another long hiatus. here's a summary of the last 17 months:
in may 2013, i started a part-time job - my first ever in human services - at TROSA, a residential substance use disorder facility. i love my job. i love the people i work with, and i love seeing the residents change their lives over the course of the two-year program. obviously, most of them don't make it the two years, but we graduated 34 men and women in May. it's a tough program - lots of structure and hard work in the form of vocational training so that they're employable when they head back to the workforce or stay here and work at TROSA (more than 50% of our staff of 55-ish are grads of the program). we're the largest residential program in NC, with over 400 residents. check us out (or even make a donation, if you're so inclined) at www.trosainc.org.
in june, i bought a tiny little house (smaller than my flat in san francisco) on about 1/3 of an acre. it's fenced in for my dog, maya, who likes nothing better than hanging out in the yard, even when it's 90+ degrees out. i have big plans for the expansive back yard that are going to start coming to fruition this summer.
in august, i started the part-time MSW program at UNC-Chapel Hill. i wanted to keep working, so ultimately, taking three years to complete the degree instead of two was the best choice to make. i now have one entire academic year behind me and feel so lucky. it's a wonderful program and i have smart, empathetic colleagues. i really couldn't ask for more.
in october, i went to san francisco to visit friends and family. it was the first time i'd been since splitting up with my girlfriend there, which had happened in the spring. while i was there i got some joyous news - two of my best friends were pregnant, with a baby due in may. he actually arrived on june 4th, barely three weeks ago. he is precious, and they now have rounded out their little family, which also includes a daughter. i am so happy for them.
i spent the holidays with my mother and got the chance to meet her new (well, he's not new anymore) partner, and I also saw my brother, sister-in-law, and my eldest and youngest nieces, if only for a short time.
everybody already knows how cold it was this winter on the east coast, so i know i don't have to go into that. but it was. i didn't like it. the dog did, except for the snow we got on occasion - she's more of a desert dog. it is noteworthy, though, that area kids missed up to 3 weeks of school because of bad weather this winter. UNC even canceled my classes one day, which they hadn't done in years.
with cold weather and some general lingering loneliness, i felt a familiar feeling descending. that feeling of isolation, of not wanting to get out of bed, of not being able to sleep, of not really wanting to do anything except lie in front of the TV. my schoolwork would have suffered badly had i not been a member of a reading group that was committed to keeping each other on track. still, it took me forever to digest the articles. but what was i doing wrong? yes, it was a long, gray winter, but i was still going to work (if late), still making it to class, taking my meds religiously.
that's just it. with depression you can be doing everything "right" and still have an episode. and once you're in it, it's obscenely difficult to climb out. many others have written about this much more eloquently than i can, and if you go back in this blog you'll see that i've already written about it extensively, so i won't bother. but i went down and down. i drank too much, alone. by the beginning of may, i was contemplating suicide for the umpteenth time in my life.
and then, with great effort, i called my psychiatrist. because intellectually i know that meds can stop working with no warning, and sometimes you just need a different cocktail. he got me in as soon as he could and we discussed alternatives and switched things up. at first, i still felt hopeless, though: "what if it doesn't work?" i wrote letters to my family saying goodbye, that i was sorry, that it wasn't their fault, that i'd finally been beaten.
about a week later, the fog started to lift. he had given me a quick-acting med, which was likely a key reason. another contributing factor, i believe, is that i stopped drinking alcohol - this time, unlike any other, with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous. AA has been a godsend. the structure, the fellowship, and the spirituality have been like nothing i've ever felt before. i don't think i'm an "alcoholic" with a capital "A," but it's dangerous, or at least ill-advised, for me to drink, so i'm taking a break, at least for a while. day by day. "The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking" (AA, Tradition 3).
today, i can say that i've done a 180 from 6-7 weeks ago. i get up early and go to sleep early. i walk the dog happily, even on those 90+-degree days. i eat regularly. i see friends. i meditate. and i regularly attend AA meetings and have met people who i happily consider new friends already. and i'm looking forward to a wonderful summer filled with friends and family - a long weekend in virginia beach, a joint birthday party with a friend, another long weekend in michigan, and a week in san franciso - all coming up this month!
i can't wait to start school again in august, and my first field placement, which is at the Durham County Criminal Justice Resource Center (CJRC). i'll be focusing on jail mental health and adolescent substance use disorders, two of my primary interests. i'm gonna get thrown into the trenches, and i welcome the opportunity. two months ago, i couldn't even think about it.
i don't publicize this blog, so very few people know about it, and it doesn't get many page views as a result. but if you stumble across this and you or anyone in your life lives with depression, know that there is hope. statistically, i am likely to have another episode, but that is another time. living in the present instead of dwelling on the past or worrying about the future is half the battle, or more.
6.26.2014
1.30.2013
settling in
note: i began to draft this post back in october 2012 and am just getting around to finishing it (maybe) now.
it's just about 6 months ago now that i packed up my prius for the last time (on the west coast, anyway) and jumped onto i-80. durham was about 2,900 miles away, and i planned stops in western utah; aurora, colorado (more on that in a moment); western missouri; and lexington, kentucky, before pulling up to my destination.
the first two days were pretty dreary. the weather was good and the scenery was beautiful, but i'd met - or, more accurately, gotten better acquainted with - someone in san francisco about two months before i left. (i've always been known for my impeccable timing.) we'd packed a lot of "getting to know you better" time into those two months, and i'd even considered staying in san francisco. she'd asked me to, and i was very unhappy to have to say no. but i had a plan, for the first time in many years, and i was terrified of anything or anyone steering me off course.
still, that made for a long couple of days. i wanted to make it to aurora, where i'd be taking a break and staying with friends, in two days, so it was about nine hours in the car each day. i invested in a sirius radio dock and tried to drown my sorrows by singing 80's music at the top of my lungs, with varying degrees of success (singing, and drowning my sorrows).
i arrived in aurora on thursday, july 19th, in the late afternoon. it was 100 degrees, and i was happy to jump in my friends' pool, drink a cold beer, and socialize with the other people they had over. (people in their neighborhood have come to look for a bright pink beach towel slung over their fence, which constitutes an open invitation to come and swim.) it was a lovely day and evening.
the next morning, we were having breakfast when the phone rang. it was my friend's broker, calling from virginia to "see if you're ok." she chuckled at first, confused, and then the color drained from her face as he continued. she rushed off the phone and over to the tv, and that was the first we heard about the mass shooting that had taken place just a few miles down the road. it was about 9 hours after it happened.
the strangeness of it all was hard to take in, from the clownish appearance of the suspect to the sheer coincidence that i was in the immediate area when it happened.
(now, january 2013 ...)
it didn't stop there. in august, six people were gunned down at a sikh temple in wisconsin. in december, a mere eleven days before christmas, 26 people at an elementary school (20 of them children) were killed with a rifle by 20-year-old adam lanza, who also killed his mother, a gun enthusiast. and just today, a gunman in arizona opened fire at an office building in phoenix, wounding six people, one of whom died from his injuries. as i write this, amazingly, that suspect remains at large.
this blog isn't a diatribe against gun violence - but still, i stand in strong support of gun control. i don't need an outright ban, and i have to be realistic that that's not going to happen anyway. what i ask is for our elected officials to acknowledge that 2012 was a record year for gun violence (here's an excellent article from Mother Jones posted just today). the most notable point for me is that the majority of mass shooters have a history of mental illness that has been identified in the past. frankly, it makes me wonder if i'd be able to pass a background check to get a gun. if you've read other entries in this blog, you know that i have a history of clinical depression that goes back 20+ years, and although i've been treated continually for most of that time, it's been that long since i've been hospitalized for it.
then again, not a single mass shooter in history has been female. as for more guns in schools? not a single mass shooter has ever been stopped by an armed civilian. just sayin'.
i digress.
when i logged on tonight, i'd forgotten that i'd even begun this entry, as it had been a good long time. i've now been in my new home - durham, north carolina - for six months, and living in a little house for nearly four. i love it, my dog loves it. turns out we're both country(ish) mice, not city mice, which i'd suspected for a long time. we live near a large park where we walk several times a day. there are certain things to get used to, like not rolling out of bed and walking to the grocery store or the corner store or stumbling to a cafe half-awake to get a cup of coffee. i've adjusted. it's not always been easy. being in a long-distance relationship is challenging, gchat and the phone notwithstanding.
i can't do durham justice in a few sentences, so i'll save that for another entry. since i arrived here to go to school 25 years ago this month, though, downtown has undergone a revitalization that is surprising and delightful. there are cafes, restaurants that rival some in san francisco (in quality if not in number), galleries, and the wonderful durham performing arts center (DPAC), which attracts the likes of David Sedaris (a native north carolinian), Lily Tomlin, Whoopi Goldberg, and broadway shows like jersey boys. the stunning Duke gardens are still an awesome place to take a stroll, east campus a great place to jog.
even more importantly from my standpoint, however, is the number and quality of state graduate programs here. my focus has shifted somewhat from when i first started this blog: instead of pursuing a masters in family therapy, i decided to go for a masters in social work. as of now, my applications are complete and i'm waiting for decisions, which will take another 3-6 weeks at least. in the meantime, i've been occupying myself with volunteer work. two days a week, i tutor young adults to prepared them to take the GED exam; my legal training has finally come to some real use for a county teen court program, which provides an alternative justice model for first-time offenders; and finally, next week i begin training to be a hospital responder for the durham crisis response center, which deals with rape and domestic violence. i'm so happy, and feel so fortunate, to have the opportunity to do this sort of work in the near term. and i feel more fulfilled than i have in years. finally, i might just be on the right track. what a feeling that is.
it's just about 6 months ago now that i packed up my prius for the last time (on the west coast, anyway) and jumped onto i-80. durham was about 2,900 miles away, and i planned stops in western utah; aurora, colorado (more on that in a moment); western missouri; and lexington, kentucky, before pulling up to my destination.
the first two days were pretty dreary. the weather was good and the scenery was beautiful, but i'd met - or, more accurately, gotten better acquainted with - someone in san francisco about two months before i left. (i've always been known for my impeccable timing.) we'd packed a lot of "getting to know you better" time into those two months, and i'd even considered staying in san francisco. she'd asked me to, and i was very unhappy to have to say no. but i had a plan, for the first time in many years, and i was terrified of anything or anyone steering me off course.
still, that made for a long couple of days. i wanted to make it to aurora, where i'd be taking a break and staying with friends, in two days, so it was about nine hours in the car each day. i invested in a sirius radio dock and tried to drown my sorrows by singing 80's music at the top of my lungs, with varying degrees of success (singing, and drowning my sorrows).
i arrived in aurora on thursday, july 19th, in the late afternoon. it was 100 degrees, and i was happy to jump in my friends' pool, drink a cold beer, and socialize with the other people they had over. (people in their neighborhood have come to look for a bright pink beach towel slung over their fence, which constitutes an open invitation to come and swim.) it was a lovely day and evening.
the next morning, we were having breakfast when the phone rang. it was my friend's broker, calling from virginia to "see if you're ok." she chuckled at first, confused, and then the color drained from her face as he continued. she rushed off the phone and over to the tv, and that was the first we heard about the mass shooting that had taken place just a few miles down the road. it was about 9 hours after it happened.
the strangeness of it all was hard to take in, from the clownish appearance of the suspect to the sheer coincidence that i was in the immediate area when it happened.
(now, january 2013 ...)
it didn't stop there. in august, six people were gunned down at a sikh temple in wisconsin. in december, a mere eleven days before christmas, 26 people at an elementary school (20 of them children) were killed with a rifle by 20-year-old adam lanza, who also killed his mother, a gun enthusiast. and just today, a gunman in arizona opened fire at an office building in phoenix, wounding six people, one of whom died from his injuries. as i write this, amazingly, that suspect remains at large.
this blog isn't a diatribe against gun violence - but still, i stand in strong support of gun control. i don't need an outright ban, and i have to be realistic that that's not going to happen anyway. what i ask is for our elected officials to acknowledge that 2012 was a record year for gun violence (here's an excellent article from Mother Jones posted just today). the most notable point for me is that the majority of mass shooters have a history of mental illness that has been identified in the past. frankly, it makes me wonder if i'd be able to pass a background check to get a gun. if you've read other entries in this blog, you know that i have a history of clinical depression that goes back 20+ years, and although i've been treated continually for most of that time, it's been that long since i've been hospitalized for it.
then again, not a single mass shooter in history has been female. as for more guns in schools? not a single mass shooter has ever been stopped by an armed civilian. just sayin'.
i digress.
when i logged on tonight, i'd forgotten that i'd even begun this entry, as it had been a good long time. i've now been in my new home - durham, north carolina - for six months, and living in a little house for nearly four. i love it, my dog loves it. turns out we're both country(ish) mice, not city mice, which i'd suspected for a long time. we live near a large park where we walk several times a day. there are certain things to get used to, like not rolling out of bed and walking to the grocery store or the corner store or stumbling to a cafe half-awake to get a cup of coffee. i've adjusted. it's not always been easy. being in a long-distance relationship is challenging, gchat and the phone notwithstanding.
i can't do durham justice in a few sentences, so i'll save that for another entry. since i arrived here to go to school 25 years ago this month, though, downtown has undergone a revitalization that is surprising and delightful. there are cafes, restaurants that rival some in san francisco (in quality if not in number), galleries, and the wonderful durham performing arts center (DPAC), which attracts the likes of David Sedaris (a native north carolinian), Lily Tomlin, Whoopi Goldberg, and broadway shows like jersey boys. the stunning Duke gardens are still an awesome place to take a stroll, east campus a great place to jog.
even more importantly from my standpoint, however, is the number and quality of state graduate programs here. my focus has shifted somewhat from when i first started this blog: instead of pursuing a masters in family therapy, i decided to go for a masters in social work. as of now, my applications are complete and i'm waiting for decisions, which will take another 3-6 weeks at least. in the meantime, i've been occupying myself with volunteer work. two days a week, i tutor young adults to prepared them to take the GED exam; my legal training has finally come to some real use for a county teen court program, which provides an alternative justice model for first-time offenders; and finally, next week i begin training to be a hospital responder for the durham crisis response center, which deals with rape and domestic violence. i'm so happy, and feel so fortunate, to have the opportunity to do this sort of work in the near term. and i feel more fulfilled than i have in years. finally, i might just be on the right track. what a feeling that is.
7.21.2012
and the adventure begins
writing tonight from blue springs, missouri, just east of kansas city. i haven't really delved into this part of my plan, but i'm relocating from the bay area to durham, north carolina (the northernmost point of the Research Triangle Park; the other points of the triangle are chapel hill to the southwest and raleigh to the southeast). to make a long story short, after my hiatus at my mother's house in pennsylvania, i came to the realization that i simply couldn't afford to go back to graduate school in san francisco. therefore, i'm headed back east to a more laid back and much less expensive place. it happens to be where i went to get my undergraduate degree a million years ago. i sold my condo in san francisco, packed my much-pared-down belongings into a relocation "cube," and am on my way. it's scary, but it's also starting to seem like a real adventure. it's been way too long since i've had one of those, and i'm heartened to know that it's never too late. next task: house-hunting. more on that early next week.
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