Why I Hate New Year's Eve

This is my most popular post. Nothing has changed in the time I've written it. Tomorrow is New Year's Eve, my least favorite night of the year.

The best way I know how to cope with it is to go to sleep around 9 pm so when I wake up around 3 am it's over.

In most ways, 2012 has been the worst year of my adult life. For once, I am glad to see a year go. I hope and wish a great 2013 for all who come by here.

Here is my post on why I hate New Years Eve, from last year. 

-Susan

Trying not to be a Grinchette

I'm here. If I said the last few months, if not this last year has been horrible, I don't know if too many people would believe me. 

It has been impossible to write. I stay in bed most of the day because that is all I can do. I've wanted to write and I try, but I didn't. My brain seemed broken, and even worse, when I was able to write a few words, for my blog, they seemed hollow, empty and meaningless. I didn't want to upset anyone. 

This blog, which has always been my baby, the thing that got me out of bed and gave me a reason to live, was withering, I just couldn't function. I'm sorry. 

I have a new psychiatrist. I saw him earlier this month, and he did an evaluation. My axis V is a number between 10-15. I'm barely functioning right now. 

Thank you for the emails and comments. I can't tell you how much they mean to me, all the times where I was falling and drowning, they saved me. 

I'm still here and the blog is still active, even if I am not. Best wishes for a very happy holiday, and let's hope the new year is better. 

A video with love from me, and from Holly. Kittens make everything better. 

Remembering

Touching Base

Hello

I'm still here. Been battling a very bad depression, couldn't get out of the bed, couldn't write, didn't want to burden anyone with how bad it was going.

There was a lot of talk about hospitalization, and a medication that would not cause any more damage to my body but in the long run, I just totally cut the cord with the computer not wanting to upset anyone how bad things were going.

They are at the moment looking up and getting better. I had been working on a piece to post in the next day or two- it's taking longer to write now that I've lost my groove

and now I am dealing with the fact Hurricane Sandy is approaching so I don't know when I will be back on line.

This blog isn't dead. I'm not dead. The cat isn't dead.


I want to get back to blogging full time. Bare with me. I'll be back as soon as I can.

Susan.

World Suicide Prevention Day, September 10, 2012

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. Almost every site I have seen have places to call if you are feeling suicidal, and lots of history and statistics of suicide. Some bloggers are adamant that suicide can be prevented. Some aren't. A few sites, eager to show that the blogger has a very good education, spew out facts from Durkheim, and go into 21st century stats.

Here's the honest truth. Most suicides can be prevented. Most suicidal behavior, if taken over that hump when a person is suicidal, leads to the person being glad the next day they are still alive. I've met several people in real life who are grateful their attempt(s) failed. I've met people who as they were swallowing pills ended up calling 911 because they changed their mind.

Then I've met people, including myself, who were upset they failed. They can't figure out what went wrong, every detail was planned to the Nth degree, and something caused it to go wrong.

How do you prevent a suicide? The best method is to listen to the person and do not judge. President Abraham Lincoln went through such a bad, suicidal patch in his life, his friends didn't leave him alone. It obviously worked, and he went on to be one of the best American Presidents.

Four years ago I wrote about a friend of mine, Kevin Greim, who suicided on Sept 14, 2008 in a most gruesome manner that still gives me nightmares. Out of all the pieces I have ever written in my life, I am the most proud of this one. Kevin was more than a statistic of two suicides that died in Mercer County NJ that weekend. He was a real live person, with the most beautiful aura I've ever seen. A person who totally gave of himself, was always there if you needed to talk and meant so much to so many people at my old support group. Yet since his suicide, I've learned he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, dealing with several problems, that if only he had discussed with his friends, he might not have died. If only he opened up.....

I think about Kevin every day. Kevin loved cars and when I see something cool on the road, I want to pick up my phone, snap a picture of it and send it to him. Only I can't. His friends, still are haunted by his death. One of them never got over it and his life took a turn for the worse.

Then there's the guilt. We all have it. Everyone who was at his memorial service and funeral has it .If only he had talked to me. I remember several of us looking at the urn his ashes were in, crying so hard we had to leave the funeral parlor. Standing outside in the cool Indian Summer with snot rockets coming out of our noses from crying to hard ,and all thinking or saying "Why didn't he call me"?

Some have moved on, as you do with life. Some have on the outside but, like me, are haunted in dreams of what must have been the last milliseconds of his life.

Here's what I want someone who finds this piece to take away.

I get you are hurting.

I understand you feel it won't go away. 

I understand your life has gone to s**t because of drinking, drugging, job loss, or love. 

I understand how you feel helpless and feel that if you were dead you wouldn't be in pain.

BUT

Have you really thought about the people you would leave behind? Yes, in your convoluted thinking, you feel they would be better but they won't. They will feel like they had the hearts ripped out and will miss you every day of their lives. They will hate you sometimes for leaving them, and other times they will miss you so much it will feel like Atlas holding up the weight of all the world. Only instead of holding the earth, they are holding up a broken heart that will never heal. If your friends and family are lucky, they won't go through divorces, or drug use or other ways to make themselves feel better. Ways that don't work and only make things worse in the long run.

One of my favorite movies of all time is "It's A Wonderful Life". At my lowest, most suicidal, I've wondered where my Clarence angel is. One night in my early twenties I got down on my knees and prayed for the entire night until that feeling passed.

All I can tell you is this. Yes there are 7 billion people on the earth right now. There is a reason that you were created. Call it because of G-d, a Higher Power, or just two people having too much to drink on a Saturday night. There is a reason, a mission you have with your life. You don't know it. You probably won't until you are on your death bed.

As bad as things are right now, remember Suicide is not painless. You can take or leave it if you please. It's my hope for all who read this, to please leave it. The only time suicide is painless is in a theme song from one of the best television series ever.

My piece on Kevin is here. 

High Dives and un fluffy pillows

I'm deathly afraid of heights. One nightmare that keeps playing over and over in my head is a true account, yet I am dreaming about it almost nightly. Growing up my sister and I were very close to a neighbor, one of the nicest widows you would ever want to meet. She was considered family.

In the summertime she joined the local swim club and my sister and I would go with her for the afternoon. It was a treat. My sister was fearless. She was also athletic. She climbed up to the high dive and jumped. I preferred the low dive or even better, just reading a book under the shade of a tree. (And you want to know why the kids thought you were strange? Could that be it?)

One day I was double dog dared to jump off the high dive by my sister. So I did. Or tried to. I went up it, no problem. It wasn't until I was looking down, I suffered my first attack of vertigo. I turned around as if to climb back down, but there was a whole line of kids waiting to jump in that cool water. I had to. It was the scariest thing I have ever did with my life.

In a lot of ways it still is.

The last six years of my life, I have been paralyzed with fear as I look down on the pool. I can't jump, I can't go down. I'm just on the high dive scared as if death was near. Frozen. I'm not making any progress, but I am not failing. I just am stagnant. I just am breathing, but I am not living.

I am paralyzed.

Let's put it in another way. I'm stuck in my life. I'm not happy where I am right now. I know what to do to fix it but I can't take the first steps. Once again, I am cursed with a depression so severe I can barely get out of bed to do anything but use the toilet or feed the cat. I just don't see a point to get out of the bed.

Through my blinds I can see some of the children that live in the apartment complex playing a make-shift game of soccer in the parking lot. They are laughing and smiling as they chase the black and white ball, happy that school hasn't started, happy to be alive.

I lie in bed, surrounded by un-fluffed pillows and wish I was that eager. Wish I was that happy. I haven't been. Not in almost a decade. Let's face it. The last six years, I am not even living. I am existing. It's my heart that's beating because the primal brain is telling it to beat, my lungs are breathing because my brain is telling them to do that. Every day when I go to sleep I wish I could die in my sleep. Of course I don't. I don't have the energy to do anything other than stay in bed and sleep.

Was this the reason I developed agoraphobia? Did the depression transmogrify to something more serious?

I should know better. I'm too old for all this nonsense. Still I cannot move. I can't leave the apartment. I don't want to leave the bed.

I want nothing more to have the good fairy wave her wand and i will be cured. i can get out of bed, and go back to the land of the living.

Good fairies don't exist. I can't get better like that. I got to do the work. I have the tools, I know the steps.

I just can't get out of bed.

Today is my birthday. It's the birthday I've been dreading for the last month or so. All I know is I can't have another six years of existing not living. I need to start living, or if I can't get off the proverbial pot, I will start dying.

I just hope this birthday year things will get better. I'm sick and tired of waiting on the high dive to find the courage to jump. I have to find the courage or someone has to push me.

Rerun and update: Susan an Introduction

I apologize if I haven't been writing. The mind is willing, the flesh is weak. I found a piece I wanted to share again, and just add a few updates. It was originally written in  2002. I re wrote it again for the blog in 2009. In 2003 I went back on meds after being off them for most of 2002,due to a hospitalization and family pressure. I stayed on them until November 2010.  Since then, I have become med free, because of the kidney failure. Still and all it's one of my most favorite pieces and it gives insight to who I am.

I could feel my blue eyes opening, and the light was harsh. I shielded them with my palm, trying to wake. I gradually accustomed myself, and noticed, this was a twin size bed I was in, not my normal full size. My beloved cat was not nestling besides me, nor did I have the teddy that served as a sentinel since I was four. I thought for a moment, I was back in time, back in Graduate School, where life was good, and I shared a house in my state’s capital with four other young women. But as I tried to move, I noticed I couldn’t move. There was an IV attached to my arm, and one of those heart monitors like you would see on ER. And I was strapped down to the bed. It was the present, 1994, and I had been out of school for seven years. I could hear the doctors and nurses running by me, ignoring me. I had no idea where I was, I figured it was in the emergency room of Princeton Hospital. I asked the nurse what day it was as she ran by me. It was a Sunday morning, at four or five in the morning, and I wondered what the heck had I done again, since I took all those pills on Friday night? and why in Heaven’s name, couldn’t I succeed in killing myself?

I am a manic-depressive. I was one of those people, first misdiagnosed in my early twenties as depressive, then a month later diagnosed as bipolar. But this hospitalization in my early thirties, would evaluate me as bipolar, with a difference, I was an ultra rapid cycler with schizoaffective features. 

This was not my first suicide attempt. This was one of many, starting with all the sturm und drang of adolescence. This would be my second to last serious attempt. I cannot begin to count all the times I have wanted to "shuffle off this mortal coil", as Hamlet said. I have tried pills, more times waking up to be Exorcist sick. I tried to use a hose to my car’s exhaust, not realizing I had a catalytic converter, which went on before I could fall asleep. I have thought of throwing myself off the Empire State Building, but I am deathly afraid of heights and have vertigo. And I have tried to slit my wrists, but could not get the razor blade out of that pink plastic Gillette razor. (Curse you Gillette!)

And I have been blessed with the mania, suffering for three years straight without crashing to anything other than mild depression. I was gifted then, doing two masters degrees and holding down three part time jobs. I had poems professionally published. Looking back they were nothing but masterful Sylvia Plath imitations. I was the belle of the English department, their golden girl about to go on for a PhD. And I was correct for the longest time. And then, just like the all time perfect day, it ended. It had to. A person cannot be manic for three years without illegal drugs, one has to crash eventually.

Continues here 

World Cat Day 8/8/2012

Today is World Cat Day. It's a holiday where you must spoil your cats rotten. Oh wait, that's every day.  Still and all they say "every dog has his day" and today is the day where dogs are pushed aside and it's all about the fabulous feline.

Sparkle the cat has some really good suggestions how to spoil your cat on her blog.

• Begin the day by serving breakfast in bed to your cat. In your bed, of course. But don’t bring her plain, old kibble or canned cat food. Make it a gourmet feast — finely chopped chicken and chicken livers, served in a cut glass bowl, or poached salmon with a couple of crickets as a tasty garnish. Or how about brunch for the late-risers? Sardines neatly laid out on fine china would be a simple but classy choice.

• We cats are not big on cards — really! — so if you can’t find one that truly expresses your sentiments, don’t worry about it. We would much prefer gifts. What’s important here is the wrapping paper. Make sure you get extra-crinkly paper. Also make sure your gift requires a lot of it. If the World Cat Day presents you choose are small (which is perfectly acceptable — even kitties realize that “good things sometimes come in small packages”), then put them in big boxes so you have sufficient wrapping paper for playing in — plus the box serves as a bonus toy! Here is a tip on the right amount of wrapping paper: if there is so much that you could possibly lose your cat inside it, that is sufficient.

• But just because we cats love wrapping paper, don’t skimp on the gifts. Hopefully you have been paying attention and you know which kind of toys your cat likes best. Some cats prefer small catnip mice that can fly through the air; others prefer something bulkier that can be bunny kicked into oblivion. Still other cats enjoy flying toys like Da Bird, or turbo scratcher type toys. If in doubt, get your cat a bunch of options, just to make sure that you hit pay dirt with at least one. A cat tree would be great if you want to splurge… but you still have to wrap it up.

• Since this is such a special day, if you are going to get your cat treats as a present, get really special treats — real, freeze-dried meat, or maybe even fresh chicken or grilled salmon. These treats have the benefit of not only being yummy, but also being good for you! We cats are smarter than humans — we like food that is nutritious. If the treats are fresh, you don’t have to wrap them, but if they come in a package, the wrapping paper is de rigueur. I would suggest that you go out and catch some field mice or trap some moths or beetles, but that is probably beyond most humans.

• Most importantly, here is the one thing your cats really want from you on World Cat Day: your time. Take time to play with your cats today. Don’t just toss a toy around for a couple of minutes. Make it a quality play session, and let your cat decide when she has had enough. If your cat is more of a couch potato, then let her doze on top of you without fidgeting, talking on the phone, or moving her because some body part of yours has fallen asleep. This will show your cat how much she really means to you, and that you really understand her needs. The more respect and regard you have for your cat, the more you will get in return. Or maybe not, but what did you expect?

•  

We're not the only ones who get depressed

This should come as no surprise, especially to those of us who have animals in our lives. According to a just published news article, monkeys are being treated for depression in Argentina.

The article states that , black howler monkeys at an Argentine ecological park have been suffering depression following the death of two of the oldest females in the group and had to be given medication because they refused to eat.

The article continues,

Two alpha females died 1 1/2 years ago from natural causes at the Rio Cuarto Urban Ecological Park some 650 kilometers (400 miles) west of Buenos Aires, and from that moment "their male companions began suffering depression and four let themselves die of sadness," park director Miriam Rodriguez told Clarin newspaper.
The black howler monkeys in this 12-hectare (30-acre) park "live in a group and are very close to one another," Rodriguez said. "When the females died, we noticed the others behaving oddly, but we thought it might have been something they ate."
Concerned about their lethargy and refusal to eat, park officials consulted specialists at the nearby Cordoba Zoo, who told them "the animals could be going through a phase of acute depression," Rodriguez said.
After several analyses, psychiatrist Sergio Castillo confirmed the diagnosis of depression and two months ago prescribed a treatment based on sertraline, "a mineral derived from the serotonin used in humans to reverse different symptoms originating from compulsive disorders or depression," veterinarian Ezequiel Carrizo told the newspaper.
There was initially some resistance to the treatment since it seemed "ridiculous to give them anti-depression medication even if it was only a minimum dose," Rodriguez told Radio 2, adding that "it has begun to raise the monkeys' spirits." 

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2012/07/30/monkeys-treated-for-depression-in-argentina/#ixzz22DOf6goX

Unfortunately, the article does not state if the monkeys had any side effects and for how long they were given this serotonin based drug. I hope the monkeys are doing better and are now able live their lives without chemicals.

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