People + me + being rude/insulting/etc = feeling like shit

WHY do I give people I don't even know power over my emotions?

Depression, the great deceiver

So, I woke up from a nap where I had a weird dream about walking down a busy street with my students to go to a restaurant and lo and behold, depression had paid me a visit.

Thanks, buddy.

I have known about my depression since I was diagnosed in 2002. That year, it became patently obvious that something was wrong with me. I thought it was my soul-eating job as a loan officer at a small credit union, but I was just being ignorant and blind. The maternal side of my family is shot through with clinical depression. Why it did not occur to me before my 38th year is a mystery to me, but there you go. Sometimes you really can't see the forest for the trees, I suppose. I was less than thrilled to discover that I was also harboring an anxiety disorder as well. I was prescribed Zoloft and went on my merry way, suddenly a poster child for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals.

It was still there. Usually situational. Something would happen that brought me down and I would roll around in it a while until I found my footing and got back on track.

Lately, my meds (Cymbalta among the myriad I have to take for my diabetes) seem to be revolting against me. I wake up in the mornings sick and exhausted and in a fog. I began having intrusive thoughts again, like I did ten years ago.

But I also began writing again after over ten years. WTF?

I don't know if the trade off is worth it.

I don't know if what I write is good enough for others to read. What I do know is being a writer is really all I ever wanted, and in this life of mine where I have been so many things, this is the only thing I have not truly 'been'. And thinking about this makes me more depressed.

I am three days without my Cymbalta and the withdrawal symptoms are getting worse. I can't decide between the two sides of myself. Drugged and numb, or letting the crazy loose, feeling everything, and maybe truly being alive.

Damn...

I'm certainly no fan of his politics, but John MCain was pretty hot back in Viet Nam...

my little family

My pretty (not so) little boy: