CONNIE THE COLLIE (See above)

It's been way too long to keep a blog silent.

Truth be (not to damper everyone's day) I suffer from depression. As I'm retired, I don't care much who knows. Truth is 33% of women suffer from depression. It's a small number for men, but the percentage is high enough.

How did I get "depression?" When I look back, I discovered even in what should have been the happiest times of my life, I wasn't really happy. I wasn't sad--as the symptom list says you should be. In fact, I think sad doesn't even come close.

I think of falling into depression as falling into Alice's rabbit hole. You kind of float downward, grasping for support along the walls, but either you can't reach it or it vaporizes at the touch.

Come to think of it, I've always had depression. It might have happened when I was a baby and had a traumatic incident with my birth mother. Who, wasn't in my life that long. Or maybe it was (is) a chemical brain inbalance. All those blocked seratonins, whatever shall they do?

I started discovering I had the illness when I wrote a paper and gave a speech on teen suicide and had to research depression. I discovered every symptom I had. yeah, but I had every symptom in the Stedman's Medical Dictionary when I worked in my father's lab too.

What really sent me running to my friendly local shrink was teachig inner-city high school. Bad combination depression and LOTS of kids I didn't know. That's when I discovered, Prozac, Paxil, Wellbutrin, Konoprin and Ambilify. I'm sure I missed something. I also discovered that one pill does not cover all depression. Some medications worked for me some didn't. Some medications caused me to bloat to a new dress size.

I've finally settled on medications that (mostly) work. Not all the time. I still have my normal days and my "why do I even need to get out of bed--" or even better " I really don't need to got to the refrigerator to eat, do I? After all, I really need to lose weight."

Reading helps me through it. My dogs help me through it. A call from or to a friend helps. If my horses were here, I know they would help, but they live a half hour away.

I'm not whining (at least I don't think I am) Whining is pointless, except it does sort of get some of it out. See, there usually isn't a direct cause leading to the depression. In other words, there doesn't seem to be any direct cause. The sun is shining, nobody has died, I made a few book sales, maybe not blockbuster sales, but something.

And with that, now that I've brought you all down, I'll bring you up again.

I just adopted a collie from a collie rescue association. She's a little blue merle and a doll. I hope she'll keep Zuri company and both of the will keep me company.
Maybe she can type. (grin)

Cheers

 

Oh yes, and if you haven't bought Waterlilies Over My Grave and you're interested in psychology, collies, detectives, brooding heros and heroines that look like Gwenyth Paltrow, please buy my book "Waterlilies Over My Grave."  I think, I hope you'll be pleased.