Gnosce Te Ipse

I really need, want, to write again here. In the quippish world of facebook world there is no anonymity. Here, I had (some) anonymity but I never knew who read. It's a lot easier for a friend of mine to write some funny comment (quip) after a post on facebook; less common, exponentially less common, to get comments to know who is reading here. And so for two years I've been stuck trying to decide: do I blog again here, do I write posts under my actual name, do I just do notes in facebook? More and more I'm leaning here. I want to write a memoir, and this will provide me a place to sketch vignettes, moments...memories. Plus, I wrote a lot here about my recovery over the years and that recovery is proceeding pretty well right now. I'm in a good spot for the most part though I have plenty left to process. I can do that here also. So, it's summer; I hope to get something up here before too long. love to all.

I have been having a tough year, really, a tough few months, since our son left for college especially, though I was having some issues with depression/ocd before that. Lots of times I have wanted to blog about it, but I remembered this blog as a sort of quasi amateur theo-blog. I remembered writing posts here on the NT or whatever I was reading, but totally forgot how much I put my nuts out there all the time up here, five, six, seven years ago. I have been struggling with a very old obsession (teenage years) off and on, and putting off exposure exercises because, well, it's exposure work, and I was looking here to see when I did my last batch of it. It was 2004 that I started with exposure therapy exercises, and then after a few months, did a little, like once a week, two years later, according to this blog anyway. But while I have told myself many times that the depression and anxiety I've had (again, off and on) since about June were unlike anything I've known since the

Since I went down on the remeron my anxiety/ocd has been cut by 90 percent. Maybe more. It's too soon to say exactly how this will pan out, but one thing is clear: the med I took to help me sleep, to make sure my mood stayed level and perhaps counteract some of the deep seated tension I know I still hold, that med turned my ocd on like a switch at doses over 15 mg. At 15, I feel sort of caffeinated, even after nearly five months on it. Taking lunesta to sleep every night the last few weeks. Seeing the psych tomorrow and asking about going OFF. But since I dropped my dose, a few days after that, tremendous relief. Figure that shit out. Yes I have life stressors that happened at the same time I went up on the dose. But it is remarkable to me how agitated I felt, and how easily that agitation became obsession. I mean some obsessional thinking every day for the last six weeks, now completely gone the last few days. Crazy. To give him credit, with my history of ssri's, the psych

It's been a hell of a year. Well, a helluva last 10 months or so, with the last five having some banner scary moments. It sucks but it's true. After months last winter, like six, of not getting enough sleep, of experiencing a new kind of depression for me, not dramatic, overwhelming, but mostly insomnia, early waking (five or six nights a week unless I took ambien) and then a bone deep fatigue, a constant feeling of being stressed as I was pushed, and I mean PUSHED, at work, home. Taking on much more responsibility at work, in fact, becoming a central figure in a large scale firestorm; realizing I was not now and maybe never am going to go to seminary (son in college, at the least); panicking about money (until my wonderful wife got a very good job); knowing my son was moving away to college...maybe the hardest piece of all of it. Oh, and a six month short sale purchase and choosing to find a renter for our other house, which we did. Right now, I type on a counter top, long

yes, still slogging. writing between classes, breaking through, the emotion under my skin like heavy water. doing okay, not seriously depressed, but riding the mix of depression and feeling. the summer was hard some days, easy other days. i can remember one month I told my therapist I had only one hard weekend. in a month. then, my son moved out, the part of my job that is new started, and almost every day for the last five weeks has been something: anger, sadness, strong feelings I can hardly identify; or depression, some; or, worst of all because it gets me no place, obsession. I've wrestled with obsession this summer, a particular obsession, I have not struggled with since I was in my early twenties. not to the same degree, no. but a very old, very scary obsession. so far mirtazapine 30 mg. only helps me sleep. it seemed to have a levelling affect on mood/anxiety early in the summer, now, hard to say. I have xanax but almost never take it. when I do take it it helps a sh

sometimes, you want the anonymous blog. I have been having trouble sleeping enough, falling asleep and some night staying asleep, since last fall when everything went nuts at work. I've been doing better, not using ambien much, making 30 pills stretch 3 months or close, but tonight, for some reason, I cannot sleep and I don't want to take anything. I know writing will relax me. it always does. my theory is actually this: since my ocd is under much better control, I am not really clinically obsessing, or at a low level anyway, the emotions I used to regulate with that disorder, or that used to be regulated, whatever, are springing out in new ways. trouble sleeping is the new thing. I don't have an egregious problem, I think, though I may have to talk to my doctor about better meds for it, hope not. and I am exercising again, and feeling much other times. I can discuss parts of my childhood, and the associated feelings, in ways I could not before. I know I did the really