I should be happy...

I have that same tight, rotten pain in my chest again that comes with bad depression. You know that feeling when something makes you sad and you start to tear up and your breath catches in your throat? Well, I have that feeling non-stop. I know it's more of a chemical depression than a situational one. Sure, I have more than enough going on to qualify for situational depression, but I can tell. It feels different. Of course, the situational stuff just isn't letting up. The hospital discharged my dad to a nursing home, who then turned around and sent him to another hospital. We had a pretty good visit with him yesterday. He was alert and communicative, and he hasn't been for a couple of weeks. The last hospital had him so medicated that he was asleep all the time. And they were surprised he wasn't eating! Well, now he's more alert because a lot of those meds have been stopped. He still can't move his right side, and he still has significant memory deficits. The problem now is that he has just enough memory and cognitive function to think he's fine ... but he its really not! So, the weekend had come and gone again, and again, I don't feel at all rested. I can't tell you how much I don't want to have to go to work tomorrow. All week, I try to maker it to the weekend, and then the weekend is gone and it starts all over again. No change, no end in sight. There is no motivation left in me. I started crying tonight because my husband was looking for something and got frustrated when he couldn't find it. It wasn't anything important, but the sound of him being irritated filled me with instant panic. No good reason. I'm just wound so damn tight lately that anything can set me off.

While writing this, my husband stopped in the doorway to say "I love you." I must've jumped the feet off the bed! Talk about being wound too tight! The psychological term is "exaggerated startle response," and I got it in spades! I asked him to come sit with me for a while. He did, of course. And then he acted like me and told me to say three things that are great about my life! Turning the therapy on the therapist! The cheater! But the best thing he did was just lay here with me. I got his shirt a little soggy, but he didn't say anything. He just held me. That's why I can't really complain about him if he does something that bugs me. At the end of the day, he's so wonderful to me! I have a lot I complain about. I really need to spend more time thinking about the wonderful things I have! I think tonight I'll end on that note. A happy one.

It's just a really bad day..

Second post in one day. Getting through work was hard. I don't know if working from home is a plus when you're depressed or not. I mean, on one hand, I don't have to worry about putting on a smiling face to make other people feel better. On the other hand, isolating and being alone are not the best ways to get out of depression. But today, I am very depressed. My husband and I will be heading out in an hour or so for our weekly trivia night with friends. All I want to do is stay home and just be alone. I won't. I know I'll feel better later if I do go. But right now, I want to rip my heart out of my chest!! That's where I feel it when my depression gets really bad. I actually imagine cutting it out. Of course, in that fantasy, the pain of the cut makes the other pain ease, and there is no bleeding or pesky side effects like death! I'm not suicidal at all. I want to be alive. Happy and alive. The problem is I don't feel like I am. Death certainly won't fix that! So don't worry! No death wishes here. Just life wishes. But I admit I often have the sneaky intrusive thought about how people who have died don't have to deal with all this shit!! But then I think about the people who died who fought to live! I lost two friends this year from breast cancer. Elizabeth died in February and Tracie passed in March. Both of them were under 35, and both of them were passionate about life! I didn't see either one of them as often as I would have liked. But I miss them both so very much!!!! Being sad missing them hurts, but it feels like a healthy hurt. Does that make sense? This depression I have that doesn't have a specific foundation feels rotten! Maybe seeing my dad yesterday triggered it this time, or maybe it's hormonal, or maybe it just happened for no reason at all. I don't know. But what causes it doesn't matter. Other than the genetic luck of the draw of being prone to major depression, there really isn't a cause. And that sucks, because it means I have no way to protect against it. I mean, there are things you can do to help manage depression, but when it hits, it just hits. And it SUCKS!!! Crying doesn't help, it just makes your face soggy. And it sometimes feels like it makes the pervasive sadness worse. And just like weight loss, the best things to do to fight it are that much harder to do because of it! Strangely enough, though, I think this literary wallowing has actually helped! I've never actually described in detail how my depression felt before. I mean, who wants to hear that, right? But I feel better now that I've done it. Which is good, because I like our trivia night!

Another day, not too different from all the others..

See, I told you I wouldn't post with any regularity. Things are still pretty crappy, with brief spotting of nice in between. But it's still the same shit over and over and over again. I sit at work all day, my husband sleeps. I know he hates not having a job, and it's been about a year. It's hard not to resent him. He's either asleep, or playing on the computer. And anything that needs to be done, he doesn't do or takes a long time to do partly because of the ADD and partly because he's gotten to the point that just thinking about doing anything makes him anxious. I can't get too upset at that, because I understand it completely. And I hate that he's having to go through it. I know he'd rather it be different. But I'm still here having to get out of bed and be professional every day. And my heart is not in it. Not in getting out of bed. Not in talking to anyone. Not in anything. My dad's in the hospital, going on two months now. He got better, he got worse, and visiting him triggers massive depression for me. Which, of course, makes me feel guilty, because he certainly feels worse about being in the hospital that I do! Other than one friend, and occasionally my crazy brother, I'm the only one who goes to see him. No other family. Not my sister, not my step-mother, no family "friends," just me. I feel completely impotent, and I'm at the point where I hate going ... which, of course, makes me feel guilty, because he needs me to be there! I just want to crawl into a dark hole, squeeze into an even darker crevice in the back, curl up, and ... wish it would all go away...

A little bit of insight into the craziness that is me, I even feel guilty for writing something completely depressing! Like I should leave you with something uplifting, or make a joke or something. I wish I were as good at taking care of myself as I try to be at taking care of others. I wish wishes were real. (I wish my fucking Prozac would kick in!!)

Just beginning..

Well, I've tried the occasional journaling experiment. I'll write a little here, a little there, but I never really kept it up. I figure, why not try a blog? Who knows if anyone but me will read it. But if someone does, maybe I can get some feedback for my life.

I had plenty of thoughts swirling around when I started writing today. Unfortunately, I'm working, too. And I was interrupted with the pesky work! Multiple times, actually. So, now I have too many thoughts: life, work, noise outside... So I'll have to continue this introduction to my fractured psyche later. But rest assured, there will be plenty of happy, sad, confused, angry, terrified, thrilled, and crazy to go around!