and all this time, thought I was in control, but fate she held her own

Friday, 10/13/17, 7:21pm

Oi. Well, yesterday afternoon/evening and today evening have both turned out to be not so good. Honestly, I'd had quite a streak of good days, even longer with only a few "meh" days mixed in, but days since a true depressive episode... it's been like 2.5 weeks. I had to check my mood tracking app- Daylio- to figure out when it was, because I couldn't remember. Oh and since the beginning of September, I'd only been having one bad day at a time. It's been awhile- over a month- since having this happen two days in a row.

Although, I should take a step back. It hasn't been all bad days today and yesterday. Yesterday I had a really good morning/early afternoon with friends, helping one of our friends get ready for a full year of traveling with her family (woah!!), and the bad mood didn't hit until later in the afternoon, after a large argument with the kids. I lost my patience with them, I reneged on our plan to go outside because I felt like they weren't listening to me (big surprise there right, with kids? though at the time I just felt like a complete failure because I haven't done much parenting in awhile- between treatment[s] and lots of depression, etc), then it just felt like a big screaming match with a bunch of crying in between. Finally I gave up, let them watch a show, and hid upstairs in my bedroom to cry more and feel like a terrible parent/person.

This evening isn't nearly as bad as yesterday's big big depressive episode. That hit... hard. Really hard. And it lasted pretty much the entire evening and I only got slightly better before going to bed, although I still wouldn't call it a recovery by any means. And maybe some of it being so bad was the fact that it had been awhile. I was certainly being really hard on myself with the parenting stuff, but it's also hard not to be when I haven't been doing it regularly.

Today during the day was pretty good. Kids had off, as did all their cousins, and we went with most of them to the science museum in Denver, which was fun, but fairly crowded. I actually think I did rather well, parenting wise, today with lots of stubbornness at various points from both kids, but especially from TK. But then at TK's soccer game, I mentioned to Nasser that I think really packed days might not be the best thing for me right now, like I think I'm having trouble handling that and really need more me time during the days. I was feeling more on edge, although not triggered truly yet. What really felt triggering, after dinner, was an argument with Nasser. Obviously, I hate arguing with him, and thinking about it now, after spending time typing away, I feel much more relaxed and think I could probably talk much more calmly about things with him. But before starting the blog tonight, I told him "I'm done, I'm going upstairs."

I am worried though. I'm worried I really can't handle busy days. I'm worried because my next treatment is on Monday, and the doctor had warned to watch out for any major deterioration the 3-4 days before treatment, and now of course I have these bad afternoon/evenings suddenly exactly 3 and 4 days before treatment. I'm worried about Nasser's business trip next Wednesday and Thursday. I'm worried about my parenting skills. I'm worried that the only reason it feels like I've "gotten better" is because I've been so hands off with parenting for so long. I'm worried about my ability to handle anything really, including just generally... my life.

There's all these things I want to improve about me, about my life, about my parenting skills, and really we own a bunch of specific books that address many of these things I want to improve (at least like 4 or 5 or so that have been on my list for some time). And yet I still haven't gotten myself to sit and read. Maybe one issue is I don't really know where to start. And I'm still afraid of my cognitive ability to actually do it. Then I have treatment on Monday and I did notice with my last treatment that I had some of the short term memory loss again in the days surrounding treatment, so I feel like I need to be careful with that as well. It's... hard... really hard. It's hard to not be able to do all the things I want to do, many of the things that I feel would help. I mean there's the whole exercise thing too, right? I'm so completely out of shape right now, that everything I attempt feels really hard and really... just... confidence bursting.

Maybe it seems like I'm just coming up with excuses. And maybe I am doing that because I'm currently in a bit of a hole. It's not like I want to be here. But, sadly, my depression isn't completely gone, despite however much better I have gotten. It's hard to be hit with it again after quite some time, and to feel, I dunno, really shocked by it happening again or something.

If this does last the next two days, then it will be a big thing to talk about with the doctor in terms of treatment frequency. We'll figure it out, and clearly he mentioned it as a possibility, so clearly this is something that happens to people. I shouldn't (and I will try not to) feel bad about this happening. It's just... I hate to feel like we're taking steps backwards. I really don't want that.

I will briefly note that today is Friday the 13th. Unfortunately, it's no longer something I can get excited about in any way over the creepiness or whatever of this day. Adam was killed on a Friday the 13th. So it's forever going to feel sad, bad, and ominous (but real ominous, not silly ominous).

Anyway. I will try to end with some happier things. Some pictures from our museum trip, again with only most of the cousins. The missing two were next door at the zoo, but we didn't end up seeing them at all today. (PS- after writing and adding the below, I do feel a bit better).

Starting with some fun pictures of the five of them outside the museum...

The three youngest cousins, including TK, playing in the space exhibit play area, and walking together, super cute. TK is the youngest of the three, but he is within 5 and 6 months of the other two.

I got a pic of the five cousins plus my sister and brother, all checking out this satellite table that you can move around to different areas, plus zoom in. So we found all our houses on it.

At the Expo for the Denver Rock n Roll Half Marathon (plus other distances but the people I know are doing the half. I'm not doing it- are you crazy??? We were there for my sister and brother to pick up their packets). This is what happens when you tell five kiddos between the ages of 6 and 9 to "pretend to run". They each have a different interpretation of what that means. Super, super cute.

With the Geico Gecko, because of course. They all got these neck gaiters for free at the expo and then wore them the rest of the time because they all thought they looked super cool.

to memory now I can't recall, so fill to me the parting glass, good night and joy be with you all

Tuesday, 09/05/17, 9:47am, 1pm, 5pm (really many additional times in between, like all day, haha)

Well. Today I'm working on it. I'm hanging out at my brother-in-law's house (he works from home) this morning (lately I've been hanging with my parents a lot, since Nasser had to go back to work, but maybe I've already mentioned that? my memory can't handle much, sigh). One nice thing is he does a 2-ish mile walk after walking his boys to school down the street from their house, along with their pet dog. But, woah, they walk a bit faster than I'm used to. Definitely good for me though. It's nice being here today because there's no expectations of being social with others, haha. And I think I need some of that.

We're back, from the walk now, and I had some more coffee, with a fabulous, and perfectly appropriate for me, for today, mug.

Isn't that just lovely????

I'm feeling a bit, I dunno, determined to feel better today. Other than the walk, I'm keeping things fairly low-expectations and low-energy and low-social or whatever for today. I'm spending time on my Chromebook, blogging, planning to do some reading, I have some intentions of catching up a little on my "blog title/ song lyrics" spreadsheet. Did I ever tell you I have a spreadsheet for keeping track of those blog titles that are song lyrics, you know so I don't repeat them or something? Cause, yeah, I am a bit of a nerd, which is fine by me. But I also figure, catching up on that spreadsheet, which I haven't been good about keeping up with for a long, long time, might be kinda good for going back and looking over some older blog posts. I've re-read a few older ones in the last day or two, and it's kinda therapeutic in some respects.

I have treatment tomorrow, it feels like finally. And it'll only have been nine days since the previous treatment. That's not that long, and I feel a bit like a failure in having so much trouble getting through until the next one. I know it's not really a reflection on me, but I can't seem to stop myself from thinking like that, ugh. So frustrating. Cause that's the thing, depression and anxiety are mental illnesses. Illnesses. ILLNESSES. Like seriously, an illness is NOT a reflection on somebody, mental or physical. And yet, a lot of people with mental illnesses, as well as a lot of the people in the world who don't have any mental illness, just maybe know people who do, have this stupid effing stigma about it and think that to some extent it's our fault. Blech. BLECH.

I don't really want to talk a whole bunch about stigma today. That can often just put me into a crappy mood. No thank you.

I know I've talked some about my brain, and the short-term memory stuff, and the cognitive side effects, of you know, the regular seizures I've been having with this electro-convulsive therapy. But just a little more about it. Last night, I had trouble trying to read a book, a kids book, mind you, to TK before bed. Like I was stumbling over the words and couldn't handle more than a page or two. Maybe it was partially the reading aloud aspect, but it felt a bit like my brain just couldn't handle it. And that was kinda tough for me to accept. Then this morning, Nasser and I were talking a little about therapy, and how I haven't had it in a long time. Then he remembered, oh yeah, the last appointment, you had some trouble with not having remembered the previous appointment, and we decided to wait a bit until your brain was doing better. Which I didn't really quite remember, so yeah, another short-term memory thing. We decided I'm doing a bit better, cognitively and memory-wise, lately, that it may be worth scheduling another appointment. But then I had some trouble remembering my therapist's name... OH... MY... GOSH. I remembered it but I kinda questioningly said it to Nasser so he could confirm I had remembered it correctly. I still didn't remember her last name, although when I found her in my email and saw it, it made sense at least. Man though. It is not totally easy having all this brain trouble and memory trouble. I just keep reminding myself, these are side effects, known side effects, it's ok. You'll get through it, Alisa. You will. And someday, eventually, I will be done with ECT treatment, someday. And there's still the possibility that a lot of those lost memories will come back, with help. So I've been frustrated lately that I can't remember having seen Wonder Woman in the theater with Nasser, which I apparently really enjoyed too. It helped when my brother-in-law told me, "what are you talking about? that's a good thing- you get to see it in the theater, again, but for the first time all over again!" Hahaha, true. At least that works with the movie, but it certainly doesn't work with all the experiences I forget, sigh.

I have to say, I'm kinda surprised with how much more I've been blogging more recently. For a large portion of the ECT treatment, certainly the acute phase, I had no interest in blogging. It definitely felt too difficult for a lot of the time. I suppose it's a sign my brain is getting better that I'm blogging more, and successfully finishing posts and not just leaving them as drafts that I never look at again. But maybe there's also an aspect of me getting better with the interest in sharing more? I mean, not necessarily, since I've shared plenty when I've not been doing well at all. So who knows.

I also can't figure out if I'm sleeping better with the CPAP. I mean, yes, I think I probably am, most of the time, at least. But I'm also waking up a lot more, it seems, and I'm often having some trouble getting comfortable. Like, I'm kinda trying to sleep on my back more, since that puts the least amount of pressure on my nose with the mask. And when I am sleeping on my side, I'm trying to, like, angle my face outward more to, again, put less pressure on my nose. And the last few nights, both with the new mask I got on Friday and these sleep techniques I've been trying, I haven't been getting the weird bruise on the bridge of my nose. And that makes me feel a bit better about it. I've also, I think, been dreaming more. I'm not sure if it's an effect of the CPAP; I was thinking it could be that I'm simply remembering my dreams more because I seem to be waking up a lot throughout the night. Most of the time I'm able to fall asleep again quickly; sometimes I need a quick trip to the backroom, or a sip of water, or an adjustment to the mask or something. But a couple times, maybe literally twice so far, I've woken up and been awake for about an hour or so. And some of it could be the anxiety I'm getting from the "OMG, I'm awake and I feel totally awake and I'm never going to get back to sleep." But, whatever it is, it's frustrating. I hope that stops happening soon. The first time it happened was at 4am Saturday morning, so I suppose that could have contributed to the depression this weekend, but then the second time was last night at 11pm, and I ended up waking Nasser up for some melatonin, which got me back to sleep and I slept well until like 6:45am this morning (which is on the late side for me!).

You know, sorta a side note, I'm on this 24-7 supervision requirement thing, right? I don't know what you all assume about what that means. So I'm going to explain just a little. So it means I need to be within supervision of another adult at all times. So, like, I can't leave the house and do a walk on my own, I can't walk from our house to a neighbors' house to go under the care of someone else, like Nasser would have to walk me directly to the other person. I can't get myself my own medications, right, so like, Nasser has to get me my daily medications every evening. Whoever I'm in the care of on a treatment day has to give me my pain medications, between normal advil/ibuprofen and tylenol/acetaminophen and the special strong stuff I get through the ECT Docs (the one they only provide a Rx for qty 6 each time, and sometimes the headache is bad enough I take the max allowable of 3. during the acute phase, Nasser would have to get a new Rx after dropping me off for treatment each Mon/Wed/Fri and go get it filled during my treatment so that we'd have it for the rest of the day. but that's a different story). Let's see, I can't walk the kids to the bus in the mornings or pick them up on my own in the afternoon; oh and with the morning bus walk, Nasser can't walk them on his own, I have to go along so that I'm still in his care. I'm not allowed to drive, which means I have not driven since the middle-ish of June. So weird. Someday, whenever treatments are far enough apart, and maybe there's some amount of checking that my cognitive and memory abilities are back to normal enough, I'll be off the 24-7 supervision requirement and I'll be able to drive again. I'll still need to be in someone's care and won't be able to drive on treatment days, but just for that day alone. Man, that'll be something else. And, I feel like I've explained this before, but, you know, I don't quite remember, we're working towards the true maintenance phase of treatment, where I go in once every 3 to 5 or 6 weeks, and we continue that for a good 6 to 12 months beyond the acute phase. So I'm still in for a lot more seizures, really, heh.

My brother-in-law and I were discussing, while getting ourselves some lunch, mental healthcare and how, like, imprecise it all is. Like he was asking about my treatment and whether it's more experimental or what. And it's funny. So, electro-convulsive therapy (this is worth reading if you don't know that much about my treatment) has been around, in some fashion, since the 1930s (I had estimated for 50 or 60 years, I guess I was a little off). Of course, it's changed, a LOT, since it first started; if you've heard the term "electric-shock therapy", that's what it used to be. But since it's been around for so long, I'd say they know decently well what they're doing. The idea of that maintenance phase for treatment is all based on data, it's used because that's when they get the best results. But then I brought up this other part. Every time I go in for treatment, I have this double-sided questionnaire to fill out, kinda about how I've been doing for the last 2 weeks. So there's questions about how I'm sleeping, about my eating, various ways to kinda rate my depression and anxiety, there's at least one question on there about how much I've thought about suicide. But the thing is, over the course of my depression, I've filled out several versions of this form with various doctors and treatments. And even, a few weeks or so into my ECT treatment, they switched the form they're using. I would expect, although I don't know for sure, that different ECT doctors use different versions of these forms. And when I get rolled into the treatment room each time, right before they put me under, I talk briefly with my doctor, about the form, and about how I'm doing, we decide when to schedule the next treatment. Really, the course of treatment and all that, and this is true with just about any treatment for a mental illness, like determining how well a medication is working, is all based on the conversation between the patient and the doctor. Right? Like there isn't a very concise, non-biased method for determining how well the patient is doing. You can't draw someone's blood and have that tell you, oh this person has had x number of anxiety or depressive episodes this week, therefore, we need to up this medication by this much, or whatever. It's not that simple, ever, with mental illness. And maybe that's part of the reason that stupid, effing stigma pops up all the time. I mean, really, I think psychiatric care has come a long, LONG way over the years, but I hope it continues to improve. Because the "talking about it" aspect of mental healthcare makes it more difficult, more complicated, maybe easier to screw up.

Anyway, since writing all the rest, I've had a stressful afternoon with my kiddos, and the family has made plans to get together for dinner tonight to celebrate my brother's birthday, which sounds nice, but it is a social thing, which hopefully will be ok for me. I think it will be, and again, I have treatment tomorrow, which I'm feeling quite good about now that it's evening.

"there must be some way out of here" said the joker to the thief. "there's too much confusion", I can't get no relief

Saturday, 05/06/17, 7:31am

Hi blog. It's been awhile. It feels like a long while.

I haven't wanted to blog the last several weeks because it doesn't feel like there's much new to share. I mean I suppose there is, psychiatric care speaking, but my mood has been down for a long time now. I suppose this is what you'd call, medically, a major depressive episode. It's lasted for a month and a half or so now, with very little relief.

It's been hard. And discouraging.

I've been on ketamine for about 3.5 weeks now, with little to show for it. We added a new antidepressant a week after starting the ketamine, but I guess we wouldn't expect much from that for a couple more weeks. Last week, Nasser and I met with another new doctor, to get the conversations started about ECT (remember, electro-convulsive therapy?). So, yeah. The current plan is to get ECT started next month. The reason we're waiting to start it, well, I suppose there's a few reasons. We have a trip planned at the beginning of June, with my family, to Alaska. And if we started ECT now, the treatment would still be going on then and I wouldn't be able to go. As of now, I'm still not willing to give up Alaska. Additionally, I had a sleep study consult scheduled this past week, and we want to get all that figured out. I'm not sure if I ever shared about this. Earlier this year, I did a nocturnal oximetry study, which is simply a test to measure the oxygen levels in my blood throughout the night. I did the study at home, with just a pulse oximeter on my finger. The test was basically inconclusive, but I did have a really weird event that night, around 2am, when my oxygen levels dropped to around 85% suddenly. And it took awhile to recover. Plus my levels, in general, had a lot of ups and downs. They weren't necessarily indicative of sleep apnea, but we do suspect that. I've always snored, and Nasser has noticed at various points in our marriage, times where I seem to stop breathing briefly. So, of course, if I do have sleep apnea, that could be a contributing factor to the depression. I'm scheduled to pick up all the equipment for a full at home study next Thursday, and I'll be doing 2 nights of it.

The other reason to wait to start ECT, is I do want to see how this new antidepressant goes. We know that TMS could have changed my brain chemistry to make me more receptive to antidepressants, so there's some hope. But then again, I feel like I haven't had much hope in quite some time. And even despite the good odds with ECT, I'm not feeling hopeful about that either. It sucks.

I've been trying some deep breathing practice, coloring, reading, distraction methods, getting help from friends and from Nasser. And I feel like nothing works. I feel defeated, discouraged, and I'm scared that I will never find relief again in my life.

I hate to cut off this blog post so quickly, with so little hope in here, but then sharing about how much I think my life sucks right now also doesn't feel helpful. I guess it's back to some distraction methods after this.

how many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand?

Monday, 02/13/17, 10:07am, 1:11pm

Hello my dear blog. It's been a very long time.

It's been so long I think I've felt especially nervous and unsure about what to come back with. I haven't felt much like blogging in so long, that it's felt that no topic is deserving of blogging.

Well that's just silly. There are plenty of things to blog about, to continue to blog about, when it comes to mental health. A topic that continually evolves, for the world, in our communities, and individually.

The last many weeks have been long. Many of them, many of the days, I've just felt, I don't know, like I'm underwater, in a fog, in a hole. I date my depressive episode here from around Christmas time, when I came off antidepressants completely to try a different bipolar medication (the one that maybe gave me that potentially deadly rash). There've been some ups for sure, plenty of functioning I guess, but a lot of depression, much a deep, dark depression, with a plethora of anxiety to top it all off. It's been really hard, and I think it was too much to share openly on the blog while it was happening. I say "was" because honestly, the last week has been slightly better. One of the difficult side effects of the depressive episode has been the fatigue. Complete, utter fatigue and lack of energy. It's been nearly impossible to stay up past 9pm most nights, or even simply beyond kids going to bed, and we figured out it could have been worsened by one of the leftover medications I'm still on. There are 2, neither of which are antidepressants. One is an anti-psychotic which had been paired with the antidepressants, but we kept me on it since we don't know if I'll be worsened by going off it. The other is an anti-seizure medication which has been shown to help with anxiety. So we weaned me off the anti-seizure med, and suddenly I have more energy. I still don't feel normal by any means, but once in awhile I stay up until 10 or 10:30pm now.

It was good timing to wean off that med since we just had a ski weekend in Crested Butte with family and friends. I certainly needed the extra energy even if it wasn't enough to ski full days, or stay up very late with our friends. The depression still crept in a couple points, as it just does these days, but we kept it at bay, at least until the drive home yesterday.

Here's my best family photo of the weekend. Our attempt at a selfie, minutes after the paid photographer offered to take a photo for us. I did not manage to take a whole lot of photos from the trip.

But yeah, I did the pigtail braid thing...

And this was the view from our condos... a ski in/ski out place. :)

So this Thursday I have my motor threshold appointment for the TMS treatment which starts next Monday, a week from today. This whole process has felt like such a long time coming, and really it kinda has been. But it's here. So motor threshold is interesting. That will be my first experience with the magnet, and they'll be positioning it on my head to find the location where they can twitch my right thumb. That will determine the precise location, some exact number of centimeters forward from that point or something, where they'll be delivering treatment.

Man, it feels surreal to be talking about this treatment as something that's actually going to happen to me. Like it still feels like I'm talking about someone else.

And this treatment has few risks, little to any discomfort, and likely positive outcomes, and yet, I'm awfully scared still. I guess I'm just scared it won't work. That nothing will change, that I won't start feeling better. And I'm still doing the cautious hopefulness thing here, trying not to get carried away, banking on something that may not do anything. But I am hoping. And I'm excited that it's almost here.

I will try to blog more often through treatment. I want to. I want to try and document it to some extent because it may be a somewhat unique perspective out there, but I'm also going to be continuing to take things a little easier. I've been letting go expectations for quite some time now, and it's been helping, but it's still challenging for me to do. I still beat myself up for not cooking dinner very often, for not feeling well enough to do a lot of normal things, for not feeling up to social stuff, for not being a better mom while I feel awful about myself. But everything has taken second place to the depression for awhile now, too long, and I'm looking forward to hopefully feeling a bit better finally.

teach your parents well... and feed them on your dreams

Tuesday, 08/23/16, 11:24am

I've gone back and forth on what exactly is my diagnosis. To be honest, I've never truly had a doctor independently diagnose me. I've always come to them and said, I have depression. A lot of the diagnosis is self assessment anyway. It really makes mental healthcare confusing.

I suppose in most cases, people present fairly clearly as having depression, or schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder, or obsessive-compulsive disorder, or anxiety, or alcoholism. But when you have multiple things going on and a variety of symptoms, everything gets a little murky.

I know that I often exhibit signs of depression as well as anxiety, although probably with fewer occurrences of anxiety. I spent some time reading definitions in Wikipedia and WebMD about these, but haven't felt all too satisfied with how everything is categorized. Even reading technical definitions of what is categorized as a "depressive episode" is a bit triggering.

I need to stop here and correct something that I've been writing for some time. I've been referring to "depressive episodes" for quite some time, here, here, and here, for example, but I've had the technical definition wrong. For me, what I've been calling depressive episodes, I'm going to start referring to as depressive breakdowns. For me, it's any time where I have debilitating feelings of worthlessness types of feelings which prevent me from being the person I want to be. Sometimes these events can affect me for half an hour and then I can recover (but that's rare and I think some of those times are the start of anxiety attacks, with some crying to relieve the buildup of stress). But sometimes these events affect me for an evening or a whole day or several days.

Here's the actual definition of a depressive episode, courtesy of WebMD:

An episode of depression involves feeling sad or blue, or getting no pleasure from life, plus at least five or more of these additional symptoms most of the day -- nearly every day -- for two weeks or longer:

Symptoms of depression:

• Loss of energy
• Feelings of guilt, hopelessness, or worthlessness
• Loss of interest or enjoyment from things that were once pleasurable
• Difficulty concentrating
• Low energy
• Feeling physically or mentally sluggish or restless and agitated
• Increased need for sleep or inability to sleep (insomnia)
• Change in appetite causing weight loss or gain
• Thoughts of death or suicide or attempting suicide

My therapist pulled out the DSM definition yesterday so we could discuss it together. I certainly present many of these signs when I'm feeling depressed, and some often, but I don't really meet that time criteria
regularly. So I suppose I don't really have chronic major depression. But maybe chronic depression (without the major) is more correct? That doesn't seem to be a true scientific term.

It's probably another discussion I should have with my psychiatrist.

Regardless, whether or not I have major depression or minor depression or some anxiety, a lot of the treatment is the same. It makes sense for me to be on an anti-depressant and to have some anti-anxiety medication for when it's needed, and it makes sense to be seeing a therapist regularly to work on cognitive behavioral therapy because that's been shown to help with both depression and anxiety, and it makes sense to be practicing mindfulness and exercising because again they help with both.

So does the exact diagnosis matter? No, but I do apologize for messing up the verbiage I use sometimes. I will try to start referring to depressive episodes correctly and will start to use my own non-scientific terms perhaps.

Today I ran for just under a mile with my littlest running buddy, TK. He started kindergarten but only goes every other day (for 2.5 days of each week), so he is home today.

We also prepped apples together and there is some applesauce cooking in the crockpot. (As much as it looks like he is about to cut off his fingers here, there were no casualties. And at least it's a special kid knife that's not nearly as sharp as our regular ones).

And since I'm on a picture kick, we have some nice ones of the first day of school yesterday, both before,

and after school.

2.5ish more hours until we get RG from the bus. Gotta be done with the blog and get moving on lunch, maybe some puzzles and practicing the alphabet, and perhaps a shower.

and I'll try, oh Lord I'll try, to carry on

Thursday, 08/11/16, 9:41am

Sometimes I question my choice to be so open about my depression. It's not an easy thing to do, and although I write a lot about my struggles, doing so doesn't feel easy in a lot of ways. I guess it feels easy to write about it. To just let the words rush out of me, putting all those thoughts down, and I don't really consider the aspect of people will read my words. When I'm talking about my depression in person though, it's easy for me to "lose my cool", my teeth chatter out of nervousness, and sometimes I break down in tears. Something about writing makes it so much easier for me.

I do get a lot of really supportive and appreciative feedback on the blog. I now have a lot more people in my life who have opened up to me about their own struggles, and many of them feel a sense of connection, of comfort, of support in reading about my life. I hope that is the case for all my readers. And I hope that with my words, I can give many people a better understanding of mental illness and break down some of the stigmas.

Despite all the good support, I notice the ones who "ignore" it all, choose not to respond (for whatever reason) when I do share, and sometimes I get "support" and advice from people who mean well, but don't really get depression. I don't say this to discourage others from sharing what works for them, etc, because when framed that way, it can do a lot of good.

For some background, I was in a bad place yesterday and I decided to reach out on facebook for support. Perhaps it was a bit more negative than most facebook posts and it sounded pretty desperate, but you also have to know I felt pretty desperate at the time. And I wanted to put it out there honestly, without any of the cutesy facebook things to downplay what I was going through.

I did get a lot of great support. In the form of facebook responses, likes/reactions, texts, phones calls, facebook messages, and emails.

But I felt some real pain from one attempt at support yesterday. And it put a damper on everything, and that's probably a reason that I don't make a good, tough person to be blogging and putting myself out there. I don't deal with criticism well, and I never have. But when that criticism comes in the form of "stop feeling sorry for yourself", I do lose my cool.

I don't want to go into much detail, and I still owe it to that person to explain why it doesn't help, but to me that's Depression 101. You don't ever tell someone with depression to "snap out of it", "stop feeling sorry for yourself", "just think positively". I get that people mean well, but before you go giving advice for an illness you clearly don't understand, read up on it.

I found this article about supporting someone with depression and thought it was really good.

She states at one point:

My depression is well-managed, and I still have very bad days. But even on my good days, I spend a lot of time and energy managing my mood, my sleep, my diet, my activity level, and my relationships so that I can continue to function.

This so rings true for me.

Depression is an illness of the brain. It is real, even if you don't always see it. It is a struggle, sometimes constant, and it often requires medical and/or therapeutic treatment, as well as a strong support network.

So I posted something super negative on facebook. I was in a place where I was already getting a lot of support- from family and Nasser, I had blogged, I had tried coping mechanisms at home. I had had therapy earlier that morning. And I was still in a really bad place. Maybe you think I should have taken myself to the hospital, but based on my previous experience, I have no interest in going back there. Maybe it's good for getting out of "crisis" mode, but for me, the hospital doesn't help much long term. One of the great reasons to be in a psychiatric hospital is to have the safe, controlled environment in which you can find medication that works. For me, with depression, that wouldn't work so easily. Antidepressants usually take 4-6weeks to kick in, so that would put me in the hospital for a long time. The trauma of that "failure" (the way I would think about that, being in a hospital for months at a time) would have such negative effects on me that it wouldn't be worth it. We all remember that I consider myself a failure because I couldn't nurse RG... even though I exclusively pumped breastmilk for a whole year. How stupid and irrational is my thinking sometimes, right? And yet, I always see both sides of the coin. I see those emotional, negative thoughts and my rational side knows that those thoughts are ridiculous. But when I'm in a depressive episode, it's very difficult for my rational side to show itself, at all.

I am doing better today. Recovering from the vulnerability hangover of having shared so openly and honestly yesterday. I am recovering from the painful and ignorant advice I was given yesterday. I am recovering from the shame and embarrassment of having shared, of having required so much support. And I'm trying to be kind to myself and remind myself that there is no shame in reaching out for help.

Here I am today, working at being better.

no alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)

Wednesday, 08/10/16, 8:53am

I'm a wreck. I was a bit of a wreck last night, and I'm a wreck this morning. I'm supposed to do a bunch of things today, including go to a therapy appointment, and all I want to do is crawl back in bed and sob until I become too exhausted to stay awake any longer. I want to hide from my life and responsibilities.

I don't know what I'm doing with my life. It's been a long time since I've felt really productive or successful in my life, even with regards to the kids. Nasser mentioned this morning that maybe it makes sense to go back to working (although I felt the statement came across more judgy and frustrated with my depression) and that just triggered me into the feelings of I am a failure as a mom. His statements of you're not alone with my feelings then made me go into the if I'm not alone with these challenges in parenting, why am I the only one falling apart?

I feel like a failure at my life. And I can't seem to find the motivation to be better at my life and feel less like a failure.

Probably getting help from my sister today which should help, despite any further feelings of failure that I need to be saved today. Somehow I need to fight those feelings, but it's so hard to give in to outside help sometimes.

I'm not functioning too well on my own, this summer, maybe all year, or maybe since the depression first manifested. It's not clear whether or not the various medications I've been on actually do much. So we've decided to start considering other treatment options. Of course due to the nature of this illness, that requires discussing with all my doctors, figuring out what to do with the variable of the birth control medication that doesn't seem to be working anyway. It likely requires weaning off the medications I'm currently on, and trying out new ones, a process that I'm truly terrified of. It requires real vigilance on my part to track my moods and figure out whether or not I'm better when we change something.

As Nasser said last night, there's no good measure of how well an antidepressant works. It's all dependent on how the patient feels. God, mental illness sucks so much and the treatment is so incredibly complicated to figure out and needs to be even more personalized than it currently is. I have no idea if we'll get there in my lifetime, but sometimes I feel like my life depends upon it.

Please give me strength and patience and motivation today in your thoughts and prayers.

think about direction, wonder why you haven't before

Thursday, 08/04/16, 10:33am

I am doing better today. Yesterday, although it went mostly well, was still more of a recovery day. Sometimes my episodes can require a full day to really recover.

I've kinda mentioned it before, but my treatment needs some work. I am going to therapy much more often than I had been. I'd really been pushing the time between appointments, some based on travel, some based on expense because our health insurance changed significantly this past year, some based on "I felt that I should be". I do this with therapy appointments and psychiatric appointments and it's not entirely a conscious choice that I make. It almost happens automatically. But now I'm consciously trying to stop that and making the therapy appointments at least weekly.

I've mentioned before, but I've started tracking my mood. Yesterday after discussing some ideas with my therapist and my sister, I created a Google Form for myself. It's a quick series of questions to gauge my mood as well as gather data on the circumstances (menstrual cycle, medications, exercise, etc). I can input a response on the form as often as I'd like, but this time, I'm not going to look at the data until I have a good amount of it. Looking at the tracker app on my phone has made me feel even more down, just seeing what feels like often low points.

I'm such a nerd. But I'm totally in love with this idea of tracking, gathering hard data with my illness to help improve my treatment.

Nasser has been researching the various medications out there for treating depression and anxiety, ongoing clinical trials, understanding more about "treatment resistant depression" and wondering if I have that. Because I've truly been wondering, am I really that different when I'm not on medication? Now, you may point out, I had a bit of a depression rut earlier this summer when I missed a third of one of my medications for about a week or so. But there were other things going on which may or may not have played a part as well.

I think that I probably need to be on medication, but I'm definitely wondering whether or not I'm on the right ones.

Let's talk about periods for a second. Skip the last paragraph if you can't handle it, although if you can't handle it, I'd invite you to push yourself out of that comfort zone and try to normalize menstrual cycles a little more. If you haven't read my rant on that, see here.

So the latest on my quest for hormone balance through my menstrual cycle is I'm on a high estrogen, some progesterone birth control pill (the second pill I'm trying), and so far, my body doesn't seem to want to follow the regulated cycle. What does that mean? I don't get my period when I'm supposed to on this pill. It's supposed to be during the placebo week, the last week of the pack. Mine comes a good week early, and it's lasting longer than my period used to without a pill. Sigh. I've decided to stay on this pill for a full 3 months to see if my body will take to it, but if it doesn't, I'm thinking of giving up this quest of finding the right birth control pill. Unless I find the right doctor to support me there. Seems like it might be difficult to find an ob/gyn who would be willing to work closely with me and my psychiatrist to figure out the right hormones for me.

like a hurt, lost and blinded fool, fool

Wednesday, 08/03/16, 8:55am

I probably should have blogged last night. I was in a bit of a depressive episode, brought on by a fight with the kids and social anxiety. But I felt a little too lost and alone to blog. Strange to say that considering I usually turn to my blog when I feel lost and alone. But something about the widely sharing aspect of my blog has made me less likely to turn to it lately.

I don't want that to be the case. I don't want to feel afraid to blog or afraid to be totally and brutally honest. Because really that's what my blog has been about since day 1, being totally and brutally honest about my struggles with depression and anxiety.

Well despite my inability to blog last night, I'll still strive to be honest today.

I've been tracking my moods more with an app on my phone. It has the capability to graph the results which is what I consider to be the most useful part. So far I haven't felt good about the results in the last several days. It feels like I'm more down than either I expected or used to be or something. That in turn feels like a failure to me. Depression and anxiety episodes typically feel that way for me. I get triggered by something in my life, but then I spiral downward because I feel guilt and shame over my thoughts and feelings.

Of course, last night, I had the intention of going to see the movie "Bad Moms" with some friends. So when I was crippled by my anxiety and depression, I felt further guilt and shame over backing out on something. And not doing what would have maybe been better for me in the long term.

One of my friends in that group has really stressed to me several times about how this group is a safe place and I can come in whatever state I'm in. And I get that and agree with it, when I'm in a better state. When I'm in that lowest of lows though, hiding from all people seems like what I need most. And maybe that's mostly the stigma of the mental illness that I still have. Despite being honest in blog form, it's still really really hard to show up and be honest in person.

I do think my depression has been harder to handle as of late. It feels like it's been more out of control this summer, and I know that some of it has to do with the grief over Adam, which has felt different and complicated and so so painful due to the nature of his death and his illness. My mother-in-law has said that it's been hard lately to think about him in the happy times, and she keeps going over the bad times with his illness. That makes his death so complicated for the grief. It's not that the grief is harder necessarily than other deaths and grief, but the nature of it all makes it "complicated". My therapist helped me to accept that and be less hard on myself soon after Adam died. Accepting the complicated part is what I mean, not accepting his death. I'm not in the acceptance phase yet of grief.

I've found that the stages of grief can be really messy and complicated. You can bounce between them at different times and they don't seem to happen chronologically. Maybe some people go through the stages chronologically, but I have a feeling that it's messy with most difficult deaths.

I can't spend too much time in the blog on Adam today, right now that feels more painful and harder to improve my mood for today. Today, it's more dangerous for me to focus on him. Of course, knowing that, I feel shame over pushing away the grief.

Trying not to spiral downward though.

I do think that tracking my mood right now is going to really help in my treatment. I think that I often sugarcoat things with my doctor, sometimes with my therapist too, and I need to be fully honest to get the right treatment. And it's not like I try to lie about how things are with them. If I'm in a good state when I go to an appointment, I feel like I've mostly been doing pretty well, and if I'm in a bad state, then I mostly feel like that's my life all the time. I get a pretty warped view of things depending on my state of being.

Tracking my mood, that's one way to help.

Blogging, that helps, but it's less concrete in looking back to see how I've been doing. Plus it would take a bit of work to go through old posts and try to figure out how often I was in an episode. Plus it's not like I blog all the time. Blogging captures a subset.

I know I've been vague in some respects about my depression and anxiety and grief today, etc, but that's about all I can handle with blogging right now.

Today I need to focus on being "ok" and pushing away the guilt and shame over how I felt yesterday and lately.

up and down, and in the end it's only round and round and round

Friday, 07/29/16, 9:31am

I'm doing better than I was yesterday and the day before. I did get a short run in yesterday afternoon while the boys were on their bikes. Might be aiming for that again today. Maybe we'll have a dance party with some 80's music too. Those things help me.

Yesterday, despite having a really successful afternoon with the boys (with the aforesaid running/biking as well as some mini-pool time), I was never fully recovered. OK, I have to take a second to share some pictures and videos of the afternoon.

I relaxed in a camping chair, with some cold water, while the boys set up a water slide

Still wasn't perfectly easy to function, but I was trying my damnedest

We had to make some repairs prior to filling up the pool, as well as during. 

As of this morning, the pool is still about halfway full so I guess we did a good job!

They had fun, and that helped my mood more than anything else. It was fun, it was enriching fun, which maybe Minecraft is in its own way. Nasser recently found some data showing that video games, where they require creativity and imagination, are more enriching to children than television shows. (I would normally now link to the article explaining this, because I think backing up what you say is very important, however, I can't find that exact study at the moment. Will post in comments if I ever come across it.) I'm finding that there really are a lot of benefits to video games, in both what I read as well as what I see in my kids. They play Minecraft together, cooperatively. They learn to play cooperatively in larger groups when they play Minecraft with friends and family. They often play with Nasser, which I think is a key benefit. It is time spent together, they talk most of the time about what they're doing and strategies, and Nasser can help guide them to keep it beneficial.

And it's not like they spend all their time playing video games. They are often playing, however, when I'm blogging. Or showering. This summer, I've allowed it more than I would like to in the long term. However, 1. it is summer and I do believe that enjoyment of the summer is important. 2. Their uncle died at the beginning of the summer. We're still dealing with that and recovering from it. I don't feel that I need to justify myself further. And I'm not really justifying to you, the reader. Perhaps to some extent. But I'm also justifying to myself. Because I carry a lot of guilt and shame over the amount of screen time they get sometimes.

Being in a depressive episode, like I was yesterday, I definitely allow more screens. Because I want to hide upstairs and not have the kids try to find me and demand things from me. I don't want them seeing me when I'm sobbing over the thoughts that are going through my head.

Yesterday I put out a slight plea to facebook for some love. Just a little "can I have some virtual hugs today?" kind of thing. Many many of my friends and family responded with love. It was nice and it was something that helped yesterday. It didn't make me totally recovered, other people really don't have that affect when I'm truly depressed, but it helped. I said the other day that I felt like I was in a deep hole and couldn't see which way was up. It was like that most of the day yesterday.

Honestly, I had one big goal yesterday, and that was keeping the suicidal, totally hopeless and helpless thoughts away. I succeeded, without the need for Nasser coming home or someone coming over and taking over care for the kids. Because, yeah, some days, those thoughts are right below the surface, and if I'm not careful, they will consume me. I don't write this to scare anyone, and I hope it doesn't (please remember right now I'm doing rather well and not depressed in any way). I write it to share what I think is actually somewhat common with major depression. Maybe? For me, it's not that uncommon, to at least fall into the hopeless thoughts, for when I'm in a depressive episode. It's not how I feel all the time, and I do think that I have more good, happy moments in my life, than depressed.

I am starting up some mood tracking again. I think that I unofficially do it with the blog, since I'm often writing and I often write about my mood. :) But I wanted something where I could easily graph the results and get an idea of the overall trend. It's something I plan to show my doctor once I have some data to say, do we still think I'm doing the right things or am I worse than we thought? I've only tracked a handful of times, although I did track several times yesterday. The entry for today is just about the opposite of yesterday's.

We're keeping today fairly low key again. Although we might make a trip to Target for some groceries, as well as some shopping with some gift cards the boys received for their birthdays.

Lots of love to all my readers. I hope today is fine for you, as I hope it will be for me.

you walk a lonely road

Thursday, 07/28/16, 8:52am

I'm blogging again this morning, because apparently that's what I do when I feel this way.

I'm in a depressive rut again I think. I've been kinda almost there for the past several days, since returning from San Diego. Part of it is probably my period. My period which won't follow the birth control medication I'm on which is meant to help my mood. Maybe I should just get everything down there removed and take supplemental hormone in the right amount for me. Or maybe I should remove myself from all medications I'm currently on and find my actual baseline. Is it actually worse when I'm not on medication? I don't know.

I'm feeling frustrated with my treatment, I'm feeling frustrated with my illness.

I know that part of my mood has been that Nasser and I seem to keep having arguments/serious discussions. Discussions that have needed to happen, but have had a big impact on my mood. We both have some things we need to work on when talking to eachother. I, for one, do way way way too much of fighting unfair. I name call, I raise my voice, I bring up things from the past. Understandably, Nasser doesn't react well when I do that. He often gets defensive when we talk, which further escalates the situation.

I've been suggesting we go to some more marriage counseling. We have done this in the past and we did learn how to talk to eachother nicely and respectfully, but we don't always do that in real life. Nasser thinks we don't need more marriage counseling; we simply need to practice what we already know. As long as that works, I think we're ok.

The other thing about my depression is I tend to blow things out of proportion or take things way more seriously than they probably are. One fight (even if most of it is serious discussion where we are talking nicely to eachother) can make me feel like it's the end of our marriage. And I don't want that, I'm not choosing that.

I love Nasser. Despite our fights, despite things that we don't agree on, I love him. He is my partner. He is still the person I rely on the most. Although I'm starting to realize that I need to be more careful in how I treat him when I'm not doing well. I've hurt him a lot when I've been angry or depressed, and that in turn, hurts me.

We are starting to realize that Nasser needs a stronger support network himself. He can't keep handling my depression entirely on his own. And I suppose he doesn't, I do rely on friends and family, sometimes. And I have my therapy, and my psychiatrist, and my medication, and my various coping mechanisms.

The other big thing that's probably impacting my mood is I haven't really exercised much in awhile. This summer hasn't been great for that. Part of it was Adam's death, and dealing with grief, and dealing with worsened depression and lack of motivation due to that. Part of it has been the copious amounts of travel we've been doing. And part of it has been having both kids at home, I haven't really figured out how to fit it in.

I know that's not helping me though, and I got close to going for a run this morning, but I backed out. Again. Today, I'm going to try not to fixate on that and shame myself for not going. Because when I shame myself, I get more depressed, and that motivation gets worse and worse. Stupid depression.

Today I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know where my depression will take me, and I don't know if I can manage to ignore it and get together with family during the day today. Maybe I don't have to ignore it to be around people but I also don't want to sob at the park. I think the writing has helped though; maybe I just need to keep doing the right things for myself this morning and try desperately to make this a better day. Dear readers out there, wish for me strength and motivation. And virtual hugs.

this machine will, will not communicate. these thoughts and the strain I am under

Wednesday, 07/27/16, 3:33pm

Perhaps you think that writing about my struggles with depression is weird. Or perhaps you judge me for it. Depends on what you know and think about mental illness I guess. Some wonderful people in my life, people whose opinions I seek and trust, have told me they think it's brave. I'm not sure it is, given how easy Blogger makes it to publish my posts. Hah. To me, it just is. It's what I do. It's something I've found to help me and others, and so I do it. It is a purpose, for me.

I come back to my blog over and over again. In times where I wish to share my happy times, where I seek comfort in my lowest of lows. Times where I wish to share something I've learned about mental illness or otherwise. Times when I don't know where else to turn.

There is something about the blog, it allows me to be truly honest, with myself, with others. I don't find it as easy when I'm in person with someone. When I'm around other people, I hide my depression, if it's affecting me.

Today I hid my depression. I pretended it didn't exist. It's TK's birthday, and I don't want it to exist. But it's there, it's affecting me, and now that we're home, I can't get myself to forget it. Maybe it's better to fake it, to pretend it's not there around everyone else, and only "give in" when you're alone. Maybe if you fake it, you are forced to recover. I don't think that's how it works though. And I do know that for me, faking it and refusing to talk about it is exhausting. I'm done with that. So I write.

Today I am feeling trapped by my life, by myself, by everyone around me. I feel like nothing will ever work out right, and I feel lost. I want to curl up in the bed and never ever come out again.

Sure tomorrow is a new day, but today doesn't feel that way. It feels like the deep hole that I've fallen down has been covered up, letting no light in and so I can't see which way is up.

Let's end with some Radiohead today.

I'd like to be, under the sea

Monday, 07/25/16, 2:22pm

The birthday party went off pretty smoothly; I definitely didn't do everything I wanted to, but things turned out well and the kids had a blast, which was the goal. I didn't get to sit much, my ankle is aggravated after feeling almost recovered, so that makes me angry. Did you know that I rolled my ankle in the half marathon I did about a month ago? I can't remember if I told you, although here is the post for anyone who would like to read it. It's long and it's about both the triathlon and the half marathon, complete with pictures. :)

Today I've been working on being more reflective and giving a lot of focus to the kids. I took many pictures through our morning since I really wanted to remember everything we've done.

But before we get into today, I need to quickly show off my cake. With just a little bit of bragging. Because apparently I show my love for my kids through cake decorating. Not really baking, because I use a mix.

Anyway, here it is:

Here are some prep pictures:

And more detail, because it's all about the detail:

I love decorating cakes like this. In a lot of ways it's more fun when the dinosaurs are edible (maybe fondant someday?) but these are also fun to take home and play with. Oh and may I point out the red Spinosaurus in the water, near the beach? This is where scientists (currently) think that this dinosaur would have been found, catching fish, similar to a crocodile. The Spinosaur is currently hunting the Maiasaura on the beach who seems to have lots its herd. The kids helped me place the dinosaurs, of course.

You must also see Nasser's carved watermelon:

This morning, we rode bikes, with their new air horns from Grandma, with TK on the next slightly bigger, but in many ways better, bike.

I pulled out my old high school bike, hah!

It went well although TK did walk his bike several times. He's getting there and new, bigger bikes are hard.

RG and I have talked about Amu Adam quite a bit in the last 2 days. About age differences between mine and Nasser's siblings, and the age difference between RG and TK. And how Amu Adam was a math genius. RG loves to hear about that.

The boys started building an airport out of cardboard boxes and legos and magformers. Right now it's somewhat destroyed so I'll have to get pictures later.

I felt like a good mom this yesterday and today so far. I like feeling that way and it seems easier for me to be when we're not traveling so much. I think this summer so far has been too much travel, which has been fun and exciting, and terrible when it was for Adam's wake and funeral, but it's been too much. I'm so so glad we're home for a little bit. Ahem, before our next camping trip. And fun stuff around where we live like museums and planetariums and hikes and maybe movies in the movie theater. It still feels like there's a lot left to do in the summer but very little time to do it. Sigh. I guess that's life in a nutshell, right?

I need to do some thinking and evaluating about my treatment. Nasser was quite concerned after my big depressive episode last Monday night in San Diego. Although I actually recovered (I thought most of the way at least) quite quickly, I scared Nasser quite a bit during it. At the time I was texting him that I was looking at flights home early for the kids and I. This was after only a few hours of him at work, after spending the whole weekend together along with Monday morning at Legoland. He felt like he could no longer travel for work. Which he really needs to be able to do for this job.

And it didn't make sense to me. Why, after his India trip, after a really good San Diego trip, could I not handle him traveling? But this time, we were along for the ride, doing lots and lots of activities, playing in San Diego, which was fun, but stressful for me. I'm way more relaxed in my own environment, honestly, our own house and neighborhood, at least our own state. Weekend camping or ski trips are easier than anything where we have to fly and are constricted to certain size/shape bags. And I don't like living out of a suitcase, doing laundry in the hotel laundry facilities. Cuz yeah, that was Monday afternoon last week. Hmmm, laundry in a hotel, I can see why I got depressed. Dinner at the hotel, delivery, was probably harder even though it ended up good.

Travel can be lots of fun but...

I think the point I'm trying to get at, is I'm way more comfortable when I can lay on my bed and blog, in my biking clothes from the morning, in my own home. Where I can help the boys draw a runway on the flattened cardboard and stretch and foam roll and work on ideas for improving our backyard and painting our boys' room and... I guess it's where everyone wants to be, at home. At home with themselves. At home with their friends and their families. We seek home, love, and comfort.

There are the days for adventures and searching and learning, and some of it can happen at home with imaginations and creativity. And sometimes there are days for rest.

where have all the flowers gone?

Monday, 07/18/16, 6:04pm

Sigh.

Cringe. Tears coming. Sniff.

Can't cry right now. Our dinner is coming soon and I don't want the delivery person to know that I'm in a horrible place right now.

Nasser is working today, only for the past 4ish hours. We all went to Legoland in the morning, and we left around 1:30pm so he could head to work. Things were going decently well this afternoon but then it all fell apart when RG and I just got on eachother's nerves or something. I think we're all overtired. We're all stressed. And we're all kinda feeling done with travel.

We really don't need screaming matches in the hotel room on this trip. And yet it happened. And I tried to control my temper and my volume but there were a few times I did that badly.

I feel trapped. We're on this trip to San Diego and it's mostly been going well, but right now all I want to do is go home. I even went so far as to look at flights for heading home tomorrow. I still have those tabs open; that idea isn't off the table for me.

I hate feeling like this. I'm not full blown depressive episode still, despite how bad I probably sound, but I hate feeling like this. On the verge and feeling a whole ton of anger.

I feel stupid for planning so much for this summer. I feel stupid for thinking I was in a good swing. Well I suppose I was, but that appears to be over. I feel stupid for being a mom when I clearly am not cut out for it. I feel stupid for existing.

Oh that's not going to help thinking like that. The tears are coming and I'm not sure I can stop them. Shit.

I want to just curl up and go to sleep until tomorrow. That's a better statement than what I really want to say right now. But I don't want to give voice at the moment to my deepest, darkest thoughts.

I hate it all sometimes. Everything. My life. My depression. My anxiety. My inability to handle the difficulties thrown at me.

Sigh. Red, wet eyes already. That sucks.