Climbing out of the Pit

 

I'm sharing suggestions that have helped me in the past week of despair.

Daughter had read a nugget somewhere and shared it with me.

Every morning before contemplating the day, take a look around me and focus on how hard it would be to live without something. Not for long. Just enough to recognize its loss if it happened.

So I've been doing this and am astonished at all I take for granted in my life and don't really see. Gratitude lists are grand but less meaningful when one lumps stuff together.

I mentioned this to a friend I met with during the week as she had been full of angst and depression herself. So we agreed to share our item of acknowledgement in text first thing in the morning before the day got a hold of us.

My first day was independent living, thinking of my dear friend Lana in her assisted living life. I looked around my apartment and felt this rush of appreciation.

My second day was books. I am a voracious reader and would find it just about impossible to live without them. 

My third day was my doctor, who has been an incredible support in the past two years when I needed medical attention and care the most. He goes beyond the call of care and concern. He has a gift of intuition, endless time, and humour. For instance - I have shaky underperforming kidneys and yesterday, without prompting, he assured me yet again that I would not need dialysis in my lifetime as age, for once, was in my favour. So I said to him my obit should read - "it was not her kidneys that killed her?" And we laughed. I don't know what I'd do without him.

So there you have it. A tiny tool that seems to work for navigating these days of worry and stress and helplessness and anxiety. And a looming war as the icing on the cake.

Thank you all for the wonderful words of support and kinship on my last post. I savoured every single comment many times.  

No longer alone.

The Fine Line

 

I believe there's a fine line between sanity and insanity. I'm writing today as I feel quite massively overwhelmed by the last two years.  See, I'm understating it terrifically. For who wants to read a depressing blog post about the State of The Union? The Union of the body parts, the brain, the physical well being, the social interactions, emotional and mental intelligence.

The last few days I don't feel I'm functioning as I should. Living alone is an enormous challenge in this Time of the Plague. No one to monitor me on a daily basis. No one to see how well I'm coping, no one to share with. 

I feel everything is catching up with me. The isolation, the risk of emerging out of my cocoon into the virus infected world. The deaths of two very close friends, all the health challenges I've had.

I count out and sort all my pills every Sunday. I say all. I mean all. Over 30 every day. Stringing my beating heart and blood pressure and pain into acceptable numbers. I read them out to my doctor, usually once a week and we talk about my blood lab results.

This morning hopelessness set in. On March 14th here, all restrictions are removed. But seniors are dying in unprecedented numbers in this province. Vaccinated, unvaccinated? We haven't a clue. Those stats are deemed private. Expendable senior philosophy, economy comes first.

There are three in my bubble, Daughter, Niece and a close friend who has her own tiny bubble.

This is not a whine. Just throwing it out there. I feel quite anti-social as I feel I have nothing to talk about of any interest and my creativity and my equanimity are in extremely short supply. 

I honestly feel like I am just marking time, waiting to die. My dreams are full of death, dead friends, Ansa, my lost daughter.

My friend Lana, in her assisted living luxury environment said on our phone call this week that she had put up a big sign in her room saying:

"THIS IS NOT ASSISTED LIVING, THIS IS ASSISTED DYING."

It caught the attention of the management in a big way so she's marching the halls again and dictating to the kitchen staff about healthy meals.

I don't share this stuff with family. Because it would distress them. Everybody has issues around this falling apart planet we're on. I can't add to their burdens.

Another "buck up, it could be worse"  would have me screaming in a corner.

So there, I'm just not fit. I've lost the run of myself.

Truth in blogging.

Back to Square One

I had a couple of days of relief but for the past five days it's been back to exhaustion, pain, and this miasma of hopelessness covering everything. I've been nearly a year in isolation and the remaining nerve in my head is jingling and not in a good way. It's tough living alone and making all decisions with regard to health care, ever conscious of mobility challenges and lights at end of tunnel have to be self-instigated or not at all. And I don't have a match.

Sorry to be on such a downer, my lack of energy is dragging me into a dark place. It seems like my entire creative spirt has upped and left. I can't even get my new card put together.

I only whinge to my whinge buddies. On here is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. I haven't heard from specialists or have test appointments. I am super pale and a friend (masked) who delivered soup was shocked at my appearance which didn't make me feel better but a whole lot worse. I've lost interest in food, can't get enough sleep and it takes me a good hour to get oriented and kinda moving in the morning.

Okay. Cheery thought..

A huge shock. Grandgirl and her partner are moving here May 1 for three months at least. They can each work remotely. They are moving into a house right here, vacant, and owned by another family member:

To say I am thrilled that she will be living just around the corner from me is understating it. Totally unexpected though Daughter and I dreamed of it but just between the two of us. 

So over and out and I plan to try and read blogs today and connect with all you lovelies. 

 

 

 

Two Wonderful Things

The 21 days were successful. Now it's up to me to keep on this track of self-care and healthier living. 

I'm still having trouble with these new pain meds. They are making me feel worse if anything. Discombobulated. Not myself. And pain, as we know, is like another person in the room, taking up a huge amount of space, greedy, grasping and sneering.

The first wonderful thing was I was asked to write another article for an on line magazine on women and alcoholism which would be a follow up to a previous article I wrote.

The second was CBC called me - that's the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation - to appear on television and speak on radio about food insecurity as it affects seniors so I am working on that at the moment. So many additional issues challenging seniors during Covid. I will provide a link to anyone who wishes when this is up. 

This is all as a result of founding the Support our Seniors Group. I've been on the media many times in the past advocating for all the issues facing the elders of our country (particularly woman) living in poverty -  with so many of us surviving way below the poverty level and just plain struggling, taking poorly paid part time work, eating cheap food, unable to afford dental, eye and hearing care (not covered by our universal health care).

I saw this great line from a comedian friend yesterday:

"Hearing the ancestral bark of the Black Dog."

Those of you with depressive episodes will relate. I did.

Label

Labelling, self-labelling I mean, can be extraordinarily useful. I was struggling with the Black Dog - and thank you so much to all those who commented in support. It is remarkable how the ether world and caring others in the real world can offer so much comfort and understanding.

A man I worked with said to me he was going to this six part workshop on chronic conditions.

chron·ic

/ˈkränik/

adjective
adjective: chronic
(of an illness) persisting for a long time or constantly recurring.
"chronic bronchitis"
synonyms: persistent, long-standing, long-term; More
incurable;
immedicable
"a chronic illness"
antonyms: acute
•(of a person) having an illness persisting for a long time or constantly recurring.
"a chronic asthmatic"
•(of a problem) long-lasting and difficult to eradicate.
"the school suffers from chronic overcrowding"

synonyms: constant, continuing, ceaseless, unabating, unending, persistent, long-lasting;

I asked him what his condition was if he felt comfortable telling me and he said "Anxiety" - he's had this basically non-stop since brutal orphanage days (Five years old at incarceration - Sweet Jaysus).

I thought for a minute and said: I have a chronic condition too.

And then: I think I'll go too.

So there. Just affixing the label to myself I felt a load lift off me. And the workshop? I can't say enough about it. 2-3 hours each. All of us (Including the two facilitators) have chronic conditions. All of us suffer periodic depression. All of us had difficulty labelling ourselves.

There is such solace in just saying it out loud to a bunch who totally understand. And boy, are there degrees of "chronic".

I got off lightly.

More on this in the next few weeks as I learn more.

Hello Darkness, my old friend....

I was wondering when you'd show up.

It's been a while and you're way overdue.

Yeah, there's been changes. It seems to me you always sense these life altering corners I have to turn. You give me a few days, maybe a week, to feel confident and secure and then, without a knock on the door, in you walk bringing your cold breath and that murky miasma that clings to everything you touch.

I ran. Upstairs. And into bed. I couldn't face work, and there was a bit of it, not much, but I knew you'd take that weird position on my desk and shoot those thoughts into my head, the why bother ones, the life is hopeless ones, the lonely ones, the nobody really cares ones.

Bed is safe, though not as safe as with Ansa in it, I have to admit. It gives you free reign really when I'm this vulernable. Though you haven't stolen sleep from me yet. Maybe that will come.

My analytical mind just about destroys me after you show up. I think: what attracted you back. The Handicapped sticker the doctor suggested? My young friend saying to me yesterday she was having a hard time seeing me taking up residence in the apartment as we sat in it drinking coffee? The suggestion made by a facilitator-friend of taking the Living with Chronic Diseases series of workshops? Finding so much poignancy in every aspect of my life at the moment? Losing interest in cooking for myself?

Yeah, none of it mattered to you. You saw the opportunity and you rushed through the door.

I don't know if I can summon the energy to shove you out.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Happy New Year in the old Irish tradition.

It was like that for a while. Black Dog weather. There are advantages to having the old BD by my side. I brutally edited some of my own work. It's the best place to be for this writer. Of course I isolated and had the misfortune to share with a good friend over lunch who left me far worse off than the condition she found me in.

At the end of this bleak weak I forced myself out the door to get some groceries and on my way back another friend called, intuiting I'd lost the run of myself, and said he's meet me for fish and chips at our local pub. He's one of those great listening guys who never offers solutions, he just listens, dredges up some similarities in his own life and offers comfort. They're a rare breed these friends.

He left me far better off than the condition he found me in.

Isn't that life though.

I find accumulation of challenges and downswings and disappointments and worries press down on me so hard at times that I sink further into the hole with very little encouragement.

The loss of Ansa has been terrible. I've been trying to be a pillar for my friend who lost her daughter. The mess next door and the loss of 100s of more trees weighs heavily. And I'm waiting on some more medical tests to sort out some baffling health issues which have impacted my mobility. I've lost interest in my community, which is understandable, I suppose, as measures were never taken in the past to implement and enforce a town plan and zoning.

The bright side is that I entered two pieces in a competition, I saw a wonderful show (a treat from Daughter)on Saturday which had us both gasping for breath we were laughing so hard. I can't remember when I last laughed like that.

And Grandgirl has suggested, and strongly, that the three of us hoof off some time in the spring together to celebrate the completion of her undergrad and her stellar academic year.

Something to look forward to.

Like the Old Man said.

Down the Rabbit Hole.

My dear D**** left us early this morning. I had written to her as I had every night before going to bed. Recounting another memory of some event we'd shared. I always loved hanging with her. The thick and thin strands of our shared lives.

I may be getting custody of her dog. Which will all work out.

I took in another pet years ago when another friend died and no one wanted her beloved cat. Her cat was hard to love but I made of it an office cat and it got socialized and lived happily ever after. For years and years.

Maybe that's my function, taking care of the pets of my deceased friends. I don't know what happened to Helen's dog. Another out of control snarly pet. I would have taken it too but quarantine stuff between Canada and Ireland would be a huge roadblock. I think she was "unrescued." I don't ask.

The rabbit hole is weird, my day to day stuff keeps me going. I'm glad of the PGs who are not aware of my broken heart, my private tears.

It's been a year from hell so far, I feel the wind blowing through my soul for far too many moments.

I am so very glad for those in my life who reach out and comfort me in times as these. I've never been more aware of the love offered by those I trust in my times of almost unbearable fragility. I am truly grateful.

Natural Selection

Today (for Dog knows I wasn't up for it yesterday)I wonder about life's manifestations and nuances.

And birth order.

And how some in the same gene pool escape the afflictions of the others.

And nature vs nurture.

And hereditary vs environment.

Is everything in life a balancing act - i.e. a vs?

Like some eat and never gain weight.

While others can't even look at an ice cream without some kind of osmosis taking place.

Are there trade-offs - like you get so many talents but you also get all the angst, whereas you, you over there, get none but you're oh-so-happy-all-the-time. Because money/beauty/wit/Harvard.

And addiction? Is that genetic roulette?

Is adult life all about unmet needs from childhood?

Existential moments.

From me.

Who doesn't feel quite all there, right now.

The Upside of the Downside.

Many positives can be extracted from the negatives, right? That being a scientific fact 'n all.

Thanks for all the supportive comments that I received. Depression is normal. Especially for those of the creative and/or addictive bent. I choose to remain unmedicated. Caveat: I respect those who choose otherwise. Many years ago, medicated, I lost myself. I flat-lined. I chose (for me) not to live that way. So the 5% rough and tough facets of me co-exist with the 95% smooth - this ratio was a lot, lot worse, believe me. Sometimes it's a bumpy ride. I lose the run of myself for a while and I retreat. And breathe. And get sad. And morose. And prickly. And overly sensitive. And choose, very carefully, who I spend time with (Yeah, I know: with whom I spend time. How distancing is that CORRECT sentence structure? Just sayin'.)

I had to appear, yet again, on public media yesterday. And because I'm in the sub-human (all too human, really) condition I'm in, I didn't give a rat's you know what which serves me extraordinarily well as I'm not in the least bit nervous in front of the cameras and I can look grim and forbidding and no-nonsense (downright saucy my granny would've called it) which was just what was needed. You should see the emails on my "magnificent" performance.

Little do they know the prerequisite is the Black Dog.

I fooled 'em all.

Side-swiped

Things go along really well but then, like a bolt out of the blue, that Old Black Dog thunders into my psyche. I'd been in denial for a while. Noticed some subtle changes in my behaviour and the absence of any kind of joy. Desiring just to be Left Alone. Not reading too many blogs, not doing much of anything apart from socks. I couldn't stop knitting socks. Ripping socks. Re-knitting socks.

Avoiding the phone. Lurking. Pretending I'm alright Jack at unavoidable social events. Fooling myself. And nobody else. Mentioned depression once to others, tossed it out there into the conversation pit, nobody bit, drew it back in again.

Just dying to get back home. And hide. And avoid.

"Aren't we all a bit bats?" said an old friend from Ontario on the phone today: by a fluke I picked it up when she rang, my 200lb telephone, "I think there's comfort in that, don't you?"

Well, sort of. My oldest friend is away, sunning herself on some beach in Portugal, unplugged. I miss her. This is completely illogical as she lives in Dublin but we track each other every day by email and the odd mailing and phone-call. And the Black Dog is our familiar, we bat him back and forth.

My perception of the world, in this condition, is that everyone is having a great time and I'm stuck somewhere, poised between frowning and lemon-faced, miserable, desperately lonely and wanting to stay that way. Forever. Being completely unfit for company as I am.

Did I mention the awful dreams?

They truly are.

Bear with me. This will pass.

I throw it out there as I know I'm not alone.

A New Pair of Glasses

Yeah, that's how I'm trying to see life lately.

I've carried this philosophy into my home too. I changed things around yesterday. Old formations of furniture, bits and pieces. I don't have much here, never did. I keep it simple. But sometimes it's not simple enough. So I make it even simpler again.

I've always suffered episodes of free floating anxiety, since I was very small, usually a precursor to depressions that in the old days would cripple me or drag me back to the bottle. And the battle. But I was reading something about different approaches to old themes that keep cropping up again and again in my life, the big one being abandonment. I'm tired of those old violins. I think these sickening old themes are dead and buried but they're not. The smelly corpses protrude up through the soil and give me a death grin. (Graphic. Sorry.)

But I make a gratitude list every single night and it sings those corpses back to sleep.

And sometimes I feel like I'm going mad all alone in an alternative universe. Until people who care about me remind me of who I am.

And I look at the gifts I've been given. And if I forget, or they get stolen, I am reminded.

To reclaim and polish them up.

And put on the new glasses. And keep them handy.

Catapult

"Swimming in the sea of me". Now where did I hear that phrase. Sometimes it's inevitable though, pain climbs up the backside and throws its hands around my eyes, blocking out the light, the love and yes, hope.

And then I get catapulted into the lives of others. And that happened yesterday with the floods in Toronto and worry about Daughter and Grandgirl and their well-being which expanded into a discussion about climate change and Daughter's activism which involves death threats. Yes. And no more can I say about that without imperilling her. She is very brave, is Daughter. So she was on the one landline in her house that worked, in a corner of her dining room plugged into the old fashioned jack on the wall with all the power out in the city, the vast immobilized city. Note to others: always make sure you have a real honest to goodness landline somewhere in your home. And yes, like her, a windup radio or one with batteries.

So my sadness about my particular roadblock rolled off me and afterwards, I was able to package it up and file it under "unsolvable mysteries of life" and move on. I slept last night, all night, for the first time in maybe weeks. And yes, I feel good today, not dragging the old butterama around, muttering darkly to the dog about misunderstandings and casual cruelties and raw rejection by loved ones.

And a new friend called and asked me about East Coast Trailing. We found each other! I had always wanted to hike with a companion on the East Coast Trail. Another item on the bucket list. It's not something one does alone as parts of it are dangerous and visions of lying helpless, broken-legged, at the bottom of a cliff for a couple of weeks stopped my solitary explorations right in their tracks. I may be foolhardy but I can be surprisingly mature when it comes to personal risk-taking - much to my own astonishment.

Another catapult. Bring them on.

Energy and Positivity.

Daughter mentioned this wondrous substance first. And she's a living example of its magical properties. She has MS and has been following a holistic, non-pharmaceutical approach to the management of her disease. And has completed binders and binders full of research. She's had a fight on her hands with her doctors for taking an unorthodox approach. The MS Society (and I went to some meetings with her) are very much pro-Pharma and have done painfully little research on the natural, strict diet approach to the management of the disease. H'm, I wonder why?

Daughter eats no gluten, no legumes and no dairy. It hasn't been easy for her but her neurologist has told her that whatever she is doing she should keep it up. He sees no further degeneration in her condition.

The Facts on Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic condition that affects the central nervous system. This system includes the brain and spinal cord. It contains the nerves that control everything your body does, such as thinking, feeling, seeing, smelling, tasting, and moving. MS affects about 1 in 1,000 people and usually appears between the ages of 20 and 40, although it may occur at any age.

People without MS have nerves that are covered by an intact protective layer known as the myelin sheath. This covering helps to speed electrical signals in the brain. With MS, researchers think that the myelin sheath somehow becomes inflamed and damaged in small patches. It is not known what chain of events starts this damage, but once the injury occurs, electrical signals in the brain are slowed down.
)
It is believed that MS is an autoimmune disease (a condition in which an individual's immune system starts reacting against his or her own tissues) and cannot be spread from person to person. For unknown reasons, the immune system sees the myelin sheath as foreign and attacks it.

The numbness in her limbs doesn't alleviate but isn't worsening. She has other symptoms (strength,inflammation, sudden excruciating pain) and sometimes a complete lack of energy with a resultant depression and listlessness.

The point of my writing all of this here is that one of her studies on her disease showed that most of us Northern clime folk are vastly deficient in Vitamin D which results in many auto-immune disorders, too numerous to list here.

At her urging, I began a course of 10,000 IU of Vitamin D daily about five months ago.

I can't believe the change in me and neither can my friends. Seriously. I am full of joy, energy, eating healthily, training for The Tely 10 in July AND the biggest change of all is that I haven't had an episode of the sporadic depression to which I was prone for more years than I care to count. Depression that brought me to my knees carrying me to very dark places of despair and the feeling of what's the use.

The only change I've made to my life was in adding this massive quantity of Vitamin D on a daily basis. I could link to this all over the interwebz but a Google or a YouTube search will give you all the info you need. And please ignore the Pharma Pimps and their nay-saying. They've got a LOT to sell you and deny the benefits of mega quantities of D. I'm living proof. But I wanted to wait a while and be sure. I'm sure now.

I haven't felt this good since God was an altar boy.

When?

"In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions:... "When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence?"
Gabrielle Roth

Dance.
Sing.
Tell Stories.
Embrace the sound of silence.

I'm signed up.


And PS I've had to reinstigate comment moderation. The spam is through the roof.

Hallelujah!

Thank you for all your kind comments and personal emails. Wow, I am so lucky to live in Blogland!

I was at a meeting a week or so ago, where the topic of anger came up. Anger, a fairly useless emotion, is just the mirror side of depression. Often when someone is depressed, anger will be exhibited, masking the more authentic emotion. I witnessed that in my family of origin.

Well, to make a long story shorter, I had finished posting here yesterday, feeling at sixes and sevens, when that meeting came to my mind and the solution to anger had been presented:

Action Plan. Determine. Follow Through.

What was my Action Plan apart from ranting and raving and allowing the black dog into my living room?

What could I do? OK. I looked up the head office address of Bell Aliant. And went a-calling. It was Saturday. I was the only customer with 3 service reps.

Bottom line, they produced a hub. Brand new improvement to cellular highspeed, they assure me. I was entitled to a free upgrade and two months free service. The hub would provide wireless high speed for up to 5 computers.

Disconnects? No service for days? A thing of the past, the triplets assure me. If I'm not over the moon happy, the triplets again assure me, I bring it back. No questions.

Cynical and jaded I leave. I am so unexcited about this whole experiment that I take a nap in front of the fire that Leo has so kindly laid down in my absence, once I get home.

Then, yawning, I set up the hub. You wouldn't believe how easy. Something this easy has to go sideways. Hardy-har. Wireless internet all over my old house as the triplets had envisioned for me? Dream on, baby!

Action plans can result in dreams becoming reality. This hub - kiss, kiss - has given me unbroken and powerful high speed. For the first time ever out here at the Edge of the Atlantic.

As I type this on my netbook in front of the fire I feel I can shrug off the slithering remnants of depression and shoo the old BD out into the May sunshine.

The world, my friends, is full of fresh possibilities.

Through the Doorway

I had all the symptoms of serious malaise. Exhausted (though I prefer the word enervated)coupled with a mild depression(I say mild because I've had a serious relationship with severe) with the "what's it all about Alfie"-ness of the situation just about doing my head in and feeling I was wearing a cloak of invisibility. I want to snap "who cares" at anyone who dares ask me how I am, but I'm better brought up than that so I resort to "i vant to be left alone" a la Garbo but without her money or her gorgeousness and with far more manners. I couldn't force myself out of it and I refuse to medicate.

I just hated leaving Toronto this time and all my good family/friends and lovely clients there. I spent some marvellous five hour lunches/dinners with some where we got caught up on all the doings.

I wouldn't trade living here for anything but I'd like to package up the dear ones and move them in here. So funk happened. A blue funk of loneliness and a lot of work and deadlines and the why-mes waiting around for me to convert them into why-not-mes.

And today is a biting sun-drenched indigo day on the bay and I awoke and got up at dawn. My dreams had been astonishing. Albeit about someone else (other facets of myself as I've learned). I was telling this other someone to "Suck and chew the marrow out of life."

A message obviously for me.

Early this morning, I walked through the shadowed doorway into sunlight and an astonishing lifting of spirits. I feel renewed, refreshed and ready to start some serious sucking and chewing.

Bring it on!

Pacing

The first time I felt the Black Dog pacing was at an impossibly young age. Age 6. I would not have known it was the Black Dog, of course. I would have called it being afraid and very sad.

At that age, I had had measles which affected my eyes with ulceration. It necessitated hospitalization as the infection had also spread to my adenoids. In those days there were no children's hospitals so I was put into an adult hospital. I remember all of my stay there, it stands out in a kind of gothic starkness. There were no children in the ward I was on. Just all these adults. And casual cruelties were thrown my way (my eyes were bandaged for about 4 days)- being deliberately misled as to where the washroom was, my few toys being hidden, my hair being pulled,another patient assigned to feeding me and deliberately missing my mouth, all this accompanied by raucous laughter,etc. In those days it was called "teasing" today it would be called abuse. I was wretched.

It was to get worse.

My throat was healing from surgery, my eye bandages were removed when my mother visited with some handmade clothes for my doll. Including a little nightie. When she was leaving, I followed her out of the ward and as she went down the main stairs I screamed and screamed until my throat bled. I fell on the floor until I was carted off (roughly I remember) and told to behave myself.

The following night my father visited. In a rage. He told me I had upset my mother terribly and if I didn't promise to behave myself she would never visit me again.

It was to get worse.

I woke up the following morning to be told there was a great surprise in a cot (crib) down the ward from me. Come and look.

I did and there was my baby brother, under a year, pulling himself up by the bars, recognising me, delight all over his little face. I remember touching his soft head, rubbing my hands over the bandages on his ears. It seems that the measles had given him massive ear infections and primitive tubes had to be inserted to drain them so he wouldn't go deaf.

I remember feeling overwhelmed. I remember thinking my parents had gotten rid of their defective models and were just keeping their perfect middle child (another brother).

I resigned myself to a life on a Dickensian ward, knowing that keeping my mouth and tear ducts shut would mean a possible sighting of my mother again.

My therapist said it was one of the defining moments of my life.

It certainly removed the foundations from it. The idea of abandonment has always haunted me. More than anything the abandonment of myself by myself.

On another note, in adult hindsight, I can't imagine what my parents were going through with two of their children in hospital.

Knowing the reason for one's anxieties and irrational fears will not fix them. I'm just very grateful the episodes get further apart as I move along on my journey.

I'm not at the point where I can chase the Black Dog off my psychic landscape yet. But his visits are shorter and I recognise his pacing and know that he will get bored very quickly if I don't feed him.

And I think I know what to do to protect myself. Very little contact with other, more 'normal' humans, and some contact with those who know exactly where I am.

Pace on, BD, pace on.

Noticing the Wee, Tiny, Dooshy Things.

It's too soon to say if He is gone but I began to notice the wee things today. How lovely were two phonecalls, one completely out of the blue as she had a 'vibe': my fellow sufferer of these occasional devastating depressions. I had wanted to call her too, as I knew she'd understand but I figured my 10.30 a.m. and her 9.00 a.m. might not mesh for alertness only to have her call me at 11.30. Synchronicity as always. The other call was first thing this morning from a dear friend who had been with me yesterday through cast rehearsals and planning for the play opening (shortly, shortly!) but there was no time for a private conversational check-up. She also suffers from periodic depression. It is so wonderful to have understanding and non-judgement and tolerance of this and I am so grateful to blogfriends as well who take the time to leave a little note of support.

I also have the loan of a good piano keyboard (gawd, I miss my piano!) and played a few old Irish melodies on it today. All symptoms of the black fog clearing. I would think. How lovely to create music even for the self.

I am not taking anything for granted. I really, really want my normal joie de vivre back and be rid of the Hound from Hell who never speaks with kindness but only to berate, condemn and isolate.

I walked around the meadow and noted the mint I thought had not overwintered is pushing its way up in the old sink it nestles in and my basil is smiling and the multiple pots of flowers I scattered under a tree are nodding gracefully.

I thought to remove the little gate I have on my front deck to keep the dog in. She is so well trained now that she won't go down any steps without my explicit permission, thought I. I hadn't realized she merely thought her goodly behaviour performance art.

As I watch Ansa from my office, she stays on the deck for quite a while and then paces by all the windows looking up intently. She doesn't see me with the sun reflecting off the window. With one final sly glance she scoots down the steps. "Excuse me, Madame" I run to the front door and catch her heading off down the driveway, she skulks back up the steps, silently, avoiding my eyes and heads for her bed. Foiled. By Old Two Legs. Damn.

She did made me laugh, though. And that is a very good thing.

Approval

I am a great fan of Anthony De Mello, leaving the religion out of it. I've read most of his books and admire his wisdom and humour and his great gift of insight into the human condition.

He was a Jesuit priest who was much influenced by Buddhism and incurred the wrath of the present pope, Benny, which adds an additional level to my admiration for him for daring to think so far outside of the Vatican box.

One of his many stated profundities was the fact that we hook our children early in life, as infants in fact, on a drug. That drug being "approval". And it distorts and diverts our journeys as we seek it throughout our lives whether in financial rewards or other material and personal benefits. We get lost in the diversion of it.

I was thinking about this today and remembering a time, not so long ago, when I stayed in Ireland in this rambling old farmhouse with a mish-mash of family and friends and we were commenting on how ridiculous the custom of applauding the pilot for a safe landing of a plane was. It was his/her job! Then we discussed how lovely it would be if we applauded others for a job well done.

So from then on in for the whole month anytime someone swept the floor or washed the dishes or hung out some laundry, they received lavish applause with supportive remarks.
"Beautiful job on those dishes there, sis," *clap* *clap*, "I don't think I've ever seen a floor so well swept there, bro, take a bow," *clap* *clap*. And so on, to much laughter and gracious curtseys from the recipients.

It is a great drug, approval. A terrific motivator. And it's free. And when one is in a depression, a goodly dose is needed.

Especially for the nearly insurmountable task of being vertical.