As mentioned in my last post, I did watch some old episodes of 21 Jump Street that were always my favorites. The one that resonated most was when The Bad Guy finally got caught and sentenced to death. Except for all his evil cockiness…He was just a kid from a bad neighborhood who never got a break and I ended up feeling sorry for him in the episode that showed his last days sitting on death row. Waiting for a stay, knowing you’ve exhausted them, the call isn’t coming. This is it, you’re going to die.
Well, if you think about it…Depression is a lot like sitting on death row. Waiting for what you know is coming. You get the stays, called periods of stability or mania, but ultimately…You are lead right back to death row, ie; depression. There you sit, hoping for your next stay, maybe a grant of clemency. It never comes. You can’t rest knowing you’ve been commuted to a life sentence, you can’t just get the lethal injection over with…It’s years of hellish limbo.
Especially when you’ve committed no crime to warrant it.
And so that is how I am feeling today. Oh, yes, I got up, I took my kid to school (in a pink cat sleep tank and leopard print jamma bottoms) but it’s auto pilot. Even the daily wardrobe battle with fashionista spawn has become auto pilot rather than me laying down the law. I wanted her to wear that awesome new outfit Mrs. R got her, she fought me tooth and nail. It’s so pretty, with the sparkling black sweater and leopard pants. I’d be thrilled if someone bought me even a pair of pants without holes in them! What is wron with this kid? Of course, it takes me back to the same age when I spent first grade refusing to wear anything but dresses, then by second grade, I refused to wear dresses at all and would only wear pants. If you look back to your own childhood, it can be a useful tool in understanding what you perceive as your child being difficult. Because once upon a time, you were that difficult child, too, in your own way. I think parents forget that. I need to remember it. Maybe I remember it too much and that’s why everyone thinks I am too lenient with her. I just know throwing down gauntlets with a born rebel is counterproductive. I let her wear her Frozen dress. Auto pilot at its finest, fuck you, depression.
I am feeling salty and rebellious myself. It’s an undercurrent beneath the apathy and auto pilot. As in, Goth Girl shows up to the shop any time she wants, so I am not gonna break my neck getting there to appease R. In fact, I think I may just pick up those laptops and inform him I am gonna work on them from home, period. When the depressions and panxiety hit, it truly is the answer to the problem, I just wish he, and others, could grasp it. (On a side note, Mrs R was telling me how Goth Girl sent R a text with a sad face cos he didn’t need her thus she had no money to spend on her birthday, and I’m just like…wow, the inanity. I pawned dvds to buy my kid a book from the book fair, ffs.)
Meanwhile, my housework continues to snowball. I think we’ve reached biohazard level four now. It’s so damned futile, is the problem. And I have such low standards, my idea of spiffy is someone else’s idea of biohazard three. If the powers that be were truly interested in helping me with my disabilities, they’d send in a cleaning person once a week simply to help me get caught up. That’s always been my bigger problem. Not lazy, not a pig by design (just slob lite)…I just can’t keep up because I am so up and down and everything else going on drains me. You have this many sporks, and this is all necessity, so there are no sporks left for stupid shit like vacuuming. It also helps to have a vacuum that actually does more than make noise and leave all the crud on the carpet.
So instead of just tackling that shit…I ignore it. I may be hyper aware of everything in my life, but I have zero problems denying housework. As long as we have clean clothes and dishes to eat from..Meh, fuck it.
I heard a line from a show last night that kind of stuck with me…This guy met a woman he really liked, but found out she was prostituting herself…And he went off the deep end but then he came around and told her he could see himself forgiving her…And she said, “That’s the problem…I see myself through the eyes of others and I can’t forgive myself and live with being viewed that way.”
I think that applies to me. I’ve made many mistakes but they are not who I am and I get tired of those who view me as little more than the sum of those mistakes. It’s like they never see me for anything else except a flaky fuck up who can’t manage her emotions or stress. And I can’t live with those eyes on me every day, reminding me that’s how I am viewed.
Oddly, it correlates strictly to the bipolar aspects. I don’t care who likes my wardrobe or what music I listen to. But being judged for having this sucky illness…I do want to weed out those who do that. It impacts how I see myself. Maybe that’s my malfunction but it’s valid.
Now…onward and upward. Which means more procrastination, pretzel gut, and an episode of Limitless. Still say I’d sign up for that pill even if it killed me in a year. It’d be one year of being productive and living life to the fullest, which is a hell of a lot more than sitting on depressive death row has gotten me.
