Lately

I've mostly been sleeping. Although there have been a few exciting moments in between shut-eye. My excessive sleeping has been driving my husband absolutely bonkers. He knows it is caused by depression but still he doesn't like it. I can't say that I blame him, honestly. I know how I feel when I'm wide awake, needing company, and he decides he wants to take a nap.


I'm still not used to not having a job to go to anymore. Sometimes it makes me uncomfortable to imagine that when people ask me what my profession is, I won't have an answer to give them. I was so proud to tell everyone that I was a statistician. And now I'm nothing. Just a depressive who isn't able to function normally on a daily basis. I feel ashamed that I let this illness defeat me in this way, but I am consoled by the fact that at least now I'll be able to focus on achieving better mental health. I hope my bosses forgive me. Please let them forgive me, even though I don't have the courage to ask them personally. Let them not think of me as a failure, when they had once had so much faith and pride in me.


I've had so much paperwork to fill out, and it has caused me a lot of stress. I don't want to come out and say the words.... the word "disability" really bothers me. I have an I.Q. of 145. As a child I was involved in accelerated learning courses after going through a certain amount of testing. In high school I was in the Honors' Society, and in college I was in Alpha Chi. I've received numerous awards in high school and college. I am intelligent, even though I'm not necessarily knowledgable. I don't keep up with world affairs. I don't keep up with the presidential candidates. I don't keep up with current events or politics. I stay in here... in my head, with my thoughts. Yes, it bothers me that I will have to use the word "disabled" to describe myself. My husband joked earlier today, "Great. Just what the world needs: Another disabled genius." Sitting in the Social Security office I felt dirty, because I was surrounded by extremely poor, disabled, dirty people. I felt sorry for them but at the same time I felt a certain sense of disgust, as though I didn't want to touch them or smell them. Let alone be one of them.


OK, I'll come right out and say it. I'm feeling vulnerable right now but strangely I feel like being deeply honest. I'm terribly frightened. I don't know what the future holds. Not only am I afraid of going broke, I'm scared that I'll never get better. I've been fighting mental illness since 2002, when I was first diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. The truth is, I suffered from it since high school, but I never knew what it was I was suffering from until I got help from a family doctor, a very kind man who explained to me that he understood me. After all, he himself had suffered from it. He pat me on the back and sent me to a well-known local psychiatrist. But after all the medications, after all the counseling, I feel like I'm falling deeper and deeper into a dark well, as if the severity of my condition is getting worse. At the same time, however, I feel a certain sense of comfort in knowing that I do have good days. So I do have more hope than I used to have, hope that for every down I go through, there will always be an up. I just wish I could stay up and be like everyone else. People think less of people like me. I can even feel that my own father is disappointed in me, because he can't quite seem to grasp what depression is. I can hear the disappointment in his voice when we speak on the phone, and I can see it in his eyes when we get together on rare occasions. That pride and glee he used to have when he looked at me seems to be gone. So I find it difficult to talk about with most people, with the exception of my doctor, therapist and husband. I even feel ashamed that I'm talking about this with my blog readers. I don't want to talk about it too much, because it might drive you away, yet I feel some relief in expressing myself in this way. So please PLEASE forgive me if it gets to be too much. I'll try my best not to come into this negative space too often.


Last Friday night my sister came over and we played Scrabble. I haven't played a board game in so long. Mostly it's difficult for me to find the interest in doing much of anything besides sleeping, but once we got into the game, surprisingly I enjoyed myself. I was laughing. A few times I laughed so hard I could feel my face burning red. My silly sister would try to get away with calling something a word, and I would protest. Then I'd resort to the dictionaries on the Internet to prove to her my points. I could tell she was devastated, because I was beating her. My final score was 320 and I won, much to her dismay. Here is a photo of the final product:




I surprised myself on Sunday. I actually made and kept a social appointment with a friend I have been talking to on the Internet for about a year. I put it off for so long because I have really been quite antisocial for a while. But once we got together, it was as if we'd known each other for a long time. I think we were really like two peas in a pod. Not once did I experience the anxiety I normally experience in social situations. In fact, I think I remember talking my head off. :) She was everything I had imagined her to be - cheerful, friendly, outgoing, warm, kind and so much more. People, I think I met a kindred spirit. I look forward to spending more time with her soon, whenever I can manage to drag my recluse self out of the house.


In other news - and thankfully quite good news - my artwork is receiving more attention. I received an email from a freelance writer who found my online art gallery. He's interested in writing an article about my work. I checked out his past articles, and he's interviewed and written about quite a lot of famous people, for example Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner and others. I felt quite honored that he'd want to include me in that company. The same week, a music band contacted me and wanted to know if they could use my art in their CD booklets and web page. In fact, they'd like for me to create some animations of my work for them to use. I hope it all works out! I attribute all this attention I've been getting to Dr. Cliff Pickover, an absolute genius, creative, intelligent, fun, pleasantly unusual man who has written loads of books. Please visit his site by clicking on his name. So many of his interests are congruous with mine. Anyway, what I was saying is that thanks to him I've received a lot of attention. He posted a link to my art gallery on his web site a year or so ago. Ever since then, I've watched my name spread to various places on the Internet. I don't sell any of my works, simply because I haven't really felt confident enough to work up to such an enterprise. But maybe someday I can make a few bucks to buy a cup of Mocha with or something.


One of the symptoms of depression is a general lack of interest in hobbies and otherwise enjoyable activities. So, it is quite natural that I haven't created art since April of 2007. And even back then I was only creating it sporadically. My goal is to regain the love of creating that I once had. Today I felt a hint of inspiration. I'm hoping it will grow from a spark to a flame.


That's all for tonight. I wasn't feeling this talkative in the beginning, but as you can see I managed to work my way into quite a long chat. At first I didn't know what I wanted to say, but I wanted to say something since it's been almost four days since my last post. It seems I was quite capable of coming up with material. I don't really have anything to say about my spiritual journey, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this entire spiel was completely about the spiritual journey.