[content notes for depression and animal death]
I feel like I should have a checklist. I said in comments that it was because even treated my depression can come out to play when I'm sufficiently off balance. The bottom drops out. Instead of normal highs and lows I have normal highs and as for the lows . . . my brain doesn't know how to do them. I usually say I spent “half my life” with depression that was either untreated or not responding to treatment.
That might be a low estimate (then again, it might be high) the truth is by the time I was into college I didn't remember what “normal” even was, from an emotional point of view. And I certainly don't remember when I ever was it.
That leaves a mark on you, the brain operates by trying things out, treading paths, and making patterns. Spend enough time in the same pattern treading the same path and you've worn them into ruts that are hard to escape. No medication, no matter how good, can change the paths I've trod. My brain doesn't do “feeling down” it does full blown clinical depression (in two flavors no less.)
That blurs lines. In this case it made it so I didn't realize that what was happening wasn't the scars of having depression for so long I don't remember what life before was like. It was being depressed again.
The truth is that it probably started as the lingering aftereffects and then moved into full blown depression without me ever really noticing that a line had been crossed.
I feel like I should have a checklist.
Having trouble even moving? Check.
Spending days not eating, except (perhaps) an easily grabbed snack or two? Check.
Not getting to sleep because it was two difficult to stand up and get to my toothbrush? Check.
Obsessively reading fanfiction for a children's cartoon that I'm not really that interested in at the moment? Definite Check.
Reading a story on the internet, desperately searching for another, reading that, and repeating from when I get up until it's well past time for bed, to the exclusion of eating, drinking, or anything else body-care related as if shoving a bunch of text in my brain will somehow fill the void inside me? Check
Allowing the search for said fanfic to become my sole driving force as if “search, click, read, click, search, click, read, click repeat” could really sate the gaping maw that is the emptiness? Check.
Forgetting-ish to take my “first thing in the morning so you can't really outright forget this if you were asleep and are now awake” medication until well into the afternoon, if I remember at all? Check.
Becoming so cooped up in my house that the outside world might as well be a forgotten flight of fancy? Check.
Being dehydrated? Check.
Desperately running around my house looking for socks--
Don't you mean clean socks?
ANY FUCKING SOCKS!
Ok, Jesus, you don't need to--
Maybe I do! Ok!? Maybe I need to vent because not all of us have the benefit of being context-less italic writing used rhetorical effect. Some of us exist outside of a device used to act like there's a dialogue when in fact it's just a monologue, and that existence can be really fucking hard, so don't you dare pretend you know how it feels.
You've been planning that since you had the idea for this exchange while looking for socks an hour and a half ago, haven't you?
Get out of my head stupid italic interlocutor.
I am getting out of your head, that's the entire point of writing this entire exchange. Once I'm on the page, as it were, you'll move on. Maybe.
Shut up.
Wait, don't shut up. Tell me where the fuck I was, then shut up.
Socks.
Desperately running around my house looking for socks well past the point of reason (because I know I've already checked the places I'm looking several times and socks do not spontaneously generate if you look in the same places thirty one times instead of thirty)--
Exaggerate much?
--to the point that it's not even about the fucking socks anymore, not that I have socks (which I really do need), and it's just become a pointless exercise of getting overheated, sweaty, frustrated, and late? Check.
How in fuck did it take that long to get to the “check”?
Why am I still jammed on the part where I pretend a soliloquy is a dialogue?
Not doing dishes for so long that there are no clean dishes and then still not doing dishes because --good fucking God-- I can't even face them? Check.
Standing with my head pressed up against the wall as if it would somehow relieve the pressure that could be dehydration, malnutrition, or sleep deprivation but definitely manifests as a headache? Check.
Being (almost) completely unable to write fiction? Check.
Or much of anything else? Check.
Being so far gone I can't even watch a movie? That's actually a new one, but sure, whatever, check.
Neglecting my plants to the the point that they die? Thankfully no check there yet, but I've got a new one to take it's place: trying to help a bird that my cat injured but didn't kill while actually doing nothing but extending its life (less than two days) with captivity punctuated by moments of abject terror (being captured by a human, especially an incompetent one, is really scary), in other words bringing misery and suffering such that it would have been better off being left with the cat that was toying with it rather than giving it a clean death? Check so fucking hard.
I found it dead this morning. Maybe it died of its injuries, maybe it died of exacerbating the injuries during those moment of terror when I gave it an opening that it thought meant escape but would have just led to it dying alone wherever it ended up still trapped inside my house. Maybe it died from smashing its head into the bars of the cage that I thought would be better for it (bird poop fumes are noxious) because it didn't seem to grasp the fact that it couldn't fit through the bars. Maybe it would have lived if I'd managed to hand it off to a god damned professional sooner.
Like I said: God damned check.
Spending ungodly amounts of time doing nothing, and I don't mean relaxing, I mean fucking nothing? (Nothing is terrible. I don't recommend it.) Check.
Having everything in place to do things I WANT TO FUCKING DO and never getting around to doing them? Month after month? Check.
Wanting to cry but being unable to produce tears? Check.
Not getting my pages done? Check.
Not getting anything done? Check.
Becoming void, for I am nothing and nothing is me and emptiness is all there is? Check, check, motherfucking check.
No longer reading Slacktivist? Check.
Hey, I just managed to cry. Sort of. I haven't produced a single full tear yet, but somewhere between the last two both of my eyes started watering so it's something.
Falling behind schedule when there's almost nothing on the schedule (one fucking thing) so I have no excuse? Check.
Becoming a useless lump of inertia who isn't able to help anyone or anything? Check. Oh so very check. I'm actually about to spend five days where someone I should be helping will in fact be stuck getting me to actually eat and keeping me on my schedule in spite of that being extremely inconvenient for her since my schedule and hers don't align at all and [stuff redacted because I felt it was getting too in depth].
Did I mention the dishes? Because we can add to the the fact that I haven't done my own dishes in so long that I've got nothing to eat off of [some kind of break here] the fact that helping out by hand-washing someone else's dishes --honestly it should be the least I can do in exchange for keeping me fed and thus, you know, alive-- is well and truly beyond me? Yes, I just said I'm doing less than what should be the least I can do. Check.
Allowing unknown rodents to run around my house and damage my calm because I can't do the minimal cleaning that would be necessary to make them know they are not welcome? (Cat, why couldn't you go after them instead of the bird? We don't have a bird problem.) Check.
Living surrounded by growing piles of not-quite-trash that should be easy to deal with? Check.
Failing basic hygiene forever? Check.
Getting really fucking angry at fictional characters and shouting at them while acting out scenes I wish other fictional characters had with them? Check.
Not recording any of that shit so it can't be adapted into (what would be admittedly shitty) fiction posts? Check.
Letting my body get the point where I feel like I'm going to pass out, even though I know I won't?* Check.
Not being sure that passing out in a random place would be a bad thing? Check.
Being in a worse brain-space then I was when I had a god damned fucking concussion? Check.
Forgetting basic things on a level that can't be explained by my usual, pretty extreme, forgetfulness? Check.
Prolonged hopelessness? Check.
General lack of any positive emotions, and sometimes (many times) any emotions at all? Check.
This? Check.
Being so out of it days, weeks, and even months blend together into an interchangeable mass of “blah” and it's entirely possible I won't even realize I've been talking to someone, what it was about, or critical information that was imparted, because a few minutes ago is no different than a month ago and I have few memories of a month ago so . . . yeah. Check.
Having a song I haven't heard in years stuck on infinite repeat in my head? Check.
Just the chorus? Check.
Just two lines of the chorus? Check.
From a movie I didn't even like that much? Check.
And still getting the fucking words wrong in spite of knowing full well what the right words are? Check.
Feeling like the existence of other people (or living beings in general) is an assault on my senses, because why won't the fucking universe leave me alone? Check.
A lack of empathy beyond the whole “I'd rather you not be dead” thing? Check.
General assholic thinking? Check.
No one really knowing about the previous because that would require a level of interaction, effort, and general stuff which I can't possibly manage/maintain/produce? Check.
Still feeling bad about the previous previous even though the single-previous means it hasn't inconvenienced anyone? Check.
Forgetting what the point, not just of this stupid checklist but also of life in general, was? Check.
[added because I wrote it elsewhere and initially forgot to merge]
Being unable to do incredibly basic math because my brain is so very not braining right now? Check.
[/added]
Yeah. Sometimes I feel like I should have a checklist.
The truth is that I never recovered from the broken ankle.
I had to go off my hormones due to the surgery and stay off them for an ungodly amount of time afterward. I noticed the hit to my mood. Things got better afterward, but they never got back to where they were before. By the time I could walk I was so fucking sedentary from not being able to. I'd moved to a different place because it was easier in my “can't walk state” and haven't moved back which makes it harder to stand up when I'm using the computer (not much harder, the difference is so little that it normally wouldn't matter) which in turn leaves me staying on the computer all the fucking time in an effort to fill the void.
I just . . . I got knocked down, figuratively, and never got up again.
So, does this mean I'll go on hiatus? God, I hope not.
Does it mean that you'll get slammed with Sunset Shimmer fanfic at some point down the line? (My Little Pony: [Friendship is Magic:] Equestria Girls) Possibly. At this point I'd welcome anything I could actually get written.
Does this mean that I'm in a really fucking crappy funk and I don't know when I'll get out or how to get out? Yes. I never needed more than my meds before. If the meds aren't keeping me out of a depressed state right now then . . . there are patterns I know I should break, and it would be easy to break them if I weren't fucked up, but if they're what's keeping me fucked up . . . yeah: that.
I'm on a two hour bus ride. The AC is broken. Fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck.
You know what's really good at overriding other factors and fucking over my mood and everything else? Heat.
Also, to find socks I ended up having to rummage through a bag of dirty clothes and the things on my feet are God-damned soggy.
Is there a difference between “God damned” and “God-damned”? For some reason I didn't feel the need to use the second until the previous, having used the first throughout the rest of the post.
I'm going to have to go now, I'll be off the bus by the time I come back to this utterly pointless post.
Ok, in a place with air conditioning, truly a gift from the gods even if it did lead to a migration of major population centers to places that probably shouldn't house major population centers of people who haven't even learned the first thing about living in such climates, but its misuse doesn't make it less of a divine gift.
So, um, where was I?
Depression, back in full swing.
The only reason I even wanted to see the end of the damned movie was for the horrible filthy rich person who was fucking named "Filthy Rich" get his comeuppance which . . . never happened. He just slunk away with his dignity intact and I somehow ended up spending a weekend reading Sunset Shimmer fanfiction to the exclusion of all else (not all other reading, all other things) in spite of being one of the few people on earth who was only ever mildly taken with MLP:FiM (and I've only seen two of the Equestria Girls movies.)
And I think that basically covers it:
--Depression: On
--Name of rut stuck in: Sunset Shimmer
--Bird: Dead
--Extremely lacking in: Socks
--Odds of me posting something interesting in the near future: Low
* This, this right here is why the question comma needs to be a thing. The part before the comma is a question, the part after is more of a statement/clarification. Sure, the whole thing can be taken as the question, but the intent is for only the part before the comma to be the question, as I'd check it off even if the post comma addendum weren't true.
I feel like I should have a checklist. I said in comments that it was because even treated my depression can come out to play when I'm sufficiently off balance. The bottom drops out. Instead of normal highs and lows I have normal highs and as for the lows . . . my brain doesn't know how to do them. I usually say I spent “half my life” with depression that was either untreated or not responding to treatment.
That might be a low estimate (then again, it might be high) the truth is by the time I was into college I didn't remember what “normal” even was, from an emotional point of view. And I certainly don't remember when I ever was it.
That leaves a mark on you, the brain operates by trying things out, treading paths, and making patterns. Spend enough time in the same pattern treading the same path and you've worn them into ruts that are hard to escape. No medication, no matter how good, can change the paths I've trod. My brain doesn't do “feeling down” it does full blown clinical depression (in two flavors no less.)
That blurs lines. In this case it made it so I didn't realize that what was happening wasn't the scars of having depression for so long I don't remember what life before was like. It was being depressed again.
The truth is that it probably started as the lingering aftereffects and then moved into full blown depression without me ever really noticing that a line had been crossed.
I feel like I should have a checklist.
* * *
Having trouble even moving? Check.
Spending days not eating, except (perhaps) an easily grabbed snack or two? Check.
Not getting to sleep because it was two difficult to stand up and get to my toothbrush? Check.
Obsessively reading fanfiction for a children's cartoon that I'm not really that interested in at the moment? Definite Check.
Reading a story on the internet, desperately searching for another, reading that, and repeating from when I get up until it's well past time for bed, to the exclusion of eating, drinking, or anything else body-care related as if shoving a bunch of text in my brain will somehow fill the void inside me? Check
Allowing the search for said fanfic to become my sole driving force as if “search, click, read, click, search, click, read, click repeat” could really sate the gaping maw that is the emptiness? Check.
Forgetting-ish to take my “first thing in the morning so you can't really outright forget this if you were asleep and are now awake” medication until well into the afternoon, if I remember at all? Check.
Becoming so cooped up in my house that the outside world might as well be a forgotten flight of fancy? Check.
Being dehydrated? Check.
Desperately running around my house looking for socks--
Don't you mean clean socks?
ANY FUCKING SOCKS!
Ok, Jesus, you don't need to--
Maybe I do! Ok!? Maybe I need to vent because not all of us have the benefit of being context-less italic writing used rhetorical effect. Some of us exist outside of a device used to act like there's a dialogue when in fact it's just a monologue, and that existence can be really fucking hard, so don't you dare pretend you know how it feels.
You've been planning that since you had the idea for this exchange while looking for socks an hour and a half ago, haven't you?
Get out of my head stupid italic interlocutor.
I am getting out of your head, that's the entire point of writing this entire exchange. Once I'm on the page, as it were, you'll move on. Maybe.
Shut up.
Wait, don't shut up. Tell me where the fuck I was, then shut up.
Socks.
Desperately running around my house looking for socks well past the point of reason (because I know I've already checked the places I'm looking several times and socks do not spontaneously generate if you look in the same places thirty one times instead of thirty)--
Exaggerate much?
--to the point that it's not even about the fucking socks anymore, not that I have socks (which I really do need), and it's just become a pointless exercise of getting overheated, sweaty, frustrated, and late? Check.
How in fuck did it take that long to get to the “check”?
Why am I still jammed on the part where I pretend a soliloquy is a dialogue?
Not doing dishes for so long that there are no clean dishes and then still not doing dishes because --good fucking God-- I can't even face them? Check.
Standing with my head pressed up against the wall as if it would somehow relieve the pressure that could be dehydration, malnutrition, or sleep deprivation but definitely manifests as a headache? Check.
Being (almost) completely unable to write fiction? Check.
Or much of anything else? Check.
Being so far gone I can't even watch a movie? That's actually a new one, but sure, whatever, check.
Neglecting my plants to the the point that they die? Thankfully no check there yet, but I've got a new one to take it's place: trying to help a bird that my cat injured but didn't kill while actually doing nothing but extending its life (less than two days) with captivity punctuated by moments of abject terror (being captured by a human, especially an incompetent one, is really scary), in other words bringing misery and suffering such that it would have been better off being left with the cat that was toying with it rather than giving it a clean death? Check so fucking hard.
I found it dead this morning. Maybe it died of its injuries, maybe it died of exacerbating the injuries during those moment of terror when I gave it an opening that it thought meant escape but would have just led to it dying alone wherever it ended up still trapped inside my house. Maybe it died from smashing its head into the bars of the cage that I thought would be better for it (bird poop fumes are noxious) because it didn't seem to grasp the fact that it couldn't fit through the bars. Maybe it would have lived if I'd managed to hand it off to a god damned professional sooner.
Like I said: God damned check.
Spending ungodly amounts of time doing nothing, and I don't mean relaxing, I mean fucking nothing? (Nothing is terrible. I don't recommend it.) Check.
Having everything in place to do things I WANT TO FUCKING DO and never getting around to doing them? Month after month? Check.
Wanting to cry but being unable to produce tears? Check.
Not getting my pages done? Check.
Not getting anything done? Check.
Becoming void, for I am nothing and nothing is me and emptiness is all there is? Check, check, motherfucking check.
No longer reading Slacktivist? Check.
Hey, I just managed to cry. Sort of. I haven't produced a single full tear yet, but somewhere between the last two both of my eyes started watering so it's something.
Falling behind schedule when there's almost nothing on the schedule (one fucking thing) so I have no excuse? Check.
Becoming a useless lump of inertia who isn't able to help anyone or anything? Check. Oh so very check. I'm actually about to spend five days where someone I should be helping will in fact be stuck getting me to actually eat and keeping me on my schedule in spite of that being extremely inconvenient for her since my schedule and hers don't align at all and [stuff redacted because I felt it was getting too in depth].
Did I mention the dishes? Because we can add to the the fact that I haven't done my own dishes in so long that I've got nothing to eat off of [some kind of break here] the fact that helping out by hand-washing someone else's dishes --honestly it should be the least I can do in exchange for keeping me fed and thus, you know, alive-- is well and truly beyond me? Yes, I just said I'm doing less than what should be the least I can do. Check.
Allowing unknown rodents to run around my house and damage my calm because I can't do the minimal cleaning that would be necessary to make them know they are not welcome? (Cat, why couldn't you go after them instead of the bird? We don't have a bird problem.) Check.
Living surrounded by growing piles of not-quite-trash that should be easy to deal with? Check.
Failing basic hygiene forever? Check.
Getting really fucking angry at fictional characters and shouting at them while acting out scenes I wish other fictional characters had with them? Check.
Not recording any of that shit so it can't be adapted into (what would be admittedly shitty) fiction posts? Check.
Letting my body get the point where I feel like I'm going to pass out, even though I know I won't?* Check.
Not being sure that passing out in a random place would be a bad thing? Check.
Being in a worse brain-space then I was when I had a god damned fucking concussion? Check.
Forgetting basic things on a level that can't be explained by my usual, pretty extreme, forgetfulness? Check.
Prolonged hopelessness? Check.
General lack of any positive emotions, and sometimes (many times) any emotions at all? Check.
This? Check.
Being so out of it days, weeks, and even months blend together into an interchangeable mass of “blah” and it's entirely possible I won't even realize I've been talking to someone, what it was about, or critical information that was imparted, because a few minutes ago is no different than a month ago and I have few memories of a month ago so . . . yeah. Check.
Having a song I haven't heard in years stuck on infinite repeat in my head? Check.
Just the chorus? Check.
Just two lines of the chorus? Check.
From a movie I didn't even like that much? Check.
And still getting the fucking words wrong in spite of knowing full well what the right words are? Check.
Feeling like the existence of other people (or living beings in general) is an assault on my senses, because why won't the fucking universe leave me alone? Check.
A lack of empathy beyond the whole “I'd rather you not be dead” thing? Check.
General assholic thinking? Check.
No one really knowing about the previous because that would require a level of interaction, effort, and general stuff which I can't possibly manage/maintain/produce? Check.
Still feeling bad about the previous previous even though the single-previous means it hasn't inconvenienced anyone? Check.
Forgetting what the point, not just of this stupid checklist but also of life in general, was? Check.
[added because I wrote it elsewhere and initially forgot to merge]
Being unable to do incredibly basic math because my brain is so very not braining right now? Check.
[/added]
* * *
Yeah. Sometimes I feel like I should have a checklist.
The truth is that I never recovered from the broken ankle.
I had to go off my hormones due to the surgery and stay off them for an ungodly amount of time afterward. I noticed the hit to my mood. Things got better afterward, but they never got back to where they were before. By the time I could walk I was so fucking sedentary from not being able to. I'd moved to a different place because it was easier in my “can't walk state” and haven't moved back which makes it harder to stand up when I'm using the computer (not much harder, the difference is so little that it normally wouldn't matter) which in turn leaves me staying on the computer all the fucking time in an effort to fill the void.
I just . . . I got knocked down, figuratively, and never got up again.
So, does this mean I'll go on hiatus? God, I hope not.
Does it mean that you'll get slammed with Sunset Shimmer fanfic at some point down the line? (My Little Pony: [Friendship is Magic:] Equestria Girls) Possibly. At this point I'd welcome anything I could actually get written.
Does this mean that I'm in a really fucking crappy funk and I don't know when I'll get out or how to get out? Yes. I never needed more than my meds before. If the meds aren't keeping me out of a depressed state right now then . . . there are patterns I know I should break, and it would be easy to break them if I weren't fucked up, but if they're what's keeping me fucked up . . . yeah: that.
I'm on a two hour bus ride. The AC is broken. Fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck.
You know what's really good at overriding other factors and fucking over my mood and everything else? Heat.
Also, to find socks I ended up having to rummage through a bag of dirty clothes and the things on my feet are God-damned soggy.
Is there a difference between “God damned” and “God-damned”? For some reason I didn't feel the need to use the second until the previous, having used the first throughout the rest of the post.
I'm going to have to go now, I'll be off the bus by the time I come back to this utterly pointless post.
* * *
Ok, in a place with air conditioning, truly a gift from the gods even if it did lead to a migration of major population centers to places that probably shouldn't house major population centers of people who haven't even learned the first thing about living in such climates, but its misuse doesn't make it less of a divine gift.
So, um, where was I?
Depression, back in full swing.
The only reason I even wanted to see the end of the damned movie was for the horrible filthy rich person who was fucking named "Filthy Rich" get his comeuppance which . . . never happened. He just slunk away with his dignity intact and I somehow ended up spending a weekend reading Sunset Shimmer fanfiction to the exclusion of all else (not all other reading, all other things) in spite of being one of the few people on earth who was only ever mildly taken with MLP:FiM (and I've only seen two of the Equestria Girls movies.)
And I think that basically covers it:
--Depression: On
--Name of rut stuck in: Sunset Shimmer
--Bird: Dead
--Extremely lacking in: Socks
--Odds of me posting something interesting in the near future: Low
-
* This, this right here is why the question comma needs to be a thing. The part before the comma is a question, the part after is more of a statement/clarification. Sure, the whole thing can be taken as the question, but the intent is for only the part before the comma to be the question, as I'd check it off even if the post comma addendum weren't true.
Still here.
ReplyDeleteNot much help maybe, but still here, still reading when you post, not hassling you when you don't.
(Going away next week so absence of Firedrake comments will not indicate permanent absence of Firedrake.)