A writer, they say, writes. This makes me a sysadmin, queer/poly pervert, a geek, but certainly no kind of writer the way I’ve been neglecting my blogging. And, really, the whole point was that I was trying to improve my writing habits. But, I’m not writing it off yet. (See what I did there? It was a pun, people! A writing-related pun! HAH! Oy…)

So, I’m going to check in and tell you about the nosebleed-inducing highs and the soul-grinding lows of late. All three of you who still read this blog after months of basic fallowness.

I’m not breaking down, I’m breaking out…last chance to lose control!

Some of the highs, it turns out, were chemical. And they were helping me screw some things up in epic fashion. If any mental health or medical profession ever again tries to prescribe me any form of Wellbutrin, they’re getting a smack. I mean it. The stuff is seriously no good for me. It and another antidepressant called Remeron were effectively doing bugger-all for me and canceling one another out for some months as my primary-care was at his wit’s end trying to help me medicate myself out of The Tale of Woe™. (One of these days, I’ll post a timeline of that. Long story short, it was about 3.5 years of my life during which the universe seemed to be conspiring to turn me into emotional road-pizza.)

Actually, that’s not true, it wasn’t accomplishing nothing. It was draining my pocketbook horribly on my current employer’s horrible high-deductible + HSA health care plan.

So, my newly-referred psychiatrist thought it would be peachy-keen to step me down off the Remeron first, leaving the Wellbutrin unchecked (and the truly marvelous Cymbalta as the only really effective med for me in the cocktail). And the resulting behavior prompted my therapist to say I was acting like a bipolar person in their “manic” phase—euphoric, out of control, and in my case even more oblivious to the concerns and needs of those around me.

I ended up burning my romantic relationship with wee Amy (tho thankfully not my friendship), screwing up so badly at Bawdy they asked me not to come back, and so obsessively seeking new partners that I almost drove the lovely Renie away completely.

Once I came down, I was (to continue to overuse the word) mortified at myself. I can’t think of a single relationship I didn’t strain, romantic, platonic, or employment.

Don’t try to keep your composure, I’m only having a laugh…

But there were happy things, too! My relationship with Renie has been intense and amazing. Even if we don’t make it (though I still have this odd presentiment that we will…I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am), it’s nice to know that I can feel chemistry that intense for anyone, and that someone so miraculous could feel it for me.

I’ve also been seeing two delightful women named Amy C and Kanane, who’ve just been wonderful to me. I guess my polyamory isn’t “academic” anymore, and what’s more it’s really nice to settle into a groove without feeling obsessive about meeting new partners every which where and all the time.

My longstanding friendship with a woman who’s always impressed the hell out of me—Heather—deepened in a wondrous way, as has my friendship with Amy of Chasing Amy, who’s also damned impressive. Chasing Amy has also been responsible for some of the more interesting and sexy stories of my recent life, for which there will be future blog posts, have no fear. (Teases: “Best…housewarming…EVAR,” “Pasta and strippers!” and, “FIVE?!? And a boy in the room?”)

I’ve also made new friends, like the astonishing Mags, and reconnected via the Internet panopticon of Facebook with two friends I’ve known from birth (mine or theirs, depending), Nick and Sam.

And Polly! Never has anyone made me look so good as this camera-slinging Photoshop goddess. She’s sweet, kind, and talented. How could I know her for a couple of years and only now start to realize how cool she is?

I am so surrounded by exceptional people. And they all, oddly, seem to like me. How cool is that?

The psychiatrist poses as psychologist…

And my therapy has gotten in-fucking-tense. We’re into all the crappy childhood imprints I took that have been holding me back since time immemorial and perennially making me feel like a loser and a failure. I’ve been avoiding talking to my mother for months now knowing that, after our last conversation was the straw that broke the camel’s back, the next time I talk to her I was have to read her the riot act. She still wants me in her life things are gonna have to change, swiftly and permanently, ’cause I’m not having it anymore.

*sighs* What a fucking cliché.

But this is going out to all my friends…I need your help. I need your encouragement. I need you all to check in with me and help me overcome all this crap in my head that keeps me from doing things for me. Doing things for others, never a problem. Other people deserve things, and the people around me are so worthy of happiness and success.

But I’m having such a hard time making those baby steps toward feeling like I deserve things, too, and not neglecting myself horribly. So help me not lose sight of my goals and wants, OK? I really need you guys now.

You all rock. And speaking of rock, 10 Scooby Snacks to whoever can name all the songs quoted in my section headers without Googling ‘em. (Not that I could prove you didn’t Google them, of course…)

But I won’t wait two %^@!*($#^ing months to write again.

Hi, everyone out there in Internet-land. I know it’s been a while since you heard from me. Long enough that I actually had to clean some cobwebs off this bad boy, even (though goodness knows how they managed to latch on to a bunch of pixels).

Well, what can I say? The post-part-time depression got really bad after my brother’s lovely wedding down in Baja and I started losing enthiusiasm for pretty much everything. The only things keeping me going were my regular gym attendance, Chasing Amy events, Lost,  and my hardest of hard-core friends, like Deborah, Dana, Gina, et al.

So it got bad. Really bad. But, at the risk of sounding like a bad sports cliché, I didn’t give up. Once I gave up the delusion that I was was bursting with motivation and entrepreneurial spirit enough to actually start my own business, I started looking for a proper job in earnest. And I got one. This was the “Important Stuff™” I was nattering on about in my Twitter feed, for those of you who happen to follow that.

As of this past May 26, I’m the new Mac Server Goddess at Eaton & Associates and so far, I’m loving it. The people are great, the clients are varied and interesting, and it looks a lot like I’ll end up making substantially more than I did previously after figuring in their “profit-sharing” bonus plan.

So that’s one of a few things that have been keeping me massively busy since I found out I would get the job. Obviously, I had to get my old employer all buttoned down and school my replacement, for starters. Then I had a whirlwind weekend including a day and night at BayCon and something else I’ll be getting to soon enough. (I really should also post a separate piece on my BayCon experience. Believe it or not, after a lifetime of geekery, it was actually my first time attending a major con.)

BTW, going from depressed to the point of permasloth to getting up at 6:30 every “school day” and scurrying hither and yon pretty much instantaneously has been a jolt that my system really hasn’t adjusted to fully.

There have also been changes of seismic proportions in my personal life. I’ve met not one, but two wonderful women who’ve really helped me kick aside the last remnants of The Tale of Woe™ which has dominated my personal life for about 3 of the last 3.5 years. In chronological order, they are Melanie and Amy.

I met Melanie at the home of a mutual friend and was already fascinated by her before I realized she doesn’t live locally. In another, earlier time both the distance and a certain shared characteristic would have caused me to give up interest then and there even though she and I have more chemistry than I expect is strictly healthy. But she does come steaming through here every couple-few months and tells me she’s trying to find a way to get out here to stay. Needless to say, I’m doing everything within my power to help with this immigration project even if it isn’t a whole hell of a lot. I like this picture of her in her goth-princess finery!

Of course, once I have such a thing as disposable income again, she gives me a reason to go back to Jolly Old for the first time since 1990. Always meant to go back…

And then, at a recent Chasing Amy event I met Amy. But not the Amy who runs it. (Though that Amy, aka Ms. Kitty, is like buttah, dahhhling!) I mean this Amy. I’ve been spending every spare moment I can with her (and sometimes her lovely fiancée, John, too. Ain’t polyamory grand?) and as a result have had emotions woken up in me that I hadn’t properly felt in my whole post-op life…emotions I was really starting to wonder whether or not I’d ever feel again. And, again, she’s someone I might have looked past not that very long ago precisely because of the perfectly lovely fellow she’s going to marry. Doesn’t make her any the less into me, though goodness alone knows why. (But I’m not gonna question my good fortune!)

The net result of all of the above is that I’ve been experiencing a curious phenomenon: Happiness.

Now I just need to learn how to adjust to these new rhythms of life, making time for work, play, home, and everything else. Consequently, I propose slowing the rotation of the Earth to create a 25-hour day and its orbit around the sun to allow for 8-day weeks.

And, oh yeah, I still need to find more time to write in these very pages. I have ideas for posts that have been stewing for weeks and hopefully haven’t gone past their “use by” date.

But, to all my friends, family, and assorted loved ones, thank you THANK YOU THANK YOU! for putting up with me while I lingered in The Pit of Ultimate Darkness. I can’t imagine I’ve been a while hell of a lot of fun to be around.

Hugs to you all and *happy little sighs.*

I sleep now!

Warning: Downer post. Please self-medicate before reading. Got an extra dose of your Paxil, Xanax, or Ecstasy in you? Good. If you’re rolling, look at the pretty colors and keep stroking that piece of faux-fur and have fun, but otherwise read on…

As I mentioned in a previous post, the last few years haven’t exactly been kind to me, leaving me more prone than ever to depressive episodes. (See? Told you this one wasn’t going to be all rainbows and kittens…) Part of the problem is that I’m having a really hard time finding my passion for life, and I honestly don’t know how to remedy this. Deaths (plural) in the family, losing most of my job and watching the company that used to pay me a living wage teeter on the brink of insolvency, deeply unintended physical and psychological consequences to achieving my surgical goal, watching a project of utopian intent eat itself in petty histrionics, and a recent relationship history that starts with a knife in my back, progresses through short-lived disappointments, and culminates with the longest stretch of involuntary celibacy in my adult life have all conspired to leave me afraid to want anything.

How does one get motivated to achieve — especially with my history — when all that buys you is disappointment and broken dreams? How does one bring love into her life beset by feelings of unworthiness and abandonment anxiety…to say nothing of a flatlined libido? How does one find contentment when perennially afraid that the rug will be rudely snatched out from under her feet?

In short, the lesson here is that dreams inevitably lead to hideous implosions. Or at least my combination of messed-up neurochemistry and body-blows from the proverbial school of hard knocks would teach me.

I’ve been trying new things, meeting new people, and am starting new ventures. I’m not just laying in bed hiding from life and the world. Well, at least not all the time. Listening to the history of my week, you’d think things were looking up. My 401(k) loan to tide me over while I start the new business went through, I tried and enjoyed faux-rock climbing with a circle of really cool new friends, I saved the towns of Arkham and Kingsport from the Elder Gods with one of my very best friends and her SO, I went for sushi and hot-tubbing with the Chasing Amy girls, I hacked up a really nice design for the new venture’s web site. And hey, Lost is back in just a couple of weeks!

Given all that, I would seem to have every reason to be as upbeat as a semi-employed grrl can.

And yet, I still have days where, even with a full night’s sleep and a decidedly pleasant previous evening, I can barely drag my carcass out of bed. It’s like I’ve forgotten how to nurture and hold on to happy feelings (assuming I ever learned how to in the first place).  I’m happy in the moment, but it fades quickly like a light morning fog, as if it was never there in the first place.

Leading up to my surgery in the latter half of 2005 and the first two months of 2006, I was happy and content for quite possibly the only time in my life. I was in my best relationship to date (or so I thought), had a job I loved, a promising new project, and a life-goal almost conquered. In the actual hospital in Scottsdale, I was ecstatically happy all through my convalescence. I felt so ready to start the next chapter in my life, so capable of moving on to the next thing with all that in place.

Then it all fell apart, and there was literally nothing I could do about any of it. I couldn’t fix my ex’s nervous breakdown and subsequent involvement with a man so toxic he deserves to be regulated by the EPA. Nothing I said or did seemed to do anything to stop my beloved new online community from destroying itself. I couldn’t prevent whatever burst in my father’s head from taking him from me and my remaining family. I couldn’t stop the major bank from imploding which so deeply savaged my employer that they couldn’t afford me full-time anymore and let a lot of long-time employees go wholesale.

Now, even when I accomplish something, even when I find some good company, even when I take a new lover…the cloud hovers there ready to leech away the joy the second I’m alone in my little apartment.

I don’t have the faintest clue how or where to find a new passion. I don’t know what on Earth can possibly have the motivating power that my transition did to pull me through the trying times by making me say to myself, “I can not lie down and die until I do this!”

But I still have all the usual needs. I need to make ends meet. I need love and companionship. I need satisfaction and contentment. I need joy and passion.

How can I find those in a state like this? And this is the attitude I’m bringing into trying to start a new business. All the skills, intelligence, and confidence in the world can fail with lead in the heart rather than fire in the belly. And even if I succeed, I’ve never been able to take satisfaction in that. It’s the very least that’s expected of me, after all.

Depression and neediness…so sexy.

Anyway, I’m sorry. I’ll get back to my usual ranting and raving in upcoming posts.

I’ve been a depressive as far back as I can remember.

I say this not to elicit a “poor Sonya” response from my dozen or so readers. I say it, along with the rest of this post, so they and others will understand just how crippling depression can be.

At this point, a lot of my childhood is opaque to me. No, I don’t have any of the major traumas of physical or sexual abuse in my past, thank goodness—though my heartfelt sympathy goes out to anyone who does. I just don’t want to remember it because I never remember being happy or even content for any sustained period of time as a kid. Not ever. I’ve only had a couple of short stints as an adult, for that matter, and none in the last nearly 3 years.

I honestly don’t know how much of it is simply my brain chemistry and how much of it is situational. Once you’ve spent enough of your life as a depressive, it becomes almost impossible to separate the two and the difference certainly feels academic from where I sit, even if that’s medically and/or psychologically not the case.

Depression is like many other chronic conditions—chronic pain, for example—in in that it’s invisible and therefore hard to sympathize with or truly understand for most people. It also doesn’t help that the word, “depression,” is used to also describe more transient mood-troughs. If clinical depression had some visible stigmata to compare to the spots of chicken pox or the yellow skin of hepatitis, perhaps people would take it more seriously and wouldn’t say things like “cheer up!” as if it were somehow that simple.

But what it does to you is horrible. Now, I’m not looking to set up a debate about who has it worse than whom here, either. Every chronic medical or psychological issue and every trauma is horrible in its own unique, debilitating, life-sucking way. I’m just saying that clinical depression blows goats for cab fare, regardless of where it may rank on any scale of comparative horribleness. 

It taints everything in your life. It leeches the joy out of your triumphs, makes you say “why bother?” to things you once found satisfying, and puts any moment of happiness or contentment under a warped microscope to find its inevitable doom (thereby, of course, hastening that doom). Success becomes impossible, failure assured. It can severely damage your personal relationships…with family, friends, lovers, anyone…and prevent you from seeking out new ones.

It is trying your best to snap shut Pandora’s Box and finding that you’ve only retained despair rather than hope under the lid. Omnipresent, it lurks to strike anew when any short respite is drawing to a close, like something out of HP Lovecraft, draining any happiness away and reminding you that your struggle with it simply will not end until you die.

I say these things as someone who’s been in psychological therapy for years with a very good therapist and whose mood-altering regimen is currently comprised of no less than three separate medications (Lexapro, Wellbutrin XL, and Remeron, if you were wondering). Once upon a time an for many years, one drug—Paxil—was enough to get me through. Now, my system laughs at just one.

I’ve tried hobbies, exercise (yes, really), diets, supplements, “keeping myself too busy to be depressed,” affirmations…everything but religion (’cause, yaknow, I’m just a bit too smart to be believing stories about invisible men in the sky and crucified people becoming zombies or gardens filled with 72 virgins—and really, wouldn’t 72 sluts be so much better in terms of the experience to be had? just asking—or burning bushes or “magick” spells or energy-channeling crystals or cheap neurological tricks, just to name a few). Nothing works for me, and each attempt only deepens the depression for being another “failure” in a long series of them going all the way back to my squandered “potential” to be the next fucking Einstein or something. Long story, written about it elsewhere, won’t get into it here right now.

I’ve just lost another weekend of my life to this disease, though, and my wherewithal is really flagging now. Between the way the last few years have gone (in so many ways) and the recent development of spending way too much time at home thanks to my company “going virtual” I find myself with way too much time to stew in my own psychological juices and no hope, no goal, no light at the end of the tunnel to pull me through and keep me putting one figurative foot in front of the other.

Needless to say, this makes me great fun at parties and oh-so-attractive to everyone I meet. (Never mind that, even assuming I could find someone interested in me, finding even one woman who actually fits my needs is starting to feel like searching for unicorns or moderate Republicans after 8 years of Dubya…makes being “poly” feel like an academic exercise.)

Just do one thing for me…if you have a friend who’s depressive (or has any other chronic, “invisible” ailment, for that matter), reach out to them and keep reaching out. Don’t stop, even if you meet with tepid response…it’s the depression talking. Nothing feeds depression more than feeling like the whole world really wouldn’t care one way or the other if you lived or died. Isolation is a killer to the depressive, and its unfortunately something that’s all too easy to fall into when it’s bad and it’s leeching away your will to so much as pick up the phone and call a friend. Sometimes that little effort from you is all they need to “kick-start” and keep some forward momentum going for a while.

It’s worth it, I promise.