Categorizing

In the beginning, say, oh, the month of May, there was a definitive and noteworthy distinction between what I term my "regular" depression and my grief. I could tell that the overwhelming emotions I was feeling were most definitely from the grief and not exactly a byproduct of my past issues. I consider my time in Fort Myers to be the worst of my depression; I was on medication that did more harm than good, and the side effects literally had me wondering if I needed to check myself in someplace with soft walls and canvas jackets. So it's easy to compare bad times to that and think I'm not that bad off.

Now it's July; it's been almost 2 months. Already. Things will never be as bad again as they were in Fort Myers, but I think we can safely say that the distinction between my depression and my grief has left the building. They've melded into this emotional blob, and the result is this shell person who's sleepwalking through life at the moment. My memories of Dad inexplicably tend to immediately shift to the last moments, coming upon him and realizing he's gone, that his soul has left the room. It's a palpable, vacuum-like feeling that causes my soul to start shrieking. I did some screaming last night to try to eleviate this feeling. It wasn't enough. I gotta find a better way to release...my vocal chords are never gonna forgive me.

So thanks to the observances of a friend, I was easily convinced to take a more active approach to my recuperation. I made an appointment with my primary doc to talk meds. I'm calling a psychiatrist back on Monday to get her earliest possible appointment, and I'm keeping my appointment with the Master's level clinician in the meantime. I see that I'm barely pulling off coping at the moment. As soon as I fix the Amazon screwup that occurred yesterday, I'll be repurchasing the grief book and journal that I want. I'm going to try to write in the green journal every night, the one I bought so I could talk to Dad. Avoidance (to give yourself time) as a healing tactic only does so much before it becomes more detrimental than therapeutic. I realize there are parts of this that can't be forced, that time will heal to a certain extent, but it's obvious I need to grab my bootstraps a bit in order for my sanity to punch through this grief better.

I hope Dad's not disappointed in us. We're all still so reeling from his absence. The man was the central nervous system of the family, and you just can't have an ego and personality like his evaporate and not have it leave this gaping chasm. I've said before the man had self-esteem issues, so if he were still around, he wouldn't understand the how and why of our grief. I guess I need to stop thinking about how it's affecting him and focus on me. Was talking to the counselor Tuesday and she remarked how she was hearing me talk of how others were coping, but not about how I was. There's a message in that, that demands further exploration on my part.

Dana, bless her soft fuzzy heart, gifted me a bunch of yarn last night (2 skeins of Noro, some Peace Fleece wannabes, plus some soft wools), which I look forward to playing with this weekend. Was brainstorming last night when I got back from KB about how to use the PF wannabes and found a nice light pattern for a scarf that I decided to try the Opal on, so I frogged the Jaywalkers for now. I'm just not in the mood for socks right now, don't have the patience for dpns. I'm thinking of a deliciously long scarf somehow combining the two PFs, because they're in pretty complementary colors, a rose and a slate blue...and I'm adding some Noro to the log cabin blanket. NICE! It is pretty warm to be working with thick & quick (the blue wrap), so I think I'll pull out the random wrap for some quality time this weekend too.