So

Following the lead of my twinster and knitting a Color Affection shawl.  I'm always late to the game on stuff like this Hot-Pattern-of-the-Moment.  But elann.com is selling yarn packs for Color Affection, and I thought I'd dive in.  I went with Night Flower, if you're interested.

Heading off to Stitches South tomorrow.  Can't leave until after 4, which will most likely put me 1) in Atlanta 5 o'clock traffic and 2) driving into some strong thunderstorms.  But once I'm there, I'm there, and Friday, Saturday and Sunday stretch out before me.

It's possible I won't spend that much time at the actual Stitches events.  I couldn't sign up for any classes --- too expensive.  So the only place for me to go, really, is the marketplace.  Not that I'm complaining.

Hopefully, these few days away will help me mentally.  My therapist called my trip to Folly Beach last year (last YEAR?) "as good as ElectroShock."  I am in desperate need of a Reset.  Because I am perilously close to hitting the Permanently Off switch.

This Week

. . .is starting with a pulverizing headache.

. . .is the week of Stitches South in Atlanta.  I'm going --- are any of you?  Is there anything any of you need me to pick up for you while I'm there?

. . .while at Stitches, I may need to buy yarn in "my" color:

. . .has me taking one new medicine and new dosages of two of my "regulars."  My doctor is seriously considering ElectroConvulsive Therapy.  I'm just stuck.  And still can't give you a good reason for me to go on.

. . .will hopefully have Riley getting her feeding tube removed.  She is eating a good bit on her own.

Hanging On

By my fingernails.  Which are slowly breaking, one by one.

Making this:

out of this:

Distraction

Having a monumentally bad day.  Inside, I'm screaming, "What is the point of going on?"  Keeping it inside is setting off waves of panic attacks.  And if I type about it anymore, things will get worse.

So let me type something that I found the other day.  A while ago, the magnificent Stephen Fry published a book called  The Ode Less Travelled, which helped its readers write all different types of poetry.  I found my workbook from when I read the book, and am rather fond of the following. We were called upon to finish "Fry's Ballad," which began thusly (my contributions in bold):

Now gather round and let me tell
The tale of Danny Wise:
And how his sweet wife Annabelle
Did suck out both his eyes.

And if I tell the story true
And if I tell it clear
There's not a mortal one of you 
Won't shriek in mortal fear.

For Annabelle was fair of face,
A comely shape and size.
She won young Danny with her grace,
But everything was lies.

Her demon heart was hidden well;
None dared believe it true.
Their wedded life became a Hell
Once lovesick Danny knew.

He suspected things were not quite right
With his darling little missus
When once, in telling him "Goodnight,"
She near smothered him with kisses.

His breath regained, he sought to run
He had no choice but flee
Her answer was a wicked one:
"Can't run if you can't see."

And so she snared him in her arms
And breathed into his ear,
"Fall victim to my wiles and charms
This one last time, my dear."

With less a thought than one might give
A stranger's passing face,
She put her lips where sight does live
Pulled his eyes out of their place.

And then she laughed an evil laugh
Moved off into the night
Left Danny less a man by half
And doubled her own sight.

Very Sick

Right now, I am going through as bad an emotional spell as I have since I was suicidal.  No hope, no energy, constant worry.

I don't want to lay it off on the acupuncture, but after each session I've had, I've been immobilized --- the first time by physical pain, this time by emotional.  I just stare straight ahead, unable to move, unable to find a reason to move.

And blogging about it is iffy, as I already feel that I've scared away friends who had once stood steadfastly by me, but lately, have been nowhere to be found.  If I were crying wolf, I'd get it.  

But I'm not.

Agony

Second acupuncture session today, and it was a disaster.  The needles, the cupping caused pains that made it difficult to breathe.  One needle to my hand sent electricity through my fingers.  One needle in my foot, in a place that one was last time, caused me to gasp in pain.

Then, all of a sudden, I was crying.  Not just tears leaking out of my eyes.  Huge, racking sobs.  I couldn't stop.

If I can't even endure the treatment, how will I ever get well?

Report

The acupuncture treatment went very well.  I was aware of a slight sting when the needles went in, but it was much less than being stuck with a regular sewing needle.  Not a problem at all.  Honestly.

There was also a cupping treatment, which was more uncomfortable than the acupuncture.

What has caused the most problem since, however, was the intense massage.  Since I woke up yesterday, I have had a searing headache.  Everything that was done was to release pent-up energy and toxins, and I must be a damn landfill of the stuff, as much pain as I've been in since.  I've been in bed with ice packs all day today, even having to cancel a therapy appointment.

The therapist told me on Saturday that my symptoms might worsen after the treatments.  She was right.

Insert Needle A Into Body K

Going to an acupuncturist in the morning.  (Why isn't that spelled "accupuncture"?  Seems more accurate.)  Decided to try some other possible remedies for my anxiety/stress/depression and my headaches.  I've no fear of needles, so that isn't a problem.  I do wonder, though, what the feeling will be like as the energy begins to move around.  There's a whole lot of bad stuff stored up in this body, and I just wonder what it's going to feel like when someone tries to take it out.

I just have to do something.  Spinning in place has gotten old.  And Briton is convinced I'm suicidal again.  All I want to do is stay in bed and sleep, which has always been, as I'm sure I've said dozens of times here already, my Worrisome Sign.

So, we'll give that a whirl tomorrow.  'Til then, Rifftrax and Noro silk:

Temporariness

It struck me at some point over the weekend that most, if not all, of my headaches and knotted stomachs and a good deal of my depression has come from temporariness.

Since I last worked, in December, 2010, every aspect of my life has been unsettled.  My mother's health.  Her death, and having to deal with the estate.  Being unable to find a job.  Problems with my children's lives.  Them moving out of the house, then in.  Finances.  All of these issues have been ongoing, without any ends in sight.  I've been saying that it feels as though my life has flown apart into pieces, and those pieces are just circling my head.  I can't catch any of them and put them to rest.  Or think clearly enough for long enough to try and make sense of them.  My life has been, still is, up in the air.

And although I still have no idea how to deal with all of it, it's comforting to understand it a little more.

Blah

Wow --- a week later.  There was a time when I could/would post every other day.  Are blogs going out of style?  Is it tumblr or nothing these days?

Not that I've had any earth-shattering news to report.  When you are clinically depressed and chronically unemployed, days pretty much run together as blurs of nothing getting done.

We did buy our Christmas tree.  A beautiful, big, fat one.  But I haven't drug myself up the stairs to pull the decorations out of Hannah's closet.  Must get the lights on it tomorrow, though.  Simply must.

It is 11:57 PM, I have taken SEVEN Klonopin, and sleep is not in sight.  That is double the dose I am supposed to take.  I'd take more, but that seems a little dangerous, and I am so awake now, I doubt it would help.

I am angry, and I am in pain, and I want to lash out at people in my anger, and I want them to hurt like I hurt.  Because they don't seem to care right now.  My son and I had a SCREAMING telephone call this afternoon, and I'm willing to bet when it was over, he went back to playing video games or whatever he was doing and never gave it a second thought.

My daughter spent all day in her room, until friends came to take her our for pizza.  We've said maybe 8 words all day.  I've got plenty of things I could yell at her.

Why am I so angry?  Where is this consuming rage coming from?  I just want to smack everybody down.  I'm being cruel to our pets, I'm throwing things --- I don't have any control.

I lost my mind once this year.  Is it happening again, only in a different way?

Memory

Yesterday was the first year anniversary of my mother's death.  I was the only one who remembered.  Which would have mortified her.  She was one of those write-the-thank-you-notes-the-evening-of-the-event-type.  She never wanted to look anything but completely together, with everything handled.

She was determined to be perfect, to stay on top of things because of pride.  She wanted to stand alone because of what she was capable of.  Her isolation was due to her idea that dignity was the goal, and dignity is usually a one-person-at-a-time event.

I find myself doing almost everything by myself.  Remembering dates, occasions.  My children don't have a clue.  Don't even show an interest in paying attention to anyone's lives/feelings/activities but their own.  I'm the only one who seems to realize that there are things that simply have to be done, just have to be thought about.  Even if it interrupts a DVD or a text or a phone call.

My isolation is loneliness.  An only child, never the best at making lots of friends, raised by a woman whose message was always "backbone" instead of "heart."

Stump

For some reason, both our dogs have been whining all day long.  It has driven me insane.  Rupert, in particular, has been persistent with his shrill yodel.  I have no idea what the problem/issue is, I just know I have a column of agony in the right side of my brain drilled from the top of my head down to my top teeth.

My psychiatrist refused altering my medications, though I begged him to.  He said, firstly, I am taking so many things, trying to pinpoint exactly what to change and how much would be almost impossible to do.  I can understand that, but I NEED HELP.  His answer was that since depression is such an isolating disease, I need to get out and with other people as much as possible.  I told him that I volunteer once a week, and have my knitting group every other week.  Nice "start," he said.  Add one more activity before the year is over was what he sent he me away with.

I could have punched him in the throat.  I am so angry and so tired and so devoid of hope.  And I am now in physical pain, which I trust will be lessened by a massage tomorrow afternoon.  (It is agonizing to even knit.)  I am running wholly and completely out of ideas here.

Seriously

It is just after 1 AM, and here I sit, unable to sleep.  I've taken 6 Klonopin and 4 sleep aid tablets, and I'm as wide awake as I can be.

Which stinks because I have to be at my psychiatrist's in the morning.  For him to say, for the jillionth time, "Well, let's just stay with what we're doing, and let me see you in about 3 weeks."  I have begged him to try something else.  I have brought all my medications into his office, poured them on the floor and said, "These aren't working.  DO SOMETHING ELSE."

I realize that as many drugs as I take, it's a delicate process of figuring out which are effective and which are not, and then calculating how much more or less or each to take.  But nothing, nothing, nothing is working right now, and I have to make him understand that.  Surely telling him I'm now going to therapy twice a week because I couldn't make it with just one session will make some sort of difference.

Now

As of this exact moment: 7:37 PM on the 9th of November, 2012, I care about absolutely nothing.

I have kept myself drugged since Wednesday so that I could sleep.  I took my daughter to work, I went to my second therapy session, but then I slept.  In the last 72 hours, I've seen my daughter for approximately 6 minutes.

I don't care.  I don't want to care.  What has caring done for me these last 2 years?  News from Tennessee is that we may be close to signing the sale papers on the house.  So?  Just another trip up there, just more guilt, just more pain.  It will all be over, but it will never end.

One week ago today, my mother died.  The first year is hard, because you're forever being reminded of where you had been, or what you had seen, or what you had said or laughed about during that last year. Will the passing of the anniversary make a difference in me?  I don't know.  I don't remember any big changes the year after my husband died.  Or my Daddy.

I've given up even trying to look or act normal, for my children or for the world.  I just don't care.  I really just don't.

Scream

My clothes are aggravating me.  My skin is aggravating.  I want to rip the entire world away from me, or me from the entire world.

I am angry and I am hopeless and I want to scream, but I have no idea what I'd say.  Nothing --- nothing --- is calming me.  I have the TV on because silence is deadly.  But noise makes my skin crawl.  

My son is having very serious mental health issues, but he is not sharing (and he certainly has every right to keep his business to himself.)  My daughter is all over the map emotionally.  I gave each of them until December 31st to save enough money to live on their own --- I can't imagine that either of them have even a tiny percentage of what it would cost.

If they cannot pay rent somewhere else, I will allow them to live here, but there will be rent and bills and rules.  Frankly, the idea of all three of us under one roof again scares me.  We are not good for one another in a long run.  And the feeling that they will have that they have failed will only blacken their moods.  And as they go, I go.

Why can't I get better?  My therapist and my psychiatrist and I are trying all we can, but I'm just sinking more.

The Panic, It Devours Me

When I am having a particularly bad depressive day, or in this exact situation, several in a row, the feeling that lives inside me is that I am being torn to shreds.  Thoughts hurt, clothing is a nuisance, the sadness has depth, breadth and width.

These are the days that make The End (as in the righting of the ship) seem impossible to see, much less imagine.

I see people who care enough to get dressed, go out, keep their heads up, look others in the eye, talk, and I want to SCREAM at them "HEY! I'M DYING HERE!  And no one cares." I used to have my mother to pray for me --- now I'm not sure I even know anyone who prays.  My children are dealing with issues of their own (though they weigh exponentially on me), plus neither is of an age where anyone's world matters but their own.

I am sitting on this couch right now wondering how I will make it through the next ten minutes.  That's what my life is some days.  How am I going to make it through?  Why should I try?  Nothing interests me.  Nothing inspires me.  There are no conversations to be had.  There is no energy to be creative or proactive.  I just sit.  Sit on the edge of panic.  My throat closes and my heart races and I cannot take a breath and I'm going to faint and please don't let me faint and I break out in a cold sweat and I just want to now why this is still happening to me after all these years.  I've gone through therapies, I've gone through medications, and I have never been so low, so despondent in my life.  Nothing --- God help me, sometimes not even my children --- gives me reason to stay conscious anymore.

And yet, I keep waking up every morning.  And my first thought is always the same: "I hate my life."

Hammer Time

In Tennessee, have made one trip to the house, loaded up quite a bit of stuff --- mostly pictures and things, and see quite clearly most things, even the wanted and cherished things, will have to be left.

Went to the graves and cried and asked for forgiveness.  There is no way to describe how bad I feel.

Goodbye

My parents' house sold this weekend.  I'm refusing to the play the could-we-have-gotten-more game because I am so drained by everything that has happened in the last year, I've got very little fight left in me.

I got money out of a bank account I swore I'd never touch to pay for a hotel room for a couple of days, and am leaving tomorrow.  Hopefully, all the papers will be signed and notarized by Friday morning, because that's when I'm leaving to be back for Briton's birthday.

I'll go through the house, and the cabinets, and the drawers, and the closets, and the attic one more time.  Because even though the buyer has given me 10 days after closing to remove any and all things I want, I just don't think I could go up there again.  This has got to be my goodbye trip.

If it won't fit in the car, I have to let it go.  I've asked and asked and asked Briton and Hannah what they want from the house, they haven't given many answers, so if they think of something they want, it's too late.

I've walked through that house so many times in the last 11 months, I don't think another stroll will hurt me.  But I did realize last night that, as of this week, I'll have no more reason to go to Nashville.  Not that I can't go on the odd occasion, but my real reasons are gone.  Which took me to Mama and Daddy's graves.  I'm abandoning them.  No one will go visit them.And I've had so many helpful talks with Daddy. . .

I've just come from therapy, and my therapist encouraged me to just feel whatever I feel, whenever it comes up.  I'm pretty sure the drive back here will be awash in guilty, sad, lonely tears.

Yawn

So, being both unemployed and chronically depressed leads to a dearth of blog material.  There simply isn't that much going on.

I still spend at least an hour a day combing through want ads and applying for jobs.

There's a good degree of sleeping going on --- sleep being my drugged state of choice when the cave I'm in is extra-inky-black.

I am knitting.  In fact, I'm working on a bulk etsy order at the moment.  And the knitting group continues, though one member has dropped completely off the map for reasons no one can fathom.

Briton is a hit in his current show, "See How They Run."

Hannah has had her hair dyed an almost blinding pink.

I'm watching a lot of  "The West Wing."

So, move along now.  Nothing to see here.