Mood:
coolTopic: mental health
Have had a rough couple of days.
Friday I saw my therapist and mentioned to her that I've been feeling depressed. I told her that the move to Brattleboro still is a problem, that I have no friends and haven't yet settled into the Community. I'm afraid to walk down the street, it is a quiet, low grade fear, and some days it stops me and some days it doesn't. This place, even after a year, still isn't familiar and "safe".
Then Friday evening the tears started comming and they kept on comming through Saturday. Mike said, "I wish you could take a small canvass and just paint your feelings out." I had to tell him that the depression was an emptiness, a lack of completion. It seems when I am depressed that I don't like myself and I don't like my life. I feel like a waste. A schizophrenic waste of a human being.
A number of things could have triggered the depression. The stressful trip to San Francisco. Seeing the life of my sister there or the pictures of the wedding afterwords. She is thin and pretty (and happy) and I look fat. There is the change of the season with the days getting shorting and darkness creeping forward. I just submitted an article for "Schizophrenia Bullitain" and while that should make me feel happy all it does is make me feel anxitious about it being accepted and horribly exposed for the world to see how defective I am. Money is a worry, I wish my husband were more ambitious or at least practical. We have nothing for retirement and he isn't trying to get the book he's written published or write a new one. If we have any safe financial future the weight is all on me to make it happen. I have to write a book or break into a new style that will sell paintings.
At last there is the strange case of the painting I am currently working on. It is wrong and it is hopefull all at once. I've wanted to take a knife and slash it. It is large, 36" x 48". And it is pure Geodone style. A new style going back to the eirie primitive style of Risperdal. I take risks that leave me very frightened. It is more impule driven, painted on the fly. I'm going to finish it even though I fear it is a waste of paint because there is so much experimentation going on that I can't waste this novel experience of using paint differently. My husband is enthusiatic. My normal process of painting involves a lot of planning and slow use of tiny brushes. Now I use large brushes and like in jazz music, I make it up as I go along. The name of the painting is "The Last Day of Pompeii". You know, when the volcanoe blew up and killed a lot of people in Roman times.
I've increased my Prozac from 20mg to 40mg in the morning. Have to call my therapist on Tuesday and o.k. the switch.
