Holiday Limbo

This year, the holidays are shit.  B and I have agreed to split.  We decided to stay together through the holidays for the kid's sake and due to the housing arrangements I have worked out, I actually can't go anywhere until February.  The house is HIS and we aren't married so I have to be the one to go. Believe me, this has me questioning the kind of man I have been with for the last 8 years.  

I also have to find a full -time job.  In January.  In a never-ending recession.  I love my current job but I don't make enough to support myself so I also have to walk away from that.  Since NY has no common-law marriage, he is not required to give me any personal help with the move and so I have to walk on eggshells hoping not to upset him so that he will be willing to let me have the car that is in his name and maybe help me pay rent if I get stuck. We have agreed to try to split custody 50-50 so I can't depend on child support payments to help me.  Just the kindness of his heart.

Needless to say, I have not been very enthusiastic about decking the halls (B actually got tired of waiting for me to do it and about a week before Christmas he did it himself).  I just can't force myself to care for the house anymore and have let the mess get out of control.  I had to buy gifts for Ben's family since we have agreed not to tell anyone but our parents until shortly before the move.  Gifts we normally would have purchased together had to be purchased by me because I don't feel like I can tell him what to do and he didn't want to spend the money (even though they buy gifts for both of us and L).  I am broke and miserable and just want this to be over.

We haven't talked to L about it yet.  She's only 5 and she is a worrier.  I don't want to give her any more time to obsess about it than I need to.  I figure a week or two before will be plenty of time.  Luckily, I am moving into my mother's upstairs flat and so I can play it off like "We will be staying over at grandma's for a few days each week for a while..."  and then work on answering questions as they come up.  

And the fucking snow.  

I am stuck in the house with him and honestly I want to just sleep it away.  As I have literally $12 to my name right now because I bought gifts, and because they don't bother to keep the street I live on plowed, I am going to be here all weekend.  He gives me no space in the house.  The only place I have to myself is the bed.  He could spend some time in his office or his basement man cave but he doesn't.  He sits in the living room and watches Sons of Anarchy or plays on the Wii while the kid plays with her Barbies and coloring books.  He acts like I am not here unless L needs something.  Then he lets me know.

I desperately need to get out.  I need to have some fun.  Simple fun, nothing extravagant.  I am so worried about my finances right now and my living situation sucks and I feel like I am going to make myself insane.  I mean, how can anyone really "sleep" for 17 hours a day and feel normal?  (I used the quotation marks because I mostly just lie there trying not to have panic attacks thinking about how my whole world is being uprooted).  I just want to go to a movie or see a crappy band.  But I have no money for that so I just sit here.

I am not doing well.  I keep trying to tell myself that this is what we need to do, and I really believe that we need to be apart, at least for a while. I want to be myself for a while.  I want to be able to be Ls mom without constantly being angry and snippy.  I want to be responsible for myself and not have to answer to anyone about my every move.  I think that I would be coping better if I wasn't stuck in this limbo.  Just waiting for the end to actually happen.  It's like knowing you are going to be attacked and waiting for it for months.  The stress mixed with the boredom of waiting for the big event is exhausting.  

I wonder if any of you have ever experienced this?

Just a little crazy...

I freaked my therapist out this week.  I went in on Wednesday as I always do and she immediately asked me what the hell was going on.  I haven't been feeling depressed at all lately.  In fact, I was completely out of my mind. She told me my eyes looked funny.  That I seemed agitated.  That it seemed like I couldn't help but interrupt her. 

She made me an appointment to see the doctor for an evaluation. 

I didn't FEEL like there was anything wrong.  In fact, I felt like I was fully recovered.  Like the depression had been defeated. 

But I KNEW this wasn't right.  At first, I was happy to see the old, crazy me re-appearing after all these years.  The girl who flirted and said inappropriate things and made guys think they had a chance was back.  She was frantically wanting to go out and do something - ANYTHING because she couldn't sit home.  But in the few days before seeing my therapist, I had become almost crazed.  I have been obsessing and rambling and not able to stop my mind or my mouth. I have been forgetting to eat and not wanting to sleep. I have been impulsive and reckless. I have been unable to get anything done at work because I couldn't stop and concentrate on any one thing for more than a few minutes. 

The doctor asked me a lot of questions.  My answers (at least to me) seemed to indicate that this was just a weird little bump for me.  That perhaps I was just overly stressed or "acting out" because B and I have been having issues. 

But as he questioned me, he also asked me about the time in my 20s that I refer to as "back when I was a crazy bitch".  Something started to seem obvious.  Although this was not "mania" in it's classic form, there were certainly characteristics of mania, and a pattern of these "periods" followed by severe anxiety and then a crash into the depths. 

He threw out the words "hypomania" and "bipolar II".  He said he didn't want to officially change my diagnosis yet, as it wasn't sufficient to cause impairment to my life...not yet, anyway. 

Although the option was given to me to start on a mood stabilizer to mitigate any future episodes, I declined.  My feeling was that I would wait and see if this is actually a recurrent thing or if I really am just acting crazy because of other factors in my life. 

Two days later, I sit here on the verge of tears, wanting nothing more than to go back to bed and hide. 

Fuck.

Update and other crap

OK.  It's been a long time since I posted anything here.  For a while after my last post, I was feeling a little better and was terrified that if I posted I would be jinxing myself and I was sure that the depression would seep in again.  So I avoided it (And isn't this a typical thing that depressives think?  That we couldn't POSSIBLE be just getting better.  Must be a fluke.).  But don't be offended.  I was avoiding posting on my other blog too...the one where I bitch about my (lack of) parenting ability. 

Then I DID start to feel like shit again, and I was afraid to post because I didn't want to just be whiny and miserable to the world.  And nobody wants to hear about how shitty I feel (because that's why you go to a blog about depression, right?  To find sunshine and kittens dipped in cotton candy?

No kittens were harmed in the making of this cotton candy.

So the weeks and months went by and I continued to do the therapy and the Depression and Bipolar meetings and gradually started thinking that there was more that I could do.  I needed to get my grove back.  And I am not talking about needing to go to Jamaica and bang Taye Diggs like Stella did (although I am sure that couldn't hurt).  I am talking about trying to remember who I was when I wasn't depressed.  Clearly there WAS at least some time in my life when I wasn't so miserable, right?

See what I mean?

Turns out that when I was a smart-assed, loud-mouthed, sarcastic and cynical, I had the ability to laugh shit off.  I could make some snide comment, get a laugh about it and move on.  I had to find my inner bitch again.

Now, I know what you're thinking.  "Selena, you sound like you were a total asshole back then, and all those things sound pretty negative."

Yeah, I kind of was (am).  But I wasn't stuck in my own head all the time.  I wasn't walking around constantly feeling guilty about the million ways I was not living up to everyone's expectations of me.  I was just me.  I was free from the bullshit and able to keep moving (even if my direction was questionable). 

So I decided to get fake nails (which, by the way, I absolutely hated up until recently because (1) I am just NOT that kind of girly girl, and (2) it makes me think of the "real housewives" of whoretown).  This may seem like something insignificant and vain, but seriously, I haven't felt pretty or polished in my appearance in a long time.  This was my obvious sign to myself that I needed to begin to give a shit about how I looked and felt.  The nails need upkeep and so did I.

Real Housewives of Barbieland
from wetpaint.com

I also started blogging again and have found my awful sense of (cruelty?) humor again. 

And also, I started watching food documentaries. I don't recommend that you do this unless you want to quit enjoying eating.  I watched Food, Inc. and Fast Food Nation, which made the thought of eating fast food or Hamburger Helper completely repulsive.  Then I watched A Beautiful Truth (you can also get it on Netflix) about the Gerson Therapy, which talks about the idea that perhaps eating whole, natural and plant-based foods can prevent and sometimes reverse certain diseases.  It was a slippery slope from there.  I have since watched every documentary remotely related to nutrition and food and realized that there is likely a connection between the crap that I have been eating and my feeling completely awful for most of my life.

About 3 weeks ago (after watching A Beautiful Truth) I started taking a Multivitamin, a B-Complex, and Probiotics.  I also am working on cutting down my coffee intake to 1 cup a day (which makes me EXTREMELY sad) and eating vegetarian 3 days a week (at some point, I will only eat meat as a supplement to my plant-based diet).  And I have to tell you, I FEEL PRETTY GOOD!

They want you to eat them, I swear.

I am not dragging all day and I am not needing naps.  I just seem to have a little more patience with the stupidity of others (although don't fu**ing push it) and am generally in a better mood and more able to find the humor in things. 

I am not really into trying weird foods, and I am also not really willing to risk the process of coming off my medications just yet, but I have to tell you, the improvement is dramatic.

I would highly recommend trying to cut down on meat and adding some B vitamins to any of you who are still struggling with depression even with medication.  The worst that can happen is nothing, and you might even find that you feel a little better.

I probably shouldn't make all these comments about how great it is because I tend to suck at sticking with things and am often guilty of sliding right back into my awful habits, but for now, this is working.

Try  Family Vegetarian Cooking for some seriously awesome recipes.