Why I Dropped Off The Map?...

Okay, so I've had a few people ask me 'Where the hell did you go?' 'Are you still alive?' 'When's the book coming out?' 

Oregon...I moved to Oregon last November and a lot of things around me changed. I’m no longer allowed to pump my own gas. Yeah, partial service at the gas station. Woo Hoo! I also have to remember to bring a bag with me when I head to the grocery store. Woo Hoo! I feel so green and environmentally conscious. 

Yup...Writing a blog post right now, proof that I’m still around… My silence has been me not handling the depression side of my illness well. 

If I ever finish the rewrites a few months after that...I was all set to publish, keeping up with blog posts on my twin's side. I settled into the new situation and then I got comfortable and decided I was going to rewrite the ending to my novel. Something didn't feel right about it and it didn't really leave itself open to a second story in the series. 

I went through a bought of depression and I hit a few meetings and started seeing a new therapist. I’m a bit leery of trying a new anti-depressant to fix the depression side. It has been my experience that anti-depressants cause me to swing too high, and it’s harder to hold mania at bay. It’s a more challenging route to go with treatment, but I’d rather be low than high.

I attack my mental illness that way deliberately. As low as the depression gets me, it will never cause me to take my own life. As I’ve mentioned before, suicide is one of my options. But I know that whenever I get to the other side of depression and as hard as it is to be constantly depressed, I still have faith, hope that I will have another joyous moment. Something is going to be good enough to make all the suffering worth it.

Maybe it’s the masochist in me that makes dealing with the painful side of depression bearable, I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that Robin Williams lost his battle with depression recently. When I was first diagnosed bipolar he was one of the first celebrities that I learned was bipolar. The list is long and sometimes surprising. I’d hear a crazy story about someone famous with mental illness and think, well, yeah I know what that’s like.

I wasn’t surprised when I heard Robin Williams took his life. Disappointed, sad. I mean, why couldn’t one of the funniest men in the world seek help to face one more day? Was he like Hunter S. Thompson who just picked a day to die, told no one, got up and decided today’s the day?

I don’t know about others but I decided a while ago to choose life. I’d rather live to see another day. If I do find myself thinking of taking the option of suicide, I have an amazing support system of friends and family to turn to, just a phone call away. 

Currently, my addiction to television and entertainment in general is enough for me. I’ll hear a great song tomorrow. Maybe, I’ll see the new doctor on Doctor Who save the world. Will Penny and Leonard ever get married? How will the last movie in the Hunger Games end? Will Anita Blake become a monster in her own right? Who’s going to win Face/Off this season?

In the meantime I have my own characters to put through their paces and find their own stories to tell. So yup, I’m choosing life for one more day. I have things I want to do and see. Sometimes it’s the smallest things that let me choose life, but hey, for me, that’s better than the alternative.