Wondering If I'm Depressed

For those of you reading this, I'm way ahead on blogging, so chances are that by the time you see this I'll be feeling much better.  No need to be concerned.

I'm definitely a little depressed.  But I don't know if it's clinical depression or not.  People with brain chemistry issues can have down times just like normal people can.  Not EVERYTHING is about the diagnosis.

These are the symptoms--not sleeping well, waking up early, lethargy and lack of interest in normal pleasures, irritability, pessimism and (mild) feelings of hopelessness and despondency.

Those would normally be all the hallmarks of an episode of dysthymia (clinical depression,) except for three factors:
1. It's too early to expect one (I follow a pretty regular schedule.)  I was looking for a bad couple of weeks around this coming November.
2. The symptoms are much milder than the last, full-blown, this-is-definitely-neurochemical-imbalance thingy from May of 2016.  I'm in a bad mood, but I'm perfectly functional.
3. There really are some circumstantial things going on that could account for things.  Normally dysthymia happens irrespective of my circumstances, which is always hard for people to understand who just want to make me feel better.  I appreciate it, but I'm not cheer uppable.  I've got some schedule changes and some unusual family and household and work pressures going on, and "singing the blues" may just be a perfectly rational response to the stress going on in my life right now.  It won't last forever.

I'll keep you posted.  If it really is clinical depression, I should know for sure in a day or two.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

(Update:  I'm NOT clinically depressed.  There are some very definite tell-tale signs that would have shown up by now, and they haven't.  I'm just a little overdone, and should probably take a few days off, or something.)

Various Odds and Ends

Lots of random things, just catching up.

1. At this writing Adored Wife and Graphics Magician are in Colorado spending some time with family out there.  Social Hurricane and Oscar the cat and I are holding down the fort.  Oscar doesn't know what we've done with his people and is holding us personally responsible.

2. The internet and phone service are out at our house.  Lots of storms lately and lots of equipment damaged and their technicians are covered up.  We may be out a couple of days, but it'll be fixed by the time AW and GM get back home.  We'll survive.  First world problems, but it's amazing how dependent you get on it.

3. I wound up cast as the lead in a production of "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court."  It wasn't accidental, but it came about kind of suddenly.  SH is also going to be involved helping with the production.

4. I spent yesterday largely with my dad, and a little bit with my mom.  Neither was feeling well and it was a bit of a difficult visit, but still good to spend time with them.

5. I'm taking a little time off this afternoon, and Social Hurricane doesn't work today, and we're going on an extensive father-daughter date.  Chinese food may be involved.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Musings On Back Trouble

Well, that wasn't too smart.

I don't precisely have a bad back.  More to the point, I really DON'T have a bad back.  It rarely gives me any trouble at all, and I do a fair amount of manual labor and heavy lifting.

But there have been a few times over the past few years when I've lifted something the wrong way and hurt myself.  The last time wasn't any permanent injury--a few days later it was fine, but for that few days I was pretty well laid up.

This most recent time I'm hoping wasn't permanent injury.  I was doing some extraordinarily heavy lifting Saturday morning, and made the mistake of turning the wrong way while carrying a heavy weight.  It didn't hurt when I did it, but then later I drove home and when I got there and tried to get out of the car....my back seized up.

And it's better today than it was a couple of days ago, but I'm still really limited in my mobility, and any kind of real lifting is just out of the picture.  With a little luck I just strained a muscle or something and it'll heal in a few more days., no troubles.

I should probably be more careful, though.  I'm a very strong guy, but I'm not getting any younger.  The real adjustment around the household, though, is that I'm accustomed to being the brawn for Adored Wife when she needs some help, because of all her physical limitations.

Sunday she was getting around a lot more comfortably than I was.  Go figure.  Took a little getting used to, and hopefully it's a short-term thing.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Social Hurricane Changes Shifts

Social Hurricane once upon a time was my people person.  Wasn't scared of anything or anybody, made friends easily, eager for adventures and activity.

She still enjoys people, and she still loves doing stuff.  But it has to be people she knows and situations she's familiar with, or the anxiety kicks in.

It's tough when you're less confident as a young adult than you were as ten year old.  To her considerable credit, she KNOWS she struggles with anxiety and she tries to combat it.  But it makes it very difficult to put herself into something new.

She's changing shifts at work, from third to first.  Most of the people she'll be working with she already knows, and, while the work responsibilities will change, they won't be substantially different than what she's already doing.

And she's going over and over these very same points in her head.  "I know these people."  "I know this place."  "I know how to do this job."  She knows the anxiety is irrational--she has nothing to worry about.

But she's as nervous about it as if she were moving to a different continent.  She keeps going over how she's going to handle things on the new shift.  And over, and over, and over.

(She'd driving me a little nuts, to be honest with you.  Anxiety is contagious.)

I'll be very happy when she's got a couple of days under her belt.  And so will she.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Obnoxious Cat

The cat's name is Oscar.  I don't feel any particular compulsion to come up with a "blog name" for him.

Although I could call him Pester.  Or Annoying Cat.  Or Ungrateful Demanding Self-Centered Feline Wretch.  Or any of a number of other things that come to mind.

....remind me why we have this cat, again?

He's spent a couple of nights in the garage lately.  We don't toss let him outside at night, because we've had flea troubles, and fleas are nocturnal.  We let him outside in the daylight.  He WANTS to go outside at night.  I mean, really, really wants to to go out.

I don't like tossing him in the garage--it's not all that comfortable in there and I know he gets lonely.  But the alternative is that he yowls outside my bedroom door all night.  (If the door's not locked, he can open it and come in.)  If he's IN my bedroom, and wants me to let him go outside, he'll meow and scratch at furniture until I pay attention to him.

I'm hoping this season of the year, or whatever it is that's driving his mad desire to flee the house, passes soon.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Things DO Get Better

A few years back, I wouldn't have called this.

My second daughter, Social Hurricane, and I are friends and enjoy doing things together.

This gives me GREAT hope when Graphics Magician is being particularly aggravating in his fourteen-year-old, hormone-driven, strong-willed, I-know-everything-and-you-just-don't-understand way.

We went through a really rough patch with SH some years back.  Rebellion, runaway, suicide attempts, hanging out with a really bad crowd, getting involved in unhealthy relationships, several hospital visits, a couple of stays in psychiatric facilities, lots and lots of counseling.  Screaming matches, tears, trouble at school.  One time I physically restrained her from leaving the house until we could talk a little sense into her, one time I knocked her door down because she'd locked it and was busily cutting her wrists on the other side, and on more than one occasion her mother and I lost sleep because she'd run away and we had no idea where she was.

It wasn't the funnest.

And now?  She's still got issues, and probably always will.  Bipolar disorder doesn't go away.  But she's gainfully employed and on a good career path, she pays rent and helps out around the house, and she and I watch superhero shows and cartoons together, talk about lots of things, and go out for breakfast or lunch every so often and have fun conversations when we do.

My troublesome daughter has become my friend.

That's actually pretty cool.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Hormone Central

Conversation between me and Graphics Magician.  If you're not a regular reader of this blog, GM is a 14 year old strong willed boy who thinks he knows everything.  As this conversation unfolds, though, I have him at a bit of a disadvantage, because I'd earlier caught him hanging out with a neighborhood girl and he's embarrassed and a bit abashed.

Me: My son, do you know what hormones do to fourteen-year-old boys?

GM: ......no.

Me: Hormones make fourteen-year-old boys stupid.  Do you know what hormones do to fourteen-year-old girls?

GM: .....make them stupid?

Me: No.  Hormones make fourteen-year-old girls mean.  She will play with your emotions just because she can, and she won't intend any harm by it.  Haven't you had enough girl trouble already?

GM: No, but, Papa, I get it, okay, but she's like my best friend.  We just talk.

Me: Uh-huh.  Plus, she's really cute and she smells nice, right?

GM: (Puts fingers in ears, blushes, grins, stops making eye contact.)

Me: Okay, I guess we're done here.

Eating My Feelings

I keep saying I'm going to lose weight and take better care of myself.  I have some incipient health troubles because of my poor eating habits that I really, really need to nip in the bud.

And I could lose weight, you know.  There's no mystery about it.  If I made better food choices the pounds would come off.  I know, because I've done it before.  I've lost ten pounds lots of times.  I'm one of the best "ten-pound-losers" you could ever hope to meet.  I've lost count of the number of times I've lost ten pounds.

KEEPING it off, well, that's another matter.

The trouble is that I eat my feelings.  If I'm stressed, I eat.  I should turn to healthier ways to deal with stress--chores, exercise, prayer, some hobby.  But no, I turn to peanut butter sandwiches and potato chips and oh, look, cookies.  My life, quite honestly, is moderately stressful, and I've explored some of the reasons for that in this blog.  But lots of people have stressful lives.

Eating my feelings temporarily does make me feel better; it really does.  If things with the family are kind of high pressure right now, some ice cream is a short-term relief.  But long term?  It's really bad for me, and it'll make me less able to cope with stress if I'm unhealthy and unwell.

I need to figure out how to do healthier things with my feelings.

"One Vice At a Time"

Social Hurricane is hoping to live a little healthier.  In the bad old days, she got into cigarettes and alcohol, and she's ALWAYS liked junk food, plus some other unhealthy habits and practices.  She never got into illegal drugs--she was taking a lot of legal medication, and she did have the sense to know that mixing the two would be a really spectacularly bad idea.  So, there's that, anyway.

But, as I said, she's trying to live a little healthier, and I applaud her for it.  It's been several weeks since her last cigarette, and she's cut way down on the alcohol intake.  The "healthy eating and more exercise" thing hasn't really kicked in yet, and she's kicking herself for it every time she slips on the stress-and-boredom eating.

I'm actually trying to get her to cut herself a little slack.  Quitting smoking is huge, and very difficult.  I'd kinda prefer she not drink at all (I don't personally), but in all honesty I don't have any moral objections to an occasional alcoholic beverage with friends, and that's pretty much where she's at now.  Solitary drinking, or drinking to intoxication?  Yeah, that's a problem, and I'm glad she's pretty much done with that and I hope she never goes back.

The phrase I use is "one vice at a time."  Making changes in habits is hard, and I'm very proud of the ones she has accomplished.  They're entirely self-motivated, and they haven't come easy.  Let's get those under control, and then turn to the next bad habit.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.