Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

This Halloween wasn't all about my costume (although my costume was pretty awesome because I basically dressed up as  health insurance processing joke). It wasn't about the cool prizes I put into a draw for my colleagues (although those candy bars were pretty nifty). It wasn't even about the teensy chocolate bars (although I did learn that waiting until the last minute means all the best minis will be sold out by the time you get to the store).

This year, Halloween was about my younger brother getting on an airplane and flying to the United States of America for true love. He's moved down there to live, in wedded bliss, forever.

I'm so, so happy for him. They truly are very well-matched.

People keep asking me if I'll miss him. And the thing is, we're not really that close. Oh sure, we have inside jokes, and the intimacy that comes with growing up in the same home with the same people, and being able to blackmail one another should the need ever arise. But my brother and I grew up to be very, very different people. The truth is, if we weren't related, I doubt we'd want to be friends.

He can be quite cruel, abusive even, in ridiculing people whose beliefs are different than his -- and that, of course, includes me. He has a way of keeping on going when he's clearly gone too far. He makes rape jokes in front of me all the time, as if it will ever be funny, or I'll ever want to hear it. He has said some of the cruelest things I've ever heard from anyone in my life: he has a way of figuring out people's vulnerabilities and cutting right to the quick. He's not really that interested in people who aren't directly relevant to him -- even people he's known for years. The outcome of other people's lives is largely a matter of indifference. Things roll off him in a way I can't imagine, and he seems to have a lot more inner-peace than I do because of it. Or maybe it's emptiness. Sometimes I really envy him, but the truth is I wouldn't want to be that person if it came down to making a choice about it.

Will I miss him? I will and I won't, if that makes any sense. I do know that I spent the week in between his goodbye dinner and his Halloween departure eating every piece of food in sight. This is unusual for me because, prior to the recovery period from this major depression, I've never done anything like that. The whole binge-eating thing has always been kind of a mystery, because I don't like eating that much to begin with. Yet here I am, eating (terrifyingly) large amounts of food to comfort myself, feeling out-of-control, So there must be something going on here, something more powerful than I realized.

At first I thought it must be that I was feeling bad because I was going to miss him a lot and I didn't know how to express that kind of emotion. But I thought about it a lot, and I think I was wrong. I think I'm feeling jealous that he gets to escape our family and I don't. I'm still here, and he's left me alone to be responsible for my parents. It won't be easy to ever miss a holiday if I'm their only option. I've seen them go to my father's parents every year because they're all alone otherwise, and I'm afraid of that happening to me. I feel like he's dropped all the responsibility for them onto me, and I'm not the kind of person who easily says no, even when it means protecting myself. I guess I've always felt he was selfish for making me be responsible for my mother but then never protecting me from her, and that now he's done it again, but on a much larger scale.

I guess my next life-lesson project should be working on convincing myself that I'm not responsible for anyone else but me! And that maybe -- maybe -- this is the time in my life to put myself first even if that means letting people down, and feeling less-than-perfect, less-than-enough, and learning to be okay with that.

Ye Olde Homestead (or, a post composed entirely of rant)

Yes, I know, I am a terrible daughter. Or at least I feel like one every time I put off going home to visit with my parents. It's difficult to find an excuse not to go over when some of my things are still living at their house. I'm just so much happier here, in my own space, in my own little world, with no one intruding on my privacy, my routines, my emotions, and my life. I'm so much more at peace.

It isn't that I don't love and appreciate my family: I'm pretty sure that I do. But when I see them, when I'm in their house, I just feel so...unhappy. I feel like the familiar walls are crushing me. I feel numb and anxious at the same time. I find myself slipping too easily into old patterns of behavior. My mother encourages me to eat my feelings, maybe because she does it too, and when I visit with her I do -- even though I know sticking to a proper diet is crucial to maintaining my equilibrium. I feel terrible now, tearful and uncomfortable the way too much food always makes me feel -- heavy and suffocated. I'll feel heavy and bad for the next few days until it wears off. 

I can't afford to do this right now. 

I don't want to do this right now.

It isn't always possible to cut the people and things that make you unhappy out of your life. I'm not an island alone in the middle of an ocean. I'm connected, intimately, with people I have no desire to hurt. They would never understand it if I said I didn't want to hear from them for a while, until I can hold onto the person I want to be when I'm with them, the person I know I can become if I let myself change and grow. Change is slow and fragile, and it would certainly be easier if I wasn't surrounded by people who, in one way or another, rely on me being the same as I've always been. They would never understand if I said that what I need is time to be completely alone in the world, without a family and without a home: no phone calls, no emails, no visits. 

I understand how people can go into a fugue and find themselves in a new place with no idea of who they are or where they come from. The mind is powerful, and Lord knows it's easier to build a new life without the old one following you around. It isn't possible for most of us to leave the past behind us and begin completely again: you can't erase your memory and your connectedness like a chalkboard.  

But I feel like I can't breathe. I feel an unnameable dread. I feel alone when I am with them, and uncomfortable in their space. I need it to be over, but I will never be able, or willing, to bring myself to do that to my own family -- to walk away without turning back. Maybe I would heal. Maybe I would be the same. I struggle constantly with the boundaries I need to keep them out of the space I am trying to build for myself. It is so familiar for my family to take over my space and my life, like a fog seeping into unguarded corners. 

I just need a lot of space right now. Maybe too much space, more than is really reasonable, or possible, or fair to demand. I need to figure out who I am, and whether or not I can accept this person or this life. I've never had the chance to be alone. I've never had the chance to put myself and my needs before what everyone else needs or wants or requires from me. I have thrived on giving myself away in relationships with others. I have been consumed by other people and the worlds they've created for me to live in.

But today I am tired. Today I want to be alone. Today I want to be free. I'm like a child demanding the impossible: leave me alone, but be there when this is over. Don't try to come into my life, but let me love you in yours. Don't make me be the person you love and want, but accept me however I feel like being right now in this moment. Don't demand or expect anything of me, but let me give you what I am able to. 

Nobody could accept that, most certainly not family. But I really, really, really don't want to see them, or hear from them, or think about them, for a while. I want to get the hell away from that place. I don't want to set foot in that house, and I can't quite put my finger on why.

I came back to my home today and cried, couldn't get off my couch for hours, after I visited my parents and they dropped off some more of my things that I don't want or need...more pieces of their house that I don't want in my life but that are, slowly but surely, shaping my new home in the image of my old one.

I want it to be over. I want it to be enough. But you can't outrun your family any more than you can outgrow the years spent loving them, trying to weave and unweave a life together that everyone can live with.

Wanderlust

I'm not going to lie, I've been having a difficult time. It's not too unexpected, but still I can't help but be disappointed. I was backsliding before the RTMS trial started, but for some reason I was hoping the sheer fact of being off work on sick leave again would help me stabilize back to the point I was at when I first left the hospital, where I was making it through the days without sitting on the pavement, or lying on the floor for half an hour staring at the ceiling. It's the nature of the beast, I guess.

I want this blog to be a happy, funny place; I want it to reflect that humour and intellectualization are my main defense mechanisms, but I also want a place where I can re-frame my experiences as something lighter, funnier, more bearable. I can always use the practice. I guess I've had a lot of it, but might still have a lot left to go.

Ever since the increased dose of Remeron (mirtazapine), I've had this horrible side effect; my mornings are as difficult as usual, and I don't feel hungry or like eating throughout the bulk of the day. I spend most of my energy trying to make myself eat or look decent...although I guess it's worth noting I've been wearing the same pants since Sunday now. Oh well, you can't win them all. Anyway, in the evenings I eat like crazy, sweet foods, things that I normally don't even crave. It's not like I'm hungry, it's more like my body thinks it's not full, and will never be full again. This had never happened to me before, and I don't know how to deal with it. It brings up a lot of questions about self-worth, about quality of life, about why I do these things that don't help me cope but, ultimately, are very self-destructive. I wonder if this is a new way that drive to tear myself apart, to destroy myself, to end my life, is trying to express itself. It's just so...intolerable. I hate what it does to my body, to my mood, to the way it makes me feel. I want to maximize my chances for remission, my chance at health, at getting out of this hole I've found myself in and making that last as long as possible. But I see myself doing this thing that I don't understand, and I'm frightened about what that means, what it will do to my future.

Ugh.

Today, I finished treatment and had lots of time to spare. I went wandering. I wandered back to the metro station. I wandered to the end of the green line. I explored an area I'd never been to before, found a Loblaws, went inside, and looked at things. I realized that I wasn't wandering or looking to try and smother some other feeling, or to try and distract myself from crippling despair. I felt...curious. I just wanted to wander around and see things I haven't seen before. The grass looked greener, and the sun felt brighter. Maybe grass is always this green, and I haven't noticed before, or don't remember.

Maybe it will be spring after all.

TMI RTMS: I am Feeling ALL the Feelings

So...tomorrow is the big day: Day One of RTMS. Possibly also Day One of How I Got Lost On The Grounds Of A Massive Epic Hospital, because I am going to an unfamiliar building I didn't quite catch the name of over the phone.

Anyway.

First thing in the morning, I will remove all of my earrings so my ears don't start to resemble an extreme body-modification project. Project "Swiss Cheese," or "Magnets, Dummy." I will carefully place the earrings in a baggie so I can reassemble my personality once the second treatment is completed. Why yes, my self-identity is hinging on having multiple piercings in quite-conventional locations, thank you for asking :)

I am going to try and put on makeup and wear different, decent clothes every day, so I don't succumb to my depressive tendency to wear the same pair of pants and scuzzy sweater every day, for weeks, and to give up washing my face entirely and abandoning my makeup efforts at looking slightly less hideous. The theologian / psychologist William James believed that how you behave is how you feel. Smile: you'll feel happy. Put on makeup: you'll feel better. Brush your teeth: you'll feel like a normal human being. While I don't believe it's that simple, I think that self-care is certainly an element in successfully battling both major depression and dysthymia. Anyway, my goal is not to backslide on that, since I've been doing moderately well at it since my progressive return to work began.

I am feeling...hopeful. I tell myself that this is going to work. The research has shown encouraging results. I am due for some good luck, and this will be it. I have that good feeling, that this is my break, my chance, my turn to be well. So, I am feeling hopeful, and kind of excited.

I am feeling...nervous. I don't really know what the experience will be like. It isn't like anything I've ever done before. I am going into this alone, not knowing anyone who's ever done it. It always makes me uneasy to try something new, something unfamiliar, something I haven't researched the shit out of and tried my best to understand. It is unlike me not to have read the scientific literature on the subject, but I just haven't been interested. I have no idea how the procedure works. There's no maintenance protocol, so I have no idea what will come next. So, I am feeling trepidation.

I am feeling...desperate. I keep thinking that I'm coming to the end of the road in terms of what can be done. Of course, strictly speaking that's not true. I haven't tried acupuncture, ayurvedic medicine, ECT, MAOI-class medications, or pet therapy. And of course, I could just wait a few months and probably recover most of my pre-acute-episode functionality again, albeit with a long intervening period of debilitating depression. But it still somehow feels like I'm coming to the end. So I am feeling desperate.

I am feeling...relief. Finally, something is happening. Finally, I can stop worrying that I am not doing anything, not doing enough, to try and propel myself in an upward direction. I feel like I can stop harassing myself to do something, anything, and take a moment to simply stand still.

I am also feeling like I might get lost, since I can get lost going in a straight line to a place I've been dozens of times before. I will equip myself for my journey with phone numbers.

In other news, the not-eating-sugar project has not been going well. Had lots of sugar, had a headache. But just because I made bad choices in the (really recent) past doesn't mean that tomorrow isn't a new day, or that today isn't a new minute. I can choose a better path.

Hansel and Gretel: They Ate that House

One day, a little boy and a little girl found themselves lost in the woods due to some negligent parenting and a couple of hungry birds. Their names were Hansel and Gretel: it doesn't really matter which one was which. In the course of their increasingly desperate wanderings, they stumbled upon a house made entirely out of candy and gingerbread and sprinkles and all sorts of deliciousness. Having been inadvertently raised by the media to blindly accept things as they are (rather than wondering 'why is there a house made out of candy?', or, 'why did our parents leave us alone in these dreadful woods, anyway?'), they immediately began to eat the house. They kept eating the house until the entire house was gone. They weren't thinking that now they'd have no shelter against a dark and stormy night. They weren't thinking of pacing themselves and saving the windowsills for morning. They weren't thinking that maybe someone lived in the house and would be perturbed at finding it, suddenly, reduced to crumbs.

After a while, they weren't even hungry. But eating the house was comforting somehow, probably because it was so sweet. So they ate the entire house, fondant foundation and all. And then they had horrible tummy-aches, ran around the forest until they crashed and burned, and felt absolutely wretched. They also, more than anything else, craved even more house.

Which is sort of similar to what happened to me after I had my Birthday followed by Easter and ate all the chocolate in the universe. ALL THE CHOCOLATE!!! I started small, with an egg or two, and eventually went into a tailspin where no confection within a 12-mile radius was safe. It was ugly.

Now, I'm not a complete moron: I've done my research, or at least I have done, in the past, when I wasn't so lazy and slow-witted as I am today. I know that eating a healthful diet high in fruits, vegetables, and lean protein and good fats, while being low in refined sugar and over-processed carbohydrates, is relevant to staving off recurring episodes of depression. I know that it makes me better able to weather the lows, though not the extreme ones. I especially know that even though eating much less sugar than I'm used to does sweet-fuck-all to cure my depression, it certainly makes me less cranky, less exhausted, and overall less gross-feeling.

I started my tailspin this fall, when I stopped being hungry and tried to stave off extreme weight loss by consuming sweet sweet Starbucks frappucinos. I continued my tailspin when I started taking a medication that leaves me feeling pretty much constantly hungry no matter how much food I eat. I could eat an entire box of cereal and still keep going strong. I've always been one of those people who understands that psychiatric medications can cause weight gain, and who in theory thinks it's more important to have your illness under control than it is to be thin.

But God-dammit, I've gained more than 10% of my body weight!!

So, anyway, I decided when I got out of the hospital that I should go back on my holistic health kick of yore, and stop eating so much gosh-darned crap. And, you know, I had less meltdowns. But, one thing led to another. Maybe I was working too much, maybe it's because my sleep started to get worse again, but my depression -- easier to deal with when that was the only thing I had to do all day -- started to deteriorate once I moved from working 3 days a week to 4. I needed more energy, and I just didn't have it. I needed to be awake, and I just wasn't waking up. I needed to have at least one moment every day where, however briefly, I didn't feel like I was about to break into a thousand sharp little pieces and have a spectacular meltdown, because everything was just too much.

So I started to make exceptions in my diet. And then more exceptions. And then a few more...because making mistakes in the past means that I will never be able to do anything right, and I am a colossal fuck-up, and why bother trying at all? The strategy turned into something like 'keep making bad choices and then have horrible moments of revelation when you realize that you are fat, and hideous looking, and you can't even stick to your own health-care plan even though you're the person who designed it in the first place, because you are worthless, and you will never, ever get better, so you should just kill yourself now.'

Wednesday morning, I ate a giant bowl of Easter chocolate and then polished off an economy-sized bag of M&M's. I immediately felt miraculously revived and awake, like my body had just been given a drug it was craving. It was before 9 AM. I realized that maybe, just maybe, I had a serious problem going on here.

Anyways, the lesson of the story in Hansel and Gretel, which I'm sure I have retold in the classic format we all know and love, is that I have to give up adding all this extra chocolate and candy and ass-tons of sugar to my diet, because I am stuck in an unhealthy, vicious cycle. And I have to do it now, and not 'later, after this one last cereal bowl full of Cadbury creme eggs.'

Today is day two, and I have a wicked headache, and also a surprising amount of I'm-about-to-have-a-panic-attack anxiety. I'm not sure how much is because of sugar withdrawal, and how much is from general stress, and how much is because my mother bought me special ice-cream today after I told her I had to stop eating sugar if I ever wanted a chance to get out of this tail-spin. But hey, I'm still going strong, though admittedly without much of a track record.

When you come across a gingerbread house in the middle of the forest, just walk away.