Thursday, July 27, 2017

re mental illness, meds, & visibility

I'm struggling with my medication right now.

If I take the lower dose of welbutrin, the anxiety isn't so bad ...because I can't feel anything at all.
If I take the higher dose of welbutrin, the anxiety is uncontrollable and I have panic attacks even in the best circumstances.

If I take the prozac to augment the higher welbutrin dose, the anxiety is controllable but I basically can't get up off my ass. It's like there's a layer of not-yummy jello between me and the world.

If I take the prozac with the lower dose of welbutrin, I'm a zombie. And not the runner type, more the dazed-and-confused-moaner type.

If I don't take the prozac with the lower dose of welbutrin, I don't sleep. Ever. That makes me cranky. (Okay, not not ever but it sure feels like it.)

For now, in case you're wondering, I'm doing the lower dose of welbutrin with no prozac, and reducing my caffeine intake while putting several anti-insomnia tactics to work each night. So far, I've slept at least a little for 3 out of 4 nights.

~~~

That said, I've decided not to hide my mental illness from potential employers. I'll probably regret that.

Also, that sounds bad but it's not like anyone would go into an interview and be like, "yeah, I'm basically not functional 50% of the time, but I'm totally capable of pushing through that and getting the job done, it'll just hurt while I'm doing it. A lot. And I'll be irritable and apathetic, but I'll hide that really well because I have a TON of practice. No worries."

And what I really mean is that I'm not going to attempt to minimize my mental health conversations online (on fb, twitter, and my blogs) in order to present a "normal" image.

I hesitated to post about my medications - even though that's exactly the sort of thing I started this personal blog for - because I know that some of my potential future colleagues (i.e., other academics) might see this blog. Some of them are on my fb. Some of them are on my twitter feed.

So yeah, it has occurred to me that I shouldn't post *this thing about major depressive disorder* or *that thing about ptsd* but then I remind myself that if I want this stigma to ever end, someone has to take the risk of being honest about the realities of (my) mental illness. And I'm actually okay with being that person. It's just my socialization-derived instincts that fear being truthful about uncomfortable stuff.

I see you, fear. I'm just not gonna let you make my decisions. Cuz I got TONS of practice with pushing through bullshit emotions. 

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

oh by the way

I lost my job shortly after my friend's near-suicide experience.

Thought I was gonna drown in the subsequent depressive episode. Would have failed my classes if my history professor wasn't absolutely amazingly understanding.

Started working at a ranch the last weekend of April. It was exactly what I needed, although it's not a *paying* job, per se... I mean, it is but it isn't. More on that later.

Got another class (summer class, on the Mexican Revolution) coming up... today. It's going to involve more socializing than I'm really ready for. Digitial socializing, but still... I mean, there's a reason I'm taking online classes, and it's not all about the commute. Good thing I only signed up for one class this summer. Pretty sure that's going to be my limit.

I'm still struggling with the anhedonia.

But the biggest news is that - because of the no-job situation - I couldn't afford to continue my lease with Dash. That sucked/sucks. There are some silver linings, etc, but whatever. It is what it is. I miss Dashy Pants, and I miss just hanging out at the barn.

On the other hand, I feel a lot more productive hanging out at the ranch because there's a lot more work to be done that I can help with. It gets me moving. And sometimes, the friend of mine who owns it even throws some cash my way. It's a good gig. And once we get the ranch really operating well, it'll turn into a good job. And he has a couple horses. So I can ride... once we get all the necessary tasks done (like building the new chicken coop, or setting up the new fodder house...). There's still a lot to be done before I'll find time to ride, but it's cool to know it'll happen.

I'm sure that in some future post I'll talk endlessly about the ranch.

Right now I'm going to try - again - to get started on my classwork.

Thursday, May 4, 2017

the pillow

the sweetest strands support my head
hold me above the world

I can watch the turmoil pass by
from the top of my pedestal

I'm restless
I'm detached

I am reminded
I am needed
I am placated

the comforting hold brushes my neck
softly, so nice, keeps me here

I can see so far
I can see my dreams

touch them, even, if I stretch my fingers and wave

but the sweetest strands hold my head
and the pedestal ends so near

I dare not step
I cannot die

not yet

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Everything turned out well in the end, but this is about suicide.

Today I came across one of those list articles on facebook. This one promised all the quotes that people with depression had found helpful. I clicked, dubiously. These things are usually full of feel-good bs that advises us to just think happy thoughts. As if we weren't already struggling to do that every single moment. As it happened, this article wasn't the worst offender I've seen. It wasn't particularly helpful or memorable, but at least it wasn't completely offensive. I would have forgotten it completely if I'd come across it before now.

For a long time, I thought there were no words that could help. Or if there were, I thought they might always elude me. Recently, I found words that affected me. Words that ripped my heart out, showed it the world outside depression, and stuffed it back into my aching chest.

It wasn't pleasant, but nothing pleasant had ever affected the feelings of hopelessness and aloneness that are the hallmarks of my depression. Maybe it had to be something that hurt, to put my chronic hurt into perspective.

Because of these words, I learned what it looks like to be on the outside of depression, looking in, and the insight I gained surprised me. I learned that I wasn't able to figure out the words that would help me fight depression because I was too far inside my own head. This was something I had to see from the outside. These were words that could have been pulled from my own writings; they were the voice of my depression, verbatim.

The words? They were a suicide note, written by someone else, using the script that reverberates every time I spiral down. Only the names were changed.

It was eery.
My heart broke.
Cracked open like a rotten pomegranate.
All the worms escaped the fruit,
and the sun lit every bleeding corner.
And I understood.

And it would have killed me if that person had not made it to safety.
The day they almost died, they taught me how to live. 

Saturday, February 11, 2017

[Book review] Boy meets depression





My first impression of this book was not favorable. This, I thought, is not a person who has mastered themself, who can look back and be objective. This person still carries the hurt of their loneliness everywhere, and their writing is imbued with it. The humor sounds snide; the stories sound whiny. The author acknowledges this early on, though, so at least there's fair warning. The first paragraph ends with, "I came into the world kicking, screaming, and crying. And maybe not much has changed since." 

My first impression was arrogant, apathetic, and wrong. This book demonstrates the real pathology of depression, and for that, it's brilliant. You hear the negative thought processes that people with a depressive disorder experience, the anhedonia, the alienation, the feeling of being lost. "All you can see is the moment you're stuck in," he says, and he's right. 

So read this. It'll help you understand, and maybe have a little empathy for the millions of people who suffer from depressive disorders. But maybe be prepared to find the author's tone a little annoying.

Blogging for Books provided me a free review copy of this book... and I still feel kinda 'meh' about it.


Thursday, February 9, 2017

whew

There's a lot on my mind.
I'm going to write about it... as soon as I get my homework done, which could be a while.

Until then, here's a bit of prose:

I wish I could
gild your scars
so you could see your beauty.

It was inspired by a friend of mine, and a Japanese pottery style. I'll tell that story soon.


Monday, January 9, 2017

ground work

Dash and I are learning to do ground work. "It's all about energy," my trainer says.

Dash works harder than she asks: he canters when she asks for a trot. He does this four, five times. She doesn't try to stop him, but she changes her posture - lets her arms hang at her side, stands relaxed, calm. He gets tired eventually, and trots. She praises him. The next time she asks for a trot, it takes him only one round at a canter before he slows. 

His canter is fast. I know, that should be obvious since he's an old racehorse. This was one of those things I knew before I ever rode him, but I didn't really have a context for that knowledge; I couldn't picture just how fast his "fast" would be. The other day, he and I cantered around in the round pen for the first time and I finally got a feel for his speed. I've ridden a gallop before - speed on a horse is not new to me - but Dash's canter felt like I'd straddled a Ferrari.

Watching M do ground work with Dash, I got to see how very long his strides are at every gait. I commented on it, and M reminded me that -duh, he's a thoroughbred. I've been on a lot of different breeds of horses before, and I've seen huge differences between individual horses, but looking back, they all seem slow in comparison. Dash is the first OTTB (off-track thoroughbred) I have ridden, and the difference is huge. It's like going from a moped to a Maserati... after spending a lifetime thinking that mopeds were maybe a bit too fast sometimes.

I'm not sure I shouldn't be switching out my riding helmet for a motorcycle helmet.

Even his trot is fast and long; he extends his forelegs with a natural and commanding step. M wants to do dressage with him because he has such wonderful extension, but he doesn't like the dressage saddle. Dash prefers his western saddle, heavy beast that it is. I keep feeling like I should replace it with a lighter saddle, but I'm not sure whether he'd appreciate the gesture. 

Starting ground work now is going 'back to the drawing board,' after I skipped the sketch and went straight to execution in the beginning. Not in a bad way, though.

I haven't done ground work in a round pen since I was a teenager, working with my first horse (a Polish Arabian called Goldy). Dash hasn't worked in a round pen at all, except those couple of rounds of cantering the other day. It's an entry level tool for working with horses, but we managed to skip that until now.

There's an metaphor to be pointed out here... Something about the parallels between doing ground work with Dash and the 'ground work' I've been doing with my therapist, who's bringing my thoughts back to who I was before - eveything - and figuring out how to be who I want to be now... But all this ground work has me tired of heavy introspection, so I'll just say: it's fun, learning with Dash. He's a sweety.