Blogging

Blogging is cool. Won't someone please pay me to do this all day long?
So Blogger has this great 'Stats' page where you can check how many pageviews you're getting, what sites are sending people to your page, and where readers are located. There are no less than 55 Not-So-Blue-Mama readers in Russia. How fuckin cool is that? Other countries include Latvia, France, Canada...it blows my mind. What value can these people possibly be finding here?
Its completely selfish. Bloodletting, nothing more. Purge it. Get it out, so it can't fester inside. If, in the process, I can feed my Narcissism as well, well...all the better! Its cheaper than therapy. It allows my interpersonal relationships some breathing room - I mean, really, who wants to listen to me go on and on about this shit everyday? 55 Russians, that's who!
My family has some concerns. They run pretty far to the phobic side of the technology spectrum. How can I put this stuff out there? What if it costs me a job? custody? What if a reader burgles my home? Geesh. I thought I allowed too many dark imaginings to see the light of the day...
My blog runs on the very longest end of The Long Tail. There is SO much content available - its no longer about trying to appeal to a mass audience. Its about helping your niche audience find you. There's all sorts of tricks of the trade - SEO, posting across different social media platforms...I don't bother with any of it. Hell I don't even tag most of my posts. Google 'Depression and Motherhood' and not-so-blue-mama doesn't even make the first 10 pages of results - though the results are around 60% blogs. With bloggers who are much more attuned to SEO, tagging, etc. than I am...
So, I'm pondering putting some time into this. Tagging my posts. Signing up for other Social Media sites and posting there. Actually trying to improve my Google ranking. Perhaps even getting off Blogger and onto my own URL at some point. You know...work. Of course doing all that only makes sense if I'm going to post consistently which, let's face it, I tend to ebb & flow.
Any advice/success stories/cautionary tales from fellow almost-bloggers? (Cause feedback on not-so-blue-mama is not-so-great)
I imagine it would blogging for me. Can you take what you love to do, turn it into work, and still love it?

Meds

Enough with all this romance, I have a blog about depression to maintain.
What are our thoughts on meds?
I've gone from the die-hard naturalist taking St. John's and refusing 'Profit-ceuticals' to that neighbor that can list every side effect of every SSRI out there - and recommend 2 or 3 good therapists. And I've had layovers at just about every stop in between. And I settled in and called home a place where I would utter things like "I don't understand these depressed people that just 'go off their meds' cause they think they're cured. You're happy? Yeah - its cause they're working..." I grabbed hold of the "if you had diabetes you'd take pills to help" argument and eventually found I'd come to believe that its downright irresponsible to stop medicating yourself.
I can still remember basking in the glow of a therapist's comment, "You really have to be an advocate for your own health, Jeanine - you're very good at that." (i am such a lisa simpson)
I recall a very different conversation in a trusted doctor's office. He eventually said to me, "Jeanine, we can try every anti-depressant out there, you're still going to be in a crappy marriage."
Bbubbubbuuut...I have a disease! I had it long before I was in a crappy marriage and...(Quick: how do you finish this sentence? Does your mind immediately go to:)...I'll have it long after! Cause that's some serious optimism for you. (optimism being in short supply among this crowd)

About a month ago, I travelled for work. Almost a week. Forgot my pills.
Now, out of the blue, my Welbutrin had recently started kicking up a good bit of Anxiety. Very physical - elevated heart rate, nervous stomach - I actually gave up caffeine for a few weeks because I thought that might be the culprit. Solution, of course, was to re-balance: increasing my Zoloft dosage should counter that (those are the only two, btw...don't need a "pill a day" box to hold 'em all yet).
But...I told myself I was in a pretty good place. I felt great even after my week with no meds - new job was amazing, things with my Ex were amiably pleasant, almost, and Guy was...well, pretty fucking perfect. I felt very much...in control, I guess, of my life. For the first time in a really really long time.
So I let it go. A week had already passed, I just...stopped.
And its been about a month.
And I'm feeling pretty good...but, well...pretty terrified, too.
Paranoid - every passing grumpy moment is a red flag. Every dark thought a flashing DANGER sign - SPIRAL COMING. And sometimes its bullshit. And sometimes its not. And figuring out the difference is difficult.

Addendum to Independence Post

This is too good to keep to myself.
Rereading my last post, as I do (due to painfully bloated sense of self), I questioned my contrast of 'needing help' vs. 'weakness'. In double-checking my word choice, as I do (due to painfully bloated sense of self) I thought perhaps 'needing help' might actually be in the definition of 'weakness' and checked the Favorites drop-down for my trusty Dictionary.com. Among the entries there, I found my new favorite definition for 'weakness':

4. An object of special desire; something very hard to resist.
Chocolates were her weakness.

Independance Day has come and gone...

I have a little...problem, we'll say, with depending on others. And in leaving my husband late last year I was pretty sure I'd solved it...after all, if you don't have anyone to depend on, then its not really an issue, is it? Certainly I have friends I rely on for emotional support, and I'd be dead in the water without them. But I like to shovel my own walks, carry my own pack, and change my own oil (once the warranty's up, of course).
Life/The Universe/Cruel Fate have, as is their custom, stepped in to correct this misbehavior on my part. 2-story slide, impending collision with son, foot out to stop it, snap-crackle-pop, ER, crutches and no driving minimum 3 weeks.
Ouch.
Luckily for me I was traveling with Guy. Yes, we're just going to call him that. Protect the innocent.
Poor Guy.
Guy wanted to carry me the 70 yards to the car but do you think I could live with that sort of thing? Hogwash. Just give me your shoulder, Guy, and I'll hop along on my own...(I'm pretty sure it would've been much easier on Guy to just carry me, in hind sight.)
But see that's important right there - did you catch it? My persistent need for independence is completely selfish. It was never about making it easier on him, but entirely about my own stubborn discomfort with needing/accepting help. Hmmmm....
Enter the ER, where Guy, who has spent limited time with the kids - an afternoon or evening here and there - will, for the first time, be in charge of them. And, just for shits and giggles, they were expecting a fun day at the park followed by dinner at Texas Roadhouse (joy of joys). Instead they get the ER waiting room with one toy to fight over and lots of furniture to jump on.
Guy held his own. I, meanwhile, laid in a bed in the ER and cried, not because of the pain (ok maybe a little because of the pain) but mostly because of the complete & utter helplessness. Helplessness, I discovered, makes me angry. Very very angry. I threw a temper tantrum that would put Anna to shame. I can only thank the Hanover ER for the awful wait time which allowed me to have this little breakdown sans audience.
Where does this come from?
A good bit of it probably comes from my marriage, in which I constantly played the role of the one who needs help, the one who can't do it on her own, the one who will fuck it up if she tries. I played this role because I was married to someone who very much needed to be The One Who Is Needed. And he needed that role more than I did, so I acquiesced, mistakenly believing that that was what a good spouse does. So now, with my taste of freedom under my belt, the LAST role I want to play is The One Who Needs Help. Some people aspire to mediocrity, and some have mediocrity thrust upon them...
And there it is, still, this insistence that needing help equals weakness. A friend recently mentioned to me (okay..."posted") that accepting help gives others the opportunity to show kindness, which in turn enriches their lives...I like that. I just need to find someone gimpier than myself to help out...