Wanting to quit

Wanting to quit. Interesting feeling. Not wanting to die. Not wanting to quit life. Not wanting to quit existing. Just quit. No quit what. No when. No why. Just quit. Nothing else. Just quit.

But what does that mean, to me, at least? I don't know. It's not quit living, that's not the thought, the feeling or the emotion. Not resignation, defeat, leaving, going, whatever else. Just the simple word. Quit.

It's the feeling. To sit down and just let life go by. It's the feeling. To sit there with a blank mind looking out with no thought, feeling or emotion. Just sitting.

To get up and walk, just walk, and keeping walking, nowhere, just going one foot at a time somewhere except here. To hope it never ends and I never tire.

To stand up and let life just drain from me, onto the floor. To feel empty, totally empty, nothing. To sit in the pre-dawn darkness and hope the sun never rises, to feel the darkness surround and enveloe me, and dissolve into it.

To stand surrounded by the light with the edge of the sun just below the horizon spreading all around. To feel the cold just before the first rays hits my face. To feel the light and warmth of the first rays of the sun. To feel the light just go through me forever. To feel the cold of the morning slowly slip away with the darkness.

To stand in the forest during a rainstorm. To feel the rain fall. Constant, never ceasing, never letting, just falling. To feel it on and around me. The sound against me. The smell. The feel. To disappear in it and into it. Into everything else. Nothing else, just rain.

To stand in a snowstorm surrounded by white. Everywhere. To feel the blizzard, the snow swirling all around finding me, to settle on me, and dissappear into the white. To be lost in the white. And the snow.

To stand in the middle of a stream like a boulder, the water flowing over and around me, not knowing anything else. To feel the cold, flowing water wearing me down, slowly. moving me during floods like all the rocks and boulders. To stop anew somewhere, nowhere but still in the stream, like nothing happened.

To stand in desert surrounded by sand. The heat, the wind, and the sand. Nothing else. Just another particle on the wind. To be one of the vastness of openness where all is sand, wind, heat and time. Nothing else.

To sit on the edge of the Grand Canyon, the depth of time below, the vastness of space around, and the sky above. To know time has been, time is and time will always be. And be there for a moment, lost with the rest of everything and lost in time with everything.

To quit being and just be. Nothing more. Just be. No thought, No feeling. No emotion. The spiriting wanting. The soul wondering. The mind empty. The body just there. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just nothing.

To quit. To feel alive.

Inside a cloud

I was trying to think of a way to describe my experience with Dythymia, and I would drawn to the idea when people visit Paradise in Mt. Rainier NP. Paradise is as the name implies, wonderful and beautiful, and through the sunmer it's majestic. Many people go there during the summer and don't see the other seasons and many other different times there and in the NP.

I've been there when the clouds cover the region and lose the mountain from view. And being there you realize you standing inside a cloud, a massive storm front cloud, surrounded by everything cloud. And your visibility, if you're lucky, is a few hundred feet at best. And after a minute you feel the water droplets encasing you into the cloud itself. You become part of the cloud.

I's always an amazing feeling then and there. To just stand there and feel the cloud envelope you and the water forms on your clothes, your (exposed) skin, and for me, my glasses. It doesn't matter to wipe it off as it reforms almost as quickly. The cloud simply makes you one of the object inside it and a part of it. You're lost in and being part of the cloud.

That's what it's like. Except the cloud is the world and life, engulfiing you in a world surrouded on all sides by the world you can't see out. You can only feel the immediate world around, hanging on you, engulfing you, and becoming you. You and the world merge into the one where all you see and know is the world as a cloud. Everything else is gone, long outside the cloud, beyond your horizon, and even your imagination and memory.

The cloud is outside and iinside of you. You become a cloud within a cloud, lost when the inside and outside merge into one, including you, your mind, your heart, all of you. You know and feel what is and yet you know it's just the situation and circumstance. You know you're in a cloud, and yet there is nothing yhou can do or think to change it.

You can only stand there and wait. Let things pass and the weather will change to rrain, snow or sunshine. You don't know because the cloud doesn't know what will happen. That's determined by the situation and circumstances outside the cloud and you. You can change some things, even your emotions, feelings and thoughts, but always inside and surrounded by the cloud.

There is no out. Mentally walk as you want, it's doesn't change. The cloud doesn't follow you, it's always just there, More cloud. And then there will be a moment when you think and feel like a cloud. The cloud. The one you're in and the one you are. But then everything doesn't feel bad, not even just what is, but ok. Comfort.

Your whole world isn't a cloud but a whole universe. Your universe. And it's suddenly not a cloud but that whole universe. You realize it goes on forever, not restricted but something of itself and connected to everything else. It hasn't changed. You have. And it's not bad or sad. Just is and what it is. What you are.

And then it's no longer a cloud. Others, outside, may see or think it's a cloud. That's all they see, the cloud and you somewhere deep inside, lost to them and the world. But it's not. It's a world just different from theirs. It's yours, the cloud and you, and now you know it will be and get better, sunshine or not.

You don't need sunshine. You know the cloud isn't the limitation to you, it's just where you are for the moment, and you know it won't last when weather changes. You've seen and felt the cloud from the inside, You've been a part of it. And even when the sun comes, you'll remember the cloud and what it was like, how it felt, how it enveloped you, and how you found solace and understanding, of the cloud and of yourself.

And the next time, you'll know and learn again and anew about the inside of clouds.

Warm & fuzzy feelgoods

I've written adneseum about support groups, and yes, I still read them occasionally. There interesting in some ways, and perhaps helps in many other ways where people know they're not alone and know others apparently care. I say apparently because I wonder if forums are just another warm and fuzzy feelgood, kinda' the Internet hug. Good for the time you're reading it but gone not long after you leave the forum.

I say this because when someone talks about their depression or other feelings, there's some to many responses about "caring" for them, but that's all they are. They don't know each other outside the forum, so if told some stranger about your depression and only got a sympathic or empathic look and a hug back, would it matter? Would it help?

I mean really help how you're feeling and how you can get through, resolve or answer some problem, issue or feeling? Wouldn't talking with someone who knows you or knows your situation or circumstances help more? Wouldn't they be better in the long run to help you change?

So why do so many use these forums instead of finding real people who really know and care?

Yes, I know many don't have friends or can't afford drugs or therapists, and many don't want to talk about their feelings and emotions with others who are so close, but they'll talk to total strangers they know very little if anything about in forums?

I'm not the one to critcize or complain, I'm just observing. And I know these forums helps many, just expressing their thoughts out loud to a group of strangers far away who don't have that real connection to them. Sometimes just shouting helps and the more it's anonymous the better.

It's why I love solo walking and hiking. To stand in places where no is at the moment and feel totally alone. Almost the opposite of those who love to stand in crowds and be anonymous. It's our own individual way of seeing where and who we are in the world, and it doesn't really matter how, just that it does.

In the end, it's not any of that which really matters, but what you think and feel in your heart and mind, and sometimes a warm and fuzzy feelgood hits the spot, an emotional scoop of ice cream when it's most needed and tastes great. And who cares five minutes later.

Suppot Groups II

I wrote about the move of a depression support group to a social networking Website. And the owner explained the reasons for the move from the standalone forum to the networking Website, specifically to increase membership and reduce the work. She is a very busy person and running her own Website and forum was time-consuming for the time available. I can't argue with that.

What I can argue though is the idea that a person automatically assumes a decision and subsequent action is better because they feel or think it will make it better. Let's be clear there. Intention itself doesn't make any decision better and the decision and subsequent action good and right, only different.

As the old saying goes, a major change isn't always the optimium, let alone the best solution. It only makes it better for the person making the decision, or so they hope. In this case, it helped to reduce the work with the forum by moving all the operation and most of the management to the social networking company. She only needs to the address what options are in choices for the presentation, management, etc. of the Website and forum.

It could be argued that in the long run her time won't be that much less. First, she had to learn their system for the features she wanted and then set them up. This is and was no different than the other forum, only she doesn't operate and manage the application of the Website and forum. That's a savings of time, except it puts that work on the company's timetable to fit their work needs.

What it did reduce is that the membership process is now under the social networking company and their Website and not her. This provides her considerably more users and anyone on the Website can join the forum, she can't stop them, even though they may join for social networking than depression. There are questions that haven't been answered yet.

First, will those who felt that had some degree of privacy - which they didn't as the old forum was fully readable by the public and search engines - but more so a sense of shared experience. People only joined the group if they had some measure of depression or knew some with some measure of depression. That is now gone.

Second, will expanding the membership dilute the the content of the forum. It's reasonable to assume few people will join for just socializing, but as any forum has experienced, it invites the number of people you least need or want on them, people who have no understanding of depression and don't mind expressing less than supportive and positive views about depressed people. Or worse.

Third, it does open up the members of the old forum to the wider audience of services and people who use the user information on social networking Website for other purposes, like phishing or hacking (eg. Yahoo). Having to be a member of the larger social network would prompt some to provide less information than they did before, making it harder for others to really understand who they are.

Fourth, the organization of this one is entirely different than the old one. Many of the topics for specific aspects of depression are either lost of merged into one. While maybe a good thing for the casual user, not good for those with specific conditions or situations. Their measure of identity was lost, unless of course they want to express it to wider, less focused group.

In the end, the choice to move the forum has both advantages and disadvantages for the owner and the users. Everything has a price, but to me, socializing depression isn't usually a good thing. It can help some but it can also drive more away from support and help they truly need and want. And there are good examples, such as suicide.

Suppose the suicide telephone support and help folks decided to move their service to a general psychology help line, like when you call and get a prerecorded message with the list of options and hear, "Press 2 if you have thoughts of suicide." And then, "Please hold for the next available help person."

What would you do then? Like duh. Yeah, extreme example, but it not any different than someone standing up in a support group meeting to express their deepest personal problems or standing up in a theater full of people to express those same problems. Where would you think they will get more and better help?

Yes, I'm still a member of both the social networking Website and this forum, but outside of providing the minimum information, I only go there occasionally to find nothing has changed from what I expected. A little bit of everything, good, bad and indifferent. Just like any social networking Website and forums, but certainly not a dedicated depression forum.

Support Groups

What do you do when an on-line support group you like and visit daily decides to move their forum from a stand-alone Website to a social network Website, and then integrate the forum into the larger number of forums where anyone can become a member, not just those who want or need the support?

Well, that's what happened to Wing of Madness. The Website used to operate a forum using one of the commerical software packages for forum, similar to many other Websites with forums. It allowed the Website owner to control every aspect of the forum as well as the membership. You had to meet their criteria to join.

Social network Websites are almost the exact opposite. Forums are just one of the applications available to members, you can join any of them as long as you're registered and a member of the network. After that, everything is there and free. And the design of the forum is far less controlled by the forum owner and moderators but the company running the network Website.

In short, any forum is at their mercy over the rules, design, features, etc. within the agreement between the owner and network Website. But most of all, the owner doesn't and can't control the membership of the forum, so a specialized forum which provides information, support and help to many people now becomes just another social network forum.

And to some measure, privacy is lost. Once you're a member of the social network, you have to "live" within their rules, and as much as you want to be anonymous or restrict access to your profile and personal information, you can't. You can to some degree if the settings work correctly, but social networks are designed to share, so there are always ways to see anyone. You simply can't hide. You can only minimize the information you provide.

I ended up joining the social network and forum, for now, but I'm not holding my breath I'll stay very long. Everything about the forum is different in the organization, structure and user settings, the privacy issue is important, I joined the forum for the forum, not the larger social network (because of friends already on 3 others), and I'm not enamored with the social network concept for the forum on depression.

Anyway, I posted my opinion of this decision and left, and don't go back very often now. Sometimes waving good bye is a good thing, where you look ahead at the horizon and surroudings instead of behind and you look at the future than the past. I hope the move helps, I just don't see that right now, because increase the quantity (membership and participation) won't necessarily improve the quality.

It's still me

It's still me. As much as I hate who I am, as much as I hate what I am, and as much as I hate how I feel, it's still me. We can't leave ourselves to become someone else because we admire who or what they are or how better they appear to be and feel. We can't. We can change ourselves, but we always get back to the same place with new and different experiences and feelings about ourselves.

But it's always still me. I wrote how I've always hated my body since I can remember, and turning 60 it's all there, my past and my present, to be who and what I am and how I feel and think about it and myself. I am my body and mind, and like it or not, it's all I got.

Like that's new or news? Not really. It's the age old fight against ourselves and growing up and growing old. Everyone's been there - or to the youth today, you will be so don't be so complacent and condescending about us being old - and not everyone hates their body and themself. Most don't and most of the rest just live with it.

But some don't and won't. But try as we can, or feel we must, it's always still us. I'm always still me. And I have to face the reality, whatever I think or feel about myself, it's far from the worst and only something away from getting worse. You see, I've always looked at the negative side of things. And try as I have and do it's a struggle not to stay there or go back when I try to see the positive side.

The positive side just doesn't last. I enjoy the moment and see what I have and can accomplish, but then it's gone and I'm thinking of the next thing. Like baseball, you're only as good as your last game and you're only worth as much as your last season. So it is with life and ourselves.

This doesn't mean I hate myself all the time, just enough. And enough is when and where I find myself less than we I would like to accomplish. The old failure thing. It's not the fear of failing I hate, although that's a smaller issue but within normal feelings of most people. It's not the fear of trying, that's also the same.

It's the fear of knowing all my best will never be good enough and almost always be just ordinary. Just like everyone else. That's not a bad thing. We're all ordinary in most respects, and extraordinary in a few. But even then the extraordinary is like many others, so it's being ordinary on another level.

And it's the fear of knowing I won't really achieve what I want or accomplish what's best. Like everyone, it's the limitations we're born with, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. And in my case the Dysthymia just wears down the positive and the hope into just thoughts of what could be or later what could have been.

Simply put, ordinary is relative. And in my case, it's my extraordinary, Dyshtymia, and ordinary for those like me. Relative to who we compare ourselves with to understand how good we are. But it doesn't change the feelings and it doesn't take away the hate. It's always still me. Inside and out. Physically and mentally.

Just me. Like it or not. From brith to death, and everything in between. Just life. Mine.

What we're given II

I wrote the first in a series of wandering essay on what we're given. That one and the rest are more just thinking out loud than anything, but it helps me sort out thoughts, ideas and feelings, so you can meander through them if you want or just skip back and out. Your choice. But I'll still mentally ponder and wander in words.

I was reading article in today's USA Today about Charlize Theron, article, and the feeling she's comfortable in her skin. Her exposure in some movies isn't about nudity as she's ok with her body. Besides appreciating her as a person and an actress, I admire her for knowing and trusting herself with her body.

You see, I hate mine. A long story starting in childhood. I was small for my age and had a very late puberty. My parents, since they basically ignored me throughout my life until my Dad showed me the front door after my first year of college, decided it wasn't an issue important to worry about and deal with. The proverbial, "He'll grow out of it."

Well, I didn't until my senior year when I grew 9+ inches in 9 months but didn't gain much weight. Through my senior year I went from 4'11" and 95 lbs to 5'9" and 115 lbs. I grew another two inches in my first year of college but didn't gain but 5 more lbs. I went into the Air Force underweight so they put on notice to gain or be discharged. Well I left basic training 155 lbs, gaining 30+ lbs in 8 weeks.

But all of that didn't change my feeling of hating my own body. It's never left. I discovered I can't build muscle. I have almost all slow twitch muscles, great for running and stamina but not much else. All the weight lifting for months gets me very little more muscle. And my body can't run beyond 4 miles without crashing.

So, I was given a body that has real limits. And add a little natural fat and the body images go south real fast. I've run for months on end hoping but never losing what fat I have. I can get it down to a minimum but some is always there. And I've always hated it. And now at about 170-175 lbs, I hate it more as the running doesn't help anymore. Fat is fat and it's there.

And now older and geting where the body doesn't get fitter and I'm fighting the slow decline of age, I hate it more. But there's no answer or solution beyond just living with it, like I haven't done that so far, but facing the reality all the exercise won't change anything very much, it's disheartening.

But it's what I was given. And there is an up side. Yeah, really. For one my family doesn't have an extensive history of heart disease. Except my Dad who needed a five-way heart bypass when he was in his early 70's. We don't have a history of cancers, or that I've heard or know of. Otherwise the men just die in the mid-to-late 70's and the women in the 80's or older.

So, we're a trade-off. What we're given. And hate it or not and be comfortable or not with it, it's still what we're given.

What we're given

We were, we are and we will be. Not hard to understand. Life. Life as we see ourselves and the world. Life as we know ourselves and the world. And life as we understand ourselves in and with the world. It's just who we are. And like it or not, it's what is. Complex as we want to think it is, it's not. It's just simple, us and the world.

And it's everyone else, and everyone else doing the same thing. The reality of our being. And everyone's being. It's what we're given. From the moment we're born to the moment our heart stops and we see our last moment and feel our last breath of life. The last we know of our own existence. It all leads to that. And all the moments in between are just what happens. They are. Just are.

All then in the past and we become who and what was. And nothing stops. Except us. A moment and then another. One we're here, conscious, alive and knowing, and one we're the past. An instant. And another. And everything changes. And all the moments in between our first moment and our last moment is gone. If you're lucky, you have an obiturary a few days later.

And all we are then are memories in hearts and minds of others.

And while many argue it's the memories you left in their hearts and minds that's important, it's hard to argue it is those moments in between that at least equally matters. Who we are and what we do in the those moments. Even the simpliest task of just living, as some people struggle just to do that, is just as important to us. Without it, all else isn't.

And it's back to what we're given. Our life. Given by our family history. Given by the enviroment of our mother. Given by the world around us when and after we're born. Given our early years out of our control, simply existing and reacting. Given our childhood, trying to understand and cope not really knowing. Given our teen years thinking we do understand but don't.

And then given the freedom in adulthood to be. Except it's with the events and burden of the past. Our past. As we experienced it and survived. And maybe even flourished at little. We're suddenly there where it's all ours. Jettison the past as you want, and often try, it only becomes a shadow following you. You can't outrun it, dance past it, disguise it, whatever. It's there, always there.

It's when we learn to balance what we're given with what we want that we begin to see reality and our potential. And as much as we want to say we overcame adversities to achieve or accomplish something, in reality, it was always there, it just took the right moment to see the opportunity and they try, which few see and fewer do.

It's why success sells in marketing books, workshops, etc., but it's why you don't need them to succeed, just an open mind and a willingness to imagine and then the willingness to give yourself the freedom to try and the goal to strive toward. The rest you'll do with what you have, how you can, when you can and keep going.

But we're not given that, only the ability to be open and use our imagination. Something we're all too often taught not to use or punished when we do use. We can't change our freedom until adulthood, but by then it's harder to realize it and then use it. What we're given, our abilities, talent and skills, are suppressed and oppressed into ourselves, so deep, it takes years in adulthood to see it.

And when we finally do, what we're given has long be changed by our experiences, some so heavy and some so oppressing, we only fear what we're given, and not see it as freedom. What we're given has evolved to what we didn't know, by ourself, subconsciously. We've lost sight of what we're given. We're not what we're given anymore, but what we're handed by life and the world.

But it's always there, what we're given. Always there. Always. And in the end, it's all we have. We're back to where we were when we were born with what we're given. Everything else is who we were and what we did, and what happened with what we're given. Because in the end, it's what defined us by birth, by life and by our death. What we're given.

Running

I read a story in the New York Times about a woman who runs to keep her depression in control, see article. I've also read the beneficial effects of running for depression. It does work for me for the periods I have run. My problem is that I'm not addicted enough to running to want to run, I have to motivate myself to run.

And when I don't or find my depression worse and can't motivate myself, I fall into a spiral common with depression. On top of that my body doesn't like running. I never got past 4 miles, and usually 3 miles tops, and never past 3 consecutive days. I know that's also about motivation, but it's also related to your body type, metabolism, and other body factors. It simply begins to quit between 3-4 miles.

It's the same with hiking. I can hike 6-8 miles a day relatively easily, and 10-12 miles some days, but never more than 2 days in a row. I know runners talk about the wall in marathons and often personal walls in their running, and for me, it's a lot closer to short than long (miles) and few than many (days). I've tried over the years to get through only to find I crash.

And as I've aged it's become harder to run and run consistently over days, then weeks and then months. Now I'm not running more often than I'm running and am almost always stuck in the mental running stage getting the mind and body back into the schedule and regime to run. And these periods are longer before I'm comfortable running and wake up thinking about running.

But that's away from the depression idea. The writer points out running acts like an anti-depressant, a natural one the body already has available. I agree from my experience. I didn't start running until I was 28 and have been running on and off ever since, except for long periods when it was realistic, like in Phoenix from spring to fall and lately here with the food issues and problems.

And once I got up to running consistently 3 miles (during and frequently) the benefits kicked in and my Dysthymia almost disappeared or at least reduced to a level it didn't matter. But that was always the fight and battle, between the persistent Dysthymia and running, and all too often running lost, with the resultant body and mind changes. And restarting was harder until it all kicked in again.

And there I am again, only at 60, it really sucks being very hard and slow, and very long. My running is a series of plateaus where for long periods, often months, whatever I do, nothing changes, and then over week, everything changes a little. Over and over, months of the same then a small improvement followed by months of the same. All the motivation, discipline and deetermination hasn't and doesn't change it.

And now it really is the choice I always say everything morning about every day, "You can get better or worse." There's no status quo, everything changes and you have the choice of which direction it goes. But past 50, all the research will tell you is that you don't really improve beyond a level, you're simply slowing the rate of decline. So better isn't really better, just relative to reality of aging.

And so now, and always in my life, it's about depression and keeping it at a minimum and in control, which isn't likely but running, and even walks or hikes, helps. And it beats all the drugs ever made for it.

Choosing an out

I wrote about having an out. Some people plan and commit the act of suicide with an out. It's the last second that decides if they choose the act or the out. It's not that they don't want to die, but they subconsciously put life in the choice, just in case. No one doubts the finality of suicide, especially those thinking and planning the act, but some subconsciously leave the crack in the life door.

This isn't about those who attempt, and sometimes succeed, for attention or as a sudden reaction to a situation or circumstances. It's about those who are often invisible to others, who simply go about life while moving in the direction of suicide. It's all been described by the professionals in the signs all too often are overlooking by others, especially family and friends, or disguised by the person, and usually only seen in hindsight, and more often than not, with sad consequences.

It's with them that some put into their plan an out. It can be a last minute choice or a last second change, it's the same, they gave themselves an out. Not like they wanted to, or even know they did, but they did. And sometimes they take the out. Some to try another time and some to realize who they are and what's important.

So, why, if they're so focused on dying, they give themselves an out? I doubt anyone and even professionals, know. I'm sure there are a number of theories and ideas, often from ancedotal information and stories of patients who are still alive from choosing the out. I know I don't even know why I gave myself one, twice.

I'm sure there are people, especially religious folks, will try to relate it to or about God and God's will or about the person found salvation or even God in the last minute. In truth, that's bullshit. When you're there, you don't see or know God, so I doubt there's any realization, let alone a revelation, about God. It's simply about life and death, yours.

In some ways I don't think it's different when people in a situation or circumstance are near or facing death. Some fight to live, some accept death, and some gave up early on. With suicide, it's the same except it's your decision to act or not, to life or not, and why some give themselves an out and use it. It's not that they won't be there again, and may choose the same or a different answer.

As you can read, I'm only talking from my experience and understanding, which isn't much, just mine and what I've learned in the intervening years. All I know is the out was there and I chose it. The first at the last minute and the second knowing I had the choice. It's why I personally think some don't put the out in the (suicide) plan and some do subconsciously. For the latter, it's the last second choice.

The simple out. Today I won't, but tomorrow, i don't know. I only know when I get there and facing myself to decide and act. The rest is what happens.

The choices given

I've always believe when we wake up each morning we have two choices, we can get better or we can get worse. There is nothing in between. Some days it's a combination of the two, but it's where the balance was at the end of the day that determines which won the day. I believe this applies to everything we do, you can always boil the choices to their essence to find it's about better or worse.

And the constant accumulation of the worse days in the free-fall of emotions and feelings that causes the worst periods of depression. Sometimes it a matter of letting myself free fall until I hit bottom to know where and what I'm mentally standing when I can decide to look at the choices. The worse was both an unconscious and a conscious decision and act, and where the two separate I don't know. Only they have one answer together.

This, however, doesn't cover another set of choices we have and face every day. Whether or not to like something, meaning ourselves. I don't know of too many people who don't have something they don't like about themselves, whether they express it or not, it's there, always there, in the back of their mind, sitting for the moment to find our consciousness in a momentary lapse and make us look at ourselves and discover what we hate.

For some it's never left the consciousness, either from unconscious choice to keep it there, from the constant reminders in our clothes, in the mirror or from other people, especially friends or family who remind us about it, sometimes disguised as love or help, which it never is, but it's hard for them to see that because they don't know how much it hurts. And hurt it does, keeping the mental scars open to our heart and mind, alive in our life every day. There and never going away.

But then we can choose to get or do better there too, at least until we run up against our genetics, that pesky wall of our physical being and physiology which limits, and usually stops, the better in its track. And breaking through that barrier is another choice we face, how much better is better, and where and when does not hate about ourselves become something else?

It's the old adage about the journey, meaning as long as we're striving, it's better. We're going in the right direction, or so we like or want to think, the choice of better over worse. But then why does it often not feel better, but simply more of the same, only harder?

I've never figured that out, why it doesn't feel better, except the occasional moment either when I physically feel better or I realize the distance in time from then to now to see it's different, and while maybe not better, just farther away from then and there. And that, sometimes, translates as better, but it's a relative better. But then better is a relative word which can mean simply not worse or less worse.

It depends on your view when you make the judgement. Others may see it differently than you. You know the then and there and the here and now, and what happened in between. You know the time when it got worse and you know the struggle to get away from the worse. And you know the fear of everything getting worse again. That's the reality, not the better, but the fear of the better not working and being another worse.

That's why sometimes the choice isn't. It's just one, live and hope for the better, or at least not the worse. As Father Mulcahy said, "When you're going through hell, sometimes the best thing is to just keep going." And it still seems the best choice of all.

Having an out

There are many ways to commit suicide. Like that's new or news. What people often miss but those who know or understand, is that there are different types of suicide. Some attempts are people wanting, and asking in their own way, for help. Some are definitive, meaning the person chose a method that's almost always certain. And some, among the other types, are those where the person has an out.

Some may say all suicides have an out, meaning the person can simply choose not to commit the act. How naive of them to think that. When most suicides get to the point of the act itself, thinking of an out isn't there. That's because thinking isn't there, only their sense of being. An out has to be part of the act or part of the person.

An out as part of the act is simply the way out. It's not always a safe out, and sometimes just the act of insufficiency of means or sometimes just a last second change of heart. An out as part of the person is where the act was planned to have an out. It doesn't mean the person didn't or doesn't intend to complete the act, something in their sense of being and life put it there.

This isn't the same as someone who in one instant in a state of depression tries to commit suicide and some who succeed by accident. It's part of the mental events they went through in deciding and planning the act. Every act has a last moment when it's a yes or no, but not really. It's nice to say by those who want to think so, but it's not true. The choice was already made.

You might also say that having an out doesn't make the suicide real. If someone put an out in the act, then they really weren't certain. That's also not true. Some just think that way and their instincts put it there without really seeing or knowing why. With some it's the way of asking for help. With others it's the way to affirm their choice or affirm their will, however diminished, to life.

Both are made, not to choose life, but simply give the person an out. Deep within their psyche a kernal exists that fights for life and it's put into the plan and act to be there, just in case something changes and the person sees something, like a distant candle in the darkness. It's always been there. You don't see it until you look in that direction. But it also takes the darkness to see it.

What's this leading to? Someone asked about my attempts, and thinking back, and even forward, I gave myself an out.

A song

The group Basement Band has a song "Charleston", which to me has some great opening lines.

I am old.
I am weary.
And I'm coming home to die.
Would you bury me me by the old Oak tree
'tween the river and the ashweed?
Charleston won't you bury me.

That song and Dave Matthew's song Gravedigger, with the lines

Gravedigger
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow
So that I can feel the rain
Gravedigger

always hits a chord with me. It's not a fascination with death, but a feeling when we die, we want to be buried where we want to feel home. It's why most people commiting suicide pick the time and place carefully. It's important to them to be and feel safe when they die. Somewhere they're at and going home.

Home to be there and home to die.

It's why I know the next time I think about it enough to follow through, I know where I'll go. It's my favorite spot in Mt. Rainier NP, a remote, little-used trail where you can fit a place off the trail away from everyone and watch Mt. Rainier and see the glaciers in the endless dynamics of nature's forces, a volcano, constantly building, destroying and rebuilding a mountain and glaciers, the product of the volcano's location constantly craving their space and place against the mountain and weather.

Not a hard choice to make, the location that is. Dying is the harder part for me and why a third time won't be a success unless the forces are so overwhelming to lose all feeling and connection with life. It's either go there to die or someone share my ashes there.

Either way I'll be there. Leaving this world behind me.

No, I don't believe there is a heaven or some after-death place we go. We just die and our ashes returns to what it was before to start anew. Remember we're all stardust and we should all go back to being stardust. Anything else is cheating the universe of ourselves. Our efforts will carry on in the hearts of those who loved us and those we helped in our life. Let's not be stingy with our ashes and not share them with the future.

Or so that's my story, and until something better comes along, as Jimmy Buffett sang, "That's my story and I'm sticking to it."

Solutions and answers

I was reading about the recent death of model and actress Lucy Gordon in Paris. She was twenty-eight years old with, as everyone likes to say, "a promising future." Well, we all do and it's just the normal perspective people take in these circumstances. People forget with depression, death is never the solution, but it's sometimes the answer.

It's hard to realize let alone really understand the smallness of someone's world when they're depressed to the point of suicide. And unless you've been there, you don't have a clue. It's one of the few experiences in life, you really have to have been there to understand. Empathy and sympathy are ok, but they're not understanding. And that's what's always missing in the discussion after their death.

People forget in depression, the person has already been through the litany of alternatives people expect us to consider and even choose. We've long left those along the road. They've been long exploded out of our thinking when we imploded into ourselves. We're down to the choice of life or death. And neither don't seem to solve the problems weighing on us, but death seems the better answer.

It's where everything disappears and we can find peace with the world and ourselves. And as much as we want to be with them and explain life is both the solution and the answer, we can't. It's not that they don't see us, or hear us. It's not about us, and not even about them, but simply our own individual existence. We've striped away all the facades and layers of feelings. We down to the basic choice we all face, death.

And the survivors are always suprised. "We didn't know.", is the common answers. Like all the clues weren't there? Or just that you were blind? And you didn't care enough about what they really felt and thought? Cruel? Yes, but truthful. I get tired of the, "We tried to help them.", response. It's bullshit. They didn't say because they saw you didn't really care about what really bothered them.

Both sides are blind. The person sitting in their own darkness wondering and wanting. And us, afraid to open the door with a candle. That's all you need to do, drop all the pretense and preaching. All they want is someone to sit with them and understand. They'll find their way out if they can, but they don't needs directions, just a companion.

A little light and one hand is everything, always there and always present in their mind.

No drugs

I haven't taken, currently take or intend to take anti-depressants for my Dysthymia. I was diagnosed in 1991 with, using the psychiatrist's term probably, genetic, lifelong Dysthymia. It runs in our family through my father and passed to his children and grandchildren. Or I suspect because no one wants admit it let alone say it. The fortunate side is that it while it's persistent and almost always prevalent, it's not severe, only mild to moderate.

When I was diagnosed the psychiatrist admited there weren't any anti-depressants on the market specificially for Dysthymia and it had only been recognized within the previous decade as a form of depression separate from depressive personality and milder expressions of depression. It was often called chronic mild depression, but has been given its own name for the factors surrounding its presence in people, meaning, either genetic, lifelong or later onset.

Since then a number of drugs have become available for Dysthymia, some unique to it but most milder dosages of stronger anti-depression drugs. And like those, it has the same efficacy, about 50% of patients do well, the other half get nothing. And like those too, it's has a break-in period of weeks to months and a lifespan of months to a few years at most before your mind and body begins the decreasing its response.

And so you spend a lifetime chasing drugs, waiting for the start, wondering if it's working, and then hoping it lasts, knowing it doesn't and you're back to the doctor for more or something new. The consistent two to three year cycle, knowing you're dependent and hoping you don't crash. And living with the side effects which may exacerbate the some of the bad or worse feelings you're depressed about.

And so I use signs and other ways to live.

In the conversations with the psychiatrist she taught me to recognize the signs. The signs I'm normal, when I'm feeling my depression getting worse, and when I'm feeling better from a depressive period. She taught me to recognize the things I do when I'm feeling normal and to work on them to sustain being normal. She taught me to follow in instincts and intuition about when the feelings change.

But most of all I learned to find ways to "tread water" through the worse periods and to use my mind and explore the feelings during the worse times, to both see what and how I feel and how to find answers if something triggered or is perpetuating the depression. And then to find ways out of the worse periods, if only to exist in life while I wait to get better.

All without drugs. It's harder and often worse, but I know I am and I know how creative I can be when I'm depressed, which is something often lost in the effort to find or be "happy." You miss the freedom your mind has by itself to explore the breadth and depth of your depression and to see the world as it is when you're there. It's its own freedom.

And I've learned how to see the signs and avoid the implosion of the mind and spirit that leads to thoughts of suicide. You know it's a room you have to fall or enter, all too often forgetting we passed the threshold without realizing we're already there. We've imploded into darkness and we didn't know, but only the darkness we're in.

I've learned to know those moments and feelings on my own and to stand at the edge of it's darkness to see and make choices in and about my life. Without the aid of drugs, just life itself. And me. Nothing more and nothing less. About as real as it gets. I've learned to appreciate being and feeling alive. Not much more than I could expect some days and work on doing better.

And the only drugs are myself and life.

Time disappears

When you're in a depression, time just disappears. Literally. While time seems to go slow when you're depressed, it's quick and gone when you look back. You just sit there wondering where it went, all the ideas of things to do, promises to fulfill, places to go, all just gone like the wind. Time just disappeared.

That's what's happened most of this year. Back in January I was working on making prints and photo cards. By February I had all the print done, about a half dozen stacks of 6 prints for each of 10 print in a card set. I made it through one pile of prints. Then I had a root canal and recovered from a bone infection with the root canal. Then I just felt like crap and never recovered.

And now it's mid-May, two-plus months gone. I have some things to show for it, but no new cards made, no photo trips beyond the occasional walk around, and only a handful of Web pages done for the photo guide and early history projects. My body got through the problems, but only to realize I still haven't done much on my running program.

It simply disappeared. Time. Not because being older the perception of time changes, which it does, but that it did go by without much to show. And add the promises I made but didn't do and the card sets I was supposed to send (which were really supposed to be Christmas gifts but I was sick Thanksgiving to past New Years). And the to do list still with little marked off as done.

Time is like that in a depression, simultaneously quick and forever. The hours seem to drag and the days seem to disappear behind you, and you wake up months later wondering what happened and where were you all that time. You disappeared too, into the darkness, lost in a endless tunnel complex with only the occasional glimpse of light. You lost yourself too.

It's like the misty rain in a spring storm, gently falling, relentlessly and seemingly forever. You can't hide from it and you can't get dry. Everything just weighs, feels heavy and your body tired and sleepy. You want to sleep but you hate sleep because you can't sleep and will have to wake up tomorrow. And go through this again, the fog and mist invading your world and your being.

Time and you just go by and just went. Both gone. Just existing. And then just history. And you wait for the storm to pass, the rain to quit, the sun to appear. And you wait. And wait some more, never realizing the wait disppears too, as time and you disappear. Sometimes you give up and go out into the rain, to know you're still alive.

And there you find nothing changed, you're only standing there alone, surrounding by the fog and rain where you can't tell where and when anything is anymore, only you standing there for a moment, and another. Before you go back inside to realize there nothing changed, everything is still waiting for you, to remind you what hasn't been done.

And the choices ahead all seem like work, too much work, even if you know you should do something. Sweep the floor. Anything, but waiting. Except waiting seems to always feel the best answer, even though you know it's the worst answer. Energy has disappeared too. And you wait for that, but it won't come without work, which you don't want to do.

And so you sit. Waiting for something you know not when or what. Waiting. And hoping it's soon. Really soon. But you don't know if that's true or real, or just a wish or a hope. You can't decide because that's work. You just want it to happen, and begin to feel better, if only for a moment. And maybe another moment. Hope the moments last. Last longer than the wait.

When the moments happen, you pray they don't disappear too. Like everything else, except everything you haven't done is there around you like clutter, there and in your mind. The clutter you can't see through or around to see your way through. You have to just go. Forward. And hope. And wait. If only for a moment. And then another moment.

Rainy days

Here in the Pacific Northwest, rainy days are usual, sometimes the norm, and never more than just over the western horizon for storms to fly through on the jet stream. And some years, rainy days more common than sunny ones. It's the nature of the cyclical annual and seasonal weather patterns. And this years seems they're the norm. So far anyway.

And that's what's happening today. The clouds came overnight into the morning and by late morning the rain started and hasn't stopped, often intensifying into a downpour before lightening up to a gentle shower. It's the nature of spring storms and more so the major storm fronts travelling through.

Since I retired I tend to stay indoors and watch the rain from the deck. I still go out now and then, sometimes to wear the expedition rain suit I used for years doing field work and hiking, but mostly now I just hibernate and watch. I can wait it out now, at least spring storms. The winter ones, you can't, you just bundle up and go.

I remember in Oregon and here in Washington I used to do a week or more field trip into Cascade and Coast Ranger mountains in the rain. From the time I got in my truck to the time I got back to the warerhouse and go home. The only time I wasn't in the rain was in the gage house and in the truck. But my trusty rainsuit kept me warm and dry and only my hands got wet from writing in the field books.

And I've gone hiking and done photo trips in the rain. Hiking in the rain is interesting. It promotes hiking. All you want is to get somewhere under a shelter. I hate tents so I tried for shelters. But even then, your backpack is all wet. and everything is wet so sitting and eating is still being in the rain. Soggy sandwiches and chips and all. It's gets tiring after some years and I quit hiking in the rain but I still shoot photo events in the rain.

And I love the sound of the rain on against the roof, the harder the rain, the louder the sound, and the more I like it. It's why I liked hiking in the rain, the sound against the top of your head, or the roof in my place. Like in the song by Dave Matthews, "Grave Digger", about asking to dig a shallow grave to feel the rain.

But this essay isn't about the rain really, but the mind and the rain. Sometimes we're inexplicably drawn to something, as innate and intuitive as just being. For me, it's rain. I like standing watching, sensing, feeling, hearing, smelling, and everything else the rain is. Rain is indifferent. It just rains on everything. It's the lifecycle of the earth, out planet. Without it we wouldn't be here.

Besides being indifferent, rain is relentless. It just doesn't stop. It's always there, just waiting outside. Just waiting and raining. You can dress to stay dry, but that doesn't change the rain. It won't go away until the storm travels through to somewhere else. And then you get the smell of the rain, it leaves that smell that we always know it rained.

And surprisingly no matter how soon the rain was or how long ago it last rained, you like that smell. It only lingers awhile, like the steam from puddles evaporating in the sun. Here for awhile and gone, but leaving its mark in your memory. You always knows the smell and remember the steam. The rain is gone but it never leaves.

Kinda' like my Dysthymia and living with it.

Some days

Some days just are, some need help to be, and some days, well, aren't much beyond being forgotten. Yeah, not original, but there are days I get to the end and wonder what the hell happened and what I did. My Dad used to call them puttering days where you seem waste the time on one small thing after another, and soon forget what all you did that day.

I was reading that you perceive time differently as you age. While time doesn't change, it's always the hope there's always tomorrow that extend and expands your perception of time, but as you get old(er) that perception changes to know there are fewer tomorrows left in your life. When you're young, time is irrelevant. When you're old, it's everything.

It's why I retired to pursue personal projects. While I still have some health and fitness left to get over, I retired to pursue nature and landscape photography and continue hiking in Mt. Rainier NP, or so I thought and keep thinking. And to work on a photography guide for Mt. Rainier NP and some projects with the early history of the NP before and after its designation.

So days that just exist beyond getting through them become more significant. You know it's just another day, and sure tomorrow is still tomorrow, but you wonder how many more are there when the past is that and the future is shorter. It's harder as you age to realize some days are the same as then because you wonder when you go, you'll be judged by the number of them you choose to get through.

Not really. God has more important issues than people goofing off, but sometimes it feels like it, like someone in God's shop is tracking us and counting. It's really all self-imposed, internal guilt for the days we just don't feel like engaging the world outside of our own.

I call them lounge days. Since my home also has my office now, working it just what I do around everything else at home. I can take breaks, do housework, take naps, read books, watch TV or whatever else I want around doing or working on my photography or working on the Mt. Rainier photography guide and history projects.

I can also just wander into the world through my computer. I read 3-5 newspapers daily, some days I go and get the print version along with on-line ones not available in print locally, and the rest of the days I read the free on-line ones. Sorry, I refuse to pay for the on-line WSJ. Rupert Murdoch already gets my money elsewhere.

And I can wander through the various forums, ready blogs, view other photographers' Website, or just work on my own blogs, which are probably too much verbage anyway, but it's the freedom we have these days. One thing I don't do is live on facebook or twitter. While I'm on those Websites, I'm not an overtly social person to live there.

I have two types of lounge days. Sunny ones and rainy ones. And yes, it's weather related. While being mildly-to-moderately Dysthymic I'm also have mild-to-moderate Seasonal Affective Condition. I refuse to call it a "disorder" because it's not a mental health problem, it's just who I am, like many others. I do react to the weather and living in the Puget Sound area sometimes doesn't help.

But I know having lived in Arizona, extended sunny and warm, and especially hot, days are overwhelming. I need seasons and I need weather, real Pacific Northwest weather, and as bad as it gets, it's the best overall for me. And it creates the sunny and rainy lounge days. Each with their own facets and attributes. Each admired and hated for the same. For what they are and what they aren't.

And that's where both are necessary, in my life, and for lounging around and puttering the day away. Each time the days are different, so really they are significant and not wasted. We do that other places, driving in traffic, standing in lines, waiting for appointments. So lounging at home? Just maybe it's not as bad as people describe or judge.

Because you're not waiting on or for someone else, only yourself. You're in your own world, on your own time, at your own speed. That's hard to beat anymore. And I don't see God minding that, being yourself.

Two years on

It's been two years since the first Living with Dysthymia post. While everything has changed, nothing has changed in that it's still there, as always, and like me, a little worse for wear from time and experience. That's the nature of life, as each of us lives and experiences it.

The posts during this period, which can be found here, are more momentary ramblings. A thought like eating cereal where you eat a bite which triggers a thought which melds into an idea and grows into a essay written as thought. I'm a stream of consciousness writer, I write what I think at the moment, and just let the images of words pour out from the picture in my mind.

You see I don't write as writers write. I'm a visual person. I see writing. And idea grows into a full thought with paragraphs containing sentences. I see the paragraphs and I write. And if the thought comes from the sadness in my mind, then it's seen and expressed as such. Sometimes the picture, like this essay and the photo above, is foggy at best, and shades of gray everywhere.

This is where my Dysthymia is for the most part, as it has been most of my life. From the time I was a child and hated being around other people to today where I like living and working alone interacting with people when and where I want or have to as life dictates.

And retirement has actually helped because I can spend days thinking and writing about my Dysthymia and not pretending to be happy at work. I can be myself in the privacy of my life, free to explore the breadth and depth of my Dysthymia when it worsens. I don't take drugs for my Dysthymia.

I've only slightly followed the research into anti-depressants over the years, I've tried to use Taoism, running, and photography to search and express my Dysthymia as I think and feel. They're not anti-depressants, but expressions of it. I don't try to dampen or change it, but explore and examine it.

I've found when I do that, I find my mind expanding into new areas of thought and feelings and find creativity I would have under drug therapy. In the twilight and sometimes darkness of Dysthymia, the light becomes more visible and intense, and often into the shadows of my mind where the light doesn't penetrate unless you go there. Somewhere drugs won't take you.

And so two years on, and my life now nearly 60 years on, the road is still there, wandering wherever it goes with whatever light I carry, and the hope the end isn't obvious or slow, but there a moment before I didn't know it existed. It's about just living and knowing death will happen whenever it does.

Suicide

I was reading today about a 11-year old boy who hung himself after frequent bullying by other kids at school who thought he was gay. He didn't have to be, just they thought he was, and they were relentless, until he quit. He left this life we value so much. And while people are looking at the issue of why he chose to commit suicide, let's not forget what happened up to that moment, and why everyone else didn't see, and talk with him to help him with his feelings.

I'm more afraid in the aftermath a lot of people will start speculating about this incident, teen suicide and bullying among other topics around the issue. And there are always the verbal rubberneckers, those who have an opinion without any real understanding, knowledge or experience with suicide. Even people who know people who have tried or expressed the notion to try to commit suicide don't understand.

And that's the point. All the people in the world just don't get it. Ok, an overstatement, and not true. I've written a little about suicide in NP's. If you have to commit suicide, I can't think of a better place if you love the outdoors. And there's always the likelihood you can go so deep into the NP not to be found for a long time, if you want to be lost.

My point here? Well, depression so deep you're not just considering suicide but are close to succeeding. I lost a nephew to suicide and watch other families members die a slow death that may have been called suicide, they chose the long road to emptiness and then death. My Dad went to bed after his 75th birthday and quit life. My brother knew he was dying and went home to die in the place he knew the most.

And I'm always just a thought away from falling into the abyss where the only answer is suicide. I've been there and am still alive. I've learned my symptoms and have to continuously monitor my thoughts and feelings, only because I survived and know better, at least until the day I find life harder than I want to continue. And that's what I find frustrating in the discussion about suicide.

Too many people with no real experience or undestanding about suicide talk and too few who do want to stand up to give the truth and reality. No one wants to hear about the waste of a life, about hope of the future, or learn to be something they're not. It's angering to hear how suicide-susceptible people are "supposed" to view life because we're told we don't see or understand.

We do understand and we are entitled to our view of life. I'm angry the child took his life because of others, those who bullied him, those who turned a blind eye and deaf ear, and those who didn't see it coming. All the signs were there. I saw it in my nephew but my sister and brother-in-law didn't. They swear he was better while he was only hiding and disguising his feelings.

I know my view isn't the only one, or even close to the right one. I only know experience has taught me others are far more wrong than me and they oblivious to their ignorance. And I wish they'd stop talking and begin listening, to those who have been through to stand on the other side and didn't succomb to death by their own hand.

That's because it's not just about us but the world around us, we're just standing and living it and reacting and responding to how we're treated. We're not weak or don't care about life. It's just the rest of the world becomes too much and getting up every day is too much. That's what family and friends should know. We don't need to talk about it. We just need to know you're there to listen.

We don't need lectures or pep talks. We need an ear, one with heart to be there and listen without anything else except love and understanding. It's not hard, but it's also the hardest thing you'll do in your life. Listen as someone talks about the darkness and depths of their feelings. You want to save them, but only they can save themselves. And that takes time and patience.

And what we fear the most is that we may not succeed and they may decide their own fate. Try as we can, sometimes it's never enough. That's our reality and the reality of life. I don't know if anyone could have helped the 11-year old kid. All the talk will focus on problems and solutions, but it won't address the basic issue of the human heart. Even an 11-year old child's heart.

I'm sorry he's gone. I'm sorry for his parents and family. I'm sorry the world creates circumstances and situations where a child thinks about suicide. I'm sorry the answers aren't all in the child, but the rest of us. And that's our burden we're life with, our failure to see and understand. And that's the question we must ask ourselves, do we see and do we want to understand?

All the actions in the world won't matter if we don't see and understand. And tomorrow we'll read about someone else who committed suicide for reasons we all know. So, when will it end?

Naps and death

Since I retired to work on my small personal photography business and my photography and history projects, I can schedule my own time. I'm all things of my work these days, and while it's not always the best or wisest thing to do, it's what I'm doing, good, bad or indifferent. And this includes taking days off for other things, emergencies, and whatever else life throws in the way, such as putting the van in for service yesterday for a new clutch master cylinder and walking around the area on errands.

The one thing I have really liked is naps in the afternoon, especially after lunch on the days I've done my exercise in the morning and read the newspapers during lunch. Sometimes while lying on the couch the mind wanders into ideas, and it occurred to me, which isn't new by any stretch of the imagination, that death sometimes is a nap you never wake up from. And waking up from a nap reminds me that while I have to wake up and continue with my work and life, death wasn't on the schedule that day.

I read about these people who die in their sleep during the night. A nap is the same thing, except shorter and more conscious, but there always is a moment in the nap where you fall asleep and then wake up, usually for me 15-20 minutes later, but 30-60 minutes on days I'm really tired, often from a bad night's sleep. One moment you're thinking and the next you're thinking but time elapsed in between.

That's the interesting phenomena with naps. Two moments of life and consciousness in between moments of life and sleep. And one day, the second moment won't happen. You won't know or feel it. And that's the strange feeling when I lie down for the nap, I'm betting it's not my time and I'll wake up a little later. Or so I hope.

It often makes we wonder, what if I did die, What would everyone think when they walked into my place and saw where I was in life and work. My unique existence on this earth would cease and everything I was or had done is now history, which it is anyway, but now it's really history as there is no more and no more me to carry one. What would they think?

But then I wake up and roll on. Or so far anyway.