"Success is not measured by what you accomplish but the opposition you have encountered and the courage
with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds."

Orison Swett Marden



Saturday, May 8, 2010

Cutting, Taping and Gluing..and feeling Unglued

Day three of my scrapbooking retreat at Dakota Getaway. I finished my 17th page a while ago. Had the 18th and 19th setting out, but my concentration engine has finally blown a gasket for the day. I have taken a few breaks so it’s not like I’ve gone nonstop but that’s it for tonight. I have had a lot of fun using all the new-fangled scrapbooking gadgets they have here that I am not fortunate enough to have at home. You will definitely be able to tell the pages I did while here since they have very nice die cuts and the like. Oh well, I do the best with what I have. I suppose I can rationalize buying a Wii for the whole family more than a “cricut” scrapbooking machine for me (even though I’m making these scrapbooks for the whole family). Yeah, I know. Trying to use a guilt trip won’t work.

This concentration thing is really not a good deal. Even though it’s easy to understand why someone couldn’t concentrate very well after doing basically the same thing all day. But concentration problems are one of those lovely symptoms that come with depression. Oh, that’s right. I haven’t even told you my official diagnoses yet, have I? Well, if I’m letting you into my life, you need to know that. Major recurrent depression, PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and Borderline Personality Disorder. Oh, let’s just throw in my migraine headaches for a kick too. I’ll give you some more details on what all those words mean some other time.

Tomorrow it will be back to normal life for me…well, at least as normal as things can be for me. I meet with my whole team of caregivers on Monday morning because they want to see how the long weekend went. When I start formulating some ideas on what to tell them, I am reminded of a question on one of our psych forms. In a depressed person, even when good events happen, they can react in several ways. If their depression is not bad, they might react normally to a happy event. However, the more depression is affecting them, the less normal that “happy” feeling is, the less genuine it is, and less time a good feeling will last (don’t quote me…I’m not reading this out of a textbook right now). Coming into this weekend I have been thinking about that question a lot. How am I going to react to being with sixteen “normal” women in a “normal” environment doing a common activity? Will I be able to come out of my shell a little? Will I be able to feel some genuine happiness being able to scrapbook—something I haven’t had the chance to do for quite some time? Will my depression be lifted at all by getting out of the mental health environment and doing something normal? Actually being with other women?

Well, the weekend isn’t over, but I already made my discovery. No, I have not come out of my shell, though I have not been completely silent. Because of the lack of concentration at times, I know that my depression is still working hard on me. And a happiness quotient? Well, we use a one to ten scale at the hospital. So, where would I put my mood tonight? It’s not bad, but it’s not really good either. It’s a bit on the indifferent side. Not saying that these aren’t lovely ladies to be with…it’s just me and my little world I have to work around. I wish I didn’t have to work so hard in it.

And speaking of coming out of my shell…someone just said something about someone’s health and their medication. Perfect opportunity for me but I just can’t put myself out there. I’ll share with you though. …I knew this guy once who had a virus. Nothing really serious but he had to take medication for it. He died though because he couldn’t take the medication. He was allergic to cotton.

On that note, my friends, I'm not going to fight my sleeping medication anymore. One of these days I’ll come up with a signature sign-off but right now is not the time for my brain to come up with one!

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