Give the Black Dog A Kick


I’m not depressed right now. At least I don’t think I am.

I keep losing track of the time and what I’m doing, but I think it’s just the ADD running wild, as it does, you know? Yeah, I need to get help for that (got massively worse after menopause,) but I keep forgetting too.

The ADD is problem enough because I drop things on the floor and don’t even remember I started them till I stumble on them months later.

But it’s not depression.  Which frankly is new.

I don’t know how much of the depression was first hypothyroidism and then side effects of singulair.

But I remember depression. Vividly.  And I have friends who are fighting it.

Today has got away from me, mostly catching up on a 100 things at once (Ah, ADD!) but a friend just said he couldn’t do something or other due to crippling depression.

And I want to point out that’s one of the best ways to FIGHT depression.  Look, I know, I’ve been there.  The black dog wants you paralyzed, unmoving, the better to lie to you about being a worthless human being.

The black dog lies.

Do something today.  Do it even though you think you can, even though the dog snaps and snarls at you every time you try.

It might be small and stupid.  Can’t write a novel? Write a paragraph.  Can’t draw a comic? Draw a sphere.  Just a sphere.

And then when the black dog lies and says it’s nothing, realize it’s a lot.  You did that against those ice-cold teeth fastened on your heart, and that evil mocking voice in your ears.

Sure, if you were free, it would be nothing. But you’re not free.  None of us is. And some are more crippled than others.

Pat yourself on the back.  You did SOMETHING. Tomorrow you’ll do more.  For now, kick the black dog in the teeth.  You called him the liar he is.

Tomorrow you’ll continue doing things.  Soon you’ll be so busy you won’t have time to listen to that evil, mocking voice.  You’ll have run away.

But it takes time. And patience. And you’re wounded. And sometimes you’ll backslide. And that’s okay.

Just remember, the black dog can’t keep you prisoner without your cooperation.  Don’t give him that cooperation.

Rage against the dying of the light, sure. But light a lot of little pin point lights, too.

Enough of those and the black dog will vanish. Clear away.

Baby steps.  Start now. And be patient with yourself.

114 thoughts on “Give the Black Dog A Kick

  1. Excellent reasoning, it’s how I fight mine.

    Just do something, anything, that you feel like you can’t. Even a tiny bit. Sometimes just going through the motions is enough to break it, and I’ve found it’s better to look back and go, “Huh, look at the progress I made! I managed a thousand words even though I was in the darkness.” And progress is progress, if you let yourself become bogged down, it’s hard to restart.

    Write on good folks.

    Make the darkness and apathy fight you for it.


    1. I tried the whole NaNomonth thing.

      FAiled horribly.

      But I kept going.

      There’s a long list of dates and word-counts… at lot are double-digits, adn since it’s mostly dialog, ouch….

      But soem of them suddenly jump to four, or even five, digits.

      Yeah, a lot is trash, but I AM WRITING.

      I will get better.

      1. Oh sweet Nanowrimo. I think most of us have tried it at least once…. my problem is that I can’t write a book short enough or fast enough to hit their 50k word count!

        Well… I could. But it’d probably suck.

        As for writing trash, meh. Don’t worry about it!

        We all do. It gets hammered and forged into something great with the re-writes. 🙂

        1. My mom has a story about her dad.

          Crazy scary lumberjack kind of guy.

          She made a cake.

          He ATE IT.

          …she confused teaspoon and tablespoon. For the salt.

          But daddy eating her cake meant that she decided she COULD cook, and kept going– and she is one of the best instinct-cooks I know. (Those folks who taste something and start adding random junk then suddenly it tastes good.)

          The only one better was my grandmother, whose recipes are a challenge to one’s faith in humanity.
          “Add 1tsp salt.” Tastes like nothing. USUALLY.
          (Mom thought she was screwing with her; then went to watch her cook, and realized grandma didn’t even realize when she was adjusting the recipes– it was automatic.)

          1. Wrote a family recipe cookbook for my daughter. Thought I did a pretty good job until she came to me and said, “Mom, this one starts with ‘take the necessary number of pork chops.'” Had to check all of them for pinches, touches, etc. etc. Good times. Ranks up there when my grown son offered to knead my bread dough when arthritis was making that too painful. I asked him what did HE know about bread dough…he reminded me he worked at Chuckecheese while in high school. Bread was delicious.

                1. Oh yeah. I adjust constantly too. But I do have a base I work off of, and that’s what I write down. Then I try to note down what I make adjustments with.

                  The first attempts at cookies were failures – delicious, but failures. This remained constant for 8 years, until I figured out that I had to put the damn cookies in the fridge for an hour before trying to bake them.

                  1. i end up with things like “about two cloves of garlic” “Shake in some italian seasoning” etc

                    1. I learn the hard way.

                      Note to self – Cajun nor Cayenne Pepper are to be substituted for Chile Powder (at least not at the same amounts).

                      Newly wed (ish), within first 2 years. I was so proud of myself that dinner would be ready for hubby when he got off work, and I headed off to work … until he showed up with Subway sandwiches … (we were working for the same company doing the same work, before I went into programming) I never heard a word from the others we worked with … I don’t think they ever stopped needling him. I might mention it a time or two … hey, I’m not the one who tasted it …

                      We won’t discuss my one and only attempt to make Chicken & Dumplings in our new crock pot (if I remember right we were able to salvage the unit …)

                      I am an indifferent cook at best. Give me a recipe and I will follow it. But beyond that … No.

                    1. The first thing I tried to make were chocolate chip. I had planned to surprise my mom with them for mother’s day in Paris, but I had never seen them prepared before. So I had been attempting to hand-cream them for hours and my mom and dad came home from a lovely dinner out to find me trying to make them. We baked them anyway and ended up with a cookie-pizza. It was delicious, but not cookies.

                      Mind, the failure resulted in me persisting in learning how to cook; I copied, from memory, by helping the pastor making the dish, a complicated, several-step chicken dish that I call ‘Pastor Hall’s Chicken.’ When I successfully cooked that, it was something my siblings requested frequently.

                      It’s not so easy to cook here, I’ve found; it’s thin-slice chicken breasts, brown them very lightly in butter after coating with seasoned flour; making a roux of the flour and butter while disintigrating 3-6 anchovies in the roux, then making a sauce with the roux, and lemon juice and white wine. Layer the chicken and the sauce in a baking dish, and bake for 45 minutes-1 hour at 180 degrees C.

                      That first success, on a very complicated recipe had me continue to learn. I like delicious; my dishes are not necessarily pretty (I tend towards stews) so.

                2. I give sporadic cooking classes at my church. Works well, except that all my recipes start out with “Some”.

  2. It has occurred to me that I might actually be suffering from depression from time to time recently. And yeah doing SOMETHING does seem to help with doing more things

    1. FWIW, going “hey, I might be depressed” and looking at coping mechanisms– short of medication– is an insanely useful step.

      My mom used meds for about six months, it didn’twork for her, but that gave her the time/exposure to find other mechanisms.

      1. Another thing to remember about meds: like chemo or painkillers, anti-depressants are something you will build up a tolerance to. Periodic re-evaluation is a must.

  3. I needed this today. I’m about to go clear out my office out from the last job I will likely ever have in the field I’ve been training in since high school. Being forced out of that has been shattering to my self-image and has me convinced I’m the most worthless human being in the world.

    But I will keep going. I’ve written 720 words today. I’ve made dinner for my family. I’ve knitted a hedgehog. None of that is nothing, even if the Black Dog is telling me that it’s all useless.

    Thanks for the pep talk. It’s good to know I’m not alone.

    1. Zsuzsa,
      Find a way to use your training in innovative ways. Start something. Do something.
      If we think about it, we’re in the same situation.
      This too shall pass. We won’t. Let’s go.

    2. It isn’t a life calling, but– when I am going through comments, here, and see your name, I know it’ll be something worth reading, at the absolute minimum. There aren’t a lot I can say that of.

      Good luck on your future.

    3. BTDT. Got caught in the USAF RIF of 92. (The Peace Dvidend one when the USSR was gone and there ain’t gonna be no war no more ) Dream job, Combat Targeting Officer. Doing useful, important work and enjoying it. No direct correlation in Civ life. Didn’t want to do anything else.

      Got through it. Found jobs that could use parts of my skill set. Not going to let the bastards (whomever they are ) win.

      Hang in there.

  4. I needed this today, too. One thing I’ve found is that since I’m not working outside the home (full-time caregiver) things tend to get away from me (it can be done anytime, so it doesn’t get done). Add to that a bad back, and the really, really rough patch we went through for almost a year with my autistic youngest (who I think has been dealing with her own depression and anger issues, but because she doesn’t communicate well, it’s always so hard to tell what’s going on with her) which stressed me almost to the breaking point….

    But today my back’s not too bad, and I managed to flatten a stack of cardboard boxes which has been piled up in one corner for weeks. And a few other odds and ends, none major accomplishments, but *something* did get done today. It does help with morale.

    1. K, this isn’t you.

      but it came to mind because of you, so I want to give credit.

      I can’t remember who did it…. I think Chesterton….

      He had a bit poem about a guy who was going to hang himself.

      Built a scaffold and all.

      WAs out in the garden, had the noose around his neck, and then it went into a bunch of reasons to live– all kind of silly, but when you actually LOOK, they were better than the reasons to die.

      The sun is shining, there’s a game today, there maybe something cool will happen, etc.


      Coping mechanism for house-bound, make silly daily routines. Taco NIght is silly, but it IS A marker.

      1. Resumé – Poem by Dorothy Parker

        Razors pain you;
        Rivers are damp;
        Acids stain you;
        And drugs cause cramp.
        Guns aren’t lawful;
        Nooses give;
        Gas smells awful;
        You might as well live

        Or, as a Gahan Wilson cartoon (depicting a man sitting in a chair with gun in hand) once asked, “What if I’ve already pulled the trigger?”

          1. *cough*

            You’re thinking of Dorothy L. Sayers. Dorothy Parker was famously a member of the Algonquin Round Table and perhaps best known for her aphorism, “You can lead a whore to culture but you can’t make her think.”

            1. Domo tashe….f if I can remember what the phrase ends as or what it means.

              Which is why I didn’t just delete it, it hit my funny bone for a response. ^.^

          2. It was a good excuse to visit the Wikipedia entry on Dorothy Sayers, however.

            OTOH, with a character who’s second name is Death, it’s understandable.

      2. is the one she was talking about.

        It was not even the only great poem he wrote that week, envy envy, but he did have suicidal thoughts during his life.

        Re: the envoi, Chesterton and his newspaper friends had a game of thinking of the meanest envois and worst fictional princes to write poems to. Belloc, Chesterton, and other ballade writers make more sense now that I know this.

  5. You are soooo right.
    I went through months of clinical depression (undiagnosed no less) when I came back from Desert Storm. Although it would be more accurate to say my family and I, and co-workers, went through it. And that doesn’t count the 3+ months working my/our way out of it after we figured out what was wrong with me.
    I count myself lucky. Several other folks who came back ended up suiciding. And I have no idea how many got out of the service because their performance evals “mysteriously” were down and no longer competitive for promotion. From my experience, mental healthcare in the military may as well be non-existent.

    1. *snort*

      True story:

      Go to the priest, because I’m depressed because I have not SEEN FREAKING DAYLIGHT FOR THREE WEEKS, and have been doing 12/12s with roughly six hours added for “inspection” work:
      “Have you considered killing yourself?”
      “Father, I would be much more likely to kill the bastards that are causing the problem than myself. Family tradition.” (I was exhausted.)

      I had a hell of a time scheduling either confession or consultation after that…..

    1. …those plastic skeletons bug me. Ears don’t have bones!

      Sure they do. Malleus, incus, and stapes!
      The external ears don’t have bones, though…

    2. I am somewhat less bothered by the bird skeletons with multiple wing bones (like bats) even though I know they only have the one. Yeah, the ears are weird.

        1. Yes, and?

          (This is how you can tell that much of the supposedly sexually liberated crowd doesn’t actually believe what they talk about. If they truly thought there was nothing wrong with being promiscuous, the response to “Slut!” or “Whore!” would be along the line of Nell Gwynn’s: “I am a whore. Find something else to fight about.”)

          1. something else to fight about? doable! from

            On this subject, reader, I must stop a moment, to tell thee a story. “The famous Nell Gwynn, stepping one day, from a house where she had made a short visit, into her coach, saw a great mob assembled, and her footman all bloody and dirty; the fellow, being asked by his mistress the reason of his being in that condition, answered, `I have been fighting, madam, with an impudent rascal who called your ladyship a wh—re.’ `You blockhead,’ replied Mrs Gwynn, `at this rate you must fight every day of your life; why, you fool, all the world knows it.’ `Do they?’ cries the fellow, in a muttering voice, after he had shut the coach-door, `they shan’t call me a whore’s footman for all that.’”

            1. Worth remembering that w whore who can afford a footman is a courtesan, just as a highwayman who is highly successful can become known as a baron.

      1. Our local amusement park has a Wizard of Oz section during Halloween Haunt. The Scarecrow skeleton has me shaking my head, but the Cowardly Lion skeleton has me going, “That’s not the way it works, guys.”

  6. I’ve found that, when I’m most depressed, making a checklist of things to do, and then checking them off as they get done, is a good boost. I try to keep the majority of the checklist items small, little chores that make up big chores, not big chores that can make you feel you’re making no headway.

    So, ‘shelve a dozen books’ not ‘get the library organized’.

    Also, include some indulgences. I treasure a SALLY FORTH comic strip that shows Sally saying she has a lot on her ‘to do’ list. Later her husband finds her taking a bubble bath, and says “I thought you had a lot on your ‘to do’ list, and I find you in the bath..” To which Sally replies “It’s on my list.” And in the last panel she’s thinking “I’m getting better with my lists”.

    Do that. Include things like ‘check on the Monarch caterpillars in the garden’ or ‘bubble bath’.

    If you get good enough at the lists, they can really get the Black Dog reduced to a mumble.

      1. Wisdom can come from very odd sources. Several comic strips have been sources of great solace to me. Most for humor, but some for giving me an insight.

        That’s what I miss most from the days before Garry Trudeau began to take himself so seriously 😐. I will always treasure the strip where Joanie Caucus explains to the Guys why she left her husband; at a backyard cookout he quotes an ad that had bothered me for a while “My Wife, I think I’ll keep her.” and she tells the Boys “I broke his nose.”. Perfect. Exactly.

        Feminism was already going off the rails then, but that strip helped me see what the Feminists were angry about. And to see that the Left is not ALWAYS wrong.

        It has helped me tolerate a lot that needs tolerance.

  7. It’s easy when describing depression as a mental illness to emphasize the “mental” over the “illness,” but the body is often hurting along side the mind and emphasizes the mind’s problems. The advice I always push for sufferers is to take care of the body as much as possible. Get the nutrition you need, even if it’s in the form of meal replacement shakes. Get sleep, even if you have to use a sleep aid. Try to do something to make yourself breathe heavily, even if that’s just walking up a staircase. And try to shower daily; I don’t know why depression makes that self-care seem so daunting, but I’m always amazed how much it helps lift my mood on a bad day.

    And yes, as our esteemed mistress suggests, try to do one thing every day that you can point to in order to say “I did that!”

    1. Useful hack:
      Keep an eye out for the “prenatal” vitamins to come on sale, and buy those.

      Everything your body needs, and might miss, will be in them– and they’re usually designed to avoid making you hurl.

      Yeah, you’ll be peeing out half of them, minimum. And? That’s only slightly different than FOOD YOU EAT, much less other vitamins.

    2. One of the most useful insights I have gained from out long history with the Therapy subculture is that “it’s all in your mind” is an important statement, not because fixing what’s in your mind is easy, but because it is so very HARD. While we are learning more about how the BRAIN works every year, what we know about the MIND could be written on the head of a pin with a cold-chisel.

      It’s vital to understand that psychotherapy is an emerging Art. Not a Science, but not useless either. Much of it may sound silly, but the silly CAN help

      But whatever you do, don’t take therapy advice straight out of the Modern Living section of your newspaper (or equivalent) ; that article is the rushed distillation of what the reporter was told by half a dozen actual experts, and (s)he misunderstood at least half of it.

  8. The black dog lies.


    That’s why he’s the black dog– he’s outside, he’s worrying your flanks, he’s trying to manipulate you, HE FREAKING LIES.

    It’s OK to be freaked out. It’s a freaking dog trying to bite your tendons loose.
    But he is trying to manipulate you.

    Look ahead. Try to figure out what he lies about.

  9. That is very true. Nutrition can have a huge effect on how you feel mentally as well as physically. I’ve noticed a definite improvement in my mental state when I eat right (meat and veggies, low on the carbs — but not *no* carbs). Keeping inflammation low by eating right and reducing stress also helps your brain to function better.

    1. Pineapple, fresh pineapple! The wife and I have had great success controlling inflammation with pineapple included in that “eat right” thing. And cutting it up gives you something to do.

      1. Well, that would be a great weight loss program for me as I find the mere taste of pineapple gag inducing. I’ve found cherries work me for inflammation. YMMV

  10. Make your bed. You have imposed order on one corner of the world, accomplished one thing at least.

    I was fighting a virus, a bacterial infection unrelated to the virus but in a similar location (which made diagnosing the virus interesting), lack of sleep, and a few other things this past week. Some days, “Thank you, Most High, for a high pain tolerance” is as far as I got. But I got. And the dog is retreating for now.

  11. I remember depression. Vividly. And I have friends who are fighting it.

    I never fight Depression. I’d likely only get hurt because Depression fights dirty. Besides, coming from Slavic ancestors Depression is part of my inheritance and fighting it would be ungrateful.

    No, I just accept Depression as a constant companion, the kind who never springs for drinks, so I don’t indulge Depression and crack the occasional jest at its expense. I am reliably advised that having to endure my jokes is depressing enough for anybody.

  12. But, if I kick the black dog he might bite me, and his master might (feh . . . certainly will) get mad at me. Plus he is sorta silly when holding his ball and getting brushed out by his master.
    Oh, you ain’t talking about the shepherd that moved in across the street a few months ago . . .


      1. Got Newfies up the street, some kind of pit mix just across the same street from me (it is always on the other side of the house so I never see it, and it barks at the door at the folks in the house and shuts up when it sees someone out on the street or alley), and a couple of bull dog across from the Newfies. The Shep and his owner walk up my side street past all those to go walkies somewhere. I was on the roof of the garage (figures, get the house done and the garage starts to leak) and the pair stopped to ask a few questions, it took the dog a few minutes to realize I was up there and bark hello. Otherwise he just kept and eye out and was looking for the Newfs and squirrels.

          1. I haven’t seen any that aren’t big, (never saw pups, but they wouldn’t be tiny) though not Saint Barnyard grade Huuuuuuuge. When we had Italian Greyhounds (14 pounds on a good day), if they saw a Newfie in the park, they were pretty calm. “That’s not a dog, and I’m not afraid of horses.”–my best guess at their thought processes.

            1. The Newfie we know, my girl is only afraid of because the Newfie doesn’t know where her butt is when exercises are to “sit”, and we are immediately next to them. Pepper refuses to sit or down until she see’s that Lucy has already done so. Lucy has almost sat on Pepper, and others, more than once. The group has an on going discussion on whether Lucy is doing it on purpose. Lucy now has a new “little” brother. Another Newfie, that at 2 months was heavier and larger than Pepper. Pepper is a Pom/Chi mix, larger than you’d expect, but still waaaaay smaller than the newfies.

              Saw a black newfie ~ 40 years ago. He’d gotten out and showed up to our place, attracted because we were dog sitting the in-laws malamute/huskies. At 6 months, he was a BIG boy (and very, very, valuable $10+k, back then).

              Very gentle dogs. At least the 3 I’ve seen.

              1. when I was a kid we had a Malamute who was gigantic.
                at 6 months he was already 90 pounds. He was 134 when he killed a porcupine (Dad tried to pull the quills but none of that was happening, so down to the vet and he weighed him) and he was around 180-200 when he was hit (intentionally) by a car.
                totaled the car

        1. “Newfoundland dogs are good to save children from drowning, but you must have a pond of water handy and a child, or else there will be no profit in boarding a Newfoundland.” – Josh Billings

    1. Right now the black dog is sleeping and quietly passing gas. Oh, that’s the *other* black dog.

      I’m extremely limited in what I can do right now (got chewed out a few weeks ago when I walked the few hundred feet to open the gate), but the foot is almost-but-not-quite ready for some activity. Almost is the operative word, but I can do small things, and a few times a day, I’ll take the other black dog and her border collie partner in crime to the kennel for a potty break.

      I *can’t* do much, but I’ll do as much as makes sense. Keeps me sane enough.

    2. We used to live across the street from a long-haired rottweiler. I just kind of wanted to bury my face in his ruff.

      1. for a time there were three regular Rotties across the drive from me. Ruger was a big male and supposed to be mean as all that, but he would listen to me and not try anything too untoward. He would growl at me when I chased him back into his yard if he escaped, but the grumbles didn’t come until he got back into the yard. When her aunt was house sitting he’d sit by me and get his scritches while we chatted over tea.

        1. “New” neighbor has a Rottie pup, well he’s well over a year now (almost 2). Big boy. Very solid. Very well behaved. Occasionally he manages to sneak out. Even if one of the adults are out front, when I notice, I always ask if if they know he’s out. Usually they do. But maybe about 1/5 the time, nope. Sometimes they order him back inside, sometimes they just acknowledge he is now out front with them. If he is with just the kids, that is a no. Kids accidentally let him out. If no one is around. I call him and take him in, let them know he managed to get out; look he gives me is “busted”, okay lets go … he is a big clown. He wears a collar (smooth training chain collar, which personally I wouldn’t leave on him, unless locked in place); have never seen a leash on him.

          1. we were sharing a horse ranch. He learned very quick to open the gate to his yard, and it ended up taking bungie cords holding the gate mechanism to keep him there, though they could have jumped the fence if he or the two girl rotts wanted to.

            1. Standard neighborhood. A couple of wind storms taught him he could go through or over the 6′ fence easily enough. Scared them. They were relatively new to the neighborhood. He’s not allowed fenced yard now, not unsupervised. He hadn’t been out long, or just took him awhile to go the short distance he actually went.

  13. Thank you for posting this. It helped reading it. If you try something, you may find it easy and quick. I put away the dishes from the the dishwasher after avoiding them forever, and found out that it took only 5 minutes to do them. I repeated this with laundry. It took longer but not lots longer.

  14. In one episode of Babylon-5, Ambassador Mullari tells of walking into his father’s bedroom to find him crying. He explained, “My shoes are too tight, but it doesn’t matter for I’ve forgotten how to dance.”
    When antidepressants are needed, they will loosen your shoes for you.
    But if you’ve been fighting depression for long enough, you may still need dance lessons. That’s what counselors are for.

    In my case, I keep a large jar of tinctures of motherwort (4 parts) and skullcap (1 part), and take 1ml up to twice a day. It helps with depression, and it’s a sleep aid and muscle relaxant.

    1. I’d be very careful with the motherwort. It can have serious side effects and drug interactions.

      Skullcap has fewer cautions, but one serious caveat as it appears to be a CNS depressant. (Meaning overdose could be fatal.)

      Remember that if a ‘natural’ remedy actually works, that’s because it is a DRUG, and should be managed accordingly.

      Also, for some scary reading, I recommend the Physicians Desk Reference for Herbal Remedies… just the sections for side effects and interactions…

      1. That’s why I dispense it one ml at a time. So 15 drops of the motherwort tincture per dose, and 5 of the skullcap.

    2. I need my antidepressants like a diabetic needs insulin. The best way I can describe it is think about being wrapped in a comforter pulled straight out of the washing machine. It’s cold, and wet, and heavy. Antidepressants don’t replace it with a warm fluffy comforter fresh out of the dryer; they just take the cold wet blanket off your shoulders.

        1. Exactly. They aren’t “make you happy” pills; they’re “give you the ability to be happy” pills.

  15. “That black dog, he played one,
    Tried to take away my fun,
    With a knick-knack paddy-wack, give the dog a kick,
    Drive him off with this big stick!”

  16. I’ve dealt with my psychiatric issues for years, including a long period (about ten years), where I tried to power through things. No medication, no therapy, nothing but trying every single day to not rip out throats with my teeth because the world was driving me to it.

    The day I realized that I needed help…it got bad.

    It could have been a whole lot worse.

    There is help out there. I think I’m fine tuning my issues and my responses, and I might have figured out my exact issues (ADD aggravated with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria), it only took about fifteen years…but, I have a better sense of the inside of my head.

    I’m fighting, and I’ll keep fighting. I know there is light out there, and I’ll fight for it.

  17. Hi S.A.H. – Speaking of losing track of things, have you ever had a sleep study done? I have ADD which seemed to be getting worse and worse. One sleep study later, my severe (68 apneas per hour, blood oxygen under 80) central sleep apnea is being treated and the fog is starting to lift.
    Just a thought. Good luck.

    1. oh, yeah. I had that done. I was running less than that. more like 52 interruptions per hour. But that might have masked the ADD as I could barely muster the energy to actually do something, ANYTHING. Now I have more energy, I seem to have lost my ability to keep myself on track.
      Medical son says it’s possible that the apnea remodeled my brain (not in a good way. Think shag carpeting and pink walls) to make my ADD worse. So I now need to be evaluated for that.

  18. That was beautiful. It’s always wonderful to find someone who understands.
    Thank You.

  19. I wrote about depression in Isabelle and the Siren, and promptly went around telling everyone who would listen that I was never, ever, ever going to write another story about a depressed main character.

    Though some people who have been depressed have told me they like it for that.

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