I Get Lost Sometimes

I've had so much on my mind lately and I've wanted to blog. But I can't concentrate, and I can't seem to string two sentences together. I can't even write in my daily journal. There are weeks of empty spaces, and it makes me sad and angry at myself to see all the blank lines. I paid good money for that journal, damn it, and I'm pissed at myself that I'm not using it. I've had so much going on and I feel it all building up inside of me. The anxiety has been building the closer we get to the holidays. The depression has been dragging me down. This is the first year EVER that I did not put out one decoration for Fall. I didn't even hang the wreath on the front door. Like everyone else, Fall is my favorite time of the year, and I have boxes and boxes of decorations with pumpkins and sunflowers and leaves and acorns and all the other things you would warm your hearth and home with. I am absolutely 100% not feeling it this year.

We had another nice vacation recently, to Niagara Falls and New England, to see the colors. Frankly, the colors up there were no better than the colors back here at home. We did so much driving that we didn't have time to stop and actually do anything. And it rained almost the whole time. My entire vacation was experienced through the windshield, strapped in the front seat of my car. We had two days at the Falls, but the rest was a mind-numbing road trip that for me was agonizing. The pain of sitting all day, and the car sickness I get sometimes with my claustrophobia. Of course being with J was the main objective for me. He said he had a great time, it was one of his favorite vacations ever. I was thinking, I wouldn't even put it in my top twenty. I guess he got something out of being on the road that I didn't feel. But he had a wonderful time- and we didn't fight except for the few hours we were lost and driving aimlessly in New York City at rush hour. He was fine. I was freaking the hell out. Sometimes being in a car with someone nonstop for eight days would drive you crazy. But we did really well. It gave me hope that maybe we can take another big road trip one day. At least, if we can stop and DO things and GO places, instead of just zooming by and saying oh look there's....okay never mind, we already drove by.

When we got home, it was obvious that one of the cats had injured himself while we were gone. This is the cat who hides from the pet sitters, they can see him wedged behind the washing machine and the wall, so they know he's alive, but that's it. He and our newest cat tend to fight, or rather, the newest cat tends to beat up on him because she's very high energy and likes to play rough. And when that happens, he always gets stressed and anxious and develops a UTI- which leads to peeing all over the house and blood in his urine. This time it was so bad he became anemic. But after three appointments- and $1000- he began to improve. Of course, one of my cats being sick is like a massive bomb going off in my world, triggering an avalanche of anxiety in ME. I got buried in it this time. While he was sick, our other cat with cancer has started feeling worse, and in the middle of all that, one of my dear friends back home died in a tragic accident. I spent many late nights texting with friends about the meaning of life and why did shitty things happen to decent people while scumbags seem to rule the world.

It's been a long few weeks. Next week I'll be with my family for the holiday. J will stay home with the cats. The cat with cancer has to be boarded because he's on three medications a day and chemo. The other cats of course stay at home and our lovely pet sitters check up on them. But, it's stressful for them all when we're gone. Since we just had two back to back long vacations, we decided it would be best for J to take the week off from work and stay home with them. Ditto for Christmas- we had a trip planned but we've cancelled it and instead my dad will be here staying with us.

I loathe Thanksgiving, for real. Ever since I moved away from home, my parents have always rented a cabin in the mountains so the entire family can come together. For J's family, Thanksgiving is the biggest time of the year, so from day one of us dating he put his foot down and said there will be NO compromises on this one thing. He (we) will spend the holiday with his family. Since we've been together, I've seen my family either the few days before Thanksgiving or the few days afterward. But the actual day itself is spent with J's huge family. I know every family has drama, but J's family wears me down. There will be 19 of us this year. Ugh. J's sisters and nieces breeze in at the last minute- they don't help their parents with anything, not even cleaning up afterward- they huddle off in little corners with their whispers and laughs and glasses of wine. I've always felt excluded, even after these 15 years. They're wonderful women, but gatherings at their parents' house seem to bring out the worst in them. My oldest SIL can barely tolerate being around her parents, and she doesn't attempt to hide her feelings.

I will see my family at their cabin the few days before Thanksgiving, but even that has become stressful since my mom died. My sister is resentful that everything has fallen on her- in other words, she has to do all the things my mom did. Well, there are 5 of them and they'll be there 8 days. On the other hand, there's just little ol' me and I'm only popping in for 3 days. Sorry, I have no plans or desire to "take care" of her family and cater to them while I'm there, no matter how much pressure she is putting on me to "help" out. Her texts were dripping with meanness and guilt and sarcasm about what she "needed" and "wanted" both me and my dad to be in charge of. I volunteered to cook for everyone- ONE night. She had the nerve to send me this huge shopping list- which included things like toilet paper and laundry detergent. Uhm I'm sorry, I'm not providing all the supplies for you and your husband and your sons. She said she was busy with work this week and couldn't get to the store. Well, she has an able bodied husband and grown children who can go for her. J said NO way, I shouldn't feel guilty and cave in to her demands. So, I will be glad when the holiday week is freakin over! And I'll be damned if I'm going back to the cabin next year, I will suddenly get the flu or something.

My health is horrendous right now. No matter how much I promise myself that I will DO BETTER, I just never seem to be able to pull it off. It's like a magic trick whose secret continues to elude me. Last week I went to the grocery store and bought a shitload of healthy groceries, yet this week I've lived off popcorn for lunch and pretzels at night. Because it was easy, because I had no energy, because I've been in that I don't give a fuck about myself mindset lately. The weather isn't cooperating either. It's glorious and lovely on the weekends when J is home, and I'm grateful for that. But during the week when I'm floundering, it's been shitty and rainy and gloomy and damp. Every week. Every Monday through Friday for weeks now. It's miserable. It's making me miserable. The one day I did kick myself in the ass enough to go for a walk, it sucked.

But everything in this blog is just one big stupid meaningless excuse as to why I can't get my shit together. There's nothing in this post that millions of other people don't regularly deal with and overcome easily. I know I'm my own biggest obstacle, but how do you get around yourself when you are trying to help yourself?! I try to imagine my depression and anxiety as a road block sign in the middle of my path. If I was out driving and trying to reach my destination, what would I do? Just sit there staring at the sign? Turn around and go back home? I would find an alternate route to get to where I wanted to be. But instead when it comes to my depression, I'm not even on the road. I'm hiding inside because I already know that road block is out there, and there's no point of even trying to go anywhere. I don't know what to do to shake that feeling, to get over that. I don't know how to convince myself that there are a thousand roads out there and just taking the wheel in the first place is step one to a happier and healthier me.

MISS GEE

When Did It Start?

I've tried to go back in my memory and pinpoint exactly when my depression started, enough that I noticed it. It's maddening to me that I keep going back to the year that J and I moved out of state for the first time. I know that's not when it started, but it seems to be the time period that I was at my lowest and was suicidal. But I believe it just happened to be all the circumstances of that year- unemployed, new strange town, strong meds, debilitating pain, sitting alone in a dark house day after day- that caused me to feel as though I was beyond help, with one foot in my own grave.

I have always suffered from anxiety. I can remember being in elementary school and being on medication for constant stomach aches, which the doctor believed was caused by stress. I would walk around with my arms permanently cradling my abdomen, the pain was so severe. We're talking back in the early 70's, and I was maybe in third grade. Little kids didn't get diagnosed with anxiety and depression, but apparently I had a very forward thinking doctor who recognized I was undergoing some kind of stress- enough that it was causing physical symptoms.

I was also always very very shy, quiet, an introvert. I was always scared of everything around me, I never spoke up, I never spoke out. Even as a kid I was extremely controlling and a perfectionist. I recently found the letter I wrote to Santa Claus when I was 8- it was TYPED. Yep, no scrawling baby words for me, it was a letter with fully formed sentences and typed out. And I even erased and corrected my typos. I remember the little red plastic typewriter, my mom got it for me when I was about 5 or 6, even back then I was writing stories for myself- most were fantasy and horror. Luckily she saved them, so I have the dated proof that I was a dorky nerd as a child. I was that kid who was always reading, always drawing, always building with Legos.

I liked being alone, I liked playing alone. Even then most of what I engaged in were solo interests. I didn't care to run around with the neighborhood kids, I had no desire to have tea parties or play dolls with other little girls. Or even my sister. I climbed trees, I collected bugs and rocks, I would sit in the driveway and thumb through comic books, I loved stargazing in the backyard. I was a tomboy, but I was also a loner. And I think I was happy as a loner, I don't remember being sad or upset, I wasn't an outcast against my will- I always chose to hang out by myself. The few times I did want to play with other kids, I never had issues with making friends or getting along with others. I wasn't disliked or bullied. As a teen I had friends, dates on Friday nights, played in the marching band, sang in the choir.

It's fair to say my upbringing was happy and normal, that I was happy and normal. There was no trauma, no abuse, I wasn't molested or beaten. My parents didn't drink or party, we went to church but we weren't obsessive about religion. My dad always worked and my mom always stayed home to take care of the house and family. We always had money, we took vacations, we visited family, had birthday parties. We went to the beach, went to the skating rink, swam in the pool, went out for pizza, played little league sports, had fun at the fair or Disney or the movies. I had my own room by the age of ten, filled with a stereo, TV, nice clothes and shoes, toys, a phone. You name something from childhood that was fun, and I probably did it. I graduated high school, went to college, always worked.  My shyness persisted- I wouldn't even order a pizza on the phone- but I came out of my shell with my first office job. I continued to write, paint, draw, read. I lived at home until I was 24, when I met my first husband. I always had a car, lived in a clean home with good food, my parents were very demonstrative with their love and praise, they never shot us down and always supported whatever we wanted to do. I was never arrested, I never got pregnant. Even as a teen, I never drank alcohol, never experimented with drugs or cigarettes- and still haven't. I lived in my hometown until I was 30.

So I can't put a finger on when my life started to take a darker turn as far as the depression. I know I was unhappy with my first husband. He created a world for me that I wasn't used to. He was a drug addict, he was chronically unemployed, he was verbally and emotionally cruel. For years his actions bordered on being physically abusive, until the end where he finally started to lay hands on me in anger. He was the first and only person in my life to make me feel stupid, lazy, unattractive, not worthy. He tore me down. I gave up all my creative outlets. I gained almost 100 pounds when I was with him. I can remember days when I would go into work with no makeup, not having showered. I was always angry back then, defeated, I felt hate for him, for everything. But I never looked at myself in the mirror and said, "Girl, you're depressed." I never thought that I wanted to give up on my life. I spent 13 miserable years with him, but I never wanted to kill myself, I never wanted to disappear, I never felt as though my life was pointless. I was too busy being pissed off and fighting with him to look too deeply at myself.

Once I got away from him, I guess I expected everything would be sweet and bright and shiny and happy. Certainly with J in my life, taking care of me, supporting me, loving me, you would think I could shrug off the stink of my first marriage and move on. But I couldn't. It was then that I started to recognize I was suffering from depression, and it certainly wasn't anything that J did or said. It had nothing to do with him at all. Even though I was immersed in an amazing relationship with a man who adored me, even though I was surrounded by all the comfort money could buy, I was literally at my lowest point not long after we got married. But it absolutely wasn't caused by J or being with J. He was the only good thing in my life.

Have I always been depressed? Was I depressed as a young person who preferred to be alone? Was I actually depressed those years with W? Why did I just start to "feel" the depression once I was snuggled safely with J? Maybe being with J allowed me to relax enough that I could look back on my first marriage and see just how horrible it was, realize just how badly my ex screwed me up. I know depression can be caused by circumstances or trauma. I know depression can be the result of chemical imbalances in the brain. I'm not sure if my first marriage caused my depression or if it was already there, and my ex simply pushed the right buttons. Maybe the ingredients were always there, waiting, fermenting, and W finally lit the fire that cooked it all up into one big messy recipe of sadness and self-hatred and emptiness.

Maybe it's not really so important to know when the depression started or figure out what first triggered it? I know it's there. I just need to figure out how to get beyond it, to live the life I know I deserve.

MISS GEE...

...last week in Mexico...

I Remembered My Password!

Yes, it's been so long since I was on here, I couldn't believe I remembered how to sign on. But here I am. I am having one hell of a week with my depression, and told myself it was time I started back on the blog to sort through my life. I can't seem to keep my written journal going, and I can't seem to be honest in it. I don't know why. I've been meaning to get back to the blog, for so long now. No one reads it, but it's very therapeutic for me, and that's enough. I find myself falling asleep at night, "writing" blog posts in my head. Like, if I get up and blog tomorrow, this is what I want to talk about. I think about finally going to see a therapist, and I have conversations in my mind- what a therapist might ask me, how I would answer it, what they would tell me to work on. Then I convince myself I don't need anyone to listen to me or guide me, because I already know what's wrong and what I need to do to right my ship.

So here I go again, and I'm giving myself the goal of getting on here every week, or at least twice a month. I see people who blog every day, so weekly seems like a goal I can manage. That's one of my major flaws, and one of the most frustrating parts of my depression. I make goals all the time, very small easy goals that most people take for granted, and I can't seem to accomplish them. This week has been one of those weeks, today has REALLY been one of those days. My head hurts, inside and out. The self-hatred and negative thoughts have overwhelmed me and beaten me down. I had been doing well, at least for me. Last week we took a vacation and as it always does, my world crumbles when I get back home.

I don't know what it is about taking a vacation that inevitably pulls the rug out from under my feet. I think mostly it's because J still travels full time for work- it's been 3 1/2 years now of him just being home on weekends- and when we go on vacation together it's a comfort and happiness and safe feeling that I don't normally have in my day to day life. Then we come home, he unpacks the vacation suitcase, packs the work suitcase, and I'm home alone again for the week. We've had four vacations so far this year, with one more on the calendar, and of course J will have time off with the holidays. I feel like my world, my life is split into two parts. Time with J, time on my own. Most of it is time on my own. A little is a good thing, no doubt, but too much of it brings a crushing yet empty weight down on me. J isn't likely to change jobs any time soon. He's been with the company 22 years now, and although he's recently been offered promotions which would mean coming off the road, they all also meant moving again and we just don't want to do that right now.

We talked about this being our forever home. I talked about how I thought moving here would be the "cure" that I needed. Now neither of us is sure about that. We love our house, and our eight acres, but I don't know if we see ourselves here twenty years from now. Maybe not even ten years from now. I thought living here would open up a new existence and new opportunities for me, and although the potential is there, I'm still hiding in the house and not living out in the world. I'm starting to wonder if moving somewhere we were both already so familiar with was a mistake. J was born and raised here. And in the 16 years I've been with J, I'd visited here a lot before we bought this house. Before we even moved here, we already had favorite places to go and things to do. So in a way, although I'd never lived here before, nothing was really new. The only thing new was that I had the ability to go and do and see it all on my own, any time I wanted. Now we both think it would have been better to move somewhere truly new, to explore and discover and be awed with new experiences and new sights.

So much has happened in the last two or three years, it's been a very difficult phase for me. Not just turning 50 a little while back. Moving here to J's hometown and being around his family, sometimes more than I would like. J still traveling full time- the "glamour" of that first year has worn thin. My mom passed away. I'm still struggling with my own health issues, not to mention the depression and paralyzing anxiety. We lost one of our beloved cats, we took a new stray kitten in. The other cats have all either had life-threatening illnesses that required surgeries and long recoveries, and one currently has cancer and is going through treatment. I still fumble around with my pottery, but I can't seem to elevate it to anything more than a money-losing hobby. I am still unbearably overweight and in constant physical pain. I hate being so old and feeling so lost. At my age, I should have the answers already, but I still feel tragically behind the eight ball, all the time.

Well I'm going to keep my normally epic-length posts shorter, so that I will hopefully blog more often. My favorite, newly discovered quote: Never A Failure, Always A Lesson.

MISS GEE