Tag Archives: depression

Biopsy Results… or Lack Thereof

I had thought today I would be writing about my test results, and how I feel. I can write about how I feel.

This is the 3rd time I have had a canceled appointment. At least with the others I had several days’ notice. To be fair, I canceled 1, because I could not get a call-back to answer some questions about it. They never called back. I left 3 messages.

I need to get this over with, so I rescheduled for Dec. 23rd. Not a great date, but I suppose I need to get it done.

How I am feeling?

There are several things tearing at my mind. One is that I can’t possible have to go thru all this again. The other is that no-one I know has made any comments about all this to me at all. Of course, people I know also know me… so they tend to stay away and not say anything.

Isn’t that what friends are for?

As I have said, I have no friends. No-one reaches out (except B.C.). It has always been that way. People run away when things get tough.

Tomorrow I Get My Biopsy

Tomorrow I go in for a biopsy. The doctor told me the odds, and they seem in my favor. But I understand Math well enough to know that “odds” are just a best guess. They do not mean anything.

I am not even sure I care. It is not like there is some reason why I would like to draw out my life any longer than it has to be.

The Pit is always there beneath me. I can not avoid it. There will be no-one to catch me… or help me up when I fall. I am left to my own devises to find ways out of my problems. I suppose that is how it is supposed to be.

This is not how I ever dreamed the world would be – cold and indifferent. Come… go… we don’t care. Just don’t inconvenience us with sad tales.

Christmas is Over…

I was looking forward to Christmas this year. I wish it was over.

I have no family or friends. There is no-one I want to see. There is no-one I know of who wants to see me. People can talk a good line, but no-one has tried to contact me in any way… not as a friend.

People who claim to be “family” have no right to do so. They have shunned me, and avoided me. Even when I have reached out to them in my times of desperation… they have not been there. Their silence screams volumes.

I am tired of my life.

Every time I have thought I had found a friend, they have turned their backs on me. Sound familiar H.N. or B.R.? The result is always the same… I am alone.

I understand that people don’t like to deal with me, or have me around, but that is never what they say.

Leave me alone.

Trying to Have No Feelings…

I was in Newport this week. I spent a couple of nights at my favorite place. I had one small panic attack – being so far from home. But it was a very nice trip… I read “Goblet of Fire”.

I come home, and have to resume my “normal” life. I don’t really know whether going helps in the long run. But I am not going to worry about that now. The time for that will be before the next trip.

I had some depression earlier today. I can feel it near.

It gets so hard to keep trying to push it away. It’s either that or fighting anxiety. Nice combination.

Everyone has situational anxiety… I am talking about chronic anxiety. Anxiety that exists for no reason. It just is.

My thoughts are kind of meandering. I don’t know how I feel. There are things I need to be doing, but I have no energy.

Here’s Another Fine Mess You’ve Gotten Us Into…

My brain won’t let me live a normal life. I get that. And I have to go thru the depression. I get that too. But can’t there be more happy times to balance it out? I mean… that would really be a big help.

And ya know… I do not get a lot of solace from things being better than they were without meds. They don’t work for everyone, but they greatly shorten my depressive periods. Of course, this means I can be depressed more often! Nice…

But… no matter what I say or write, Depression is a part of my life, and I have to accept that, and learn to live around it.

 

P.S. “The Bluebird of Happiness long absent from his life, Ned is visited by the Chicken of Depression.”

Unstable to the Last

I have to be very careful about interacting socially. Recently I tried getting back on Facebook. It was okay, as I tried to hold a low profile. But it wasn’t enough, and I got sucked in.

I pretty much stayed to myself, and on my own page. I “liked” some posts, and posted on my own page. A couple days ago – or was it yesterday – I commented on a friend’s page. It was a simple little comment… but someone decided to call me a “fool”.

I felt it physically. All through my chest I felt a swirling that I know all too well. My mind started to freeze up… and the world seemed to go a little dark. I could feel the panic. I deleted my comment, and went off Facebook. Then I went to bed.

I tried going back on a couple hours later, but just couldn’t stay. If I cannot comment on friend’s pages, then what is the point? I cannot know how people will respond when I don’t even know them. So I have to stay away from friend’s pages.

Fear took control… and there is nothing I can do about it.

I am emotionally unstable, and it makes me want to hide away even more. I am going to stay home… for a while. Now it will take me some time to put the pieces back together. And I will try again sometime…

Anxiety rules my life. Fear takes control. I have to take a back seat when anxiety takes over. And of course, depression is not ever far behind. Hours… days of hiding away, only to be right back in the same place a few days or weeks later. What has happened will happen again.

Nothing ever seems to get better. Today I am not as optimistic as I normally can be.

I used to Keep a Journal

In 2013, I completed about 17 journals. I was doing a lot of writing. So far this year, I have written… maybe 1. I am not sure why I stopped. But it happened in just a couple of weeks.

I have not wanted to try to figure out what happened, but for some reason it just didn’t matter anymore. Since then, I have tried starting up again… it only lasts a few days. I have only written a few pages in the last 6 months.

Writing was therapeutic. It helped me organize my thoughts towards understanding where the hell I was. It stopped helping. I think it’s important to understand why.

Before the internet, I used to write letters. Long letters. People don’t write letters anymore. It’s a little sad. Writing is more personal, and more expressive. Here, I have plain, bold, italic… but every word I write carries its own expression. That’s also why I like fountain pens.

When I write, the word flows out of my pen. The loops vary… the width of the line varies. There is emotion in every movement of the pen. The same word will vary in appearance in different parts of the same writing – emotion changes and flows.

A keyboard can never do that.

The Days Get Shorter

I do not mean because of the seasons. There are times when I get tired earlier and earlier. I try to sleep most of the time. Usually when that happens, I don’t really care. I have lost the ability to care.

Sometimes reading helps. Sometimes I just need to let to work thru. I can get up whenever… But I will feel better if I can just let myself deal with the depression… Even nightmarish sleep is better than being up, and having to deal with the world.

There is no knowing how long it will take to feel better. A day, or several days? Mine used to last weeks. Things are better, and I can usually work thru it in one overnight. I’m lucky… most of the time.

Recently they have snuck up on me more… I don’t like that much. I think things are going along well, and suddenly… BAM! I suppose that is not all that new. Maybe it just seems that way because other things are going along better. But if things are going better, then why is things still happening?

Because that is the nature of the beast.

Probably a Grandmother By Now…

cannon_beach_family_bonfireThis morning I picked up a photo from my office floor.  How did it get there? It’s a picture of a girlfriend from high school.  And it occurred to me that she is probably a grandmother by now.

Suddenly I was very sad.

We have no children.  I had always thought I would. But life had its own plans for me.  Things don’t always work out the way you plan.  There is nothing I can do about it now.  There is not enough room in the rest of my life to accomplish much of it.  And there are times when I feel my life continues to spin farther out of control.  There is nothing I can do.

I am not sure how I got here… what forces diverted me.  Don’t get me wrong, I like much of my life.  I just have so little control.  Anxiety… depression… my brain keeps me immobile.  But I have long since given up dreams.

Life without dreams is not where I thought I would be.  It limits, and minimizes.  It leaves me stationary… stopped.  In some ways I have been stopped since 1985 when I left the U. of Washington.  Everything stopped after that.  I don’t know what happened.

My life moved along, and so did I.  But I never dreamed much anymore… I never saw everything as possible.  There have been changes, but my hopes and dreams have been left far behind.

Now my dreams are small – a shelf here, a small trip… anything.  And I can not even make those come true.  I can not push myself anymore.  Not like I used to… back when I pushed myself to have what appeared as a relatively normal life.  I could look almost normal.  I can’t do that much anymore.  I don’t have much inclination to even try.

Today, I mostly try to get thru the day.  I try to enjoy my time… though I am not doing anything.  And that has become good enough.

Shit.

I Failed Thanksgiving

I suppose I really did not really fail.  But I can’t help feeling like I did.  I was unable to attend.  In my own home.  Actually I was there for a while.  But when my anxiety shot up, it was all over.

The sad part is that I am the Turkey Roaster.  I do it every year.  And it really is good.  But we had an unusually large turkey, and when I figured how long it would take in the over, it was too long.  So I changed my cooking plan . The right temperature, at the right time.

Anyway… so I missed out of my own Thanksgiving dinner.

It got worse after everyone left.  I am not sure why, but I think some of my barriers dropped down even more.  I started feeling more.  And it wasn’t fun.

My ability to keep going, and deal with the anxiety ran out.  Sound familiar?

Thanks to help from Lori, I have got much better at not thinking it is a failure.  I did the best I could.  It still doesn’t work totally, but my recovery a lot better than it used to be.  Work on one thing at a time.  And think small.  Anxiety often starts with the smallest thing… so start with how you react to that one thing.

That is an approach my last psychologist and I worked up for me.  One little thing at a time… and the smaller the better actually.  As I gain confidence, I have come to learn that this “failure” was just part of how I have to interact with the world.  So it does not feel as bad.

I still have limits… kinda low ones too.  But I try.

I cannot push myself like I used to.  It’s ok.  Perhaps I simply don’t want to.  Either way, my life has become easier emotionally.  I have come to accept where I am.  At least for now.  None of this means I plan to, or expect to stay here.  But before I can go somewhere, I have to know where I am.  And it helps if I can be at least satisfied with where I am.

Notice: I did not say ‘my limitations’. So I am learning what to expect of myself.

Chasing People Away, a Professional’s View

I have been chasing away friends for a long time.  I really hit my stride in college, when most of my life started falling apart.  But I have fine-tuned it over the years, to make it almost an art.  I have 1 friend left. Hope he doesn’t read this…

People don’t know what we need.

When the mind starts to take a backseat, and… GKW takes over, people don’t know how to react.  Some will try, but they are almost always doomed to failure.  Eventually it works out best for everyone if there is a parting of the ways.

We end up alone.

The worst part is that it ends up being better (easier?) for us to be alone.  People become more of a drain than a help.  It’s not their fault.  They just do not know how to relate.  We are going thru something outside of their experience.

It’s hard to let them know it is not their fault.  We can end up feeling like we have let them down, and hurt them.  But we loose.

If you are stuck at home, I understand.  It is so much easier to just stay here.  And why shouldn’t I?  I pay my taxes, and am a good citizen.  I just happen to have a problem with how my brain works.

Sometimes Meds Help… For Some People

I use medications to help me feel better.  I have been lucky in that I have generally had good results… but not always.  I had real problems with one med I tried a couple of years ago.  Now my meds help a lot – more than I can even know.

Not everyone has been so fortunate.  Some have bad experiences with their meds… some to the point of going off them entirely.  And it may be nothing would help… everyone has different chemistry.

But with meds, or without… life is still a struggle.  Our normal brain chemistry changes throughout the day… meds don’t.  So they do not help as much with the ups and downs of everyday life.  There are times when I am not even sure the meds work.  The ups and downs are not self-correcting, I am on my own.

However we work our way thru the days, there are still those ups and downs to deal with.  We have to be constantly aware of our own moods, and how our environment can cause change so quickly.  One minute we feel fine, the next we are sliding into a deep depression.  It just happens.

I understand. I share the pain.

There are the Good Days, and the Not So Good Days

There are plenty of Days.  There never seems to be a shortage.  There is often a shortage of my will to keep pushing forward.   Some days I just can’t keep going.  And if I am honest… most days there are down periods.   So I work on to make things a little easier.

I accept my agoraphobia… my social-phobias.  I can live with them.  There are things I can not do – today.  I am not broken… I am just different.  Whatever the reason, this is what I have.

Over the last few years I have written about much of my experience here.  There have been long quiet times when I could not figure out what to do at all… and times I have made more progress.  But I keep trying.

You won’t read about a lot of parties, or trips to Europe here.  Just about one small boring life, trying to get by.  And I do just fine… thank you.  So I hope to hear the faint rustles of people finding something worthwhile here.  🙂

F952E639155F0A292EB3E89A17B0690D