Back of the House

A friend of mine posted a quote on Facebook today. "The only difference between a good day and a bad day is your attitude and your belief." I'm not naming the friend or the source of the quote, because a.) I don't want her to feel bad about what is, really, a generally harmless quote, and b.) It's really not the point of this post. But as someone who struggles with depression in general and who has been going through a particularly ugly episode lately (ah, how I love the change in seasons--NOT), I have to say that I these kinds of  "it's all in the attitude" quotes crawl under my skin. They're not quite triggers, but almost. What a lot of non-mentally ill people take for granted is, in fact, a fair amount of control over their attitudes. And it's what sometimes even the best meaning friends fail to understand about the average chronic depressive or anxious person. We don't have those controls.  Or, rather, they're locked away from...

One of these days, I promise, really, I will have an honest-to-goodness happy, upbeat post. Yeah, today's not that day. So, unemployment. It's hard. First of all, you have that no-money-coming-in thing going on. I am incredibly lucky as my husband is well employed in a fairly recession-proof industry. But it's meant loans have gone into deferral, credit cards are off limits, my Kindle is perpetually set to offline, etc., etc. Like I said, I'm incredibly lucky, and I know that.  But given my past couple of job experiences (which frequently led to self-doubt) coupled with a chronic mood disorder, things get out of hand in my little world nonetheless. In what will no doubt echo at least one email I will receive in response to this post, it's difficult watching people complain about their jobs on Facebook and having to physically restrain oneself from commenting "AT LEAST YOU HAVE A JOB. WAH." It's totally unfair of me and intrusive into what I call ...

The depression treatment continues. Much like God's justice, it grinds slow, but exceedingly fine. Today has been a little rough. Kidlet's been sick with what we now know to have been a UTI, but it's meant a beggar of a fever. So I'm currently having my usual after-the-fact case of nerves. Mom, worried herself, particularly where fevers are concerned is Not Being Helpful. "Did you know your brother had convulsions from a high fever when he was 18 months old?"  "Yes, Mom, I did. Also, did I remember to thank you for the fever-phobia you installed with the other neuroses and personality quirks? Aside from that, I thought I'd let the kid run around in traffic and sleep in the park tonight." Combine that with heavy duty surgery for a friend tomorrow, a brush with death-by-breadknife (I kid you not. ALWAYS WASH YOUR HANDS WHEN YOU GET A CUT, FOLKS.) with another old friend, and having the financial tide brushing my chin, and you have one very ...

I swear I should just rename this blog "The Back of My Head." So, depression. It's here. It's situational AND biochemical. And it sucks. I'm not even motivated enough to self-harm or contemplate worse. I sleep a lot, and it's not to escape. It's because I can't think of anything else I'd rather do. I have no passion for anything right now. I've got ideas. I've even written outlines. But I can't take the last step to actual writing. I forced myself to take a shower today and it was the most difficult thing I've done in a long time. Every step was. An. Effort. The weather's been gorgeous and the idea of going outside makes me twitch. So, yeah. I go to my usual therapy tomorrow, and I've got a "Crap, I need to see you ASAP" call into my psychiatrist. I just want to care about something again, to have that creative fire burn again. Or, you know, not turn into a vampire. That'd be cool, too.

So, as many of you who have this blog on your radar know, I am currently unemployed. This past week, though, I had a highly successful meeting with a recruiter named Susie at a national temp/recruiting agency. Yay, right? Right, but there was something else. They required me to give a reference from my last job. That was a bit of a problem, as my supervisors from my last job adored my teaching, but were not really thrilled with how much time off I took. There was a point in the interview, where I had to say something. "About my references," I started. I don't remember my exact words, but they boiled down to this. I had some serious problems starting in September 2010, starting with a miscarriage, and I never quite bounced back. I am a chronic depressive. I am on medication, and I keep it in check with regular therapy and visits to my psychiatrist. I had problems getting to work some days, especially with a long commute. I said it. I laid everything down. It ...

Sad, but true. I linked to a fun article on Facebook, " Am I the Last Person in America Who Still Adores President Obama ?" from Slate.com. A friend of mine out in IL said that she does, too, but can't talk about him around her Catholic colleagues (she works for the local diocese), because he's pro-choice. Now, keep in mind, this issue of the single-issue has been simmering for me since about 1986 when I first watched the marches on Washington on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. So it's a little...hm. Well, maybe you'll decide for yourself what it is. You see, I get troubled by this because, as Roman Catholics, we don't have blinders like this on a single other issue where federal or state laws conflict with canon: no one demands that IVF be banned,  no one's calling for divorce to be outlawed (as it was in Ireland for YEARS because of the Catholic Church's influence), no one's calling for meat to be banned on Fridays from February to A...

So, the British Prime Minister apologized for Bloody Sunday. Thank you, God. For 841 years, these two peoples have been involved in a deadly tug-of-war that has robbed them of justice, has robbed them of hope, has robbed them of basic human decency. The survivors and the victims' families are elated, and everybody else seems to be taking the news and the apology well. Less well-taken is talk of pursuing charges against the culpable soldiers. I commented on Facebook about the healing power of a basic apology. A friend of mine commented that he prefers prosecutions. It's that kind of thinking that has mired first the English, and then the British, and the Irish into eight hundred years of conflict. Think about that. This all started when Diarmait Mac Murchada, the new former-king of Leinster was rather put out at having been, well, put out. It turns out it makes the High King (then  Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair )   pretty damn cranky when you abduct the wife of one...