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September 18, 2020

I’m torn, dear reader, I want to keep this blog going but I’m having a lot of trouble coming up with content. It shouldn’t surprise me that I would have trouble keeping up a blog on my depression, because I’m depressed.


I am almost done with my TMS treatment. (If you don’t know what I’m referring to, go a couple posts back for some great information.) But, I have only a few more treatments left and I’ll be done. You may think to yourself, but, Marie, you just said you’re depressed, does that mean it didn’t work? That is a great question. I still believe that this treatment has been a saving grace for me. The reason I believe I’m sad again is because my one medication was reduced recently. Also, the stress in my life has been increasing tremendously. I feel more capable of handling this stress. Before TMS, with this amount of stress, I would be in the fetal position in my bed, day and night. I am currently able to live my life without crying every two minutes and I am able to function at work. The only real signs of stress I’ve noticed are my chronic headaches are back and I’m having the strangest dreams.


I’ve been having the worst stress about my finances again. I don’t know how I owe so many people so much money. My bank also kept refusing my rent payment to the point that I’m being threatened with eviction. I mean, for fucks sake, EVICTION?? I was an honors student in high school, solid B student in college, I have a Master’s degree! I have been focused on the wrong priorities my whole life. All my accomplishments feel like nothing lately. This is why I feel depressed.


I am not using my therapy skills to maintain my composure as well. I’ve been eating nonstop sugar. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned yet, I’m diabetic. My blood sugar this morning was 200. That’s not good. This could be why I am having headaches. And the nausea. Oh wow, I’m having a realization as I write this. I need more vegetables in my life.


In summation, my life isn’t going well right now, therefore, my writing is suffering. I hope you are all doing well. Be safe and take care.

Imposter Syndrome

September 14, 2020

Greetings, dear reader. Thank you for coming back after my week long break. I was having some issues with concentration and depression over the last few weeks so I appreciate the break I took. Let’s get on to the next topic!

I was recently promoted to a more technical, leadership role at my company. Nothing huge, I just get to mentor people who are in my previous position. I am ecstatic about this promotion. I have worked my ass off to be considered and I actually got it over someone with more seniority. That felt both amazing and worrisome. I am still on the team with the man I got the promotion over. (He is very kind so I really am just projecting my feelings that I would have had if he was chosen over me.)


Now that I am in this position, I have a crippling amount of imposter syndrome. For those who don’t know what that means:

A psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments or talents and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud”.

Wikipedia


I don’t trust in my abilities anymore. Before the promotion, I believed I was capable and even excelling at my position but now I am completely filled with doubt. Occasionally, when I am filled with this much anxiety, it actually fuels me to do better. I use the excessive worry and restlessness to my advantage. Unfortunately, this time, I’m paralyzed by this fear. I feel like I can barely do my job. I’m failing those who believed in me enough to promote me. This is especially crippling because I was promoted over someone else. I want to give the job back and have the other guy get promoted.


I’m not sure what I’m going to do as I haven’t really meditated on this anxiety and processed it yet. I will have to update you all later on how this all works out. Take care, reader. I hope you have a great week.

Day In the Life

September 4, 2020

Let me take you through a typical Sunday for me. First, I wake up around 7 or 8am, still incredibly stoned from the night before. All I was able to accomplish was food. So, I ate something especially sugary. Then, the next part depends on how stoned or hungover I was feeling that day. This past Sunday, I was able to take a walk around my neighborhood at 7am. It was pleasant and the weather was great. That’s all I really remember from that walk. And something about toilet snakes. I don’t believe I encountered a toilet snake on my walk, but I am convinced that the podcast [The Rad Dudecast] I was listening to was discussing them. I got back home and had the energy to put my laundry away and pick up my bedroom a bit. I was proud of myself and my accomplishments. I somehow made it to lay down on my bed and passed out for four hours. When I rose from the dead, I wasn’t sure who I was or what day it was anymore.


A different Sunday went a little more like this. I woke up, still stoned again. If I had taken any type of edible the night before, I am terrible with dosing so that I wouldn’t be incredibly messed up the next day. I still woke up around 8am though, and stumbled to the bathroom like a newborn giraffe who had just fallen out of the birth canal of the mother and couldn’t figure out gravity. Since I didn’t fall back asleep on the toilet, I finished up and made it to my living room where my roommate was sitting there, grossly awake. My head was so hazy that I think I held a partial, incoherent conversation with her stupid, awake ass (love you, appreciate all you do for me.) Realizing that I am not well, I picked my dizzy, vertigo having ass back up and made it to my bed, and slept until 3pm. This time though, I woke up refreshed and stable on my feet. Except, my day was gone.

This seems to happen every Sunday, and some Saturdays. As I look back while writing this, I think maybe I have a problem. I know I’m not physically addicted to weed but I 100% use it as a crutch for my emotional well-being. I have some skills developed over many years of therapy that I should be using to help myself but it is difficult when the physical symptoms of depression and anxiety take over. I can’t help myself feel good when there is a boulder of stress on my back. This is why I try to walk frequently. The exercise and nature help my stress but sometimes it’s not enough…

Take care, reader. Until next time.

Magnet Therapy Part 2

August 31, 2020

Hello! In this post, I will go through my personal experience with TMS. To learn more about the facts about TMS, read the last post. 🙂

My first day of treatment, I was so nervous the whole day leading up to 4:30pm, I had no idea what to expect. The office was part of a larger building shared with many other businesses. The walk down the hall from the elevator was nerve wracking, I was almost shaking. The large heavy door opened to a simple waiting room with an annoying bell that rang signaling my entry. A little sign asked me to sit and wait to be shown into the back. My ass barely grazed the chair by the time the technician came in and brought me back. I was met by a smaller, darkened room with what looked like a large dentist chair in one corner and a TV mounted in the corner across from the chair. I remember that the TV was tuned to the Food Network. The tech greeted me and I was asked to fill out some paperwork and meet the doctor. Then the fun started. The doctor had to find the treatment area of my brain and since everyone is different, the method of discovery included finding the motor cortex in the brain first. I climbed up into the chair and they explained to me that they would send magnetic pulses into my head until my thumb then whole hand twitched. This was completely painless and a little entertaining. I’m also the weirdo that loved taking the doctor’s rubber hammer and hitting my knee until my leg kicked for fun. It seemed to take a while to find the motor cortex but I was assured it was normal since it was all trial and error. Finally my hand flew through the air and we were ready to start the actual treatment. Now, up until this point, everything was painless. To be honest, other than my hand jerking, I didn’t feel much of anything. This changed when the treatment officially started. It wasn’t painful as in a sharp, stabbing pain, but the sensation was odd. I was conversing with the technician during the first few rounds of the stimulation and she agreed that patients couldn’t how the stimulation felt. It was a combination of feeling like a rubber band was being snapped on my scalp to a pulling sensation in my skin, like the spot was bunching up my skin in a ball, thus, pulling on the surrounding areas. My eye twitched with each pulse but again, not in a painful way. My treatment window is only 18.5 minutes, I’m one of the lucky ones. Some people have to sit there for up to an hour according to the paperwork I signed. It was over sooner than I realized. The next day, I was a little sore, it felt like I had a bruise at the treatment site. This was first exasperated by the pulses on my second day of treatment but after a few minutes, the soreness went away and by the end of the treatment, it was completely gone. Each day I’ve gone back, the soreness lessened to the point of not even noticing it at all during the session.

To this point, I’ve gone over the physical sensations of treatment, but what about the emotional effects. Dear Reader, the first day I had the clearest mind I’ve ever experienced. I never realized how foggy my mind always was because, well, it was always like that. I didn’t know any different. The feeling of being clear headed went along with an almost physical feeling of relief. I felt light, a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Walking back to my car, I thought I was floating along like my feet no longer needed the ground to move. The first week of treatment, I felt great. I had so much energy and motivation. I couldn’t remember a time I have experienced this sensation. I was able to complete many chores around my home and even started this blog.  I do have to admit that I have leveled out in the second week but I am able to handle situations without reacting emotionally. I even worked up the courage to profess my feelings to a friend. This has been an amazing experience so far. I look forward to finishing treatment and share with you the final results.

I hope you have learned from my experience. If you feel that your depression has become treatment-resistant, check out this therapy. It is always worth trying. Take care.

https://www.greenbrooktms.com/

[I was not compensated for this piece. This post represents only my opinion and does not reflect on Greenbrook TMS.]

Magnet Therapy Part 1

August 28, 2020

[Forewarning, if you are offended by the use of Wikipedia as a reference or lazy citations, then move along. Thank you!]

As I mentioned previously, I’ve recently started Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) as treatment for my severe depression. This wonderful company Greenbrook TMS was advertising in my area and I was leery at first but also interested so I looked further into it. I know from my schooling and movies (reliable, right?) that brain stimulation was a treatment but with electricity originally. Electric Convulsive Therapy (ECT) has been used for a while, just over 80 years. The first ECT procedure was performed in 1938 by Italian psychiatrist Ugo Cerletti (Wikipedia). The Mayo Clinic’s website on ECT defines it as “… a procedure, done under general anesthesia, in which small electric currents are passed through the brain, intentionally triggering a brief seizure. ECT seems to cause changes in brain chemistry that can quickly reverse symptoms of certain mental health conditions.” Some side effects include memory loss (Mayo Clinic). I’m a stoner, I didn’t want to lose the capability to create memories more than has already been lost. This caused me to be hesitant in seeking this treatment until doing my due diligence beforehand. In a basic Google search, I found that TMS is a lot tamer than ECT. The side effects included dizziness and aggravation of the treatment area (Mayo Clinic, again). Nothing about memory loss or general anesthesia, this was promising. TMS technology was a lot younger than ECT, the first stable TMS devices were developed in 1985 (Wikipedia) and the United States’ FDA only first approved TMS devices in October 2008 (Wikipedia). TMS has only realty been around in the US for around 12 years?! Could I trust it or were there more problems that needed to be ironed out first? Something was calling to me though, that I should try it out.

I sent my information into the online form on Greenbrook TMS’s website. By the next day, I received a call from the local office and got the ball rolling. I had to wait around 3 weeks for my insurance to approve the treatment, but once that went through, I was good to go. The treatment, as explained to me, would be every week day for 6 weeks. Hearing that almost made me quit the process right away. How would I be able to fit something like this in my schedule for 6 weeks?! Thankfully, I was able to secure the 4:30pm spot, right after work, and the office was only 10 minutes away. It was serendipity that everything was falling into place perfectly.

Stay tuned for part two! Take care.

[I was not compensated for this piece. This post represents only my opinion and does not reflect on Greenbrook TMS.]

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroconvulsive_therapy

https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/electroconvulsive-therapy/about/pac-20393894

https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/transcranial-magnetic-stimulation/about/pac-20384625

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation

https://www.greenbrooktms.com/

“Sorry I said I hate you”

August 24, 2020

TW: Suicide attempt and run on sentences


One of my favorite comedians is Brendan Eyre. He is hilarious, of course, but he is also genuine and courageous. He and I share many similarities when it comes to mental illness and history of treatments. I can’t help but appreciate the honesty in his comedy. Don’t get me wrong, his whole act isn’t about mental illness so be prepared to hear jokes about sex and the like. I will warn you though, I was triggered by one of his jokes but I still was able to laugh the whole time. That said, take my warning with a grain of salt. I mean it when I say our histories are very similar and hearing about his suicide attempt really reminded me of my first one when I was 20. I also had a drink that night and I’m really not supposed to drink anymore. It made me really vulnerable to a break down. With my five psych meds I take daily and the TMS treatment, alcohol is the last thing I need to consume. I do it anyway because a part of me wants to feel normal occasionally.


I saw Brendan in an intimate, comedy show recently. It was a Thursday night during the quarantine so the fact that there were only 30+ people in the audience didn’t reflect the caliber of talent on that stage but made me feel special that I was experiencing it. I knew Cleveland had a healthy comedy scene and it was confirmed because each comedian that night was from Cleveland and each one made me burst out laughing. Normally my social anxiety would have kicked in because I went to the show alone and was sat right in the front row. I was especially nervous. My nerves melted away with the first comic, thankfully, and I was able to enjoy the show. I knew that they were probably just as nervous as I was and that made me feel connected to the comics. Whenever I feel connected to an artist, I always enjoy the art even more. I have always agreed that laughter is important in life. If stand up comedy isn’t your thing, hopefully you find something that does make you laugh.


To reference the title of this blog post, after the show, I was such a wreck that I actually yelled at Brendan that I hated him. He looked hurt at my comment but seemed to realize shortly that I was sobbing behind my mask. I explained being triggered and he said one of the only responses I appreciate hearing when learning about my first suicide attempt, “I’m glad you’re still here.” My therapist when I was 20, before she had to end our therapy, told me she was glad I was still alive when I saw her after leaving the psych ward. I lost her because she was a school counselor and not a full therapist. She couldn’t handle me anymore. She was the first therapist I lost due to my severe case. I felt so horrible about yelling at Brendan after that I sent him an Instagram DM apologizing. He was very gracious and explained he appreciated my attendance at the show and not to worry about it.


I highly recommend checking out Brendan on YouTube or social media. His tweets are really entertaining. I actually took one of his tweets and created a painting. It is without doubt one of my favorite paintings I’ve ever done. I will link a few places to check him out below. Thank you, reader, for taking another journey with me. Be well.

@EyreBud (Twitter)
YouTube
The Rad Dudecast (Spotify) (Apple Podcasts)

Initial Thoughts Part 2

August 17, 2020

Back to the cliffhanger from last week. There are many different options to sell your junk. Online is most popular but also is the most likely for you to be scammed out of your money and tech. The first website I tried was Decluttr. Everything seemed to be going great. I was getting top dollar for my tech and even some money on old DVDs. My total was going to be a cash payout of around $270. Cash. That would be important in my decision to go with them. The other options included Best Buy and GameStop. The problem with those retailers was that I would only receive credit to the respective store. What was I going to do with $200 of GameStop credit if I was selling my Nintendo Switch? That store was dropped very quickly, which left me with Best Buy. Their website was very easy to use and promised me a great amount back for my tech. A positive was there were a lot more options for future purchases at Best Buy than GameStop. So, I made an appointment and reformatted all my devices.

Now you might be wondering to yourself, “But Marie, what about Decluttr?” Dear reader, I did not forget about Decluttr, they forgot about me. I committed to selling to them and did all the electronic paperwork to get my money. When it came to downloading the “Welcome Pack” as they put it which had the shipping labels, the pdf was not only blank but also not the correct file extension. To be honest, I’m pretty sure I have some sort of malware on my computer from trying to open the file. I did what any desperate individual would do, I contacted Customer Support. Not only was I sent a generic email based on a few keywords in my message, they claimed that if I replied above a line on their email, I would get a response. I did not. I got the same generic email sent to me three times with each response. I thankfully was able to cancel my commitment to them and hopefully won’t lose too much personal information to scammers.

Back to Best Buy. I went to my appointment looking like a lunatic with a cat tote bag full of wires and electronics. Everyone at Best Buy was very friendly and I got about $151 of store credit. For those of you following along, that seems pretty low, right? I was expecting about $270 from Best Buy but the team member clued me into a secret about my Switch. If I posted it on Facebook Marketplace, I could get over twice that Best Buy would give me. Now, I loathe dealing with people on marketplace websites. I’m always getting under bid and harassed about my product. I took a chance though and brought home my Switch to sell on Facebook.

Let me remind you, I walked into Best Buy with a tote bag full of electronics. No one stopped me at the door on my way in to ask what the hell was I doing and to my surprise no one stopped me from leaving to check my bag. I was 32 years old, white woman and was barely glanced at walking out of the store with what they could have thought was merchandise. If my roommate of color was with me or god forbid she went alone, I bet she would have been turned away. Now I can’t really in good conscious speculate that it was because I’m white or maybe even my kind eyes that got me through that door but it gave me pause.

I had my Switch all assembled on my floor with the half a dozen required accessories and too much cat hair to admit to, and I snapped a few pictures. Facebook was simple enough to fill out some form boxes and add a few tags that I was done and posted within minutes. Actually, I was waiting for the Facebook reviewers to approve my post when I was hit with three messages offering to buy my item. One requested I deliver it to them in a city over 20 minutes away on a good day of traffic. The other wanted to give me a fraction of what I was asking for, granted I posted more than I was willing to accept just to see if I could get it. He was offering less than my secret limit but he was willing to come pick it up. Lastly was a very sweet individual who offered more than I had hoped and was willing to meet today. I chose the last one while keeping the short changer on the line just in case my buyer didn’t show up. I waited anxiously for the time to meet up at the police station for the exchange because anything could have gone wrong and I hadn’t smoked weed yet that day. Nerves were frayed but I showed up and the lovely buyer was a woman about my age who was buying the Switch for herself. The whole exchange went seamlessly and I left with my money in Venmo.

If you remember from earlier, my one bank account was severely overdrawn, but I have two others I could have put the money into. Even though I am usually an alert driver and I was in front of the police station, I pulled up Venmo on my phone. I attempted to transfer my funds as fast as possible. You know, in case there was a way to reverse a payment on Venmo. I had barely eaten that day. Maybe a banana and a hard boiled egg with my morning coffee. To add that all up, I was anxious, hungry, too warm (it was in the high 80’s outside and I’m a wuss with heat), driving, and not making good decisions. I clicked the instant deposit for the nominal fee and without checking which bank, clicked the submit button. Little did I know that only Fifth Third Bank allows for the instant transfer compared to Ally and my other bank account. Well, I lost $177 of the $270 she paid me instantly. Never getting that money back. What upsets me the most isn’t the flub on my part but that I wanted Taco Bell. All the money that was left went in minuscule payments to my various credit cards and I’m left with $2 again.

I hope this story will inspire you to make better choices so you don’t have to end up like me. I sold most of my electronics just to pay a ridiculous bank fee. I know I don’t have any sage advice but I have given you a few ideas of what not to do. Hopefully next week’s blog will be a little more uplifting. Take care, reader. 

Initial Thoughts

August 13, 2020

I haven’t put enough thought into my first blog post here. I know how influential this first impression will be for developing a relationship with you, the readers. That’s what I am trying to accomplish, a relationship with readers. I want to share my experiences and grow with you by my side. Hopefully, this will be a mutual partnership and I will learn from you as well.

The reason I haven’t put enough thought into this blog post is because I use weed to solve every problem in my life. More on that at a later time. With weed as my pain killer/anti-depressant/anti-anxiety/anti-nausea/overall cure, I do end up spending significant amounts of my time sitting and thinking. I make plans and develop ideas. In the moment, these ideas and plans are the best ideas ever to exist, an idea that will save the world. Of course, they spontaneously disappear by morning, therefore, I haven’t been able to save the world just yet. This lack of world saving led me to start writing down these musings in my phone’s notes app. I have 37 notes saved and only one of them is technically significant, the address to my parent’s new house that I can never remember. I’ve decided that the other 36 something notes should be on the Internet.

Reader, why in the world would I think these random weed, fever dreams belong on the Internet? My answer is firmly, because I can. I am sure at some point I will write a post about my imposter syndrome and how I’m not letting it rule my life anymore. For right now, just know that I can write on the internet and I will. The last question is should I? Doesn’t matter, here we go!

I’ve collected a lot of junk from impulse purchases, ever since I was 16 and had my own checking account and job. I have no control over my spending, or that’s what it feels like. A great example of my weakness was I saw an ad on Facebook for a phone case from Kate Spade and I made the mistake of clicking on it. It was around $30, on sale from $45. First problem, it’s on sale, “I should get it!” echoed in my brain. Second problem, since I clicked the ad, it followed me all over social media. I’m addicted to social media but that is a whole story by itself. I saw this phone case over and over until I had to have it. It was a physical need. Now, it doesn’t matter that I already have two cases for this phone, and I won’t have this phone forever, I bought it. I had $33 in my bank account and the total ended up being $31. So, there you have it. I spent all my money on a phone case that I didn’t need. So, I had $2 for the next week until payday.

This was only in my one bank account. I have three. One that I use to pay my car loan and a credit card, it has -$177. A second one was an online savings account that turned into a checking account, that one had a whopping $0.82, but it was in the positive, right? Then the last account was with an online bank with “no overdraft fees”. Obvious by my first checking account, I have an issue with over drafting. So, my overall equity, not including debt, was -$174.18.

I was struggling, I couldn’t even say I was living paycheck to paycheck. I was living one overdraft fee to the next. I had a great job too. But the money I earned was like throwing a bucket of water on a burning nine story building. There was no one that could help me either. My credit score is 580 and I had no down payment, so loans and refinancing were out of the picture. As I write this, even though it’s in the past tense, I am currently living with it. I don’t see an out to this crushing financial situation.

All I could do was try my best day after day. I had to stop ordering food delivery and eating out all together. And sell my excess junk. Which leads me into what I’ve been working on for the last 24 hours.

This was a great start but I will have to see you in a week! Take care.