Something to cleanse your palate (and kill your lady boners)

     So in light of some recent events that have caused me to think differently about the way I want to live my life, I feel the need to get a couple things off my chest that have been weighing on me pretty heavily. This may come as a surprise to you if you don't know me that well, but if you do know me well, you shouldn't be shocked by it at all. And before anybody reads this and decides to take it personally, just know that this isn't about you. It's about me. And the thoughts and feelings that I deal with on a daily basis. Please find something else to read if this doesn't set well with you, because I'm done with holding back in order to make other people feel more comfortable. I'm just fucking done..so here goes...

    I have struggled with depression for my entire life. My mother also suffered from pretty severe depression, and my dad has always been an anxious, keyed-up person who I was routinely discouraged from talking to about difficult subjects as a kid (and even now as well) so as not to get him all worked up to where he'd have to take his anti-anxiety medication. So I got the worst of both worlds, because I suffer from both. I try really hard to hide it, because I don't want to be seen as one of those people who can't handle the least bit of stress without falling apart. The only problem is, putting up a front of confidence does absolutely nothing to keep you from falling apart on the inside.

     My mother died last August. She was in her very early sixties. It was a complete shock because she died suddenly and without warning in her sleep. While I am glad that she was able to go out in one of the seemingly least unpleasant ways possible, that did nothing to ease the overwhelmingly intense grief that came with having your mom alive and on the face of the earth one day, and then just gone...disappeared...the next. Of course, that feeling of loss was compounded greatly by the fact that the guy she had been living with turned into a complete asshole seemingly the instant she breathed her last breath. And I mean, yes, I know he was in shock too, but when I got a call from him less than a week after she died to tell me that if I wanted any of her clothes or stuff that I had to go get them that day or he was going to throw it all away, I was unbelievably hurt and angry. Not to mention the fact that my mom had a bunch of jewelry that were family heirlooms that she had specifically told my sister and I ever since we were little that we would get when she was gone. And then suddenly, oh, go figure, the jewelry was nowhere to be found. He claimed he looked for it but couldnt find it, which I do not believe at all. I know he has it, but there's not a damn thing I can do about it now, just like there isn't a damn thing I can do to bring her back. It's over and done. She's not coming back.

     Anyway, since then my life has been a downward spiral of seemingly never ending sadness and isolation, the kind of loneliness that comes from being around people but still feeling utterly alone no matter what I'm doing or who I'm with. I've been pretty severely depressed since my mom died almost a year ago. That's a long fucking time to feel shitty, believe me. Like I said, I've been dealing with this for pretty much my whole life, to the point where being sad and hurt has kind of become part of my personality. Granted, an unwanted part, but a large part nonetheless. And believe me, I don't like being the Buzz Killington of any evening out, but when you constantly feel like there's no point in anything, it's difficult to pretend that going to a movie or out to eat or out to a bar is anything other than a total waste of time. I've found myself engaging in behaviors that I used to see my mom do, like buying too much shit that I don't need (clothes, shoes, wigs, makeup, you name it) just to try to fill the hole in my heart. It doesn't work. All that does is leave you with a hole in your heart and your bank account, which is stressful enough on its own.

     My mother was one of the strongest people I've ever known. The things she went through in her life were tough and sometimes extremely traumatic, but no matter what happened she refused to just give up and let herself be dragged down. I guess I never realized how important that was to me, because my whole life she was always there to prop me up when I felt like falling was my only option. She was the one person I could call and talk to about my depression because she knew exactly what it was like. She often told me that she felt guilty and responsible for having passed on that genetic predisposition to her children, but I always tried to get it through to her that I didn't resent her for that. However, that has had a major effect on my attitude toward having children myself. At this point I have no interest whatsoever in bringing a child into this world who could possibly end up like me. I could not bear to see my own child suffer with the twin evils of anxiety and depression. I know I'm not as strong as my mother. I wish I could say I'm ok with that, but I'm not. I constantly compare myself to her now that she is gone, and every time I go to make a decision, I find myself asking, "What would Mom do in this situation?" It's not healthy and I know it.

     And speaking of not healthy, my health has taken a downward turn since then too. I have developed chronic migraines, lost 40 or so pounds (not on purpose, but because I usually either have no appetite whatsoever or because I'm too depressed to cook for myself), and missed a shit ton of work. So needless to say, the first half of this year has been not so great. One of the worst things about it has been the weight thing. It's funny because I always used to think that if I could just lose 20 pounds or so, I would finally be happy and my life would be the way I wanted it to be. But now that I've lost twice that much and I'm still unhappy, I don't look at my weight in quite the same way anymore. It just sucks because when people who haven't seen me in a while run into me, they're all like, "You look great, have you been working out?" in those cases I feel like the only appropriate thing to say back is "thanks", because I know nobody wants to listen to me complain about how I really lost it and why I'm not happy about it. People only want to hear about the success stories so that they might get some motivation to do it themselves. Nobody wants to hear that I feel like I'm just wasting away, becoming an empty shell of the person I once was. That's not good motivation to go get on a treadmill, know what I mean?

     So anyway, yeah, I haven't felt all that great for quite a while. And the really sad part is, it's been so long that I actually think I forgot what it's like to feel not miserable. Recently, after having a bad reaction to a dosage increase (doctor-warranted) of my antidepressant medication, I suddenly found myself having thoughts of not being alive anymore. Not so much wanting to kill myself, but just not wanting to exist as a human being. Now I'm used to being depressed, but these feelings were very strong and very persistent. I spent a whole weekend not leaving my apartment because I couldn't stop crying. And not even like, 'boo-hoo blubbering' kind of crying, but the kind where your face just starts leaking and won't stop. I knew that when I started thinking about just walking into the ocean and never coming back out, it was time for some emergency intervention just so that I wouldn't do something drastic. I couldn't deny the hurt anymore.

    And it sucks having to ask for help too. Again, I felt like a failure because I wasn't able to handle my feelings and keep them under control like my mom would have. I felt weak, like I was some kind of pussy for not being able to handle life in general. But I went back to the doctor nonetheless and told him what was going on. I got the dosage cut in half of the drug I was taking, and he also prescribed yet another antidepressant that I would have to take in addition to the one I was already on. I was not happy about having to take more drugs. It's at the point now that my purse has so many prescription bottles in it, I look like some kind of pillhead junkie. I've got pills for depression, pills for anxiety, pills to prevent migraines, pills to stop migraines if I already have them, pills to stop the near-constant nausea, and pills to make me go to sleep. It's embarrassing and it's a giant pain in the ass. I hate that I can't just live life without pharmaceutical help.

      Now, fast-forward a couple of weeks post-medication adjustments, and I'm all of a sudden feeling much better. I've actually had a few days here and there that were a little bit better than terrible. And let's just say that it's an odd feeling to be very aware of your happiness (which is a strong word, because it's not so much happy as just not-miserable) because it's such a different thing than what you're used to. It's amazing how much easier it is to get through the workday when you're not constantly suffering with existential angst, and before anybody starts to think that I should be more thankful that it's improved at all, let me just say that I AM grateful. It's just that I'm seriously not used to feeling good anymore. So that has had its own set of side effects, one of which being that I'm finding myself regaining some interest in the things I used to enjoy, which gets to the heart of why I'm really writing all this.

     As some of you may already know, I have started writing again, and I have Facebook to thank for it. Now before you say mean things, let me explain. I joined a Facebook group that is all women wrestling fans,  with emphasis being on a particular group of guys called the Shield. Now I'm not gonna lie, I'm kind of obsessed with these guys, my interest split pretty much down the middle between their wrestling ability and their ridiculously smoking hotness. Soon after I joined, I started conversing with some of these lovely ladies through comments on salacious Shield beefcake pics, and felt like I had found a place where I wouldn't be judged for sharing my love for the Shield. Because the group is all women, there is no worry about pissing off guys who think I'm "ruining" wrestling for them because of my choice to celebrate the beauty of these men. Everybody in the group has been great to me thus far, and I have found it to be one of the few things that can make me grin from ear to ear on a daily basis. So, in short, as Martha Stewart would say, it's a good thing.

    Now, I also discovered something I was not privy to prior to joining the group, which was fan fiction. When I realized the crazy amounts of Shield fan fiction that was out there on the Internet, I was intrigued. You see, for years I've had kind of a dirty secret. I like to write erotic fiction. It's something I've been doing since I was a teenager. In fact, I have some stuff that I wrote when I was 16 that is still pretty hot to read now. I know I'm good at it too. I've always been good at writing, but even more so when it's something that interests me. And if we're being really honest here, the idea of hot guys getting it on with each other is hot as fuck to me. In my opinion, this is not an unreasonable thing, considering that I like guys, and I like sex, so why wouldn't I like hot guy sex, right? Yeah, I'm betting that some of you probably don't agree, judging by some of the reactions I've gotten about it thus far.

    Look, I guess what I'm really trying to say here is that because I'm feeling slightly less miserable lately, and because I have found a group of supportive, non-judgemental girls who also happen to love fan fiction as much as I do, I've started writing again. Now look, I realize that I could be spending my time writing a book about anything other than fictitious gay sex between wrestlers, but I seriously doubt that it would give me the same kind of enjoyment that I get from writing from the heart. The only problem with that is that it apparently rubs some people the wrong way. Look, I get it, it's certainly not for everyone. I don't do it for everyone though. I'm doing this for me- because for one, it's something I actually have an interest in doing, which is something I haven't had for a long while, and two, it's giving me a reason to make it through the day. For the past week, I have been excited to come home from work and dive into my story. I've stayed up way too late at night and lost a lot of sleep because I didn't want to stop writing. Do you have any idea how long it has been since I wanted to do anything like that? I know I don't because it's been that damn long I forgot.

     I guess my point here is this: I know I'm not everyone's cup of tea. I'm kind of a freak, I have really weird interests and hobbies, and I'm a card-carrying member of the local Perverts Union #69 (giggity). I know that some people are put off by me and what I'm about. And I am ok with that, really. I'm almost 40 fucking years old, and I'm too damn old to keep worrying about what other people think of me. I no longer give a flying fuck about whether some dude thinks I'm a slut because I write about ass-fucking between two (or three) guys. Nor do I care if somebody might think I'm begging for attention by declaring that I'm horny (God forbid a woman actually admits to having a sex drive) on the Internet. I just DON'T CARE anymore. I'm doing what makes me happy, and if a person can't get behind that because of something that's fucked up in their head, that's not my fault, and it's not my problem to fix. Hey, we all have to deal with shit that sometimes we don't want to deal with. This is not one of those things. You don't have to read it if you don't want to. You don't have to see my Facebook posts if you don't want to, and you don't have to like me if you don't want to. I honestly don't give a flying fuck one way or the other. Until you've walked the proverbial mile in my shoes, don't come around and try to tell me what's ok and what's not, because I'm all out of fucks to give about it. Really.

So, in conclusion, I'm still alive, I'm feeling a bit better every day, and I actually have a reason to keep getting up every morning. So get off my dick, will you? Thanks.