Book of Jamez

55 y/o malcontent, something of a writer

Category: sadness

  • Sometimes Depression Has Me

    Sometimes Depression Has Me

    I have depression. Or sometimes I think depression has me.

    There was a snafu with my medications getting refilled and I’m now on day four of no medications that treat my depression. Boy oh boy a rollercoaster ride for sure.

    The good news is my medications are on their way and I might be what I consider normal within a few days. My doctor for this is, of course, on vacation so another doctor stepped in to help get my stuff filled.

    I can’t sleep, super tired, can’t manage to get to sleep. One of my medications helped me sleep actually and now without it I’m struggling. When you don’t sleep there are direct results that include mind fog, irritability and of course exhaustion.

    Yesterday afterwork I just started crying for no reason, bawling like a baby. Couldn’t stop, nor focus on what was making me cry just was crying. I hate crying.

    I’m also in general irritable, grumpy and sad.

    Looking at it I wasn’t aware that the depression, like alcoholism, still stays where you left it. It is in the same powerful state it was when I started my medication journey some twelve years ago. Without the drugs to keep it at bay it will rear its ugly head and take over my brain.

    My depression comes with dark thoughts, suicidal thoughts and wanting to surrender to whatever it is. It’s very uncomfortable and I don’t like it, but then I start to relate to it and want to get comfortable there. It’s wild. I’m not at my darkest yet, I fear that’s coming.

    I have taken action and reached out not just to my doctors and the medical team that take care of my mental needs but also to friends. I’m trying to stay positive and keep reminding myself that this is temporary, even if it seems like a long time.

    At the suggestion of ChatGPT I texted 988, the depression/suicidal hotline number available to anyone. Chatted with a rep for a good while and found it was beneficial.

    Depression is a trap and it can grow comfortable and make you not want to leave. I have been in much worse spots than this and can get out of this one too. I just need to keep reminding myself it’s just a little longer.

    Today, I will do my best, which includes helping other people in an attempt to stay out of my own head, similar to what I’d do in Alcoholics Anonymous if I were close to a drink. Tomorrow is a new day with new possibilities and hopefully medications.

  • Life’s End

    Life’s End

    It’s right around the corner
    The end of my journey
    What was my destiny?
    Did I live to the fullest?
    Fulfill my dreams?
    Rue and regret,
    Stew and Fret?

    Looking back I see joy
    I see pain
    Tragedy and despair
    Depths of depression
    Steps to recovery
    Flights to new heights

    Wish that I woulda
    Shame that I did
    Memories as a kid
    Easy times came hard
    Hard times came easy

    Who I knew
    Were they true?
    Did I give my self
    Without regret?
    Results of friends
    My safety net

    I don’t believe
    In afterlife
    Of a heaven or hell
    When I expire
    Just over and nothing
    An end




  • Hit Hard

    Hit Hard

    Hit hard
    Can’t stop the tears
    Started with self doubt
    Then came the fear

    There’s a point somewhere 
    A cause of the scare
    An underlying reason
    Some kind of demon

    Want to run away and hide
    Wish I’d already died
    Don’t want to search for clues 
    As to why I’m feeling the blues

    Does it ever stop
    Ever get better
    Climb my way on top
    Only to have it remember

    Been here before
    Doesn’t get better
    Time becomes a chore
    Helps me get sadder

    Darkness closes in
    Comforts me within
    Doesn’t stop the tears
    Just feeds the fears

    Don’t see a way out right now
    Find it hard to want to somehow
    The fear feeds the sadness
    Then comes the madness

  • Trying to Let Go

    Trying to Let Go

    Sometimes, more often that I’d like to admit, I can’t sleep. Insomnia is a big deal and it literally keeps me awake at night. I’ve tried a bunch of different things to combat this – stopped drinking caffeinated beverages, stayed up really late to make myself more tired, took a nap when I first got home… and more. None of that worked for me.

    I’d done some mindfulness meditation and sometimes that can help get me to a place where I just drift off, but that then leads me to get sleepy when I mediate as well. Might be worth it if it were a guaranteed solution to the problem.

    What I usually do, instead of counting sheep, is draw xes across my hear in my mind.. one line, then another, then another. The idea was formed from an old news article I read where a kid with a tumor would imagine a video game where he was destroying the tumor with spaceships and that killed it… likely he had radiation, chemo and the like but that wasn’t the headline so I didn’t really read the entire article.. that’s the American way you know. However, I thought visualization might be the key for me.

    If I spend each night, or most nights drawing a cross across my heart it may just give out during the night and I wouldn’t wake. That would be ideal to just pass in my sleep… I had considered drawing xes on a vision of my brain but I have this fear of being in a vegetative state and no one letting me die… like that one girl congress came back from vacation to save her life… which was such a ridiculous mess if you ask me… let people die, what’s wrong with you people.

    Anyway… I’m still here and still breathing and the heart is still beating….. so it doesn’t work, trust me I’ve been doing this for a while now.

    Last night instead of doing that I thought “maybe i just need to let go, if I just relax my body and mind and completely let it all go I’ll just fade away” that kept me up for a while, thinking on that and how it might be a solution. Didn’t work, obviously, here I am writing a blog post about wishing I were gone.

    Thing is, I don’t want to go violently or make a mess… I just want to go. I mean, if I were to get shot while just doing what I normally do or die in a car crash I didn’t cause… well I’m not going to struggle to hold on… but if I had my way it would be easier to just go.

    I ponder frequently about why we, as a society, don’t have a simpler way to do this. I guess most people don’t think like this… so why would they think a solution would be needed. But I reflect on the many suicides in the world each day and how they went… can’t we make it easier for them and survivors… just make it a new part of our culture… someone wants to die… who are we to say “No you can’t”. You want to live and I’m not saying “no you can’t” so how is it fair?

    not that life is fair I guess…

    I don’t actually think that all suicide is because someone is depressed or mad or running away… I think sometimes, me in particular, some people just are done… it’s a nihilist thing I guess… not caring, not wanting to have anything to do with anyone or anything… just wanting to be done.

    So tonight, like last night, I will just try to let go of reality and pass… I’m not hopeful, but strangely it’s something to look forward to.

  • Two Pills

    Two Pills

    The depression I have is mostly under control with medication. I was taking Celexa but it stopped working so now I’m taking Paxil which appears to be working again. Working means no dark cloud around world, not everything seems hopeless and I can justify not ending it all.

    I talk about depression and how I first came to take medication in a story on my blog called “Lost” and you can read about it there.

    I have seen a psychologist or two and talked to my regular doctor about these things. The regular doc diagnosed me as no only having severe depression but now I have severe anxiety also – I don’t really want to be around anyone, or talk to anyone or leave home… it’s fun to try to live this way. The regular doc suggested I see a psychiatrist so that’s scheduled. Not to worry, we all know I’m crazy so there wont be any difference in how we treat me or you…. or those other people you can’t see.

    Last night I dreamed I was meeting with the psychiatrist – she was a short pudgy woman with wiry black hair. As I entered her office she was sitting with her back to a corner on the floor, she motioned me forward.

    I sat down on a pillow across from her and we talked about life, my new job and death and dying. I advised her, as I have others, if they would just be two pills to end it all I would take them at that moment and be done with it. She offered me her hand palm up holding two pills – one red one blue. I smiled, and asked her if she was fucking with me… she assured me no. I grabbed the pills shoved them in my mouth and swallowed.

    It was actually one of my more peaceful suicide dreams.

    Today, if there were an over the counter option to end it all, with forms or online options to donate body parts to science or people that oddly want to live, I’d be gone already.

  • Mumblings

    The sick thing keeps holding on and continues to be sick – I wasn’t actually referring to the President but it applies there too.

    My cough remains (and it drains me, saps all my energy) and the more I talk the less I can talk – it seems. I folded a load of laundry this weekend and had to take a nap after as I was beat. The only thing that has been alleviated since I started the antibiotic is pain. My throat doesn’t hurt any more and that’s a really nice thing – thank you science.

    I’m going to call my doctor this morning and try to see him to see if this is something else or just a virus thing. Hopefully he can get this all sorted out.

    Work folks think it’s a nice change from me talking all the time and my friend Vanessa is happy I’m not singing at my desk all day (I’m never sure if she doesn’t like my singing or just finds it odd that someone sings at the job). (more…)

  • The Extractor

    In 2028 the US Government took a dramatic swing from Democrat and Republican to Technocrat. After over twelve years of decline into the superstition of religion and the fear it breeds, the population rose up and replaced those running on old ideas and replaced them with those who had scientific knowledge and acumen to change the course of the country.

    Technocrats and the Technocracy movement abolished old ideas keeping the country from progressing. Instead of interfering with scientific progress that might offend the religious we jumped into the deep end and made real change. One of the first major changes, after hard fought years was the removal of tax-exempt status for any religious organization involved in politics at any level. There was first outrage yet afterwards the populace found progress, real progress towards fixing the country and the world was happening. What faith and fear held back inquiry and investigation into the worlds of science blossomed new generations and ideas. (more…)

  • Eric John – Part VIII

    The beginning of this story can be found here: Eric John

    Eric John had been missing two days now.

    The police had questioned Mrs Smithton, but she had slipped into a shock where she couldn’t seem to talk at all. She would just stare straight ahead at nothing. Once in a while a tear would form in her eye and run down her cheek. The cheery, helpful Mrs. Smithton that had helped so many children was gone, she might never make it back from this nightmare.

    The police also placed an APB and combed  areas between the Smithton’s house and the school but nothing turned up. They were already talking about the length of time the boy had been missing. They started wondering if Mr. Smithton had been part of a larger child sex slavery ring that they should be looking for.

    Also were questions of the boy’s father, who was he and did he just come back for the boy and the mother. The missing mother was a quandary – where was she and why hadn’t she come forward after hearing of the boys disappearance on the news.

    Children’s services were trying to stay out-of-the-way. This was now a police matter, they decided, and the best resources available were being used – they had other children to look after. (more…)

  • Eric John – Part II

    Part I can be found here: Eric John

    Wednesday morning Eric John woke up late. His mother had not knocked on the door with her regular greeting, his door was still shut, his room quiet. With trepidation he rose from his bed and headed for his mother’s room to check on her.

    Her bedroom door was still open from the night prior, her bed untouched.

    Now he was really worried, the whole situation was so alien to him and a monkey wrench into his life. He wasn’t sure what to do now, this was such an extraordinary circumstance he had never imagined his mother wouldn’t be here. (more…)

  • Got Trust?

    A few years back a psychologist helped me come to a conclusion on love – it has to be earned. No one gets a default feeling of love just because they are related to you, know you or were nice to you once in passing.

    I loved the idea of my mother – a woman who cared for me, loved me, made sure my needs were met. I didn’t really have that, but was stuck on an idea of obligation of loving her because she birthed me. Truthfully, she only loved me when she needed something – attention, pity, affection or my social security number when her credit wore through.

    Loving someone who doesn’t love you back, is using or manipulating you… not really a winning game. The same is true of trust and respect. (more…)