Depression and Sex

Without religion, spirituality, or even first hand experience, my Sweet Greg demonstrates wizardry level acceptance and unconditional love.  He never expects or demands that I show gratitude in the form of joy, happiness, ease, physical or emotional availability.  

He is able to accept without any real ability to relate or understand that my depression has little if anything to do with the circumstances of the present moment or him.  Depression is not anger, a mood, sadness, or lack of gratitude.  Though it would be easy to assume otherwise and then dismiss or judge.  But Sweet Greg does not. Depression is a matter of brain chemistry.

For me, depression robs me of wanting or enjoying much of anything.  Not foods or activities or engagement of any sort. I am most comfortable when I am alone without anybody counting on me for anything.  When I played beach volleyball, people asked why I only liked to play doubles and laughing but serious, I would explain  “That way, I only have one teammate to disappoint.”

Depression makes it difficult to sustain genuine and deep connection and emotional presence.  It is exhausting – but at least no longer shameful—having extricated myself  from those judging or demanding the impossible of me.  Those dynamics always left me feeling either guilty for taking care of myself or resentful for having felt forced to deny my limits.  There was no safe easy place of acceptance with those who require what they want and retaliate against anyone or anything they perceive as impeding them.

Understanding that children with depressed parents will be affected negatively if they come to believe they are the cause, my sons and I have regular discussions about my mental health and how they do not cause or imagine it and how they cannot cure it. Life and love are difficult when you have trouble sleeping and waking and eating and doing all of the things that non-depressed people do without effort.

Sweet Greg gives the best gifts, hugs, help, space….. and literally DEMANDS nothing.  It is uncomfortable to be loved in this way.  No matter how lovely he is, my depression begs for silence and space—disconnection.  I do not want disconnection but often feel paralyzed, unable to engage.  I suppose the fact that I am honest and open about it helps.  He never is left wondering if IT is because of something he has done, not done, said or not said.

Here is a legit snippet of some weekend dialog.  

Me:  Hey Greg

Him:  Yeh?

Me:  I just took a bath and I think I could maybe have sex without feeling resentful or violent (laughing — because this is fkn outrageous and only half jokey-and not an unusual exchange)

Him:  Seems like a solid yes to me.  Let’s go!

Me:  Ok, but do everything right and don’t fuck it up.

We laugh and go for it. True Story. Enjoying even the greatest and most favorite of things is challenging 24/7.

Alien

There have been no times when I have felt more bored and lonely than when I am trying to fit in.  Being with people who are not interested to see, know, or hear the actual me, requires little of my interest and all of my energy.  Recovery is teaching me about appropriate and healthy trying.

Trying is suitable for things which are difficult and in which growth and improvement are the natural and desired outcomes.  Is there even a good reason to get good and pretending to belong, at the expense of actual belonging? Trying to fit in, be cool, be liked, to be perceived a certain way or to be heard (in places where I am consistently not) now serves as an indicator that it is time to move on— to people and places where I will be seen, welcome, free, safe, and expected to show up as myself, when and for as long as I am able.

Where my being has been perceived as too much, too different, difficult, subversive, or direct- my being was not the problem.  I have never been wrong for being.  Though, admittedly, I have absolutely had wrong behavior — when I held wrong beliefs about connection, belonging, and truth.  As I know better, I do better.  I am a work in progress.  Today, after a full 24 hours of self-imposed solitary confinement, I feel rested and able.  And, I am enjoying more being, connecting, and doing than tryyyyying.

Trying

Trying to not feel hot, cold, anxious, or hungry since nobody else is and it is clearly the wrong way to feel.  Trying to be like others.  Trying to not be me.  Trying to figure out who I am without all of the trying. Trying to love me.  Trying to love you.  I am so fucking tired.  Trying to gratitude my pain away.  Trying constantly to feel or not feel a thing has been a direct route to depression-numbness.  I made it. I feel nothing. My favorite thing to now do is to not feel.  This is depression, not sadness, not a bad mood.  It is no longer circumstantial or situational.  It is my brain chemistry.  I would be fine with it, if not for how it takes me out of good parenting, partnering, dog having, and friending.  Fortunately, it does not seem to affect my work performance.  My job is one place where I feel good(ish), productive, useful, dedicated, focused, and protected by protocol, routine, and scheduling.  I wholeheartedly commit to that role and script.

Trying to feel happy because it is my birthday or your birthday or whatever special occasion the calendar says it is.  Trying not to feel hurt or scared by unspeakable tension.  Trying to be oblivious to the unspeakable tension. Trying to not feel repulsed by meat, strong smells, the scent of your breath, perfume, or cologne.  Trying to not feel hurt by gifts for me, which indicate no regard for who I am and what I like.  Trying to look and feel relaxed so I don’t bother anyone.  Trying not to deny or judge how easily I become overwhelmed.  Trying to avoid all emotional and sensory stimulus.  Trying to forgive and accept that when a person in my family asked what was wrong, it was not out of concern but out of a need to debate the (in)validity of my feelings.  Trying to engage. Trying to disengage. Trying to stay when all I want is to get TF out.  Trying to listen when I don’t care.  Trying to shut up when I have something to say or feel a desire to be heard– by people who will not hear.  Trying to like what I do not. Trying to forget or remember how many people I let use me for sex because being used seemed less shitty than being non-usable.  

Trying to stop trying to understand what will never make sense to me about my primary models of truth and trust.  Trying to feel ok about being tall and skinny or not so skinny.  Trying to deny my discomfort and needs.  Trying to deny my rage for those who discount or judge my comfort and needs.  Trying to appear mellow. Trying to exercise boundaries. Trying to be tender and gentle when it is so unnatural.  Trying to stay checked in.  Trying to check TF out.  

It is a beautiful day out side. All I feel like doing is staying under my weighted blanket. Blinds drawn. No sounds, smells, sensations or interactions. I am getting the help I need for this. Because there are those who count on me to show up, be present, engaged, and interested. Anyone needing/requiring for me to “be happy” though, can go fuck themselves. I don’t even strive for happiness, just serenity. Numbness feels a lot like what I imagine peace might be like. Inner peace. Maybe the closeset I will ever know. I have never done a thing perfectly but one thing I know I do damn well is TRYING. I will continue trying. Trying to be here for those I love, with total acceptance for all of my awkward behaviors and questionable choices.

Speak your truth. When people ty to shame or silence you. Double TF down.

Anne Lamott – Recovery Badass

After reading and rereading Anne Lamott’s most recent treasure: Dusk, Night, Dawn, I feel almost close to being able to fully and deeply breathe. Engaging with my ex, for the smallest thing, leaves me drained and triggered AF. His mere existence and our permanence of division, is something I never get to forget. Life is unecessarily complicated and uncomfortable for our children. These words by Anne Lamott, so perfectly express what it was like, in my family of origin and then in my marriage.

“Being or expecting to be fully seen along with seeing who the people in your family were, was ill advised. In fact the first rule of being the young child to unwell parents is to agree not to see what is going on.”

That gaslighty bullshit is toxic and the effects lasting. Ok, so I can only learn from the past AND still not change or forget it. Anne also references repentance: as to change directions so that we do not end up where we are heading. To change our minds in the deepest center of ourselves in a way that changes us and the course of our lives.

I think I can say with confidence that I do and have repented. My mind has been changed and open to recovery and retrieval of my spirit and truth. I hope to preserve my boys’ spirits and unique truths, or at the very least not diminish them. I am a work in progress. When I returned to this side of the country, I had unfounded hope for healing that could be possible. I was foolish. Hoping and trying was risky and difficult and right. My requests to do the work were punished, mocked and misrepresented.

Mistakes Were Made But Not By Me

I am still obssessed with the toxic and commonly held sentiments (not specifically aimed at me, just in general) and messaging of: You are the last, the least and the lowest: inferior and undeserving. Do not expect change and do not ask for more. If you are excluded, it is ONLY because you do not have what it takes. When people are diminished and forced to the margins, they have only gotten what they deserve and were asking for. They will just have to GET OVER IT.

I am currently reading Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me) and I just cannot even…

The pathology of abusing, lying, and deflecting responsibility for doing damage is rampant and nearly normalized. It is unrealistic to expect abusers to acknowledge or take responisiblity, to apologize or to make amends.  The greater the effort to call for accountability, the more they will blame others for their own actions, while at the same time denying their actions. And then wonder —why can’t they get over it yet?

Happy Valentine’s Day, Sweet Greg. I wished I were already healed and ooozing with joy and pink hearts on this day. I am still me. Healing. Recovering. Exhausted. Thank you for loving me. Being loved and treated unconditionally with kindness and acceptance is still unnatural and even uncomfortable, for me. Even after 5 beautiful years. I am a work in progress.

Thank you for accepting that depression and PTSD do not break for special occasions.

Big Shot

In Nothing Like I imagined, Mindy Kaling shares her delicious confession about an attempt to be a Big Shot. While out with her celeb buddy in L.A., a big time producer picked up their check (as a gesture to her friend). Mindy was blown away. She found that to be the most impressive move- evidence of being a true big shot. SO THEN– A few months later, while on vacation in Hawaii, at a high brow restaurant with her family, she proudly paid an immense dinner bill for a Hollywood Giant, whom she had never met— and was left feeling bitter and lame as a result of having received no acknowledgement by him.

Paying that bill, she realized, had nothing to do with generosity (The producer was a bazillionaire and completely untouched by having his check picked up- something he is used to, and does not need), but her own admitted desire for attention/acknowledgement, and hopes to appear as a big shot. She has since declared herself officially not a big shot, in this way, and is able to laugh at herself for foolishly throwing 2k$ at a stranger’s Christmas dinner. Gawd, I adore her. She totally owns (and charms us with) her madness. Mindy Kaling is Wholesome Badass 100%. I can never hear enough, from good people who are glad to openly learn from, share, and laugh at life’s lessons. I have always been pretty good at laughing at and sharing my most horrifying choices and behaviors. It used to be maybe because of a lack of esteem. But now, I think I am appreciating the gifts and freedom of humility—not humiliation, just knowing my size in this world. I am no longer fooled into believing that I might be hot shit or a piece of shit. Practicing humility is allowing me to live as a kinder person— to myself and to others. I learned all about it, for the first time, where? In Recovery, of course!

Night-Time

Even with 10+ years of recovery and spiritual retrieval work (though lately, the doing of the work is minimal and I find myself  right back in survival mode), I continue to lose hours and nights of sleep- rehashing theories on why my sister did what she did, TO me.  I recognize that my neeeeed to understand is a clever way of owning that I will not fully surrender/accept what has happened, repeatedly.  Mentally, I am ready to move TF on, but emotionally, I am bound more tightly to the pain– each time I must interact with my greatest reminder of her—(my boys’ father–my sister’s emotional and moral/soul equivalent).

According to these wise words of Rumi:  “The cure for the pain is in the pain.”  By this measure, I might be quite close to the cure.  I want to learn, grow, and expand from heartache, the most amount, and maybe I already have and and maybe the letting go makes it all too final.  Perhaps I will feel empty and lost without all of my pain. Who would I even be without it? I want to resolve the conflict (within myself—but also pathetically and most unrealistically with my ex husband) and not bypass it. I want peace most especially for our children. I must make peace with some hard shit.

Reminder to Myself:  I do not cause others to do things.  My words and choices certainly may inspire feelings– but cause behaviors, nope.  As I reflect on the few short  honeymoon reunions with my sister between 1992 and 2015, I recall in horrifying detail, her descriptions of (handling) undercutting and icing each of the women and girls in her family, with the exception of one.  Why did she boast those things to me– about sisters in laws, aunts, nieces, cousins, roommates, co-workers too?  Was she flexing at me, warning me to stand down?  I cannot help but marvel at the volumes of unfortunate details (my sister’s justification for demenaing them) I know about females with whom I have had little, if any contact.

She did the things to others.   But nobody ever checked her on it.  Nobody but me.  I wonder how many more ways and times I will need to remind myself of what I now, as an adult, with a program of recovery, am able to understand and articulate — and still not accept. Does acceptance really need to be so challenging and continuous, tho?

Please don't tell me to smile. Photo Text

Smile GDI!

I will not be a person who instructs another to smile.  What even is that? To me, that feels unwholesome— unsafe. I prefer an authentically non-plussed person over a curated smile-wearer or a tone policing controller, directing people on how to arrange their faces. That behavior is not unlike insisting a person wear a jacket when they are not cold. It is aggressive and inappropriate, not happy and not mellow-chill, at all. Also, I do not trust a person who is always wearing a smile. That is not normal, honest, or sane…. says the rarely smiling person who makes no claims to being normal or sane, only to healing and unlearning…practicing Letting Go.

AND—a) Forced or pasted on smiles are not proof of happiness or goodness. b) Happiness isn’t a requirement in honest healthy places.  Happiness IS certainly preferred to the alternative but, like all feelings, it comes and it goes.  Mine—- IT literally vaporizes in the presence of those who demand it.  Poof! Gone in under a second. Just let people be how and who they are. Right?

“You would be so pretty if you smiled more“… Really, because you would be so pretty if you STFU and back off. HAAAAAATE IT. And it’s typically not “suggested” in the gentle, caring way. 

When someone says “smile” because it is what they need , it’s ok if you just can’t. Not all of us aspire to excel at performing happiness. Some of us just need to feel our feelings.

Rant over.

A little Mythological Enrichment for those whom have read this far (You’re welcome):

According to Greek legend, Procrustes had an iron bed on which he compelled his victims to lie. Here, if a victim was shorter than the bed, he stretched him by hammering or racking the body to fit. Alternatively, if the victim was longer than the bed, he cut off the legs to make the body fit the bed’s length. In either event the victim died. 

The “bed of Procrustes,” or “Procrustean bed,” has become proverbial for arbitrarily—and perhaps ruthlessly—forcing someone or something to fit into an unnatural scheme or pattern.

I won't be giving a fuck ever again. Fuckology quote

On Loyalty and Abuse

In a speech I heard today, it was said that “Patriotism is not loyalty to the president but to the country (in our case, the democracy)”. That brand of love for our country would allow us to unite in elevating the quality of life for all of the people. As I feel flattened by what is happening politically, I am reminded of the similar system in my family of origin and then marriage. In each, there is a person who declares their own personal agenda as equaling the best interest of the family, even while actively discounting dignity, humanity, and most basic, though differing, needs of some of its members.

Non- reverence to that person, will leave one morally excluded from the group’s conditional protection and inclusion. In this way, there is no room for collective growth or expansion. A strictly Zero-Sum mentality: “If I don’t dominate, destroy, exile one who challenges me, then I lose and they win.” One winner and one loser. Win-win is an impossibility. So, it makes sense to me, why the ongoing political chaos feels triggering AF.

On an almost related note… I have been informed now, of several instances in which one of my sons is punished by his father for revealing (to me–I AM his mother. He betrays no one by turning to me) disturbances during their weeks with him. So, my son shares but feels terrified that I will say something. Requiring emotionally developing children to keep silent secrets and to not honestly communicate pain or difficulty, is damaging–abusive.

Today, something traumatic for one of my sons occurred, actually, I suspect both are traumatized at some level -but only one of them panicked and called me for comfort. He called — hyperventilating — literally unable to regulate his breathing. The other will feel entirely blameless and disinterested in discussing and learning from his part in the event. It is bizarre and painful to observe one of my sons carrying all of the family guilt and shame and the other –none at all. The cycle has not yet been broken.

So not only did the thing happen, a thing which endangered the life of their puppy and my sons, — it was not mentioned or discussed, at all with or by their dad. My son said he felt insane—each acting as if nothing happened and also knowing THAT if he brings it up, he will be charged with creating drama. So if he brings pain to me, he is scolded as a tattle tale/snitch (such bullying language) by his dad –and if he brings it up directly to his father, he is acccused of creating drama. What a gaslighty bullshit situation. He will not be offered comfort or guidance– but diminished. I believe it makes their dad feel non-perfect for me to know that it is super hard at times. I fkn know it and live it. I am so grateful for my comfort with imperfection and vulnerability.

What in the actual fuck? This thing that is being demanded of growing boys, to not discuss the hard things (or else)—is not loyalty or even privacy. It is abuse of power and it makes me (and children) sick. This is like a playbook for HOW TO destroy a person’s sense of self, connection, and reality. Fuck.

Happy New Year

In true Magda- fashion, tired and hungry for my bed, silence, solitude, stillness, and my weighted blanket, I departed our celebration before midnight–AND nobody got even a little bothered or judgy about this. We all just laughed and hugged Good Night and Happy New Year. At 11:42 p.m.

It was lovely. Best New Years Ever (I may have expressed this exact sentiment last year, as well). Chirstmas Eve and Christmas Night were equally chill and without an expectation to rally til midnight.

I am terribly grateful for another year (holidays and special occasions included) with my people, my chosen family. Welcome 2021.