Depression Talk

Somewhere between managing twenty five staff and eight million members of the public, after the last case of beer was gone and the lung infection cleared up; but before the long weekend rush I realized that THE FOURTEEN HOUR DAYS ARE KILLING ME. I love this job and I love what I do, and a lot of the time I really feel like I’m doing something useful.

The problem is that my day starts at about seven fifteen in the morning. My alarm clock (Read: The people who own the house I live in) haven’t been waking me until, oh I don’t know, around 7:08. The next problem is that it doesn’t END until about eight thirty. And then, if you’re like me, after you’ve showered and cleaned the day’s filth off yourself, once you’ve donned your boxers and tank top for a solid night’s rest, once you’ve consumed a number of beers you realized that your boss is doing tractor wor and you have yet to remove the eight miles of fence you put up on the first day.

So, you, your beer, and your boxer shorts head off through the field nearing ten at night, when the mosquitoes are at their finest and the wind is blowing mightily.

AND THEN YOU SPEND THE ENTIRE NEXT DAY SCRATCHING YOUR ASS BECAUSE THERE ARE JUST THAT MANY MOSQUITO BITES ON IT.

I’ve been feeling great these last few months, stopping occasionally to weep in my bed over this and that. I’ve been feeling especially great since I’ve been home, since I’ve had my horse, since everything has seemed so perfect.

And then for a day or two I’ll hit a low, and I’ll think: Why do I have to feel this way? Why must this cloud of impending doom hang over my head so that all I want to do is lay in my bed listening to bad country music and eating Cheez Whiz straight from the jar?

I suppose the good thing here is that working in BerryLand forces me out of bed every day, forces me to continue in the land of the living. I like my job, I love being here, I wish every day could go by like the last six have gone.

At the same time, though, the Cheez Whiz and the music sound pretty good right about now.

On this date, my mother weighed close to two hundred pounds and she was really, really pissed off because a twenty day old person had taken up residence in her uterus and was refusing to leave.

Twenty three years later, here we are, my poor mother having given up being pissed because she has finally accepted that SHE WILL NEVER BE RID OF ME. She finally managed to get me out of her person, twenty days later than I should have gotten out, and I suppose that having undergone that struggle, she decided to just suck it up when it comes to my taking up space in her house. As long as I don’t use the wrong pot for the macaroni.

It is my birthday today and I feel many ways: I feel tired, but that’s just because I’M INSANE and I’m doing a job that only INSANE people would do. I’m elated to have made it this far, I’m looking back over the last few years thinking ‘Whoa Now…’. I’m looking forward to the next years, I’m excited and interested to know what this world will toss in my direction over the next decades.

But mostly of all I’m looking forward to some cake. The kind that the Berry King gets me every year for my birthday, with all of its yummy goodness to be eaten in the presence of all the Berry Babies and the people I love best.

I’m away from home now, living at the berry farm I work at with my mother. I will stop and tell you right now that WE DO NOT PICk THE FRUIT. We do everything we can to avoid touching the fruit at all costs, and it only really touches us when angered customers aim well in our direction. We are in management, us Berry Babes, and as managers we do things lie laze about in the sun drinking Ice Caps while the pickers sweat in the sun and the customers look on.

I feel that goals are very important and as such, I’ve developed a list of them to aspire to.

1) Don’t get hives.

2) Don’t get a bad case of Athlete’s foot. (My boss has informed me that breaking out in any sort of distasteful rash this year will result in my termination. I’m not sure that its legal, but its probably for the best that I don’t test her when fruit rot is threatening because of the muggy weather)

3) Don’t be the first to cry.

4) Save my first screaming, crying, hives inducing fit for when the thirteen year old Berry Girl and he best friend are not in front of me.

5) Sleep well, and sleep every night.

6) Gain fifteen pounds, all from consuming Ice Caps and chips in the hot sun

I often talk here about wilting up and ceasing to exist. I’ve seen a few things wilt up and cease in my life, like that flower that one guy bought me before I broke up with him because I couldn’t stand his laguh; and then the time that those little kittens ran away from home when I was young. They simply just ceased to exist.

I’ve felt that way a number of times. In 2003 I had what I would call a Pretty Rough Year. I’m not sure which year was worse, the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007, or the whole of 2003, but its a pretty close call. That year, when I was still young and had a little bit of faith left in humanity, I would wake up every day and think “My GOD. I’m still living this life!” And while I didn’t want to die, and I didn’t want to commit suicide, it would have been really, really nice if I could have just ceased to exist.

I wanted to be something other than what I was, living elsewhere than where I was living. I wanted my life to be the same: I wanted my same family and my same things, but there was certain history that I was more than willing to just toss off. I think the best option would have been to simply pack up everything and everyone I new and head us off to Zurich, or maybe Arkansas or even Rio De Janeiro, and we would just start all over without any more insanity or screw-ups in out pasts.

I now how ridiculous it all sounds; I know that there would be no point in waking up and starting over and having only perfection in your past. If that were the case, how would we ever really learn from any of our mistakes? ANd then how could you be perfect without learning?

At the same time, though, sometimes I just really wish that for a little while, once in a while, I could be that perfect person, with no hideousness behind her, no reason to wish that things weren’t any other way but how they are.

Trisha Yearwood sang the song “Believe me Baby, I lied”, and it has the lines “If there ever was a time/ That I could use your trust in me/ And if there ever was a reason/ For me to get down on my knees”.

Sometimes you just feel desperate. Like you desperately need faith and belief in you as a person to continue on, and that faith and belief needs to come from someone important. Like without it, life will just simply stop going on and you can wilt up like an old flower and be done.

And then sometimes when you feel that way, you have to find a good radio and listen to sad music until you kick yourself in the leg and snap out of it.

I got up bright and early today, at seven thirty, and decided to run down and see my horse. I was planning on feeding him, watering him, and cleaning out his stall, but my father had beat me to it. So I stood, instead, and scratched his friendly little ears while my dad finished up the cleaning.

Later I was feeling a little bit bad that my poor father had to clean out two horse stalls instead of one, and I asked him if he would like to trade off days on stall cleaning, or work out some kind of deal.

My dad pondered for a little minute before he looked at me and said “Well, Dear, I just don’t think you could do it to my satisfaction.”

And a lot of people might be offended at a comment like that. Like, what, I can’t shovel shit good enough for you? Like, I might shovel shit the wrong way? Is there a wrong way to shovel shit? I’m sure that many people would be put off by such a statement.

But not me.

See, I accepted a long, long time ago that my parents are Farkin’ Insane. My mother has a thing about the pots in her kitchen: Each one has certain tasks, certain foods that can be cooked in it, and if you cook the wrong food in the wrong pot, heads just might start to explode.

My father is equally insane. The way that I garden maddens him to the point that this year, he banished my garden to behind the chicken coop. We’re talking a location that was once a rock pile. Yes. It was once a rock pile. Not a pile of, say, compost that might have desintegrated in the last thirty years. It was a rock pile. (On a brighter note, it was mentioned to me today that since I’m managing to actually grow things in this rock pile, I’m making quite a statement about my agricultural skills. Good point.)

I think I was eight or nine when I decided that since I probably can’t beat them, I might as well join them. And I then went on a campaign to end the improper stacking of coffee cups in our home.

Since then, every time I find an improperly stacked coffee cup, I fiercefully whip open the cupboard door, produce the cups from within it, smash them together with the right amount of force and care such that they don’t end up broken, and slam the cupboard door shut. Occasionally, an imbecile trundles through our kitchen and stacks the coffee cups the wrong way but I am generally quick to remind them of their errors. And then they promptly quit coming over altogether.

And so, the fact that I probably can’t clean out my horses’ stall to my father’s satisfaction doesn’t worry me one little bit. I know that I’m a good shit-shoveler. in fact, I’m probably one of the best shit shovelers. I even throw that little tidbit out in conversation whenever I get a chance!

Its just that skill can’t compete with Crazy, and so most of the time, I don’t even need to try.

I am that confident in my ability to shovel shit.

I met the Chestnut Thoroughbred Gelding on Wednesday. He nuzzled up to me in the pasture, he allowed me to lead him to and fro the barn. I stood with him in his stall, examined his feet, ran my hands down the length of his barrel and through his tail. I averted my eyes while my mother and father examined his physical condition, looked at his teeth and inspected his legs.

I was discussing the various breeds of horses with a good friend the other night. I was explaining that my dad’s horse, an Arabian, is quick on her feet, good for sporting, but with drawbacks like a load of energy that a rider like myself would want to avoid. I explained to her that I wanted a horse who was slow, bumbling, built thick and kind of boring.

“Oh, I get it!”

“Get what?”

“Your horse. You want a slow horse, one who’s big around and not quick on his feet!”

“Yeah, that’s it!”

“Just like the people you date!”

Sure. Slow, bumbling, thick. Just like the people I date.

I go to ride him this morning. I have decided to not fall head over heels with him just this minute; I want to walk him, trott him, wonder if he is too strong for me to pull up from a spook.

When I’ve dismounted, when I walk away with muscles screaming, walking like a cow-boy, bow-legged and in search of beer: Then I’ll know if I can take down the little wall that I’ve built up, put my face to his, and call him my very own.

I’m always scared to get involved with a new endeavour for a variety of reasons. The number one reason is heartbreak.

I become heartbroken very easily. I am hyper sensitive and can find myself curled up in the fetal position, weeping, because someone ate the last of the potato chips. I’m not sure if this relates to being a crazy person, or if I’m just really, really special; either way, heartbreak scares me. Mostly because all the booze it takes me to recover is so expensive.

I’m going to look at a horse this morning. My last horse broke my heart in many ways: Partly because I should have been more diligent with his training, and if I had been, perhaps I wouldn’t even need to look at a horse tomorrow. He also broke my heart because the day I met him, Christmas day, I fell completely head over heels in love with him. He was sweet and gentle, and nibbled on the palm of my hand. I groomed and tacked him and hopped on him and everything went perfectly on that first day.

We had a few more relatively successful rides together, and then, slowly but surely, all hell seemed to break loose. Perhaps he just wasn’t happy in his environment after having spent so much time in a professional stable on a race track. Perhaps he had a mood disorder, perhaps any number of things, but regardless: He got mean. He got scary. And he got dangerous. He had to go.

I had enough time to accept that he would be leaving, because his shift in personality was gradual. So I wasn’t that heartbroken the day he left.

My father has laid down the LAW with regards to the horse we’re looking at tomorrow. I AM NOT allowed to fall in love with this horse until after he has inspected it. He has to have good teeth, sound legs, be in good physical shape, not have heaves or foot cracks or any of a million other problems that horses can have. And then I have to make up my mind about him.

So here’s to trying not to put myself out there until we’ve seen and ridden the horse, because Lord knows if I see him in the stall, if he looks at me with big, Thoroughbred Chestnut Gelding eyes and sniffs my shoulders, I will fall in love with him immediately.

AND WE CAN’T HAVE ME FALLING IN LOVE WITH THOROUGHBRED CHESTNUT GELDINGS WHO HAVE CRACKED HOOVES.

Perhaps I should have my father take over my dating life as well?

Falling in Love, Thoroughbred Chestnut Gelding, Horse Shopping, Buying a Horse, Equestrian

My legs are itchy.

No good can come of my legs being itchy.

Every summer I act as field manager for a dear friend’s berry farm. It is a wonderful job that I love, and at the same time, it is an insidious job that no one in the free world should ever have to do. I go back every year because I love the owners and their beautiful, wonderful children, and the Berry Queen always keeps me well stocked in beer. Not to mention that her husband, the Berry King, makes the best Strawberry Daquiris on the planet, and the kids all make me beautiful cards for my birthday. Plus, they pay me money to do this job, and ninety five per cent of the time, I actually do love the job itself.

Last year I had one particularly stressful day that led to me having hives. I’d love to recount the entire incident, but it was long, involved, spanned over three days, and might make you want to shatter your screen so that you can poke your own eye out with a shard of glass.

The end result of the incident was a serious case of hives. It was so serious that I ended up buying out the entire pharmacy’s stock of anti-itch creams. I kept them with me all season long, and had to apply them multiple times each day. The Berry Queen eventually felt that if she saw me apply an itch cream to my red and swollen legs one more time, she would break my beer bottle over my head and proceed to poke her own eye out with its shards of glass. The hives were that irritating to those around me; use your imagination to determine how irritating they were to me.

I’m not exactly stressed at this point in my life, although I do have a fair amount of stuff going on. I can usually pinpoint exactly what it is that leads me to break out in hives. It usually has to do with a boyfriend or my need to be heavily sedated; this time, however, I can’t seem to figure out what it is.

The last few nights I have gone to bed with large, conspicuous itchy bumps on my legs. They haven’t been breaking out in droves like hives usually do. Instead, they have been breaking out one at a time, starting as a little pink itchy spot, growing to about the size of a nickel, itching like mad, and then disappearing before dawn.

Perhaps I am allergic to one of the new fabric softeners I’ve been using; perhaps I am allergic to working in the barn or digging about in my garden.

Either way, my legs have been itching like mad for the last several hours and I’m starting to think that the hives are imminent.

Bring on the anti-itch cream. It could be a long and scratchy summer.

I think a lot about the things that could make me happy in this world. Sometimes I think that really spectacular things could make me happy, like owning my own farm, or owning my very own brand new Dodge Dakota quad cab. Or better yet, a stunningly wonderful husband who is rich and grand and who will bring me flowers every day, and who would buy me my farm and truck.

But those are such big things. Husbands are so time consuming. They come with demands for things like the preparation of food and the bearing of children. Ugh.

I was out shopping with my mother today, and we bought some new Gain fabric softener. It smells ever so nice, like thoughts of kittens and butterflies and cotton candy all wrapped up into one big wonderful scent. And every time I open my dresser drawers, all that will ever enter my head are thoughts of kittens and butterflies and cotton candy. And the detergent aisle of Wal-Mart.

Sometimes you have to focus on the little things. I recently went a little over three months where my entire wardrobe consisted of jogging pants, boxer shorts, sports bras, and oversized T-shirts. I bought this entire wardrobe and wore articles from it every day. I simply did not have the energy to deal with matters pertaining to clothing. Hell, I did not have the energy to get myself out of my bed. So on the days when I did have the energy to get out of bed, it was all I could do to put on something.

The first time I put on clothes after those three months led me to tears. I actually sat on my bedroom floor crying because once I had clothes on — the type of clothes that actually fit, and that consist of more than oversized sportswear you buy in the Men’s section at Old Navy — I was purely exhausted and I had no idea if I could make it beyond the front door or not.

I suppose that after having gone through periods like that in my life, I do have a greater understanding of the small things. Like pants. And fabric softener.

Tonight, while I danced with glee, while I shrieked about the wonder of Gain fabric softener, while I headed up the stairs to collect all fifty pairs of socks, my mother laughed. She called up to me “I suppose its a good thing that you can appreciate the small things in life.”

I have to say that I concur. Yes. Appreciating the small things.

That’s what its all about.

Small Things, Baby Steps, Clothes for Depression, Get out of bed, Appreciate the Small Things, Fabric Softener, Kittens

I love to sleep. I really hate to be cliche, but if sleeping were an Olympic Sport, I would have the gold medal in it every year since 1984. I have always been a wonderful sleeper, and I remember being little and asking my mom if I could take a nap after school when I started the first grade. I never really did give up my habit of napping, and I suppose that in this sense, my parents did NOT get the short end of the stick. In every other sense, I’m kind of a dud, but hey! THEY GOT MANY NIGHTS OF SOLID SLEEP even after I came into the world. Daughter of the year, right there.

When things are wrong with me, I stop sleeping. I become a person who is no longer capable of sleeping at all. My eyes become wide and red-rimmed, dark circles grow under them, my face becomes pale and every ounce of energy I have is devoted to trying to find a way to make me fall asleep.

I’m not sure what it is that keeps me from sleeping when I’m unwell. It is partially the fact that all the scary things that are for sure going to happen to me are whirling about my head. And yes, when I’m unwell it does seem entirely likely that I may be maimed or killed in a car wreck on my way home for the weekend; or that everyone I know will be mad at me and start yelling the next time they see me; or that something terrible is happening to someone I love RIGHT AT THAT VERY MOMENT and if I fall asleep, I might just miss their call. I never claimed that being Insane was fun.

Napping very rarely interferes with my ability to sleep at night. I am one of those fortunate souls who can sleep from midnight until ten in the morning, and then from one until four the following afternoon, and still be ready to hit the hay again at midnight. My sleep is deep and comfortable; I love to sink into my pillows and my luxurious sheets and wrap myself around the extra sheet and pillow I keep on hand, neatly arranged the way that only a person with OCD can arrange them.

I love every single aspect of sleep: I love drifting off and catching myself so that I can feel as though I am drifting off one more time. I love rolling over when I wake up to find myself all tangled up in the sheets (and sometimes at the wrong end of the bed) and wondering what I was dreaming about that would cause me to wake in such a position. I love laying on my pillows for a few minutes before I step out of bed, and then I love curling back in so that I can be in my sheets with my down duvet for just five more minutes.

Because of the deep love I have for everything related to sleeping, and because getting enough sleep is just so good for a person, I have to wonder why, when I’m not well — when the Crazy has sunk in, and Insanity reigns over all — why, is sleep so hard to come by? This is a question that I could ask myself until I’ve driven myself nearly mad, and OH! WAIT! I’ve already done that. Twice. And then the heavy duty sedatives came along and brought me back to the place where the sane people live.

Like so many aspects of this illness, the fact that I can’t partake in my favorite activity when nothing in the world could would be better than partaking in this activity really confounds me.

But for topics related to depression to be confounding — well, is that really surprising to anyone?

Sleep, Insomnia, Sleepless, Nap, Napping, Sleep Aids, Depression, Anxiety

I’ve taken a numbe rof medications for my Insanity over the years, a large number. At one point in my life I was taking pills out of seven different bottles, bottles that my mother had to code with letters and numbers so I wouldn’t confuse them and end up seizing on the kitchen floor in front of Grandma. Because there is nothing worse than seizing on the kitchen floor in front of Grandma.

Medication for Insanity is very tricky, because there is no set in stone rules about which medications will work for which person. The first meds I took made me shake like shaking was my job, as though my entire body had been taken over by one of those little electric toothbrushes, only it didn’t have an OFF button and I couldn’t remove the batteries. I’m sure that if I had worked at one of those illicit sex shops during that time in my life, I would have made wonderful presentations without draining the batteries on the objects they sell there. But I was not working at one of those illicit sex shops, and so my unstoppable shake-y shaking was of no use to anyone.

After that experience, I was more than a little wary of trying any more drugs. If I had to forfeit any type of life I had because I couldn’t leave the house for fear of vibrating my car right into the ditch, what would the point of being sane be? Off meds, I couldn’t leave because it is hard to go places without your mind. On meds, I was shaking like a leaf and its hard to go places when moving is IMPOSSIBLE because YOU CAN’T STOP SHAKING.

I was really lucky in that the third drug I took managed to make me sane again. I was amazed that I had once more become capable of sleeping, eating, and leaving the house at appropriate intervals and in appropriate amounts. All three of those things are affected when I’m not sane, and when you can’t eat, sleep, or leave the house, the rest of your life tends to be affected negatively as well, because really, what else is there in life than eating, sleeping, and leaving the house?

I guess my point here is that the first batch of pills sucked. The second batch of pills just didn’t do anything. And the third batch of pills made me all better again, made me a happily functioning human being capable of living. Capable of BEING ALIVE.

You can’t lose faith entirely if your first treatment options don’t pan out. I had to be cajoled after the side effects of the first pills, I really had to be convinced to give it a try after the second. Eventually I found one that worked, though, and then my life became a life worth living once more.

medication, depression, anxiety, seizures, Grandma

Did you know that May is Mental Health month? A dear friend also informed me that May is the month of strawberries, so it must be my month for sure.

I’m not sure what one is supposed to do in celebration of mental health month. Perhaps those of you who are sane should do a little dance around your living rooms in celebration of being so; while those of us who are insane should find a comfortable chair and choose a liquor. I don’t really see what good any of that will do. At any rate, I’ve chosen beer and my family’s computer chair.

This article lists some of the everyday factors leading to poor mental health. Stressors like being overworked, undernourished, under-rested, and a fast-paced lifestyle are what lead people to be stressed and unpleasant in the modern day.

Clearly, the best way to deal with each of these stressors is to assume a position in life that keeps you away from work, fast food, air pollution, and the rest of the conveniences we have come to depend on. Unfortunately, I’m not ready to give up my MP3 player just yet, so anxiety attacks over finding batteries in time are sure to remain a part of my life. Perhaps we would all live in perfect mental health if we lived in grass huts in the desert. But if we did that, we would probably miss out on McDonald’s and really? No one wants to drink home-made beer. Trust me. The stuff from the liquor store is JUST THAT GOOD.

I have no idea what good a mental health month can do for any of us. Is it a month devoted to being insane, or is it a month devoted to becoming less insane? Valiuum for everyone! Or is that not a good way to go about acheiving a society of good mental health?

I really do wonder about all these arbitrarily named months and days devoted to this and that. I’m not sure what good they do. Raising awareness is always a positive step; however, because everything has become a pet cause for so many people, the realities of some peoples’ situations tend to get diminished.

Do you participate in arbitrary days created for cultural reasons? Examples would be Mental Health Month, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Secretary’s Day and so forth. How do you feel about these?

My life is one that is very full of children, all of whom belong to other people. I make it a point to never mention my insanity to small children for a few reasons, one being that I’m not sure how to say “Sweetie, your Auntie is a fucking nutjob sometimes and during those times you are going to want to RUN. Fast. In another direction. For a long time.” I just don’t think the young ‘uns can handle that sort of information, and so I try not to give it out.

I do worry about the effect that having a crazy person near you can have while you’re growing and developing, but there will always be the nature/nurture debate and I don’t think any of us will ever have that one figured out.

Feet is one of my ‘things’ and I really detest feet. Sandal weather makes my skin crawl and if a person is going to put their feet anywhere near my person, it had better be to kick a rabid raccoon out of my vicinity and for no other reason than that. Sometimes feet make me want to vomit and other times I just want to put my hands over my ears and curl up into the fetal position. I once dated someone who thought this was funny and who would spend time putting his feet near my feet — which is the ultimate double-whammy — and you know what happened to him? I’d love to tell you but then several people might end up in jail and if they ever do find the body, I don’t want it to be because of a post on my blog.

My mother tends to like feet, particularly the type that are attached to rolly-polly babies who gigle when you tickle them. My mother and I were visiting my neice this weekend and at eighteen months old, she has already decided that no person shall ever come into contact with her feet. If you try to tickle her feet, or touch them in any way, she curls them up and hides them from your reach and I have to say WAY TO BE, BABY!

This discovery made me so deliriously happy over the weekend for a variety of reasons, the primary one being that at eighteen months of age, she can’t have already been influenced by my insane presence in her life.

Long live the feet-haters, I say. I’m sure this will be one more thing for my neice and I to bond over in years to come, and if insanity can bring about bonding, why the hell not?