The Bloggess

This post won’t be funny or entertaining but it’s honest and sometimes that’s all I have. I’ve been in a depression for bit. I thought I was sick and maybe I am and it caused the depression or maybe I was depressed enough that it looked like illness, and the terrible thing about depression mixed with chronic illnesses is that it’s often really impossible to tell if you’re dying of some disease or if you want to die because of another. This is not a cry for help. I’m 100% safe, I promise. But I’m safe because I know my limitations and because I’m lucky enough to have support and resources so that as soon as I start to get really deep I can tell people and get help.

Yesterday I had a few flashes of dark thoughts and that’s when I knew I needed some help so I told Victor and I called to see if I could get in for a few weeks of ketamine treatments. They’ve helped me before but since it’s been 2 years since my last round of treatment it’s going to take three weeks before they can do an intake for me, which was upsetting yesterday but I’m feeling better today knowing that I’ve taken the right steps to get there eventually. There’s a relief in knowing there may be relief in the future, and somehow just knowing that has helped.

Here’s the weird thing that’s going to sound awful. A big reason why I think I felt so desperate is because in a week Victor has to go to Hawaii for a meeting and Hailey and I were going to come along for a few days and instead of feeling incredibly grateful and lucky I felt horribly guilty and panicked about the fact that I know I may not be able to appreciate how lucky I am. Does that make sense? Somehow, living with depression when people can’t really see you unshowered, or unable to focus more than an hour or two a day, or in bed while the world goes on without you can seem like you’re living with the pause button on…but physically seeing how much of the world should bring you joy when you feel exhausted and numb can be like seeing yourself in the mirror after a long illness…seeing just how bad you’ve let things get when even the greatest things leave you feeling a bit hollow and broken.

I’m lucky that I have the kind of life where I even get to travel and that I have the kind of family who understands and who were okay with changing our agenda from a “LET’S DO ALL THE THINGS” to “Why don’t we just stay a few days instead of a week and just do one planned thing a day and then you can hide in the hotel or sit on the beach and rest the rest of the day?” without judgement. I’m lucky that I can even afford the treatment I’m getting because of course it isn’t covered by insurance because why would it be? I’m lucky that when I do speaking gigs they’re okay with me coming in the day before and hiding in my room because I don’t have the ability to travel and speak on the same day because I know my limits and they are embarrassingly small and I’m lucky to live in a world with people who understand because there are so many of us out there. (THANK YOU, IOWA. SEE YOU NEXT WEEK.)

So I’ve followed the steps of my plan. I told my family that I’m struggling a little. I made a plan for treatment. I’ve set limits so that I can be my best self the few hours a day I have energy and I’m giving myself down-time as needed. I’m taking small walks and vitamins and medications. I told my family that I need a little help because when I get bad I sometimes get compulsive in my thoughts and my brain craves the darkness and that has meant a complete obsession with the Alex Murdaugh case (including 6 podcasts and the trial running live in the background for weeks) and yesterday I told them that I wasn’t going to listen anymore AND THEN OF COURSE IMMEDIATELY EVERYTHING HAPPENED and Hailey was on their phone and was like, “Don’t look it up but they found him guilty” and I high-fived them but fought off the impulse to immediately open up everything and refollow all of the podcasts to listen to all of them in succession and that’s a big deal.

So now I’m purposely trying to listen to funny, happy, or just slightly less death-focused podcasts and so I need your help because I am very good at finding all the dark and creepy ones I can usually listen to without repercussions but just to be safe I’m trying to bring more sunshine into my life…do you have any suggestions? A podcast that makes you happy? A comfort show to binge?

PS. I’m just about to publish this and then move on to the million other things I need to do but Hunter S. Thomcat just came and sat on my to-do list which was on top of another to-do list I wrote when I couldn’t find the first one which is next to a to-do journal that I bought because it looked more organized and I thought it would save me but strangely hasn’t at all because turns out “the wrong stationary” is not my problem, but it’s sort of nice that he’s perched on everything like a dragon guarding his hoard and I’m taking it as a sign that maybe I can go lay down for a little bit because you should never confront dragons if you can help it.

PPS. I know I’m not alone. In a way I wish I was because this sucks when you’re in it and I’m sorry anyone has to go through this. But it’s also comforting to know that it’s not just me and that I’ll get through this just like you will. Just keep breathing, friend. Beware of dragons. Fight for yourself. Ask for help. Know that you’ll be okay and that the lies depression tells are just that…lies.

I super love you.

My friend Maile gave me one of those mini build-your-own-bonsai-tree kits for my birthday and it actually sprouted and is still alive, but when I was bragging about Leafer Sutherland and how proud I was of growing my son, the tree, someone was like, “Actually, looks like you’ve grown six of them and you need to transplant each of them into their own pot because otherwise they’ll strangle each other.”

“THEY’LL STRANGLE EACH OTHER”?

So now I accidentally have 6 children who are going to murder each other? Now I’m responsible for a half dozen violent indoor trees when I can’t manage to keep a single plant alive other than a forgotten potato that rolled into a corner of the pantry that I didn’t notice until months later when it was growing into a tree itself?

This is too much pressure. I didn’t even have a pot for the first tree so I just used a soup bowl and I don’t have 6 soup bowls. Am I a bad parent if I just let them battle it out and possibly kill each other? Or make them fight to the death and the last one standing is the final boss that is probably immortal and is the only thing I should be trusted with? And then I only have to raise one psychotic serial killer and don’t have to buy anymore soup bowls and I’m not sure if this sounds like good parenting or terrible parenting.

In my defense, I did throw the potato tree out into the backyard to give it a chance to thrive and it died almost immediately, so technically it seems like neglect is the best way to raise trees in my limited experience.

Wait. Victor just pointed out that potatoes aren’t trees and I guess I knew that since I’ve never heard of potato-picking season but I think this really just proves I’m bad at all living things and I need someone to come take my murderous children away while they’re still thriving in their soup bowl. And that is a sentence I never thought I’d write.

So this happened:

This morning I looked at my blog analytic report showing the phrases people googled that brought them to my blog because I always find it intriguing and also a little terrifying and I thought you might enjoy it too because these were some of the top searches that led y’all here this year:

“OUTIE BELLY BUTTON HERNIA GIRL” (See a doctor)

“GOAT READING A BOOK” (This seems weird at a distance but honestly, I think you’re in the right place and this is what you’re looking for.)

“IS YOUR GROIN THE WARMEST PART OF YOUR BODY” (It is when you’re peeing, probably.)

“COBRA VERSUS EAGLE” (Now I want to look this up too.)

“FUCK GOOGLE FOR NOT GIVING ME AN ANSWER TO MY QUESTION” (Feels fair.)

“SINGLE LONG WHITE HAIR ON EYEBROW SUPERSTITION” (I wrote this literally 10 years ago and not a week goes by that someone doesn’t find themselves here. They should really cover this in high school health classes.)

“METH MARGARINE JERK” (Hmm.)

“MATRIX NAVAL BUG FEMALE VERSION” (There’s a female version??)

“BETTY LOU AND THE HAMSTERS IN THE GOPHERS” (This sound sexual but I’m afraid to google it.)”

“HOW TO ANSWER WHY AREN’T YOU THE LOVE OF MY LIFE ALREADY?” (I don’t know how to help you.)

“CAN WOMAN BREASTFEED SHEEP” (What is happening here?)

“TIT TITTS MAMARIE” (We really need to teach more spelling in school.)

“VERGERNIA” (My last statement stands, your honor)

“WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU DON’T DIG UP ST JOSEPH?” (I left him buried in my front yard and I’m fine*)

*And by “fine” I mean, “I’m recovering from mono” but in my defense, I think I got it from my cat. Victor disagrees because I had mono 15 years ago and apparently it stays in your system forever but last night I was noticing that I’m having a really hard time doing anything other than just laying on the couch or the floor or the bed and every time I lay down all the cats lay down on me and we only get up to eat and go to the bathroom and I realized that mono has turned me into a housecat (minus pooping in a box) thus I probably got it from the cats. Not from kissing them though. Well maybe from kissing them. But not with tongue. Fuck. This is not going to help my weird google searches.

PS. Totes MaGoates is still a well-loved member of the family but he’s currently holding a flower instead of a book because Hunter S. Thomcat (seen below sucking up a sunbeam- probably has mono) is obsessed with eating paper for some reason and can’t be trusted around open books.