To Just Smile

Sometimes the only thing someone with Dysthymia wants to do is just smile. No reason, but reasons help. But really just to smile feeling good about themselves and their life that moment. Nothing else, just to smile about life, if only for a moment every now and then. To feel good enough to smile.

Some Days

Some days living and dying feel the same. Some days I can't tell the difference. Some days I don't even care if there is a difference. Some days they are the same thing.

I Want to be

I want to be. I want to do. And I fear. The question is which is the greater each day, the fear or the desire to be and do, but all too often the former wins and the latter dies a little more. It's not about the fear of failure as there is no failure to be and do. The failure is the fear of just not trying.

I used to

I used to believe in myself. Now I don’t even ask myself questions.

Some Days

Some days the battle is just to survive the day, mentally, but I always lose because time always wins, except at least time grants me the one thing I wanted from the morning, nightfall and the opportunity to crawl in to bed, to sleep and wake up tomorrow with hope the day will be better.

Time is the winner, but a generous and gracious one, except you can't get the day back and you're one day older but no wiser. But you survived and didn't want to end time, your time on this earth, and that is enough some days.

There are people

There are people who's rewards center of their brain does not function completely or normally. Everything else about their brain works normally and in some ways works better than normal, like their sense of reality.

They do not have a mental condition or problem. They do not need drugs or therapy. They get by in life quite well. In fact, you wouldn't even know they are one of those people unless they told you. That's how normal they are as functioning people.

They experience life as everyone else, they just see it differently, as uniquely to themselves as everyone else sees life unique to them. The only difference is that they don't feel the overwhelming sense of happiness for more than a few moments every now and then.

There is nothing wrong with them, no more than any other normal person. There is nothing to change in them anymore than any other person. There is nothing to consider them abnormal any more than any other person.

They just are themselves as everyone else are themselves. They are unique as everyone else. They don't see constantly thinking that wanting to be happy is a way to be. They don't have the problem they won't be happy as other people if events don't happen to make them happy.

And for that they are often better, more normal people. They're not fixated on wanting and striving to be happy and dispair when it doesn't happen. They already know the extent of their happiness and the extent happiness will ever bring them.

They are already normal and happy as and with themselves.

Body & Mind

The body and mind occupy the same person, but don't mistake the two thinking their the same. Don't think what you see or see what you think about them. Think what the see or think about you. Would they be fair or right? Would they know you?

Would they spend the time to see and learn more? Would you of them?

Missing Myself

I've been missing someone of late, myself, since July when the Siatic nerve put me on the floor for 4 days, flat on my back where I couldn't sit, stand or walk for more than a minute without severe pain. The pain faded during July but the nerve problems didn't as the lower front half of my right leg is numb, almost totally numb.

And then in September an infection took me out again for two weeks. Anti-biotics cured the infection but both of these left me mentally tired at 63, and try as I have to exercise and get back into my life, work and projects, it hasn't happened.

And I've lost myself, namely four things, passion, inspiration, motivation and discipline. Pretty much everything we believe in ourself and do for ourself. Not gone, just lost somewhere in a spiritual fog of depression, for over five months now.

And the holidays has always been hard where I just muddle through them trying to avoid all the show and hype and look forward to January 2nd and getting back to something resembling a normal life for awhile with thoughts of spring in 4-5 months.

Those four things I've lost are the keys to enjoying your life and work.

Passion is what gets you up in the morning knowing you have a lot to do and you want above all else to do it.

Inspiration is what makes life fun and enjoyable and being creative and innovative about anything and even everything.

Motivation is what drives you in your life and work.

Discipline is what keeps the passion, inspiration, motivation going, through the ups and downs, advances and setback, and through all the problems and slowdowns.

All of them makes life good no matter what happens. And without them life isn't good not matter what happens. More thoughts to come.

A Blank Mind

Sometimes a blank mind is a good thing. It means it's not filled with thoughts and feelings, like self-hate. Sometimes feeling like you're inside a cloud is a good think. I means you can't feel anything worse than your immediate life, like wanting to fall not caring how you land.

Sometimes a blank mind is just what is needed, and the fight is to keep it blank, to keep all of your mental enemies out of your thoughts and feelings. Sometimes a blank mind is freedom, peace, a respite, a calm from all the mental battles in your own war on yourself.

Sometimes, a blank mind, by itself, is a good thing.

Some Days

Some days are over before they even start, and the last thing I remember was eating breakfast just a short while ago. Then the darkness of the evening arrives to tell me the day has been lost to time, and how it was spent is lost as well. And I go to bed to try again tomorrow.

Being 19

Sometimes I get the feeling I'm still 19. I'm 63, so what the fuck is up with this? Well, some part of me just hasn't grown up enough to forget all the shit in life I had then, being 1968, and all the people who gave me that shit in life, along with all the shit I thought and felt about myself.

Yeah, I never grew up in some respects, but then, I hope I never do. It's what makes me feel alive about life, all the anger I had at 19, with life, my family, my job, college, the draft, ad infinitum. We're supposed to grow up and get through to get on to a mature life. I didn't.

Being 19 shouldn't be forgotten, ever in your life. You should die still thinking when you were 19, and smile you made it this far still being 19.

There Comes a Moment

There comes a moment in your life when you realize all the what if's are what is, and there are no more what if's left to ponder and wonder, to hope may come true if you only tried, if you changed, if you believed in yourself enough.

And when that moment arrives, it's always a slow revelation in your mind and then in your body, a quiet, subtle sense of loss, even defeat, that you are as far as you can go and all the rest is just what happens with what you have, who you are, and what you do.

It's all just what is from now on and all the what if's are just memories of what may have been than what can be.

DSM-IV-TR

Reading about the release of the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual on Mental Disorders, or DSM-IV-TR, why do I get the feeling the book is more a political one than a psychiatric one? Why do I get the feeling the book is defining many normal human thoughts, emotions and actions as abnormal?

I have no doubt there is value in the book for psychiatrists, psychologists and other therapists who need a reference for standards for diagnosis and treatment of patients, but I have equally no doubt the book is more about politics, drug companies and money.

I feel that because the more mental disorders they include and the more broadly they define disorders, no matter the semantics of the name in the manual it's still a manual of mental disorders, the more they get work for all therapists, the more drugs are prescribed, and the more money everyone makes.

Making normal behavoir abnormal ensure their own jobs and helps keep the drug companies in business selling anti-disorder drugs and developing new ones. And guess who pays the bills? The health insurance companies, Medicare/Medicaid, and the patient.

They plan to keep the book updated as things change with disorders. Any bets no disorder is removed, no disorder is defined more restictively and no disorder has no pharmaceutical treatment. And you can kiss cures out the window because once you're diagnosed with a mental disorder, you never get out of it.

As the Eagles sang in Hotel California:

The last thing I remember
I was running for the door.
I had to find a passage
back to the place I was before.
"Relax.", said the nightman,
"We are programmed to receive.
You can check out any time you like,
but you can never leave."

Kinda' said it all back then.

The First Thing

The first thing is that you have to do and be at least like your body, and hopefully, love it enough to know it's what and who you are. If you don't like your body, and even hate your body, the war is over, and all the battles to do and be better won't succeed.

If you've hated your body from your childhood, because of all the criticism and verbal abuse you heard from your parents, teasing you got from your friends and classmates, and failures trying to be "normal", you may never win and will always lose.

Lose your self-esteem. Gone from childhood and never reclaimed or owned beyond hoping, trying and failing, realizing your body just isn't going to be what you want, even be someone anyone will like, and not even be someone anyone will love.

Lose yourself in hating what life gave you, hating hearing and being everything everyone said why you weren't any good, couldn't succeed and even be liked let alone loved. And you'll fight your whole life just to find peace with your body, maybe, hopefully, possibly.

But probably, no. Not in your lifetime, at least more than acceptance of what it and you can't be and are resigned to be in life, hate it or not, just the reality of your own body. It's the best you can do and be.

I Worry

Sometimes I worry there will be times I will want to take a nap and not care if I wake up. I worry. I worry enough not to take a nap when those thoughts occur when I want to take a nap because I'm tired,  knowing it's not really me, just being tired of life and myself. I worry that I will worry about these moments as I get older.

When I am sane

When I am sane, I'm stupid, silly, ironic, obscure, funny (I think so, sometimes anyway), smart (occasionally), witty, irrevant (and yes, often irrelevant), observant, open, understanding, nice, kind, and all the rest of me.

When I am sane, I'm mentally and physically active. I listen to music, a lot of different types of music. Music fills the space. I read everything which interests me and about Mt. Rainier. I read and listen to the news. I work on my Website and projects. I think about and do photography.

And when I am not sane, I'm not. Not any of those. I just hate myself. It's the times in between I have to  watch to see which direction I'm heading and what I can to do if I'm not sane, but then I fall into Heisenburg's uncertainty principle about observations applied to the human mind about ourself.

How do we know what we think is what is real and true, or just what we want to be real and true? Can we trust our observartions of ourself to be accurate and correct? Or are we just victims of what Heisenberg said about observations in physics applied to our mind?

Do we know ourself enough to trust ourself? To be honest with ourself? There's a fine line between sanity and insanity. When do we know we crossed it? How do we know? And what do we tell ourself about what we see, think and feel? Do we believe ourself?

The Obvious

Kinda' says it all. It's not a matter of the mind but the chemistry of the brain creating the state of the mind. It's all just biochemistry. Feeling and thinking are the actions and emotions and thoughts are the outcomes. Consciousness is only the final expression.

Never

Never interrupt a person with depression or tell them anything negative, especially any form of the word "no." Never tell them to stop expressing themselves. For one simple reason.

You can only see what they think when they say something.

Otherwise, all they have is silence. And silence is deadly.

Some Do & Some Don't

Some people act out the hate they have for themself, and some people don't. It doesn't change the hate, only the expression of it. For some it's all kept inside their mind, oblivious to everyone else, and for some it's taken out on their body, obvious to those who see.

Invisible or not, it doesn't change the hate, only how the war against the hate is fought and the daily fight to stay sane, and not lose the war within themself. They know losing makes hate the winner and the outcome becomes their reality.

Now

Now in my later years I realize I'll never be who I know I am inside. All the time and medical science can't change the reality of my body as I was given and I am. And the best I can do is find something somewhere on the road to who I know I am inside. That is all I can do now in my life. And only if I try.

Not Eating

I've struggled with food and eating, mostly digestive issues starting 30 years ago but getting worse over the last 5 years and more so the last 2 years. The list of foods I can eat now can be written on a 4x6 postit note with room for doodles.

But what I've learned over this years trying to find a workable diet and still have food experiment days, usually producing an adverse reaction, is that I only feel good when I don't eat. I'm always hungry now because I eat snack 4-6 times a day which I'm trying to reduce to 2-3 times a day.

Anyway, I've discovered how food effects my mental and emotional being. Like that's new or news to anyone, but hey, it is to me. And because I can't eat if I plan a trip for most if not the whole day and live on coffee and protein drinks and snacks, I've learned those are the days I feel my best.

My best mentally and emotionally. I don't know why, I'm open to suggestions, but it's made looking at food and eating differently where I'm learning only to eat when I want to eat and only eat enough to enjoy the taste and stop feeling hungry.

I've learned there's a fine line between that good feeling and feeling hungry. Feeling hungry changes things where I need to eat just one small thing, hence those little protein snacks normally used for exercise or hiking.

Anyway, I just thought it's interesting. Some people live for and around food as their mental and emotional fuel. Some don't, eating simply to sustain themselves and occasionally for enjoyment, usually with friends, over discussions, etc.

I've found food and eating the total opposite, my enemy and leaving it alone is the only time I feel good.

I Know

I know I have a lot to do. A lot of immediate stuff to do, a lot of more that takes more than a few days to do, and a lot more that will be months to do, and even some stuff long scheduled for the coming years.

I know because it sits there ready to do. I know because I should be doing it. I know because it won't be done by anyone else.

I know, but I just don't want to do it. I know that too. I know both and don't have an answer for either.

What It's Not

It's not so much what we think of ourself, it's the fear of what we think others see and think of us. That is what we most hate about ourself, our own imagination of ourself seen by others in our mind through our eyes. Some never think about it, many fuss over it, and some hate ourself for it.

A Life

I can't wish for a life I didn't have for the obvious reason I didn't have and couldn't have it, but it doesn't stop me from wishing I had a life I didn't have. Wishing and reality can coexist without contradiction or conflict, just two thoughts and feelings simultaneously being one, the life I am and a life I wish I had.

Mirrors

It's not mirror I hate. It's what I see in them when I stand there I hate.

What's Not Understood

I've read a lot of personal and blogers' Websites where they talk about being happy or finding happiness when you're down, even depressed. They always seem to think that it's all a mental and an emotional thing you can just change or "snap out of" if you try.

As I always say to them, "Yeah, right." What they don't understand or bother to consider is that for some people that's not possible because in some people their brain isn't hardwired to feel anything more than an occasional moment of happiness or any of its relative feelings.

People who have genetic, or lifelong, Dysthymia don't have the rewards center of their brain of other people. I'd say normal brain but normal is relative and these people aren't abnormal, just normal in their own way and right.

Their brains, like mine, doesn't respond to signals which we attribute to happiness. It's why they don't feel the high that drugs, alcohol, etc, other feel. Their brains need a constant input of endorphins and other natural chemicals just to have some sense of feeling good.

But often that isn't happening. It's why they see the negative side of the world, whether the greater world or their own world, the negative side of situations, and the negative side of their own life. Their natural reaction is to see and focus on the negative and about themself.

The positive side is only seen when they have exhausted all the negative side to see, know and understand it's not them, but just the situation and conditions they're in at the time. Then they can see some positive signs and light to feel a little happy.

And that's the hardest thing they do at times, just exist without instinctively plunging into the depths of being negative and feeling depressed. Treading mental water is hard work, sometimes the hardest thing they do some days.

And to tell them to get over it is totally stupid and dumb, and only makes them feel worse because they can't simply do that. It takes a lot of time, energy and discipline, often rare commodities to them. They need friends who know that and find ways to be there quietly and gently nudge them away from falling into depression.

And friends will often discover they already know that and already know what others will try to do to help, knowing these people mean well, but also knowing, for the most part, they're wasting their time on you.

These people often know the signs things aren't going well mentally and emotionally and often know how to combat them to either avoid falling faster or finding ways to stablize themselves when and where they can start to feel better.

For me the signs are not wanting to go anywhere except if I have to go, not laughing or thinking about humorous ideas, not being spontaneous and silly-stupid, and not listening to music, lots of music. And most of all not exercising.

I can't run since my pinched Siatic nerve left the front of my right leg numb from above the knee to the ankle. It buckles under stress of runing, lifting, etc. I reverted to walking long distances, like 5-6 miles a few times a week. This helped some but often not enough.

What I haven't needed are friends, my therapist, and others who tell me what to do or what to think. I need them to smile and ask me questions which makes me think about it and what I'm thinking. And that's the key, being funny and making me smile.

And change doesn't come from others. It comes from the person thinking and feeling about themselves. The others and the world provides clues and ideas, but the solution is found within the person, in their own way and in their own time.

Even then, though, it will always be a measured or an incremental change and will always reach a point for their own sense of happiness, not other people's idea of happiness. We know it's all relative and we'll take and keep what sustains us and prevents us from falling into depression, again.

That's what they don't undestand. Now if they cared enough to remember it.

Fear

Fear is the reason we don't do a lot of things. Fear is what keeps us from doing what we know we should, what we know we could and what we know is better for us if we started, and especially if we did, what we feared.

Fear is what always stands between us and that. Fear is what people tell us isn't real and we can and will overcome fear if we try. But we know better. Better because we know fear never goes away, it only changes if we do what we want.

Fear is what people tell us it doesn't matter. Fear is what we know does matter. Fear is what restrains us and fear is what can free us. Fear is what it is fear. To dismiss it is foolish. To live it is equally foolish. To embrace it gives life.

Life gives fear a place, not as a state of mind which inhibits your thinking but as a feeling you can control knowing it's there without reacting to it. Life lets you recognize and acknowledge it and then put it where it belongs, just a feeling you can live with.

Outcast

When standing in a crowd invisible to everyone around, why do we feel like the one outcast everyone hates and everyone ignores. Why do we feel we are the only one who is totally alone among everyone?  Why do we feel we can't reach out let alone ask for help without feeling afraid we're imposing on anyone?

There is a fine line between the feeling of aloneness and loneliness. There is a fine line between the feeling of independence and dependence. There is a fine line between being and being an outcast.

Failure

When you have every reason to fail, every reason to see yourself as a failure, and every reason to see there isn't even the smallest chance of success, it's time to take a break, to step back and mentally and emotionally tread water.

It's time to do nothing, to simply find yourself an neutral space to just survive for awhile, until you find or see something to make you rethink yourself and your reality. Like watching a full moon rise through the clouds in the night.

And know the world is bigger than your thoughts, your feelings and your sense of failure. Which  is what I'm doing now. Yes, it's real as the night, the moon rising over the southeastern horizon and me. And hopefully find some sleep to start anew in the morning.

Drizzle

Sometimes there is something soothing in the fall rain in the Pacific Northwest, the clouds clinging to the trees and hiding the distant horizon, the constant drizzle of the rain against the roof, the deck, the whole visible world around me, and the sound of people walking or car tires driving through the puddles.

Sometimes the drizzle gets tiring after days on end common some years, but sometimes it just feels good. The whole sense of it, the feel of it against all your senses, the sight of steady downpour of raindrops, the clouds which looked like they fell to earth, the sound of rain against everything, especially your body when you walk in it.

The drizzle hides everything while washing everything else away, and sometimes it just feels good.

Do Not Do This Updated

Update.--In reading the blog of this person I discovered this person suffers from periods of depression. For that I am truly sorry. And for my words here I apologize for the harshness, I misunderstood and am wrong.

I still think this person's advice, while good, should include seeking professional help for anyone you know or think is depressed or nudging them to seek professional help. There are many excellent therapists, often available at free clinics or via the telephone who can help.

Again, I am truly sorry if anything here sounded harsh, it wasn't meant to be as I've had lifelong (genetic) Dysthymia with periods of double depression (depression on top of Dysthymia) and two near-suicide attempts.

Original Post.--Do not dispense advice about depression or for helping a depressed person if you have no knowledge, understanding or experience either with depression or depressed people. In short, unless you know don't. It's that simple.

But apparently with the social networking Websites, such as Tumblr, dispensing advice seems to be ok. It's not, even if the advice is generally good, it may not be specifically good, such as for one person who is depressed. If you don't know them, don't tell other who do how to be with them.

I say this because of this post, when the writer (blog owner) wrote, "I just want to say that I am not any kind of therapist; I am just a girl on the internet who draws owls. But I get a lot of questions from people who want to take better care of their depressed friends and family, but don’t know how! So I hope this has been useful to some of you out there!"

That's my point, she admits to no knowledge, understanding or experience but still dispenses advice. While the advice is good in many respects, mostly general, but not all points are good and should not be followed, this doesn't give her relevance to write it.

The key is that depressed people need people who do have knowledge, understanding and experience about depression and dealing with depressed people. That's why they're specialists and therapist. Don't presume to know when it is very critical in the life of depressed people.

They need ways to talk. They need time to think. They need space to heal. They need people who they trust. They need patience. And they need love. They don't need people who think they know, think they know better, or think they have good advice.

As for me, about depression and dealing with depressed people. Been there, done that. I'm far from any expert, just my experience, which is more than this person's experience. Granted her care and concern is real, but to them and others, refer people to experts than tell them what you think.

Means to an End

Suicide is a means to an end. The problem isn't the means, nor the person seeking the means. The problem is the world they live in and everyone around them. Solve that and you solve the person thinking about the means.

It's not rocket science, it's being human and caring enough to see it and then solve the world and people around them. The person will solve themself.

Take Heart

Take heart in the joy of your youth. Live it well. Share it with others. For like all of us, one day you will be old and the memory of your youth will be what makes being old worthwhile. So be young when you are and be young throughout your life. Never lose your youth and joy. It will carry you through your years ahead.

Sleep

Whether it's just a nap or a night's sleep, we sleep for a variety of reasons. I sleep to escape life, my life as it is and who I am. No other reason, and since I can't forget, it's just to escape. And while I look forward to another day, many days I don't want to wake up let alone get up.

But I do because you can't escape life. Your own life, your reality. It's always waiting for you tomorrow morning. Like it or not.

Suicide

Suicide is the one thing you don't want anyone to succeed, but then you want succeed when it's you. With suicide, failure is an option. It's called life and living.

Some Days

Some days I don't get very far if anywhere. The day never leaves where I started and I end up going to bed thinking nothing was accomplished, but then some days are meant not to accomplish anything at all, especially when you have the flu like I have this week. A day of doing nothing is better than being very sick.

And that's the good news of the day.

Hardest Fight

My hardest fight every day is fighting the deep-seated, innate bias I seem to have on a variety of issues, like people, things, events, etc. I have to fight to keep them in their box and not externalized toward other people. It's sometime the hardest thing I do.

It's called being human. We all have these deep-seated biases against people, things or events, and the hardest thing we do is to remember there are others who have those same thoughts about and even against us.

The trick is knowing them and not letting them do anything, especially something you will regret. Keep them just what they are deep-seated, far away from any conscious thought. They'll never go away throughout your life, so it will be your eternal fight with and within yourself.

The trick is not letting them out and not letting them control you. That too is being human.

Just Harder

At 63, it's harder to get fit, harder to exercise. It's harder to mentally think and prepare. It's harder to start. It takes more energy to exercise. It's harder to recover when I do exercise. And yet I know it's harder if I don't.

At 63, there isn't any choices anymore that aren't hard, except of course to do nothing. It doesn't really matter, it's both physically and mentally harder not to do nothing. To do anything is harder. But it's all I have, harder or not.

At 63, it's all or nothing, being harder is part of the deal.

What Do You Say

What do you say to a person experiencing depression? Nothing. You listen. You hear what they say. You be there when they want, and sometimes even when they don't want.

You just be their friend. They'll speak when they want. And then you can answer if they ask you a question, but only answer to say you're still there.

That's because someone in the midst of depression doesn't want to listen to anyone or anything. They don't want to talk until they know you won't judge them, you won't try to solve their problem, you won't try to give them advice.

You'll just be their friend.

That's not hard, but it takes patience. Lots of patience and silence. Lots of being there and being friend. Nothing else. They'll thank you later, so don't expect it until they say it.

Not Sure

I'm not sure what is worse than living in a body you hate, not just for the genes you have with which you have to live, but the physical being, the body itself, where there is little you like about it from the time you were a child and other kids frequently teased you or your parents constantly criticized you.

And you hate having Dysthymia, that the rewards center in your brain barely works if it works at all, because most of the time it doesn't. You just don't get excited, you rarely feel even the slightest sense of happiness and then for just a few moments and it's gone.

And you hate not being born, not someone else but something else, always looking at other people and wondering why you aren't better, like them, why you aren't what they are, and most of all why you hate yourself when there's nothing much you can do than you've tried or know what little change you can achieve.

And you hate just being yourself. I'm not sure what's worse.

It Is Simple

It's really very simple these days. On days when I walk my 4-6 miles I feel better physically and mentally, I keep my Dysthymia in check and I am ok with my life. On days when I don't walk, I don't feel good, I don't keep my Dysthymia in check, and I'm not ok with my life.

With all the physical ailments of these last few years and since this summer, I have this choice every day. There's no gray area, no partial answer or decision. It is one or the other. It really is that simple, get better or get worse. Every morning there is that question and those choices.

Rejection

For a child, rejection, whether explicitly expressed or implicity given by their parents, is still rejection. A child doesn't know the difference, they only know the feeling. They only know what it is in its most simple way, rejection.

They know once felt, the damage is done, the rejection by their parents. And the memory never goes away and the emotion scars never heal. The damage is permanent and life long. The rejection as a child stays in the adult for the rest of their life.

What

Years ago before I retired I would wake up early and sit on my deck in the predawn darkness and wonder what will happen and what I'll be and be doing. These years I sit there in the predawn darkness and wonder what happened. What happened these years and what happened to me.

And now, as then, I still have no answers which satisfies or comforts me. I only have the darkness.

Some Days

Some days the only thing I want to do is have a face to face conversation with a big pillow, and not wake up until tomorrow morning.

Nothing Left to Love

It's really very simple with me right now, there's nothing left to love about who I am, what I am and what I want to be. Nothing. The plan I had with the medication to transform my being and life is failing as I can't tolerate the medicine, my body and mind revolts.

The metabolism crashes me into a couch potato and the mind crashes into a mental fog and double depression, meaning depression on top of Dysthymia. Drop the meds and I return to being human.

The body is revolting itself from age. My TMJ is improving but it left my jaw skewed a little and my face a disaster on one side, and ugly all over from the common effects of age, as the old saying, gravity wins all bets against time.

The digestive system is getting better but only if I live on a very restrictive diet and wonder when, what and how much I eat, especially food experiments, which everyone else calls food, will react with my body and the bathroom.

The Siatic nerve isn't getting much better anymore. The lower back hurts as does the upper legs from exercise, carrying or lifting anything, or just sitting for periods of time. The front half of the right leg is still totally numb from above the knee to the ankle.

The Raynaud's Syndrome is alive and well in my fingers and toes. I also got three black toes on each foot last winter-spring from walking to and from town. They haven't gotten much better as the nails die and regrow.

And all of this means, while I'm walking farther now (4-5 miles), I'm not back to where I was over the winter (6+ miles). And my goal to return to running is just a wish as short runs causes my right leg to buckle and hurt.

Yeah, the body is revolting and fighting it takes more effort every day. But it's what I had planned that I know isn't a reality anymore, something I knew from when I was 6. It's never gone away and now may never happen, at least not yet.

I started in the fall of 2006 and expected to be done in 3-5 years. Most people start and finish in 2-3 years and most of the rest in 3-5 years. I know now what I am is what I will be unless I undergo major and expensive changes, none covered by health insurance despite being a medical condition.

So that's my reality most days and some nights when I ponder and wonder what hope is left as there is nothing left to love about me, especially by me.

Fits

Depression is not a sudden disaster. It is more like cancer: At first its tumorous mass is not even noticeable to the careful eye, and then one day—wham!—there is a huge, deadly seven-pound lump lodged in your brain … and this thing that your own body has produced is actually trying to kill you. Depression is a lot like that: Slowly, over the years, the data will accumulate in your heart and mind, a computer program for total negativity will build into your system, making life feel more and more unbearable. But you won’t even notice it coming on, thinking that it is somehow normal … and then one day you realize that your entire life is just awful, not worth living, a horror and a black blot on the white terrain of human existence. One morning you wake up afraid you are going to live … I was not frightened in the least bit at the thought that I might live because I was certain, quite certain, that I was already dead. The actual dying part, the withering away of my physical body, was a mere formality … In the course of life, there is sadness and pain and sorrow, all of which, in their right time and season, are normal—unpleasant, but normal. Depression is in an altogether different zone because it involves a complete absence of affect, absence of feeling, absence of response, absence of interest … the deeply depressed are just the walking, waking dead … There is a classic moment in “The Sun Also Rises” when someone asks Mike Campbell how he went bankrupt, and all he can say in response is, “Gradually and then suddenly.” When someone asks how I lost my mind, that is all I can say too.

— Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel

This fits my life and repeated experiences in the moment you have the sudden realization of the slow accumulation of depression, the weight of life and living overwhelming the body and the mind, and all the effort you can muster won't fend it off, won't keep it away and won't save you.

Only time and the small amount of hope, while thinking of the alternatives, you won't act on them. I'm still here and alive, and I'm still fighting it. As some people do, I always will. It never leaves me alone, it only buries itself in my memory to come back, suddenly as it always does.

It's my, and my others', reality.

Enuf Said

Seeing Myself

If you don't like what you see of yourself in the mirror, why would you like what others see in real life?  If you hate your body, your looks and much of yourself, why would you expect people to like you too?

Yeah, old questions and old psychological issues of self-confidence and self-esteem. But if they're old questions and issues, why are they still present and why are they still alive in some of us? Why do some people always have these questions and issues, throughout their life?

Because they are always real, and nothing changes them to memories.

Wandering Away

There are periods where I mentally wander away from life, and sometimes reality, in that I just exist, just doing the basic things of life and just being a body with a mind which is mostly numb to much beyond existing.

These periods last from a few days to a few weeks. Yes, really, sometimes weeks. This makes for periods where all the best plans get set aside and little if anything of significance gets done. This is large measure a reflection of my genetic, lifelong Dysthymia which becomes a moderate depression.

These periods have become more often and sometimes longer for the last 6 years now since I started a treatment plan for another lifelong issue where both drugs, but one in particular, cause the problems. Without the drugs, nothing happens. With the drugs, my body crashes and my mind wanders away.

I didn't fully realize this until earlier this year when I read the one drugs also excerbates digestive problems such as a bleeding small intestine, which started two years ago. I've had digestive problems for 4-plus years now with no real diagnosis or treatment.

But two years ago the symptoms changed and despite the obviousness of them the Gastroenterologist didn't want to do more tests beyond the basic ones and dismissed the symptoms and me as "age and diet", in short, "Get used to it."

And then the pinched Siactic nerve this last July changed everything again, even the digestive problem where one set of symptoms disappeared and another arose from the situation where it's hard to know what the problems are, except the the one drug which still effects things.

On top of that now the drug has gotten harder to tolerate the more or the longer I use it, to where starting late last year I started taking myself off it for weeks, even months, to get some sense of mental and physical normalcy, only to find restarting it only goes back to where it was and I go back to the mental fog and depression.

And then I have the adjustment period where the body adjusts back to something related to normal but only after other reactions or side effects, but always continuing the depression even after the mental fog clears, to where I want to get things done but just don't feel the interest or energy.

And that's where I'm at right now, waiting while my body comes back out of the withdrawl symptoms and my mind finds itself again, and until then not much is done. I restarted it in late August for a just over a week but quit when I was forgetting things and losing interest in doing anything.

Now, it's just wait and see what happens.

Mental Fog

I wrote about being and feeling emotionally numb recently and after some thought when things cleared this morning I realized it's about the drug I was taking. Well not taking, then taking and so on repeating the cycle of on and off, which I write about here and which I know I should take but don't.

And that's the conundrum, taking the pills which turns my brain and thinking into a fog and my mind and emotions into mush. The drug helps the body for the changes I want but the drug also dumps the body into the couch potato catagory, crashing the metabolism into barely doing, let alone wanting to do, anything.

I've been taking this drug on and off for 6 years now and it wasn't this bad, but slowly the side effects have been getting worse with lower and lower dosage where at the minimum it's the same anymore. My body just doesn't like it and it tells me in no uncertain ways.

I stop thinking, I stop feeling and I stop being. It's a drug of choice but it's also a mandatory drug for the course of treatment to help overcome the condition I have and want to change. I'm taking the second drug in the treatment and its side effects are manageable but only at the near lowest dosage.

So in the end, the effects the drugs are supposed to make and help me change but don't work because I'm not taking high enough dosage to get the change I want and physicians require for the next steps in the treatment.

So it's a stalemate and I'm stuck in between where I hate it worse than before. I can't go back without losing some good things with the drug(s) and then hate myself for not in treatment, and I can't go forward because it causes more problems drugs can't fix.

And I can't complete the treatment, which in turn makes me wonder what all these 6 years have been about and for if I don't do what I want and don't change what I hate about myself then and now. I started the treatment with the expectation to finish in 3-4 years and it's now been 6 years.

It's where I barely started with no end in sight unless I get some other changes in the treatment which requires physicians to change their treatment plan and course. I want it, but they are bound by the treatment protocols, meaning they're also stuck in between too, wanting me to finish but can't help unless something changes.

So it's all a big fog and no one sees let alone knows what to do next. At least for now.

Emotionally Numb

There are periods of days, occasionally week(s) I'm mentally and emotionally numb, and turning 63 this week was one of the periods. While making coffee this morning which I use a 6-cup Melitta coffee maker (left), I was filling the holder, which has the filter and coffee, for the last of the coffee for the pot.

Well, after filling the holder full of hot water I turned to put the kettle back on the stove and knocked the holder over so that all the water and coffee grounds spilled on to the kitchen counter, creating a lake of coffee and grounds.

In past times I would have reacted to stop the coffee from spilling over the sides between the counter and stove and over the front of the counter to the floor and kitchen rug. Sometimes I would yell at myself in my mind, "How stupid can you be?!" Sometimes I would just get to work to clean it up.

But this morning I just stood there looking at it. I wasn't without feeling because numb is a feeling. The absence of a response is a response. And that's what I did, nothing, for minutes except to clean up the spot on my clothes from the splash. I washed the spot then went to the bathroom and used the hair dryer to dry it.

And then went back to just stand there and look at the mess. After awhile I realized it was an easy mess to clean, just move everything, get a big sponge and some paper towels, and all was done and back. I put the kettle back on to heat more water and put the holder over the pot where I added a new filter and 3 scoops of coffee.

I finished making the pot of coffee, but it just struck me I reacted by not reacting. I didn't have any emotion about what happened, not even, "Well, it happened, so let's clean it up." Just nothing, mentally and emotionally numb, and no idea when it will go away. It started over the weekend and is still lingering by my door.

And I don't have a reaction to that either.

Why

If I can never be who and what I want to be, why should I like who and what I am?

Suicide

If suicide isn't the solution many people think and want us to believe, then why do so many people find suicide an answer and a solution when everything else in their life is worse?

Hating Your Body

Hating your body doesn't know age, only the hate gets older and lasts longer.

Change

I want to change what I can't change about myself and my body and I hate what I can change because what I can change doesn't change anything I want to change and what I want to change can't be changed. It's the reality we all live with, whether we like it or hate it. It's what we are and why we hate ourself.

I Want to Eat

I want to eat so bad it hurts. Because I know it would physically hurt so bad I'd be sick for several days. Which is why I want to eat. For the food. For the act of eating. And for the feeling of being full. But I can't. I have to snack during the day on a restricted diet because almost all foods hurt and any quantity above a diet portion hurts more. Which is why I'm hungry all the time.

I hurt mentally because I can't eat and I hurt physically when I do eat. I love seeing, smelling and tasting food. Well, most foods anyway. I don't like a lot of sour or bitter foods. I don't like a lot of strange food. I don't like a lot of spicy foods. Mostly just good basic foods and some types of cuisine.

But all of it is off limits anymore. And that hurts even more. Just the idea of the food hurts because I can't eat it. I love walking through delicatessens, bakeries, cafes with freshly made breakfast and lunch meals. I love sandwiches, hamburgers, potato chips, salads, and so on down the list of great summer foods. I love to barbecue and make roast chicken.

And while it all hurts if I eat it, I still want to eat it. But the hurt is there to always remind me why I want to eat but can't. The love of food and the reality of eating.

Something I Can't Be

Something I can't be is an addict. To be an addict you must have the susceptibility to become one, and that's hardwired in your brain from your genetics or during the pregnancy. It has to do with the reward circuits in the brain which is stimulated by experiences, events, etc. and drugs.

During my Siactic nerve pain I discovered I don't respond to Percocet, which is oxycodone and acetaminophen. It barely dulled the pain and didn't do anything else. I've taken Vicodin before for dental surgery and ended up not taking it too because all it did was made me feel mentally fuzzy and sleepy.

I've never thought much about it until a recent article mentioned that some people don't feel happiness because the reward circuits in their brain don't seem to work or work properly. The article called it a dysfunction, which may be true in some cases where there is damage from some circumstance or event, but isn't necessarily true when it's normal to the individual.

I mean that some people, which may fit those with genetic Dysthymia, have this situation naturally which is normal to them. It's not a dysfunction unless compared to other people, but it's not abnormal to them. It partly explains why antidepressant drugs don't work very well or for very long with Dysthymic people.

The drug may not work and those that work have to keep stimulating the brain when it eventually doesn't respond without higher dosages and then quits responding altogether and a new drug has to be found and tried. It's why I've never taken drugs for my Dysthymia as my initial psychiatrist advised against them.

My psychiatrist then said drugs would be a lifelong affair chasing the one that works for a year or so, maybe two to three if I'm lucky, but always slowly increasing the dosage as the drug's effect fades when the brain doesn't respond, and then it's off it to find another one.

She said about half wouldn't work and the other half would for awhile, only to fade to search for another one, and then repeat this my whole life. That's changed a little since many of the drugs for Dysthymia then were lower dosage of stronger drugs for depression.

That was about the time they discovered for some Dysthymia isn't a temporary situation for some but a permanent condition which is now known to be hardwired in the brain. The reward circuit just doesn't work the same for some people. And while they've come up with drugs more suitable for this form of Dysthymia, but it's still the same cycle of drug to response.

And they all have significant side effects, some of which exacerbate the person's Dysthymia because the side effects worsen the situation or condition the person hates, such as their body (lethargy, weight gain, eating, etc.), mind (thoughts, feelings or emotions), or their circumstance (family, job, etc.).

It's also why all the pain-killing drugs with "good" side effects and all the recreational drugs don't work for me. I don't get the response and don't get the addiction to wanting the response. My brain simply doesn't respond because it can't respond, and therefore I can't become addicted.

And yes, in my younger days I tried a few drugs, and found marijuana fun but mostly because it made me hungry a lot, the munchy reaction. I quit it eventually because there was more things to do than sit around stoned with the munchies. I tried mescaline, which did work since it effects a different part of the brain.

There was a hallucinogenic effect, some wild ones at that with the 6-12 hour dosage, but again, nothing to become addicted to it. And no I wouldn't try any of them again. No reason and no interest, and only it reaffirms I couldn't be an addict if I tried, my brain won't let me.

My brain, which is my enemy many times and also my saving grace a few times too.

Misunderstanding

This is not true. I won't argue the idea of suicide is debateable, especially if you have been near committing it and know it's not true, or you haven't even had any thoughts of it and don't understand anyone who has been there. Why?

It's simple. The emptiness isn't empty. It's full, even overflowing and always overwhelming, to the point everything seems too much; too complex to even see the parts let alone the whole, too convoluted to be understood, and too intricate to be solved. Life. Their life.

There is no empty. And the calm only comes when they have an answer, all to often what we fear and what they feel is right. That is our misunderstanding, not theirs. They didn't fail, we fail(ed) them, to grasp what's inside them, their thoughts, their emotions, their feelings, and in the end, their solution.

Why

Why is it that "normal" people define what and who is abnormal? Why do we assume "normal" people are normal? Don't we alll have our problems, issues, phobias, and the like? Don't we all have some types or forms of dysfunction within ourself and with others? Don't we all have some type and level of personality disorder?

So why do they get to define who we are and what is wrong with us? Aren't we all normal in our own way? And isn't defining normal a type of social control, deciding who in our society is good and who is sick? Why do we let them call us abnormal? And why do we accept their labels of abnormality?

I won't argue there are people with mental problems which requires intervention or help. But I'll argue the DSM is bloated with in invented disorders which aren't abnormal, just people who are themselves and different than others, but then we're all different from each other in many ways and different from the many in small ways.

In the end, it's just the simple question, what is normal?

Memories

Why are bad memory never lost, just forgotten, to appear in our consciousness when we least expect them and least want them? When we're least ready to face them, and try as we can or must, we can't lose them or forget them. They stand there demanding our attention until we're overwhelmed.

And then, when they're satisfied to be alive again, they fade from all the hurt they leave in our mind and our heart. Old wounds opened deeply and violently to the core of our soul, bleeding our spirit until it's empty from the hurt and pain. Our thoughts and feeling exhausted.

And as suddenly as they came they fade leaving their shadow over us as a reminder.

Being Bored & Food

Being bored is not a reason to eat. Trust me, been there, done that all too often. And don't we always hate ourself more after we eat to know this truth?

If

If you could be somebody else, but in becoming that person you would forget who you were and why you wanted to be someone else and that being someone else you had a whole new set of feelings and emotions about yourself, not all of them good because it comes with the new person, would you still want to be someone else?

What I want

What I want sometimes is to believe what I think and feel is right. But I know it's not true. So why do I still believe it?

Death

Death is the way to leave life we wanted to leave long before but were afraid to leave sooner by our own hand.

Hate

Why do we think hate is a bad thing except when we point it at ourself?

What's in Between

Being born and dying aren't choices. The space and time in between is a choice To live or not. To be alive or just exist until we die.

Do?

Do skinny people hate themselves for being skinny and not being better as much as I hate myself for being fat and not being able to lose the fat because nothing has and can change it?

A Life

This is the only life you'll have. The only life you'll ever know. It's yours, no one else's. A life never before and never again. So, what if you don't like your life and yourself? What choices do you have? And what choice will you make? Or will you just exist until you die? Knowing you hated every minute of it?

The Grand Canyon

Who I see myself as and what I want to be is so distant from who I really am there is a grand canyon between them no bridge could span the distance in my lifetime or years I could spend making them meet. I can only stand on the south rim looking at the north rim wanting so much to be there and yet knowing I never will.

Not even falling into the abyss of the canyon, fording the flooding river of thoughts, feelings and emotions, and climbing to the other rim, higher than the one I left, will get me there. It is the reality of my existence and the question is accepting that reality or not, and if not, following the path into the abyss, not knowing what is ahead or even if I'll get over to the other rim.

That's the choice, standing there on the south rim looking north, what I am to what I want to be.

Forever Hiding

When you hide within yourself all your life, how will you know who you are when you decide to quit hiding? When you've driven yourself so deeply into yourself you don't even know if you can find yourself, and when you think you do, how will you know it's you? Do you think you can even know?

What's been driving the hiding all these years, your whole life? Fear, hate, anger, no self-respect or self-confidence? What? What does it take to overcome the reasons and forces keeping the hiding? And is forever a lifetime, to death, to realize it was all for naught?

A Time

There comes a point in time in your life when you realize your past is just that, no matter what you think of it or how you would like to change it if only in your mind. It is and there is nothing you can do but keep it and live with it. It's yours, no one else's, not necessarily unique in most ways, but unique in a few that's yours, only because of being yourself then as you are now.

And at that point in time, when you realize it's all you have, your past. What then? If you hate it? If you hate yourself? What do you say then? It can't be undone or be different. It can't be relived? It can't be anything other that what it was and your are because of it. Hate it all you want, you can't disown it without disowning yourself.

Are you ready for that? And if not, what?

Hopefulness

Sometimes, when all feels lost or overwhelming, hope is all we have, and sometimes that hope is only the hope we'll find the hope for something better, just hope, and sometimes that's all we can hope for, hope itself.

A Little Every Day

We die a little every day, some days more than most, and a day closer to our death.

Things

Put what's important in front of you and put everything else somewhere else, preferably in dark places you'll forget where they are until it's necessary or becomes important.

Why

Why do people say it's what inside you, who you are, that matters, and then judge you by what's outside, what you look like?

Before & After

A psychiatrist once wrote, "Up to being 18 you can blame your parents for who you are. After 18, you can only blame yourself." I don't have an excuses, let alone any reasons for anything since I turned 18. Who does except just guessing? Is that why we always say in response to why we said or did something, "I don't know."?

Interesting Thought

"Everything Passes", even your own life. It's what's in the passing that matters, however it happens, whether we like or want it or not. Choice is not ours, we simply are passengers.

What If

If knowing this, what would you think?
What would you say to yourself?
What would you do?

There are days

There are days all I want to do is have a face-to-face conversation with a pillow.

Demons

We live with our demons, and sometimes they demand our attention.

Not Losing

Today I had my routine appointment with my therapist in Seattle and on the drive home I realized sometimes it's not about winning but simply not losing. We always seem to want or strive to win every mental or emotional battle. It's our nature, and when we're overwhelmed, we discover, in the most stark way, the reality, our reality, we can't win and won't win no matter how hard we fight.

And with enough of these battles, I come to the realization it's sometimes not about winning, but just not losing. It's what I call treading (mental) water when and where I can simply just exist and hope our demons find their way back into my memory for awhile, to stay quiet long enough, just long enough, to stay sane.

And just maybe find some modicum of happiness about myself, about life and about being alive. About being alive enough to stay alive, not wanting to lose. Sometimes winning isn't about actually winning, it's about not losing.

Sometimes

"Sometimes the future looks better not being there."

Sometimes

To borrow a thought about what I often think, "I dream of angels but I live with demons."

Why He Got it Wrong

I read today's column in the Tacoma News Tribune by Brian O'Neil about suicide, and while I agree with him on some issues about and involving suicide, he misses the mark on several points, at least from my perspective.

I won't argue suicide is a social stigma, both for the families who lost members to it and to those who survived attempts. If you suffer depression to the point where suicide is an option and a choice, then it's a burden to walk around with the weight of it and fear admit thinking or feeling about it.

Depression itself is not a stigma. The stigma is that you can't mention to anyone, even privately, that you suffer from it, or you'll often be ostracized by your family and friends, find they see you and act around you differently, and always fear they might catch it. Sorry, folks, it's not contagious.

And it's certainly a career ender if your boss finds out, if you still have a job. Mention it at work even in the slightest regard and you can kiss your career goodbye if you plan to get promotions because bosses always misinterpret it as the inability to function and especially manage or supervise. You learn silence.

That said, Mr. O'Neil's essay fails on several fundamental ideas about suicide. First, he states, "If we were to be honest, the act of self-destruction is repellant to us for two basic reasons: It is a violation of both our primal sense of self-preservation and the moral principles which mold our personal and religious views."

He's obviously never been close enough or depressed enough to ponder suicide, let alone consider it an option and a choice. And as such he has no right to judge others based on his opinion of it. He's not them, he's not me, and without the experience of being severely depressed to consider it or survived it, he's wrong to make that statement.

Second, and more important, he states, "In reality, suicide is a fatal symptom of a number of mental or emotional disorders." He's not a psychiatrist or psychologist to call suicide a disorder. Perfectly normal people, and even very intelligent people, commit suicide, and many other are just depressed and don't suffer mental or emotional disorders.

In short, he's calling it a stigma while calling to remove the stigma. Asking for humane treatment for people severly depressed to consider suicide, or attempt it, while labelling them with a mental disorder isn't helpful to the discussion. He's typical of those asking for compassion and understanding for those who suffer while hating them because they suffer.

We have become a society that likes to label anyone outside a narrow set of "normal" condition abnormal, or worse, someone with mental problems or disorders. And all he seems to be doing is giving sympathy than humanity, suggesting we need to help them, not because they just depressed but because they're mentally sick.

Depression is only a mental or emotional disorder if you buy the DSM-IV and buy into their philosophy about who's normal and who's abnormal. Depression is a normal human condition which happens to everyone in their life. No one is immune, only the degree and their ability to survive.

We can't keep expressing sympathy from a pulpit with one hand while condemning them as abnormal with the other hand. You give help with both hands without judgment, prejudice and, more so, sanctimony. Offering help while calling them abnormal or labelling them with a stigma isn't help.

This is why the "It Gets Better" campaign is stupid. It doesn't get better, it gets different. And it's not abnormal, it's not a stigma, or a mental or emtional disorder. It's just human beings being human.

And argue all you want, it's part of the human psyche at some moments in a life to be depressed enough to ponder suicide and make it an option, and yes, a choice. That's because simply talking someone out of it doesn't change their life, it only prolongs their state of mind and life.

And that's the problem, the state of their life. Solve that and the depression slowly fades, maybe, as we know for some it's persistent through periods of their life if not their entire life. But for most it will fade if their life improves first, not their state of mind.

Trying to change their mind doesn't change their life, the experiences, conditions and situations which initiated and is creating the depression. If they still have to live with those conditions or in those situations, rarely does help work for them. You don't treat the depression and their thoughts of suicide, you treat the person and their life.

And above all else, never judge them and never call them abnormal or wrong. The stigma is a person's prejudice and discrimination. Not the other person. And that's the point Mr. O'Neil misses, don't feign sympathy in the name of empathy. It's obvious and doesn't help, only adds to the pain and hurt.

It's not about saying, "I'm here to prevent you from committing suicide." It's about saying, "I'm here to understand and help your life." Then you can treat the person and their depression. Then they can slowly walk away from the thoughts and feelings of suicide. Make their life better, their state of mind will change, and yes, that will get better.

This is what is missed, depression isn't the disorder or the disease, it's the result of their experience, condition or situation, their life. That's what we need to treat. This is what Mr. O'Neil finally gets at the end, but still mistates it, "We need to do a better job understanding the causes, put more resources into treating the symptoms and find a way to keep people from deciding that suicide is an option."

It will always be an option and a choice at times. It's about the individual accepting it and just not choosing it. For some, they'll spend their life living with it, always there reminding them, always there to become a choice. Only they can decide not to choose it, we can't teach them, but we can help them if they know our help is help, without reservations or judgement.

If that's when Mr. O'Neil is talking about, then I agree with him, but I didn't see or read it in his words.

The Easiest Thing

The easiest thing is to hate yourself. To blame yourself for everything. For everything that has happened to you, everything you are and everything you did, even if it wasn't your fault or your doing. To believe it's you, no one else and nothing else, not even for a moment. It's you because you don't need anyone else, only yourself.

To shame yourself into thinking, knowing and believing you are the one who is the source of all your anger and hate about yourself, all the hate and anger with yourself, and all the hate and anger at yourself. No one else. Only you and just you. Shame is what you give yourself, blame is what you tell yourself, and hate is what you verbally abuse and beat yourself.

You don't need or want anyone else. You just want to shrink away and hide. To sit in the darkness not wanting, and even afraid, to turn on the light to know you are the only one there, the one you hate. The easiest thing in the world.

Isn't Going to Happen

When you're young you can talk about what you'd like to do or be when you get older, but when you get older and you're still talking about what you want to do or be, it isnt' going to happen. There is point in your life when you realize your life is what it is and it isn't going to change much until your life isn't anymore.

I love to read print Sunday newspapes. I buy the Tacoma News Tribune, the Seattle Time and the New York Times. I'd buy the Washington Post and others but they're not available here, let alone Sunday when I got to Starbucks to get them and my doppio con panna (double espresso with whipped cream, yummy stuff).

And I love the travel and style magazine with the NY Times Magazine to see all the places I could visit or live, both of which I'd like to do, but both of which I know won't happen for a number of reason, least of all is money. After spending all of my youth traveling and moving so often as the youngest in a family of an Air Force officer, I found a home here and haven't moved since.

I sat down and counted that I've lived in twelve different places in 7 different states or countries by the time I was 18, after which I was kicked out and then lived in 12 different places in 6 different states until I was 40 when I moved to Washington where I settled down and never have moved since. I suspect I have one more move left as eventually the owners will evict everyone to replace the building, originally built in 1969.

The problem is that I dont' have the money anymore to afford a move, partly why I haven't moved since you never recover the cost of any move, and partly because I love where I live, it's large and open with a big view of the southeast with Narrows Strait in the foreground and Mt. Rainier in the background.

I tell folks I don't have to go outside to enjoy the outside, it's right out the windows where I can see everything or sit on the deck and enjoy the fresh air, my many plants and the quiet of the neighborhood (most go to work leaving it quiet during the daytime). And I can always just open and the doors and windows to let the wind and air into the place to clear everything out.

But I've always wanted to find a place I want to die. This place isn't it, but I haven't found it either, and I'm not sure I will find it. For many, really almost all, of us, we don't die when and where we most want to be. Very few of us die where we want to find our last moments. The choice often isn't ours anymore, but others, usually family, medical people or government folks.

Which is why I keep looking, why I keep hoping, and why I keep wanting to find the last place I want to live and quietly find my last moments. That's not to say if circumstances were bad enough that death was an immediately reality I haven't found a place to just sit and die, out of sight of everyone wanting to intervene. I have and will never tell anyone.

But it's where I want to live quietly these last years enjoying life. Everywhere in the world is frought with problems and issues, usually economic or financial where living there would cost more than here and most likely beyond my means, meaning my annuity and savings. So until I find that place, here I live, a place I enjoy life, just not die.

But moving to that best place likely isn't going to happen, not in my lifetime. Well, maybe, because you just never know.

Putting Yourself Down

My favorite hobby is putting myself down. Comparing myself to others and comparing my accomplishments, or more so the lack of them, to those of others. I learned it when I was a kid when my parents pounded it into me, as well as my siblings, long and often, always making the other sibling and others better than each of us.

I've never understood why some parents to that, but then often it's what they learned, what they experienced and the only thing they know. That's what spouses and parents are about, replicating our families when we were young. Men often pick their wife to be their mother, or the opposite for some, and women often pick their husband to be their father or the image of them in their mind.

And if we've been subjected to that since we were very young, then it becomes ingrained, almost hardcoded in our mind where we do it when our parents aren't around and even when our parents are gone from life. It's what we know, sometimes it's all we know and it's hard to change.

Hard not just to be comfortable and satisfied with what we have done, how our life has turned out, and it's easy to put ourself down and feel like a failure. It always lurks in the shadow of our mind, ever present in our consciousness, and never ceasing to remind us about other, about ourself and who's better. Not us.

I often think this is what causing people to follow a life of self-destruction. Like that new or news, but I saw it in my brother and feel it in myself all too often. I've never lost the feeling and my Dad, when he was alive and we talked after he kicked me out, reminded me of it everytime.

And now with the Internet, it's so easy to find people who appear to be doing better, doing more and having a better life than me. It's so easy to feel you've failed, failed yourself in what you could achieve. It's like the person who asked the inventor about his new product, "How good is it?", and the inventor said, "Compared to what?'

We're the inventor of our own life, and we always keep asking ourself the same question about ourself and our life, "Compared to what?" That's we do. It's what's embedded in American culture, comparing, judging and proclaiming what or who's better or worse. We are a part of it and we do it too.

To ourself and our life. And all of the self-help books, programs, etc. don't and won't work. They only make it obvous to ourself and only makes it harder to overcome the thoughts and feelings. Those books, interviews, all of it, only reminds us and reinforces what we already think and feel.

We are what they teach us not to be or do. We are their examples. We are their stories which don't have good endings. And we their failures as our own failure. We try and have our moments, but the prevailing feeling and thought is failure. Pounded into us from when we first heard from our parents.

And in the end, we will likely say at best our life of ok, because in the end, it really doesn't matter what we think or feel anymore. There isn't any more to feel or think ourself a failure. It's the same end everyone faces no matter their life or how they thought or felt about it. We all just end with ok.

Some Days

Some days when I wake up I feel like the words I read once, "A bowl of oatmeal stared me down and won."

And Some days when I've been writing, editing and updating Web pages on my Mt. Rainier NP photo guide all day I feel by the evening the only thing I want to do is have a face to face conversation with a pillow, to sleep and dream. Today is one of them.

Being Obsolete

I like to see the current state of consumer technology, especially electronics and music systems. That's not to say I follow it obsessively or even more than casually. I just like to see what's there and where it's going. But as we know and see more quickly the progress in technology comes at a price, obsolescene, not just what you have and use, but what and who you are. Yes, we become and are obsolete.

That's not new in our culture and society. It's as old a bosses decided to fire or retire older employees, not so much to save money but they found younger ones better, or at least in their mind, neglecting the experience and wisdom of older employees. We're just not progress anymore when new is the operative word.

And it's as old as family shuffled the elderly family members into corners of their life. And it's as old as some who just wandered away from the mainstream to find themselves living in isolation from the world. We've seen the many stories and we know the many people, and most of all we fear our own obsolescence, real and inevitable.

And it's not new it's a progression through one's life. The young generally want the new and the older cherish the old. We go with what we know and what new we can learn and master. Everything else just isn't important, even people. But what's important isn't what you keep personally important as you get older, it's how you see it relative to you, your life and the world.

It's about meaning. Meaning in a person's life, to them, to their world and the world itself. What the young don't realize and know is what older people already have experienced and know. We are all obsolete, it's only relative to when and how much, and at the rate of progress of technology, it's only going quicker and faster. The young will see in their 30's what we, the older generations (in my 60's), saw in 40's and beyond.

I collected vinyl records from the early 1960's, mostly my brother's but some mine, but not seriously until I was in the service and bought my first stereo. Vinyl lasted well into the 1990's when CD's became mainstream replacing vinyl. In the years of vinyl records, tapes of all sorts of size, speed, format came and went, but only really studio master tapes survived along with Digital Audio Tapes (DAT's) for copying and distribution.

This meant the standard audio stereo system was basically intact from the 1950's through the 1990's and even into the first decade of the 21st century. The improvements in technology was still around the basic idea of a stereo system, only the technology and quality of the components changed. My stereo is still intact but pretty much little used anymore outside the amplifiers to power the speaker system.

I say little used because now almost everything is run through my Mac computer. My turntable, an AR-X, yes, an audio antique but a great one, is still used as I'm putting my 700 vinyl records into iTunes via Vinyl Studio application . The two studio DAT decks and two CD (one CD-RW and one CD-R) aren't used except to keep them working as all my CD's are in iTunes

I added an Apple Airport express to connect the Mac to the stereo's amplifiers and added a Internet radio application (Radium), replacing the tuner, to stream any FM radio station to the Mac and the stereo which controls the speakers through the home. And while I haven't decided what to do with the little used components, as there is no market for them anymore, it only shows how obsolete really great audio equipment can become in the face of progress and technology.

And it goes to show how easily we can and do become obsolete by just being who we are. We can't stand still anymore, because if you do, you'll be obsolete real fast, and it doesn't matter anymore how old you are. Something the younger generations are learning. Feeling old isn't about being old. Not anymore. And being obsolete isn't either.

The Sunrise

The only real thing I'll miss in death is the sunrise, for it is the only true thing in life, to know it will always come and the day will always be there, for whatever I want to do. It's it the only real thing that tells me I'm still alive. It is always different, every morning like life, my life, and whatever happens in the day.

Mental Rainy Days

Today is a mental rainy day. And beside it's a typical winter day in western Washington, namely on and off rain showers and lots o' clouds. Did I mention clouds and rain, like all day? Well, maybe a sun break or two later, but that's a maybe and only a glance through the cloud cover.

But that said, some days are like that for me where I just lounge around and putter doing small things. It's like the mental and emotion well being inside my head is being pelted with rain and clouds dampening any sunshine that I might think or feel. I've learned to just skate through these days doing small things.

The sweeping the floor philosophy in Buddhism. Pay attention to those small things that need attention but don't demand much energy, throught or emotion. Just trudge onward through the day. Some days I feel just good enough to focus on thoughts to write on my blogs, like this one. The thoughts just happen in my mind and writing is just what happens to get them out.

And some days I don't, occasionally becoming a couch potato watching reruns of Law & Order and CSI shows which don't require a lot of thought but at least have some plot. Those days I usually end up doing chores around the place because to see it clean and organized makes one (aka me) feel a little better at the end of the day having accomplished something useful.

Otherwise, it's just a day, overcast, gray, and rain showers with the occasional sun break for a moment. Both outside (with a big southeast facing window) and inside my mind. Sometimes it's the best I can do and the best to do. Tomorrow will come and today will be just a forgotten day. Well, except for the smal things I got done.

With All Due Respects

I read a recent article in the NY Times Science Section, "Depression Defies the Rush to Find an Evolutionary Upside", by Dr. Richard A. Friedman (his Website). Well, he attacks evolutionary biologists who suggest depression has some beneficial aspect, but fails in some respects.

First, he supports pharmacological (drug) solutions to depression, including conducting clinical trials for drug companies, which he doesn't seem to inform the reader his bias from the outset of the article. Second, he generalizes from studies conducted evolutionary biologists which is exactly what he criticize others for their criticism of clinical and drug therapies for depression.

But mostly he forgets the obvious, depression is part of the human expression and experience which has been a part of human evolution, and to push a position that we shouldn't have it because it not essential to modern times doesn't make sense. In short, we should all be happy and if you're not, then try drugs to make you happy? Ok, overstatement, but it's at the heart of his argument.

He discounts studies showing depression helps people be better judges in some situation, especially deception. Studies have shown slightly depressed or Dysthymic people are often better judges of reality where "happy" people tend to overemphasize the positive side of situations or circumstance, often leading to problems or failure.

He dismisses studies that depressed people have often had periods of creativity, sometimes great as noted by the list of writers who frequently or often had periods of moderate to severe depression, and recovery has hurt that creativity. Depression changes your view of life, and he ignores the many who have benefited from it.

He dismisses that studies which show Dysthymic people are often the most leveled headed, realistic people, seeing the greater complexity of issues and many possible directions to question, investigate and solve issues or problems. In short they're often self-contained brain-stormers doing more than many teams of people because they see the many sides.

He dismisses the many benefits of Dysthymia and depression, to suggest that the inherit benefits aren't necessary to society and culture. He's an advocate for anyone feeling depressed and especially clinically depressed to seek help and especially seek drugs to overcome their depression, and not seeking to see the benefits of it.

I won't argue his points that people suffering moderate and especially severe depression should seek help and especially if they're having thoughts of suicide. I won't agree that drugs are the solution to suicide, often one of the various types of conversational therapy is better and drugs should be the last resort, at least in my mind.

The reasons are that all drugs aren't effective for all people, usually about 50% , all drugs aren't always effective for those it does work, usually to some degree of effectiveness and taking time to work, where the individual is left wondering when and how much it will help, and all drugs eventually lose their effectiveness requiring an increasing dosage or a new drug.

Anyway, it's a complex issue. The writer tries to reduce it to simplicity and only succeeds in expressing an opinion than establishing any answers. So why does he make the point? Well, maybe just to complain. Like that's helpful? Not to me.