Depression Rhymes with Possession. I'm Finally Owning It

I wrote my first will when I was about eight. I wanted to make sure that someone – specifically my parents – would feed my hamsters and canary after I offed myself.  

I did not consider this odd behavior. I didn’t think about it all.

That’s the thing about depression. To the afflicted, it not abnormal. This is what life feels like. A lot of the time it’s simply unbearable.

Most lucky people can’t even begin to understand. Everyone who is not a sociopath has been sad, and most have fleeting encounters with depression. It sucks, but it’s not the same.

Chronic clinical depression is exhausting. It’s painful. It’s frightening. Most of all it’s boring.

It sure as hell isn’t sexy.  Mental illness usually isn’t, unless you’re Angelina Jolie in “Girl Interrupted.” Or Brad Pitt in "Fight Club."

Most people struggling with depression are functional and cover it pretty well; no one wants to be around a miserable person. I surely don’t; I’m unhappy enough.

I could be wrong, but I don’t think most people know that I’m a depressive. I When I’m in a bad place I hide as much as possible. Additionally, I’ve managed my crippling thoughts with the help of medication. Most of the time.

For as long as I can remember I believed that everyone was brighter, more successful and certainly happier than I was.  I was partially right.

Normal children don’t write wills.  They play with friends. They didn’t spend hours in their room, afraid of not to measuring up.

That pressure was totally internal. My parents had no unusual expectations of me.

But there it is. Depression is a lot of things, but rationality it isn’t one of them.

Shrinks tried to convince me to go on early versions of anti-anxiety meds. Even as a child I knew those old meds were bad news. They barely worked  and simply  tranquilized patients, leaving them dull and fat. 

I made the conscious decision to remain thin, (it was a long time ago), creative and miserable.

By the time I was in my 30s there was actual medical hope. Prozac and SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) had been invented, most notably Prozac.

The problem at least for me, was the appearance of celebrity/author Elizabeth Wurtzel. Wurtzel wrote an incredibly self-indulgent, best-selling book, Prozac Nation, about her mental illness and how she was saved by Prozac. 

Or some bullshit like that. I could never make it through anything she’s written.

All I knew was that I knew Elizabeth professionally. I felt badly that she was depressed, but it didn’t make up for the fact that she was a royal, self-entitled pain in the ass. Or at least she was to me.

If she was the result of successful Prozac use, I wanted no part of it. It also became trendy, taking anti-depressives was suddenly some peculiar badge of honor. Blech.

Eventually I confided to a shrink that the only reason I got out of bed in the morning, was for the dogs. She asked me if I had suicidal thoughts. I laughed. Doesn’t everyone?

Apparently not.

She convinced me that in all likelihood I had a chemical imbalance, and to try Prozac just for a short time. It might help. If it didn’t, I could quit.

I couldn’t come up with a reason to argue anymore.

But because I am a competitive bitch, I didn’t want it to work. If it helped Elizabeth Wurtzel, it couldn’t be real. I had a real problem, and she was a poseur. Her dumb medication couldn’t help me. Right?

Wrong.

Prozac didn’t cure my issues completely. Neither did any of the other anti-depressives I tried. After all, they are only drugs, not miracles. But they help.

Now I’m functional.  Most of the time I’m at least on an even keel. If I’m not happy, at least I’m rational. 

Usually not suicidal.

I still hide in my house. I can go weeks without socializing except for the people at the barn. Occasionally I don’t answer the phone or call people I want to talk to the most because I’m too depressed to be interesting, and don’t want to bore them. 

I rewrote my will recently. It wasn’t because I was going to slit my wrists. Nope, this time, it’s because I’m old.

I guess that’s progress, right?

Old is the New...Old

Today is my birthday. I hate my birthday. The only people who really enjoy birthdays are four. Then it’s all candles, presents and “Look you can read!”

It's all downhill after that.

I celebrate birthdays the same way I do New Year’s Eve. With depression. I’m surrounded by smarter, younger and more successful people while I on the other hand, have spent the past year accomplishing nothing of importance or merit.

Okay, Jasper is housebroken. Yay me.

So on the anniversary of my birth anyone who tells me the following will be smacked: “It’s better than the alternate,” “MY AGE HERE is the new 20,” or the worst: “It’s not how old you are, it’s how you feel.”  

People who say shit like that are lying like Trump. I have two words for them: fuck you.

I assure you I’m grateful to be looking at grass from above rather than below. However, MY AGE HERE is absolutely NOT the new 20. Nothing is.

I don’t care if you’ve had more plastic surgery than Pricilla Presley, and carry around more silicon than Kim Kardashian’s butt, if you’re female and north of 50, no is mistaking you for 25. Or 30. Or 45. That is, if they notice you at all. Women over 50 are invisible.

Except for Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But she’s not even human, she’s a spectacular  genius cyborg sent here to save us all.

Maybe age really is about how you feel. Well, right now, I don’t feel so young.

A riding accident recently left me with a broken pelvis and a broken sacrum. For three months I needed a walker. If you ever want to feel old and useless, try depending upon a walker. Not only is every single movement awkward, but things takes four times as long as usual. At least.

Chores I’d never given a second thought to, such as feeding the horses, were suddenly complicated and took an eternity. Eventually I learned how to balance hay flakes on my walker without dropping them or falling over. The day I fed the horses in under an hour I felt like Usain Bolt.

At the time my mom was living with me, and she relies on a walker for mobility. It was like looking in a mirror of my future; it wasn’t pretty. Think “Gray Gardens” with mobility devices.

Mom has a much, much better attitude about aging than I do. She has a sense of humor and has accepted it as inevitable. I, on the other hand prefer denial and fury.

But I even admit the dueling walkers had its moments. It was hilarious when we went out to dinner. Traffic backed up forever as we creeped across the road.  The looks on other patron’s faces as we rolled into restaurants was priceless. (Had they unintentionally booked for the Early Bird Special?)

Everyone knows that aging effects the memory. But I’m not talking about the usual “Where did I leave my car keys?” stuff.

I’m thinking about those forms that ask you your age. When I was dealing with smaller numbers, I knew it immediately. 16! 18! 21!

Now I have to ponder the answer. Sometimes there is math involved. This is not good; I’m a proud English major who flunked Algebra 1. Twice.

My sister-in-law once got into an argument with someone who insisted Nancy was a year older than she is. It wasn’t until Nancy yanked out her driver’s license that they realized she was two years younger than either of them thought. Yay?

After my latest accident, a number of people insisted (unasked, mind you) that, since my bones were obviously fragile I needed to give up riding. They never failed to point out that I’ve broken three bones in the last three years.

Even though I never seriously considered quitting riding, I did ask the doctor at my bone density test his opinion. He pointed out that when I broke my foot because my mare stepped on me, my hand broke when I slammed it into a horse’s neck and twisted (I broke my other hand in a similar way when I was in college) and this time, well, I hit the ground with velocity from a pretty good distance.  

It wasn’t like I just tipped over and shattered. He proclaimed me good to go.

But as I headed for the door, he said the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. He looked me directly in the eye and said earnestly, “Don’t fall off the horse anymore.”

I don’t know what kind of people he usually hangs out with, but I have never, ever, gotten on a horse planning to fall off. In fact I spend most of my time doing my best to avoiding hitting the ground.

Shit sometimes just happens.

Then it hit me. That doctor is younger than I am.  He’s got a great career and way more degrees than I will ever have. He probably has a wife and kids.

But I am wiser than him. At least in this regard.  

Shit does happen, That may be my next tattoo.

But today I’ll call it wisdom.

Happy Birthday to me!

Jasper and the Terrible Twos a Year Early

Last summer I made the bold decision to make a stand against good sense and wise advice. I got a puppy.

              

            Even worse, I got him from a breeder I found on Facebook. If a friend had done this, I would have hit them upside the head. Hard.

Instead, I fell in love, sent a deposit and planned a trip to Kentucky to pick it up. I cut a deal with a friend that I’d help her drive a load of racehorses from Los Angeles to Philadelphia, if we made a side trip to Kentucky to get the dog.

The geographically savvy among you have probably realized that Kentucky is not exactly along the way to Pennsylvania from Southern California. But it can be. If you are willing to drive many, many hours in the wrong direction.

Which is how Kristin and I found ourselves waiting at an empty, dark Burger King parking lot with six horses, a huge trailer and a wad of cash. It felt like a drug deal.

                

                  “Do you have the cash?”

                

                  “I have the cash; do you have the dog?

      “I have the dog. How will I recognize you?”

                

                   “Um? We are the six horse trailer in a Burger King parking lot just off the freeway.”

The lady, who I had researched after I sent the deposit and was in fact a reputable breeder, spent a few moments marveling at our being there.

     “You came all the way from Los Angeles? You’re going to Pennsylvania? Tonight Really??”

We nodded and made the exchange. She gave me a wiggling puppy, a bag of dog food, a collar and a bunch of toys. I handed her an envelope stuffed with cash, we climbed in our respective vehicles and drove away. The puppy climbed into my lap and fell asleep.

               

             That was last June. Because the puppy was a Great Dane, he grew like one of those flat sponges that you add water and watch grow. My 12 pound baby was small enough to fly from New England to Los Angeles on my lap. The other passengers kept trying to convince me to go to the toilet so they could hold him.

                

              Now, almost a year later, he might not be quite so welcome.  I haven’t weighed him lately, but he is taller than Dalai the Dane, and at 125 pounds she’s quite a dainty girl.

                

              Jasper Johns, named for one of my favorite New England-based painters, is anything but. The phrase most often used to describe him is goofy. His legs are long and constantly growing. Most of the time he can control them. When he can’t he crashes into things, like doors, Dalai, Poppy and me.

              He is distinctly different from my last male Dane. Where Murray was reserved and careful (some would say mean), Jasper is open and reckless. Much as it pains me to admit it, Jasper, who arrived housebroken and loving people and dogs, is an easier dog to have around.

Dalai might disagree. Jasper is, without a doubt a boisterous puppy.  Or a pest depending upon your point of view. He spends his waking hours playing, preferably with me, Dalai or Poppy the Brittany. Most of the time they are willing, but when he gets the evening zooms, they get the hell out of his way or risk getting flattened.

We’ve all become used to his antics, but everyone was flabbergasted when he decided to climb on top of my 21-year-old BMW Z3 convertible. Picture a huge spotty goat. With his back feet through the window.

After I replaced the roof and had the paw prints rubbed out, I built a fence around the carport to protect the car. Now he stands outside the car cage staring longingly at the vehicle. I admit I gloated a bit.

I’m a competitive person (I know, you're shocked) and I like to compete with my quadrupeds. I spend as many weeks as I can afford at horseshows, doing what an equally competitive friend once said was making livestock leap over junk piles. With the dogs, I run agility.  I’m not sure which is sillier.

The dogs and I run agility, where they leap over jumps, run through tunnels and climb on teeter totters. It’s really fun for all of us. Most of the time.

Murray loved agility and was good at it, as is Poppy. Dalai’s interest ebbs and flows. But Jasper, well Jasper was my big hope.

Not only did I start training him young, he seemed to take to it. He quickly learned how to jump, picked up running through the Tunnels and the Tire. One day after watching my trainer work with Poppy and me, Jasper zipped up and down the Dog Walk all on his own. My trainer and I were amazed and delighted.

There aren’t a lot of Danes that do agility, and almost none on a serious level. We started envisioning Jasper as the Great canine hope.

Jasper had his first birthday last week. It’s the Dane equivalent of the terrible twos.  Like a recalcitrant toddler, now he does exactly the opposite of whatever I want. If I tell him to come in, he stays out. He chases the horses. He used to have a stellar recall. Now he doesn’t know his name. It’s exhausting.              

Naturally the “nos” have spilled over into agility. First Jasper stopped jumping. Completely. Pointed at a jump he runs away or knocks them over. If we insist, he flings himself on the ground and refuses to budge. Sometimes he flops on his back and waves his paws in the air.

If it weren’t so infuriating, it would be cute. Hell, it’s still cute.

Last week he loved the A frame, so we tried that. Nope. Instead he turned tail and ran into the nearest tunnel.  Once inside he plopped down in the middle and refused to leave.

Finally we let Poppy loose and sent her through the tunnel. When she bumped into a heap of resting Dane, she flew back out – with Jasper in hot pursuit. We sent her through a few more times, with him happily following. After a while he did it on his own. It was fun again.

I keep threatening to start over again with a new puppy. The breeder does have another litter.

Never mind, this time I’ll pay attention to my common sense. Maybe.