hanging my tomorrows on the bones of yesterday

Okay folks: I have failed my saving throw vs depressive episode, bc nothing was working consistently to make me sleep properly. It happens. I will be largely hermitting and working on projects that soothe my brain for the next few/several weeks. My episodes haven’t lasted longer than 3-4 weeks in the last few years, so 🤞 that that trend continues. I am available for check-ins, but there’s that thing I do where I don’t trust myself around people and tend to isolate when I’m irritable, spoonless, and less able to take precautions.

To that end I have been making things (have pics) and will be noodling around finding and doing neat stuff on the web (with thanks to numb3r_5ev3n). If you are new here or have new special interests, let me know what you like right now, so I can report back if I find cool stuff that is in your wheelhouse.

In other news, Cat Valente wrote an article about why in the current anti-LGBTQ backlash we need corporations at Pride. I don't like it, but she has a point. Bitter pill to swallow, I know. To soothe the sting, here is a bunch of for-free trans media on the internet and a chance to watch Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away, which will be back in theaters close to Halloween.

In the last bit of news, I have discovered a name for the slice-of-life Japanese storytelling that I love so much: Iyashikei. I will be trying to watch more movies and shows in this genre while I am moping about letting my brain recover.

Y'all take care and don't set the internet on fire while I'm recuperating.

( cut )

I have that anxiety right now that says that nothing I can do is not going to be some kind of fuck-up, and that I should just not see people for a while. That if I see people while I am this small, vulnerable thing with no social aptitude, that I will lose the friends I still have. I may have to get off the internet for a while, maybe go do something that I have no trauma around or emotional investment in being good at.

My period is five days late and I have no idea why. Yesterday was a bad body day, but I still went in to work on one client, because my bad days are now a 3-3.5 on the functionality scale and not a 4. I have been having more depressive thoughts last week and the beginning of this week, but strangely that looks to be getting better despite the pain day.

I may go find a shady spot to sit in outside and knit for a while.

I have some friends who think that since I'm really stable and don't get depressed often, that I must not get depressive thoughts often, which ... would be nice, if it were true? So now you guys get to look inside my head at what happens on a bad day. Superbetter has a Quest challenge to name five negative thoughts that occurred to you recently, and to dispute them using three specific tools. So this is stuff that happened during yesterdays' low patch.

I. Ghost should just leave me because I'm a resource drain.
II. I am going to get progressively worse, and then die.
III. I should give away my art supplies because I will never have the energy to use half of it.
IV. I should break up with otatma. It's not fair to expect him to wait around for me to have time for him where I feel like having a boyfriend.
V. Maybe I should just get rid of all my friends and possessions and go live in my mother's guestroom*.


Look at all likely causes for an event that's challenging you.
I. and IV. are caused by me taking other people's decisions away from them so that I can feel secure in being forever alone and not have to worry about losing other people's love by being unhealthy/unworthy. It's my need for certainty winning out over my need for happiness, because when I hurt, happiness is a foreign concept from some other continent where they speak funny sounding languages and wear birds in their hair.

Write down your thoughts, citing evidence both for and against your thought or reaction being accurate.
II. could happen, but since medical science tends to get better and not worse and my disease hits rich people as well as poor, it is getting well funded research. I could suddenly start progressing faster, but that is unlikely, and I am already taking steps to slow down the decline in my health.

Are the results all that bad? Am I blowing this out of proportion? How can I get what I want in a different way?
III. and V. Every time I'm about to move house I start thinking about giving things away. It makes people think I'm suicidal maybe, but there's nothing wrong with giving things away as long as I'm happy to do so. I am making too big a deal out of the move and out of the amount of possessions I own, since several people have offered to help move us, and were quite sincere. And I am being fatalistic about moving in with my mother because I am in pain and I automatically start disaster planning for worst case scenarios, and that is currently it.


(*and be miserable forever.)

When Xenoix left me his trial pack of 10 Lexapro (10 mg each) it was in case I got into an irredeemable funk. Some time before Thanksgiving I decided that since no combination of OTC meds was working for me without accidental glutening, I was going to swallow my pride and formulate a plan to try to get out of the funk as swiftly and safely as possible.

I consulted Crazy Meds (which is a great site BTW) and decided to split the pills into 5mg doses per their recommendation. I decided to not tell most of my friends because it makes y'all worry unnecessarily. (I am a hyper-rational control freak about my brain. Seriously, I'm not letting anything happen to it.)

Halfway through the trial period I set a time to make a decision about going to a doctor and asking for a prescription. I decided to wean off instead, and it took me about 28 days to take those 10 pills. I'm going to go back to the 5HTP and SAM-e as upkeep hoping that, with my brain kicked out of the funk, maintenance doses will be sufficient. And this time I'm staying on them indefinitely. No more thinking, "I'm *better* now, my life will surely never be so stressful that my brain derails like it's riding AMTRAK!" That's what got me into this mess.

PROS: I didn't miss a day of work while I was on it for any reason other than being actually sick. I do feel better, and was even occasionally joyous the last few weeks. I got a lot done and all presents pretty much sorted except one. I had really good mental and emotional clarity by the end of the second week. If that's what feeling normal is like then I am considering enviousness. No weight gain or freaky side effects.

CONS: Headaches from clenching my teeth at night, multiple. Soreness and muscle tension on waking, infrequent. ACNE! Mild insomnia the first few days, and vicious insomnia on withdrawal - hopefully over now.

My brain, you guys: It's not always sharp, but it's never dull.

If I apologize for being away, for thinking that the upswing meant that I would be out of the woods soon and got both our hopes up, that means there's an expectation that I'm trying to hold myself to and then I will be tongue-tied. So I'll just ramble and see what my brain says, and you can like it or not.

( Eating habits and the brain. )
That's a lot of baggage to put on a relationship with something as simple as food. But it's also how I remember to savor the parts of my life that are not lived in monochrome, and to enjoy my senses when they're sharper. Days like today I just cling to the balance.

I have been busy with moving and not checking my flist, so once again missed Invisible Illness Week, which is funny considering that I am taking flak in my personal life for not being very upbeat right now.
So:

Dear Flist,
I have major depression. (awkward clinical term, much?) Meaning yes, somewhere in the box of files I keep with all my medical and banking and insurance paperwork is a a note signed by a medical doctor listing my diagnosis as "depression + anxiety". I like to complain a lot, I know, and I talk a lot of hyperbole and exaggeration. But I really do have depression. I did not take an online quiz, I am not haphazardly self-diagnosed.

I'm in a depressive episode right now. I feel bad. I have less motivation to do every single thing. I feel like I fuck everything up, and I can't concentrate, so I DO fuck things up, and then I feel like everything is my fault. I feel broken and helpless, and I try to be more regimented and stern with myself and it spills over onto my interactions with you and you tell me to cheer up.

I can't cheer up. I can pretend, but I tell you that I'm pretending because while I don't want you to be uncomfortable with my expressionless face I also don't want you to be mislead by a well-faked smile. That would be lying. I would rather you not try to be my friend if you need to be lied to. If you need to believe that all I need to be happy is your presence and your words of wisdom, then I'm just going to feel worse because there's no fundamental truth to our interactions. It feels hollow, scraped out and raw, to have to act like nothing's wrong. And I know it looks, from the outside, like nothing IS. And I wish that what's in here matched what's out there. It doesn't. Telling me to focus on the positive so that I can be more productive ... is not helpful. And after the first few hundred times, it starts to feel demeaning, like a running gag that you're the butt of and everyone thinks that because you don't laugh you don't get it yet, so they keep telling it when really you didn't think it was funny the first time.

If I could be happy, I would. I LIKE being happy. I like sharing happiness and spreading it around. So please take some time, if you have not yet, to consider that I am doing what I can to enjoy my life. And please stop treating me like my mood disorder is insulting to you.