Work in Progress

One of the reasons I tell my faery godchildren not to make holes in the time/space continuum is because I often fall through them. Hence why it has been 8 months since I last blogged. Or did anything creative really...

I finally realized how very stagnant my life has become. Nothing new, no taking chances, no creativity...nada. I'm not sure if it is a result of the depression or the cause of it...not that it really matters. If I go down that road I'll be even more stuck. With my birthday right around the corner, it is a opportune time to start to shake some things up.

So here I am...blogging again. And painting. The piece picture here is a work in progress. It has taken many days of sketching, blocking parts out and layers of paint. It still needs at least one more session before I leave it to dry for framing. I'm using it as a sign for myself...one step at a time.

But first, time to clean out the old...fitting for the time of year, especially with Mercury retrograde. If anyone needs books or clothes, let me know. Tomorrow I start on the closets.

PS. Let me know what you think of the painting...it is a present for a dear one!

Winter Darkness

Despite my best efforts, the yearly dark period I go through is back. It is still manageable. I feel exhausted most of the time. I have alot to do and little energy to do it. I just want to sleep. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be helping.

I have been able to keep eating well. Things that have to get done are. The nightmares have eased up some, likely due to the 90lb Black Lab sleeping on me every night. So that is something to be grateful for. Since it isn't getting better, I have to prepare for the possibility it will get worse. Especially since things will be very busy for the next bit of time.

The plan is to keep eating healthy, try to get outside more and make sure I have lists of what needs to be done. That should cover the basics. In the meantime, I'm going to ask friends to come visit...I'd visit them but transportation is an issue at the moment. The goal is to get to turn this darkness around.

Even though it is still winter, there are signs of spring...even in the darkness, there is starlight.

Snow Day!

Here is a belated Happy New Year's to all. And a happy end to this snow day. Jet was very happy to see all the fresh snow. She'll have plenty to play in for a few days. I'm enjoying the winter this year...for now at least. I'm sure I'll be ready for spring once my seed catalogs start arriving.

I've had a fairly good fall and early winter, despite the challenges. Trying to stay positive and keep trudging away at things. Enjoying all the babies and toddlers in my life, as well as my other kids. The depression has been largely held at bay with meds, vitamins and other positive stuff. I was hoping the balance would maintain through to spring when things should balance out in life a little more.

Okay, to be honest, I wanted to stay balanced and positive through the Dark Month ie February. Guess it is going to be more difficult than I thought. My nightmares that come this time of year are back, pretty much as scheduled. I could handle those. It's the waking up at 3 in the morning that is throwing me off. Sleep is necessary for my brain to work decently.

In hopes of getting through past February 18th, I've cut way back on my coffee, I'm making an effort to eat decently, drinking Tension Tamer tea at night, and I'm going to cram in as much work as I can right now in case things do turn worse and my cognitive issues rear their head. I'm trying not to white knuckle it this year. My goal is to get through it as gently as possible while being prepared to respond quickly if I can't. Figure keeping my fingers crossed can't help.

So here is to a good night sleep and a happy brain. And maybe some more snow.

Slower pace?

I've been very bad....haven't written in a bit. Some of it is waiting for my brain to level out. Most of it is I'm either working or sleeping. One of the side effects of my treatment is than I don't have my usual chaos energy level driving me to get lots done. Not that I have less to do, mind you....I just don't have the nervous energy I used to use to get stuff done. Plus, it seems my body has decided it needs to rest up from all the times I was burning the candle at both ends. So if I'm not working, I'm either asleep or in zombie mode.

This is requiring some serious readjustment. And no, I don't like it. And yes, I'm working on it anyways because it is what is good for me in the long run. Right now, I'm white knuckling it. Work stuff, a baby shower, a first birthday and a funeral are all on the agenda for the next couple of days. If I can make it through until Sunday evening, I'll have some breathing room. And I'm planning on holding on to it. We'll just have to see how it goes trying to come at life from a slower pace. Maybe if I look at it as an adventure?

The Past Year...

Some of you know what I've been up to, at least in part, for the past year. There have been some great joys, including the birth of the youngest goddaughter, Ryanne Nichole in November,graduating with my Master's Degree in Environmental Science and watching more of "my kids" graduate high school and move on with their lives. There have been some sorrows, including my Dad's declining health and the tragic loss of my brother Nate's partner, among others.


For most of the past year, I was battling my demons again. The anxiety was bad enough. When it combined with the depression this time around, it hit me in a new and disturbing way. I have always relied upon my intellect, probably too much. Academic life, school, books...these have always been my safety zone. I know what the rules are, expectations are clearly laid out and there are few if any nasty surprises to disrupt that area of calm in my life. At least until the last year, when suddenly I found myself unable to rely on my intellect. My ability to skim material and pound out a decent paper at the last minute was gone. Reading became a huge difficulty. Writing papers became almost impossible at times. And all of this in the middle of my graduate studies. My ability to communicate went out a window. I couldn't follow my own train of thought some days, let alone anyone else. I managed to get through to graduate. At the time, I did enough to get through my classes to get to May 4th - Graduation. I did not do it gracefully, or with much confidence at some points that I would make it at all.

I did what I normally do when the demons appear. Mainly I go to ground and I wait for it to pass. I know how difficult it is for those around me to watch it happen. I am so blessed to have people who love me enough to be there through it. There are other people in my life who have no idea what goes on with me. They do not have enough of a history to have seen this before. They have no way to know it will pass eventually. I realized it is because I haven't told them, much, if any of it because I haven't wanted to accept this is part of my life.

I have struggled with it for years. I kept hoping each time will be the last . Yet the more I struggled to deny its hold, the worse each round has become. I have had to make peace with this being out of my control (Yes this is me admitting there is something I cannot control). I cannot say I will not be in that dark place again. Instead I acknowledge it, find what blessings are in it and begin to heal again.

One of the blessings so far...I can no longer rely completely on my "rational" mind. Doing so may have protected me at one point in my life, but it has cost me much in my current life. Instead, I'm learning to listen to other parts of myself. It's not easy, and so far the result has been a fair amount of heartache. But I'll take that over the numbing darkness any day.

The Blahs

I'm not even sure what to write. I'm here tonight mainly because I can't sleep. Not because of too much caffeine. I wish it was that. I haven't even finished the cup of team I made when I got home from work. My brain just won't slow down.

Instead it's a combination of feeling overwhelmed and numb, at the same time, if that makes any sense. I had hoped the sun and the warm weather would help to lift my mood some, get it out of the root cellar it seems to be hiding in. But no such luck. If anything, I feel worse because I can't really seem to enjoy it. I can cope so long as I'm doing something...something other than homework that is, which is adding to my anxiety and so on and so forth. Put it all together and I'm a mess...one with inhibited executive functioning.

The really crazy part...things should be fine, going according to plan. Except they aren't. Makes me wonder if I'm on the wrong plan...or the wrong timetable or something. All I know is I have to make some significant changes before this gets anymore out of control. I'm just not sure I trust myself to figure out what is the best thing for me right now. Following through on what is best for me...whole other issue.

Right now, some clear guidance and a little help would make a world of difference. Guess I'll have to wait for my guardian angel to get back from coffee break.

Brain in Rebellion

I haven't written here for a few days. Some of the reason is I've been incredibly busy. The other reason...my brain has decided to raise its own little rebellion. Basically, my anxiety attacks are coming daily and the depression is back. I've tried to explain to the brain that this is not a convenient time to do this. I have professional responsibilities plus it is almost the end of the semester. My brains response? Another anxiety attack and not being able to spell simple words...like "the". Cute, huh?

I'm being very responsible and taking the necessary medications. My other tricks to help...not really working. It might have something with my language center being out to lunch at the moment. Simple conversations are challenging...I can't track them very well and words keep escaping me. I know what I want to say...the words just run away before I can speak. Not a good thing when I have presentations to give and papers to write.

So I'm falling back on some other tricks. I went to church, late mass, but I still made it. I did some painting this evening. I ate one healthy meal today and I decided to not do two of the things I wanted to do today. I hated it, but I know I've already pushed myself about as far as I can. I did discover something interesting about my language issues though. Apparently it doesn't apply to prayer. I spent part of a recent car ride trying to stay, okay not calm, I was way beyond that, but at least level enough to get where I needed to get. I recited the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary and the Prayer to St. Micheal over and over again. Apparently they are in the subconscious deep enough that the anxiety can't touch them. Lucky for me, because God knows I wasn't capable of coming up with any of my own prayers at that point.

Of course, I should be in bed at this hour since sleep is one of those key elements to sanity. It would help if I was tired, but I'm not. So I will read in bed until either my alarm goes off or I fall asleep. And I'll say a prayer that this passes quickly. Here's hope, I only spelled one word wrong while writing this...okay I spelled alot of them wrong, I only missed fixing one on my own.