Blogging-Slice Of Life – Page 16 – Vraxx

When Weekends and Weekdays Become the Same

I won’t sugar coat the fact that for me work and home are sort of the same thing. I mostly work from home and as such am often connected into my clients’ networks several at a time. That lack of separation does create some problems.

Through the course of my therapy one of the things I had the hardest time reconciling was that after a while I felt like I couldn’t distinguish between the weekdays and weekends. My ex-wife’s schedule usually dictated what we did on the weekends and now post-divorce I find myself just focusing on chores. There’s not much in the way of ‘activity’ for me. Nothing that I look forward to or want to plan really. Now and then I’ve tried to hit up the gun range, gone for walks or photo projects but it is not something that comes naturally to me. Instead, much like work, the only thing I have are goal/task oriented. Cleaning up, sorting, throwing things out.

For most folks I think the weekend is full of promise and opportunity. In my case the weekend is just a time for me to figure out the things I have to do, rarely what I want to do. Can’t exactly plan for ‘wants’ when you feel like you want nothing. If you’re in the same sort of anhedonia induced ‘lull’ in feeling about the weekends, you may feel like you’re just running through the motions. I continue to do it because over time I hope that I can bring back my sense of joy and actual longing to do something. It isn’t an easy practice but it’s something that you have to put effort in.

Beginnings and End

My marriage formally ended in April of 2016. It was somewhat painful timing as that relationship ended three of our mutual friends were lining up their weddings.

As one thing ends, others begin but for me, I made the harsh decision that I could not be a part of my friends weddings. I couldn’t in good conscience go to someone’s wedding and have so little ability to share and contribute to their happiness that I would put a dark cloud over their best day. I remember what it was like on my wedding day all too well. It’s confusing and frustrating to feel like someone else’s happiness is a trigger to your depression.

There’s folks that will put me on blast as selfish for thinking this way but I often think of the flip side. We all see the tropes and hear the horror stories. Folks who go to a wedding when they don’t really want to be there, folks who get drunk to drown away their sadness during a wedding. I didn’t want to be that person, that cliché of the bitter divorcee who spouts snide comments at a wedding. My friends deserve better than that.

Social expectation and masks are something I’ve struggled with since my teens. I’m not sociable, I’m better in small tight groups. A wedding is perhaps the largest social gathering folks hope to have and a time to be sharing in the start of a new life together. I’m not about to put on a mask anymore because social norms say I’m supposed to. “Do it for them” I’ve heard, and while well meaning it misses the point. To me putting on a false front for someone on a day when genuine happiness should be the only thing there is a disservice in my eyes. So while I wish them all the best, I’ll remain where I am, working, trying to change until the day I can go to a friends wedding and smile again, with a real smile.

Unsocial Media — Spoken Word “Look Up” by Gary Turk

Have a quick view of this YouTube spoken word piece by Gary Turk.
This actually came up during a session with my therapist but I think the message is a sobering one. If you are sensitive to pieces about depression please take appropriate measures before viewing this clip.

I commented yesterday about social media being a double edged sword but I feel like this piece speaks well to the changes that ‘social’ media brought about to people actually being social. I am more guilty of this than I’d want to admit, it affected my family, my spouse and a good chunk of my friends. When I disconnected from the social media word I realize I’d be isolating myself but at the same time I made interaction more real when I did engage. As much as technology is a part of my life, do try to let go of it now and then. Food for thought.

Is It Still a Blog If…

A bit of self reflection and stupidity. Is it still a blog if no one reads it? This is the question that’s being going back and forth in my mind the last few days. At its core this blog is more of a form of therapy for me. Something to do to keep my mind off negative thinking. While I do hope it gets some traffic or at the very least it helps someone out there, it isn’t about site hits or popularity or comments.

Given that though is it still really a blog? Is it just a rambling online journal? So a jlog? That doesn’t sound very good… Regardless of ‘activity’ I’ll continue to write/post/photograph as needed for this because it’s something I feel I need to do for my own sake. If it helps a few others along the way great. Self log… slog? No that’s worse…

Technology and Depression — Double Edged Sword of The Connected World

I make my living in IT, which for the most part has been a positive but I think the industry as it’s become more mainstreamed in some ways has brought about a lot of the negative parts of itself into the lives of basically everybody. The irony here is that the sheer level of connectedness we have w/the Internet and real time communication has in some ways fed into the fears and triggers for people who suffer from depression.

Social Media’s Flip Side — There was a time I thought FB and other forms of social media were interesting and as the years drew on, as people popularized the social media platforms; whatever they were; I started to feel like the whole concept was becoming mired in an “ooh look at me” popularity contest like back in high school. The most painful personal experience for me was that I realized that FB became more important than face to face time. Maybe it was a symptom of the other problems in my marriage, or just another facet but I realized at times my now ex-wife would rather catch up on her FB feed than really talk to me. My depression and attitude were certainly a factor, I doubt I was pleasant to engage. I was never big on wanting to be popular, I shy away from the lime light, but I do enjoy being heard for opinions and discussions. Key word, discussions. These days I’ve killed off most of my mainstream social media and instead work through smaller networks or environments where managing who I communicate with is much more an elective choice.

Cyber-bullying and the Anonymous Culture — This to me might be the biggest pain point about social media and the connected communities out there. It used to be that you had to endure the possibility of being harassed at school for being different, for being an academic, how you looked, how wealthy you were. Now with the digital age though the torment doesn’t stop just because you’re outside certain walls. I can’t imagine being a parent, wanting to protecting your kid from negativity only to realize the world out there isn’t built that way. I won’t say that you need to isolate your kids in a protective bubble, since everyone’s kid is a precious snowflake but somehow parents and kids need to take responsibility for the negative things they say and do. The anonymous nature of the net has bothered me in that the minute responsibility and blame are thought to not exist, we see the absolute worst in people. But Vraxx you say, your blog is anonymous. Well sorta, I won’t divulge my full name though it’s easy enough to lookup. My first name is Addison, I’m male, 38 and a recent divorcee. That’s about all the world needs to know about me. Other than that I am just one of many voices out there. I hope that as laws and the systems we use to communicate improve that we find ways to allow for the freedom to communicate but at the same time the ability to hold each other responsible for the things we say/do. It might sound like I’m shitting on the first amendment but it’s a global culture now and folks have to realize that there are boundaries that we need to start drawing somewhere.

Depression and IT

Tackling Depression in IT

I usually don’t cross-share other blogs but I felt like this was a very well written piece regarding the efforts of Yana Petrova about the IT world and the prevalence of depression. I’m going to try the book recommendation she made as I can see a lot of the things discussed have at varying points affected me in my job and the obvious carry over with my personal life.

Pets as Therapy — Doge Therapy…

Before my divorce my spouse and I had a precocious female black and tan shiba inu. If you’re familiar at all with the whole doge meme you’ll have seen the red colored shibas all over the net.

Mahina, our shiba, kept me company as I worked from home most days. She was pretty aloof but she’d check on me from time to time and that company was a big help when my stress from work would hit peak levels. Mahina stayed with my ex-wife. She was after all her dog and I couldn’t afford to keep a pet in my current living situation. Having had a pet and then going back to pet-less I can genuinely see how much of a benefit a therapy animal can be for someone. It’s something my therapist and I have also talked about but laws in our state are a little tricky. If you have the ability to care for a pet and are struggling with depression and anxiety I think it’s something you should consider. Keep in mind laws regarding how to get a dog licensed as a therapy dog vary by where you live. As far as the US is concerned there’s a very distinct line drawn between therapy/companion dogs and service dogs (such as seeing eye dogs) who are allowed greater access.

Honestly this attached youtube clip is just to show what a black and tan shiba looks like.

The Foods of Depression

OK this will be a bit of an off the wall post stemming from a few random conversations I saw on reddit/r/depression. For folks who have never experienced clinical depression it might be hard to imagine the severity of motivation loss. Someone raised the question, what foods do you try to cook when you literally don’t even want to crawl out of bed. This got me thinking since cooking is one of the other coping tools I’ve used to try to keep myself active.

So in no particular order here were some of the foods I realized I cooked often when I experienced the most severe episodes of depression.

Pancakes w/fruit — Usually blueberries or bananas. Probably as it’s a comfort food, and easy to make. Go easy on the syrup and other heavy sugars and it’s not terrible to make this while depressed.

Somen/Cold Saimin — Sitting around waiting for something to boil or warm up becomes a chore in itself so I often cooked cold, almost ready to serve dishes. Boil noodles ahead of time, chop your ingredients and lunch/dinner becomes less daunting a task.

Spaghetti — This one is a bit of a mixed bag. The actual process of making it can be involved (semi home made pasta sauce etc) but using a food sealer to create ready to boil servings of pasta and some pre-cooked noodles cuts down on the dinner time waiting and it’s a fun comfort food.

Cucumbers/Carrots/Beets/Lettuce — Always on hand. I’ll be open and admit that when my depression is at its worst I have a really hard time eating veggies and fruits so I’ve always tried to keep vegetables that I can eat raw or throw into a quick salad. Keep one or two good dressings and it gets a little easier to deal with meal time and healthy eating.

Bad things I still wound up eating, things I’d avoid however, heavy sugars, baked goods, things with a lot of sodium. It’s really easy to start drowning yourself in sugary things and canned foods but with my hypertension it’s something I had to really be aware of. A lot of those things gave me headaches or kept me up at night.

Sci-Fi Distractions — Finding Escape

So one of the things that’s helped me here and there is being able to get away from news, getting away from gritty dramas on TV that mostly center around high stress situations. After a while I really became numb watching all the cop dramas and medical shows which almost always involved death on a practically episodic basis.

While still having drama elements, I’ve found that Sci-Fi programming has often provided a better release for me. Maybe because of the fantasy aspect of it, or the possibilities of an unmade future. SyFy channel (I still hate their rebranding) has actually done very well lately with three great shows. Dark Matter (based on graphic novel) and Killjoys. Dark Matter’s tone is a bit more heavy but raises a lot of interesting social questions within its storytelling. Identity, choice, what it means to be human, each of those elements is raised throughout the shows current two seasons (season two airing now). Killjoys on the other hand is a bit like a Firefly universe. A small close knit crew, a broader big-bad story, megacorporations.

Though the new season won’t air until 2017, The Expanse, based on the novel series of the same name is a more hardcore space-opera but done extremely well. I would watch with a bit of caution as it can be a bit more emotionally invested.

All three series were engrossing enough for me to keep locked in and helped as an escape from some of the less pleasant things going on in my life right now.

Olympics and Seeing A Better Side of The Globe

The Olympics serve as a weird counter example to me. On the one hand seeing America’s athletes really push it and go for the gold is great. I have an uplift in my sense of nationalism at a time when I mostly just facepalm every time I read the news. Then again we see examples of what happens when fame, pressure and gold get to your head (I’m lookin’ at you Ryan Lochte).

We’ve seen some amazing acts of sportsmanship such as the crash between runners Hamblin and D’Agostino. With both women supporting one another after a bad collision. The amazing success of Usain Bolt capturing his 9th medal. Nations obtaining gold for the first time in decades such as Vietnam with two medals in shooting.

It’s a run of positives for the most part as you see people around the world competing to find out how good they are. The irony to me is they made it to the worlds grandest stage. Every olympian, every paraolympian should stand head high because they’ve achieved something most of us can only imagine.

For someone battling depression it’s good see people trying against the odds, it’s a slippery slope to be sure. I remain set upon trying to see the positive side of it. If athletes can overcome hardship I have to try to do the same. I may have fallen (divorce/depression) but like those runners I can get back up. While it sounds corny, I suppose in some ways I can imagine that every tiny victory against depression is a gold medal in not giving up.