All in the mind.

Pic unrelated; I just wanted to show off
what an amazing pumpkin carver I am.

One of my grandmother's favorite platitudes when I was a little kid was "it's all in the mind."  Cut yourself? You shouldn't feel bad, because "pain is all in the mind."  Hunger, heat, cold, fear, social rejection, and all kinds of assorted suffering were, to my grandmother, "all in the mind."

I'm sure that processing things that way gave her great strength, and she's lived through a hell of a lot, so I don't begrudge her the fact that that's kind of a jerk thing to say to a crying six-year-old.

But here's how I process things: yeah, technically very true Grandma, suffering is all in the mind.  But the mind is where I live!



So I've been away for a while.  I've been sick.  Sick all in the mind.

Long story short, I've been mildly depressed for a long time, in the last month I had a full-on major depressive episode, I went to a doctor, now I'm on antidepressants and feeling much better.

Long story slightly longer--the horrible Catch-22 of depression is that it makes you hate yourself, but you have to have tremendous faith in yourself to seek treatment for depression.

Because what you have to do, basically, is make a doctor's appointment for "I have sad feelings." And shit, I have enough mental blocks against complaining about anything to the doctor.  I get all "probably it's nothing, why waste money and look like a hypochondriac" when I am actively bleeding.  Making an appointment for my sad widdle feelings, at the same time as the depression was filling my brain with "NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR STUPID PROBLEMS"... that was tough.*

Tough, and worth it.  Because the doctor didn't say "you called a doctor for feelings?".  He said "I'm glad you came here.  I know it's difficult."**  He wrote me a prescription for Wellbutrin*** and a referral for therapy.

It's a week later, I haven't even been to my first therapy appointment yet, and oh my God do I feel better.  Chemically better, but still with a lot of recovery to do in the getting-life-and-thinking-unscrambled department.  Which is okay.  It took the chemicals for me to even realize that these were two separate issues.  Damn those are some good chemicals.



The real take-home lesson here, besides "oh my god the Pervocracy is back, I thought Cliff had fallen into the sun or something," is that when you feel bad and you don't know quite why, it's all in your head.

And your head is very real and the most important part of you.  Take care of your head!  A feeling doesn't have to be somehow proven "real" before you're allowed to acknowledge it.  Feelings are real.   (That's not a warmfuzzy affirmation.  That's neurophysiology.)  Finding the causes and solutions for suffering that's "all in your head" is as important--as real a need--as bandaging a wound.



Cosmocking next!  Oh how I have missed the Cosmocking.



*Rowdy helped a lot.  When I needed a push to get help, he was there pushing.  Thanks, Rowdy.  I love you big.  I love you robot servant army.

**I have a pretty good doctor. I realize some are "you're just complaining, it's normal to feel down sometimes" jerks about depression.  If you get one, please remember that the problem is located in the doctor, not in you.  A good doctor might make a different prescription/diagnosis decision than you expected, but if the doctor brushes you off without seriously investigating your symptoms, try and get a second opinion.

***Sex on Wellbutrin?  DAAAMN.  (That's a good daaamn.  Or more specifically, a "oh my god, I think I just tore a hole in the mattress, or possibly in space-time itself" daaamn.)  Hell of a side effect.