Happy holidays, People, however you may celebrate them.
Apologies in advance for being a killjoy with a somber PSA. Please keep in mind that the holidays aren't happy for everybody. This doesn't make the unhappy person "bad" or "a Scrooge." It just means the holidays are hard for them.
I am having an extremely blue Christmas, partially for reasons that I'm sure most people could understand at least a bit. The majority of the big losses I've had have come in the Winter months, particularly in November. I jokingly said that I have re-named November Butt Month because nothing good has ever come of it, and people got mad at me. For fuck's sake, I'm not saying that if you have a birthday in November you're worthless. I'm just saying that I've had a lot of losses in November and this was my hyperbolic, snarky, and ultimately worthless and impotent way of striking back.
It was like an extra twist of the knife to have my Star Shower projector stolen. I don't put up a tree because the cats just destroy it. I didn't want to get another cheap string of lights because the instant one burns out, you might as well throw the whole string away. What a waste. So I got the Star Shower for something a little different. Then it got stolen, and I didn't end up getting any other decorations.
I know it's a small thing, not like that guy whose son is getting a kidney transplant and some lousy porch pirate pilfered $5000 of very important medication that was left on his porch. I know I'm overreacting. Not on the outside, I appear calm and rational. It's all on the inside. I have bipolar disorder. My brain loves to do that shit.
He once said that the only place he found peace was when he was playing.
I hope he is finding peace now that he is free of his very ill body.
I know people also think I'm stupid for grieving a person whom I didn't know in life. I can't really explain how or why this affected me so strongly, but it has. There is a certain magic gone from the world and the realization has come hard that I had a lot of useless and futile dreams for myself when I was younger. I was a foolish and unrealistic person.
The truth is, I would commit suicide, but I worry greatly about what would happen to my son if I were gone, so I hang on. Aside from my son and his well-being, I have nothing to live for.
Do me a favor and don't whip out the old "but, counseling and meds!" chestnut. I'll be 53 years old in less than two months. I've lived with a mood disorder at least since I hit puberty. I was nine years old when the hormones kicked in and I started growing boobs which I didn't want because I knew the gross way in which men reacted to breasts, and I started to get hair on my bits and pits. I didn't want that either. That bit of WTMI gives you the idea of how long I've lived with this shit. There's nothing new under the sun.
Just believe me that I already know what the options are and they haven't worked. I'm being honest about how I feel. Let's leave it at that.
I once learned a song called "What If A Day." It was written by Thomas Campion in the Elizabethan era. I have a horrible voice not fit to be heard by anything with ears, but I often sing this to myself. For me, it embodies the truth.
What if a day, or a month, or a yeare
Crown thy delights with a thousand sweet contentings?
Cannot a chance of a night or an howre
Crosse thy desires with as many sad tormentings?
Fortune, honor, beauty, youth
Are but blossoms dying;
Wanton pleasure, doating love,
Are but shadowes flying.
All our joyes are but toyes,
Idle thoughts deceiving;
None have power of an howre
In their lives bereaving.
Earthes but a point to the world, and a man
Is but a point to the worlds compared centure:
Shall then a point of a point be so vaine
As to triumph in a seely points adventure?
All is hassard that we have,
There is nothing biding;
Dayes of pleasure are like streames
Through faire meadowes gliding.
Weale and woe, time doth goe,
Time is ever turning:
Secret fates guide our states,
Both in mirth and mourning.
And there you have it.
I hope you have a happy holiday. Forgive me if I don't.
~The Cheese Hath Grated It~
My foes are depression & anxiety. I was very good about putting on a happy face till I was laid off, just under a year ago. Around April, I took to my bed and pretty much haven't left. I have occasional good days - but many are now spent sleeping. I'm going the med route again, but only because sleeping for 30+ hours is not doing me any good.. I'd like to be semi-human for awhile. Current meds aren't working at all.
ReplyDeleteAnd you aren't alone in living for something else. I plan to kill myself at 65 (regardless of how many people don't believe me) and am only currently still alive to care for my cats. If they were gone, I would be too. Do to having friends who found bodies of loved ones, I'm a bit focused on how I will do things to result in the least trauma to others.
I don't celebrate any holidays anymore. To me, a Christmas tree is just a symbol of the gifts which aren't under it, the reality that I have no one to celebrate with, and a mess that just needs to be cleaned up later (and I HATE cleaning). But, overall, I take a lot of joy in not getting stressed out about shopping or receiving crap gifts, or any of the other negative drama about that particular holiday!!
Meds don't work for me at all. I have type 2 bipolar disorder, and SSRI's make me manic and psychotic. Um--no thanks! With psych meds (with any meds, really) sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. I take a low dose of Lithium Orotate, which is a form of Lithium available without prescription, and a cocktail of natural supplements for the psych stuff. It helps a little and doesn't have the wicked side effects of the pharmaceutical stuff.
DeleteAll of the pharmaceutical medications I take are for strictly physical conditions, mostly endocrine garbage.
If it weren't for my son, I'd be dead already. I don't see much of a future for myself at all. I really worry about what will happen to him when I'm gone. He's fairly agoraphobic. He can go out if someone is with him, but doesn't like to be out for long periods of time. We really only have each other. I have other family, but we're kind of estranged. I see my mother, more often than I care to if I'm to be honest, but our relationship is very strained.
My father loved the holidays. After he passed, I didn't have much use for them. I kind of like looking at all the pretty lights, but that's about all.