I expected much...

more from you, yes you.  I understand telling some homeless street person "sorry, I just don't have any money for you".  I understand telling some charity "sorry, We just don't have any extra money for you this year".  I don't understand why you think I want your money.  I didn't ask for it.  Yet when you were asked if you could help a family member, the first thought out of your mouth was "I don't have any money to give".  What about your time?  What about your home?  What about some food or clothing?  What about your LOVE?  Aren't those things that you could give too?  You wonder why I don't call?  Why should I when I don't get any support, respect or consideration from you.  The words " I love you" are so hollow when they are not backed up by actions. 

Okay, I get it....

I have no excuse.  I didn't have a bad childhood, I was never molested, I don't have a drug or alcohol problem.  I'm fine?  NOT!  If you are deemed mentally ill because of one or more of these issues, they can handle that, they have treatments for that.  However if you can't pinpoint a reason for your "problem", then you're not sick?  I know how I feel.  I am trying to tell you how I feel and you are understaffed, underpaid, overwhelmed with your own problems?  Fine, then be prepared to sweep up the pieces when they fall. 

Godammit, I need some help here.  I don't know why I can't get out of bed.  I don't know why I cry all the time.  I don't know why I am not hungry and when I do eat every thing tastes like paper.  I don't know why I want to die but at least I am trying to get some help so why don't you help me?  When I tell you I am not taking my meds, you say "oh, you should take them".  Yeah, that will help me remember.  I can't even remember what day it is.  I wake up and I can't tell if it's 7am or 7pm.  I feel like my brain is turning inside out and morphing into something like oatmeal. 

I feel like anything that ever made me happy has been taken away from me.  I want it back

Why am I not....

surprised.  Once again my "family" has screwed me over and twice on Sunday.  Never trust anyone after a cult gets a hold of their brain.  Shit IS fucked up and bullshit!  There is a atmosphere in this country that has infected the majority of people/sheeple to believe that it is more important to take care of "number 1" before you do anything else.  What happened to "love thy neighbor"?  What happened to "family first"? You wonder why I am depressed?  Watch this video or this one, or this one, or even this one.  There are a lot more out there too.  The story of Monsanto will make you lose your lunch.  Just when we should be holding on to each other and helping our fellow human beings and this planet, that is precisely when we lose our shit and fuck it up even more. I HAVE HAD IT up to HERE!!

Does this look like Disneyland to you??  Well this is what we are facing in this country.  Would you please just WAKE THE FUCK UP!!  WAKE UP!

It just might be time to occupy the farm.

What a lovely ride.....

....I had in an ambulance this afternoon.  I went to the appointment downtown to be evaluated for disability and had a pretty good melt down.  All I have wanted, since that first appointment in January, was for someone to listen to me.  NO!  To HEAR me.  Well, the doctor heard me loud and clear today.  I just couldn't handle anymore.  I have talked to countless people on the phone and in offices until I was blue in the face.  I had let that infected tooth go for so long and I stopped talking my bp and sugar meds.  What more do you want me to do so you see I don't want to be here like this anymore???  Ya wanna see blood?  Ya wanna see broken bones?  What is the difference??  I am a woman brought up in the subservient sixties.  The one the doctor pats on the head when you get stitches and calls you a brave little girl for not crying.  Well now I am crying and crying hard so why did it take more than six months (here in NYC, a lot longer if you count MI too) to get some help when I did finally ask.  I know it is almost 5pm and your lovely wifey probably has dinner waiting, or reservations and you have a timetable, but it is really disrespectful to talk to so fast and keep interrupting me when I am trying to tell you why I am here in your locked up psych ward.  The cloud of dust you left as you handed me off was visible.  Way to make someone feel good. 

When you see...

...a doctor, aren't you supposed to feel better when you leave than when you got there.  I saw the "psychiatrist" on Tuesday and you would think that as I left the office, I would finally have some hope of getting the help I have been seeking for over 6 weeks.  Instead, once again, I felt the sting of humiliation and despair.  "you won't get the emergency assistance and you will be homeless, you better face up to that, and I really don't think you qualify for disability either"  My interpretation...  Why don't you get off your fat lazy ass and get a job you loser.  Oh yeah, and no meds either.  Just go home and cry some more, who cares.  I don't ask for help until I really need it and then to not get it is just......................

On one hand...

... it was a good thing to go to the appointment.  I was evaluated and found disturbed enough to warrant 2 more appointments.  One for introduction to a group therapy leader and the other one for the actual psychiatrist, the one with the drugs.  On the other hand, I was reminded of how far I have fallen into the pit.  I'm thinking now would not be a good time to re-read "the Bell Jar".

Three and a half...

...days and counting.  I didn't think it would be this hard to wait just 2 weeks.  I never should have let it get this bad.  I don't know how long it will take to make it right.  I don't know if I want to go back or move forward.  I know I was once happy but they say you "can't go home again".  To move forward into the unknown does not mean happiness either.  What the hell am I supposed to do then?  I tried, I really did.  Then why did I fail, time after time?  Everyone says, it's all out there, just grab it.  Who greased the pig so I couldn't hang on???

Half way there..

to my appointment.  I think it may rain, sinus headache

And the phone.....

finally rings.  I have an appointment for May 31st.  Well that is better than August isn't it?  I guess I just have to hold out for 2 weeks.  I can do that standing on my head, or lying in bed which is what I have been doing for the last 2 weeks anyway.  It takes a lot longer than that for any passive suicidalism to take effect so I hope y'all will stop worrying about me at least for now.  I do appreciate my fam and friends who have shown concern even if I don't answer back when you post.  I don't have internet everyday so I tend to procrastinate responses in favor of virtual farms that need my attention, so goes my disease.

Really?

I went to the doctors nearly 2 weeks ago hoping to get some help for my depression.  My PCP referred me to the pysch at the clinic, went to get an appointment and they said not until August.  Really?  So I called the insurance provider and asked for a list of docs I could call to get seen sooner.  First number, machine.  Really?  Second number, not an outpatient clinic.  Really?  Third number, left message on machine, never called me back.  Really?  This makes me even more depressed and I quit trying.  Got the book of providers in the mail so today I started making calls again.  Called the third number again, left message, no call back.  Really?  Called another number that I found in the book, machine.  Really?  and again, same, and again, same, and again, same.  Really?  All these mental health professionals never answer the phone??  during regular business hours?  Really?  I finally get through on the fifth call to a real person who says she will have someone call me back.  STILL WAITING!!

It's been a while...

...since I posted anything.  I have not been having such a great time lately.  I finally got some medical coverage so I went to the doctor and got a referral for a mental health specialist.  When I tried to make the appointment they said the next available slot was in August.  If you are diagnosed with severe depression how can they say to you, wait for over three months to get some help.  I already feel like no one gives a shit so I can include a whole new crop of people in that group.  I know they don't understand what an effort it took for me to even pick up the phone to make the appointment, they don't know me.  Everything takes effort.  Going to the pantry, taking out the garbage, waking up, writing.  I'm tired.  I don't know how much I have left in me to try anymore. 

My take on things

I know some of you didn't like the meme I posted last week. You made it very clear with the hateful and condescending things you posted in the comments causing me to moderate my comments for the first time ever. I made my point so I took it down. Some of it was so bad that the website asked me if I wanted to report it as abuse. I did not.

If you don't understand why I made it in the first place then you haven't been paying attention. I have had it with the hateful things I have seen on Facebook in the last few months and it was my way of expressing my feelings. The comments directed toward me have made me feel that, in your eyes, I have lived out my usefulness and I should just shut up and die. That may have not been the words you used but it is how I was made to feel. These things did not come from some random people, it was from my own family members. My comments, on Facebook, were not hateful. They were stated in a questioning manner and also in an informative manner.

This is not an apology, it is an explanation. I was extremely depressed when I came back to NY and I had found something to bring me out of it. That something was Occupy Wall Street. I found something that woke up my passions and gave me something to do everyday. I had not been able to find a job and that only added to the depression. The response to this was to insult me outright in the public forum of FB. No one had my back and no one questioned the abuse in any way except offline. Some even agreed with it. This only reinforced the abuse to me. I expressed myself OFF Facebook in my own blog and then got crap for that too.

If you don't like the way I express myself in my own blog, you don't have to read it. If you want to help, maybe you could buy something from me so I can try to pay some bills. I am working on getting better but it takes time.

Depression, what is it?

As defined by the US Library of Medicine...

"Depression may be described as feeling sad, blue, unhappy, miserable, or down in the dumps. Most of us feel this way at one time or another for short periods."

"True clinical depression is a mood disorder in which feelings of sadness, loss, anger, or frustration interfere with everyday life for weeks or longer."

Doctors can be quick to prescribe and that can be a problem. I don't think some of the people in my life understand the difference between those 2 definitions above. If you did you would not blame me so much.

That is all I am going to say

and now I am going to say this...brain cloudy, eyes red, nose stuffy, why do I let people get to me

Writing this is one of the hardest thing I have ever done

To whom it may concern,

  I know that I have always put on a happy face and I say that everything is fine.  Guess what, it isn't.  I have been made to feel that when I had money, I was useful and now that I don't, I am not.  I always worked hard, lived frugally and I gave generously.  I have never been one to covet the latest gadgets or fashions.  The fact that I feel like I have been thrown aside may surprise some people but that is why I am writing this post.  I have looked for work but now I have given up on that.  I thought I had a lifemate but now I know that was all a lie as well. I am truly alone.

  Maybe I have too much pride, or maybe I am just to ashamed  to ask for help.  I know that if I don't tell anyone that I need something then I can't expect to get it.  You can't read my mind but you could open your eyes. 

  Here is what I can't put into words on the phone or in person.  I will use the written form to say what I can't say to your face.  I need help.  Plain and simple as that.  I am depressed and I find it hard to get out of bed everyday.  I am crying just trying to type this.  I won't be able to pay my rent next month.  I have trouble eating because 75% of my teeth are gone and I have one tooth that is infected and oozing green puss.  It has been like that for months and I had heard that such an infection can get in your blood stream and kill you. I have been waiting to die.  This seems like a better way than walking in front of a bus.  Since that has not happened I am starting to think maybe I am supposed to be here for a while longer for some reason even though I don't know what that is.

"You should apply for state/federal aid".  Yes, I know and everyday when I get dressed and think about going out and facing that bureaucratic staredown I go back to bed.  I just don't have the energy to try.

"What about your family?"  My family doesn't understand the depth of my depression.  All they saw was the physical mess in the house and not the mental/emotional mess I (I am a good actor and I do most of my crying in private) had become and they threw me out.  When they do reach out to me it feels like a hollow chore they must perform to make themselves feel better or a scolding about how I don't keep in touch.  Somewhere in the back corner of my brain I know they love me.  I just can't feel it right now.

Over the last three months I found something to do that did make me feel a bit better.  Knitting for Occupy Wall Street.  I felt I was making a contribution.  I met some nice people that seemed to like me.  I learned a lot about my country that surprised me and made me want to help change things.  The problem is, that until I get better, I don't think I can do much to help.  A 'cause' can't cure me.

Words hurt.  Actions even more.  I'm glad that you have a ...game/toy/coat/shoes/hairdo/house/job/car/vacation/dinner/dog/high score/opinion... but right now I just don't care.  Seeing all those things posted on facebook and twitter are just a slap in the face to me right now. 

I didn't write this to get attention.  I just needed to say things that were in my head the only way I knew how to get them out.  I suppose it should make me feel better.  I will wait and see.