http://www.depressionforums.org/forums/index.php?autocom=blog Community Blog List Syndication Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:21:49 -0600 IP.Blog 60
All my life I've struggled with depression but now I'm feeling ok because I seem to be on the right medication. Hence I'm looking for friends and a companion which is a bit hard when one lives out in the country. I'm not a drinker, smoker nor doper. I've tried meeting friends online but that always turns into a disaster.

Lately I went to a conference where a co-worker approached me and we started talking about projects an such. Then he threw in a comment that i can be intimidating. I lmao and asked why he said it. In his jumble of words he was quick to change the topic. Ok I like him and in a busy room he was quick to find me. From what I've observed from past meetings and talking to him that he is intrested in me. But I think he is scared to ask me out.... what do you think people? I'm in my mid 40's but look 35 and I like to keep physically active. I've had no problems attracting men. So now I need to do something with my persona to make men more comfortable to approach me and talk. Being that I've been depressed all my life it's kinda hard to not look serious, i guess. As i've never really smiled much. But now I have more interest in life and I try to smile more often. So since i've been carrying this defence mechanism all my life - i think it's preventing me from attaining what i want now. Hence I was told by a friend that i needed to find my inner child. How the heck does finding my inner child have anything to do with making friends and finding a boyfriend????......

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'Cos it's dark and miserable?

Feeling a lot better now, stiffness almost all gone, still got a little bit pain when I turn my neck to the right.

I'm feeling quite positive atm, been making some steps forward, it may all get thrown back in my face but... at least i'm trying.]]> Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:00:00 -0600
It’s quite funny; my husband is off climbing a mountain and I’m writing this

I was finally discharged from hospital in January of 1991. No Christmas, no real holiday, not much of anything. All I had was the quiet terror of what the **** do I do, where the **** do I go. Maybe that’s the bottomless pit I needed because it honed me. As much as I wanted someone to **** me, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. More acutely, I hurt for being unable to do it myself. I was angry, just not angry enough. I was desolate. Again, not desolate enough: when I wasn’t feeling a little better, I felt like a coward.

I was also sixteen. That tipped me out of it. Whatever else happened and regardless of why it happened I become a smartarse that knew I was taking on the world on my own and a big part of me liked that. Maybe I felt like going in, I’m not quite sure. I was certainly like that with my mother; living with her meant I was able to fend for myself, and from quite a young age. What I did come to realise was that, unless I was committed I was old enough for age to mean entitlement. I could do whatever the **** I wanted.

I could have not gone back to school if I had wanted. It was vaguely tempting though not really. And do what? I had it in my head that I would become a print journalist so I had to go back. I think more I had to go back for the security of it and I really don’t think I’d be here if I didn’t. I’m lucky to be here at all.

I went into the ‘care’ of my mum’s friend. I don’t know that I want a friend like that but that perhaps a story for another day. I did like her: she was stylish and funny and I do have quite fond memories of being there before I went back to boarding school. The one thing that still grates is the “Oh Gisele, you should…” that become her familiar epitaph to every remotely earnest conversation. I think now she was full of sh*t. If anything, I think she found a polite sort of virtue in ‘being there’ while privately revelling in the scandal of it all. Oh well, I’m a bourgeois socialist that took 34 years to offer anything beyond lip service so who am I to claim I’m any better?

So it was I went back to school; not because I had to but because I wanted to. There was more pressure on me to not go back and I cannot imagine why? I just wanted it to go away. If the alternative was just some cruel stasis and do nothing other than open up about it and spend the rest of the time doing god knows what, then these people must have had rocks in their heads. I don’t think anyone got it. Mercifully, they didn’t have to.

I won’t pretend I was anxious about it, because I was petrified. School was home, it was where my friends were (all orphans of a sort) and, before that which happened, home to the exclusion of my real one. Even now, home is as much where my mood feels like being as the place I actually live in. I didn’t speak much about home or my mum and all I could envisage was everyone wanting to know about it. It stiffened me and made me determined. Still I was petrified.

On the first day of term, an odd thing happened. I hadn’t yet moved into my dorm and came much later to understand why. The vice-principal, whom every one us was actually afraid of, visited me privately and said that I shouldn’t until the first day of classes. I was ******-off because she seemed so cold but also comforted that here was someone that finally saw the world still spinning and the sun still rising. It was all so strange yet strangely right. I was to see her the moment I arrived.

So I did, albeit at least an hour late. I tried and tried but couldn’t escape a meltdown that morning. I think all the dread and the excitement got a bit much. I had a hissy fit probably much like the ones I had been having though this time with a purpose I can actually remember. I wanted to go, then I didn’t, then I packed and unpacked and repacked several times over and fought the fight I would fight for years with my hair. It was right, then not, then right again, then right enough because I had exhausted myself. I suppose it’s a miracle I got there at all. Or a blessing. It meant I got to take the long walk from the car park to admin all by myself.

I sat in her office for what felt like an eternity. I can still picture it because I had and would end up there enough times for one thing or another. I don’t remember what I was thinking that morning though it was enough to get me all angry and worked-up. I think I expected to hear something like they had thought about it and it wasn’t to be in their interests or mine for me to come back. I think I expected the finger of blame because I still blamed myself. At least I did when I wasn’t. Mired in ambivalence might be a better description. She eventually walked in, took my hand and said “It’s good to have you back”. She even smiled and I think that captivated me enough to stop the tears I was sure were going to tumble out. They didn’t. If there are two things in this world than derail the worst of me, they are the certain looks of my girlfriends and the gentle calm of a Sister. The first I have seen too much of. The second I will never see again.

She then suggested we go for a “little stroll”. This we did though it was hardly a short walk. I went where she went and her hand on the small of my back didn’t allow me to follow. We chatted about seemingly everything except what had happened to me. I can remember thinking she was certainly not naïve and nothing like the iron maiden all of us girls had been so keen to avoid. Even though I got into trouble quite a bit and she was very austere when it came to smoking especially, her efforts with me felt something quite a bit more maternal. I don’t think I ever tried to persuade anyone that she wasn’t quite so scary; I think I felt a bit privileged and in a way liked knowing whatever privilege there was had a boundary. I think too this walk was planned.

I’m sure it was to send a message that I was to be left alone. We walked through morning recess and no-one except my closest friends dared come near me because of her. Even they she fended off after a minute or two. I think she made sure, certainly left me with that impression, that if anyone got nasty it would come back in ways they were meant to do nothing but imagine. I think she made sure that the whole school could see me for the first time since without the opportunity to say anything and I wonder how horrible it could have been if I was just left to fend for myself. Eventually she walked me back to my dorm, told me to have the rest of the day to myself and said something about pride. I wish I understood it, or even remembered it. Pride – too much, too little – has been the bane of my life.

I wonder if teachers have that perspicacity anymore. Who knows? I think that’s a question I don’t want to feel has no answer, especially as I’ll have to ultimately find a school for Ruby. That’s a worry I’ll put aside for a nice while.

Whatever influence she had and however much she helped did not last long. I have wondered often just how much things might have been different had she not disappeared suddenly a few short weeks before the end of that year. Apparently, it was ill-health though I do not know how ill or what became of her. I don’t think I have ever been able to stand knowing enough to find out. I was gutted and actually thought it was my fault; I really had started to think I was poison. It would be an exaggeration to say I saw her as a mother figure and wouldn’t want to convey that impression; it’s just that this Hera like figure, neither close nor far but certainly watchful, made me feel safe.

If I wasn’t poison, I began to behave like it. Not so much at school where I was just a bit naughty but out of it where Jennifer first began to surface. Like a few other things that shaped my path into adulthood, this was more or less accidental. I have no idea what similar institutions are like but getting out of this one was no easy thing; near impossible if you had a history. I had such a history, I was already being monitored for obvious reasons and I also had a pretext that was gold.

In one of my most ever facile moments, I consented to (**** me, they never really figured me out) group therapy because it meant a night away from school. I would have bled to persuade them that this group was the only one that was working and, ever so sadly, this meant I couldn’t be in my dorm between Friday night and Sunday morning. My mother’s friend, my so-called carer, was complicit in all of this. I don’t think she necessarily thought it was a good idea, rather just wasn’t the type to put up any resistance to anything that might be a little too ambiguous and challenging. Harsh. So what.

I don’t want to run down anyone that is in group therapy, or even getting real value of it; I just cannot then or now think of anything worse for me. After the pretense I put up, I deserved a weekend out. That’s exactly how I saw it anyway. My god, I thought I only became something akin to an actress when I became a prostitute. Perhaps I already had it in me.

Jennifer, the name, started accidentally. A guy I saw in a bar was adamant I had told him my name was Jennifer and I was adamant I didn’t. I thought in the beginning he was just another try-hard. Since he wasn’t and since would come to see a bit of him it became sort of a running joke, so much so that quite a conga line of other people would call me Jennifer. I think I just sort of a slipped into it, like a pair of jeans that became really quite comfortable. Perhaps a boyfriend’s t-shirt might be a better analogy; something that didn’t begin as mine, rather something I came to wear and not give back.

It might never have gone beyond a school girl joke if I didn’t start getting paid to have sex of course but that’s going too far forward. I don’t think I want to deal with that quite yet.]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:24:00 -0600
For instance. A day ago I was triggered by something and unfortunately I took it out on a poster here, and I'm sorry about that saturnish. I was reading an article about a grandmother that discovered her granddaughter in bed with another girl. She proceed to cane the young girl (about 16) and dragged both girls to the other parents house in order to tell them what the girls were up to. After that particular embarrassment, she her child home and proceeded to spank her again.

First reaction to the article just made me cry. I've already shared my story about a similar situation where my mother discovered me at a young age doing something similar and then went BAT NUTS. I couldn't help but put my own experience over the girls and imagining that pain and humiliation all over again. There was a discussion on the issue that I was following. The defense of the grandmother was something along the lines of that a person had the right to determine what happened in their house. If the grandmother didn't condone premarital sex, the girl should abide by it. There's a part of me that is okay with setting boundaries, but it didn't feel like the issue was quite that. I can't come from an unbiased perspective. I was spanked for not falling asleep at night. I was yelled at for spilling food on myself. I walked on eggshells for years at the hand of someone that felt random and phrases like "not under MY roof" is associated with someone unreasonable, hateful and out of control. I can't help but re-feel that message that was sent to me, and something I internalized: You bring shame.

Unfortunately, at that same moment I was being asked a question that also brought out that response.

-What is your relationship with God?
My gut response: I shame him. I am a disgusting person unworthy of love. My thoughts, desires and ideas are ones that are in direct conflict with the things he values.

RAWR, let's get emo online and scare people!

In reality, I'm only extrapolating a broken relationship with God as a result of my broken way of looking at myself. I deem myself rather worthless, so I assume I am seen that way. I wish i could stop licking old wounds. Perhaps I should start by reading happier articles, but there's only so many times you can watch the video of the cat climbing up the policeman.]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:47:32 -0600
The upside is I have been losing weight since I can't smell or taste food right now. I struggle with my weight and my eating habits so much. I am overweight and it's making my acid reflux and asthma more difficult to control, but as I suffer from Binge Eating Disorder, I end up eating thousands of calories in one sitting until my stomach feels like it's going to tear. Then comes the guilt. And deeper depression. Which makes it impossible to make myself exercise.

I'm just so overwhelmingly tired. Maybe I should try to take a nap before the boyfriend gets back from his meeting...]]> Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:10:10 -0600
Was gonna try to donate blood today. The people from the American Red Cross call me and tell me about the upcoming drives and ask if I want an appointment. I said sure, I made an appointment today at the local college, for 2pm. I had a good lunch, drank extra water, etc, I arrived promptly, only to be told that they hadn't received a list of appointments, and they put me on the 'walk-in' list. I then had to listen to two people in a vehement debate about country music, which I detest, while I sat for 45 minutes, watching other walk-ins go ahead of me, as well as people on a special appointment list that didn't include phone appointments. I eventually bailed, after giving the people at the desk a mild piece of my mind. The same thing happened at the last blood drive I went to, last week. Except last time I didn't head straight to my car and sob for five minutes. I feel really fragile today, I don't know why. All my anxiety and frustration is building up again... it always builds up, to these peaks like right now, where I'm so strung out and stretched so thin that I want to scream all the time.

My last entry, the whole 'rawr girl power' thing, about how I was finally going to stand up to this guy, I feel like someone let the wind out of my sails. He stopped by a few nights ago, complete out of his own will, it was a surprise to me, and he stayed for a little bit to talk. He didn't feel quite so far away as he has before. He sounded sincere when he told me how busy he was and how he missed me. That's good. I felt a lot better and actually felt silly for harboring all those somewhat hostile thoughts, realizing I'd been rationalizing them as "me standing up for myself" when really it was "me ruminating neurotic things". I coasted on the good feelings from his visit for a few days until now, when he doesn't answer my texts anymore (I try to tell myself he's just busy, but grr! things felt so good, then ignored again..) and to top it all off, I'm not going to be able to visit him over Thanksgiving.

My plan sort of came to Thanksgiving, saying that if he didn't have time for me then, I'd do something. How ironic fate is, in that he is home from the 20th to the 29th, and I work.. the 21st and 22nd, the 24th and 25th, and the 27th and 28th. I'm the one who doesn't have time to visit. This is kind of funny, but I'm not laughing. He said, maybe Christmas. I don't want to wait another bleeping month.... He goes home in two days, I probably won't see him before then, and so the time stretches on and on..
I'm just so sick of being sad. I want to feel sure about something again.

Yesterday was my first whole shift at my new job. I was alone in my department for eight hours, fresh out of training. During my review I found out that the person training me on cash register said I was too nervous and needed more help, so now I have to go through more training. Failure. Failure. Failure. I felt like I had a giant target painted on my back... the first four hours my chest hurt from teetering on the edge of a panic attack. I wanted to cry the entire time I was there. I didn't know how to do anything or even how to ask for help if I needed it. I managed to get through it, somehow, though.. it was long and mind-numbing and anxiety-provoking and I can look forward to lots of more of the same.
But that's life, I suppose.

I just need to get it in my thick skull that things will never be the way that they used to be. I will not have it easy with money anymore. I will always be nervous when it comes to social situations, including work. I will still not have the money to see a doctor for some chill pills, so my nerves will continue to affect my health. The boy will never be the same as he once was. He won't ignore or turn off his phone when I'm around. He won't look for reasons to put his arm around me, or play with my hair. He won't take any opportunity he can get to come see me. Things will never be that way again. Probably for the best that I just get used to it now.]]> Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:28:00 -0600
Therapist session went alright, I guess... She said that I seemed a little disconnected or out of it... Felt like that for a while though, but not really sure what I can do to fix the problem. Part of it is just that I feel burnt out even though I have no reason to be, and all I want to do is go back to bed and sleep my life away. I am going to visit my sister and my friend down south next week, so hopefully that will be a little bit of vacation for me so that I might be able to rejuvinate or remotivate myself into doing things. As of right now, I just feel like my life is on auto pilot and I don't really have any control over anything and don't really care.

I also have two concerts coming up this weekend and a performance in the city on Sunday. They should be good (if people ever decide to actually take the time to learn their music), and singing in the city will be nice too, hopefully. I just feel spent, so I feel like I can't enjoy it like I should be able to... Either that or I never really got out of my depressive mood a few weeks ago which is entirely possible, and I'm just experiencing the effects from that.

Well, I have another hour to **** (more like 45 minutes or so) before I have to go to work at 2:00... Working until 10 because there are a couple of people who called out and they need bodies to work. It's hours, I guess, so I can't complain too much.

Hope everyone is well and hope everyone has a nice Thanksgiving.]]> Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:00:00 -0600 So the other day i got written up for my attendance at work. I didn't completely understand how sickdays work at Wally World

Even though they give you sick hours to use...if you use them...that still counts as if you just called out. I was calling out sick bc i literally was sick....mentally. And my job knows that i am on meds for depression. But they don't care...bc its freakin WalMart and they own the whole world and if you work for them they also own your soul!

Even when i tried to explain this to my managers that i do have a mental condition...they just looked at me all cross-eyed. I think i was having a serious manic episode bc i was laughing so hard bc it was just so stupid to me.

Is there something i can do about this? I'm going to see my counselor in about a week or so....you think she can help me sort things out?

I just hate WalMart now bc its so much injustice that you would have to work there to understand how cruel the company is. They honestly don't care...im waiting to get my car fixed so i can find a different job and also go back to school.]]> Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:53:49 -0600
On the bright side I've felt really good the past week. My depression is only really REALY bad during my period. The week after that I feel awesome and then the weeks after that til my next period I feel ok. I went to that place and they just gave me a list of places that might be able to accept my insurance. I'll have to make some calls before work tomorrow.]]> Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:38:18 -0600
I just found this really cool saying/ line! Its to do with abusive parents especially ones with personality disorders (such as my counsellor and I think my dad has (borderline personality disorder)

"If you don’t play the game with a person with a personality disorder, they don’t take the ball and go home — they try to beat you senseless with the ball!"

I laughed because its sooo true! And a funny analogy/ mental pic lol
They wrote this in the article right after talking about confronting your abusive parent. The man talked about his experience telling his mom how terrible she made him and his family feel and her and his reactions to it.

I just typed "How to deal with abusive parents" into google and got lots of good information!

Because I was having a TERRIBLE day. Mostly due to my insane biatch neighbour upstairs being incredibly cruel and my mom being also incredibly mean to me after she had been so nice for so long (about a month! A new record! lol) she snapped today because my car broke down out of no fault of my own yesterday (she was there and was being all nice then) and today we found out it would be $700 to fix it all. (my dad who is a very shifty buisnessman sold me the car and apparently didn't even bother looking at the engine at all before selling it to me but I trusted him becuse he's my father and I truly wanted to, but the battery was completely corroded, battery acid was leaking all over the engine wrecking the cords and accelorator and other things too:( I don't know much about cars so when I looked it just looked old to me) so yah it only cost me $1000 to buy it and it cost me $700 to fix it, after much debate and hurt feelings I decided to get it fixed because a new car would be at least $2000 which I can't spare right now...and so I was trying to get ahold of my mom all day long to ask her opinion, finally at 9:00pm I got ahold of her, told her and she just started yelling at me and insulting me and saying I have to move home and sell my car and take the bus everywhere...and just stupid irrational stuff just making me feel like the stupidest most irrational persone ver...when I'm smart even to make my own decisions! But anyways...I've been through this incredibly bad spell of bad luck lately one thing after another after another its horrible I think I'm cursed I pray I'm not but it always feels like that...maybe the devil has it out for me or something...I don't know I hope thats not that case eitherbut I always feel this way! I HATE IT WITH A PASSION! But I can't seem to break the cycle even with positive thinking and lifestyle changes...I don't know what to do anymore...so anyways this left me feeling so down I've been kind of suicidal all day...well for a long time now on and off and almost cut tonight...I might later on hopefully not but who knows...I feel awkward doing it with my bf here though so that will probably stop me...I just need to escape these horrible feelings...

*sigh* But anyways thats what triggered me looking that all up just to make sense of this insane situation a little bit. Everyone in my world is sooo hot n cold its ridiculous...I'll be the best person ever one day adn their worst enemy the next, even if I haven't said a word to them! I'm so sick of it!

*sigh* anyways lol
Just a little note:P
Ttyl!]]> Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:05:00 -0600