Unable to Get into the Season

I have tried – reallly – to get into the season, but I just haven’t been able to accomplish this (yet?).  It’s weird, like going through the motions.  I have put up decorations inside, lights outside…and am flying family in on Christmas Eve.  Normally I go nuts buying gifts for people, making cards for people from a variety of winter photos, even doing a lame-o holiday letter.  This year?  On Dec. 21st?  Nothing yet.  It’s just another day.  The weird thing is that I’m bothered by how much I don’t care about not being in the swing of things.  Previously (pre-abilify), I would be upset because I’d be worried about how un-engaged I was.  But even in the last few, depression-heavy years, I still managed to get into the Christmas spirit.  Not this year.

I’m kind of numb to things that used to bother me.  I think this is due to the abilify.  There are good aspects to this:  something goes wrong at work during a presentation to management?  No biggie – laugh it off, and even the management pays little attention to an IT error.  (The problem with this is that I’m in IT.)  Oh, well!

There are also bad aspects to this.  I don’t care that I’ve let a mini-mountain of trash pile up next to the couch, or that I haven’t cleaned the kitchen since late September – as my stack of pizza boxes reminds me.  Or that I’ve piled a ton of clothes up in hopes of one day being motivated enough to do laundry.  On one hand there is a benefit because I can be a worry wort.  On the other hand, part of being a worry wort was what drove me to action, or proaction.  Now, I just don’t care…….about anything.  About the fact that I haven’t showered in 7 days, or that I have no ‘really’ clean clothes to go to work in, or that the catbox is in need of urgent attention.  I don’t care that I don’t care about these things – which is troubling.  Instead of being motivated to just do something, I am instead troubled that I don’t care about so much.  But not so much that it makes me sad.

Oy, it’s going to take a ton of coffee and uppers to get me into social mode when my family visits.  I wanted to fly them in as a motivator for me to get my home act together prior to their arrival.  And to prevent a lonely holiday meltdown.  At least now I’m focused on how much I have to do before they come, and trying to care enough about that to actually do some of what I have to do before they arrive.  This year, though: no pity party!   That’s a good thing – and the fact that I’ll be able to spend it with loving family.  Wishing everyone the best for now and the year to come….

Wasted Weekend

Quick stats for this weekend:

Saturday:  moved from couch to bed and back 4 times.  Didn’t go outside. Didn’t walk the dog.  I did do my nails.

Sunday: got up before 1. Walked the dog. Put up xmas lights. (This is not a hard task since I leave most of them up all year). Ordered pizza.  Watched the clock for a while.

Productiv……oh, whatever

I’ve been able to be super productive at work in recent weeks.  It helps that I actually enjoy my new position and my co-workers.  What a world of difference it makes to work with a highly functioning, intelligent, progressive team as opposed to a bunch of repressed, jealous, gossip-mongering back stabbers.

The problem?

I am absolutely unable to maintain this streak at home.  I still have a half unpacked suitcase on the floor from a business trip I took……3 weeks ago.  I’ve started putting my laundry in my bathtub because I don’t like my hamper.  One day I’ll get to it.  On a previous manic give-away day, I loaded a ton of stuff to Goodwill.  Only later did I realize that included my favorite winter coat, a long, beautiful black coat that I can’t find again.  I had to do a goodwill run because I’ve gained 46 pounds this year.  Actually, from March to September – in 6 months.

It should be said that last year, when the depression was at its worst (I think, but I’m not sure), I dropped to 98 pounds.  I was, quite literally, a 98 pound weakling.  The sick part? I loved my size.  I kept having to buy smaller pants (tops aren’t a problem).  I got to a point that a size 4 pair of dockers, my favorite work pants, would bunch up when I wore a belt.  They don’t make a size 2.  In jeans, I wore a size 1 Juniors.  I don’t think I ever wore that size when I was growing up – I think I started at a 3 and went from there.  Now, I’m 5′10, so 98 pounds sounds pretty bad.  It wasn’t as bad as all that – my ribs were showing, my collar bones stuck out, and I had no butt for the first time in my life (oh, but you should have seen the cellulite / baggy skin!), and my face looked kinda boney, but I was OK.  Or, maybe, I really wasn’t.  At any rate, I remember thinking, wow – I’m ‘model skinny’.  Then I began the bipolar meds.  And the weight began.  I’m at 146 now, and I look pretty good size wise and all for my height.  My problem now, my J-lo butt is back.  And my thighs jiggle.

Sure, this can be taken care of by a little bit of an exercise routine.  Though I live a half mile from work, I drive because I’m so slow in the morning.  I haven’t given my dog a good and proper walk in weeks.  I used to do this with her every day.  She’s been exceptional in her understanding, and to make up for things, she runs like hell in the back yard.

So, productivity.  Back to the point.  At home, it’s nonexistant.  I STILL have not taken down my Halloween decor (which in hindsight I’m surprised I had the energy or wherewithal to put up).  And it’s the day after Thanksgiving!  A neighbor came by yesterday with a container of food; I didn’t answer the door.  I wasn’t able to get off the couch for two days.

Today, however, it might be different.  Today, the sun is out.  Today, the temperature is above freezing.  Today a ton of things are on sale.  Today, I may go out and buy some pants that fit (another size bigger this time).  Today, I vow to take my wonderfully accepting dog for a good walk.  Now, since it’s approaching mid-day faster than I’d like, I’d better get my ass in gear.

Banner Saturday

I’m up before noon, going to be dressed by 1, will probably go outside and finally take down my halloween decor.  Outdoor activities of course will be to avoid the disaster area that is the inside of my house.  I must have 3 bags’ worth of trash piled up next to the couch.  Not horrible stuff, just a lot of junk mail, read magazines, and candy wrappers.  What a life!

Get out of my brain!

I’m on 5 meds.  Three are for depression and bipolar stabilization.  One is to wake me up in the morning, and the last is to help me sleep in the evenings.  Recently, I’ve been trying to avoid what I call my Elvis drugs – a pill to wake up, and a pill to fall asleep.  I’ve also been able to reduce my antidepressant a notch.  Unfortunately, I haven’t managed this very well.  I will fall asleep on my easy chair and forget to take any meds.  Or just wake up at 3 and not feel like getting up to go take them.  So, I’ve begun taking them sometimes in the mornings, sometimes in the evenings.  I have no problem falling asleep; it’s the staying asleep I have yet to master. Or, for that matter, sleeping in my bed.  Which is a shame, really, because I’ve just redone my bedroom.  It really is show quality.  I’ve painted it, replaced the pukey carpet with hardwoods, and bought new bedding.  It’s now too pretty.  Or too unfamiliar.  Or too empty.  Because I’ve not been sleeping there, it’s the cleanest room in the house.  But I digress.

The depression med that I have just notched down on has been giving me some very wiggy effects.  The mild headache can be ignored, and in fact all the weirdness could be avoided if I took my meds on a routine.  At any rate, the effect can only be described as though someone were sweeping inside my brain.  I will hear three “whooshes” at random.  At first, I would look all around in the house to see what was making this noise.  I’ve started up the furnace finally for the winter, maybe that was it – or recently, I’ve had starlings flying down my flue – maybe anotherone got lost in there.  Finally, I realized that these very real sounds were wholly contained within the confines of my brain.  My pets couldn’t hear them.  It took me a bit longer and a bit of online searching to learn that these were very common side effects of stepping down dosages of my antidepressant.

That doesn’t stop me, however, from still turning around to see who is sweeping the kitchen.

The most fun you can have on a first-snowfall Saturday night in Ohio

…..is to forget that snow and ice crystals are slippery, and do a sliding 360, coming out of it in a perfectly straight line, and cheering at the top of your lungs.

Welcome to my mental…..ness.

The purpose of this blog is to provide a public-ish brain-dump forum for those thoughts of mine that strike me as incredibly odd, or incredibly sane, or just plain incredible.  I have been battling dysthemic depression, with recent tinges of bipolar disorder, since 2004.  There are a number of reasons / causes that launched me into this marathon depressive period, and those are not the subject of this exercise.  Instead, what I have lived through during this blue period has at times felt truly insane.  It’s sometimes as though I am watching my life happen through someone else’s eyes, and that is when I see how seemingly odd my life or habits are.  Examples?

I sleep in my easy-chair. I don’t eat at home except cheez-its and butterfingers.  I have a great dog and cat that are the reasons that I want to wake up each day.  I have a job I enjoy, and a beautiful little cottage home built in 1886 that I have been pouring a lot of work and effort into, when I have the ability to do so. I put off bathing until I can’t stand myself anylonger. I put off housecleaning until I can’t stand it any longer and then either get a burst of energy or pay someone to clean it.  My kitchen looks like an 80 year old man with alzheimer’s lives here.  There must be half a dozen empty pizza boxes and 3 dozen empty Dr. Pepper cans about.  A glimpse of my home, or me in it at 3:30 am when I can’t sleep, stretched out on the easy-chair, and you’d think I’m agorophobic.  Once I’m up in the morning, though, and once I make it in to work, I’m a bit of a dynamo, if I say so myself. I enjoy my co-workers, my boss, and my work.

Sometimes, outside of work or home hermitage, I go out and do things. It is during these times that I feel really crazy.  It is these experiences about which I intend to write.  Although, like many things I have set out to do in the last few years, good intentions and a goal in mind don’t necessarily mean that the result is anything at all like what I set out to do.  These first few posts are going to be recent thoughts I’ve captured on post-its and via voice recordings recently.  If you’re still reading this, you’re either interested to see what a somewhat intelligent woman writes in a state of happy imbalance.  Or, you’re walking the same path and have experienced some of the same things I have.  Either way, I hope these words bring you either a sense of appreciation for the madwoman next door, or the knowledge that there are millions of people living through depression and bipolar disorder, day by day (or sometimes hour by hour).