I Don't Need To Walk Around In Circles

Another fucking argument with That Canadian Boy I Married about depression and what I can do to fix it. The $65 co-pay for Cymbalta will throw a massive wrench into our already-precarious finances but the depression is taking an even bigger toll.

His answer, after telling me he didn't think he needed to feel any sympathy or understanding for me, was that I should re-try all the anti-depressants I've already tried and already had documented reactions to - for some reason, he seems to think that my body chemistry will have changed and I won't have the same reactions to those drugs now. Mr. fucking physician, I guess.

These arguments leave me so drained. He doesn't get it, doesn't see the need to get it and honestly thinks I should just be able to say "Hey, self, stop feeling that way" and I will be fine. If only it were that easy. I try to explain it to him, try to talk to him about it and he just placates me by telling me that he understands. But then we have another one of these arguments and his true feelings show. He doesn't want to discuss it with a professional; he doesn't see the point.

I don't tell him a lot of what I'm feeling because of this. Of the times I flirt with taking the whole bottle of over-the-counter sleeping pills, of the wish that I could just go bat-shit crazy and be done with it. I know that he'd leave if I did go nuts. And while I'd survive that, I wouldn't survive him probably trying to take the kids away, which I'm sure he'd want to do - and it would be kind of understandable.

So I told him I'd make the damned phone call to the damned doctor and talk to her about it. I'm 99.9% sure that there's nothing new out there, that I've tried them all, but whatever. If it will shut him up and get him off my back, I'll do it. If that's the only way I can justify the $65 a month, so be it.

It pisses me off, though, this constant need of his to piss and moan about the cost of prescriptions for something he doesn't deem real. These are the times that I wish I could just swap bodies with him for a day, so he could live inside my head and see what a muddled mess it is in there, so he could see how I really feel most days, how difficult this is to handle without medication. Maybe then he might muster some of his nearly non-existent sympathy for what I'm going through.

The Black Dog Returns

I just don't feel like writing these days. I don't know what it is - laziness, ennui, a complete and utter lack of anything interesting to say? Maybe all three. It's frustrating as hell. I even have a meme sitting in the drafts that I can't manage to finish. Things are dire when you can't do a friggin' meme.

I just can't seem to get excited about anything. I stopped taking my anti-depressants because they made me feel even more foggy, but that hasn't helped lift this lethargy and utter don't-give-a-fuck-edness I'm enveloped in. I don't write here, I don't write on the NE Mamas blog any more and I have all I can do to comment on the blogs I do read, when I even bother to read those. I feel as though all the fun and happy has been sucked out of me. It's not pleasant.


And I know the answer is to get back on anti-depressants, but they don't make me feel that much better. I feel like I'm in a miasma when I'm on them. I can't take any of the good ones, the ones that really work, like Zoloft or Celexa, because I'm allergic to SSRIs. So I'm stuck with the old-school drugs.

Most days are very treadmill-like around here. I slog along, not getting anywhere, not able to keep the house clean because of the two destructo children I've spawned, who seem to think throwing everything is how it's done, no matter how I tell them to knock. it. off. There are flares of pure terror, like yesterday, when, despite my having locked the regular and child locks on her window, Boo managed to unlock both, open the window and the screen and had most of her upper body hanging out of the window before she was discovered. Her third floor window, oh by the way.

Today I'm buying child safety grills.

I do things, I have fun (or not) and then they almost immediately leave my head, as though they never happened. I want to enjoy my life, not feel like I'm detached and floating above it all as an impartial observer.

It just all seems so endless, like Möbius strip. I need to figure out a way to cut it.

Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me

I have been feeling so sorry for myself for the last couple of days. I don't seem to have a real reason for it, I'm just bummed.

I took the girls to play group today and I felt like a big schlub. All the other kids looked so cute and put together and my kids come in with flyaway hair, looking like they just rolled out of bed. I felt harried and rushed and annoyed with life in general. I sat there, watching the girls play and felt like crying. Boo was grabby and bossy. The Bug just wandered around happily, trying to play with the bigger kids but mostly being left behind. It didn't seem to bother her, but it bothered me. I'm not really sure why.

I hate it when I get this way. I don't know why I feel so sad some days. It's been coming on for a few days - I can always tell when I'm going to slide down into this pit because I spend the day or two leading up to it in a foul, foul mood. I've been snappy and cranky and generally unpleasant to be around.

I don't know how to cope with this when it comes up. It's kind of unpredictable and always takes me by surprise. I can't exactly sit in a corner and feel sorry for myself, although that's all I want to do. I wish I could just drive off and sit somewhere and be mopey by myself. Instead, I have to push it down and deal with life. I can't really talk to TCBIM about it because he just doesn't get it. He thinks that because I'm on an anti-depressant, I should be fine and that if I'm not, then I'm just being selfish and whiny. And maybe I am. I know that I annoy myself when I'm like this and I would like it to stop. I just wish I knew how.

The Bonds Of Motherhood

I was talking to a friend of mine last night on the phone - we'll call her T. T has a 6 year-old daughter and is divorced. She was telling me how very depressed she was because her daughter had gone away for the week with her father. T was bemoaning this, saying how she hates it every year, that she dreads her daughter being gone, saying how desperately she misses her. Then she said what, to me, borders on obsessive behaviour - while her daughter is away, T watches (not records, just watches) all her daughter's favourite shows "in order to feel closer to her."

Um, what? I didn't really know what to say to that. I laughed a little bit. T said that I probably thought she was nuts (ya think?) and then we changed subjects.

I've always thought that T was a bit unhinged about her daughter, with an unhealthy attachment towards her that only got worse when she got divorced. I remember soon after her daughter was born, T and I were talking and she told me she was afraid to take a shower if she was home alone because she was afraid that someone would come in and steal the baby while she was in there. After the divorce, T would sleep with her daughter, saying that the child wouldn't go to sleep on her own, but I know most of it was T and her neuroses.

T's been in and out of therapy for depression, but this seems way beyond depression. I suffer from depression and I'm not like this. I honestly don't think T sees anything wrong with this behaviour, that she's not that different from most mothers. I certainly don't get that way about my kids. I love them to bits and worry about them, probably more than some at times, but I do like to have a break from them now and then. And I would never watch Blue's Clues or Hannah freakin' Montana while they were gone. I'm too busy getting caught up on back episodes of Top Chef and House. (Plus? I'm really, really sick of Blue's Clues and Hannah freakin' Montana.)

I worry, in a resigned way, about what T is doing to her daughter. I haven't seen them in a while (it, apparently, being too far a drive from Boston to the Pioneer Valley), but the last time I was out there, when Boo was a baby, the girl suggested that T bash Boo's head on the floor while T was holding her. Freaked me out.

I know that T is this way with her child because she had such a horrific upbringing herself. She's overcompensating. But in the meantime, I think she's causing other, equally damaging problems for her daughter. It's sad, it's unhealthy and I don't think there's anything I can say that would change her behaviour.

And if your head explodes with dark forbodings, too

I am so sick of being depressed. I don't have a reason for it, nothing's happened, no one died or left me or hit me or even spoke a cross word to me. And yet here I sit, sad, crying and full of self-loathing.

Last night, I think I ate my weight in Terra chips. Then I sat here and thought about how nice it would be if I could just be anorexic or bulimic for a while. Seriously. I wondered if I could make myself become that way. Instead, I felt guilty about thinking that way, so I ate some toast. It's fucking ridiculous. I can't seem to stop eating these days.

The rational part of my brain knows that it's because the Bug has been sick and doesn't want to eat solid food, she just wants some boob. Her nursing needs have probably doubled - she's nursing almost as often as she did when she was just a month old. Non-stop nursing makes me hungry. Seriously hungry.

I've been trying to counteract the hunger with good foods - fruits and humongous salads, but at night, when TCBIM is out or asleep and the kids are in bed, I start cruising the kitchen like a john cruising the Combat Zone. I thought about making falafel, but it was 10:30, far too late for that. I ate some goldfish crackers and stared into the cupboards. I yelled at myself, called myself some wonderful names and went back to the computer. Ten minutes later, I was back in the kitchen, making toast.

I hate myself when I get like this. I feel out of control and angry and guilty and all sorts of things. It's awful. It spills over into other areas of my life, too.

I feel guilty because I don't think I do enough with the kids. I don't have the money, time or inclination to take them to all these programs. I just don't want to. I go to a play group, which the girls and I both love. The women really are nice, far nicer than I ever hoped to find. They all seem to have their shit together, though. They show up with their hair done and a bit of make up on and no spit up or oatmeal or magic marker on their jeans. Their kids always look neat. Mine look a mess some days. As do I. They talk about things they do on the weekends or where they take their kids during the week and I just sit there, thinking what a lazy fuck I am for not doing more.

Why do I continually beat myself up this way? It's not like these women are competimommies, rubbing it in my face that they're better/smarter/more together than I am. I'm sure if I voiced these concerns, some of them would have the same problems, and if they didn't, they'd be supportive rather than derisive. But no, I don't say anything (and if any of you play group ladies are reading, hi. Yes, I really am nuts. Don't mind me, I'm mostly harmless.)



I just want something that will stop me from feeling this way, but that won't make me Hoover up the kitchen or have mad rashes or heart palpitations or destroy my already-dormant sex drive or make me sweat like a pig. I'm weaning off the Paxil because a. I don't think it's helping the depression one iota (given that I went thru a lovely bout of self-loathing not even a month ago) and 2. it gives me night sweats. It's disgusting.

Mostly I just want to stop feeling like I am the worst person in the world. I really, really hate feeling this way.