Struggle with Depression & Medication

Posted on January 23, 2012 by jenny

(Written in October 2006)
Eleanor got mad at me yesterday.  She thinks I’m depressed and should be raising my medication.  I said I was upset because I printed out stuff calling for political action and nobody cares enough to do anything.  She said they’re all overwhelmed and need Neskaya to be a sanctuary.  That was hard to hear — I’m afraid it’s probably true and that’s painful because 1) I’m not doing my proper work of keeping Neskaya as a sanctuary and 2) if everybody is overwhelmed — then there’s no one left to save the Earth.  I was thinking about the polar bears this morning and how I feel like I’m drowning, floating in a sea of fragments of what is supposed to be a solid floor.  My heart hurts, it feels like it is about to burst with pain, but at least I don’t have to hold back from the polar bears — I’m right in there with them, swimming for my life — except that solid land is too far away and we’re all going to drown.
I feel like it’s slap in my face that my job is to take care of Jenny, when I’d rather be in the Peace March (there was one in Concord on Saturday that I’d hoped to go to) — I’d rather be walking up the road with my colorful banner, and you’re telling me that I have to put down my banner and go back and take care of that piece of shit that’s lying in the road.
I feel terrible that Eleanor has been worrying about me when she’s so totally overwhelmed by her life.  I see that one thing I can do to help her is to keep my spirits up — I just don’t know how to do that.

Signs of depression: too tired to light a fire
too tired to do yoga
having trouble eating properly

I don’t know what to do.  Raising medication is certainly one possibility.  That’s what it took last winter.  I told Eleanor I would put all the political activity on hold and spend the next month focusing on taking care of the traumatized baby, and see if that helps, and if it doesn’t, then I’ll raise the medication.  I wish it didn’t feel like such a defeat.  “But you’re defeated now, aren’t you?” said Eleanor and I have to agree.  I wish it didn’t take such a long time to work — that would be so much easier – if I could “feel better fast”.

Profoundly bummed out.  I did a bunch of things & now I’ve run out of steam.  Crashed and burned.  Yes, I really am depressed.  It doesn’t FEEL like depression, or not like depression used to when it was combined with low thyroid.  And I thought I was doing well such a short time ago.  But clearly I’m not, clearly I’m losing ground.  And I really don’t know what to do about it.

 

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Guidance

Posted on January 22, 2012 by jenny

(Written in May 2005)
Dear Guides and Guardian Spirits, I’m feeling pretty bleak.  Please help me.
Dear Jenny, we love you very much.  You are feeling bad about yourself because you seem to get discouraged “so easily”.  You are comparing yourself to someone who has a “strong and gay spirit” who can “overcome” the obstacles that you imagine are “so petty”.  Dear, you fail to give yourself credit for how many wounds you have, how tenuous your foundation still is, how little support you receive from outside.  For a highly sensitive person, who was traumatized in infancy, every day in this toxic culture is a struggle.  To reaffirm your creativity in the teeth of those voices from childhood that say you are wicked and self-indulgent to spend time making art, is an ongoing struggle.  You are too often in the position of the one who is pulling the others out of despondency – as you did yesterday, creating a good experience for your dancers.  You had to carry the energy.  You don’t have enough experiences of someone else creating the container, choosing the activity, and carrying the energy.  Dear One, you are an artist and a visionary, you are supposed to have a support team, not be spending energy trying to create one.  Give yourself credit for all the hard work that you do, give yourself empathy for the visions that you are unable to bring to manifestation because you don’t have enough support.

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Medication

Posted on January 18, 2012 by jenny

In the last couple of weeks I’ve noticed that everything was getting harder. Just getting through the day is harder when I find it difficult to do practical things like shop or prepare a meal or take out the compost, when I feel sad when people leave,  and feel that old “push push” that I “should” be doing “something worthwhile,”  when I don’t bounce back from small triggers but stay down.  I had lowered my medication from 175 mg of Imipramine to 150 mg over the month of October by taking them alternate days.  From the beginning of November until about a week ago, I was taking 150 mg.  A friend reminded me in December that it could take weeks for the new dose to establish a new blood level.  So I started watching carefully, noticing that my resiliency was still good.  I had two weeks of astonishing happiness after the Winter Solstice at Stanstead.  But then it began to get harder. Many little signs told me that I needed to raise the medication back to 175mg.  Just making the decision helped.  I started feeling better right away, long before the raise could be effective.  In the past, when I’ve had to acknowledge that trying to lower the dose was not working, I felt defeated.  This time it just felt necessary, like going out to sprinkle ice melt on the skating rink of my front walk, instead of expecting myself to negotiate the slippery territory.  When I told my friend Lynelle about raising the medication, she reminded me that, though giving the Megalithic program raises my spirits, it also brings up a lot of old painful feelings from my unsupported childhood.

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A Day in the Life of a Trauma Survivor

Posted on January 17, 2012 by jenny

Woke scared.  I HATE waking up scared.  I’m too uncomfortable to get out of bed, but I’m uncomfortable in bed so why stay there.  I tell myself I’ll feel better when I have a cup of tea and get myself out of bed.
Looking ahead in my schedule I see some gaps, some empty days.  The usual cold chill flows down over my shoulders.  Cory’s coming over today thank goodness.  I think I’ll do an “ashram day” in 20 minute intervals because I’m so scared.
20 minutes     wash up from breakfast
20 minutes     read Elizabeth Goudge
20 minutes     bring in 2 loads of wood
20 minutes     type journal
I really need to talk to someone who cares about me.  Called Beverly, got her machine.  Called Ann, got her machine.  too discouraged to try anyone else.

Made a cup of tea.  I have a new set of affirmations, and I remind myself again again, just because something doesn’t work right away doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.

AFFIRMATIONS:
It is possible to heal
I am doing things that will help me heal
I am doing things differently
from how it was in my childhood
from what I used to do
I am telling the traumatized baby that I will stay with her, I won’t go away, I will give her all the time and space she needs.  I am committed to her welfare.
I am reaching out to my friends and they are delighted to help me.

Cory came at 1:00 and we went around the whole forest trail with both dogs.  I didn’t really enjoy it and I couldn’t have done it without her support.  Then we came in & had tea and I read from the Resource book.  Cory was very validating and helpful.  When she left I felt scared and lost.
I have to do some shopping.  It’s hard to do when I’m this scared.  I’ll just get the essentials.

Even late in the afternoon I was still feeling scared, but it did finally fade as it got dark.

The “Ashram Day” is what someone at Kripalu said when I told her I’d been “doing nothing.”  She said “What’s that like?”  and I said I set the timer and do 30 minutes of housework, 30 minutes of reading, 30 minutes of yoga, 30 minutes of walk outdoors..  She said “That’s not nothing, that’s an ashram day.”  I started doing 30 minute shifts on days when I was too scared and/or depressed to be able to tell what I wanted to do, and when I wanted to stop.  30 minutes gave me a structure to my day.  So now, when I spend some time playing solitaire on the computer, I see it as a “practice” which distracts my cognitive brain, so that my subconscious and unconscious can perform the work of integration and healing.  I don’t think of it as “nothing.”

The Resource Book:  in Somatic Experiencing a “resource” is anything that can help you feel more grounded and centered.  I went through all my journals from 2005 and copied anything anyone told me that was good about myself.  It grew to a sizable book.  I still read part of it when I’m feeling really discouraged.

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Live in a Way that Does No Harm

Posted on January 13, 2012 by jenny

I’m feeling tired & discouraged.  I remind myself that I just read a piece on Deena Metzger’s blog.  She talks about living in such a way that you do no harm to the world.  I can’t possibly do that.  I can’t walk to Neskaya most of the time, and I couldn’t possibly walk to Mac’s.  I’ve thought about a bike but my one attempt to ride one was really difficult.  I do my best to eat organic and local, especially organic meat.  But I’m dependent on other people using fossil fuel just for something as basic as food.  I think if I were truly going to live a life that does no harm, I’d have to walk out into the woods on a below zero night.  I did think of doing tonglen for all the people out there who feel as discouraged and tired as I do.  Breathe it in, and breathe out warmth, compassion, and permission to rest.

Tonglen is a Buddhist practice of breathing in your own pain, and the pain of all others who feel that way, and breathing out comfort.  I wasn’t able to do it until I had healed a lot from PTSD.

(1/13/12)  typed that up and posted it as a draft on Wednesday.  Yesterday I got very depressed.  A long talk with a friend did not dispel it.  I was fine while talking to her, but fell back into cold grey bleakness as soon as I hung up.  That’s the first time that’s happened in a long while.  Since I’ve been so much better, a talk with a friend has been able to bring me out of it almost every time.
When I got to massage I told Cory I was depressed.  She suggested I surround it with warmth.  O gosh I know that.  Right.  I’ve been treating it like an unwelcome guest. (Thank you, God, for friends who know what to say!)  So I made the inner gesture of softness and love, and there was an 8-yr-old girl, crying her eyes out.  Alone.  So I put my arms around her and told her it was OK to cry.  I don’t know what it was about, and that’s OK.  Then it came to me that there were two reasons to be depressed that I had written about, but I hadn’t let myself mourn.  Understanding that shifted the depression to grief.
After supper I called Pat.  I told her about Deena Metzger’s blog piece where she says it’s not possible to live without doing harm to the earth and its creatures, but that’s what she wants to do.  I did the thing of explaining why I couldn’t do that, but hadn’t let myself mourn that I had to live in a way that harmed the earth and its creatures.  While talking to Pat I remembered the relief I felt when I was at Findhorn, and saw all the marked bins under the counter.  Of course.  It’s not possible to live in a way that does the least harm unless you live in a community that lives that way.  I was laying the expectation on myself that I live up to that standard all by myself.  I think the people who even come close to that are young, strong, able to build, and garden, and bike, and living in a climate that does not contain New England winters.

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Wounded Warriors

Posted on January 12, 2012 by jenny

I went to the Wounded Warrior page intending to make a donation, but the story of the woman who lost both legs was that she was proud of her sacrifice because she was defending America.  I can’t support that lie.  But can I tell her that her legs were lost in service to the war industries owned by the 1%?  She needs her denial in order to feel OK about what’s happened to her.  And I’m sure that’s what’s behind the people who are afraid of an “Islamic Jihad.”  They have to believe in it so they can feel OK about the wars that our taxes are paying for.  I know, at some level, they know it’s not true that the wars are protecting America, but like the alcoholic who can’t give up his addiction, they have to stay in denial.  I think that’s the saddest thing of all.

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Guidance

Posted on January 11, 2012 by jenny

This came as an email from “Moment of Peace.”  Just what I needed today.
“There is a way through difficult times that is loving, patient, understanding, and works by cooperation with what works. Keep going. Keep trusting. Keep praying. Keep looking for the good. Repeat as necessary.”             – John Morton

Dear Guides & Guardian Spirits, I’m feeling really bleak and very tired.  While I was doing my stretches I looked at the boxes of art materials, and just felt crushed by the weight of having to deal with all that stuff.  Please help me.
    Dear Jenny, one day at a time.  You don’t have to deal with the whole thing all at once.  we suggest you talk to your artist friends, and to art teachers at local schools — people who might be interested in materials for art projects.  You can also take things and put them in a shrine in the woods, and create other shrines, and hanging things — there are lots of possibilities along the forest trail and they don’t have to be “beautiful” because they will biodegrade.  Remember that we love you.  Remember that the good energy you create in the invisible world is far more powerful than action in the visible world.

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The Strength of the Foundation

Posted on January 10, 2012 by jenny

In February of 2004, I was feeling very discouraged about the state of the world, and seeing my efforts to change things as pitifully small.  I sent out a despairing plea to the circle dancing elist – and got a whole bunch of wonderful replies that really lifted my spirits. See Circle of Hope

This is what I said:  I’m tired and discouraged.  I feel like I’m trying to move a mountain of sand grain by grain.  .…  Are we engaged in a hopeless task? … Is there anybody out there who agrees with me?  Please let me know,  I’m feeling pretty alone with it right now.

One reply came from a committed Quaker, and what she said was so elegant and disciplined, so clearly resting on generations of people who had worked hard for peace, that I go back to it again and again, to feel how strong the support is under me.

Thank you so much for reminding us how arduous this peacework can be. I very much liked the image you drew of trying to move a mountain of sand grain by grain. In fact, that is precisely what each of us is doing, in much the same way that Buddhist monks build their sand mandalas — grain by grain. What enables them to work so assiduously is the fact that they focus not on the result, but on the process. This is a valuable lesson for the West. The I Ching teaches that we should plow our fields, not expecting a harvest. The harvest is not our concern; it is only the plowing that matters.
In response to your plea, I can offer only what I learned growing up in Friends meeting about what it means to benefit from the endeavors of an active life. Whether we succeed in our efforts depends on how “success” is interpreted. There is another kind of success outside that of seeing the result we hope for. There is the success measured by useful and important work done with devotion. There is the success of having responded to what one knows to have been the authentic call of God/dess and of having remained faithful to that guidance, whether seeing any results or not.
When society has fed and housed the poor and nursed the sick, and when it has educated the disenfranchised and offered them a useful place in the economy of mankind; when the brilliant and advantaged have been educated for responsibility rather than for personal gain; when no one is standing around rejected while others feel themselves over-entitled; when war has been renounced and its instruments disassembled, only then will it be possible for us to consider whether our struggles offer us any sense of worldly success compatible with our convictions.
In the meantime, this work we do forms us in character and conscience. We do it because it involves bearing witness to a “testimony,” which (contrary to what many people think) is not a response to an external problem. It is a leading that comes from that authentic guidance from God/dess. In that respect, we do it because to do otherwise is unthinkable. We do it because we cannot conceive of not doing it.

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“The Fire of the Miraculous”

Posted on December 30, 2011 by jenny

Feeling a little depressed, I watched Marianne Williamson speaking about the Occupy movement in Berkeley California.  The talk lasts for an hour but it’s well worth listening to. I heard something that resonated for me, stopped and replayed it several times while I did my best to write down the words.

I talk about the speech in an earlier post and quoted something I really liked:
She said of our trying to take on the 1%,  “THEY have the power, THEY have the technology, THEY have the money … what do we have?  We have what the Abolitionists had, what the Suffragettes had, what the Civil Rights activists had…   a better idea.”

She goes on to say: “This better idea calls forth cosmic forces.  If you believe that your power resides in anything other than the deep moral validity of your argument, you are not carrying with you the cosmic resource that will enable you to transcend the normal externalized powers that would other wise hold you back…  We are here from a deep place…  We are the stewards of American democracy.”

It was so powerful when she said it.  I try to read it and know what it means intellectually, here’s a restatement in my own words – “knowing that your power is rooted in your conviction of its deep moral validity gives you great strength.  The strength to withstand the powers that operate so strongly in the visible material world” — but even better is to listen to her saying it.  Go to the YouTube video and (if you don’t want to listen to the whole thing) go to about 35 minutes.  “The Fire of the Miraculous!”  YES!

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The Story of How I Realized that for Me, Primates are People

Posted on December 30, 2011 by jenny

(Written in a workshop with Deena Metzger at Rowe in May 2010)

It was when my mother broke her hip, and we all went home in turns to help her get from the hospital to the house we grew up in.  By the time I got there, a hospital bed had been placed in the living room. And a commode as well.  I remember insisting on emptying the commode so that Mama Greene wouldn’t have to.  Mama Greene, who was older than Mother, who mothered us all since I was three and named her.  Mom said it was because I couldn’t say “Mrs”, but I knew a “mama” when I saw one.  My biological mother was a “wire mother.” I remember Mama Greene down on her knees cleaning the brass plate at the threshold of the living room.  When I told her daughter Catherine that I was worried about her doing so much physical work, Catherine said “Taking care of that house is what keeps her going.”

Mother had broken her hip on a trip to India, with other wealthy women.  She broke it on the first day and had to be flown back.  I could sympathize with her disappointment because I had fallen from a ladder on the first day of an eagerly awaited summer as a volunteer at a theater.  There were some postcards from her friends who had continued the trip.  They spoke of all the wonderful things they were buying.  I remember one in particular.  My mother’s friend said “The poverty in Calcutta was not so bad as we had been led to believe.” There were also complaints about the beggars.

Mother had a friend who came and helped her with her insurance and paying bills.  I was there when she came and she & Mom were talking.  She told Mom that she had a daughter who worked at a medical research facility.  They had gorillas in cages, and she brought in plants and mirrors to give the gorillas the illusion of more comfortable quarters.  The daughter was of course very sad when the gorillas had to be “sacrificed,” but wasn’t it wonderful that medicine could find out all these new ways for healing people.

I sat there feeling sick to my stomach.  I felt as you would feel on hearing that doctors were experimenting on children of maybe black people or asians, or some racial group that they didn’t consider “human.” Like the Nazis experimenting on Jews during the Holocaust.  I was surprised to find that I considered the gorillas human (perhaps I had read Diane Fossey by then) and realized that I considered all primates human, and the whales and the dolphins and the elephants too.  My “we” encompasses all of them.

I was reminded of this story when two YouTube videos came to me on Facebook:
Gorillas groom human
Valentina, the Grateful Whale

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