Daffodils

I went outside and picked some daffodils today.

This may not seem like much but 3 days after stopping the Abilify I am beginning to feel a spark of life inside me. The daffodils are a symbol of that life.  And I brought them into my house and put them in a pretty vase and felt a wave of something like joy mixed with satisfaction that was absent for some time.  I set them on the living room table and just stared at their cheerful yellow faces and told myself that I was going to be okay.

It has been a long winter and the signs of spring are finally showing themselves and I am feeling optimistic today that the gloom and gray of winter is moving out and allowing the delight and sunshine to move into its place.  I am also optimistic that I am going to survive this most recent detour into misery and that I will also begin to see some new buds of hope unfolding within me.  Something has got to give, right?

Did I mention that I haven't moved out yet?  That is happening at the end of this month.  

Excruciating

I am having a hard time lately.  For the past month or so it feels like every little thing is just awful.

It isn't just that the things I used to enjoy are not interesting to me.  It's that NOTHING is interesting to me.  Everything seems excruciating.  Not just the things that every depressed person hates to do.  Not the way that showering seems like a climb up Everest or cleaning the house is like being water-boarded.  I mean simple things.  There isn't a show on tv that isn't boring.  Nothing my kid does makes me smile (I mean, I fake it for her sake but honestly nothing does).  Nothing on the internet could possibly amuse me.  Eating is a chore.  "Relaxing" used to be heavenly.  Now I dread having unstructured time because all that I want to do is sleep.  And when I DO have to do something it is a mental wrestling match where going back to bed almost always wins.

This is not the kind of depression I usually suffer from.  In my usual state I can at least talk myself into not HATING everything.  I can usually go through the motions.  This kind of depression makes calling a friend for coffee feel like agony.  And sitting through another boring conversation feel like sitting through a root canal.

The worst part is how this makes me a really terrible mother.  I am finding no joy in her. I see her doing these things that SHOULD fill me with pride but all I feel is empty.  She makes these videos of herself and when she plays them for me I want to scream because they fill me with sadness.  Playing with her is like hard labor where I am forced to put on a happy face and try to somehow ignore how awkward I am doing anything but sleeping.  Needless to say, lately I barely play with her.  I don't even have the energy to get mad at her when she does something wrong.  I often just ignore it because I cannot face her tantrum or crying.  This makes me a shitty parent.

I recently started Abilify in addition to the other anti-depressants I am taking.  I also was put on Ambien for sleep problems.  Has anyone else had these kinds of effects from these drugs or am I just spiraling down again?

Alone

How do you guys do it?  I am referring to those of you who live alone.

B took the kid to Florida for a wedding and I have been so bored out of my mind here with no kind of company, no plan, no purpose.  I cleaned the house and did all my "chores" the first day and now the house is neat and I am sitting here debating whether to nap again or just look out the window.  As I mentioned before, I have no one really to call and I no longer know how to pass my time alone.

http://atheismresource.com/

I used to LOVE being alone.  Before I was hospitalized I loved to read, nap and have long afternoons to catch up on DVDs that I haven't watched.  I would go to the bookstore or library and shop alone, never missing anyone's company.  But things are different now.  I can't read.  Nothing interests me at home.  I don't want to read the newspaper or sit on Facebook.  I went to the bookstore yesterday with my own permission to buy whatever I wanted and nothing appealed to me.  I put on a movie after dinner and by 8:30 I was asleep, waking around 3 am because I was fully rested and not able to get back to sleep.

I will be on my own in a couple of weeks.  What will I do?  Half the week I will be alone and with no one to call and nothing to do.  I can't possibly sleep that much.  What will I do?  Who will help me to ward off the blackness that I can barely keep away now with people here all the time?

One thing.

Depression makes me a terrible mother.

Loneliness

I am feeling so lonely today.

I wonder if it is common for those with depression to have so few friends.

I have always found it hard to truly connect with people and have had only a handful of real friends in my life.  I have never really "made" new friends.  People have occasionally just taken a liking to me and done all the work to be in my life until I realized they were important to me.  I do not know how to begin this process.

I am jealous of everyone, all the time.  Mostly because I know that even those who claim to have "only a few friends" still have people they can call just to talk.  They have people to come and drag them out of the house even if they are kicking and screaming.  No one does that for me.  And so I drift further and further into myself, just waiting for someone to save me.  I know that no one will.

Right now I am living in a very stressful situation, still waiting for something to happen and not having any real time frame for when I can finally be free.  And I have no one to just vent to.  I have no one I can call to go out and get my mind off things.  NOT ONE SOUL. Because I have no one who understands that nothing feels good right now.  Nothing feels like it will make me feel better, no matter how much I want to feel something other than this.

Welcome to my pity party.

Today

When I opened my eyes this morning I had the briefest of feelings like I was going to be normal today.  I would get out of bed, clean up the house, go to work and perhaps even run some errands.  I would function and accomplish something because today was going to be a good day.

But something happened between that flash and the time I got coffee in my cup.  Nothing actually happened, except for that shift that occurs when suddenly I remember where I am and who I am and begin to feel overwhelmed with all the simple mundane tasks it will take to get any of that shit done.

I am sinking again.  I am sinking and not doing a damn thing to try to bale water.  I am feeling that filthy sludge coming up over my ankles and bearing down on my knees but I am too tired and terrified to move.  "Let me just sit here for a minute," I think.  But then a minute turns to hours and hours turn to days and what was at first a puddle becomes a dark murky swamp and I realize I no longer have the option to just move.  It has become thick like quicksand and I am sinking again.

Of course, I will try to get up.  I will try to shower.  If that goes okay, I will leave the house, if only to pick L up from school.  I will come home and attempt to engage her in some kind of show of enjoying her company.    And I will only do these things because EVERYONE tells me I should and that it will help - even though in my experience it is not likely.

I have learned that I have to sometimes let this thing run its course.