Blue Period

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hear you out there. "Where the hell have you been? Why aren't you updating? What's going on?"

Sorry. I've been involved in a little side project: trying to stay sane.

It's no secret that I've not been a happy camper lately. I've always been a bit on the depressed side, but lately it's been worse than usual. I've mentioned it here before. People that know me outside of this site have commented on it. "What's wrong? It can't be that bad. Smile!"

If only it were that easy.

There are so many things in my life that make me happy. I have the best friends that anyone could ask for. I have a loving family. I just got back from a fabulous vacation. And yet...something feels terribly wrong, horribly off kilter.

Maybe it's just that I don't deal with stress very well. And I've had a heaping portion of it on my plate these days. My job frustrates me on a daily basis. Many of my friends have pulled up roots for greener pastures. I still occasionally have problems dealing with the loss of my cat. Monetary woes. Ailing family members. Dealing with friendships that went bad. The realization that I'm not a kid anymore, that it's time for me to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, that I need to start planning for my future (you know, further than the upcoming weekend). The whole being single thing. The unending battle with the bathroom scale. The list goes on and on.

And underneath it all, the lingering notion that somehow most of it is all my fault. Somewhere I made a wrong turn, zigged when I should have zagged. If I'd just done one tiny thing differently, I'd be working at my dream job, driving a nice new car, with the freedom to visit my long-distance friends whenever I wanted. I'd have money in the bank, I'd be thin and beautiful with hair that actually does what I want it to do. I'd have infinite inspiration and motivation to write, boundless energy to complete everything on my Life To Do list, an incredible man who loves me and understands me. Elvis would still be stalking air molecules in my apartment. I'd have finished my master's degree, I'd have thousands of devoted readers, and would be sitting at home working on my Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

So where did I go wrong? Did I give up on a job too soon? Did I pick the wrong major in college? Is this all because I didn't write that paper in my high school British Lit class? Did I make the wrong friends in the third grade? What did I do?

And of course sitting around mulling all of this over in my head just makes things worse, because I do start blaming myself for everything. I try to put my finger on what the problem is, and it appears that, to steal an album title from Moby, everything is wrong. I've bought myself a first-class ticket on an around-the-world guilt trip, and there don't seem to be any ticket agents who will let me get a refund.

So I sit and blame myself, which kills any motivation to do anything to fix my problems. And then I berate myself for my inactivity, my apathy, and add that to the pile of Reasons Why I Suck. And the cycle continues in a giant Mobius Strip of Self-Loathing.

And I feel hesitant to talk about this with the people that care about me because they shouldn't have to deal with my problems. They all have their hands full dealing with their own problems, and the last thing they need is whiny little me, unable to cope with normal day-to-day life. Some of them have dealt with much bigger crises in their lives and have been able to move on; my problems look downright insignificant compared to what they've overcome.

As I explained it to Roger Mexico, sometimes I feel like I'm in a car with faulty brakes going down a treacherous hill. Sometimes I have control; sometimes I'm just watching helpless and waiting for the inevitable crash.

Part of my head knows that I'm being ridiculous, that things aren't as bad as I'm making them out to be. Unfortunately it's hard to hear the Voice of Reason clearly when you're plummeting down the side of a mountain in a car you can't stop.

And online tests like this one are just a bad bad idea when I'm in this state. (According to my results, there's a very high probability that I may be schizotypal. Or I have borderline personality disorder. Or avoidant personality disorder. Or there's a good chance it's just that I'm paranoid, dependant, and obsessive-compulsive. Lovely.)

So I'm trying to dig myself out of the hole I'm stuck in. I've talked to friends about what I'm going through. I've done massive research online. I've started writing about things that upset me and frustrate me and frighten me. I've analyzed my reactions to situations and relationships in my past. I've started taking herbal supplements to boost my serotonin levels. I'm trying to do whatever I can by myself before I give up and seek shelter in professional help and prescription antidepressants.

Not that those options I'd attempting to avoid are bad. It's just that the idea of wading through referrals to satisfy my health insurance provider, trying to find a therapist I trust, and dealing with freaky side effects from drugs are scary prospects. Not to mention costly and time consuming.

I've made some progress. The 5-HTP does seem to help make things a little more manageable; I"m not as much of a big sobbing mess as I was before. I'm starting to sort a few things out. I'm starting to believe that the light at the end of the tunnel is not an oncoming train. I feel like I've made a few awkward baby steps towards being normal (whatever that is), and no longer feel like I just want to curl up in a ball and die.

Well, most of the time. I'm far from hunky dory at this point, and there are still some moments when I lose all sense of the world around me, when it's just me inside my head telling myself that it's all a lost cause.

Most of the people around me have been very supportive. Others have just looked the other way, in hopes that if they ignore the situation, it will just go away. Some people have no idea where my head is at, and think it's just something I can snap my fingers and change. I wish.

The woods are a very scary place at night. I know the footpath out is around here somewhere.

I really must stop writing about this now. Focusing on the problem for too long just making it worse. Moderation is the key at this point. Let's move on, shall we?

I saw something on the internet earlier this evening that really pissed me off. It seems that Roger Mexico's former bandmate has moved on to another musical venture, which is all well and good except for the fact that her new band is performing a song that Roger Mexico wrote, and he's not getting the credit. The music is now attributed to the New Guy.

I could be overreacting here. There's a ridiculously small chance that maybe he did write new music to go with her lyrics, but for some reason I seriously doubt it. I couldn't confirm or dismiss my suspicions because I was unable to download the mp3, so I'm just assuming at this point. The best I could do was send an email to Roger Mexico alerting him to the situation. Hopefully he'll have better luck than I did with downloading the track in question.

This bothers me a lot. I'm not so naïve that I believe that no one in the world has ever stolen material from another source and passed it off as their own. But it's a completely different story when it's someone you know, when you know how much work they put into it. Theft is always a much bigger deal when it happens in your own backyard.

What amazes me is the stupidity on the part of the alleged perpetrator. Just because Roger Mexico has washed his hands of his former band and moved out of the city doesn't mean that he's completely ignorant of what's going on. He does still have friends here, you know. Friends involved in the local music scene that might possibly recognize a song he wrote. And making the song available on the new band's website is kinda stupid. Um, hi? Do the words World Wide Web mean anything to them?

But until I'm 100% sure that I'm right, I'm holding back from registering for the new band's forum to make any formal accusations. (I refuse to link to their site, since I don't want to send any extra traffic their way.) But if my assumptions prove correct, I'm half tempted to register merely so I can jump in, point my virtual finger at them and post "Thief! Thief!" in giant flashing red letters, and get the heck out of Dodge. I'm not big on the flamage thing, but I calls 'em as I sees 'em.

Great. Now I'm depressed and angry.

But at least I updated, right? That's progress.