One long day.

It's been really difficult to find the time to update the blog. I have had a lot going on with the dogs' adoption and work. I've just been very busy. I get home during the week and I walk the dog, I have dinner I take a shower and I go to bed.

On top of all of this I started TMS treatments. Everything happened really quickly: they called me, they gave me an appointment for a few days later, there was an intake interview (How depressed are you on a scale of sheetcake to paint huffing? Do you think you're a bummer most of the time, some of the time or all the time?) and I started treatments the same day.

I started this past week. I went in on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I will be going in five days a week for 4 to 6 weeks.

It's all a lot of unknown. I don't know how long this'll last, I don't know how I might react, I don't know if they'll keep me for the full six weeks or shorter/longer.

All I know right now is I'm exhausted and it's a lot to go in for treatments and to work full-time. I am missing work for an hour or two daily to go to these sessions so I'm using a lot of my sick days and possibly also my vacation days. It's causing some stress. When I get home I don't feel like being on the computer so that's why I'm not really on the blog these days. Maybe eventually when things quiet down I'll be able to put some time aside every week and spend more time writing.

I'm still here, doing my best, not dead yet.

Tuesday's at home.

Monday night I ended up eating something my body didn't agree with, so I spent the evening folded in half with weird ghost-cramps and nausea. I ended up getting very little sleep, so I slept in on Tuesday and took the day off of work.

I spent the day yesterday sleeping, mostly. I got up in the later afternoon, took a shower and had something to eat. I then watched 13th on Netflix, which amongst a complex list of issues, was about the prison industrial complex, and the direct policies enacted in America to feed and sustain that system.

I haven't lived my life entirely ignorant of the prison industrial complex, but I didn't realize to what degree the political/corporate interests were all so directly linked. Nor did I realize the complexities of oppressing folks openly through shady language use and back-room deals.

I don't know that writing to Michael has changed the way I see prisons, but the reading I've done, and the information I'm trying to take in has changed the way I see people who are incarcerated.

I highly recommend seeing the doc, it explains everything so clearly. There are a lot of things I didn't really know about - as a Canadian. Things like mandatory minimums, or that prisoners lose the right to vote. In Canada, prisoners can vote. I don't know about mandatory minimums here, but I'm looking into it. The documentary also had startling statistics about the amount of people who do not face trial, but simply plead guilty in order to "cop a deal."

I know our systems are very different, but our cultures are linked nonetheless.

Some of the stories shared in 13th really shocked me. I have trouble understanding the logic, and enforcement of laws that put someone in jail for 20-30 years on a drug charge.

I have trouble understanding the ways in which prisons are expected to "rehabilitate" people. How are these dehumanizing systems to benefit anyone?

How likely is prison reform?

What I'm reading:

Why Scandinavian Prisons Are Superior

The Norwegian prison where inmates are treated like people

The value of "mental health days."

Check out A Call For Sick Days To End Mental Health Stigma over at The Establishment.

Author Katie Klabusich lives with Dysthymia, anxiety and ADHD. She and I seem to have a similar experience, in that we've only recently been able to seek proper medical treatment in our 30's: 

So that’s what I have: a low-grade, persistent depression that rears its head now and again. I don’t really think about it much. I maybe have five to 10 total days a year where I’m affected by this particular issue—it’s hard for me to be precise because I’ve only had treatment for any of this north-of-the-neck stuff for about a year (#ThanksObama) and it’s all affected by life circumstances as well as brain chemistry. That’s part of the fun—mental illness is mostly unpredictable, even if it’s the sort that can be mitigated.

Mental illness often lives in an unpredictable space yes, but the way it continues to inform your decisions in a "what if?" "better be safe than sorry" takes shape in the form of self-diagnosed limitations and worst case scenario planning.

In Klabusich's case, she talks about the struggle of taking a sick day when overwhelmingly exhausted. Like many in the creative field, she finds it very difficult to feel validated in taking time off, and her working freelance makes that even more difficult, since there is no real structure to support that right.

Often with mental illness, it's difficult to describe the physical toll - often akin to a flu or exhaustion - that we deal with.

After I posted about my sick day, supportive comments rolled in across social media. Some from family and friends who deal with illnesses of their own and appreciated my making a point of not just taking a sick day, but describing it as such. It felt warm and validating, like a fuzzy blanket, as I rightfully gave my body a break. 

Then I caught a comment congratulating me for exercising “self care” and was jarred awake. 

Self care—while an extremely important part of activism, working for yourself, and any profession that requires you do emotional work—had nothing to do with my sick day. It felt condescending and incorrect. I had an actual physical response to seeing the words.
Wine is self care. Reading a book is self care. Hiking in nature is self care. A massage is definitely self care. 

Me spending the majority of a 48-hour stretch in bed unable to function? That’s not self care. That’s called being sick.

This.

And when you call it self care, you’re downgrading what I’m going through to a level you are comfortable with. Because you aren’t comfortable picturing me with a mental illness. That’s your issue and I don’t appreciate having it projected onto me. I am not here to make you feel comfortable with my illness.

...

When you mischaracterize what I’m going through for your comfort, you are absolutely invalidating the work I do every day to get well AND asking me to do the additional emotional labor of hiding my illness so you don’t get any of it on you. People who deal with chronic illness, long-term poverty, or both already do a massive amount of that labor to keep things hidden—not necessarily for their own comfort, but for yours. Asking more of them is greedy. So stop it. 

Now, lest I be misunderstood . . . yes, OF COURSE, people with chronic conditions need to exercise self care. We should do SO MUCH of it. Like every day. It should be on our calendars like required tasks. 

Here’s the difference: it’s something we should be doing to prevent sick days.

I seem to basically be quoting the entire article. Please see the original.

I struggle with sick days. I have no problem taking them when I'm physically ill. If I have a stomach flue or a throat infection, I feel I'm justified and that I can easily prove my illness.

With mental illness I often feel I need to lie. I say it's a stomach flu or food poisoning. First, my office doesn't have sound HR policies, or anyone at work I feel safe speaking honestly to. There are also very vague sick-day policies. There isn't more generalized language, like "personal day" - which is used in some professions. Second, I'm afraid these things could be used against me. If I take a "mental health" day 6 times a year, well that's 6 times more than someone who isn't mentally ill.

It's difficult. My sensitivity/self-esteem around my mental illness coupled with my shitty work experiences still leave me worried about being fired. Which then plays into my fears regarding my ability to take care of myself.

Klabusich's article proudly says how hard it is, but that she's taking care of herself, and that's to be commended. I agree. I just don't feel the HR policies are in place to assist that, and that work-culture still has a long way to go.

It's added work. It's taking care of yourself, plus navigating a system that doesn't take you and what you need into consideration.

Sick-day e-mails.

So Buzzfeed has a post about sick-day e-mails we all wish we could send. Most of them are jokey and meant to be funny (I have to watch some TV show I love gorramit! Tee-hee!). But some are about anxiety and depression.

There are a lot of comments on the post about lumping in serious mental health realities with dumber /sillier stuff. Initially I was going to comment but it's been covered.

Anyway, what I did appreciate about the post was how nice it would be to be able to be honest with an employer about your own wellness.

Someone who lives with panic attacks and anxiety often has to just say they "don't feel good" or use some other euphemism for being unwell. I know over the several years I was living with panic attacks, I often felt I didn't have the language to really talk about it. 

I think just being able to use the term "mental health day" would be nice. It should be enough.

A lot of people live and work while being mentally ill. There's a lot of stigma in the term, but if we were all transparent (and if the work environment allowed for that transparency) we'd probably all realize how much of us are struggling with varied issues. We all have an issue or two. Those who don't are the minority.

Viable sadness.

I'm making a real effort to document my mood and process today. I keep being distracted by youtube videos - and you know how infinite that black hole is. . .

I didn't go into work today.

I had an upset stomach overnight, and I woke up depressed and despondent.

I slept most of the day away.

I got up, had lunch, napped, and around diner time took a walk, which helped. I got some air and some sun and it lifted my mood a little.

I started my stronger dose of anti-depressants today. It should take a few weeks for me to see a difference - what that difference will be, I don't know yet.

Today was hard. I was just - it was all too much.

Whenever there's discussion or movement around my being medicated, there's a lot of stuff that goes on with me. I still have a fundamental issue with needing medication to function. My brain is, arguably, me. It's all that I am. If I were robocoped tomorrow, my brain is all they'd need. This brain of mine, everything that I am, has a default nature. And this part of me that is sensitive, and caring and steadfast, is also desperately sad and on a basic level, has little desire to be alive and part of this world.

I think there's more to it than that. Sometimes I describe my depression as a demon, or some type of leech on me. It's a disease. It's traumatic. But because of the way my brain works, with language, with being creative, with an flare for the dramatic, it's like a part of me sees this as an isolated, internalized plague. It's something I survive, it's a pox on me and my house. But it sometimes feels like something I also deserve. I can easily slip into some type of folkloric explanation that in a past life I was someone terrible. That this is now the remnants of pain I've caused others. If karma exists, what kind of a fucking shit was I in a past life? Seeing it as a curse on me, is almost easier to accept, and more comforting than thinking about my broken brain.

I re-read things I've written, and I clearly romanticize my depression. I don't mean to. It's not fun. It's not interesting. It doesn't add to me in any way. The only thing I can possible take from depression is a greater sense of empathy. But who gives a shit, really? I try and describe things as best I can but language is limiting.

You know when you're crying, intensely about something? You're sobbing. Your dog died. Your grandma died. You were dumped and shamed. You're sobbing, and you're in your pain, and for one brief moment you're purely in the act of sobbing without really being aware of what started your crying fit. Sometimes I feel that way. Like I should be sobbing, that I want to let go and release it all, but instead it's all caught in my throat. And instead I feel that I don't have a viable reason to be sad. To be devastated. I'm just a sad fuck. Just someone who is bad at life, and whose brain wants nothing more than for me to just quit. This is my default nature. This is my baseline.

My brain is a jumble today. I'm tired. I'm so tired. I want to sit in a field of tall grass and hear nothing but the wind.