We Have Entered The Period Of Consequences

Bought your beachfront property in Arkansas yet? Might be time to start doing so. Global warming is real.

Inheritance Fears

Sorry for the no posting over the holidays. Things get busy fast when you have a nineteen month old with you without any scheduled structured activities. I have learned though. I nap when she does. I don't know that it gives me any more energy or makes me more rested, I just know that I do it. Good Yule holiday for us; the young one got many gifts, including to my dismay, several Elmo books. Having not observed the addictive properties of Elmo before, I was surprised at how quicky she took to Elmo - especially since she had never seen Elmo on TV outside of one or two segments on the two Seasame Street videos we own. I actually started to wonder if the day care was showing them videos in spite of their claim not to.

I am still fighting my depression though. Right now it has... faded somewhat. It is not as strong as it was but it is truly still with me. I'm afraid of it and I should be. Depression will kill me if I am not vigilant. I truly and deeply hope that my daughter does not inherit my depression; I think that would be awful. If she does, then my only hope is that medical technology will have advanced enough to treat it more effectively. I pray that I would recognize the symptoms sooner so that she can get help early.

Depression and alcoholism. Both hereditary. Both reasons why I did not want children. I think that the Goddess had other plans because my beautiful daughter was concieved in spite of all the careful precautions we took. No method of birth control is 100%, but my wife and I are both educated and the odds favored us by large margins. And then our daughter came along. She is adorable and so smart but I am filled with fears for her. My challenge is to not let those fears determine how I parent her.

Bastard Fairies

Go download the free new CD from the Bastard Fairies. To be honest, I'm not sure I like it or not - I know it is interestingly different from anything else I listen to. You can then go and watch their YouTube videos, including the controversial one called The Coolest 8 Year Old In The World Talks About O'Reilly.

Are they using that girl for political purposes? Shit yeah. Do I have a problem with it? Not really. I used to do the pro-choice marches at clinics; I've seen enemy children with pictures of bloody fetuses. The enemy indoctrinates their children young; we should not indoctrinate, but we should teach and get them active and involved at a young age. This is the world they will inherit - they'd best know how to fight for it. Would I let my daughter be in a video like that? No, but that is a personal parenting decision. I haven't walked a mile in their shoes to know why they did that.

Besides, I do know that the singer for Bastard Fairies is Yellow Thunder Woman. She is Native American, a direct decendant of the Great Ponca Chief Standing Bear, an Indian princess and member of the Yankton Sioux. So, I don't think she or her family owe the United States, its white cultures and heritage, any respect at all. Nor should they teach that little girl to respect this country. This nation was founded upon the genocide of the Native American and rather than face and renounce our evil, selfish past, we are expanding it to embrace torture and secret prisons.

Just my opinion.

Dangerous Times

I'm sitting here a little bit frightened, very skeptical and very dazed. I've actually been feeling pretty good psychologically these past two days. Past experience warns me that all of this could change and go away in an instant. And it's not like it needs a prompt from the outside world like getting in a wreck or losing my job. It just happens.

So even though I am feeling okay right now - not great but not bad, I don't trust my own feelings and moods. All you have to do to is visit the post Depression's Going to Kill Me and you will see why. Those moods, semi-suicidal and violently self-loathing can consume me.

Over the years I have come to accept the fact that this is a disease, like diabetes or kidney failure. For some reason, my brain does not produce the chemicals needed to keep my moods in balance the way it should. Maybe it is genetic; it certainly is biological. The medications I take supplement the chemicals in the brain I need. Like a diabetic, if I don't take my medications consistently and routinely I suffer the effects of my disease.

It doesn't help that people seem to be unable to understand the simple biology behind it. Telling me to just cheer up and quit being depressed is like telling a person with heart disease to just suck it up and get ready to run a marathon. It just does not work that way. I'm not this way because I have failed morally or I lack strength. How the hell can you say I am not strong? It takes a lot of strength and endurance just to not kill myself sometimes. If moral strength and courage is like a muscle then I must have a hell of a lot more than most people because I am constantly exercising my moral strength and courage.

The other one mentally ill people get a lot of is this goddamn stupid idea that if you are mentally illl then God is punishing you for some reason. Hey, if your God works that way, maybe that is not a God you are worshipping. That's more like what I imagine a devil would be like. This would be like God punishing an infant by giving the infant leukemia. I don't believe that our creator - The Goddess - works that way. I really don't. I don't see Her as being that cruel.

Anyway the real hidden trap with depression is this: sometimes, even when you take your medications as prescribed, depression can still sneak up on you and overtake you anyway. I hate it, it isn't fair but shit, it just creeps up on you and gets you without warning.

And that is why I feel I can't trust my own mind today.

Good Morning Goddess Brigit, my name is Andy and I am an alcoholic. I have been kept sober, one day at a time, since Imbolc of 2001 by your grace and your grace alone. I'd like to take this moment to thank You, my Higher Power, for this daily reprieve. Today is a good day to be sober. Please be with me today all through the day and help me stay sober all day long. Show me Your will for me and grant me the power to carry that will out. Thy will, not mine, be done. Blessed Be.

Now that's how you start a good day.

A Little More Comfortable In My Own Skin Today

I am feeling better tonight...

Maybe it it because I got a contract to right another article (during my blogging hiatus I was actually paid by two national publications in my field for my writing) for a pretty prominent magazine in my professional field. Being paid to write. You have no idea. That's like someone writing me a paycheck for eating pizza... it's not as good as sex but it sure the hell beats work.

Maybe it was my beautiful daughter yelling "Daddy!" as she climbed out of the car seat to greet me when my wife came home.

Maybe it was my Higher Power stepping in and reminding me that This too, shall pass.

But I really don't think it was any of those things... I think it was because I wandered over to Cute Overload and saw this:

Dammit, it is well nigh impossible to feel sorry for yourself when you look at a photo like that of a poor dog in socks...

And yeah, that's right, I'm a guy and I wear kilts and hang out at Cute Overload. You wanna make something out of it, huh? Huh? You want your ass kicked by a guy in a skirt? Didn't think so.

Nothing is Really Worth It Anymore

Pretty much sums it up.

I went to a Yule/Solstice celebration this weekend and for a brief moment I felt connected but it was transient and long since gone. I have even less patience with my toddler now than before and know that I am failing as a father and husband.

No sleep again last night.

I'm gonna read the Big Book pages 60-63 which my sponsor assigned to me and pray but it won't help. But it will kill some time so why not.

Tired

My morning has been spent fixing flat tires, picking up other broken cars from dealership repair shops and things like that. I am going to nap. Last night my wife, I and my daughter went to her office Christmas party. If I ever wanted to feel stupid and out of place, that was a good place to choose to go. My daughter threw a huge temper tantrum and I did not know what to do.

I am going to go pray and read the big book and then nap.

Not Aloof, Just Angry.

I have recently learned that some people think I am aloof. I just want to make clear: it's not that I am aloof, its that I hate you. I'm not sitting around thinking I'm better than you; I'm actually sitting around wishing you were headed to Iraq. It's not that I don't care you had surgery. It's that I'd hoped you'd die on the table.

And if these sentiments aren't in keeping with the title and purpose of this blog, well, shit, then what is?

Depression's Gonna Kill Me

It's been so long since I've blogged, I've pretty much forgotten how to post.

Had to stop and write because I am going a little bit crazy. Maybe a lot crazy. I'm not ready to have a cigarette or take a drink, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I'm glad I don't own a gun. The temptation to kill myself has been on the edge of my mind off and on for many months now.

My daughter is the primary reason I have not done it. I wish I had not had her. Not for her sake. I love her, she is beautiful, she is bright, she is sunshine. But I don't think I am coping really well with being a father and all the time I spend with her is time that I feel like I am acting the role of the good dad. One time she bit me - hard - and it hurt like hell and I yelled at her "NO! Don't bite me!" She looked like she was about to have a heart attack she was so frightened and that was when I thought maybe she just saw the real me.

Depression - that's where I have been these past months. i'm doing just about the minimum to get by - going to the psychiatrist, kinda talking to my sponsor, praying in the morning... but that's about it and the prayers feel really fucking hollow. I feel like I am talking to empty space again. The psychiatrist and I have been playing with my meds a little but it does not seem to make a difference (well, except the six months I was on Zoloft and could not get an erection or feel any erotic or arousing feelings at all - some ways that was a blessing. With no interest in sex at all, life was a little simpler). She -the psychiatrist - pretty much feels that at this point its up to me. I have to do something to save myself.

You know, like go to an AA meeting. Or meditate.

I pretty much don't see the point.

I do want to talk to my sponsor, but she has her own problems now and I am actually scared for her. I also don't feel like I can do anything to help her. So, I just watch her with her worries and problems and feel like I can't talk to her about mine. In Maslow's Hierarchy of needs her problems are on the security/physiology level and mine are higher on the list.

Maybe I'll send her a link to this anyway. AA tells us that we should share our problems because giving another person a chance to help us may help them get away from their issues.

Funny thing is that at work and in my professional life, things are going very well. But when you feel like this, all that just turns to ashes in your hands.

All my life I have fought my depression and today I really am starting to feel like I'm close to losing.

I'll end with a stupid fucking AA gratitude list:
I am grateful for
my daughter
my wife
my relationship with my parents
my lack of a relationship with my sister
my dogs
my fish
my houseplants (don't laugh, nurturing them can be very healing)
The pay my job gives me. Fuck the job. I just want the money.
Credit card debt is almost paid off
my friends
The Creatress, The Goddess whom I don't feel is real at all anymore.