Paisley Rain

Depression Chronicals Pt. 7

2012-01-26T06:30:00.000-06:00

Some days are just tougher than others. Today was a rough one for me. Little things kept going wrong. My Wacom kept messing up, the Crohn's was feeling neglected and it was just an all around blah day.

A blah-day wardrobe usually consists of anything soft and loose and comfy to lay around in. Half of my wardrobe now consists of this type of clothing. I am thinking it's not a good thing when your husband actually offers to take you clothes shopping because he thinks that you have somehow magically run out of clothes.

There was a while there when all I watched was Netflix. I was into British murder mystery shows. Netflix has a lot of them. Some of them had over a hundred episodes and I watched them all. I actually considered this an accomplishment. It was proof I could stick to something until completed.

When I realized that the t.v. watching might have been draining my vital essences I switched to music. I have learned to pick the right types of music to get me motivated, to calm me down or to do things that I really don't want to do but are extremely important. Like ~~shovel out~~ clean the kitchen. Now I am permanently attached to my iPod.

Meals mainly consist of anything I can put in a bowl and if necessary I will take the extra step to put it in the microwave. It's just easier that way.

And then comes the whole writing/creating/school thing. I used to find a blank screen or a blank piece of paper exciting. I couldn't wait to get started on it. Now it's just intimidating. However, I have found that if I just start typing or drawing, even if it's just a silly doodle, I can actually pick up some momentum and accomplish something. Sometimes the something accomplished is a scary example of what never to do, but, hey! it's all a learning experience right? Erasers and the backspace key are now my best friends.

And then there is bedtime. It is interesting how, when you are depressed, you can spend all day feeling like you are going to drop right where you stand. You want nothing more than to crawl into bed, and then when you do, you can't fall asleep. You just can't. Your body is exhausted but your brain just will not shut down. You can try the 1,2, trick, the little ball on the pyramid trick, the counting backwards trick, even imagining yourself painting a rainbow and nothing works. The next thing you know it is morning and the whole thing starts all over again.

Depression Pt. 6

2012-01-25T06:30:00.000-06:00

It's amazing how just the smallest of things can make my day. I grew up in Connecticut. I am a born and bred Yankee and as such Dunkin' Donuts are a part of my heritage. Unfortunately, here in the mid west, there are very few Dunkin' Donuts. None within more than 100 miles of me.

I can't tell you how much I miss such a simple thing. There is something about that happy pink box full of soft, wonderful donuts, or the little bucket of munchkins or the bag of wonderful, moist, fantastically huge muffins that just make me happy. I can't even really eat very much of it, but just knowing I could go get some if I wanted to would mean a lot to me.

Yesterday, in the news, I learned that they will be opening a Dunkin' Donuts here in Omaha. I am a very happy camper indeed. Yay! Dunkin' Donuts!

Depression Chronicles Pt. 5

2012-01-24T06:30:00.000-06:00

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The little things seems so hard. The things you need the most, human contact, normalcy, routine, are the most difficult. Your brain turns off, there is no other way for me to explain it. It's as if that part of you, the part that lets you reach out or just do basic functions, goes to sleep.

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The harder you try, the more difficult it becomes. You can feel the stress and anger coursing through your body. Frustration becomes the main emotion for the day. You just really can't do it.

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To make matters worse, the one thing that does work in your brain is that damned inner critic. It doesn't notice how hard you are trying, it doesn't care. It waits quietly and then jumps forward gleefully proclaiming your failures. It also whispers to you of how everyone else sees your failures and how much they hate you for it. The logical part of you knows this is highly unlikely, but that nasty little beast dwelling in your psyche is great at kicking the logical part out of the way.

Depression Chronicles Pt. 4

2012-01-23T06:30:00.000-06:00

I think one of the hardest things to deal with is that all of the good things just drift away and stay out of reach. You feel them go one by one and more than anything else you want them back, but you just can't grab them.

So, I figure that since they were mine to begin with, built with time, patience, experience and all of that other wise and sage stuff we are supposed to be capable of, they were never really gone. That which really matters to you never goes away, they stay with you, it's just that sometimes things get in the way. If you can find a quiet spot within yourself, a place where you can just breathe and push the nonsense away, you will find them waiting.

More Little Creatures

2012-01-22T11:47:00.000-06:00

The scanner is really frustrating me. The colors that you see here are sort of close to what I painted and the shading was completely flattened out. This is my fault, though. I was told that you should always use a scanner for a truer image and even though I can plainly see that it is not better I am so sure that I am doing it wrong I keep repeating it convinced that if I could figure out how to adjust just the right thing I could get it right. I am clearly supposed to learn some life lesson here. Anyway, I am pleased with my little caterpillar. The plant is not so pleased.

I am much happier with my little bird. I swear, it looks much better in real life. Notice how I skipped the backgrounds this time? Cowardice. Sheer cowardice on my part. I hate failing. I think I will try some backgrounds on these later, though. Just to see what happens.

Permission To Not Be Perfect

2012-01-21T09:19:00.000-06:00

I have severe, inflammatory, Crohn's disease. It's not pleasant. It's one of the reasons I am struggling with depression. I spent a long time trying to get my old life back rather than looking ahead and building a new life. No matter how hard you try, the past is gone. It's not coming back. This is something I have to remind myself of daily.
These past few months I have spent a lot of time in bed or sitting in my chair feeling absolutely hopeless and stewing in a great big sulk. I'm bored with it and quite done with it.
Instead of sitting there missing what I couldn't do I decided to see what I could do. I miss my acrylic paints. Acrylic paints can not be easily used in bed. I know, I've tried. It just doesn't work. So...I decided to try watercolors.
When I am feeling really miserable I like to draw little creatures. Things that I make up that can look anyway I want and I don't have to worry about making sure they are perfect. These are MY creatures and they look whatever way I decide they look.
I had bought some tubes of almost professional grade watercolors, (didn't want to go with the super cheap ones, but...didn't want to spend gobs of money on something that I totally hate, either). I set up a couple of containers of water, my paintbrushes on my little table next to my chair. Grabbed my butcher tray and board and my sketches and went to work. My first one...

It is a worm. With hair. Try to imagine the body just a touch more yellow. My scanner is not that great and I would have used my camera, however, I learned something important last night. Actually, I learned several important things about using water colors. First is, no matter how good the paper you are using, no matter how tightly you tape it down, there is a point where the curl will NOT go away. Even if you stick it under heavy books all night, it still won't flatten out! Or maybe it was the paper, I don't know. We will have to experiment.
Second - no matter how many instructional books you read, you still need to get in there and just DO.
With this picture things were going along quite well until I tried to fix the background and make it look all water color-ey. Need to work on that just a bit. Which leads us to the third thing I learned. There is a point where you just have to walk away. Unfortunately, you usually don't realize the point you should have walked away until after it is too late.

Again, the body and webs of the frogs feet are supposed to be a creamy yellow. Not an icky, tea-stain, brown. However, While it is still a bit rough, the background is pretty good. Better than the first I am thinking.
So, why am I showing you these less-than-stellar artworks? Because I want you to see that it is okay to just play and learn and relax and not worry about perfect. I have spoken to many people suffering from depression over the past few months and there seems to be a common link. Perfectionism.
I am not perfect. You are not perfect. We will never be perfect. Perfect is not possible so stop beating yourself up over it. Leave it alone and walk away.
I am going to keep working with the water colors. I am learning and I will make glorious, fantastic, amazing, frustrating mistakes and that will be fine. The goal I am setting for is not perfection but to reach a point where I am pleased. The whole point of making art is to feed your soul. I highly recommend, whether you are dealing with depression right now or not, to do something creative each day, even if it's just for a few minutes, without expectations of perfectionism but rather to just feel how wonderful it is to create something.

Depression Chronicles Part 3

2012-01-20T06:30:00.000-06:00

So, I decided to go to the medication route. It didn't feel like it was working, though.

I went back to the doctor and he suggested I try more drugs.

Now, my reality is a bit fuzzy. I get dizzy easy and I feel a different kind of queasy than I am used to from the Crohn's. On the other hand, I really don't care. My body is screaming out in sheer panic but my brain doesn't mind at all. Every thing is fine....

except it's not. I don't know what I am doing wrong. Shouldn't I be feeling better by now?

Depression Chronicles Pt. 2

2012-01-19T06:30:00.000-06:00

I tried talking about it to people but that didn't go very well.

Everyone seemed just as cranky and miserable as I was.

I read all of the books I could find and they seemed to work for a little while, but...

but, mostly, they just sort of sank into the background and I ended up dragging their words around with me conscious of my failure.

Depression Chronicles Pt. 1

2012-01-18T19:31:00.000-06:00

So, a long time back, a doctor suggested to me that I was depressed and should seek help. I decided that while I was a little down what with everything that was going on, I would never succumb to depression. I was just tired, and a wee bit cranky, and a wee bit sad, and a wee bit....well, I just wasn't depressed and that was that.

Sure, I was perhaps a little more anxious than usual and I was finding it hard to do certain things like get up in the morning, or give a damn about anything, but that was to be expected. No depression here. Okay, maybe just a little.

I tried the whole 'fake it until you make it philosophy'.

Yay! Happy, happy, me!

After about 15 minutes of that particular stupidity I reverted back to my now standard position. Face down on the couch surrounded by my failure. It was comforting. NOT depressing.