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A loner … or a loonie?

In prison movies, the hero is either broken by solitary confinement or by being sent to the bathroom. I remember watching Shawshank Redemption – the solitary scene, not the bathroom scene – and wondering why they got so spooked. I remember Andy coming out of that room smiling, and I thought, ‘Exactly! It’s not so bad!’

But then I also remember Michael Scofield writing on the wall with his blood, and he’s a s heroic as they come.

I call myself a loner. I enjoy my own company, and I often wish I could lock the world away and have the planet all to myself. So I don’t think solitary is a bad punishment, and I wonder how isolation can make anyone mad. But then again, when Princess went to visit her cousins, I was bouncing off walls and drinking Baileys, so maybe I’m not quite as solo as I think.

A few days ago, I went home to bury my auntie. It was deep and it was sad, but it was great hanging out with my cousins. I was amused that they consider me an entertainer, and that I was always at the centre of noisemaking. I generally hate crowds and avoid people, and some people think I never, ever speak. If they asked my cousins, they’d think I have a social twin.

I guess it’s all about comfort. At home, I was at ease among my people, so Miss Super Bubbly jumped out. In crowds, I feel hemmed in and scrutinized, so I crawl into my shell.

Yesterday,  a reader recommended me a really good book called Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David Burns. The title sounds hippie, so I ignored it for a while on account of Flower Power. But I eventually found myself a torrent and loaded it up … er … down. I’ve been reading non-stop, and it’s got some great ideas in it. I finally have some tools to beat depression, and I think everyone should read it. Of course, it’s 700 pages long so …

I read something in a blog yesterday. It said *insert appropriate statistic* % of memories are wrong. The more vivid they are, the more likely they were cooked inside your head. Depression is like that too. You build up this picture of yourself and make it so real that other people see it too. After a while, you’re so used to it that it’s not even conscious. It’s just there. People think you’re doing it on purpose, but it’s really just a part of your nature, because it’s grafted there. Feeling good shows you how you built these illusions in the first place, and gives you steps on how to tear them down. Also, magic tricks. Svengali!

It doesn’t cure depression. It just restores reality, and teaches you how to cope with the sessions when they haunt you. Depression is a disease, and it’s not the kind that goes away. But Feeling good teaches you cognitive therapy, and these are skills that help keep you alive, literally.

The coolest thing I’ve learned is that my ideas of ‘me’ are an illusion, and when I see the real picture, I’m really not that bad. I’m actually pretty nice, and that’s a big thing for a depressive to accept. Thanks Mikhail!

Of course, sometimes, it helps to have a pep talk. I was talking with some clients yesterday, and I stepped outside the picture and did one of those astral projection things. [Relax, I’m not an withchiething. Really, I’m not.] I stood above the group, looked at myself through their eyes, and said, ‘OMG! I’m freaking awesome!’

Then I came back to earth and said, ‘You know, you guys shouldn’t nod quite so happily. You can’t be sure I know just what I’m talking about.’ They kept nodding anyway. The clients are a couple, and it’s weird, but the 2 hours I spent with them restored my faith in marriage. They are the cutest things, they’d keep going off on a tangent and talking to each other like they’d forgotten I was there. It was adorable. When I get married, I want me and the Mr to be just like that. We’ll even call each other Darl, though the accent is tricky to fake.

Back to work now. Enjoy yours, and make somebody smile today. It’s good kharma. Oh, also, this is so cool!

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Posted on by crystal · 10 Comments

Last night my iTunes saved my life

It wasn’t actually last night – it was more like five minutes ago, but that title isn’t nearly as catchy.

The worst thing with depression is the cycle. You get down, you come up, you get down, you come up, you get down … you start thinking it’s not worth coming up again. After all, you’ll only be up a little while before you get back down.

Sunday was a really bad day for me. Monday was only slightly better. Tuesday was a breeze, Wednesday was so-so. Now it’s Thursday, and it’s safe to say I’m down again. Right back at Sunday.

I’ve been listening to my iTunes, mostly to drown out the Naija movie Princess is watching next door. The thing with iTunes is it’s random, so it plays the songs you least expect. And when you have 20 gigs of music, it sometimes plays things you didn’t know you had.

So it was that I heard Kiss from a rose by Seal. As teens, we said his soul is really hot – partly because of the song – but mostly coz he married Heidi Klum. I can’t even say it out loud.

There’s a part of that song that had lyrics I never quite heard. Something about towers and a hill, so I Googled the song and found them on azlyrics. As it turns out, it’s not hills, it’s a pill; and it’s not grave, it’s gray. Which makes the song ten times more cryptic and five times more deep. I’m going to Google an interpretation.

Point is, I was in deep with depression, thinking about Actifed and rope, then I got distracted by the music. I’m playing it now on OCD mode, and seeing if I can figure it out. It didn’t really change things, but it stopped far less healthy thoughts. I guess it’s a new coping mechanism.

When you love someone who likes to fix things, and he sees you’re something he can’t fix … things get a little crappy. But this is a sickness, and short of electric shock therapy, it really has no cure.

They say it’s a mental disease, and some think you can beat it with your mind. I don’t know about that. What I know is what my life coach taught me. I need to take it one day at a time, and focus on getting me safely through to bedtime.

I also sift the drama from the life, and that’s a lot harder than it seems. I have to see some things as details, and I have to let them go, even if it hurts. Butterflies and boomerangs and all that.

Okay, done. Now, seriously, what the eff is a kiss from a rose on the gray, and what does it have to do with Val Kilmer’s Batman? Heidi?

Posted on by crystal

A wedding and a funeral

Cowboys don’t die. And if they die, they don’t rot. And if they rot, they don’t smell – Blondie

I wrote this post three times. Each time I wrote the first sentence, it sounded stupid, so I crossed it out and started again. This has never happened before.

I don’t find it hard to write. I start with a general idea and just type until it’s complete. Sometimes I edit, sometimes I don’t. Most times I fix the typos weeks after publishing. The only thing I’m anal about is Manga. The images have to be just right.

My aunt was the sweetest old lady on the planet. She was a little crazy, but  then again, we all are. We call it the *insert-censored-family-name* gene, and we blame it for everything from tantrums and lousy directions to our ability to live out scripts straight from The Rung and the Yestless. If you can find someone with The Gene, they’ll tell you why I just typed what I just typed. Good luck with that, and pun fully intended.

Anyway, I thought she’d be around forever. She’s one of those people who was just always there. I can finally admit that her death triggered this last session with depression, though I didn’t realise it till just now. I have to bury my aunt this weekend, and I don’t [yet] have an iPhone, so I won’t be blogging for a while. I might leave some scheduled posts, now that I finally learnt how to do that.

There’s a wedding this weekend too, but not everyone can attend both. I guess we’ll suspend the tears for a while and cheer as he kisses the bride. Or maybe we’ll cry even more and pretend that we’re crying with joy.

Congratulations Otebo. I hope you’ll both be happy.

Rest in Peace Auntie Risper. I know that you’re resting where you are. I know that you’re looking down on us and smiling. I know that you’re happy that I’m fat, but I’ll soon be back to thin again. I’m just sorry that you won’t be here to yell about it.

Love always, Crys.