I'm forcing myself to do this

I don't want to be here spewing my guts out, but here I am. I want to be in bed. Today was a panic-stricken day. I go between two extremes: worrying that I'm not spending enough time with my son while doing too much housework and worrying that I'm spending too much time with him and not getting anything done around the house. So, I sit there waffling back and forth doing neither and hating myself for it. I call myself a worthless father and a do-nothing husband. I feel like I have nothing to show for my effort in either direction.

I keep making lists and then ignoring them. If I do things on the list, I feel like I'm neglecting my kids. If I don't do them, I feel like I'm letting my house fall apart.

I just want to relax. Why is that so hard for me? I'm on all kinds of medication, shouldn't that do the trick? The extra anti-psychotic drug is working well, but I still have some circular thinking that gets me trapped. And now the extra meds have a side-effect too! It feels like someone is pulling on the left side of my neck. It is as if I have a stiff neck after sleeping in a strange position, except it's in the middle of the day.

And why do I have to feel so goddamn tired all the time? I might have gotten work done around here if I had any pep! I always want to be asleep! All I have the strength for is to worry!

This period of not listening to mommy and daddy is scraping at the back of my skull. It's as if someone named the Terrible Twos as a sadistic joke, knowing full well that the threes are the terrible phase; at least it is for my three-year-old.

He constantly parrots back whatever I've just said, only in its opposite form. "No I DON'T have to do potty time now!" "It's NOT time to read books and go to bed!" "Smashing my cars together IS very nice!" I'm sure all kids go through the same type of growing pain, but It's making me want to throw myself down a flight of stairs, while on fire, in a barrel, with my skin peeled off, and acid rubbed all over my body.

I'm going to bed.

I'd rather feel like sludge than feel nothing.

I should talk a bit about what happened last week.

Wednesday I woke with a detestable feeling in my belly. It was a manifestation of discomfort at how I feel I've led my life. Since my youth I've been a very passive individual. I always let everyone else make my decisions for me. The easy route was always provided for me and I always took it. My childhood lasted much longer than it should have. I don't think I grew up until at least the 1990's. And still, I avoided making difficult decisions.

Through my therapy, I've discovered how I've fallen into this same pattern and now the realization has hit me like a block of concrete. It's very hard to realize that I've been a complete pussy all my life. No matter what I wanted, the path with the least potential to trip me or anyone else up was the one that was chosen.

How does a person deal with such an epiphany? I dealt with it by having constant intrusive thoughts of ripping my forearms open with a box cutter.

That Wednesday I woke up shaking and crying. The feeling stayed with me for the rest of the morning until panic began to set in. The dire thoughts replayed in my head so frequently, that I had to ask my wife to come home early. I couldn't handle everyday tasks like dealing with the children and making simple breakfast; I was shaking so much.

By the time my wife got home, I was getting dizzy. I handed her the baby and rushed to make a desperate phone call to my counselling center. "I"m calling because I'm having suicidal thoughs," I said. They quickly connected me with my psychologist who had me take more of the little white pills that I was supposedly supposed to stop taking.

I know now that I should have just taken some when the emergency hit, but I wasn't thinking. Well, I was thinking but only about blood gushing from my arms.

I took almost three times the originally prescribed amount and began to feel quite groggy almost immediately.

(This makes me tired recalling this all again.)

The meds knocked me out, basically, and I slept for most of the rest of the day. It's a good thing I did too. The surge of mood calming meds probably saved my life last week. I might be overestimating the medicine and underestimating my own ability to keep my cool, but there's a good chance that I might not have been typing this if I didn't listen to my doctor.

The next day I had an emergency meeting with my therapist, during which we again discussed my lack of assertiveness and how it has pigeonholed me into this predicament.

Knowing the reason for the problem is a huge part of solving it. I've made it over that hump, but I feel like I've met the mental equivalent of hitting the proverbial wall of a marathon runner. It's taken me so many years to reach this point and I feel like I've reached a dead end. I don't feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, I feel like I've reached the end of the tunnel and it's caved in!

My wife has been very supportive, I must say. No one deserves to live with someone like me. I'm way too high maintenance. I already feel I should be writing apologies to my kids for having to deal with my moods and self-destructive thinking. "What's wrong with daddy?" I can already hear them saying many times in the days to come.

But, I'm still here. I'd rather feel like toxic sludge than feel nothing.

After MIdnight

Here I am sitting up behind the computer at 12:12 a.m. What am I doing? Well, I'm waiting for my medication to kick in, for one. I'm not only a member of the Prozac Nation, but now I'm also on and anti-psychotic medication. I forget what it's even called.

But it is supposed to make me drowsy. And I am not yet very drowsy, I must say. I just paid the bills and filed away some receipts and such and I need to go to sleep now. However, my mind is still racing around and trying to figure out what is what.

One thought that entered my head while I was lying in bed is how quickly time passes. My mother just recently announced that she is going to retire after her next birthday! Seems like only yesterday that I was sitting behind my TV in my bedroom, pretending to do my homework, while my mother was in the next room. That was like twenty-eight years ago. And now she's retiring! It makes me feel old.

I am happy for her though. It will give her time to come spend with me and her grandkids. She'll have to drive 11 hours to get here, but she is certainly welcome. This motivates us to get the downstairs bathroom finally installed for her. She has her own room downstairs, but it is no-frills at the moment.

So, about this medication I'm taking...

I've been on it for a couple days now. It is supposed to suppress my "intrusive thoughts" that I keep having. I'm thinking that it is working the way it should so far, but it will take some time to see if those thoughts actually go away. They are violent thoughts and they scare the hell out of me. I don't intend to think these thoughts, they just jump into my head and there they are staring at me in the face. My whole face... it's accosted by violent images at the most inopportune times. They are not visions, per se, more flashing daytime nightmares (daymares?). The thoughts have calmed down a bit, but haven't as yet completely disappeared. I'm not sure they will. I hope so. It's getting very troubling.

I was told by my therapist that if the intrusive thoughts didn't go away and instead got worse that I would have to be hospitalized. Yep! For the first time since I was diagnosed with depression in 2003, the possibility of lodging at the loony bin has surfaced--like a sea serpent with a bleeding migraine headache.

Another reason I feel old... a nineteen-year-old in my book store told her friend that she "feels old."

Where's my cane?

What the hell

I'm starting over. This used to be a podcast about depression. It used to be a blog about depression. I am still depressed. I still need to write about it even though my podcast has podfaded and my blog has been abandoned.

One of the things that my therapist said I should do when I'm alone and thinking disturbing thoughts is to sit down and write about them. So, that's what I'm going to do.

I've cleared out all of the old shows and posts and I'll be evolving this page when I get the chance. I make the excuse that I don't have any time to write anything, so don't be surprised if I make that excuse again! I love to make excuses for my failures. Funny, since failure is something I'm afraid of, apparently--according to my therapist.

I'm pissed off or sad most of the time and right now I'm in a happy medium between the two. Some people keep a mood journal. I suppose that might be what this is supposed to be.

I don't have much time since I have to go pick up my little boy from Parent's Morning Out. See, there I go making excuses again!

I used to be a good writer. I used to write every day. I've even been published several times. Since my depression was diagnosed, I've not written anything worth reading. Are you still reading now?

Fuck. I'm tired of being tired. I'm tired of being anxious. I'm fed up with being sad and confused and not able to make decisions. I'm not thinking clearly and haven't been thinking clearly in years. I walk around in a fog and bump into my troubles with my forehead.



I did do something positive for the depression community yesterday: You can hear me on freetalklive.com on 7-7-09 talking about how depression is a real disease and not a figment of our imaginations. I think Ian toned down his rhetoric after having me on, if I do say so myself.


Gotta split.

I promise myself to spit out more written gore on a regular basis.