Fearless

 

Fearless

 

It is a really great feeling to realize that there are certain things I am either so good at, or so intense about that those emotions burn the depression off like fog on a sunny day. 

 

I need to remember that happens when I'm having one of the harder days.  Hopefully sharing this reminder will remind anyone reading that you probably have days like this too and should embrace them when you have them.

 

And for people who aren't stuck with our condition -- this is a reminder that having depression doesn't mean sad every minute of every single day.  It has breaks.  Like this.  It has moments of happiness and every other emotion you'd care to name.  We get upset when things we care about are treated disrespectfully. Injustice gets us sad and angry.  We feel joy for friends and ourselves. We feel everything that anyone else does. 

 

So if you see me or anyone else you know to have depression having a day like this -- please do not make a crack about no longer needing the meds.  The meds usually make it possible to notice when we're having a day like this.  And one good or great or even amazing day does not mean a cure, or that we're over it.  The illness doesn't work that way.

 



Living With Anxiety: A Bad Day

You've seen Nega-Indigo before -- back when I was upset about that Ferguson decision in 2014.  They decided not to prosecute his killer.  

She shows up quite a bit and she's nastier than the mosquito-sized anxieties I've displayed here.  

Her voice is much harder to ignore, and a swat is not enough to make her go away.   The mosquito type anxieties often just babble silly stuff I know I shouldn't be anxious about.  But Nega-Indigo hits me where I live.  She pokes things that could reasonably go wrong in my life when I'm stressed, tired, upset, or knocked off my routine.  And fears that I'm normally able to just keep stomped down and buried. 

So if I, or anyone you know, seems especially tired for no apparent reason, they may be fighting their own mosquitos, or their own nega-self, who is bringing the noise with a vengeance.  Be kind.

Recipe For Surviving A Workday (Double Size)

Yes, my coworker at my new job looks so much like a Pixie that I called her one, and it caught on.  My phone manner is a little too sweet for her taste. I told her, that's okay, pixies are actually much deadlier than they have a reputation for.

 

The truth is, though, that it's a positive feedback loop.  If I'm kind to whoever I'm talking to on the phone, they will usually be kind to me in return.  Even the mean ones don't often have the heart to be nasty to someone who is being gentle and pleasant as possible with them.  It's all about remembering the person on the other end of the phone is a person with feelings and that they may be having a bad day, so my moment with them must be a kind one -- it may be the only kind moment they get that day.  None of us knows what another person is going through unless we're going through it with them.

 

This reasoning is useful not just in a job environment, but everywhere.  You never know what another person is going through, so it costs you nothing to be kind.

 

 

The Power of Kind Words: 1

 

I don't remember my coworker's name, but she was a real person, as in many of my earlier OCG comics. She was a stylin' senior, who always looked sharp.  Don't know how she did it on what we got paid, but she always had her hair done (like from the salon done!)  and her clothes like new.  I called her Ms. Pepper because of that shirt.  It's real too.  Chili peppers, scotch bonnets, and green peppers all over it.  

 

She really said that to me, too, in so many words.  I was a little stung, but I explained anyway why I gave compliments every chance I get.  She looked me up and down for a minute, then nodded and said "you have a point."  She even started trying to speak a kind word to me and others a little bit after that. 

 

"The field" we worked in at the time was customer service.  You probably laugh along with all those jokes that show a skeleton listening to "your call is important to us"...but you tend to forget unless you've been on the answering end of the phone that the person who picks up is another human being like yourself...and you let all your frustration and irritation loose on them because the hold time has just made it feel like it's the worst thing since athlete's foot, jock itch and chlamydia all at once.  You don't stop to think about watching your language, your tone, or your volume.  It doesn't matter because the company pissed you off and the "brainless peon" who answers the phone is gonna HEAR it! It doesn't matter that the people who answer the phone can't give you what you want, and you know deep down that asking for a MONTH of free service for an HOUR of downtime is unreasonable anyway. 

 

Think about that before you mistreat the person who picks up the phone.  Try being kind, and see if it makes you feel better. Even if it doesn't, it will make the person on the phone feel better because that's one less person being unkind.  I am speaking from experience.  The kinder I was to my customers, the less they screamed and freaked out.

 

A lot of people think Kindness is the same thing as weakness. It's not the same thing. It takes way less effort to be kind than it does to be mean.  Just like that old saying that it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile.

 

 

The Dangerous Daycycle

 

The daycycle is what happens any day I can't just stay home and do things at my own pace in my own time and in accord with my own spoon level and level of sleep. 

 

I have to assess how well I slept and hope I'm rested enough to make the drive because the Spark can't drive me to work and be on time himself and still have both of us get enough rest.  We've tried.

 

I have to deal with the anxiety of traffic and will it slow me down enough to be late, or will I actually make it on time?   There's also breakfast to consider: can I make it at home?  Did I have enough spoons earlier in the week to prepare something easy to grab and go?  Do I have the spoons to make something if I didn't? If I don't, do I have the money and the time to pick it up on the way? 

 

Then there's the workday itself. I have to do the job, all while fighting the swarm. You remember the swarm.  The self-hate, self-destructive, and depressive thoughts that the depression whispers to me all day, along with the messages of worry and fear my anxiety whispers to me all day.  Some days the work is enough distraction that the swarm isn't even a buzz in my head. Some days, the Swarm is big and loud and it's a struggle to drown out work, let alone behave in that chipper and cheerful way women are expected to behave at work.

 

By lunch I need an introvert recharge, which means hoping there's a quiet space in the building, or spending extra spoons to walk to my car so I can eat in solitude (and if I'm lucky, get some sun) -- and back again.  There's also the concern of whether I have enough energy to keep up the act for the rest of the day. If I don't, will drinking more caffeine do the trick at the cost of me being able to sleep? It might, and it often does.  

 

Then there's stuff around the house: dishes, laundry, blogging, catching up on the news.  TV if I have the energy for it.

 

Then it's time for the meds and bed, and hopefully I will be able to sleep. If not, melatonin, which runs the risk of making me too groggy to get up in the morning.  Sleeping pills are worse. 

 

So if I don't seem tired: it's because I've got the public face turned on and turned up.  I assure you, I'm really tired, no matter how I look. 

 



Spoon Conservation Tips

Disclaimer:  Different strokes for different folks. Only you know what applies to you. I am not a doctor.

When I'm talking about spoons, I mean the Spoon Theory.

Food: Friend and Foe

I  eat, according to my Fitbit, about 2000 calories a day on a day when I can actually manage 3 meals. I also burn about that much on an ordinary day where I'm working or doing chores all day.

I try to eat protein, because I find that on days I don't have protein, my depression is worse, meds or not.

But some days my meds make everything taste terrible, even stuff I know I love, as above, and between that and the depression telling me I don't need to be stuffing my face anyway,  it's a real struggle to eat.

Dress For ... what?

Dress for success?

Dress for the job you want?

Dress for the dress code?

Dress for what you get paid?

Dress for what you can afford?

Dress for what makes you comfortable enough to work a whole day?

 

 

And of these outfits, which one shows how competent and professional I am at my job?  Which one shows customer satisfaction after dealing with me? 

 

Neither.

 

Clothing can't denote intangible traits, but the corporate world sure acts like it can. "You gotta spend money to make money".   That's wrong.  And it's just another facet of the "keep the rich rich, and make damn sure the poor stay poor" design that has been imposed on American Society.  I have resigned myself to my talent and skill never being valued because I don't look the part and can't afford to look the part wallet-wise or health-wise.

 

 

Reference: The Spoon Theory

 



Video Games!

Mental Health Day: Fighting The Swarm

This isn't even close to the sort of challenges people with mental health issues. It just scratches the surface.  But if you imagine someone fighting a swarm of giant attacking bugs all day long and doing the things we all do on a day to day basis, maybe it's a little easier to understand why we seem exhausted for no apparent reason. Keep in mind, most of us are extremely practiced at appearing "fine" when we're really fighting the swarm, so what you see may not be the whole story.

Why do we appear "fine" when we're not? Because the stigma that comes with not appearing fine is an additional battle we often don't have the mental, physical, or emotional resources for.  Plus, we aren't textbooks.  Letting on how we genuinely feel often leads to a bunch of questions from well-intended concerned friends and loved ones that aren't easy, comfortable, or simple to answer.

In short: there's a lot more going on than meets the eye and it's so important to remember that.  Any mentally ill person you know facing similar challenges will appreciate it greatly if you put in the effort to remember.

Thanks!

Well Meaning Advice

As a person who has always been really sensitive, and who suffers from both depression and anxiety, I have always had people do the "I know better than any doctor" thing (which it has taken years to see for what it truly is), and offer well-meaning advice without any real solution attached to it.

As a kid, it frustrated me, because adults are supposed to know better but stuff like this was just proof they didn't and were just as clueless as me.  Didn't do much for my faith in other people.

As an adult, I still am frustrated because people act like their well-intended suggestions are immediately understandable and that if there are steps from point A to the point B of their advice, that I should automatically know them. 

The truth is that a lot of them are dodges for the advice-givers who either want to help but don't know how, or are just sick and tired of seeing me be depressed and feel (inaccurately) like I'd rather be depressed than get better, or am faking for attention, or don't want to get better.    Believe me, if you have ever been depressed from the standpoint of a mood issue, it's not the same thing from a brain chemistry problem.  I would love more than anything to be able to just shake it off, walk it off, let it go, whatever.  But I can't do that any more than a diabetic can decide that their pancreas WILL just produce insulin because they want it to.

It doesn't work that way.

Attention Tony Harris

TW:

Depression issues



For anyone who missed it yesterday, artist Tony Harris posted a Facebook whine (some call it a rant, but no, it's really a whine, especially given how he's responded now that the internet has called him out on it) about how all those girls who come to cons in scanty and sexy costumes and "breathe his air" aren't real nerd girls. They don't really know the stuff they're dressing up as, and they're only doing it for the ego boost of getting nerd boys to drool over them and pay them attention, whilst they look down their noses the whole time over said nerd boys.

Of course, the internet had ... quite a bit to say about it.

Author Gail Simone took the positive approach, and decided that November 13 should be Cosplay Appreciation Day.  It trended on Twitter, even. Good for her.

Brian Michael Bendis tweeted he'd come out of convention retirement to dress as Emma Frost and grind on Mr. Harris' table. A little radical, but hey, good for him.

I missed a good portion of it yesterday due to having a day job. But I have my own two cents to put in and they go like this.

Mr. Harris -- sorry, no way you're "dear" to me with an attitude like yours.

It's not all about you.

Women do not come to cons in or out of costume for the sake of nerd boys, fan boys, or any other boys.  Heck, some women don't even  like boys.

It's not all about you. I have been a fangirl since I was little. I watched Spider-Man on TV, 1966.  Learned the words to the song by the time I was three:

Spider-Man, Spider-Man! Does whatever a spider can!

and Peter Parker may well have been my first crush.

I watched the Adam West Batman on TV.  I know the theme song goes "BATALATALATALATALA!" and not "NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA" like most people sing it.

 I had a crush on Burt Ward as Robin too.

 I was the little girl at the beach hoping to see a glimpse of Aqualad riding Imp the giant seahorse!

 I was the little girl at the pool trying to make those cool throwing waterballs Aquaman could make in the cartoon.

 I was the child who could be counted on to have my little butt parked in front of the TV on Saturday morning waiting to hear Ted Ross narrate that opening: "...from the cosmic legends of the universe!"  even though I knew there were no Wendy and Marvin in the comic books.

 I am the woman who remembers "Oh Mighty Isis" live action series (and both of her rhymes to activate her powers!), and Spider-Woman's animated series that didn't get renewed.  I remember Electra Woman and Dyna Girl.

 I remember Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman and how cool it was that a girl superhero got her very own show!  I watched Nicholas Hammond as Spider-Man! Bless CBS for airing those two!

I have been reading comics in one form or another -- money permitting -- since I was 13 years old.

 I'm 48 now.

 When I was thirteen, I thought boys were icky.

 It was several years before my opinion of that changed, and what changed my opinion? The X-Men.  Nightcrawler! Wolverine!  I liked those boys before I liked any of the boys I went to school with. Probably because those boys treated girls with, y'know, respect or something?

 I didn't buy my first comic at age 13 to impress a boy.

I bought it because X-Men #125 had a really interesting cover. A fiery yellow and red image of a woman with big hair on the cover, and it seemed more interesting to me than the Little Dot and Richie Rich I had a few years earlier outgrown reading. So I picked it up. Inside I met Phoenix. Cyclops. Wolverine. Nightcrawler. Beast. Colossus. Kitty Pryde, and Storm.  A superhero character who was not only female but who was black, like me. Wow. Two non-boy reasons to want to read a comic! The very thought!

Instantly, I was hooked.   Hooked for life.

The Children of the Atom, and later other citizens of the Marvel and DC Universes became my best friends. See, I was shy, and awkward, and weird.  This is not the kind of thing that gets you friends in elementary school, junior high school, or high school. I was also what they called in that day a "brainiac" -- which meant the other kids didn't like me because I got good grades, liked to read, and didn't do the sports thing.

Chris Claremont, in all his long-winded glory, wrote stories that had words in them I actually had to look up in the dictionary.  Comics improved my vocabulary.

The metaphor of mutant as teenager -- "nobody understands me, everybody hates me" of course was also one more reason I read comics.  Because I felt like I got the X-Men and they would get me, if only they were real. I was able to pride myself on knowing things my teachers didn't because there were things the teacher didn't know that I did. I didn't start conventioneering until I saw an ad for a Creation Convention in a comic in my late teens, by which point I had been reading comics for almost a decade.

I had no idea there were gatherings for other people like me. It was like finding out Neverland was real! My first costume was Edsel from Mage, by Matt Wagner.  This outfit was not all sexied up, either.

It consisted of a Greek Fisherman cap, a white tank top, a pair of jeans, a pair of driving gloves, and a Louisville Slugger I painstakingly sanded the logo off and then spray painted day-glo green. And it fit what the canon character wore. And she wore my favourite colour!

I should mention she too was a black character in a comic book and whose badassness I admired.  Notice how there is still nothing in my fandom up until this point that has anything to do with boys, impressing boys, getting the attention of boys, or sleeping with boys.

My second costume was Mohawk Storm.  Again, not a terribly sexy costume if you're going by how much skin she shows.  I was also too shy yet to think about doing sexy and trying to be sexy.

She wore a tank or tube top, a vest, and black pants with black boots and black gloves, along with some lightning strike shaped earrings.

I didn't shave my hair, but I managed a faux-hawk with silver hair spray, sneaking out of my parents' house because they would never have approved (they didn't approve of the comics either but that didn't stop me).  My mom had unknowingly provided me a part of the costume by giving me a black suede vest with silver studs.  The rest I saved up money to buy, including the badass thigh high leather boots.  

One of the friends I met at the convention where I wore that costume asked me for a picture. I gave him one, never even suspecting he was interested in me -- and he never let on for years, but he finally cowboyed up and said so, regardless of my costuming or not. That was on him to let me know how he felt, and he did. I wasn't expected to know through some mystic estrogen power. And he didn't blame me for not knowing I had some kind of effect on him. 

I should also mention that my reading comics got me through some very rough years. My parents were not a happy couple. At all. They faked it for my sake until I was ten or eleven, and had another baby when I turned thirteen in hopes of trying to smooth things over, but it didn't take, and as the years wore on, the shouting matches and the domestic violence got worse and worse. I could always escape into the four color (and later flexographic!) pages of a comic.  My mother got violent toward me for the habit and would tear them up if she found them in my room or found me reading them, even though she admitted that it was cool I learned new words from comics, and even though she admitted comics were pretty much just soap operas on paper rather than TV. But hey, I wasn't alone. A lot of the X-Men had broken families too. Kitty Pryde's parents were divorced, like I hoped mine would be someday. 

 My kid sister, when she was old enough, bonded with me through the comics. She would help me organize them into longboxes, and we'd read them and talk about the stories and how cool it would be to have movies of them. GASP! I actually bonded with another FEMALE over comics! ERMAHGERD! 


My third costume was X-Treme X-Men Storm, which costume consisted of a swimsuit, a magician cape, and a pair of boots.  I didn't do it for the attention.  I did it because I liked how I felt and looked in the costume. I letterhacked. I got published more than once. I wrote in college about the death of Vindicator. I wrote about the black Spider-Man suit, calling it sexy (having no idea it'd be Venom some day, ew). I wrote about Rogue joining the X-Men, and my by damn letters got published in the column, so Marvel Comics editorial staff believed my fandom was real! 

 I draw because I'm a fangirl. 


I contributed to APAs as a kid, and when it reached the net, I kept drawing.


 I have had my dreams stepped on by the obnoxious and sexist likes of Erik Larsen who didn't (at the time, he may have grown up since) think girls belong in the comic field and Jill Thompson (who didn't much care at the time for more girls as competition) and John Byrne (who didn't like me protesting that he was taking Alpha Flight's Aurora from a tragic, flawed character and turning her into pretty much a nymphomaniac).

I wrote for CFAN when I found online fanfic and made some of the dearest friends I have to date through that hobby. I roleplayed on MUSHes when I couldn't afford comics just so I could still be in touch with the characters I love so much.  They are like family to me, in some ways more than my real life relatives.

I bought tickets on opening day for the film of X-Men, something I'd been waiting for from the time I was a kid.  I would talk people's ears off about how cool it was that the technology finally caught up so comic book movies could be made!

I'd also seen the Christopher Reeve Superman series, and yes, I did believe a man can fly (well, for the first two movies, anyway)!  I went to see Tim Burton's Batman  at a midnight showing. I screamed and cheered along with everybody else in that audience.   I even went to see Green Lantern in the theater, and thought the critics were too hard on it.  Transformers (which series I watched animated, from the original Gen 1 straight on through to Beast Wars).  I saw X-Men Origins: Wolverine for more than Hugh Jackman naked, and had an enraged "WTF" reaction at their interpretation of Deadpool, to say nothing of what short shrift they gave Gambit.

I saw Conan. Daredevil.  The positively abyssmal Elektra. The first Ghost Rider (I tried to watch the second, but it was terrible -- even fandom love cannot abide bad script and dialogue!) The Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies, and the new one with Andrew Garfield. The Iron Man movies.  I made two good friends that night when I went alone, and I explained to them about the "Demon in a Bottle" arc from the comics that they didn't realize was being foreshadowed and referenced in the movie.  I liked Avengers so much I saw it three times. And these are just the movies based on comics that come to mind at the moment.  I have helped people do research on comics. I have clarified other people's understandings of the history of characters

Ororo Munroe is not native African. Her mother, N'dare was African, but married American David Munroe. They lived in NY until going back to Africa for David's career as a photojournalist. They were killed when Ororo was very small and the orphan ended up with incurable claustrophobia as a result of being buried alive with their bodies. ... At least, if they haven't retconned that out.

I feel the pain of retcons, and the rage of an actress having been cast as my beloved Storm who only phoned in the role and spoke with disparagement of having to be a "made up character" when that made up character was sometimes often frequently the only thing standing between me and jumping onto the LIRR tracks.   My money is as green as yours, and I can spend on what I enjoy. What I enjoy is comics, movies, cartoons.

My first tattoo was the first four elements from The Fifth Element, and only other geeks recognize it for what it is!

My fandom is as strong as any man's, you see if it's not.

Don't you ever.

Try to tell me that my XY chromosome combo, my boobs, or my vagina mean I am not a real fan.  Don't you even try to fix your mouth to say you think I show up in fannish clothes or costumes for the attention rather than to share what I love and broadcast it to other people who love the same things I love.

Ask anyone at Dragon*Con.  Thursday night, before anything even gets started, I'm cheerfully yelling "I AM BACK AMONG MY PEOPLE!" and "WELCOME HOME!" to any geek I encounter, because like me, female or male, they're flying their colors and we recognize each other on sight.

I built and earned my fandom stripes the real honest way -- through a whole lifetime of loving comics media, cartoons and movies, and to say different is not merely misogynistic, but insulting and ignorant.

So you can take your ignorant opinion straight to Four Freedoms Plaza and stick it in the Negative Zone.

Budgeting With Depression

I am not currently going through this -- not at the moment.  But there have been many a month where I had less than 14 pills with two weeks to go until a payday  not dedicated to the rent.

And yes, the choice is gas or  meds, because choosing both is choosing overdraft and the fact that the bank punishes people for not having enough money to get both.

Neither choice is good for the depression.