On being healthy

A few short months ago I was in the depths of despair. All around me was dark and foreboding and I simply could not see anything good coming my way anytime soon. The relationship I was in was imploding which was no surprise. My job seemed to hang on a thread and was causing me intense, daily anxiety. Something I had never experienced before and to a degree I did not know was possible. I could not fall asleep at night. When I did finally slepp, I had nightmares featuring various uncomfortable work situations. I awoke every morning shaking. I got to the point that I was not eating. At all. For days on end.

I took a good look at my sleepless, shaking, shrinking self and realized that as much as I thought I would be just fine off of the Zoloft when I went cold turkey in July, that this was most sincerely not the case and that perhaps what I really needed was to get my ass into a doctor's office and walk out with a prescription for the pretty yellow pills.

________________________________________

When I was first diagnosed as being clinically depressed, really diagnosed, by a psychiatrist in college after that unfortunate Halloween in 1994, he sent me home with a piece of paper to take to the pharmacy and get medicated. The thought of being medicated because I was unhappy terrified me. It was the last thing I wanted as a freshman in college, to have the stigma of being depressed and on Prozac, and thus just tore that little white rectangle in to smaller and smaller bits in my dorm room.

After that I tried Zoloft once or twice half-heartedly but mostly resisted antidepressants for years until a neurologist suggested Zoloft for my migraines. At that point I figured that if one of the side effects was that I no longer wanted to off myself on a regular basis that, perhaps, would not be the end of the world.

I've been to more therapists than I can count on both hands. Most decent and helpful in some way. I've had epiphanies. I've had revelations. But it always comes back to the fact that I am damaged and can never really understand why people think that I am a valuable human being.

Being unhappy, being depressed and suicidal and convinced that I was and am a failure at all things was just the way I knew my life. It is the way things have been for as long as I can remember, since before college, high school, middle school, before elementary school, before memory. I have a hard time with friendships, with relationships with other people in general. I trust too easily, create high expectations and then am sorely disappointed in people when they cannot live up to them.

My depression is one of the reasons that I waiver when asked if I want to have children now. To have mental illness in your family, to have an uncle whose life was ruled by the voices in his head and a grandfather who drank too much and then ate his service revolver, makes you think twice about your genes and whether they are worth foisting upon another unsuspecting generation. While I may better have the knowledge and resources to deal with a mentally ill child, that does not mean that I want to go through what my parents went through with me.

GIST: 18 of 365

1. We have a new President!

2. Good Riddance to Bush.

3. That I watched the day's festivities firmly ensconced on my sofa with leftover ribs and scotch.

4. Peaceful regime change.

5. Knowing that the country is on a better course.

GIST: 17 of 365

1. Guacamole and beer at Cafe Atlantico.

2. The excitement of the city on the eve of the inauguration.

3. Having someone to catch me when I fall.

4. Being more important.

5. Obama belts!

GIST: 16 of 365

1. TINY laptops.

2. Football.

3. Friends who actually come to VA.

4. Ribs, mac and cheese, and apple compote.

5. Sleep.

GIST: 15 of 365

1. Maxalt.

2. Being lazy on a Saturday.

3. French toast!

4. Realizations and Epiphanies.

5. Angel.

GIST: 14 of 365

1. Being busy all day.

2. Still having a job when so many lost theirs today.

3. Bourbon.

4. Friends who make it all better

5. Metro... when you can't really walk and definitely can't drive.

GIST: 13 of 365

1. More birthdays!

2. Free food in the lunch room for both breakfast and lunch.

3.

GIST: 12 of 365

1. Celebrating birthdays at Townhall.

2. The comedy of two Marios.

3. Yeungling.

4. Goat cheese and macaroni as a side dish.

5. Coming home to mail of many magazines.

GIST: 11 of 365

1. My father still being around to have dinner with for his 73rd birthday.

2. Crabs. The kind you eat, not the kind you get rid of post-haste.

3. Loving parents who I finally have a good relationship with after all of these years.

4. A Dragnet from 1947 being on as I drove home last night. I love old radio programs.

5. Finally finishing Buffy. I have a sense of accomplishment after watching all 7 seasons straight through.

GIST: 10 of 365

1. The Smithsonian Institution for having so many great museums, which are free, in my home city.

2. Dating someone with whom I can have intelligent discussions about things that are important to me.

3. Grilled Donuts. Need I say more?

4. Getting to go camera shopping with gratification without spending any money.

5. Sushi.