Stay at Home February

I vowed to stay in one place for the month of February…. I know, it’s a short month… but that’s just how it worked out. February, typically, has always been the month where if I was going to be depressed, it was statistically more likely to occur then.  So I tried to keep that conscious every single day. I bought lights that were balanced for daylight to boost my mood.  I had a reasonable to-do list that I vowed to complete most of each day. I did not always accomplish everything but was ok with relocating some items to another day. 

I practiced piano – a lot. Every day. Twice, sometimes three times a day.  I thanked my mother every time I sat down for the few years of piano lessons I had. The ability to read piano music, to know where the notes were, to know something about scales and arpeggios, and to actually remember how to play some early memorized songs went a long way in keeping me interested and encouraged. That – and a conviction that practice WILL make perfect (or close to it) helped me to practice consistently.

I made plans for my meals…. decided not to purchase anything that qualified as junk food… got out my crockpot (a vestige of the seventies with its avocado green exterior) and made chili and other homemade soups…. I experimented making chia puddings to satisfy my “need” for dessert.

I renewed listing things that I wanted to sell on ebay. I’ve been an ebayer ever since my mom passed away and my sister and I determined that selling old stuff on ebay was more profitable than selling at auction or garage sale. But in the chaos of the last six months of 2016 – retiring and moving, I had gotten away from it. However, the stillness of February gave me space to reorganize and start photographing items and listing them again.  

I wrestled with whether I was going to be an early riser or a late go-to-bed person. This was a real conflict. Left to my own devices, i.e. no alarm clock, my tendency is to awaken on my own around 7 a.m. This was much better than the 5:30 or 6 a.m. awakening that I did for much of my work life. I like to get up and watch the Today Show with a cup of coffee in the stillness of the early morning before I start the day. Trouble is, I also like to watch The Tonight Show – and if I get a second wind around 11 p.m., I can easily still be active at 2 a.m.  Five hours of sleep between 2 and 7 was not going to be enough. I had vowed that my life would no longer be lived sleep deprived.  But sleeping late is not in my DNA. Why sleep away a perfectly good day?  

Eventually I decided to force myself to bed before midnight, thus ensuring a reasonable rising time in the morning. And there is always the DVR so I could theoretically watch anything I might miss. So far, I have just reinforced a growing conviction:  I can live without television.

I watched and photographed birds at my feeders, spent a long time pouring over pictures in books and on the internet trying to identify the ones I didn’t recognize. I fought the battle of the squirrels (more or less winning), the deer (conquered), and a lot of crows or grackles (still losing). 

I started reading again, for pleasure, not for education or career. I knit a little every day.  I did actually do some real work. I was teaching a research class online for Fordham all during January and February, so most days I had to attend to student questions or work on grading assignments, at least a little.  I read applications for the Admissions office– again, not a huge time suck, but something that had a deadline.

I did not go shopping – at least not recreational shopping.  I did not exercise. I did not clean, despite that being on my list of to-do’s every single day.  Except for taking my brother to a concert in Buffalo, I stayed within a seven-mile radius of my home the entire month.

I did not long to go to New York City – or even to plan a more exotic vacation. For the most part, I was content with listening to my internal clock and letting my retired rhythm begin to emerge.

Excavating Secrets

I’m grateful for every person who responded thoughtfully after my last post, many with their own stories of depression.  I was surprised when some used the word “courage” to describe my willingness to put my experience out there for public consumption.  Working in a profession where depression and anxiety disorders are, sadly, commonplace among clients and colleagues (many of whom come to the profession because of their own experience with various disorders, or those of family and friends), it didn’t seem unusual for me to claim ownership of that. In addition, I live in a city full of psychotherapy training institutes which creates an environment where being “in therapy” is almost an expectable event, even a rite of passage. So – not brave – and not courageous.

One communication from an old friend, however, caused my stomach to lurch and my breath to catch. For in a few sentences, I was thrust backward in time to an emotional space I’ve struggled mightily to negate.  She wrote, “I vividly recall my uncertainty as an adolescent when you experienced episodes of depression. Although, we had no ‘term’ for the feelings that engulfed your life, it significantly impacted me as your friend. Frankly, it scared the hell out of me! I held onto the belief that if I could be the best friend possible and let you know how much I loved and cared for you that you would survive. And you did, very well.”

My post set my first experience of depression at 19, perhaps because that was the first time of “official” diagnosis, perhaps because I didn’t want to remember, didn’t want to document a murky and dark time. But my old friend is right.  I was depressed and sad long before 19 even though we never discussed it and we never named it. “J” slipped into my life when we were freshmen in high school. We’d lived probably a half mile away from each other our whole lives, but we attended different schools up to the 9^th grade.

Now in high school, we rode the same school bus. Somehow she and I ended up getting our ears pierced together and from that moment became inseparable. “J” is one of the few happy memories I have of the time between 14 and almost 18. Every day after school, we’d get off the school bus at our respective homes, change our clothes, and head down the graveled shoulder of the highway that ran past our houses, meeting in the middle. From there, we’d walk down to Pic-a-deli, a corner store in the middle of nowhere, stock up on ice cream, potato chips, candy, and pop and settled in on the couch in my living room where we’d watch Dark Shadows together. We walked around in the rain, burned candles and let the wax run all over our hands, cut each other’s split ends, made cream puffs in my mother’s kitchen, went bowling and to the movies on weekends, and cheered in the bleachers at basketball games on Friday nights. We planted a garden, buried “pet” butterflies that didn’t make it, and got drunk together for the first time at her brother’s graduation party. Well, at least I got drunk. I shouldn’t claim to be fully aware of her condition.  She was the most important person in my life.  And she definitely was the best friend she could possibly be.        

So what could have scared the hell out of my best friend? I knew what she was talking about the minute I read her words even though for a nanosecond, I tried to not know. For it involved razor blades and my forearms…. not the side where I might have accidentally severed an artery and bled to death but the side where I could feel just enough sting to assure myself that I could, in fact, feel something. I did not realize I had scared her, lost in my narcissistic fugue, believing that my activity might be invisible, as I often felt I was. I don’t think I wanted to die, although I definitely didn’t want to live my life.  It’s probably the one time my chronic ambivalence operated in my favor.  I don’t remember how long this phase lasted. But it was long enough to be noticed by my boss at the restaurant where I washed dishes on Sundays. I lied and said it was due to my cat even though I didn’t own a cat.  I wore long sleeves at home to cover the evidence although I do not remember if long sleeves were appropriate weather-wise. I spent most of my time in my bedroom with the door closed anyway, so it was easy enough to escape notice. My best friend must have told her mother though because I do remember what made me stop. She told me that her mother said she had to stop being my friend if I kept on cutting myself. Her friendship was more important to me than my need to draw blood or feel something real. I stopped.

But what was I thinking? Was I thinking? Obviously, not clearly. My diaries and journals from those days are long gone – tossed decades ago in a flurry of embarrassed “I’ll die if anybody ever reads this” chain reactions. The only written words that survived that era are page after page of “remember this” and “never forget that” lists that “J” wrote to me in my senior year book. I sat and re-read every word she wrote one recent evening to see what was there, hunting through the pages forward, then backward, in an effort to follow her whimsical and circuitous route through my year book. There was, of course, no mention of the cutting. No need to bring up a negative period that, hopefully, was over forever.

Her final year book words to me were, “Our friendship is one of those in a million, something everyone wishes for and only few have. You are the most important thing that has happened in my youth.” I’m not sure that sunk in back in 1971, I was so numb.  After graduation, “J” and I grew apart. I’m positive my depression had a lot to do with that because I withdrew from everything and everyone.

I closed the book and turned back to her recent note, rereading to absorb it.  After the part about scaring her, she wrote, “The caring and love of friends do not extinguish. Know that I and others truly care. You will survive. Very well.” 

She’s right about that too. I did – and I will.  Thank you, “J”.

The Hand That Cannot Write

“So, have you abandoned the blogosphere,” my best friend asked me this morning during a rare telephone conversation (I hate telephones).  She is not the first to inquire after my sudden silence after more than a year of weekly posts.  I consider her question and give her the only response I can summon. “I’m so depressed,” I say. “I can’t seem to focus to write.” That’s partly accurate. “I am afraid that anything I write is going to just sound depressed and angry.” I don’t want to drag readers into my morass.  That’s also partly accurate.

I’ve been here before. The first time was when I was just nineteen. After a few months of crying that seemed to surge from the depths of nowhere, someone in my circle of adult friends read an article about the levels of estrogen in birth control pills being a culprit in depression. I had been prescribed those very pills to manage debilitating cramps that had flattened me every month for my entire adolescence.   The solution was simple. Stop the pills. I did, and the depression loosened its grip.

The next time was in my early thirties. I’d fled to New York City. A guy I was crazy madly in love with wasn’t crazy madly in love with me.  I was failing at parenting, confused – no, paralyzed about what to do with my life, broke, stuck inside my personality which at its core is terrified.  I remember standing in a grocery store in Queens, leaning on the cart trying to shop for food for my daughter and me. My limbs, my body, everything was so heavy, I was not sure that I could continue to put one foot in front of the other.  I didn’t want to put one foot in front of the other. I simply wanted to stop. Right there in the store.  Not move. Sink into the floor.

I was lucky.  A woman I call my heart mother picked me up and cradled me for a long while, whispered in my ear when I didn’t know what to do or say, and helped me figure things out. “Say everything,” she’d cajole.  I resisted. She was patient. And slowly the anger that had been lying dormant far beneath my very thin skin came bursting out projectile style. I wallowed in that while she was the epitome of forbearance and after a time, my depression departed.

Two decades passed. I marveled periodically at my depression-less life, grateful for my freedom from those tenacious tentacles.  Of course there were (and are) ups and downs. Jobs end. Children grow up. Parents die. Terrorists attack.  Humans disappoint. But none of this sent me into a tailspin.

So what has derailed me this time?  Many things – it’s sort of the perfect storm of factors.  There is the cumulative effect of a demoralizing professional situation about which I am not free to write, blogs being the public forum that they are. There are difficult relationships with narcissistic people who lack self-awareness, which moves me to rage.  Can’t write about that either.  There are existential dilemmas of loss and abandonment that arise from numerous sources to be wrestled to the ground yet again.  Stir in exhaustion, the afore-mentioned thin skin, a touch of paranoia, and there you have it. Days spent struggling to suppress tears that threaten to leak out at the slightest provocation (real or imagined), creative energy stuck by unexpressed anger, a hand that cannot write because its owner doesn’t have the energy to be diplomatic.    

It will pass.  Most things do. Perhaps writing this will help.

Sugar: When a Little Isn't Enough

Within a few days, my last post, Cranky & Irritable, soared to being the #1 most read blog entry since I started writing in August. Besides the public comments, I received lots of private emails from people who are feeling the same way for a variety of reasons and a few phone calls from concerned and loving friends. Occasionally, many stressors come together in life to create an untenable situation and that just happens to be the situation for me right now.  I am resilient, and there are supporters in my corner, in all my corners, actually. The things that are causing me angst are solvable, and looked at another way, provide me with writing fodder for the future.

My funny best friend, who is feeling about as crummy as I said, “I would suggest shopping as an antidote, but that's off the list. Okay, how about a night at the casino? No? Well, then - a cookie? No you say? Well, I'm all out of ‘things to do to make me feel better.’”  She then decided I am vice-less.

Some writers suggested that craving sugar means my body needs something and that it should be listened to. In one sense, they are correct. When humans are stressed, our bodies crave carbohydrates. That’s because stress breaks down serotonin, the neurotransmitter in our brains that regulates sleep and calms nerves, among other things. Carbohydrates, of which sugar is one, trigger the body to release insulin, which in turn provokes the brain to produce more serotonin. Many anti-depressants target serotonin production.

In addition, human beings are born liking sweet. It’s one of the only foods (I use that term loosely) for which we do not have to acquire a taste, as we do with salt and bitter. One theory behind that has to do with keeping early humans alive – sweet yearnings drove us to eat fruit, which our bodies needed for optimal nutrition.¹ There are other theories as well – you can google them if you are interested.

However, it is also the case that most of us in western societies are truly addicted to refined white sugar.  Most of us just aren't aware of it. It is in almost everything we eat, in varying amounts (mostly large), in one form or another (I learned there are over 50 forms of sugar.)  Most of us eat enough of it to keep the addiction fueled, or if we start to feel irritable, we solve the problem with a little more. It starts with breakfast.  I know how much sugar I put in MY coffee to make it palatable. There is sugar in my Kashi Heart to Heart cereal. There is sugar in the soup I eat at lunch, and in the yogurt I believe is good for me. It is, after all, low fat. It’s in the ‘reduced fat’ dressing I use, albeit sparingly, on my salad at night and in the dried cranberries I sprinkle, also sparingly on that salad.

Refined sugar is an addictive substance. In separate studies conducted with rats, Lenoir, Serre, Cantin, and Ahmed, S.H. (2007) ² and Avena, Rada, and Hoebel (2008) ³ found that once conditioned to ingesting sugar, the rats in Lenoir et al.’s study preferred sugar to cocaine, and in both studies, rats exhibited signs of withdrawal, similar to opiate withdrawal, when sugar was withheld.  Sugar is refined from sugar cane, and in the refining process, anything of nutritional value is removed. We do not need sugar except to feed an addiction to it.

Like many ‘good’ girls who think we are in control, I blame myself for this addiction. If I hadn’t been so skinny all my life that it didn’t seem to matter what I put in my mouth. If I hadn’t walked to the corner market with my girlfriend every day after school in 10^th grade to stock up on Hostess cherry pies, fudgesicles, and fireballs to eat while watching Dark Shadows. If I hadn’t fallen in love with the taste of Hawaiian punch at 11 and drank it like water.  If only mom’s cookies hadn’t been so irresistibly yummy. If I didn’t think of ice cream as a major food group, supporting the rest of the food pyramid. If if if…. It’s all my fault on some days.   

One of the reasons I can't take the "give your body what it craves" advice is the issue of moderation. If I could feed my soul with one of something, it might be workable. However, I’ve learned that one (or a little) is simply insufficient. Last week at an event at work, for which there were boxed lunches, I studied the black and white cookie, wrapped in cellophane in my box. For the non-NY-ers, black and white cookies (featured in the photo at the top), are gigantic, about five inches in diameter. They are also thick and are a staple of every NYC deli and bakery. Truthfully, I don’t really like them all that much – they would not make it to my Top 10 craved desserts by a long-shot. But, if in a moment of satisfying a sweet craving, I take one bite, I will consume the whole thing. There is no saving the other half for later. It’s more like w-t-f, I might as well eat it and get it out of the way.  In the moment of studying that cookie, looking soft and delicious in its cellophane, I seriously considered tearing open the wrapping with the defense, “It was in my lunch” as if that would remove any personal responsibility.  However, I also seriously considered that this was one of those moments that I could do the normal and customary OR I could try something different. I decided to try something different, hard as it might be. I gave the cookie away.

At the end of the week, there was another event for which lunch was served. I had already consumed my soup and yogurt by the time I realized that a lunch table had been set up outside the classroom where the event took place. As I walked by, I noted that there was a tray of homemade chocolate chip cookies and brownies. I know those cookies well. There have been times that I have eaten four of them consecutively. My fingers itched and my mouth watered at the thought. I walked faster. I made it down the hall, where I sought refuge in the office of an in-the-same-boat colleague and friend. “I walked by those cookies in the hall and didn’t take one,” I reported. He looked at me guiltily, his eyes telling me the truth before his mouth did.

Ultimately, I (and others) may ‘need’ sugar because we’re so stressed and sleep deprived, and thus need the rush of serotonin that will be produced by consuming as much as possible/available. But solving those problems by ingesting sugar, I’ve decided, is not the way I want to go. I want to be kinder to my teeth and my pancreas. And for the rest of the things causing temporary angst, I will get farther opening my mouth for talking about them only.

¹ Contento, I.O. (2011). Nutrition education: Linking theory, research and practice. Studbury, MA: Jones and Bartlet Publishing.

² Lenoir, M., Serre, F., Cantin, L. & Ahmed, S.H. (2007). Intense Sweetness Surpasses Cocaine Reward. PLoS ONE 2(8): e698. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000698

³ Avena. N.M., Rada, P., & Hoebel B.G. (2008). Evidence for sugar addiction: Behavioral and neurochemical effects of intermittent, excessive sugar intake. Neuroscience Biobehavioral Review, 32, 20-39.

Cranky & Irritable

I’m cranky and I’m irritable. There are no better words to describe me at this moment…. Those who are around me on a daily basis will concur that it is, in fact, not just this moment, but lately almost every moment. To them I apologize for my poor behavior, or more to the point, my sharp tongue and my impatience. I am truly trying to control myself but I am slip-sliding.

I’m not 100% sure why this is my state. But…..

I’ve been deeply, unshakably sad for months because someone I wanted to be in my life does not want me in theirs. The post-mortems of every last one of our communications have been endless as I’ve struggled to figure out exactly where I went wrong in misreading signals and misunderstanding intentions. Some of the attraction is the residue of a childhood yearning to be loved and valued by a narcissistic parent. There is also an element of identifying with the aggressor. More than once, I have become emotionally involved with someone who really frightens me with their potential for ferocity. If I can get the one who bites on my side, then perhaps I will not be bitten. But toxic once is toxic always.  

Sugar has been a challenge. I wrote a few weeks ago about an intention to cut down, to detox myself from that sweet drug. I admit that it’s been very, very difficult. I have managed to limit my consumption of ice cream to two teaspoons at a time, no more than once a day. I pay attention to it when I eat it. And I put the carton away without too much longing. When the freezer stock of ice cream is gone, I won’t buy any more.

Except for one birthday celebration, I have avoided sugary treats at work. But every day is a battle. I get to Grand Central Terminal in the evening and have a few minutes before my train. My attention strays to the Snickers, Milky Way, Almond Joy, and Peanut M&Ms displayed in Hudson News. I pass at least three bakeries in the terminal. Cannolis, my favorite fruit tarts, cupcakes decorated like art, cheesecake, black and white cookies – they entice me to come closer. I tell myself I don’t really want them, and then I admit I’m lying. I desperately want them. I imagine they will make me feel better, soothe whatever is hurting. I can also imagine some people saying, “Oh go ahead, stop depriving yourself, life is short.” And I understand their point. But they don’t understand mine. If I give into the craving, I take steps backwards. I will just have to start over and I need to keep going, to push through this. I need to get past the point, if it exists, of thinking, believing that I will feel better if I just consume some sugar-laden delicacy. Sugar is a short-term “fix.”

Winter is the anniversary of the deaths of both of my parents. My mom died five years ago in early January; my father seven years ago in mid-February. My mom was thirty years old when I was born. When she was alive, I always considered that thirty-year difference as a kind of insurance policy. Whatever age I was, I still had thirty years before I would be her age. But now she’s gone, the policy is no longer in effect.  I wonder whether I even have another 30 years. I’m not afraid to die, unless it’s violently. It’s just that there’s so much I still want to do, I find myself feeling panicked that I’ll run out of time.

I awaken in the morning and although I used to look forward to eating breakfast and having that first cup of coffee, all I want to do is turn over and bury myself in the blankets. I used to love my work. But the cumulative effects of too many and unrelenting demands over too long a period of time in an increasingly no-win situation, too few staff (the ones I do have are FABULOUS), no positive reinforcement and little awareness of what actually happens in “a day in the life” from most have taken their toll on my body and my spirit. Someone had the audacity to say maybe I could “use” people more creatively to do the work of my department. My tongue bled though my real desire was to draw blood. I could do that creatively.  

My best friend and I talk about the earliest possible time we can retire, question whether we could retire now and survive financially (probably not), and wonder if we have sufficient emotional stamina to make it until such time as we can. She is feeling about the same as I am these days.

My “heart mother” tells me about a place in Vermont that attracts artists and craftspeople. My daughter sends me a position announcement for a job in upstate New York that she thinks would be perfect for me. [Can’t we find some place where it’s not so darned cold for half the year?] I go on realtor.com and check out the cost of real estate in warmer places. I wonder whether there is a place where the cost of living is less than where I live but where there’s enough happening to keep my interest and my neighbors don’t all hold political and social views that are polar opposites of mine. I consider and reject various parts of the country for that reason, the terrain or the weather. I’m not afraid of uprooting myself, of going where I know no one. I’ve done that before. But I also know better than to believe in the geographical cure. And as if to caution me, there is an article on line this morning about moving where taxes are lower. The comments to the article are vehement in pointing out what citizens give up in services to get lower taxes. Sadly, there is no easy solution. 

Still something needs to change, whether it's circumstances or something inside me. A friend from my co-op, now happily retired, and I used to walk together in nice weather and talk about our upcoming “dreads” for each week. Once the “dreads” were isolated events…. Now they are full days.

I’ll figure it out. I’m pretty resourceful. I’ll stop the wheels from spinning before the tires blow out. I must.