Here comes Prozac!

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This is the story of a woman with recurrent depression and the bad habit of not taking her Prozac for as long as she should. Anyone who has suffered from clinical depression knows how the cycle goes: you feel like caca, you take the meds, you start to feel normal, you stop taking the meds, you feel like caca and round and round we go. That pretty much sums up my life for the last… I don’t know, 18 years? I talk about my depression as openly as I talk about my diabetes; for me, they are both chronic.

My last bout of depression hit as the days started to become shorter and no one needs to be a rocket scientist to know that winter time doesn’t help much when you deal with any mental issues. My problem is that I ignore things for too long until one day everything explodes (or should I say implode?). My home life starts to suffer, my relationships start to suffer and then I walk like a person with a death wish. It really is a time bomb, especially when I have to take care of my diabetes and that is a 24/7 job; I can’t slack.

So when I saw my endocrinologist yesterday and he saw my latest A1C the first question he asked was “How’s your depression?” and I answered “Rampant!” — I’m grateful that I have a doctor who knows I’m much more than just the test results he gets from the lab. And he was more concerned about giving me a referral to a good psychiatrist than doing any medication adjustments. He knows I will not be able to effectively manage my diabetes if I have this huge black cloud over my head making me feel like all I want to do is die because I’m overwhelmed.

Waking up is the hardest part. I look at the day ahead like a haunted forest and I have no map. But I realize that in order to keep going, I just have to keep going. Kind of like Albert Einstein said, “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.” And even though I don’t want to keep going, I have the right people in my life to remind me all this is worth it and things will get better. I have people to keep me in check, I have people to make me laugh, I have people to keep me busy.

And then I have my husband, who understands what I’m going through and doesn’t judge even if I become this ubber-bitch sometimes. A husband that asks me to look at the ornaments on my Christmas tree and reminds me that we’re together, that I have people who love me and that there are people I love.

So if Prozac is what I need, Prozac is what I’ll take.

Occupy Whatever!

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I thought about this today after I read the news on human rights violations during the Wall Street occupation and how cities are utilizing public force in order to keep people from protesting in public places all over the country. The mayor of Oakland, the first person to utilize force (I believe) during this event, says the people in NYC are in a “private” park and not in public domain. I’m here thinking, is there anything in the constitution that says people have the right to public assembly? I know there is such statement in both Colombian and Canadian constitutions… so enlighten me here, please.

After I graduated high school, my parents sent me to a nice private university in Colombia. A year later I decided the distance was too much to bear and I went back to my hometown, applied to enroll in a public university (one of the best in the country) and that’s where I went for 5 years. Public schools in Colombia (and many Latin-American countries) are well known for student protests, sometimes marked by violence (I had my share of escaping gun shots back in 1994, but that’s a story for another day). Anyway, many days of classes were interrupted by protests, assemblies, students demanding a better education, better cafeteria lunches, better prices, etc. A semester even got cancelled, and everyone had to graduate months later than they were supposed to. You learn to live with it; you may not be part of it, but it becomes a second nature.

I remember very well one day when one of my classmates told me I should go to protest because they were going to increase the price of lunches in the public cafeteria. At that time I didn’t understand why I would have to risk someone hitting me in the head with a rock when I really didn’t eat lunch there. At 18-19 I wasn’t fully aware that there were people who could hardly pay for their food and who struggled every single day, travelling long distances, so they could go to school. If they had money to pay for transportation, they probably couldn’t afford lunch. And there I was, kinda privileged girl who MADE the choice to go to a public university, but who lived like she was going to a private one. My friend called me an oligarch, I laughed at him and continued studying for a test while the protest went on outside.

Did I ever make part of a protest? No, not really, except against the war in Montreal, on a very cold winter morning and against the FARC when we lived in KC. Would I attend a school protest now? ABSOLUTELY. Last week, thousands of students in Colombia went out on the streets after weeks of protests, to ask the government not to make an educational reform that would greatly affect public education and people who rely on it. They said what they wanted, they occupied the streets of the major cities in Colombia, nobody was attacked with rubber bullets, water hoses or tear gas. At the end of the day the president said “OK, we won’t do it.” It worked, the protest worked, and nobody took that right from the students, to express their needs and tell the government “DO SOMETHING ALREADY!”

As I have matured, I understand the needs of many people and the intricacies of this world a little bit better. I am not blind to suffering and injustice, and I’m not blind to the reasons behind the Occupy Wall Street movement. However, my husband and I have been blessed and shielded during the current economic crisis in the U.S. We both have our jobs, we can put food on our table with no problem, our house is not going on foreclosure, etc. So, it’s hard to have perspective; and while I would never apologize for not struggling, in my head it is VERY clear that the inequality of this country’s social classes is abysmal. There we have the very rich 1%, getting richer every day and the 99% having to conform to whatever the powerful say. Does it sound fair to you? IT ISN’T.

And now we have city governments telling their people they have no right to protest? That it is unsanitary to occupy a place for so long, that it is an inconvenience to have a bunch of “hippies” soiling the streets. Don’t they see that these “hippies” are well-educated people who are tired of getting doors slammed on their faces no matter how much they busted their asses getting prepared to face the world? Instead of throwing people out, why don’t city governments help the protesters to set up peaceful protests? After all, isn’t that a human right? Yes, a human right that is being violated… in the LAND OF THE FREE.

Discuss?

Dreams are Dreams

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John’s grandfather passed away last week. Nobody expects their loved ones to die, but this came as a huge surprise/shock to the whole family. It broke my heart to see them going through such pain because I know exactly what it feels like. My father died more than 10 years ago and sometimes I feel like it was just yesterday; not a single day goes by without my thinking of how much I miss him. But it was comforting to see how the members of a very close family were there for each other, doing the best they could in a very difficult moment.

My sister in law mentioned that she was afraid of dreaming any more because she had a dream about her grandpa dying and it became true. In moments like this, everyone starts speculating and I personally grew up afraid of ever seeing a black butterfly because apparently it means someone is going to die. I’ve never had a premonition, I’ve never had a bad dream come true. I don’t know how true these things are and I really haven’t discussed it with anyone. Was my sister in law’s dream premonition? Maybe… I’ve heard of such things.

My mother claims she had a dream just a few nights before my brother died. My dad and her were on top of a very big, lush tree and they were looking at each other thinking “What on earth?” Then many people started arriving to the site and they were all looking at them wondering. My mom says she remembers thinking “All these people here with us, and nobody can help us.” Days later my brother died and I’ve never seen so many people at a funeral (the cathedral of my hometown was full and there were people in the street as well). There was my mother’s dream, all those people… no one could help us. So many faces surrounding us, we felt alone.

My dreams are rather mundane; I don’t remember having that many revealing ones, but I’ve had some dreams with meaning. Like when I got divorced and I dreamed I was flying… I’m sure it meant something about freedom. But most of the time I just dream of people I know. My favorite dreams are the ones where I see my dad, all smiley and shiny, doing they day to day things we used to do. I never wake up sad, they uplift me. So I’m glad he comes to visit me in my dreams.

Self-Hate Pro

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I’ve been procrastinating on this post, mostly because I get sidetracked by other things, but also because it’s hard to admit some things in front of everybody. It all started when I saw that I was featured in the Roche Diabetes Heroes website as a torchbearer for diabetes advocacy. I read the words that described me (words I came up with myself), I saw the way I’m perceived in the Diabetes Online Community, I received many wonderful comments… yet I felt they were talking about someone else. There I was, being highlighted for bringing something good to the world and all I could think of was “God, I am so fat, I look so ugly, I don’t want anyone to see this video.” Hence I didn’t actually share it with a big number of people, but I also though “Wow, I’m on a big website of a big company and they’re saying awesome things about me.”

It was very hard to realize something good was happening to me and my self-hate came to knock me down and didn’t let me enjoy it. And that’s how it usually goes with everything I do. I’ve learned 1,001 ways to sabotage my life, my relationships, my opportunities, my HEALTH, etc. It’s quite interesting, if I may say so, to see how a person can turn everything that is good into something not so good so she can feel better about herself (yeah, exactly how it sounds). My self-hate has lead me to believe I’m not good, I’m not nice, I’m not smart, I’m not any of the things I actually am; and when someone who doesn’t like me (because it happens, we’re not perfect) comes to tell me I did something wrong I go “Right, you see? This is exactly the person I am.”

So, what am I doing to fight this thing? I really don’t know. I’ve tried it all, I’ve been in therapy since I was 18, I go up and down, I do well for a few months and then it’s back to square one. It’s like at some point I just gave up and I roll with the punches as they come and I convinced myself this is “normal.” I’ve gone so far into self-hate, it destroyed my previous marriage and now I can see it clearly, but at the same time I’m grateful that one door closed so another one is open and now I’m with someone who keeps me real and is not afraid to tell me “Hey, you’re hurting yourself and that hurts ME! STOP IT!” At some point I need to stop just listening and actually do something.

I know that big part of my self-esteem issues derive from the fact that I’m overweight, but that’s a story for another day. I can’t let this part of my life affect me so much and the best thing I can do right now is learning to accept myself EXACTLY the way I am without forgetting there is always room for improvement, especially in the health department. I have to open my eyes and bask in the love and affection other people show me. I have to learn to see myself the way other people see me. And I have to learn to stand in front of the mirror and say “Bea, you’re freaking awesome!” believing it 100%.