Depression

Hi, I'm Star. And since June, I have been battling depression and anxiety.

This is kind of a big deal for me to write. I don't like admitting negatives about myself. I don't like seeking help. I am independent to a fault. And I certainly don't like admitting that something was wrong with me. I hold my own shit down. I'm tough like that.

Except when I'm not.

Depression and anxiety are dark and dismal things that I have fought before. For a very, very long time I was victorious in removing them from my life. And then I no longer was.

This is the first instance of this variety where I thought I would truly need medication to fix myself. I didn't wind up getting on anything, but I quite frankly should have. I was in a very dangerous place for way too long. Pride didn't prevent me from seeking qualified help, but lack of money did. Instead of medication I drank too much and ate too much crap and behaved stupidly and loathed myself. I wouldn't advise it - I imagine Prozac is much nicer.

There were days where everything was all wrong and I was unable to find joy in a single thing that I saw. These were the worst. Not even my children could make me happy. Getting out of bed was a struggle. Existence seemed so wearying. There were days where I could function for normally for hours and then be brought to my figurative knees with crushing waves of sadness for everything and everyone on Earth. I spent two hours one night crying over global warming, and while I do love the Earth, that was completely and totally abnormal. For a month straight I cried myself to sleep nightly. Please understand that there was nothing that occurred in my life that was so incredibly, incurably traumatic that any of this was necessary. Although I went through some rough patches this year, these are not normally things that would have done this to me. Other episodes of depression happened at much more logical times, so it all still confuses me. I want to find logical reasons for feeling this way, and yet there really weren't any.

I believe that I am through the worst now. I am not saying I never get moments of anxiousness or unexpected sadness, but I can feel normal things now too. I find beauty in life again, and I can face problems without feeling like they're all insurmountable and wretched. I am no longer faking it when I act like I am tough and confident - I actually feel tough and confident again. I had a few friends who went above and beyond to throw life rafts to my sinking ship, and I thank them more than they can imagine. Although I did not contemplate suicide during this, I still feel as though you saved my life by reminding me that I am important and valuable even when I am a wreck. Thanks for listening through the incoherent crying and trying to discern what the fuck was wrong with me. Thanks for reminding me that it all gets better.

If you are suffering with depression, temporary, long term, whatever, please know that it does get better. And the world is a more wonderful place with you in it, even if you don't realize it right now. And if you have the chance, take the damn drugs. You're not a hero for getting through it without them.

Words

I punched the fridge. it's ok - it's not a rental, but our fridge in the rental. So I didn't destroy anything that could cost me money. So that's good. On the negative side, I definitely have no insurance and a swollen, numb hand. That part is less awesome.

I show my appliances tough love.

What does loyalty mean to you, my reader? What about love? How's that one go? 'Cuz, let me tell you, neither of those two things is going too swell for me right now.

I don't want to sound emo, or like I'm complaining. I mean, I kind of am both, but, quite honestly, I'm just done with it right now. I'm too jaded to spend too long caring right now. I'm too broken to believe and hope today.

I'm pretty pragmatic about love. I don't expect a fairy tale. I don't expect a dozen roses and a white knight and a rescue. I can rescue myself. I expect companionship and shared interests and the ability to grow with someone. I don't expect that we will always grow in the same patterns or ways, just that we will encourage and support the growth of each other. I expect someone that I can laugh with, and be stupid around. I expect someone who has my back. I expect someone to be secure enough about themselves and in themselves to let me be me and I'll return the favor. I expect a partner.

Maybe I am asking too much.

I feel like I am the flaw somehow here. Like there is something missing in me that doesn't inspire these things. I don't know.

Tonight I'll do schoolwork and tuck my baby in bed and cry and consider drinking and then think better of it. I'll shower off the makeup and grime of the day, and I'll go to bed, and I'll try to silence the rhetoric in my head. And maybe tomorrow this will all make sense and I won't feel so incredibly alone and beaten down.

I'll get through another day. And eventually I'll make sense.

Musing

So those of you who have read my blogs for awhile know that I used to be over 300 pounds. I was also pretty vastly unattractive for 90% of my pubescent years. I was the chubby girl with terrible hair (thanks, many poodle-y perms!) from, oh, fifth grade to probably freshman year in high school. And I was still chunky then, I just happened to make a friend who convinced me to ditch the perms and wear semi-cute clothes. High school mostly remained a sea of feeling shitty about myself, though. I'm not complaining about this, readers. I don't think anyone has a fantastic high school experience. Hell, one of the people I thought had the time of her life in high school has since mentioned that she hated herself then and felt pretty uncomfortable.

Anyways, I gained a lot of weight in high school, and then even more after that. Part of it was legitimate medical reasons - I was on a lot of steroids for asthma for a long time and I pretty much ate everything in sight - but the majority of it was eating a bunch of awful food - made easier by the fact that I pretty much always ate fast food, since I was broke and that's where I worked.

I made noises for years about wanting to lose weight and such, but I never really did anything about it. I'd eat healthy for four seconds or work out sporadically and then be annoyed when, magically, weight didn't roll right off of me. Because that's totally reasonable to think, yeah?

I'd pretty much resigned myself to being the fat girl forever. It's very strange to not be any more.

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't go back to 300+ pounds for anything, and I enjoy being a healthy size. But it's still really surreal. When I look at pictures of myself, I get confused sometimes because I appear thinner in them than I see myself as. If I gain back anything over 5 pounds, I freak out a little bit. When I go clothes shopping, I have a hard time shopping the right size. Sometimes, I feel like an imposter in those sections. Like the other people looking there are wondering why I'm in that section, as I am clearly too large for it.

It's kind of a mind fuck.

People calling me hot is strange, too. I mean, quite frankly, I decided forever ago that I was attractive and then just acted the part. If other people didn't think so, well, fuck them. I was sexy as hell and they could get over it. My self esteem is not an issue. I'm just not used to so many people agreeing with it. Sometimes I find myself slightly irked by it, like, "Hey, I'm pretty sure you knew me before, and I was JUST AS COOL THEN. Really, the excess poundage made that impossible for you to see? What the hell?"

When I'm more practical, I realize that people can't really help what they are or are not attracted to, and I should really stop seeing that as a personal offense, since it's obviously not.

I don't really know how to end this blog. It's really just kind of a stream of consciousness at this point. STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESSES DON'T HAVE PAT ENDINGS, Y'ALL.

"Hear you me my friends"

This morning, I had never heard of Troy Davis.

My first indication that he existed was a Tweet about him. I only went on Twitter, mind you, to escape the annoyingness of Facebook's changes.

Please note: I have been a feverent believer in the death penalty for a long time. You do something awful, there's no shadow of a doubt, you should die.

So I started looking up the facts of Troy Davis's case skeptically. I read, all day, various different sources and accounts and such about him and his case. And what I read disturbed me.

Davis was convicted of killing an off duty cop in 1991. There was eyewitness testimony. This was the basis of his conviction.

Except that many witnesses signed affidavits stating that they were coerced into police into providing the testimonies. Seven recanted - many were illiterate, in prison, or teenagers when their testimony sent Davis to Death Row. Nine people stated that it was the other suspect who had actually killed the police officer. There was no physical evidence.

You see, justice isn't supposed to fail. We're not supposed to kill people when things like this happen. The justice system is supposed to correct these kinds of errors in appeals. Or they aren't supposed to happen at all.

And yet at 11:08pm EST, after being denied a stay, Troy Davis was executed. His death is a tragedy and a travesty. There was too much doubt to make his execution right, just or good. I don't know what kind of a man he was at his core. I will not call him a hero or perfect or beyond reproach. But I do not believe we had enough evidence to brand him a murderer, or to take his own life.

And so tonight I sit, weeping for someone I have never met, someone who may have died at the hands of the people as a total innocent. And I find myself reevaluating my stance on the death penalty. Because how many other Troy Davises are out there? How many other people are poor or minorities and can't get a fair shake at things?

Even one innocent life lost at the hands of the system is too cruel of a price.

Tonight, I am asking all of my friends to look at The Innocence Project. It's getting some heavy traffic tonight and may be slow to load. But they help wrongly convicted people be exonerated. It's a worthy and good cause.

RIP Troy Davis. "The incident that night was not my fault. I did not have a gun. I did not personally kill your son, father or brother. I am innocent. Look deeper into this case, so you can really find the truth. For those who are about to take my life, may god have mercy upon your souls and may god bless your souls."

May angels lead you in.

Sleep

Hi, I'm Star, and I have not slept more than 4 uninterrupted hours in about two years now.

My kid, you see, thwarted that at the end of my pregnancy, and continues to thwart it by night nursing like constantly.

Sleep and I are also at an odds. I mean, I've read all the studies. I know I'm, like, prematurely aging myself and probably inviting coronary disease and all sorts of nonsense by not sleeping enough (I average like six hours a night.) And my body wants sleep. Desperately.

But sleeping feels like something that's a luxury. Once I wake up, I can't nap or anything. Feels irresponsible. I've got shit to do, y'all. Also, I like doing things. I want to get my tasks for the day completed and then I want to have some time FOR ME. Frivolous time, where I do what I want. And that doesn't include sleeping. Especially not with a baby starfish who manages to take up 90% of my bed WHEN SHE'S NOT EVEN TWO.

Why is she still in my bed, you ask? Please refer back to waking up half the night to nurse. I could night wean her, but from my limited attempts, I can already tell that this is going to be a particularly awful brand of utter and complete hell. If I can roll over and nurse her and dose off, SO much better than getting out of bed to actually nurse her and put her somewhere else. I'm lazy!
But my freaking god, I would cut someone for 8 uninterrupted, non-bed-hogged hours.

I'm better than Hallmark at greeting cards. Sort of.

When I moved to Missouri, one of the things I loved were the old plantation house looking places. You see, I'm this huge nerd for Gone With the Wind (the book - I've never seen the whole movie because my devotion to the book is that slavish) and they made me think of how I pictured her plantation and those around it.

There's one architectural feature that I especially love about those homes, and it is the columns on the porches. I love those. I know not a damn thing about architecture, but those columns always seemed full of such beauty and strength and grace. It felt like, they, singlehandedly, held up that entire damn house. The elements don't bother those columns at all. They thumb their nose at the wind and rain and baking down sun. "I got this," they say. "You can't make me fall. I'm holding up a motherfucking house here." And they continue on in their quiet strength, making the world a more structurally sound place.

A few years ago, I worked for a publishing company. There I met this chick. And I was, in typical fashion, a smart ass. She tossed back an equally sarcastic remark to me like it was nothing. And I've adored her ever since.

You, my dear friend, are a column on a plantation house. You are gorgeous and amazing and you bear burdens that would cripple most people and you do it like it's nothing. You are brilliant and hilarious and you are always putting other people first. You humble everyone around you with your awesomeness. Never underestimate your impact on the world. You make it a better place for everyone who knows you.

And on this day, your birthday, you deserve hearts and flowers and sunshine and roses. Or maybe horses and motorcycles. Whatever is your fancy.

I hope it is grand. Happy birthday, Atina.

Limits

I am not a person who does things by halves, generally. If I get in a mood to, say, extensively clean my house, I will be on my hands and knees scrubbing tiles with a toothbrush. If I love you, I would pretty much do anything short of homicide for you. And if I genuinely hate you (not an emotion I truly feel often,) you should probably pray we never meet in a dark alley.

Running is hard for me. My normal, me-like inclination is to go balls out on it. Run like demons are chasing me. Run hard enough that I can't think of anything but my feet on the pavement. Fast and hard.

Running is not a balls out exercise. It's something where you have to know when to push yourself and when to throttle back. I am amazing at pushing myself; I am awful at throttling back. Especially since part of why I like running is the fact that it does push the thoughts out of my head. The faster I run, the more that happens.

But I am just starting, really, and I have to learn to be patient, too. Another virtue I lack.

I really look forward to the day that I can maintain the pace that I want. Until then, I work on knowing my limits.