My new depression treatment: mini donuts and bbq potato chips.
I dare you to try it and not smile.
I DARE YOU.
Nov 062009
Jun 052007
For the last month or so I have been laying in bed every night, fighting to overcome all my imagined stress, and figure out a way to fall blissfully into the nothingness of sleep. I’ve come up with quite an awesome coping strategy, I lay there and write posts for this blog in my head. They are all funny and insightful and irreverent…all the things that have made me the famous blogger that I am. And every night as I finally drift off I promise myself to remember that post, and for THE LOVE of Peter, Paul and Mary, I will post it in the morning! (this is the part that is making you feel good. I am writing to you guys. A ton. Sweet Jesus, a ton.)
I think by now you get the part where, by the time the harsh light of the sun and the sound of the alarm comes my way I have completely forgotten the post I wrote in my head the night before. It’s gone, and I am back on planet Earth, where I have imagined that NOTHING IS GOING RIGHT FOR ME. And where I know how to be dramatic, for shits sake. I realize that the obvious solution to my forgetfulness is to have my laptop actually IN FRONT of me when I am writing. But that would just be too easy, wouldn’t it? And I’m hell bent on making life as hard as possible for myself. It’s my mission statement: Be miserable or die trying. And of course, never forget to be dramatic.
The kids are finishing school this week, and we are headed off on a sweet vacation south of the border. And this little vacation is causing me more stress and anxiety than I have had in ever so long. Vacation! I should be excited and relaxed and motherfucking stress free, at the prospect of vacation. I swear to Bob, I wish I had a new brain.
I kinda feel better now though, after writing this and actually typing it out and all. It feels good to get it out there, my craziness. I read somewhere that depressed people shouldn’t isolate themselves, because it only makes things worse. Sadly isolation is one of the things I know how to do very well. So thanks for being there for me readers, all 10 of you, even if it’s just passively ‘being there’. Thanks for being my support system when I actually take the time to put my fingers to the keyboard. Now, don’t y’all feel better?
Mar 262007
If there is one thing about my life that I frequently regret, it’s my complete inability to deal. Or, maybe more accurately, the way I chose to deal with things that are overwhelming to me. I like to hide. I deal by not dealing, which any adult can tell you is totally stupid and won’t get you anywhere.
Lots of times when I was growing up and I couldn’t deal with school, socially or academically, I would just be sick for a few days. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this method of dealing actually made everything worse and more stressful because stuff doesn’t just go away, it compounds. It gets WORSE, so much worse than if you had just fucking dealt with it in the first place. Sheesh!
I would like to think that this is a lesson I’ve learned and a behavior I no longer engage in, but if I thought that I would be lying to myself in addition to hiding from life which makes me even more pathetic.
Anyway, I wish I was going somewhere useful with this, but I’m not. Last week I was still doing painting projects around my house, and being depressed, and taking Sunny to the dentist to get an $800 appliance to help her stop sucking her thumb, and being depressed, and worrying about my cat who is licking herself bloody all over her body and the potential vet bill, and being depressed. And I’m on medicine people. What good is the stuff if it doesn’t work some of the time? I’m not sure.
I think I’ve snapped out of my little episode of hiding and depression though. I had a really nice weekend. My friend Susan gave me some really good tips for things I can do at home to help my masochistic cat. I got my hair done for the first time in months, but I have to say I’m somewhat scared about what was done to it. The sun is out, the weather nice, and I am alive and present.
For my birthday, which comes every year just one measly day before the biggest holiday in all of consumer and Christendom, a friend of mine gave me a little desk calender. It is appropriately themed “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff”, because my friend was tired of me never knowing what the date or day was. I guess my every-day-is-a-holiday-when-you’re-unemployed attitude was wearing terribly thin. Also I think my friend was making a not so subtle allusion to my non-medicated neurotic behavior and the actual copious amounts of sweat I would routinely shed over very little things.
You see, non-medicated Danica lays awake at night for hours worrying about every minute detail in her life and the life of everyone she knows and loves. She spends days (and I mean DAYS) running every conversation she has had in the last month over in her head, analyzing every word she said and all the ways in which she sounded like an idiot. Non-medicated Danica’s eyes well up with tears several times a day because she believes the world is actually crashing in on her. It’s not pretty, and for much of last year I was that person. And for a long time I thought that person was ok, or I was trying really hard to make her O.K. because I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it. I didn’t want people to think that I was just some lonely, bored, unfulfilled housewife who needs an anti-depressant to choke down the bleakness of her world. Because that’s what I use alcohol for, people.
It finally became to much around the anniversary of my brothers death, and in December I got a new doctor. After discussing with her my personal and family history of depression, she suggested I go back on medication. I decided to give it a shot, and I’ve been very happy with the results.
My little desk calender has also helped, in its own small way, by giving me something to look forward to every day. It’s the kind where you rip off a new page every day revealing a different inspiring quote. On most days I find the messages thoughtful and encouraging, but today’s quote gave me pause.
It reads:
“Imagining yourself at your own funeral allows you to look back at your life while you still have the chance to make some important changes.”
And yes I am now medicated, but that? That right there is a visual I don’t really need.
Oct 062006
When we decided to build our house five years ago, one of the things we both really wanted was a big yard, so we bought the biggest lot in the subdivision. This is just one more way in which we have proven ourselves completely witless and absurd, mostly because neither one of us can stand even the idea of doing yard work. It is a hatred so deep that given the choice between mowing the lawn and sitting in a Mormon church for three hours every Sunday, I’m honestly not sure which one we would choose. And the root of this problem can easily be summed up in one word: expectations. When I was growing up, my dad did all the yard work. In Chris’ house it was his mom. So naturally we each kept waiting for the other to step up and do the job. And we were waiting, and waiting, and we would still be waiting if not for the grace of one man. The guy that laid our sod for us, Andy, must have seen something in our faces as we looked out over the massive expanse that is our yard, something that looked a lot like horror and a million fights in the making, so he gave us the phone number of his younger brother who had a lawn service.
Right now I’m sitting on my bed with the window open listening to Tony mowing the lawn and the kids jumping and playing on the trampoline, and I just keep thinking that this is what happiness sounds like. I was watching Oprah the other day; and let me pause for a second to say that this is one of my most favorite ways in the whole world to start a sentence. Years ago before I was really interested in the computer at all, I would watch Oprah every day. It always gave me a lot to think about outside of Barney and diapers and kids only 15 months apart in age, all those things that consumed my world. So when Chris got home from work every day, the first thing I would say to him almost every day without fail was “Today on Oprah….”. Therefore I like starting sentences that way because it gives me a sense of continuity in my life. That and I’m pretty sure it makes Chris go crazy.
Anyway, I was watching Oprah the other day, and she said something that really struck me. The gist of which was everyone should live their own truth, because life is just too darn short not to. What this means exactly is going to be different for everybody. People have so many layers of truth to themselves that it couldn’t be just one specific thing. It could be something simple, like hiring a guy to mow your lawn if mowing the lawn isn’t you. Or it could be much more complex like giving up a stupid religion, even though it alienates your entire family and much of your community, if it isn’t who you are inside. Just don’t spend your life pretending and trying make others happy while making yourself miserable, that is not what we are here in this life to do. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying there should be a national revolt of people giving up house cleaning because, hey babe! cleaning is just not my ‘truth’. Nobody really likes cleaning. But there isn’t any shame in admitting it isn’t where you want to spend your time and possibly paying someone to come help you clean twice a month, and to Hell with what the neighbors think! When my neighbor found out about the lawn boy and what we paid him, she laughed so hard and said she was sure she could do her lawn and ours in an hour and charge us only $7. But she is now on trial for having sex with a sixteen year old and making up a false police report, so I think I was right not giving her comment too much merit.
So live your truth, own it, and be happy. It’s what I have desperately been trying to do by giving up the Mormon church. And hearing the Queen of Everything say it out loud on national television made me feel strong. Feeling strong is pretty much what I need right now. It is always at this time of year, starting in fall when I begin to feel crushed under the weight of my own guilt and regret. It was in the fall, three years ago that my brother died, and I have to admit that it continues to be very hard for me. So while I try every day to not drown in sadness and depression, I’m going to try to focus on the strengths and happy things in my life. My family, and Tony the lawn boy, and finally living my own truth.
Jun 222006
I spent about two hours writing a post yesterday, a humorous insightful pouring of my heart and soul post, that just as I was about to hit the Publish Post button Badger grabbed my arm and erased the whole thing and I must not know how to use the Recover post button because I AM TOO STUPID, because it wouldn’t be recovered, causing me to spend the rest of my evening wondering if I shouldn’t find a new hobby.
Mar 292006
I guess you have probably noticed that I have been taking a little break. I realize that in doing so I have run the risk of alienating the 2 or 3 of you that read my blog regularly, and for that I am sorry. I have been reading, relaxing, and trying to heal my broken (oh how seriously broken) mind. I am starting to feel better, and I’d like to share with you all today some of the books I have been enjoying:
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer
Both are well worth your time. Much more so than my silly blog.
Jan 032006
My sister-in-law cuts my hair. I have to say that when she was a little girl, I looked at her and I totally envisioned the day she would be all grown up and graduating from hair school. I just always knew she would be a hairdresser. I think it was the way she acted and paid attention to personal details, that and the way she said I WANT TO BE A HAIRDRESSER WHEN I GROW UP. Anyway, I’m glad she went through with it because she cuts a mean head of hair.
A few days ago I went to her for my routine touch up and she confirmed for me a harsh reality that I have been in deep denial about: my hair is thinning. Its been happening gradually over the last year or so and I had totally convinced myself that it was just simply a phase, a bad horrible hair phase, from dying it too much. Because, lets face it, I’ve dyed, bleached, and re-dyed my hair so many times that there is no record of how many times. Maybe I just did it ONE TOO MANY TIMES. Maybe the thinning is related to one of the medications I take. Maybe its my now advanced age of 32. Maybe, just maybe, its stress. And in a few years when I’m looking in the mirror at Kojack, I can yell to my children that they did this to me and took away the one and only thing that I hadn’t already sacrificed for them. THANKS FOR NOTHING!
And tonight as I was physically lifting Sunny into the bathtub as she screamed and kicked and called me names, I could hear Badger in the other room screaming and kicking and calling names as well. Sunny then screamed through her entire bath. She screamed as I took her out. She screamed while I put on her pajamas and tucked her into bed. In her defense, she is a child of course, but also today was her first day back at school after winter break, and I believe she was exhausted. She didn’t scream for long after I tucked her in, so I’m positive she was asleep well before her head touched her Hello Kitty pillowcase. But this is why I’m going bald people.
Badger finally screamed himself to sleep on the couch. And as I laid him down in his bed, he mumbled in his sleep: “mmmmm, you’re crazy.”
Yes, I am.
My oldest brother, Scott, was always a little different. He was born 11 years before me so our relationship was not a very close one, and much of what I know of his early years I have learned from others. I know that even as a small child he suffered from anxiety and depression. He was very young when he did the math from my parents anniversary to his birthday and found out it was only 6 months. I don’t think that knowledge would have been a big deal at all if my parents hadn’t hated each other. Our house was a war zone every day of every week of every year that I can remember. They couldn’t stop fighting, and they wouldn’t do the decent thing and get divorced, because Families Are For Fucking Ever, and you can’t get divorced just because you hate your spouse and expect to get into the Celestial Kingdom. My brother bore all the guilt of their broken marriage, because the math told him that they wouldn’t have even gotten married if it weren’t for him. I can’t even imagine how hard that was.
He had a very hard time relating to and interacting with the rest of our family. He spent lots of time alone in his room. He always struggled in school both academically and socially, until high school, when he found his niche in debate and politics. He worked in politics at the local, state, and national levels after high school graduation. I believe he did very well, and really enjoyed this work. He went to college off and on, but never could quite pull it together to get a degree. He got married and divorced within the same year. In general his successes in life were few and far between.
People always ask me when it was that Scott started to act strange and get sick. I can’t really say though, because he ALWAYS acted strange that I can remember. What I know is that he was diagnosed with depression and schizophrenia first in May of 2002. He had been hearing voices and having delusions constantly for at least 18 months before that. He had had several ‘psychotic episodes’, that went undiagnosed, during the 10 years before that. He was unable to work and lived with my parents.
He was prescribed one medication after another, with the hope that he could find something to get his symptoms under control. Nothing worked. And I didn’t get it. It’s the biggest regret that I have in my life, I just didn’t get it. It’s very difficult to understand mental illness, and I was frightened by my brother and the way he behaved. I was afraid to have my kids around him, because he was so unpredictable. I spent too much time blaming him for being sick. ‘If he hadn’t done this, or if he would try that, then he would be able to have a normal life’ was the sound bite I played in my head. It kept me away from him during what I should have known were his last years on earth. What a fucking waste. Twice he attempted suicide by taking too much medicine, and I should have known that one day he would succeed. I think there is a very hot corner in Hell reserved for me and my flawed and unsympathetic attitude toward my brother. Or there would be if I believed in such a thing.
Two years ago today my parents found Scott dead in a hotel room. He had overdosed on pain medication by taking somewhere around 100 pills. His mind was broken, he lived in constant fear, and he just couldn’t do it anymore. I can’t blame him. About a month before he had called me and asked if he could come up and stay with me for a little while sometime. I had said that of course he could, any time. Thank God I didn’t tell him what I was really thinking, because that was the last time I ever talked to my brother. It’s what I have, to help me through this, the hope that my brother knew I loved him when he died because I was kind to him in our last conversation. It’s not much, but its all I’ve got.
I wanted to share this with you, in the hope that you would never let something like this happen to you and someone you love. I hope that all of you are smarter than I am. I hope all of you know better than to act the way I did, so I don’t really have to say to you: please, don’t be as fucking stupid as I was. I’m hoping I don’t need to say: please love your family every day, EVEN THE CRAZY ONES, because they might be gone tomorrow and all you will have left is sadness, guilt, and regret if you don’t. Maybe I’m hoping to help even one person change their mind and attitude, to gain some sort of absolution for myself, even though I’m pretty sure the only complete idiot in the world is me.
Nov 032005
I think its safe to say that, by any and all accounts, I am a lenient mother. I have been known to let my kids eat ice cream for breakfast and play with their friends before doing their homework. I only rarely make them clean up their own messes. I never make them eat whatever disgusting food I have prepared for dinner, so I have become their short order cook. And even more appalling, when we get fast food I let them open their Happy Meal toys before they have finished eating their nuggets. In short I am pretty much a push over and a slave to these children. Is it any wonder I am depressed? Really, is it?
In many ways I am mothering exactly the same way I was mothered. And I really love my mother, but did I want to be her? No, not really. But I think this is really common, people fall back on what they know or observed to do a job that has no formal training or manual. In essence my mother was my training for this job and I think I’m pretty much winning the award for Most Valuable Contributor to the Company of Motherhood, and my mom is the CEO.
My son Badger is three and a half. He is my youngest, my baby, the last of my seed here on this earth. And I think that things have somehow gone terribly wrong with him. He is the baby, and he knows it. He always says he wants to be a baby forever. He wants me to actually call him Baby Badger, instead of just Badger, and he will correct me if I fail to do so. But that by itself wouldn’t bother me so much, I mean I can call him Baby Badger at his college graduation for all I care if that’s the way he wants it, but the main thing that gets me is he will not be potty trained. WILL NOT. Every day he says he wants me to change his diapers forever. And I have had it with all the poo, people. I’m sick of smelling it and wiping it and throwing it in the trash. I need it safely deposited in the toilet and flushed away to somewhere that I don’t have to think about it ever again. For my sanity and my success as a person and a mother I need NO MORE POOPY PANTS.
I have accomplished this task before, as my other two children are potty trained. And it wasn’t easy but I did it. They didn’t put up the same kind of fight though, the blind obstinance and refusal. I have almost resigned myself to the fact that while at his college graduation I will hear myself say “Baby Badger, you’ve shit yourself and I need to change your diaper.”
