How Did I Get Here? Depression sneaks up on you. It's insidious. It grows over time like a slow cancer. You know you don't feel right, but at the same time you're not aware that something is wrong. It consumes your being until it becomes your normal state of existence. And when you finally realize that depression defines you, you wonder, how did I get here? For me, it was years of oppression . Desperate To Belong As I continue on this journey I'm becoming more aware of how and why I react to things the way that I do, as well as some behavior patterns that have not been helpful. I realize that I've always been so desperate to belong, to fit in somewhere, that I go along to get along and ultimately become that doormat that everyone walks all over. Anything not to rock the boat. Capitulate in order not to be rejected. Oh gosh …. there's that word again … rejection. I realize now that all my life I've been desperate to just 'bel
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Showing posts from April, 2020
Saturday April 25/2020 Today the goat attacked me while I was feeding the ducks. I held up a rake to try to keep distance between us (not threatenly) while I backed away from him. He circled around me faster than I could keep pace with, and then saw his opening and came in and rammed my left knee. And while I was reeling from that hit, he rammed my right shin. He kept coming at me while I frantically looked for something, anything, to ward him off. I'd dropped the rake when he hit me the first time. As he took another charge at me, I managed to grab his horns just as he was about to hit my stomach. But now what do I do? If I let go he's going to ram me. He pushed into my arms as I backed away. I thought if I could get close enough to the house, I could let go and make a run for it, but he was strong and I was losing the battle. Then I saw a piece of fencing … an xpen panel, and I grabbed it with one hand while still hanging onto one horn with th
The Rogue Goat The emotional challenge hanging over me at the moment, is the decision about behavioural euthanasia for the rogue goat living on my property. I bought him a year and a half ago when he was 13wks old. He escaped his pen and disappeared on the second day. Despite exhaustive searches over a few weeks, he was nowhere to be found. I came to the sad conclusion that he had most likely been taken by a coyote. Three and a half months later he turned up in the back barn. Where had he been all that time? How had he survived? I do not know. He was in great shape. But he'd grown up without human contact and was now feral. No one could get near him. I spent that winter restricting him to the barn and taking food and water to him daily. Gradually he began to trust me enough to let me touch him. Last summer he had freedom to roam the farm, but I couldn't get him to move in with the other animals. And we weren't able to neuter him because we c
Today's Revelation As mentioned before, I don't like conflict or confrontation. I realize now that this is tied to fears of rejection. Seems like I'm noticing 'rejection' as a theme in my life. Whenever I've stood up for myself it's resulted in some sort of rejection/loss. And thus, whenever conflict arises, I back down because standing up for myself means that I risk drama and rejection. I always feel the threat of losing something if/when I speak up. Always worried that the rug will be pulled out from under me. Growing up, the threat of losing something was used to manipulate me into compliance. As a very shy child any change in routine is terrifying, and that was used against me. 'If you don't do [ _____ ], we'll take away your ballet lessons'; 'if you don't do [ ___ ] we'll put you in a different school'. Those were common threats. So there is a deeply ingrained fear of speaking up, setting
Apathy Why does depression cause such apathy and how do we break free from it? I feel like I want to do a lot of things but can't find the 'get up and go' to actually do them. I have ideas for things that I want to do/create, but can't seem to get those ideas out of my head and into reality. I feel like I'm losing interest in everything ..... no motivation. Things just feel overwhelming, like I just can't face anything .... like I just can't be bothered. S.M.A.R.T Spoke with Sean today. I'm having having a rough day. Woke up feeling weepy and tired and cranky. Anxiety was high .... could feel/hear my heart thumping in my ears, and felt shaky. I can't find anything that makes me feel 'good'. And the imposed isolation of the pandemic is taking its toll. It's a blustery overcast day as well so that is also dampening my mood. We spoke about goals and I realize I don't have any. It's that apathy
Another Murder ..... The tv show about the Parrot murder also triggered the memory of the murder of the custodian at my childhood school. It was the last day of school, June 11, 1971. A student had found the body on her way to school that morning. I found this report on a website called Websleuths: ** Back in 1976, the then-closeted transvestite was found not guilty by reason of insanity -- terminology which has since been replaced by "not criminally responsible" -- for the murder of Carol Lynn Millar ...…. Shortly after being sent to Penetang, McCaul confessed to a murder predating Millar's by five years -- that of a 61-year-old stranger, Archibald McDougal, a caretaker at Toronto's Loretto Abbey private school for girls whom he stabbed to death and mutilated with a paring knife. Because he was already incarcerated at Penetang as a psychiatric inmate, the Crown saw no sense in putting McCaul on trial for the killing of McDougal.** and ..... *