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Good morning, Internets! August 27, 2008

Posted by spacemom in : Current Affairs, Depression , add a comment

After an hour and a half, I have wrangled a MS Word template to work. Hoo! Feel my power! I can now work on the Flight Operations Team side of a procedure that I have needed to work on for a while. I feel so good to fight the "Evil Empire" and win! Man, I wish that we could do everything in freeware instead of MS. 

Anyhow, today is an exciting day! I am picking up Soleil in a half-hour to go meet her first grade teacher! Woo hoo! I grabbed a very nice poster from our education department for her. She is so excited to go back to school! Our school has half days for the K&1 grades for the first week. This will be nice to have her back in her element, school. She loves learning.

The other excitement is that we start Mom and Luna Mondays on the 8th! Luna loves the idea of having Mom to herself and I am actually quite excited to spend time with her. One on one is so much better. I love having the time to focus completely on one of my girls so I can really touch and get to know her soul. I was alone with Soleil when she was a baby and toddler. Now I get Luna as a Pre-K & K kid. This is really quite cool!

Anyway, today feels like a very good day. I have been slacking on my novel. Basically, it gets mentally hard (not like a writer’s block, more that one character hits too close to home.) I think I am almost ready to attack this again.

Pulling oneself out of the Pit of Dispair July 14, 2008

Posted by spacemom in : Depression, Parenting 101 , 4 comments

So I have been working on pulling myself up. And I think it is working. I got a nice night out with Jay on Friday. Saturday was "Crazy kids r us" day, but Sunday turned around into a nicer day. Today was downright pleasant to be with the girls. We had fun. It was nice. We even had one crying jag (Soleil, not me) and I didn’t lose it with her.

Tomorrow, my baby enters pre-kindergarten, the last stage of daycare. Our daycare has levels; infant, toddler, preschool and finally, pre-K. Luna enters pre-K tomorrow. Her favorite teacher is leaving in a week, so they are moving the kids up a little early. Pre-K is more structured like a kindergarten day and the kids start to work more on a kindergarten curricumlum. Soleil went through pre-K here and I felt it was a great transition between preschool and kindergarten.

It really hit me this weekend, that my Soleil will a) be 6 next week (six! When did this happen??) and b) will be a first grader in 2 months. Wow! This is really the heart of parenting. To see your child really start to grow. To watch relationships start to grow. 

We decided to ask Soleil if she wanted another round of Girl Scout camp. She did, even though her best friend evah won’t be there. So I checked and signed her up for the science week. I am sure she will love it.

I am coming back. It is getting easier and easier each month once I realize what is happening. But I still hate it.
 

Kicking one’s butt July 11, 2008

Posted by spacemom in : Depression , comments closed

I am tired. So tired. Fatigued might be the word, but exhausted filled me more.

Soleil has been catching the bus for Girl Scout camp this week. Early. 7:20-7:30 early. To get the girls ready and out the door is a battle. This has left me tired and exhausted. I haven’t worked out since Sunday. I am going to work out today.

I am so fucking tired of the cycle of depression. It has switched to be the days shortly after my period starts. So I am bleeding and depressed. Lovely. My self-confidence goes to hell, I suffer anxiety attacks, but without any cause. I just get the physical symptoms. Pathetic, I know.

Guys, this is kicking my butt. I hate this. I want to cry. Why did I have to be depressive? Seriously? Why me? Wa wa wa, all me, I know. There are worse things in the world. WhyMommy is beating cancer, Beagle has her son, Ted Kennedy is voting for health care and I am whining about being depressed.

This sucks.

I have two wonderful girls. Luna’s turned into a mommy monster. She loves me suddenly. She wants mommy all of the time. Soleil is jealous of the attention for mommy. She wants mommy to herself.

Jay is wonderful. He will rub my head at night when I just want to cry.

So why does everything suck?
 

Cure? Or not? July 9, 2008

Posted by spacemom in : Depression , 1 comment so far

In 1992, I got to meet one of the strongest women I have ever met. She had turned 90 in May of that year, and was peering at me through her coke bottle glasses. We were out at a local Jewish deli in the Cleveland area and she was quizzing me about the appropriateness of my dating her grandson.
After we finished lunch and took her back to her home, an assisted living center, Jay and I talked about his grandmother. 

"she’s on medicine for depression. I sometimes wonder which person she really is, the one on the medication? or the person without it?"

I think of this all of the time.

I’ve fought depression for a long time. It’s clear that it has been here even before I knew it. My body makes even less serotonin now than it did before the girls were born. I’ve been on three different medications for this. Right now, cymbalta is my little blue and white pill of happiness. But not really.

I wonder sometimes who I am.

Not in the sense of "where is my place in the universe", but "if I lived with out this medicine, is that the "REAL" me?"

I don’t know. I hope not. Because that person fails to see anything good. That person is afraid to come out and see the world. That person sees failure and disappointment when she looks in the mirror.

The person with the medicine is more balanced. She sees the good, and the bad. She looks for areas of improvement, without areas of self-scorn. She projects an aura of confidence, and mostly feels that way.

Who am I? Really? Am I the person who thinks the world would be better off without me? Who feels that darkness closes in often and is prepared to swallow me? Or the person who watches the pinpoints of light in the dark and sees beauty within the sparkles. The person who doesn’t care if the world doesn’t know my name, but cares that those who love me can be there with me?

Who am I? 

Hungry Soul July 3, 2008

Posted by spacemom in : Weblogs, Depression , 2 comments

Julie Pippert of  "Using my Words" has asked "what do you do to feed your soul? What renews you? How does that fit in with the cultural protocol?"

I would step into my trusty 1990 Ford Escort. Sticking with my need to have alliteration, I named her Emma. She and I went everywhere. Even though it was dark and almost 12:30am, I knew where I was going. With the radio blasting, I would turn out of the SUNY Stony Brook parking and ease onto Nichols Road. Sure, it had a route number, but I called it Nichols Road. Making my way to 25A, I would stumble through the rocky coastline of Eastern Long Island. Little towns with bungalows and illegal in-laws and student apartments dotted the way. Eventually, I would live in one of these summer cottages, surviving the spiders that loved the moist sea air.

I drove with the turns of the road. By Wading River, past the William Floyd Parkway (AKA the Pink Floyd parkway) 25A merged with 25,  Along the fences for Grumman, "no photos allowed". The landscape flattened out a bit, eventually leading towards  the city of Riverhead.  Then I turned towards the North Fork of Long Island.

The radio, or a tape would be blaring. I would sing along, pretending to be someone I was not. On the road there was no one to hear me sing. In the night, few people were out here to be bothered with. I continued on through small towns. Mattituck, Cutchogue, Southhold, Greenport. I was nearing my destination. A small land bridge told me  I was almost there. When I reached Orient Point, I would park the car and smell the sea air. On the other side of the land was Long Island Sound, but in front of me was Pecconic Bay. I loved to listen to Billy Joel on these trips. He was Long Island. A different part of Long Island than the hair and cars….

After enjoying the end of the world, I would drive back to my sheltered College life. But for a few hours, I could feed my hungry soul

 

A loss.. perhaps… June 4, 2008

Posted by spacemom in : Depression , 3 comments

I talked to Crazy H on Sunday. The talk centered on her (surprise). I have been doing research on what she talked about and I think she has something called Narcissistic Personality Disorder. This is sad because she fits 6 of 9 criteria about it. I am not sure what to do. She is seeing a therapist, but I finally told her (via email) that I don’t think this person is right for her.

 I’ve not gotten a response back.

I may have lost a friend from forever.

This is hard.
 

Watching the rain May 13, 2008

Posted by spacemom in : Depression , add a comment

The other night, I was in bed, resting on Jay’s chest. I listened to his heart, his breathing and then I sighed.

He asked "what’s going on?".

And I said "I’m angry"

And I was. I was angry at depression. My depression is cyclic, often tied to my menstrual cycle, as it is with most women. As our chemicals bounce up and down, we see our depression coming towards us and disappear. When I see it coming towards me, I get ANGRY. Why do I have to get depressed? WHY?

I have a great family, a great life. WHY WHY WHY????

It is like watching a horror movie. You see the stupid thing that the person is about to do. You yell at them to stop! For the love of peanut butter and chocolate, STOP! But they do it anyway. That is what it feels like to me. I see the depression coming. I am furious that it exists, horrified that it is moving at me and I can’t move, yet I can’t stop it. I can’t turn away.

And then you find you can’t put the emotions into words. As hard as you try, you can’t do it.

 

Droopy May 10, 2008

Posted by spacemom in : Current Affairs, Depression , add a comment

 

The Monday Blues April 28, 2008

Posted by spacemom in : Depression , 1 comment so far

Man, I am tired. And cold. My house is holding at 63 and since it is the last week of April, I am refusing to turn on the heater. Stubborn, I am so Stubborn!

Just finished a quick assessment of the risk of high count rate proposals for our telescope. I shouldn’t really work on Mondays, but I feel like I need to just to keep up, and the girls are playing nicely downstairs.

We have plants to transplant. I think the girls and I will do that this afternoon. Tomato plants. Yum. Unfortunately, we need to wait until Mid/late May to put them on the deck. For now, they will enjoy inside. I feel like a plant experiment right now. Lots and lots of little plants in our house. Tomatoes, parsley and hibiscus.

After hitting 86 last week, it will hold in the low 50s with rain this week. Yuck.  Sometimes, spring depresses me.

I need to find some time this week. Anybody got some time to spare?

When did the rain begin to fall ?– part 5 April 2, 2008

Posted by spacemom in : Depression , comments closed

The alarm goes off at 6:51am. I snooze it. If Soleil is in bed with me, I ask her to snooze it because she is closer and I can barely move when she’s in bed with us. She goes to my side, Luna goes to Jay’s side. Their chosen parents. By 7:30am, I get out of bed, turn on Clifford (the Big Red Dog) and bring in the clothes that the girls picked out last night. They need to be dressed by the time I am out of the shower. I go into the master bath and start my daily routine.

There’s a bottle of little blue pills, to replace the T4 that my body has failed to make, hypothyroidism. Then the other bottle. The little blue and white capsules. I open the bottle and tap 3 into my hand. Some days, I just take them. Other days, I stare at them while I try to decide if I should take them or throw them out. I close my eyes and imagine the rages I fly into when I don’t take them. The scratches on my arms that I make when I realize how angry I get. I open my eyes and stare at the woman in the mirror. She looks so sad, so beaten. She doesn’t look as if she is old, but more as if she can’t deal with the weariness anymore. I hate that look. I take the pills.

If I miss them, at 2:30pm I get dizzy. By 4pm I can lose my temper with the smallest thing. I have vowed never to hit my children, but the days I forget to take those blue and white embodiments of euphoria, I get close. I have never hit them. I walk away grinding my teeth. My shoulders get tight. When the sun goes down on those nights, my mood shifts from anger to numb. I can’t believe how angry I got. The thoughts I had. I often have the words "I need to leave" go through my head. "Leave to where?" I don’t know.

I meet with my doctor this week. Tomorrow. I am starting to accept that this is me. I am clinically depressed. Post-partum depression was just one manifestation of this, but I have always been depressed. I need to accept that I need the medicine. That I need to exercise several times a week to keep my MIND healthy, not just my body. I need to find a way to like me on those days that I and me don’t get along. And this is how I will always be. This is not just a 1 year thing. Luna turns 4 in June. Soleil turns 6 in July. I’ve been actively fighting this for almost 6 years. Time to accept that this is me and I need to take it as part of me.