Epidemic of depression.

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heart_hurts

I haven’t been reading other blogs too much lately (too depressed), but I did read this post by Bradley over at Bipolar Bear.   He describes a depression that sounds quite a bit like mine.  I think a lot of people are saddened about Trump’s winning the election, and feel hopeless about living in America.

In my case, I don’t think it’s just Trump winning the election, though I don’t think that helps.   I think my depression is due to several things:  abandonment issues being triggered, the election, the wildfires and lack of rain, my seasonal SAD, plumbing issues that have no easy fix, and other, less specific things that have been bothering me.

Right now, I feel pretty hopeless and depressed about everything and I’m not even sure why.  I just feel sad and seem to have no energy.   I don’t have much motivation to write anything, or even to read other blogs or comment on them.   I’m going to talk to my therapist about this on Thursday and see if we can figure out what’s going on because I’m so tired of feeling this way.

It seems like a lot of people I know are feeling this way lately, even people who weren’t bothered by the outcome of the election.   Is it something in the air? I don’t know.

Insane weather and wildfires.

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wildfires

The lack of rain in the Smoky Mountain/Blue Ridge mountains areas of Tennessee and western North Carolina have caused widespread forest fires. We finally got rain last night, but east of here, in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, a popular tourist area, wind gusts of 70 mph ahead of the rain spread the fires, and now at least 3 people are confirmed dead and 400 structures have burned, including a 16 story hotel.

https://weather.com/news/news/tennessee-gatlinburg-pigeon-forge-fire

dollywood
This morning in Dollywood, a popular tourist attraction in Pigeon Forge, TN.

Here in North Carolina, we were more fortunate, because the wind gusts here weren’t as strong and the wildfires remain contained.   The rain was good, but it wasn’t enough and the wildfires continue to burn.  Today it was sunny and dry again, but rain and thunderstorms are predicted for tomorrow.    Farther south and east, tornadoes, unusual this time of year, are a threat, and these may hit Tennessee by tonight.

If anyone in Tennessee is reading this, stay safe!

Apology.

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Yesterday I posted something I thought was interesting, not really thinking over whether it might be offensive or not.  It wasn’t intended to offend anyone, but in retrospect (and after some critical comments) I can understand why people would have been offended, so I decided to remove that post.   It also didn’t have much to do with the content of this blog, so removing it wasn’t a big deal.

Sometimes I write controversial things, but this was different.  Controversial and offensive aren’t the same.   I apologize to anyone who was offended by it.

 

3 videos to end the seasonal doldrums.

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These are amazing videos showing different interpretations of all four seasons.  Even if you hate winter, these make you appreciate how all the seasons have their own beauty and work together for the good of the planet.

The second video is interesting because it’s a timelapse taken in Oslo, Norway, known for its long winters and the midnight sun in summer.  Because it’s so close to the Arctic Circle, notice how short the nights are in June and how it never gets really light out in December.   It also doesn’t look like spring really gets underway until May.    That makes me feel very fortunate to live in North Carolina, where spring comes as early as early March and it doesn’t really start getting cold until December.  I really should stop complaining.

The third video is a work of art and I love the seasonal sounds of nature mixed into the timelapse footage.  I also like the way you can see the changing angles of sunlight throughout the year.

All three of these are breathtaking and relaxing.

Year on Planet Earth:

A True Timelapse of 2010 (Oslo, Norway)

A Forest Year:

Raging narcissist mother.

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Here’s a great scene from the 1983 movie, “Terms of Endearment” that paints a portrait of a narcissistic mother as well as Ordinary People did with Mary Tyler Moore playing a very malignant narcissist to her scapegoat son.

In this movie, Aurora (Shirley Maclaine) is very possessive of her only daughter, Emma (Debra Winger) and treats her like an object or extension of herself throughout her childhood and adolescence, though she does seem to love her in that overbearing way some narcissists have (if you can call that “love,” I’m not sure). I don’t think Aurora was as malignant as Mary Tyler Moore’s character in “Ordinary People,” but she is clearly a narcissist.

In many ways, I found this movie, which was released approximately the same time as “Ordinary People” (early ’80s) just as triggering. First of all, the child in this movie is a daughter, portraying a girl around the same age I was at the time this movie was released, and my mother was like a perfect cross between Aurora (a somatic narcissist) and Mary Tyler Moore’s very malignant Beth Jarrett (with a little “Mommie Dearest” thrown in to spice things up).

In this scene, Emma announces her pregnancy. Watch Aurora’s reaction. So typical of N-moms, especially the somatic type.

This is from the comments under the video and explains exactly what is going on here.  I think this person nailed it.

Shirley portrays narcissism perfectly and by the numbers. 1) Daughter’s wonderful news news eclipsed by mother’s preoccupation with aging. 2) Mother calculates her plan (watch her eyes) 3) The trigger is delivered: “I don’t understand.” (bullshit) 4) Daughter takes the bait and calls her mother out. 4) Success! Mom’s got a handle on the daughter and attacks her for making her feel old (because it’s all about her of course). 5) Son-in-law isn’t buying it (awesome by the way) 6) So mom feigns tears to regain moral high ground and walk away with it.

One thing that wasn’t very realistic about this movie was the way Aurora’s personality seemed to change at the end of the movie and she wound up doing the loving, unselfish thing many normal mothers would do (I can’t say more without spoiling the end). But it’s a movie and real life isn’t usually like the movies.

I also don’t think it’s spoiling anything to mention that Flap (Emma’s husband) turned out to be as narcissistic and selfish as Aurora. She never liked him and in many ways was right about him. That reminds me of my mother’s warnings about my malignant N ex.

“I have no childhood memories because my N-mom threw out my ‘garbage’.”

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Recently I read that looking at photos of our childhoods can help us heal.   It can hurt to see how lost we looked or watch the real body language of yourself and other family members in reaction to you, but it can also shed light on the truth and prove to us that we really weren’t crazy.

I don’t have more than 8 photos of myself as a child and almost all of them are of me by myself.   A large pastel portrait of me at about age 6 my father proudly used to hang over the mantel has been lost for years (I suspect it was thrown away).  I remember sitting for it in Old Town, Chicago, wearing a yellow summer dress, and how proud I was to sit in front of that bohemian street artist.  It was one of my few happy childhood memories and was a special moment with my father.   I remember looking slightly sad in the portrait though, and remember my dad saying he rather liked the sad look in my eyes, even though I don’t recall being sad as I sat for that portrait and emotions that weren’t “positive” were always dismissed or scolded anyway.  I would really love to have that portrait now.  In fact, I long for it. I’ve even been trying to figure out how one would go about placing an ad asking if anyone had seen that painting (I don’t think that would be possible or that anyone would have seen it anyway).

No one seems to know where any of the old family albums that had me in them are, and I doubt they would want to hang onto them, so my guess is they were tossed at some point as trash (my mother always hated clutter).  I guess any memory of me is just clutter as well.  My emotions were not acceptable; I was not acceptable.  Why keep any reminders that I existed?

I have no family, no continuity to any kind of past or any roots.  I feel like an orphan and have felt that way for years.  Sure, some could say that I threw them away (moving far away from them, No Contact, etc.) but I was pushed away emotionally and every other way for years before I decided that any further contact with them, especially my mother, was just too triggering and painful.

Evidently I’m not alone.  There’s a whole thread on Reddit about just this.

I have no childhood memorabilia because my NMom threw out my "garbage".
byu/wisegal99 inraisedbynarcissists

Scapegoated adult children find themselves in this position a lot, without even any pictures or tangible objects to help them better remember their childhoods.  This is another way narcissistic parents hobble us — by not even allowing us to access photos and mementos that could bring us clarity into the role we served within our families and the reactions of other family members to us.   Tangible things that give us a sense of having come from somewhere, of having belonged to something, even if it wasn’t a very good something.  Tools to help us heal were denied to us, just like everything else.   It’s as bad as having your face ripped out of every picture your family ever had of you.   As if they were trying to erase you.

Honesty.

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I’m not going to lie.   I’ve been feeling pretty down and out about everything the past few days.   Maybe it’s the letdown after “returning to reality” last week, or maybe it’s another huge pocket of pain coming to the surface that needs release.    I know what I can do about that.   I can meet my two new friends in Chapel Hill who have promised to work with me on that, but I have to set up a whole day to make the 4-hour drive there and back, and spend several hours in therapy.

My depression could be due to the sudden arrival of “winter”– all the leaves are finally gone, it’s suddenly cold and the days are unbearably short.   I spent the entire day curled up on the couch with a blanket eating junk food staring at my box TV, watching episodes of “Pitbulls and Parolees” on Animal Planet and crying during and after every heartwarming/heartbreaking episode.  And I don’t even like Pitbulls!  My pitiful little two foot tall fiber optic Christmas tree sitting in the corner by the window seemed to mock me.  Where’s my Christmas spirit? I have none right now.  And I don’t care.

Several real world issues (like terrible water pressure caused by years of incompetent jimmy-rigged plumbing in a 108 year old house that all needs to be redone and will cost thousands of dollars that my landlord doesn’t want to spend and I certainly don’t have)–things that aren’t really disasters but have the potential to become disasters aren’t helping.   I’m trying to work out solutions to these seemingly impossible dilemmas but don’t have the motivation or energy to do very much except complain and whine about how awful and annoying they are.  I almost don’t care.   The whole house is falling apart anyway.   The landlord does nothing.  I just want to move.  But that’s not looking like it’s in the immediate future either.

I’m getting older and feeling increasingly helpless and adrift in life unless things begin to change or I get a handle on myself and obtain more motivation to change some things myself–like writing that ebook I always talk about writing.  I know I could probably sell it and at least earn enough to move–maybe.   But my motivation to write or create anything is gone.  All I want to do is eat and sleep.  I don’t even want to blog or read.  I don’t want to do anything.   I don’t even feel like looking for a sad picture for this post.

I feel like maybe something very dark, some hidden or unseen outcropping of the Himalayan-sized mountain range of my abandonment trauma got triggered during my HeartSync week that wasn’t fully resolved or fully released.   I remember feeling like there was more I had to get out, but there wasn’t enough time to work on that.

I’m having lots of doubts about my faith too, which alarms me.    I feel like I need to call these two people in Chapel Hill really soon.   I also want my copy of Pete Walker’s “C-PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving” back.  My therapist has had it for months and I doubt has even read it.   I think I’m going to ask him to bring it back, because I sure could use the advice in it right now.

I didn’t want to write anything tonight.  But I wanted to be honest.  So there you go.  That’s where I’m at.   I’m going to put on my light therapy lamp for awhile and just try to relax and talk to God even if he’s AWOL at the moment.  Then go to sleep.

9 ways to survive the holidays.

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Originally posted on 12/12/15

holiday-stress-2011

Now that Thanksgiving is over, the Christmas season is officially here. That means crowded stores, grumpy drivers clogging the roads on their way to and from said stores, horrible office Christmas parties, commercials showing perfect happy families living in big houses with tons of relatives all appearing to love each other (are they TRYING to make us jealous?), fake cheerfulness, fake sleigh bells (did anyone ever REALLY go on a sleigh ride?), horrible canned Christmas music you cannot escape from, “Jingle Bell Rock” (quite possibly the most annoying Christmas song ever) playing endlessly on every pop music station, and maybe worst of all, the shortest days of the year. It’s dark in the morning when you get up for work, and it’s dark again at 5 PM when you get off.

All this is enough to make you want to shoot yourself in the head. But don’t do that!  There are better ways to deal with this often infuriating and, for many, depressing time of year. And remember, it’s only for a month.

Many of us who were raised in narcissistic or dysfunctional families don’t have good associations with Christmas and the holidays in general. On top of this, Christmas has become over-commercialized and even people from normal, happy families get stressed. Everywhere you go, there are messages telling you to be cheerful and “jolly” and ads telling you to buy, buy, and buy some more. People who don’t have families (or have dysfunctional families) or don’t have a lot of money often feel marginalized, as if they’re defective because they can’t fully participate in all the hoopla or be as happy as the wealthy, perfect (and annoying) people they see in TV commercials. The days are also short and gloomy. No wonder depression is so common this time of year.

Even if you dread the holidays, it’s still possible to enjoy them. I used to stress myself into a frenzy every Christmas. When you have small children, it’s easy to do this if money is tight, which it almost always was for us. After all, children are expecting Santa to come with his bag of gifts, and they will not understand if gifts are few. But kids being around also make Christmas fun. Now that my kids are adults, I’ve learned to not stress so much about Christmas. It’s still not my favorite time of year, but here are some ways you can make the most of it. Even though I still dread the holidays, I almost always wind up having a great time.

1. Treat Christmas like a second Thanksgiving.

foodquote7

Thanksgiving is probably the least commercialized holiday. In fact, it’s so underrated that now it’s been nearly co-opted by Black Friday, and stores remain open on Thanskgiving so people can get a head start on their Christmas shopping.
On Thanksgiving, the focus is on food, eating, and football. For the past few years, I’ve focused on the food at Christmas rather than the gifts. I give a few inexpensive or homemade gifts, but I spend more of my time and energy on cooking. My spinach-meat lasagna has become a family tradition rather than the usual turkey (I’m usually turkey’d out after a month of eating turkey, turkey soup, and turkey sandwiches) and the lasagna I make has all the Christmas colors too. (I’ll post my recipe later on). Add a salad and some garlic bread and some kind of pie (usually apple for us), and we’re good to go. Everyone’s so busy enjoying the food they barely register the fact the gifts are few.

2. Bake cookies (or other baked goods) and give them as gifts.
You don’t need to spend a fortune on presents. Everyone loves cookies and they can be wrapped in attractive and creative ways and given as gifts. If you’ve baked the cookies yourself, it can be a more thoughtful and personal gift than something you got from the store. If you prefer, bake a pie and wrap it like an Easter basket in red and green cellophane with a bow on top. Even a prettily wrapped basket of fruit can make a thoughtful gift.

3. Give handmade gifts.
I make suncatchers made of bits of glass, stone and small mirrors and they make terrific gifts. I haven’t made any in about a year, but I have several still around that I plan to give as gifts this year. Each one is unique and everyone appreciates them. Years ago, when I had a kiln, I used to paint ceramic tiles. People loved those too. If you paint, make jewelry, knit, or do any other kind of arts and crafts, think about making your gifts instead of buying them. People will appreciate the time and effort that went into making such a personal and unique gift.

4. Remember that the days are now becoming longer.

WinterSolsticeHappy

If you’re like me (I suffer from SAD), the short days of this time of year can get you down. But there’s an upside too. Starting the first day of winter, the days start growing longer! Christmas was originally a pagan holiday to celebrate the “return of the sun”–the winter solstice. Remind yourself of the lengthening days and try not to think about the cold months ahead.   As of the first day of Winter, there are ONLY THREE MORE MONTHS UNTIL SPRING!   That’s great news for SAD sufferers like me!

5. Do something special for yourself.
If you’re not blessed with a big, boisterous family–or even if you have no one to spend Christmas with, you can still enjoy the day. Make it special: give (or make) yourself a gift, go to a movie, take a long walk, or a long luxurious bath. Also, you can remind yourself that sometimes big family get-togethers can turn into unpleasant drama fests. Remind yourself that you’re spared from that.

6. Volunteer.

volunteer

Most churches sponsor Christmas dinners. Other organizations do too. If you don’t have a family to spend the day with, or you have negative memories associated with this time of year, consider donating your time to preparing or serving food to take your mind off your woes. You might even meet others in the same boat and wind up making new friends and having a great time.

7. It’s only one day.
Even though the Christmas season can seem endless, it’s all leading up to one day, and then it’s all over for another whole year.

8. Skip Christmas this year.
I’m serious. If Christmas really stresses you out, consider skipping it altogether. Explain to your friends and family that you need a break from the stress and assure them it’s nothing personal. If they’re true friends they will understand. If you’re a Christian, you will not offend Jesus if you skip Christmas. The Bible doesn’t tell us we have to celebrate his birthday.

9. Remember what Christmas is really all about.

Three Kings Behold the Star of Bethlehem

Three Kings Behold the Star of Bethlehem

In spite of what all the commercials tell us, Christmas isn’t about the trees, Santa Claus, reindeer and gifts. It’s about the birth of Jesus Christ. Most churches have some sort of Christmas service. Consider attending and focusing on the true meaning of Christmas instead of all the material trappings. Watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” always a treat for me.

Tinged with envy.

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Credit: The New Yorker

One week smoke-free!

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No smoking

I smoked my last cigarette a week ago tonight, which was also the last night I spent in Chapel Hill before driving home on Friday morning.

I hadn’t actually intended to quit.   Its not like I was a heavy smoker.  But there was no good reason to continue smoking either.  Besides the obvious health issues, it’s a huge waste of money, it makes you and your clothes smell like cigarettes (I HATED being told my clothes or my car smelled), and (if you smoke in your house — I tried not to, but sometimes cheated) turns everything in your house an ugly shade of yellowish brown after awhile.

Smoking is also no longer really socially acceptable.    Hardly anyone smokes anymore, and those who do are treated like lepers in most places now.

When I arrived at the Aqueduct in Chapel Hill last Monday night, I realized it was going to be a real challenge obtaining smokes.   The camp-like setting is in a rural area, nowhere near any stores, and I didn’t know the area at all.  If I were to go try to find a store that sold cigarettes, it would have meant driving in an unfamiliar area after dark, which is something I can’t do because I have such terrible night vision.

During my stay in Chapel Hill, I had one pack of cigarettes I had bought on Sunday, the day I left for the retreat, and that pack lasted me for the better part of the week, until Thursday.   I was probably the only smoker there, and it was embarrassing having to go down to the parking lot at night and try to hide the fact I was smoking.  I felt ashamed!

I simply saw no need to buy any more on Friday morning even though I was returning home.  What the heck for?  I’d already tapered down to only 2 -3 cigarettes a day with no cravings or ill effects, so I knew the next step would be to just not buy anymore.  Why put off the inevitable?

So tonight, it’s been a week.   I’ve had a few cravings, but they haven’t been bad, not like I expected.  I’m seeing a difference already:  I can breathe more easily and am smelling and tasting things more (I’m not sure how I feel about that, since I don’t exactly WANT food to taste or smell better).   I also think my skin already has a healthier, pinker, more youthful tone.

I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to enjoy a cup of coffee anymore, since I usually drink a cup with my first cigarette of the day, but so far, I’ve enjoyed my joe just fine without the unnecessary “accessory.”

And all that money I was spending on cigarettes?  It’s going into a vacation fund instead.   I can think of so many things I’d rather do with that money than see it all go up in smoke.