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...

Questioning...pt. 2

So I spent the last blog post all but congratulating myself on the wisdom behind "Its better to have happy parents living apart than miserable parents living together." This is something I gleaned from my own experience - and as such should be viewed with much skepticism...
Common opinion holds that this is nonsense - feel-good psycho-babble that allows shallow, selfish women such as myself to tear their families limb from limb with a minimum of guilt. If that were true, I must say it doesn't work very well.
I suspect, like most things, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
My father (happily married to his fourth wife - oy) puts it this way: "Fish or cut bait." I take this to mean that, as I proposed in my last post, we have some responsibility to live our lives to their fullest potential. Get busy living or get busy dying. In other words, work to make your marriage a happy one, or get out.
Then it becomes a question of degree. How long do you work? How hard? How do you measure the results? Days without tears or Days with smiles?
I'm stuck there.
Days without tears v. Days with smiles.
I ask myself this question all the time: was it that bad? Was it bad enough to leave? People want an easy explanation. He beat me. He gambled away our life savings. He screwed the babysitter. I don't have that easy answer. My answers are hard, and vague, and subjective.
In a nutshell, for reasons I won't enumerate here out of respect for his privacy, I realized that I could not live my life to its fullest potential and remain in the marriage. I couldn't be the best Mom, the best friend, the best employee or even the best wife while devoting myself to that very unhealthy relationship.
Whether or not is was bad enough to leave, it wasn't good enough to stay.
Days without tears aren't enough.
I need Days with smiles.
Barring that, I need the possibility of Days with smiles in my future. The line, I think, may be when the end game changed. When we both admitted we were biding our time until the kids were older to divorce. When 'growing old together' was no longer a realistic goal for either of us.
I knew that marriage would be challenging - alot of hard work, lots of bad days. I knew I wouldn't always feel appreciated or intellectually stimulated or even loved. But - I never expected to feel so utterly, completely alone. (This is no accusation, it may very well be entirely my fault that my marriage made me feel that way.)
I thought that marriage was about putting someone else before yourself. Wishing & working for their happiness - and all the while they're putting you first, wishing & working for yours. I was so unbelievably naive.
Maybe those partnerships exist, outside of chick-lit and rom-coms. I'm sure I don't know. In my limited experience...people just aren't wired that way. And by people I mean men.
No no - I'm kidding there. Really, as much as I'd like to throw in the towel and give up on the entire gender...I'm just not wired that way.
It may be, though, that I'm not wired for marriage. That I'm too selfish. That the idea that "happy parents" are better for kids than "married parents" really is just a piss-poor excuse for me to go out and seek more Days with smiles.
We put 5 years into marriage counselling, and what we got out of it was the ability to co-habitate and co-parent with a minimum of raised voices. Is it selfish to want more than that out of life? Or is it just selfish to act on that desire? Would it really be...kinder, i guess...to stay, wanting more but knowing you won't have it?
Just what I need. More questions...

Questioning that decision

Let me tell you a little bit about the role Divorce played in my life up until 10 years ago, when I entered into my own marriage contract...
By all accounts (I am the youngest by 8 years, so I've had to rely on my siblings' retelling for much of this) my parents once had a happy marriage. I do recall a lovely home in Mt. Wolf, home-cooked dinners together every night, that sort of thing.
When I was 8 my father moved the entire family to El Paso, TX following a lucrative career opportunity. It also happened to be where his mistress lived, and chaos ensued. My parents separated & reunited a number of times - each one requiring a "fresh start" - and I found myself the new kid at school after school. At least 6 different districts between third and eighth grade - its a bit of blur.
I don't regret any of this one bit, and wouldn't change this family history for the world - its why I start conversations with strangers at the grocery store, why I've been to nearly every state in the country, why I'm good at sales. Its why I love to travel and why I can pack a suitcase like no body's business. Its a huge part of who I am.
The homelife, however, could've been better. I recall alot of slamming doors, broken photo frames, and crying. I was beyond relieved when my parents told me they were getting divorced - I would've been maybe 12 at the time. I loved (love) both my parents very much and it was clear to me that they could not both live happy, fulfilling lives under the same roof. I can remember very clearly the moment when I embraced this lesson: Its better to have happy parents living apart than miserable parents living together. I internalized that almost immediately, and it has informed every decision I've made in my romantic life since that day.
As a child, divorce improved my life immensely. It improved my homelife, my feeling of security in my parents' love...it solidified for me the idea that everyone deserves to be happy, and that they are committing a sin of the highest degree if they don't do everything in their power to make that happen.
Then I got married and had kids.
I had it all figured out. I was NOT going to make the same mistakes my parents did; I was NEVER going to get divorced. I believed that since I knew first hand how much hard work & attention marriage required, I'd be successful at it. I wasn't one of these over-the-moon, starry-eyed brides-to-be you see in the magazines & movies. I was practical.
First and foremost - and I really can't say how conscious this was - I chose a man who I was absolutely certain would never, never cheat on me. Infidelity curse knocked out right there. And I was right; he never did.
Secondly - I didn't fall for that romance bullshit. Don't get me wrong - there were of course warm fuzzies, tender moments - but I chose my best friend.
On my wedding day before the ceremony, my mother pulled me aside to inform me that I didn't "have to do this". Well-meaning, I am sure. My response to her was very deliberate. "Mom, you married for romantic love and look where it got you. I'm marrying my best friend, so we're in it for the long haul." I cannot tell you how many times I've heard those words in my head over these last few months.
I find myself in the unenviable position of questioning that decision every day. Not that I would take it back anyway - the world would've missed out on two incredible children if I had chosen differently. Outside of that, though (always, always outside of that) I wonder: did my marriage veer off course somewhere, or did I choose the wrong road to begin with?

Merry Merry :)

What a difference a day makes...
I had lunch with a dear friend last week, and was busy enumerating all the many reasons this would be an awful Christmas for me (see previous post, if you must). He - very kindly, mind you - interrupted my pity party to offer a shift in perspective. A much-needed one.
His suggestion was along the lines of this: I should welcome this lonely Christmas Eve as an opportunity to celebrate the difficult & invaluable (yet rather expensive!) gift I've given myself this year: the gift of independence. Of standing (or falling) on my own two feet. Of having no one to answer to, no one to blame. Of freedom.
And he's absolutely right. What a year its been. I spent the whole of it struggling with a gut-wrenching decision that would not only change my life, but those of my husband, our children, our extended families and even our friends. An entire year in flux - at work, at home. Unsettled. Until finally I made my choice. And bore down to ride out the consequences.
And you know what? I should celebrate that. It was brave, and honest. And I deserve it.
So, now I'd like to enumerate the many things I'm grateful for this Christmas:

I truly appreciate each and every moment I get to spend with my children, even the tedious ones.

I have an amazing job in which I am the only obstacle standing between me and success.

I have the opportunity to model for both of my children what a strong, independent woman can accomplish on her own.

I answer to...me.

I can try to help my husband - for whom I care very much and wish nothing but good things - adapt to these changes and find his own way to gratitude & happiness.

I have an amazingly intelligent and sensitive son, and he is responding well to having less tension in his homelife.

I have wonderful friends. They offer love, encouragement & support - not pity.

I can provide a home, food, clothing & humble amusement for my children - which in itself makes me 1 in 100 people in this world of ours.

I work with the most supportive & helpful coworkers I ever have.

I love poetry, appreciate the beauty it brings to my life daily, and can instill this appreciation in my children.

I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. I am 5 minutes from the woods but can visit any of 3 major cities as a day trip. I am free from worry about earthquakes, tornados, hurricaines, monsoons, what have you.

I can literally free my daughter from pain with nothing but a kiss. Because she believes in me that much.

I'm confident its going to be an amazing year.

Ho Ho...hum

The need to swallow your wallow and deck the halls is probably THE most depressing thing about the Holidays. Wondering if I should even post...eh...fuck it. Gotta bleed it out, you know? Not like anyone actually reads this shit ;)
So I am having a REALLY hard time looking forward to Christmas. The most obvious trigger is the fact that this is my first Christmas without the kids. I'll see them, of course - at 4:00pm Christmas day. I'll spend Christmas Eve alone in my apartment - most likely with a bottle of red and Law & Order reruns. Difficult to get warm & fuzzy about that.
Trigger #2 - money. I am broke. And yes I understand that its not about the presents and yes I understand that its not a competition. But those facts are little comfort when your kids are opening Dollar General toys (and are old enough to know it). So what do I do? Spend too much money and pay the electric bill late. Great. Just what my newly-seperated credit rating needs.
Trigger #3 - regret. In case I wasn't having a hard enough time holding my head up around the office with my less than stellar sales performance, I decided to be THAT GUY and get loaded at the company Christmas party. Well, 'decided' is probably not the word...I completely lacked even my usual too-late realization that I'm not nearly as entertaining as I think I am. Ouch.
Trigger #4 - Social engagements. Picture it: a Holiday tradition of girls-night-out only with the husbands. 13 couples, me, and an empty place setting next to me. Which actually was not that bad...until the pity vibe set in. Nicest gals in the world and I'm sure its at least 70% in my head. But when I got the wine in the white elephant and NO ONE tried to steal...I knew there was some serious pity going on. Didn't even need the "don't steal that - she needs it more than you do!" comment to realize that I was a downer on the whole damn crowd. Made my exit early.
And I guess that's the theme. I feel....contagious. The need to make my exit early so as not to bring down the rest of the world. Depression is lonely. Depression during the holidays is self-imposed banishment. I'm like a leper. Everyone is hoping for snow, cuddling with their loved ones in front of fires with hot chocolate listening to Bing Crosby. Or so it seems. The last thing they want or need is me and my relentless bitching.
I do not begrudge my friends this hapiness. I wish it for them from the bottom of my heart - even if its beyond me. Its not envy - its not that I want that feeling for myself so much as I hate that I'm not contributing to it for my loved ones.
So, I should make some lame attempt to bring this full circle and provide a positive take-away per my usual blog posts.
Well, for one, its real. I mean, I know the few people who read these have experienced this. Depression doesn't have great timing.
There is one thing I'm looking forward to.
I am an absolute sucker for New Year's. Not New Year's Eve - god knows what hole in the wall will find me 5 whiskeys in and sucking at pool that night - but New Year's Day. I'm the resolution queen and I buy it every time (see post "cycles" for some insight on resolutions).
I'll start with the utterly predictable - I'm gonna exercise. I'm trying to be realistic and start with yoga 3 times a week. Seems reasonable. I'll throw the cardio in when it becomes a well-established habbit.
I'm going to reinstate my previous ban on fast food, which has been relaxed in the face of "eating for one". This will be difficult as Big Macs have suddenly taken on the gleam of cocaine.
Mostly, I'm looking forward to routine. That is what I know I need. Come home. Cook myself dinner. Do some yoga. Go to bed and read. Repeat.
Throw myself into work with utter abandon on the weeks I don't have the kids. This will require my ex to pick up our daughter, which will mean a less-than-pleasant conversation. Oh well.
Be honest with myself. Stop buying my own bullshit. If I were that good a salesman I'd be making more money.
Discipline. Stick to it. See it through. Follow up. Quit scheduling tasks and actually do some.
Oh I do love me some New Year's resolutions. I buy it, too - hook, line & sinker. I love it.
So that's the shooting star I'm currently hanging my hopes on. Its a thin veneer but sometimes that's all that's needed.