You may have noticed that last week’s winter haikus were downers, for the most part. It’s not surprising, if you know me. The sadness that comes with the lack of light and heat, the bunker-hunkered-down-ness of this time of year spills over into every aspect of my life. I avoid leaving the house while at the same time feeling trapped inside. I wake up in the dark, and by the time I’m done with work for the day, it’s already dark out again. I work in an office with no natural light, so I see daylight generally for an hour on my commute on weekdays. Such is life in the north.
I wake up in the middle of the night worrying about things I can’t do anything about. I brood during the day. I tend to do this anyway, but especially in the dark months, I subject myself to scorchingly hateful self-talk. I’ve had therapists tell me I do this as a means of protection: if I say these things to myself first, I pre-empt anyone else hurting me by saying them.
I don’t know why I do this more at this time of year. But this year is almost as bad as two years ago, which was a very hard year for me, and has the potential to be worse. But it could also be better. There is a faint glimmer of promise, but the gloom in the world, the gloom in my soul, the gloom outside my window… they are weighing me down.
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My mom had a health scare yesterday. She’s 84 and has Alzheimer’s disease. Her physical health is actually pretty good for someone her age. She has sciatica and her skin is brittle. But she still has all of her teeth, is mobile and she’s up for adventures. My brother Michael is her caretaker. They own a house together in a small southwestern city.
Today she was vomiting and she fell twice. My brother took her to the emergency room. It was busy and it took them a while to get to her. In the meantime, she vomited some more. They did some diagnostic tests and found that she was super-dehydrated. I think that the treatment she is having to undergo is probably not the most pleasant thing she’s ever had to deal with, but I think she’s going to be OK for now.
But I need to understand that in the not-too-distant future, it won’t be. My brother is with her, witnessing her precipitous decline, but I can’t be. My life is 2500 miles away. And damn right, I feel guilty.
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I’ve been having these short bouts of crushing depression. They feel sort of… chemical. I’m down, I mean really down, for a predictable three or four hours, and then gradually I come out of it. I had one of my anvil-around-neck phases earlier this week .When I came out of it, it was sudden, like snapping my fingers and suddenly my mood was about 50% better. It was weird. But these down times are intense. I don’t know what causes them.
I wear these estradiol patches — they’re always a pain, these frigging things. They don’t breathe, so my sweat gets trapped under them and my skin prunes up and the itching drives me crazy. I’ve been experimenting with trying different spots and today when I applied new patches, I think I may have found a better spot than the others I’ve tried. My mood was really good in some ways, and I’ve felt connected to what’s going on around me in a way that I haven’t for a while. I attribute this to fresh patches. I still hate the constant demanding itching, but at least I know I’m getting some value out of them. I am going to ask my doc if there’s some other form of estradiol I can take.
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From a larger perspective, I am watching the world struggle with authoritarianism and delusion, nationalism and race hatred. It feels like we’ve all gone crazy. Everybody is ideologically aligned, and they don’t trust anyone who doesn’t agree with them, and people are trying to force their will on each other concerning what’s “right.” I feel like I’m watching humanity try to throw itself off a cliff.
All of this… stuff, and other things too that I haven’t gone into here hover in and around my head all of the time. Worry and self-hatred, trapped in darkness… that’s what my emotional state is right now. I can’t wait for the long days and warm weather to return. I feel so much better when it’s nice out.
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