTER MY HUSBAND HAD TAKEN HIS SHOWER mind you, the dead cricket was still lying there.

My husband is 6’5”. He weighs about 280 lbs. Some how, he managed to shower around this dead cricket.

My question, an even BIGGER question than how, is WHY????

A few weekends ago I noticed that half of my housework is spent picking up crap he leaves laying wherever he happens to be when he finishes using whatever the item might be. Because I was slightly PMS, I shared this startling new insight with him.

He was very appreciative.

Agoraphobia Are Us....snort

My better half (snort) advised me yesterday we have a little perfunctory supper we are to go to at our church next week. Since the moment he mentioned it my stomach has been in knots. So today, I've been doing some reading up on Agoraphobia. There is a lot of information out there, which causes me to believe there must be a lot of people like me out there. Bless their little hearts.

I have always tried to pinpoint when this problem first came up for me. I always thought I used to be fairly sane, but in the past just under 10 years, this has made a huge impact on my life.

While reading one article, the memory of the first (?) episode slapped me right in the face! I was standing in line at a store, waiting to pay. I don't remember when it was, but I do remember the instance I first recognized the extreme discomfort of being in public.

Looking back I can see my grandmother out in public...twisting and twiddling her fingers together...folding and unfolding a hankerchief...wiping sweat off her face...her hands shaking as she would hand the clerk cash to pay for her purchase. I did not have this problem back then, I felt sorry for her but I didn't really understand.

Grandmother did NOT do "SUPPERS" ! I am 48 years old, I think I have paid my dues. I'm not doing suppers anymore either.

Hrrmmmpphhhhh.