Cowboys and Tom Selleck

Depression is like being in Ivan Ilych’s black sack.

I am having an episode right now so I am not gonna worry about grammar and punctuation and capitalization. My legs are shaking. My hands are shaking and spasming. Typing is not easy. So this is post is being written in the Darkness.

I did not get out of bed today. Well that’s a lie. I got up to pee and then went back to bed until after one o’clock knowing both my parents wouldn’t be home until one thirty-ish.  I brushed my teeth and made the bed. I got breakfast. I don’t know when I woke up. But I spent the morning in bed reading the Washington post and playing games—hid object games—on my kindle. (them selling out to android was a HUGE trumpesque mistake.) mom offered to help me sort through stuff in my bed room. I have to figure out what to leave here and what to take back to the holy city. More barbies for certain. I decided that was too much and I went back to bed---well on top on the made bed and played games until I needed a nap.

I made myself walk with mom and K.—the aging and arthritic dog. That helped a little. I had my cigarette and coffee and then as mom was putting dinner together for us to eat I started with an episode.

Motherfucker. Motherfucker. Motherfucker.

My right leg just shakes. You’d think I were possessed or at least making it up for attention—but I can’t stop it. my fingers shake as I type and then spasm straight out over the keyboard. Now it’s my left leg. If I don’t try to control the shaking at all I just spasm like a caught fish on the deck of a ship. Not real comfortable. If I try to control it some I shake and twitch. Stop my right leg with all my willpower and my left starts in. I’ve found it’s best to just ride it out. I don’t think the Xanax helps anyway. Hey I gotta save my Xanax for the nuclear option, right?  I don’t wanna take Xanax. It’ll knock me out. You’d think I’d want that. But I get my comfort from this time of day. I can watch my tv shows and smoke.

I looked around at the sky and the trees and beauty of the country. I feel nothing. I know somewhere inside that it’s beautiful. But I don’t feel it. I can see the light shining on my face but not feel it. the sack prevents me from feeling anything really. I should enjoy my cigarette and coffee but I don’t. I should enjoy cross stitching but I don’t. I should enjoy ice cream but I don’t.

I know I am truly depressed because I’m tired all the time until about four or so. Then I am awake until after one a.m. I didn’t even care about smoking a cigarette. My sacred coffee and cigarette was had after six.

What do I feel right now? I want to be here no more. I want to be done. God you made a mistake. I’m done. I’m sorry Saint Jude—I failed you. I have tattooed myself as a living witness to you and all I want to do is go away.

How can mom help me she asks. By not giving up on me.

For those of you out there who don’t know—haven’t experienced clinical depression in all it’s glory. Let me enlighten you. We—the depreseed—don’t like it. it’s not fun for us. It’s not a pity party. We want to get out of the sack or at least see the light. But we can’t. it’s like you can feel, taste, smell, hear, or touch anything without the black bag between you and life. Yeah I’m at the bottom of the well. I’m not sure if I am even treading water. Nobody would want to feel this way. If we could fucking snap out of it we would. We’re not selfish. We know the burden we put on those around us. That’s part of the nuclear option thinking---people would be unburdened of us. AND thinking about suicide and committing it are two very different things.  

It’s septmember. I should be teaching and preparing for a new school year. Like my replacement who used to be a student of mine. Instead I am thinking how I will live on half of the disability in January when my union disability runs out. Hey, I’m thinking ahead. That’s good. That’s indicative of not being wholey commiteed to the nuclear option.

I fear losing my house and fear keeping it. fuck me.

I told the priest during confession yesterday and I was a bad person or at least not a good person. That’s the rub. The only person you can really be honest with and not fear being locked up is a catholic priest because what happens in the confessional stays in the confessional no matter what. I told him I wanted to kill myself. He asked if I had a therapist. Phew, he thought. This bitch ain’t my problem. Thank God I don’t have to deal with the paperwork of reporting this. I was absolved of my sins.

But I don’t feel absolved. I feel like I just wanna go to sleep forever.

It’s all too much. The paperwork and bills and getting my ornaments back fro t. and going to school and seeing my shrink and going up to my house to have it winterized and packing to move eight hundred and fifty miles away. Typing out the number is easier than moving my hands from the home keys to find the numbers. Microsoft word’s automatic grammar correct is doing most of the correct grammar in this post. It’s all too much. Shopping for food and taking care of insurance and reaching out to old friends. I just want to curl up iin the black sack and sleep. I want a cigarette. I hate myself. I’m scared. The germs the opportunities for failure.

I lie in a dark room still shaking and writing this blog from the laptop shaking on top of my lap. I have my legs stretched out and my head against the headboard.

All I ever wanted was to be a wife and to be something that mattered in life.

Well that worked out well didn’t it?

I think it’s subsiding. Just like that the shakes turn into twitches. I think the worst is over.

And I feel guilt. All the fucking time. I feel guilt that I did nothing today and that I am a failure as a person. Depressed people do feel guilt. Guilt and fear –those are our constant companions.

I wish I could get new friends.

I don’t know why I am falling apart here in my childhood home and town. Mom and dad blame it on T. Hey, I can capitalize again. My hand are not shaking.

Is it T.? Maybe. I spent a year of my life with him believing his outrageous lies. The stupidity is astounding.

I wish the priest had said something. Like “you are a good person.” I wouldn’t have believed it, but coming from a Man of God it’s still nice to hear. I wish he’d told me that Christ loves me and doesn’t want me up there yet. I wish he told me that I was special and God has a plan for me outside of the sack and the well.

Do I know these things intellectually? Fuck yes. Do I FEEL them. Fuck no.

I think I’ll watch Bluebloods tonight.  Last year’s season on Hulu. No commercials. Tom Selleck is like a Xanax. Comforting.

AND NO T., TOM SELLECK IS NOT A “FUCKING FAGGOT.” 

You, T., are the fucking, drunken, delusional, abusive, can't-even-get-it-up since rehab asshole.

Disclaimer: I have NO moral issue with gayness. I really don’t—even as a Catholic. I don’t. I know and love people who are gay. They have as much of a right to be in miserable relationships and hurt each other as much as the rest of us do. Being gay is a matter of genetics. It's natural.

I’ve never seen Brokeback Mountain. Cowboys are not gay and neither is Tom Selleck. They just aren’t. I’m sorry I can’t be more enlightened on this topic but I’m not. It’s true: cowboys and Magnum cannot be gay.

Just like Martin Luther King Jr. couln't have white and Black Gospel Choirs will always be better than White Gospel Choirs. It's a fact.

Smoke ‘em if ya’ got ‘em. God Bless

In the name of The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Mother Mary, Saint Brigid; Saint Jude; Saint Therese Lisieux; Archangel Michael, and my Guardian Angel.

PS: I didn’t fix this post because I want “you” to see the progression of my episode.

PPS: After all, tomorrow is another day.

PPPS: I'm not shaving again tonight.