dancingfish wrote: ↑Sun Aug 29, 2021 4:34 pm
you may be on your own at times, but you're not alone.
Thank you so much for that, dancingfish! That really helped. I can make that thought work so much to get me past this. I feel so bad thinking of those people in Afghanistan facing what they're facing, especially when comparing their woes with mine. Why am I whining when they're facing horrible death for not only themselves, but for their entire families, too? I sit here and play my videogames and write to all of you, plenty of food, plenty of money, owning my own home, FREEDOM to do whatever I wish...but then I see that old bugaboo of clinical depression symptoms raising up no matter what I do and it concerns me. I do feel it. It is there inside me, despite Afghanistan and their sufferings and fears when compared to mine. I need to address it and OVERCOME it. Seriously!
I've been through this and worse before. At 19, I could not even raise myself off the couch to make it past the end of my coffee table (= NO ENERGY!!), but the worst part was that I didn't
understand it then and thought I was "going crazy", nor was there anyone else who understood it as what it was (in 1965), much less help me cope with what I'd been through. I sort of grew up in the same timeline as Psychology did. I saw a
T of the day in 1965 who told me to just go home and clean my house and to "love my husband more".
I was "eating" so much, more like stuffing myself
literally, that I began a short time of binge eating and then vomiting, or I'd eat until near vomiting, stop, and wait until just short of that and then stuff some more food down. I was finally "free" of MD (physically, but certainly NOT mentally!) and could eat without restraint or criticism of any kind for the first time in my life. I went wild with it. I stayed locked up in my one bedroom apt. with my DH who worked, but I didn't. I didn't bathe, brush my teeth, or even comb my waist length hair for months on end. I had dreadlocks...unintentionally. Instead of combing/brushing out my long hair when help finally arrived, it had to be cut short. On top of this, I had two small kittens living with us with an incredibly full and overflowing cat box. One night for no reason, I tried to slowly squeeze one to death once as it fought mightily to get away and scratched me up and bit me. I recall it now as though it was a slow motion bad dream. I felt nothing when I did that. I was like a zombie. I didn't know how to dress myself in my own clothes (don't ask me why), so I wore my husband's clothes. I slept while he worked and stayed up all night playing Yahtzee by myself when he was home, rolling those dice over and over and over again at the kitchen table. We had dishes in the sink and pots on the stove all with maggots in them. Everything in the fridge was rotten. I don't remember how we even ate. (Take out?) That was my "clinical depression". It was a doozie!
Ugh. What memories. But so much has changed since "the good old days". Now I have something that occupies my mind (my iPhone and my computer, Netflix and cable TV, my garden and cooking). I have money. Not a lot, but enough. That makes such a difference. On my two decades on AFDC (aka Welfare a la the Lyndon B. Johnson administration's
War on Poverty, a real trap for someone like me), I ran my entire single parent household on a couple hundred dollars a month: food, shelter, medical, the works. From 1967-1988, we lived hand to mouth. Once we were homeless. We stayed in a roach and vermin infested shelter for several weeks. It's where I learned the Spanish word for rat and mouse (
raton and
ratontito, respectively) as we chased them down the hallway with brooms, batting and screaming at them all the way. (It was like after dinner recreation/entertainment for us adults and some of the kids.) Someone ransacked my car for valuables and stole my kids toys. (Luckily, I had put my money in my trash filled car in an old Pringles potato chip can thrown onto the floor in the midst of all the other garbage and the thieves never checked it.
Afterwards, I always kept what little money I had in my bra and not in the car. I slept in my bra, too, just in case.) Lovely place.
And they "required" me to fork over my Welfare check to them for the month for a two week stay (which they extended to 3 wks. out of the kindness of their hearts
) and were about to take my kids away to foster homes since I was then homeless AND penniless!
Yes, we've been through it. I was also attending full time college classes at the time.
After the battered women's shelter, we even stayed at a vermin infested motel (with kitchenette! La dee dah! we could hear the rats/mice munching on our breakfast cereal in the cupboard...ICK!) that was so close to the railroad tracks that the entire room shook and the dresser mirror swung back and forth wildly when a train rumbled by! MD
LOANED me the money so my kids didn't go to foster homes (which would've looked bad on
her if she hadn't, so she grudgingly did). Eventually I got "lucky" again and found a subsidized, newly refurbished 3bdrm/1½ba condo style 2 story apartment in the Projects for an average of $51/mo. We lived there for over two decades. We were SUPER grateful for the place to live, but that's also where the residents came by as we attempted to move in and spat on us and our things, saying, "WE DON'T WANT
YOUR KIND HERE!" I was 31, my son was 11, and my DD was nearly 2, and we were all alone. But even this was better than my bout with Clinical Depression. That was even more brutal than this move was for me. However, in this apt. I began my panic attacks and somehow learned to overcome them with what is now known as relaxation techniques/mediation. Remember: no computers! No internet. No self help books. NO NOTHING to guide me through it.
Over the years I learned how to cope with the bad times. But to see the old thoughts/apathy begin to creep back in does bother me. So to offset those bad thoughts, etc., I decided to try to do more each day
for me. I just ordered a new carpet shampooer so I can clean my carpets and have a better feel to them under my bare feet. I know that doesn't sound like much, but it means a lot to me. Between two unhousebroken pups that sneak a poop or pee in my room, or even the front room, when I'm not looking plus a senior dog who sees that as "marking" their territory and feels a need to mark it, too, my bedroom carpet (and the one in the front room, too) is a real mess. It feels ugly under my feet, so I decided enough is enough and bought the Hoover. My kitchen is clean, though, and I have just received my new "winter garden" seeds and the temps are coming down (after Tues
into the low 90s, which is doable for me).
================(Well, today
is Tuesday...and all is well)
I GOT AN UNEXPECTED PHONE CALL TODAY! It was from my dog breeder ("CD") who got a message from me on Facebook. She didn't recognize my icon and thought my identity had been stolen and wanted to give me a heads up. I reassured her that it was me...and then we began to talk...and talk and talk.
It seems that she's as lonely as I am because she just moved out of state and knows no one around her ATM. She misses her mountain home/acreage in this state very much, but her children are insistent that she stay put nearer to them in a much smaller home on a cul-de-sac with a mere ½ acre and 16 less dogs. She is lonely and miserable about it. She is also "feeling very old" in her mid-60s. Wow. I was still driving a 40 ft. transit bus when I was her age! (Whippersnapper!!)
We have agreed to talk to one another more often now. Win-win for both of us. Plus my dear cousin B (another female) and I are speaking to one another now and my cousin R (male) is always supportive and open to whatever support is needed. I AM BLESSED!
Progress wrote: ↑Mon Aug 30, 2021 1:14 am
Oh Honeybera,
I’m so sorry you are feeling this way. It all sounds like such a crushing weight on your shoulders...Please take care and keep us posted if you would like to
It was bad, but just as the old saying goes, "
This too shall pass." That thought, that idea, has helped me through this current flash from the past, and it's exactly what I did NOT have back when I was only 19, nor did I have the outreach that is available to me now, like hotlines. There were no videogames or cell phones to hide away in, only that damned Yahtzee dice game that I played by myself night after night after night all night long. Nor did I have all of you and your kind words. No, I am truly blessed now with both understanding of
what was happening to me AND the thought that it
would have an end to it.
That I can live with!!
Another thing is that the raging forest fires east of us are not smoking up the sky to an "overcast" look of gray with fire particulates, so now seems a good time to set up my winter garden. I also need to take my truck in to the mechanic for some work since I have a lot of things to pick up, like hay bales (for dog training and moisture control for the garden), potting soil, and fertilizer. I think my truck just sat for too long. It sounds awful when it's running, but I have free towing with my insurance, so no biggie.
Out in the garden, I'm going to try onions, collards (one of my absolute favorites!), carrots, parsnips, celeriac, and broccoli, to name a few and see what works out there. I have all the seeds for the veggies, but now I just need the courage and the physical strength to set it up. I'd like to set up my freeze dryer sometime, too, so I can begin to learn all about that. I may get brave later on and try potatoes, both Yukon Golds and sweet potatoes.
Both of those freeze dry well. Plus my Spanish lessons are ongoing. Lots to learn!
coconuts wrote: ↑Sun Aug 29, 2021 4:36 pm
My teacher besty came into my room the other day, sat down and cried for an hour.
Are you guys working now??
Good for you. School is so needed ATM for all our kids.
coconuts wrote: ↑Sun Aug 29, 2021 4:36 pm
please know you deserve all the goodness in the world.
I know. It's why I fight so hard for my sanity.
Same to you --- all of you. I have lapses, but I'm beginning to see that few people are blessed with perfect perfection. We all have our problems. I'm really not alone in this. Somehow, that both saddens me and uplifts me. I'm beginning to understand that I simply need to do my best, my actual best, and this will all work out. I never stop learning. I think that that's a good thing. I also think that "a good life is the best revenge", too. MD can't abuse me anymore...unless I allow her to. And I'll be darned if I'm going to allow that to happen at this late date!
THANKS FOR ALL THE GREAT SUPPORT, YOU GUYS! ♥♥♥
Honeybera
So tomorrow may be a real adventure for all of us. 
DEEEEEEEPRESSING!!!
in someone's night.