Holy Shit!

I don't usually use objectionable language in my posts...certainly not in the title, but the words in the title was the first thing I thought after reading my posts that I composed before my hiatus. Mostly because I was shocked at how bad I was doing at the time, and partially because I want to avoid feeling this way again at all costs.

I'm on the same pharmaceutical regime that I was on while I was going through, according to what I wrote in my posts, utter hell. I'm at the same job and in the same marriage. I still have the same job. Hell, it's the same time of year. So what's the difference? What's to say that, now I'm back on the same drug cocktail, I won't slip back into the abyss?

I've got to figure this out so that I can keep doing whatever it is that I'm doing that's keeping me on the functioning road. To that end, I'm jotting down a quick list of the differences that first come to mind.

• I'm practicing art, in one way or another. The results are all over my apartment. When it was last year, and I was in the seventh level of hell, I wasn't even thinking about art, much less doing it. That was something that changed during the time spent in one of Chicago's finer mental institutions; one of the mandatory attendances was art therapy and, from what I can remember, something woke up when I started using oil pastels on a blank sheet of paper.
  
  
• The husband and I have attended therapy, and are making small, but (hopefully) significant changes. My work and his work is still hell, and we still rarely see each other during the week, but I am making a concerted effort to do things like getting up to meet him at the door, or sending him funny stuff throughout the day. And we have two mandatory, scheduled, unbreakable dates on Saturday and Sunday...during which we do whatever we want, but together.
  
  
• Roscoe has, for the most part, gotten over his anxiety. Or we've managed to, in a throw-stuff-to-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks fashion, figure out what cures it. Basically it's a combination of food-stuffed Kongs, acepromazine for thunderstorm days, leaving out the back door instead of the front, and a miraculous invention called Dog-On TV...basically a doggy day-care experienced transferred to DVD and looped for continuous play. Roscoe doesn't watch it like most of the dogs mentioned in the link, but he has a tendency to curl up on the sofa near the TV and nap while it's on. I think just hearing the sounds of other dogs while he's in his own home soothes him. Also I've adjusted his walking schedule so that I no longer race home to walk him during the day. He's a grown dog with a grown bladder; i've come to the realization that yes, he can hold it until I come home from work if I walk him right before I leave for work as opposed to the minute I wake up. And if he can't, well, that's what Clorox wipes are for.
  
  
• Daily consumption of (and this came to me as I was preparing my daily fix) green tea. Specifically Tazo's Zen tea (Tazo apparently runs entirely on Macromedia's Flash so I can't post a direct link to the aforementioned brew). I know that green tea is high in antioxidants; this blend also contains lemon verbena, spearmint, lemongrass and 'natural flavors'. Perhaps some of those 'natural flavors' are contributing to my mental health, such as it is.

That's all I got for now. I'll definitely post more when I have them, as I'd like to avoid a return trip to the abyss if at all possible.

Begin Again

It's been a while since I've checked in on this blog, much less posted to it. Good thing that the spammers have politely taken over that job for me, making sure to post every so often with helpful tips about maximizing one's, er, potential or locations to visit in order to receive discount priced software. Good thing too that blogspot has a handy little delete button for unwanted posts.

There are probably a billion reasons why I haven't kept this blog updated, most of them probably subconscious. It's hard to muster up the energy to formulate something to commit to text when most of the energy is expended by surviving the days, weeks and months. I'm also trying very, very hard to write consistently in my private journal, something that is difficult to do when I'm posting what amounts to the same thoughts dressed up, online. Then there's the stressful job, which had only gotten more stressful, meaning that the last thing I want to do when I come home is look at a computer, much less sit down and actually touch it. And the painful fact that sitting down and posting about depression tends not only to clarify the feeling, but intensify it. Virtual emotional mutilation, as it were.

There are good reasons for my lack of involvment. I'm trying to take to heart what I heard from one of the art therapists I had the good fortune to encounter during my stint in one of Chicago's finer mental institutions; an artist that doesn't practise their art gets depressed. To that end, I've pretty much filled my dining room with pieces that I've created...some acrylic, some watercolor, mostly oil pastels. If all goes well, I should be exhibiting the best of the work in a coffeehouse my husband frequents. It's not much, but for someone who wasn't doing art a year ago, it's not such a bad start.

Mostly I'm posting again because I've come full circle on the medication merry-go-round. I'm back on Adderall, after explaining to my shrink that the only time I actually looked forward to work and the problems therein was the times that I was taking Adderall in conjunction with Effexor. After checking his notes from that time, he's agreed to put me back on the dosage that straightened out my mood in the past. I wonder if I actually was meant to feel this good, with my mind buzzing with ideas to implement, and making short work of problems that arise, but that's another post entirely. Suffice it to say, I'm fairly sure that the reintroduction of Adderall into my treatment regimen will infuse my brain with the ability to handle several creative ventures at once.

Then again, I could be completely wrong and my next post will wind up being a year later. We'll see.