Okay, so I've tried St. John's Wort (an herbal SSRI) and I've tried multiple SSRIs and SNRIs and I hate the side effects of every last one of them. The weight gain and metabolism slow-down are bad enough, but add into that the fact that they didn't actually lift my depression, they just made it so I didn't care. I felt wrapped in fuzzy cotton.
After I tried getting off of them completely, and without having anything anti-depressant in my system realized I did need something, I did some reading.
I want to share what I found, but I also want to warn you: this isn't going to work for everybody. It might not work for you. And this isn't woo-woo stuff, if you're looking to go anti-science. It's based on science and how the brain works.
So first, a little primer in brain chemistry. (If this is your field, and you are aggravated by certain things I've simplified or glossed over, I'm sorry. I was trying to make this understandable. You can leave comments if you want.)
Your brain communicates through the nervous system. Millions of nerves. Each one is a neuron. And they don't actually connect end to end. There's a tiny (very tiny) gap between each one and the next. If the nerve wants to communicate something to the next nerve, it sends a neurotransmitter across the gap. The receiver nerve accepts the neurotransmitter and then trashes it. Kind of like sending someone a letter and they read it and then throw it in the trashcan.
A neurotransmitter is just a molecule. It's a big molecule, though not as big as some, but it's pretty big (no, you still can't see it!). This is important later.
A SSRI or SNRI is short for "selective serotonin/norepinephrin reuptake inhibitor". What it does, it prevents the nerve from throwing the neurotransmitter in the trashcan. It put it into the "recycle bin" of the brain where it can be used again.
This is based on the hypothesis that depression is caused by a shortage of the appropriate neurotransmitter. Some people lack serotonin, some lack norepinephrine, and some lack dopamine (Wellbutrin is the only dopamine helper anti-depressant that I know of). This is a widely accepted hypothesis that seems well-supported by the clinical evidence. In other words, you find the neurotransmitter you're short on, make your brain have more of it, and your depression is reduced or lifts.
My personal unproven untested hypothesis is that the side effects are because your brain is trashing the neurotransmitters for a good reason. Maybe they lose one tiny hydrogen off the middle somewhere and become a problem. Whatever; you're supposed to use a new one every time (like a salad bar and the plates).
So, why the drugs? Why can't you just put dopamine into a pill and take it?
Remember how I said the neurotransmitters are fairly big molecules? There are nerves outside the brain, but for the ones inside the brain, the brain makes those molecules inhouse, so to speak. There's a blood-brain barrier around your brain (because brains don't have blood inside them, just on the outside) and it stops any big molecules from getting through. This is to stop (most) viruses and bacteria from attacking the brain. They're big molecules and can't get through.
But little molecules can make it through, like oxygen (which is oxygen-oxygen, O2 technically, and thus a molecule made up of two atoms).
And the building blocks that the brain uses to make neurotransmitters can get through as well. The brain is very efficient. It uses building blocks in many different brain molecules, without having to have a specific set for each one. In other words, if one of the building blocks is red, it can appear in multiple types of brain-manufactured molecules. Red-Green-Blue, Red-Blue-Blue, etc.
So. Idea. What if you took the building blocks in a pill and flooded your system with those? Would your brain make more of Red-Green-Blue simply because it had more Red, Green, and Blue available now? Perhaps some kinds of depression are simply because the building mechanism is slower than normal for that neurotransmitter?
Dopamine is made of an amino acid and two vitamins. It's phenyalanine and two of these three: B2, B1, B6. (I don't actually remember.)
I tried taking phenylalanine and a balanced B-100 formula vitamin (100 mg of each of the 5 major B vitamins)(which is why I don't remember which of those three it is). I took 2 of the 500 mg L-phenylalanine pills. This made me feel better (less depressed) but not quite enough, so during the summer I take 2.5 of the 500 mg L-phenylalanine and during the winter go up to 3 (to combat the Seasonal Affective Disorder).
It has to be L-phenylalanine, as the D- version is useless to the human body. (You can buy these in L- only or DL- and the DL- is cheaper because they didn't have to separate the two.) The human body uses the left version only. I've also found that only Source Naturals brand works, but your milage may vary and it's not like I tried anything but the Vitacost generic brand as an alternative.
Now there's always the placebo effect, which I will grant you. But my sample set (the number of people I know doing this where it works for their depression) is greater than one, it's (tada) two. My brother also does this, and it works for him. I think he has to take 3 or 4 of the 500 mg tablets, which would make sense given his larger weight. (He's a boy, I'm girl, so yes, he weighs more than me. He's also taller.)
Before you run out to try this, WAIT.
I'm not a doctor. I'm not even a biology chemist. I'm just an analytical chemist and I don't work in this field. So, I can't really recommend anything. But I will say you need to be careful. This is your brain you're screwing around with.
I'd say, "Get off the anti-depressant you're currently on before you try this" and "do that part slowly." I'd say, "Make sure your doctor knows what you're doing. Their eyes may have this 'huh?' look, so you probably should add on the end, 'it's like taking Wellbutrin'."
I'd say, "Make sure you keep an eye on yourself and your symptoms, and if you feel like you're getting worse, get back on your normal anti-depressant immediately."
And definitely, if what you're taking right now works for you, don't try this. Honestly.
The side effects I have noticed are: a feeling like an extended adrenaline rush. This means you're taking too much and back off a pill.
The other side effect that is long term is a certain lack of ability to access the word you want to use. This is mostly just annoying for me. I'll come up with words that are close but not quite what I wanted.
For example, I've said that I had to "put new shingles on my ceiling." I've referred to my brother's driveway as a parking lot, although in my defense there were six cars in it at the time. (But I wasn't trying to be funny and the word I wanted to use was driveway.) I've said "thank you" instead of "you're welcome."
So, for dopamine (what I do): L-phenylalanine + one Balanced B-100 mg vitamin.
For serotonin: melatonin + one Balanced B-100 mg vitamin.
No matter how many of the L-phenylalanine tablets you have to take, you only need 1 of the Balanced Bs.
I can't supplement serotonin. Look up serotonin syndrome if you're actually wanting to know why. Point being here, I haven't tried that version of this method personally so I don't know if it'll work.
To wrap up: if you try this, please be careful. I don't want anybody to get hurt. There are people who can't supplement phenylalanine, and if you are one, don't try this (please say that was obvious).
Unlike a prescription antidepressant, you should notice within a day if this is working for you. (If it's not, add a pill; if that doesn't work at all, give up on this method. If it feels "a little better" add a half a tablet more. I wouldn't think you should go above 4 of the 500 mg tablets unless you're a really large person (we're talking 300 pounds or more). Start at 2 tablets and work your way up by half a tablet.
And unlike a prescription antidepressant, there is no carryover effect. You have to take this every day.
Time of day: since dopamine is an "activator" neurotransmitter (wakes you up, sort of), take it in the morning. If you are trying the serotonin version, take that at night, as serotonin is a "calming" neurotransmitter (it comes from melatonin after all!)
Please be careful and please be aware that these aren't "harmless" because you found them in the vitamin aisle.
Saturday, November 5, 2016
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Shatter Me
I figured it out.
You know how a windshield for a car is made? It's a sheet of glass sandwiched between two pieces of very strong plastic. If a rock hits your windshield while you're going 80 mph, even if it punches through, the plastic will hold the shattered glass in place until you get it replaced. (Which you had better do soon if the rock actually made it through the windshield rather than just shattering the glass.)
This keeps the glass from flying inward, in deadly shards, at you. It keeps you safe.
But no matter what you do, you can't fix the glass afterwards. You have to replace it. If you keep driving with it (say it's only a star-pattern crack in the glass) the glass will continue to break. Worse, it'll wear at the plastic from the inside, scrape scrape scrape.
People aren't windshields. They're supposed to heal.
I don't know how.
Pippin's death shattered me. All through and through. But the "plastic" kept me looking mostly intact. I mean, people could tell I was hurting, but nobody could see just how bad the damage was. Nobody understood that only a thin shell kept me together.
Since then things just kept getting worse. Daddy had a seizure. Scary, terrifying, to see him in the hospital afterwards, unable to remember from moment to moment, and certainly not the strong, capable, emotion-rock of my life he had been.
One of my uncles died, rather unexpectedly. I really liked him, too. He was one of the ones that was "friends" with me (if you can call us friends when we didn't see each other for years at a time).
My company decides to sell my part of it to someone else. Now we're in the middle of the transition to the other company and everything's changing and nobody's communicating. (We found out the hard way that the new badges will only let you in the door during a certain time period around your "schedule." Luckily it wasn't me personally that got locked out, but I add this so you realize just how badly nobody's communicating.)
I develop a lovely eating disorder where I can't just eat more (because it's not anorexia) and I can't just eat normally (because I don't know--apparently, I've been doing a mild version of this eating disorder all along).
And I get "burning tongue syndrome" on top of it, a condition where they don't know what causes it, what makes it go away, or if it will ever go away short of my death. So I'm now in constant physical pain, too.
I think the plastic's wearing thin. I'm starting to feel the shards.
And I don't know how to heal. I don't know what I'm doing wrong that I'm not healing.
All I know how to do is put my head down and keep going forward, in the hopes that something, somewhere, will be better. Easier.
You know how a windshield for a car is made? It's a sheet of glass sandwiched between two pieces of very strong plastic. If a rock hits your windshield while you're going 80 mph, even if it punches through, the plastic will hold the shattered glass in place until you get it replaced. (Which you had better do soon if the rock actually made it through the windshield rather than just shattering the glass.)
This keeps the glass from flying inward, in deadly shards, at you. It keeps you safe.
But no matter what you do, you can't fix the glass afterwards. You have to replace it. If you keep driving with it (say it's only a star-pattern crack in the glass) the glass will continue to break. Worse, it'll wear at the plastic from the inside, scrape scrape scrape.
People aren't windshields. They're supposed to heal.
I don't know how.
Pippin's death shattered me. All through and through. But the "plastic" kept me looking mostly intact. I mean, people could tell I was hurting, but nobody could see just how bad the damage was. Nobody understood that only a thin shell kept me together.
Since then things just kept getting worse. Daddy had a seizure. Scary, terrifying, to see him in the hospital afterwards, unable to remember from moment to moment, and certainly not the strong, capable, emotion-rock of my life he had been.
One of my uncles died, rather unexpectedly. I really liked him, too. He was one of the ones that was "friends" with me (if you can call us friends when we didn't see each other for years at a time).
My company decides to sell my part of it to someone else. Now we're in the middle of the transition to the other company and everything's changing and nobody's communicating. (We found out the hard way that the new badges will only let you in the door during a certain time period around your "schedule." Luckily it wasn't me personally that got locked out, but I add this so you realize just how badly nobody's communicating.)
I develop a lovely eating disorder where I can't just eat more (because it's not anorexia) and I can't just eat normally (because I don't know--apparently, I've been doing a mild version of this eating disorder all along).
And I get "burning tongue syndrome" on top of it, a condition where they don't know what causes it, what makes it go away, or if it will ever go away short of my death. So I'm now in constant physical pain, too.
I think the plastic's wearing thin. I'm starting to feel the shards.
And I don't know how to heal. I don't know what I'm doing wrong that I'm not healing.
All I know how to do is put my head down and keep going forward, in the hopes that something, somewhere, will be better. Easier.
Thursday, September 8, 2016
Why Can't You Be Normal?
Bear with me, this is going to get long (I have a brevity deficit).
Let me tell you a story. So there's this woman in a wheelchair. She's paralyzed from the waist down. She's trying to go shopping and there's a big crowd of people and she's in the way. One of the people in the crowd says to her, "you look perfectly fine to me. Stop pretending you need that wheelchair and get up and walk properly."
She explains politely that she can't; she's paralyzed.
"Oh no, you look just fine. That person over there, with no legs? Now she needs a wheelchair. You're just being lazy. You just need to try harder."
It so happens that our girl has crutches slung over the back of her wheelchair to help with little short "jaunts" (like from the chair to the bed) and she gets these down and tries to walk with them. For a moment, she does just fine, but soon she gets tired and falls down.
People in the crowd mock her; some of them call encouragement to her. A chorus of "you can do it, just try harder," and "stop acting like that, you know you can walk just fine, you just need to stop being so entitled." "You look fine to us. Get up and walk."
And with all this coming on her, she convinces herself that there's nothing really wrong with her, and she could walk if she just tries hard enough. It would certainly make her life easier in many ways, so part of her even wants to believe.
She tries and she tries. She tries every way she can think of. She takes all the suggestions they can give her. But still, she can't walk like they can. She can only drag her paralyzed legs along for a few steps with the crutches before she falls. The wheelchair works better but gets in everyone's way.
---
Okay, by now I'm sure you've seen the point of the story, but let me ask you this: what do you think of the people in the crowd? Was it okay for them to tell her "you look fine, just try harder?" What about the ones that were genuinely trying to help, and be encouraging? Was that okay? Or is telling a paralyzed person that they aren't, that they can act perfectly normal if they want to -- is that wrong? Isn't that bullying?
---
Autistic people are like the woman in the wheelchair. Our brains are _different_. No amount of "trying" is going to change that. Now, just like the woman in the wheelchair, we can use "crutches"--which would be learning social behavior by rote (like memorizing a multiplication table)--for a while, but it's exhausting to do and eventually, leaves us on the ground in a heap if we don't take a break.
Oh, and the other woman, the one with no legs at all? She's like a person with Down Syndrome; someone who has neurological differences that are physically visible to "normal" people. Nobody tells her that she just needs to try harder, because it's obvious to them that she is different. But people with autism most of the time look just like the "normal" (neurotypical) people do. So they, _you_, get judged as if you are a "normal" person.
NT people have this social behavior they expect everyone to conform to, but very rarely will you find anyone who does. They are just as hard on each other as they are on you. The problem is, you're not doing what you do because you're choosing to break the rules. You can't learn the rules the way they do. Your brain is simply different than theirs.
Please, be kind to yourself and let yourself stop believing that "you should know how to behave around people" and "there's no excuse." Imagine what you would think of someone telling that paralyzed girl "you should know how to walk" and "there's no excuse for acting like you need a wheelchair."
(I initially wrote this in response to someone who said (online) the two initial quotes in the last paragraph. Unless she tells me differently, her identity will remain anonymous. I just didn't want to take credit for the words that inspired me to write this.)
Let me tell you a story. So there's this woman in a wheelchair. She's paralyzed from the waist down. She's trying to go shopping and there's a big crowd of people and she's in the way. One of the people in the crowd says to her, "you look perfectly fine to me. Stop pretending you need that wheelchair and get up and walk properly."
She explains politely that she can't; she's paralyzed.
"Oh no, you look just fine. That person over there, with no legs? Now she needs a wheelchair. You're just being lazy. You just need to try harder."
It so happens that our girl has crutches slung over the back of her wheelchair to help with little short "jaunts" (like from the chair to the bed) and she gets these down and tries to walk with them. For a moment, she does just fine, but soon she gets tired and falls down.
People in the crowd mock her; some of them call encouragement to her. A chorus of "you can do it, just try harder," and "stop acting like that, you know you can walk just fine, you just need to stop being so entitled." "You look fine to us. Get up and walk."
And with all this coming on her, she convinces herself that there's nothing really wrong with her, and she could walk if she just tries hard enough. It would certainly make her life easier in many ways, so part of her even wants to believe.
She tries and she tries. She tries every way she can think of. She takes all the suggestions they can give her. But still, she can't walk like they can. She can only drag her paralyzed legs along for a few steps with the crutches before she falls. The wheelchair works better but gets in everyone's way.
---
Okay, by now I'm sure you've seen the point of the story, but let me ask you this: what do you think of the people in the crowd? Was it okay for them to tell her "you look fine, just try harder?" What about the ones that were genuinely trying to help, and be encouraging? Was that okay? Or is telling a paralyzed person that they aren't, that they can act perfectly normal if they want to -- is that wrong? Isn't that bullying?
---
Autistic people are like the woman in the wheelchair. Our brains are _different_. No amount of "trying" is going to change that. Now, just like the woman in the wheelchair, we can use "crutches"--which would be learning social behavior by rote (like memorizing a multiplication table)--for a while, but it's exhausting to do and eventually, leaves us on the ground in a heap if we don't take a break.
Oh, and the other woman, the one with no legs at all? She's like a person with Down Syndrome; someone who has neurological differences that are physically visible to "normal" people. Nobody tells her that she just needs to try harder, because it's obvious to them that she is different. But people with autism most of the time look just like the "normal" (neurotypical) people do. So they, _you_, get judged as if you are a "normal" person.
NT people have this social behavior they expect everyone to conform to, but very rarely will you find anyone who does. They are just as hard on each other as they are on you. The problem is, you're not doing what you do because you're choosing to break the rules. You can't learn the rules the way they do. Your brain is simply different than theirs.
Please, be kind to yourself and let yourself stop believing that "you should know how to behave around people" and "there's no excuse." Imagine what you would think of someone telling that paralyzed girl "you should know how to walk" and "there's no excuse for acting like you need a wheelchair."
(I initially wrote this in response to someone who said (online) the two initial quotes in the last paragraph. Unless she tells me differently, her identity will remain anonymous. I just didn't want to take credit for the words that inspired me to write this.)
The Wall at the Edge of Hell
The Wall at the Edge of Hell
I've been through hell
These past few years
I'm saving my strength
To get out of here
When I see that wall
Stretching up so high
I'll climb right on up
Reaching for that blue sky
Sh, I've a secret
Sh, don't you tell
You'll never get out
Of your personal hell
The ground: it's a quagmire
The wall: it's slick jade
The sky's pretty now
But soon it will fade.
Hush, it's all right now
Hush, don't you cry
There's no one to hear you
No one to care why.
Determined and ready
I will reach the top
And when I get out
I'm not going to stop
You mean you don't know?
You mean "ya dinna ken?"
At the top people wait
To shove you back in.
No one wants the reminder
That hell is so deep
That one could open up
Right under your feet
And so they pretend
That there is no night
And please don't remind them
It isn't polite.
<I wrote this a few days ago. Obviously I was not feeling particularly optimistic.>
I've been through hell
These past few years
I'm saving my strength
To get out of here
When I see that wall
Stretching up so high
I'll climb right on up
Reaching for that blue sky
Sh, I've a secret
Sh, don't you tell
You'll never get out
Of your personal hell
The ground: it's a quagmire
The wall: it's slick jade
The sky's pretty now
But soon it will fade.
Hush, it's all right now
Hush, don't you cry
There's no one to hear you
No one to care why.
Determined and ready
I will reach the top
And when I get out
I'm not going to stop
You mean you don't know?
You mean "ya dinna ken?"
At the top people wait
To shove you back in.
No one wants the reminder
That hell is so deep
That one could open up
Right under your feet
And so they pretend
That there is no night
And please don't remind them
It isn't polite.
<I wrote this a few days ago. Obviously I was not feeling particularly optimistic.>
Wednesday, August 3, 2016
Brain Full of Fish
My brain feels like a pond full of brightly colored fish, swimming so rapidly around and over and under each other that I can't see a pattern, I can't follow their movement, it's just an endless swirl of meaningless color and movement. It's very disconcerting.
The fish are facts. And questions. And fears. And emotions and a bunch of other things I can't even identify.
Today at work, we met with the company representatives from the company that is buying the part of my company where I work. Most people where I work got job offers, me included.
So why am I not head-over-heels happy? I still have a job, after all, even though I'll be making less money once all is said and done (and I am struggling a bit financially right now, before I make less money). Also, head-over-heels is an inappropriate term for me to use considering I've never done a successful cartwheel; the most I ever managed was head-over-teakettle (meaning I got halfway onto my hands and everything just flopped out all over the place, usually hurting myself).
I guess because there are so many questions left unanswered. The sale completes this weekend, and until then, they can't really tell us a lot of stuff. And I've got to make decisions on which version of their health insurance I want to go with (or do I want to continue my current plan at COBRA rates until the end of the year); and this is a major decision that you can't just change on a whim. And yes, it's great I will have health insurance.
Just so many options, so many questions, so many things going around and around in my head. I'm experiencing information overload and honestly, I don't want to deal with any of it. I just want to sit and stare at the wall and pet my cats.
I discovered something weird, though. If someone asks me a question, say, "what's the specialist copay for the more expensive plan" I can retrieve that fish, I mean information, and tell them. But then the fish goes back into the swirling, incoherent pond and I can't get that information out for myself.
Time will tame the fish. I've been through these things before. I just don't know if I have enough time before I simply make a decision without enough of a knowledge base to do more than randomly pick one.
I hate overload.
The fish are facts. And questions. And fears. And emotions and a bunch of other things I can't even identify.
Today at work, we met with the company representatives from the company that is buying the part of my company where I work. Most people where I work got job offers, me included.
So why am I not head-over-heels happy? I still have a job, after all, even though I'll be making less money once all is said and done (and I am struggling a bit financially right now, before I make less money). Also, head-over-heels is an inappropriate term for me to use considering I've never done a successful cartwheel; the most I ever managed was head-over-teakettle (meaning I got halfway onto my hands and everything just flopped out all over the place, usually hurting myself).
I guess because there are so many questions left unanswered. The sale completes this weekend, and until then, they can't really tell us a lot of stuff. And I've got to make decisions on which version of their health insurance I want to go with (or do I want to continue my current plan at COBRA rates until the end of the year); and this is a major decision that you can't just change on a whim. And yes, it's great I will have health insurance.
Just so many options, so many questions, so many things going around and around in my head. I'm experiencing information overload and honestly, I don't want to deal with any of it. I just want to sit and stare at the wall and pet my cats.
I discovered something weird, though. If someone asks me a question, say, "what's the specialist copay for the more expensive plan" I can retrieve that fish, I mean information, and tell them. But then the fish goes back into the swirling, incoherent pond and I can't get that information out for myself.
Time will tame the fish. I've been through these things before. I just don't know if I have enough time before I simply make a decision without enough of a knowledge base to do more than randomly pick one.
I hate overload.
Sunday, July 31, 2016
The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Friends
In my life, I've had people that I considered friends. They were people I went out with, to the movies, to their house, to restaurants. In one case, it was a coworker who helped me go shopping for grownup clothes back when I first started my job. She also went to the movies with me a fair amount, and occasionally lunch. In another case, in college, she invited me over to her house and made pizza together (that was fun, but also weird because she didn't have allergies so she didn't run her furnace fan all the time to clean the air, which meant her house was oddly silent). We traded books to read and had lots of talks.
You get the idea, right? I mean, it certainly looked like friendship. They willingly spent time in my company, just with me, and did so repeatedly.
Yet I must have been missing something. Because each of these people just vanished out of my life one day.
The co-worker took medical leave from work and never came back. Never contacted me. Didn't make a single attempt to maintain what I thought was a pretty good friendship. I didn't have her email or phone number, and it was over a year before she got officially let go, and I'd just kept hoping she'd be back soon.
The college friend vanished even more abruptly. Her email address went dead ("undeliverable"); her car, a very distinct bright yellow 1950s type convertible, was no longer around (and I used to see it a lot, just on the road, randomly, as we went to the same places to shop, albeit at different times). Her phone number just rang and rang.
I think perhaps something serious happened to them. Maybe something dreadful. Kidnapped, or mental breakdown so severe she couldn't remember her friends from before.
And then I think they just didn't like me. That they took the opportunities they were given (leaving work; maybe moving somewhere else) to cut all ties with me, instead of telling me straight up that they didn't want me hanging around them any more.
I can be a very clingy friend. I try not to be, but then I'm afraid I come off as distant and uncaring. I don't seem to be able to find balance in many things in my life, and friendship is definitely one of those unbalanced sort of things.
And sometimes, when I haven't had enough sleep and I'm truly getting paranoid, I wonder if the college friend even ever existed. (I know the coworker did. I've mentioned her name since she left and had people know who I was talking about. And yes, I did it to make sure she, at least, was real.) But I don't know anybody else who knew my college friend.
I don't even remember her name now.
Isn't that a creepy thought? That I could have made up a person and believed so truly in what I made up that I don't even know if she's real or not? I probably should not have watched that movie, A Beautiful Mind, or I wouldn't know that sort of thing was possible for the human brain to do to itself.
I wish I knew if other people had friends just vanish. No note, no good bye, no "I got a job in California we'll keep in touch" and then don't (the keep in touch part).
You get the idea, right? I mean, it certainly looked like friendship. They willingly spent time in my company, just with me, and did so repeatedly.
Yet I must have been missing something. Because each of these people just vanished out of my life one day.
The co-worker took medical leave from work and never came back. Never contacted me. Didn't make a single attempt to maintain what I thought was a pretty good friendship. I didn't have her email or phone number, and it was over a year before she got officially let go, and I'd just kept hoping she'd be back soon.
The college friend vanished even more abruptly. Her email address went dead ("undeliverable"); her car, a very distinct bright yellow 1950s type convertible, was no longer around (and I used to see it a lot, just on the road, randomly, as we went to the same places to shop, albeit at different times). Her phone number just rang and rang.
I think perhaps something serious happened to them. Maybe something dreadful. Kidnapped, or mental breakdown so severe she couldn't remember her friends from before.
And then I think they just didn't like me. That they took the opportunities they were given (leaving work; maybe moving somewhere else) to cut all ties with me, instead of telling me straight up that they didn't want me hanging around them any more.
I can be a very clingy friend. I try not to be, but then I'm afraid I come off as distant and uncaring. I don't seem to be able to find balance in many things in my life, and friendship is definitely one of those unbalanced sort of things.
And sometimes, when I haven't had enough sleep and I'm truly getting paranoid, I wonder if the college friend even ever existed. (I know the coworker did. I've mentioned her name since she left and had people know who I was talking about. And yes, I did it to make sure she, at least, was real.) But I don't know anybody else who knew my college friend.
I don't even remember her name now.
Isn't that a creepy thought? That I could have made up a person and believed so truly in what I made up that I don't even know if she's real or not? I probably should not have watched that movie, A Beautiful Mind, or I wouldn't know that sort of thing was possible for the human brain to do to itself.
I wish I knew if other people had friends just vanish. No note, no good bye, no "I got a job in California we'll keep in touch" and then don't (the keep in touch part).
Sunday, July 3, 2016
What Do You Do After You Get Everything You Ever Wanted? -- Ramblings on Grief
Trigger warning: If you've lost someone recently, or the grief is really bad, you might want to go away now.
---
By the time I was 31 I had everything I'd ever wanted. Mainly because I had never been one to dream big. I wanted attainable things, and I got them.
I had a beautiful (both character and body) cat friend who I loved very much who loved me back. I had my parents, married happily to each other for most of their adult lives, who I loved very much and who loved me back.
I had a good job making enough money to buy what I really wanted (as opposed to "it would be nice to have that") and I'd had the same job since I graduated. (I really like stability and routine ... part of the autistic me).
And now I had a house, of my very own, that I was paying for over time (like a normal person!). I was not a burden on society. I was not institutionalized despite the many chronic, silent diseases I had (still have--and now I have more of them). A pretty little house in a good neighborhood with nice people on my street and a yard just the right size, not too small, perhaps a little bigger than I wanted but there was that giant oak tree in the middle of the back yard that I loved that would have been impossible with a smaller yard.
I had graduated from college and had a job in the same field I'd studied in.
I had a small group of friends and we met every week to play board games which I loved doing and loved being around them.
And this, dear readers, is everything I'd ever wanted. Friends, family, financial stability, independence, and love. (No, not romantic love. I'd never wanted that, and still don't.)
They say thirteen is unlucky. It's unscientific. It's superstitious.
And in 2013, Pippin, my beautiful, loving cat died, and as if he was the linchpin that held everything together, my world was torn apart.
What do you do when you have everything you ever wanted? You watch it all get ripped away from you, that's what you do.
It's melodramatic. It could be worse. I mean, my parents are still alive, even though my dad had a seizure three months after Pippin passed away that left him in the hospital for a few days. (Medication induced, by accident). He's fine. He's his old self, although he's retired now so it's a different "old self" than the one that worked 40 hours a week and thought it part-time work since he was used to working 80 or more hours a week.
I still have the same house. There's probably mold in the walls that I caused by installing a whole-house humidifier and not using it responsibly ... I haven't had the courage to pay someone to come confirm my suspicions.
Even still have the same friends, who have put up with a lot from me as I grieved in agony, developed several more anxiety disorders, and changed in personality so much that they probably wonder what happened to the me they used to know.
My anxiety says they probably liked that person better. I don't even want to play the board games I enjoyed so much anymore. I do, sometimes, and sometimes I don't, and sometimes I don't even go.
Pippin was such a stable point in my life. He was someone I could love and care for in my own, smothering way, and he enjoyed it and thrived under such care. He accepted me for who I was, even if I was crying in great gulping tears over something my boss said to me that day. (I said I had everything I ever wanted, not that my life was perfect!) He was always there for me, a steady, constant presence in my house.
Even if I ignored him too much and stayed out with friends too much and spent too much of that precious, precious time with him asleep or watching tv or doing things that didn't involve him. He still loved me, loved any time I spent with him. At least I took him with me when I went on vacations, until he got older and it got too hard to figure out where to stay when I got there (most places aren't cat-friendly) and then I just stayed home.
It's been almost three years, and I still miss him. It still hurts. Sometimes it hurts just as much. And I had so much support from friends and family during that first, horrible year without him, where I had no one "in his place", that I hate to tell them that it didn't work. All that support, all that outpouring of love to me, all that you did. It didn't work. It helped only a tiny bit. I still need it. But I can't ask for it; I won't ask for it--that much support is exhausting to give ... for me to give to someone else, so I assume it's the same for them giving it to me--and it's not fair to ask for that kind of support years and years later.
It doesn't feel like it's been years ago. Despite having three (!) cats now, all of whom I love, I still miss Pippin like he was just here. A moment ago.
I wish I were a child again, where three years was ever so long and couldn't be comprehended, and it was only my birthday the next year that took forever and ever to get here. I wish time didn't rush by so fast. I wish it didn't hurt so much.
When in fact, it doesn't "hurt so much". I miss him. I feel torn apart inside. I feel quite a lot of pain because he's just not here anymore. But it doesn't hurt "so much." Because I remember what it actually felt like right after he died, in those first few months, and it hurt so much more than it does now.
And I wonder how I stayed sane. It hurts now, it hurts a lot ... but it hurt exponentially worse in those first months.
Of course, I'm writing a secret blog in a public forum, so perhaps the question of my sanity should be shelved for a while.
But I saw something today, something that is really true, that says it better than I can.
I understand now that with each death, each passing of someone you love, that grief is absorbed into who you are. It never goes away. It never stops hurting--unless you stop feeling anything at all, anyway. And it piles up, the pain of loss, the grief, each one layering on top of the other, complicating your personality, making it deeper, more complex, but more to my point, more full of pain.
I used to want to live forever. I liked shows and books about people who could. Immortals and vampires and so on and so forth. I didn't understand why all humans didn't hunger to live forever.
Well, now I know. Because if you love, and it hurts so much when the people you love die, and that pain never really goes away, then after a while, by the time you're old, you're ready to leave it all behind you. Who would want to keep living with all that pain?
And right now, it doesn't feel like grief adds layers on top of me, like someone piling on blankets until it smothers me. It feels like grief rips holes out of me. Big holes, little holes, depending on how much I loved someone, how much I knew them. My uncle died (unexpectedly) last November. I loved him a great deal but I didn't know him as a person very well. Now I never will.
What happens when there's not enough left of me to rip more holes out of? I guess I just have to keep creating more me so there's more to take; the alternative is to shut down and not love anybody, and although I considered it seriously during the worst of the grief for Pippin, I decided I wasn't capable of doing that. Yet.
Pippin ... he was a person, albeit four-footed and furry. He had a lovely personality. He had a great sense of humor and was very patient. He saw me as the strongest person in his world, and because I didn't want to let him down, I was that person for him.
Now I'm not that person. My companion cat people aren't grown up yet. They don't even know who they are going to be, much less who they expect me to be (other than someone to hang out with and love and be loved in return ... which is helpful but doesn't help me be a strong person emotionally).
Maybe one of things I miss the most about Pippin is his faith in me, his complete, unwavering confidence that I would always be there for him. And maybe that's why the grief is still so horribly raw when I think on it. Because I wasn't there for him. Not at the end. He had a brain tumor. Progression of less than a week. Severe symptoms less than 24 hours. He couldn't jump, couldn't stabilize himself, couldn't land. He couldn't be on the bed with me, where he slept every single night of his life. He died on the floor. As close to me in the bed as he could get. And I slept through it. I slept through it. I wasn't even there to hold him.
I don't tell people that part. I don't tell them that I wasn't there for him in the end. That he died alone. That I was callously asleep. I should have slept on the floor that night. I should have slept there with him. Even if I'd slept through it ... He could have been against me, felt my heart beating as his slowed and stopped. Had that one last reassurance.
But instead I slept through the night, waking up only once, to hear scrabbling noises, like he was shoving his head into the corner to put pressure on his temples (it helps headaches, which cats don't normally get and the tumor was giving him). That's where I found him, his head in the corner of the big jewelry box and the wall, lying there with his tail against the bed, on his side, one paw stretched out like he most always did while he slept. He wasn't in pain when he died. He couldn't have, not and been positioned in a "happy sleep" mode like that. But if only I'd gotten up when I heard him.
Before he died I used to cry at the drop of a hat. I tear up now, but I don't cry. I don't even remember crying more than three or four times for him. I just aimed all that grief, the loss, the anger, the self-loathing, the incredible emotional pain, inward at my body and soul.
I lost fifty pounds ... people fuss that I'm too thin now ... I call it Pippin's last gift to me.
I don't tell anybody that, either.
Yes, I've tried therapy. Multiple times. They don't get it. Worse than useless. I guess I just have to live with the holes.
---
By the time I was 31 I had everything I'd ever wanted. Mainly because I had never been one to dream big. I wanted attainable things, and I got them.
I had a beautiful (both character and body) cat friend who I loved very much who loved me back. I had my parents, married happily to each other for most of their adult lives, who I loved very much and who loved me back.
I had a good job making enough money to buy what I really wanted (as opposed to "it would be nice to have that") and I'd had the same job since I graduated. (I really like stability and routine ... part of the autistic me).
And now I had a house, of my very own, that I was paying for over time (like a normal person!). I was not a burden on society. I was not institutionalized despite the many chronic, silent diseases I had (still have--and now I have more of them). A pretty little house in a good neighborhood with nice people on my street and a yard just the right size, not too small, perhaps a little bigger than I wanted but there was that giant oak tree in the middle of the back yard that I loved that would have been impossible with a smaller yard.
I had graduated from college and had a job in the same field I'd studied in.
I had a small group of friends and we met every week to play board games which I loved doing and loved being around them.
And this, dear readers, is everything I'd ever wanted. Friends, family, financial stability, independence, and love. (No, not romantic love. I'd never wanted that, and still don't.)
They say thirteen is unlucky. It's unscientific. It's superstitious.
And in 2013, Pippin, my beautiful, loving cat died, and as if he was the linchpin that held everything together, my world was torn apart.
What do you do when you have everything you ever wanted? You watch it all get ripped away from you, that's what you do.
It's melodramatic. It could be worse. I mean, my parents are still alive, even though my dad had a seizure three months after Pippin passed away that left him in the hospital for a few days. (Medication induced, by accident). He's fine. He's his old self, although he's retired now so it's a different "old self" than the one that worked 40 hours a week and thought it part-time work since he was used to working 80 or more hours a week.
I still have the same house. There's probably mold in the walls that I caused by installing a whole-house humidifier and not using it responsibly ... I haven't had the courage to pay someone to come confirm my suspicions.
Even still have the same friends, who have put up with a lot from me as I grieved in agony, developed several more anxiety disorders, and changed in personality so much that they probably wonder what happened to the me they used to know.
My anxiety says they probably liked that person better. I don't even want to play the board games I enjoyed so much anymore. I do, sometimes, and sometimes I don't, and sometimes I don't even go.
Pippin was such a stable point in my life. He was someone I could love and care for in my own, smothering way, and he enjoyed it and thrived under such care. He accepted me for who I was, even if I was crying in great gulping tears over something my boss said to me that day. (I said I had everything I ever wanted, not that my life was perfect!) He was always there for me, a steady, constant presence in my house.
Even if I ignored him too much and stayed out with friends too much and spent too much of that precious, precious time with him asleep or watching tv or doing things that didn't involve him. He still loved me, loved any time I spent with him. At least I took him with me when I went on vacations, until he got older and it got too hard to figure out where to stay when I got there (most places aren't cat-friendly) and then I just stayed home.
It's been almost three years, and I still miss him. It still hurts. Sometimes it hurts just as much. And I had so much support from friends and family during that first, horrible year without him, where I had no one "in his place", that I hate to tell them that it didn't work. All that support, all that outpouring of love to me, all that you did. It didn't work. It helped only a tiny bit. I still need it. But I can't ask for it; I won't ask for it--that much support is exhausting to give ... for me to give to someone else, so I assume it's the same for them giving it to me--and it's not fair to ask for that kind of support years and years later.
It doesn't feel like it's been years ago. Despite having three (!) cats now, all of whom I love, I still miss Pippin like he was just here. A moment ago.
I wish I were a child again, where three years was ever so long and couldn't be comprehended, and it was only my birthday the next year that took forever and ever to get here. I wish time didn't rush by so fast. I wish it didn't hurt so much.
When in fact, it doesn't "hurt so much". I miss him. I feel torn apart inside. I feel quite a lot of pain because he's just not here anymore. But it doesn't hurt "so much." Because I remember what it actually felt like right after he died, in those first few months, and it hurt so much more than it does now.
And I wonder how I stayed sane. It hurts now, it hurts a lot ... but it hurt exponentially worse in those first months.
Of course, I'm writing a secret blog in a public forum, so perhaps the question of my sanity should be shelved for a while.
But I saw something today, something that is really true, that says it better than I can.
I used to want to live forever. I liked shows and books about people who could. Immortals and vampires and so on and so forth. I didn't understand why all humans didn't hunger to live forever.
Well, now I know. Because if you love, and it hurts so much when the people you love die, and that pain never really goes away, then after a while, by the time you're old, you're ready to leave it all behind you. Who would want to keep living with all that pain?
And right now, it doesn't feel like grief adds layers on top of me, like someone piling on blankets until it smothers me. It feels like grief rips holes out of me. Big holes, little holes, depending on how much I loved someone, how much I knew them. My uncle died (unexpectedly) last November. I loved him a great deal but I didn't know him as a person very well. Now I never will.
What happens when there's not enough left of me to rip more holes out of? I guess I just have to keep creating more me so there's more to take; the alternative is to shut down and not love anybody, and although I considered it seriously during the worst of the grief for Pippin, I decided I wasn't capable of doing that. Yet.
Pippin ... he was a person, albeit four-footed and furry. He had a lovely personality. He had a great sense of humor and was very patient. He saw me as the strongest person in his world, and because I didn't want to let him down, I was that person for him.
Now I'm not that person. My companion cat people aren't grown up yet. They don't even know who they are going to be, much less who they expect me to be (other than someone to hang out with and love and be loved in return ... which is helpful but doesn't help me be a strong person emotionally).
Maybe one of things I miss the most about Pippin is his faith in me, his complete, unwavering confidence that I would always be there for him. And maybe that's why the grief is still so horribly raw when I think on it. Because I wasn't there for him. Not at the end. He had a brain tumor. Progression of less than a week. Severe symptoms less than 24 hours. He couldn't jump, couldn't stabilize himself, couldn't land. He couldn't be on the bed with me, where he slept every single night of his life. He died on the floor. As close to me in the bed as he could get. And I slept through it. I slept through it. I wasn't even there to hold him.
I don't tell people that part. I don't tell them that I wasn't there for him in the end. That he died alone. That I was callously asleep. I should have slept on the floor that night. I should have slept there with him. Even if I'd slept through it ... He could have been against me, felt my heart beating as his slowed and stopped. Had that one last reassurance.
But instead I slept through the night, waking up only once, to hear scrabbling noises, like he was shoving his head into the corner to put pressure on his temples (it helps headaches, which cats don't normally get and the tumor was giving him). That's where I found him, his head in the corner of the big jewelry box and the wall, lying there with his tail against the bed, on his side, one paw stretched out like he most always did while he slept. He wasn't in pain when he died. He couldn't have, not and been positioned in a "happy sleep" mode like that. But if only I'd gotten up when I heard him.
Before he died I used to cry at the drop of a hat. I tear up now, but I don't cry. I don't even remember crying more than three or four times for him. I just aimed all that grief, the loss, the anger, the self-loathing, the incredible emotional pain, inward at my body and soul.
I lost fifty pounds ... people fuss that I'm too thin now ... I call it Pippin's last gift to me.
I don't tell anybody that, either.
Yes, I've tried therapy. Multiple times. They don't get it. Worse than useless. I guess I just have to live with the holes.
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