At last...

Hit a slump about ten days ago. Not a really bad one, but enough to keep me down-in-the-dumps and my brain in rehash-mode. I've thought through so many past events, step by painful step, and didn't resolve anything. As usual. Makes for a hard time sleeping, too, and when I have been able to sleep, I can't remember my dreams. I started writing down my dreams a few months back. I read somewhere that as we change and age, our dreams change as well. Mine have. Most of my dreams have always revolved around anxiety of some sort. Two of the most frequent involved falling or drowning. Lately, however, I'm either trying to find something or to get somewhere. I guess I don't need Freud here, huh? I know dreams are supposed to be the brain's way of siphoning through our experiences and emotions, resolving what is/isn't important and dumping the crap. It's funny how the mind works, though. When I think too much about stuff, I don't seem to dream, and my strangest dreams occur during my most normal times. Or whatever passes as normal for me.

On a completely unrelated note, my bonus for curtailing my spending habits is the purchase of a long-wanted piece from my favorite designer, Patricia of Artlab. I'm sure anyone who has followed her as long as I have already owns the Andromache shirt made of deconstructed tshirts. This incredible garment can be purchased from her shop at Etsy.

Sigh...

I've been spending a lot of time lately paring down my list of online favs and bookmarks. As with everything else in my life, I tend to go overboard and want to hold onto every site that interests or inspires me. Unfortunately, I've made it difficult to find those few that I go to every day. As I was sorting through this maze, I stumbled upon a blog that features a woman who must have some Swedish or Norweigian ancestry because she decorates her space in white and primarily wears black and white. Her posts consist of two or three photos of herself in a drool-inducing outfit and a few well-chosen words. She wants no distraction or chaos. Apparently, her life is extremely well-ordered.

I want to live in her world.

(Image used is entitled "Serenity" and can be found at Etsy in the shop alifethroughthelens. The artist says that photography helps find the calm moment, to "slow down and look for details that I would otherwise miss." Ah, to find that myself. Oh, yes, see more of this artist at iseelifethroughalens.blogspot.com)

Bananas...

Bad, bad me. I didn't make it to work yesterday. I got showered and dressed and put on a few pieces of funky jewelry from a fav Etsy Seller. I even put on makeup, and that hasn't happened more than a handful of times in a year. Took my anxiety meds. Wrote yesterday's post. Listened to a frantic message from my boss.

Maybe I'm being stubborn, but I don't think so. I think I'm picking up their anxiety, and it's building on top of mine. Either way, getting to work ain't happened yet. I called this morning and told them I was trying again this afternoon. Trying. Again.

I mentioned that I got dressed for work and put on makeup, right? What I did forget to say was that I'm also taking my little pet monkey. He hangs out and eats bananas. And didn't we learn from Chiquita Banana that bananas have to ripen before eating? Ripen=progress=prepare. Hey, I'm preparing!

And here I thought being bananas was a bad thing.

(Image used is a print of an original collage that is mounted on a wood block. It is entitled "What's Wrong" and is available for purchase for the Etsy shop WicksomeMay.)

(The original Disney Studios commercial featuring Ms. Chiquita Banana has been out since the 40's. Do you remember the tune? Saying that I do really shows my age. See the entire minute-long video here www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFDOI24RRAE )

Do or die...

Sadly, one of my dearest friends just had to be hospitalized after combining drugs and alcohol. Probably something I would have done way back when if I had had enough of any kind of serious drugs. I had no access to a gun, and the thought of slitting my wrists makes me queasy. I have a hard time having my finger pricked. However, I knew firsthand the kind of accident that could occur if I were to run my car headfirst into an oncoming 18-wheeler. I planned it, mapped it, found the perfect spot on the highway. Even did a few drive-throughs to make sure. Thankfully, I finally looked at the cab. Saw the driver. Realized that I was going to hurt someone other than myself. And I knew that it was no longer an option. Which kinda left me with no options.

I know now that had I been very seriously considering the act, I would have found a way. I'd like to think that it was because I didn't want to hurt anyone, but I doubt that I'm that noble. Maybe I was a coward, but I was enduring emotional pain that was so intense that I wasn't really living anyway. It's hard to think or talk about what I was going to do, but it was my truth at the time.

Or since I didn't carry through, was it really my truth?

"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple."--Oscar Wilde

(Image shown is a portion of a necklace found at VenusFlytrapJewels at Etsy. It contains a charm with photos related to mental health as well as a small bottle of pills. In black and white, no less.)

So shoot me...

Well, my family vacation was a bust. More on that later. The head doctor who has been treating me for about ten years retired recently. I have seen the doctor who she recommended one time, but I really didn't click with her. The old doc was low key, wore her medical jacket and did not ask me to talk. The new one looks like a glamour girl, all matchy-matchy with really red lipstick and said she couldn't help me if I didn't want to talk. Sheesh. I couldn't help it that I didn't want to talk. It was a bad day. What's the point in seeing her if she can't deal with my bad days? So, I'm in the process of trying to decide if I need to find a new doctor. The determining factor may be my insurance, which is surely the most stupid thing ever invented. Pay a boat-load of money for something that doesn't pay for mental health stuff. Sure, have a real illness like high blood pressure or diabetes and only pay a small co-payment. Period. Like $20. And yes, I do get my medications at substantial savings, but it's a shame that the insurance companies don't consider mental health an issue. Never mind that over half of the population is being treated for some kind of mental health problem. And I have mixed feelings about national health care. Another thing to address later. But really, I'm pretty frustrated right now with the whole system.

Wouldn't it be better to make it easier for people to be treated for their mental health than to wait until they go off the deep end and start shooting?

(Image used is by one of my favorite Etsy artists, Margaux of TheBlackSpotBooks. She makes the most amazing tiny, usable books, then creates jewelry with them. She also has some haunting photography. This is one of those, entitled "The Falling and The Gathering of the Leaves III." When she was a featured artist, I learned that she lives in a mid-1800s home that once belonged to a bootlegger; she "romps" around the world with her husband and son; she used to wake up before dawn and ask her brother "Do you want to make stuff?"; she and her husband mapped out a plan to live at sea (which she loves, by the way), and they dream of "making things whilst out in the water and visiting the world from the inside out." Wouldn't we all love to be in this woman's world?)

(PS--I couldn't bring myself to post an actual "gun" or "shooting" photo although there are many from which to choose. There's already way too much violence in the world to promote it.)

Don't mess with me...

I can hardly believe that May is almost over. Most of April and May were taken over by everything related to refinancing. It really did take two months to complete the process. The initial contact to get the ball rolling was on March 25th, followed by the cleaning spree and then finally the fiasco of waiting on the bank to fix a 20 year-old error. Phew. Done. Over. Let's move on.

So now I'm back to reading a lot about hormones and menopause and about stress and how it affects aging and hormones. I think I may have said several times how confusing the whole menopausal phase is when no one talks about it. One author notes that it wasn't so very long ago that women were sent to sanatoriums because of the symptoms of nervousness, sleeplessness, irritability, and "a tendency to cause trouble"!! (Yeah, I would definitely be in a sanatorium.) To even speak of it was to risk being placed in a institution because if a woman knew about then it she must be experiencing it, and it was considered a dangerous time of life. (Dangerous to anyone around a menopausal woman, that is.) Thus, very little information was handed down. Hysteria was once considered a medical disorder diagnosed only in women. The word uterus derived from the Greek work for hysteria. Go figure. Plato discussed the problem of the "wandering uterus" creating havoc as it moved through the body. (I might buy that since I experience quite a bit of havoc inside.) However, by the mid-19th century, it was generally thought that hysteria "stemmed from sexual dissatisfaction," and several methods of treatment would result in "hysterical paroxysm," now better known as an orgasm. Huh. (Strangely, my doctor, a woman, has never mentioned this as a possible treatment for me.) Now get this. Treatment was tedious to physicians (who were always male) who tired of manual vaginal massage. Awww. (I think tedium must be the male equivalent of hysteria. Tedious males should have been put in institutions. Makes me wonder why their hands got so tired anyway.) It wasn't too long before massage devices were invented so those poor old doctors wouldn't get tedium. In the mid-19th century, a "hydrotherapy" device was available at bathing resorts. People used to go to these resorts to bathe in the waters, usually considered to having healing properties. Hugely popular. Now we know why. "By 1870, a clockwork-driven vibrator was available for physicians." (I wonder how long they set it for. Ten minutes? Two minutes?) "In 1873, the first electromechanical vibrator was used at an asylum in France for the treatment of hysteria." Catch that? Used at an "asylum"? Well, that is where we all were sent when we got hysterical. Thank goodness I didn't live back then. I probably would have been sent to the asylum when I was 12 and would have been placed in the hands of a doctor who treated his patients with vibrating electrodes attached at the temples. No paroxysms for me.

Seriously, all of this is just interesting to me when I think about how people view symptoms of stress and menopause now. I don't think much has changed except that we no longer are thrown into those sanatoriums. No, we are expected just to keep pushing ourselves harder and keep working a job while also doing all the work at home. We aren't supposed to think of ourselves, we should say yes to anything asked of us and feel deeply guilty should we ever consider saying no. If we are moody or irritable, just stuff it. And never, ever say that we're too tired. (The sanatorium is sounding better all the time.)

I'm also beginning to think there might have been something to Plato's ideas because something has definitely moved in to increase the size of my upper abdomen. It makes me feel like I am full all the time. Sitting makes me much more aware of it. I've always had a bit of a lower belly, but now the upper as well?

Makes me want to get into a hysterical fight with a tedious man.

(Image used is a pastel and pencil drawing entitled "Mood Swing" and is by orbisdeo at Etsy. The information on the histroy of hysteria was found at Wikipedia.)

Toss me a towel...

The recent appraisal and my marathon cleaning project have propelled me deeper into depression. My biggest triggers that caused the decline are stress and lack of sleep. Fatigue can be a trigger, but it is often a result of not sleeping enough. The last weekend prior to Monday's appraisal was the most hectic of the three weeks I spent cleaning. I got very little sleep Saturday night and practically none on Sunday night. The appraisal itself became a stressor as the deadline got closer, and my other half constantly voicing his worries only added to my stress. I thought if I heard him say one more time that we weren't going to make it (to the deadline), I was going to shoot him. Thankfully, I don't keep a gun in the house. His lucky week, I guess. Anyway, between pushing my limits in these areas (fatigue, lack of sleep, stress) and getting a new puppy, I went downhill quickly. The puppy isn't stressing me at all, but my allergies have gone haywire since getting him! Whatever he was bathed in on the day we picked him up is doing a number on my sinus and skin allergies as well as keeping the door slightly opened so that I can teach him that the yard is where he goes when he has to go. Add to that the dust stirred up while cleaning. By late Wednesday, I had a minor case of hives along with a mind that wasn't functioning well. I was in tears by Friday with a major case of hives and no mind to speak of. I had to take extra Benedryl to combat the hives, which really puts me in a fog. I tried to do several puzzles to keep my brain focused, but I wasn't even seeing all of the numbers. Saturday and Sunday were both the same.

Today it has been one week since the appraisal and most of the things that occurred to send me into this decline. I have tried to keep up with the events in terms of my depression cycle as well as how long it takes me to recover. Having been able to avoid my stressors for awhile, I can track the cycle better than I have ever been able to. I know that I have hit the bottom of this cycle and am on my way back up. Last week after the appraisal I was supposed to get my nails done, return some shoes at the mall, go to a chiropractic appointment and get the quarterly information from my employer by Friday. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to leave the house to accomplish any of those things. And they all were very necessary. I am apparently going to keep experiencing this fear of leaving the house when I am in a low cycle. Good to know these things and even better to be able to track them. I should be back to the point at which my meds are controlling my depression by the end of the week. Hopefully, sooner.

Meanwhile, I'll rest and recover and let the craziness of the last four weeks drip off/out. I think whoever said "don't sweat the small stuff" must have never had much stuff and could afford to forget the small ones. I'll sweat it all away, thank you.

(Image used is entitled "Tranquility," an oil painting by shiloratnerart at Etsy.)

Inside my skin...

Yesterday I was supposed to go to work and help with a payroll project. I emailed them on Friday and said I would be there. Then I just didn't go. I tried, but I couldn't make myself walk out the door. I haven't gone in four weeks. I've never been like this. When I knew that something important needed to be completed, I was the one who always bent over backwards to do everything I could to make it happen. I don't even feel bad about not going, and I haven't tried to go in today.

I think I've quit caring. I don't like being this way. One one hand, it feels so selfish and just wrong. On the other, I almost feel like I'm rebelling in some strange way, like a little kid who is saying "nah-nah-nah, you can't make me." Ever since I had that meltdown a few weeks ago, I've been getting more and more like this little brat, with an attitude of "don't tell me what to do or I won't do it just for spite."

I've always carried around a lot of guilt because I felt like I wasn't good enough or strong enough (mentally or emotionally). I was even told that I didn't care enough when, in fact, caring too much was what created the problems. I felt a lot of guilt over the last six or seven months when I opted to stay home from work. Guilt for not doing enough for my employers as well as guilt for creating our difficult financial situation at home. I mean, really major guilt trips. Now, I've gradually come to realize I'm not feeling guilty at all. Not about anything.

I'm becoming someone I never thought I could be. I don't think I like me this way.



The image used in this post is from a 2004 exhibition by Elizabeth Ingraham, a faculty member at UNL's Hillestad Textiles Gallery, and is entitled "Guilt." Her exhibition was titled "Information, Memory and Desire: Skins," and the lifesize figures were created from various fabrics and findings. The exhibition annoucement had this to say:

“Through a series of life-size, dimensional female skins, I am exploring how expectation, desire and convention - our own and others - form casings which shape our deepest selves and which become so familiar they seem like our own skin,” Ingraham said.

She likened the skins to costumes and camouflage, saying that they describe emotional states, conceal and reveal identity. The works are tactile as well as visual and are designed to be touched and handled by the viewer - unzipped, unbuttoned, entered, read and rattled."

Read more about her at culturalterrain.com or at monet.unk.net and see more of the "skins"--Duty, Denial, Regret, Baggage, etc.--"...the guises in which women enrobe themselves."

Strait talk...

After working on yesterday's post, I was reminded just how much I adore bindings. Meaning, of course, as fashion. Corsets, harnesses, cage skirts, anything wrapped, strapped and layered, belted or laced. I can still get away with most of this because it has simply always been my style. I was wearing lingerie as outerwear long, long ago. Now, my dad did call me a "street walker" and refused to take me out anywhere if he thought I was dressed to an extreme. Hhhmmppphh. Today, he takes my niece out no matter how she is dressed, and most of the time, she shows way more skin than I ever did! Not to criticize her. She is a cutie-pie. The difference is that I was more covered up than not, wearing a lot more stuff than the youngins do today. I didn't feel completely dressed unless I had on at least five pieces of clothing. My friends used to takes bets on how many I would show up wearing.

How did I get reminded of this? Well...

(Jacket is by Jim Stewart.)

Leave me alone...

Today I am feeling rather numb. I guess that's an oxymoron, isn't it? Feeling numb? Being empty of feeling. I like it so much better than being full of feeling. Especially full of pain.

I'm no longer here. I've recessed back into myself. I want to stay here. My husband is suggesting that I go to a facility to recover. What awful images go through my mind as I consider that. Society has not been kind to mental patients, and the medical field has been abusive. I don't want to go to a mental hospital. Too many people who think they can fix me. Might try something different and make me worse. Send me back to the pain.

Oh no, not going there.

(Image in this post is an installation/sculpture from patriciaayres on Etsy and is entitled "Restraint.")(And BTW, she's my favorite Etsy artist/designer! Her other shop is artlab.)

Speaking of...

Immediately after publishing the previous post, I saw a news headline that shocked me. One of the greatest and most controversial designers ever, Alexander McQueen, was found dead today. The media are reporting his death as a suicide.

Tim Blanks of Style.com had this to say:

He was "an arch romantic with a pessimistic streak. It produced some of the most beautiful, shocking images in the history of fashion, but it’s a state of mind that can lead to endless disappointments. The death of McQueen’s mother last week would have validated his pessimism. It would undoubtedly have taken away his most vital support. It’s awful to imagine him trying—and failing—to cope, and one can only hope that, if he was looking for peace, he found it."

What makes the soul of an artist so tortured?

The image used in this post is from McQueen's 2001 Spring show at Style.com. On the runway was a cube which represented a mental hospital holding cell. The models were dressed in designs that gave the impression of insanity and dementia.