Day camping. The nature of depression, for us.
Well, Rusty and I went up to the campground and day-camped. Going up and coming back down it was *so beautiful*.
He started bringing up sex quite a bit, and also made some snide remark about my mother as compared to his mother. But, the mother-remark I defused pretty quickly, and he didn't persist. Also the hinting at sex, around camping - I told him this body's too old to return to some of the past things that he was talking about. He dropped the subject of sex then, and in fact on the way home he said he does think maybe we should start either day-camping or camping in a cabin. That's fine with me.
The rest of the day, was actually very pleasant - a lot better than I thought it would be. I was dreading going, but went only because I had agreed to it and didn't want to go back on my word. Now I'm glad I went. (And in all fairness, he didn't drop the camping thing altogether when I made it clear I was no longer interested in sex in the wild.)
I never know how much of his affection is real, and how much is a ploy for sex. What I do know, is that I will possibly never have the answer to that. I just know that he treats me worse when we're having sex, than when we're not, and I don't like to be treated worse, so that one's pretty easy to solve.
We stopped by Russell's (which is our old house) on the way out of town, to get some firewood and use the bathroom. No one was home, we just went in, and then I went on out to the back yard. I didn't expect Forest's reaction. We visit there often, but today for some reason the smells of home and the sounds and the sights just struck him wrong, and he started to cry, so I was sitting out in the back yard with tears running down my face, hoping Rusty wouldn't notice. (He didn't.)
I think it might have been a combination of, Russell's been talking about letting the house go; we know we can't get it back; and we were there with Rusty, in a very different way than we ever thought we'd be.
Anyway, we all survived it, and had a great time day-camping.
Last night I had a version of the house-dream again, though that wasn't the main 'plot' of the dream. In this dream, we as a family lived in both sides of a duplex - the family on one side, and the other side as like a guest house where I could go and live by myself if Rusty and I were fighting. The kids were little again, and there was a screened-in porch all around, that we used for a smoking porch. Ross (who was about seven or eight in the dream) lit up a cigarette in the house, and I told him, "take that nasty thing out to the smoking porch." In a real smart-alcky tone, he said, "Why is it nasty, when you and dad both smoke ?" I said, "It's nasty because we're your parents and we said so, now take it outside where it belongs!" Then he took his cigarette outside, and was very well behaved after that.
Then, in the dream, I was looking in the cabinets of the guest-side of the duplex....and there was so much extra food stocked up for an emergency. I thought, "Why don't we ever use this ? Some of this stuff the kids would enjoy, and some of it we run out of on the family side. But I never come over here and draw from this supply." Thinking now that the extra food supply might have symbolized love, or some kind of warm emotion, something that I keep all to myself instead of sharing it with the rest of the family.
(In real life, I've had to do that for a long time....or at least I did back in the old house. Never really got to that point, before we moved there....the bedroom was my sanctuary and I often shut everybody else out to get away from their demands, but in the house on Grape Street I started to stock up food and empty coffee cans and toilet paper, so I'd have what i needed and I wouldn't have to go out into the rest of the house.)
Oh. That reminds me now...while we were back at the old house this morning, Rage started to act up. He was in tears as well as Forest, but then he started complaining. It was Forest who cut him off, by telling him, "You had your part in us losing this place, it wasn't just mom and Rusty. Also, things were not as rosy as you remember. We often escaped out the bedroom window, and rented a motel room until we ran out of money, in order to let things cool down. The bucket we used for a step-stool is still on the ground outside the bedroom window. We couldn't do anything about the constant tension and undertone of violence, because if we did Mom would take back the house. Now at least we're in a place where we don't have to take *that*."
He was right. Things here at the apartment don't ever build up to the explosive point like they did back at the old house.
Also, at the old house, we felt more and more like we were already dead and we were rotting. Other than the seasons changing and Russell and Brittany, every day and every night were exactly the same. Rusty and Ross always had the same story to tell at the end of the day. We never could sleep, never could get on the computer and write.....we couldn't cook or keep house. We didn't have friends or any activities. And we dislike TV, so we fell into watching the same movies over and over again. (We went to AA, but it was the same meeting at the same place with the same people telling the same tales!) At one point, we thought we'd rather do anything than to be up at pre-dawn hours one more time, staring into the same corner over the TV and listening to those last repetitive strains of music at the end of "Shawshank Redemption." It was very weird, because of course we knew that we only needed to do something different....but we didn't have the energy. Seriously. That damn music would come on,a nd we didn't ahve enough energy to get to the remote in time to cut it off. We wound up watching the movie too much, because it was often the only thing that would relax us. When people talk about boredom and depression, I think they often don't realize that such small but serious minutae is what they're really talking about. That it's easy for someone who isn't depressed, to say, "Well why don't you watch a different movie tonight, and go somewhere different tomorrow ? And maybe paint that corner and put up some different curtains, for crying out loud....?"
We once had the same attitude, towards and acquaintance who was in a wheelchair. She had a fit when she missed a trip to the pet store because a wheel ame off the chiar again. We thought, Why don't you just do maintenance on the chair, and then this wouldn't happen ? But then we thought, wait a minute, that's pretty easy for us to say, sitting here able-bodied. If we had to deal with the constant dependence and stress and possibly boredom of being in a wheelchair, plus the hopelessness of knowing it would never get any better, would we have the energy left to perform repeat maintenance ? Or would we be trying desperately to take our mind off it every chance we got ? Personally, for me, I know the answer to that one. My energy would run out, I would *not* be doing what I "should", instead I would be doing every kind of mental gymnastics in the world in an attempt to save my own sanity. Because I would find it very hard to be in a wheelchair, in a world full of peole who walked upright.
Hope it's not wrong of me to say that - but that's me.
Anyway. Being that depressed, has taught me some stuff about judging what others can or can not do. Maybe some people really *won't* do for themselves. I don't know anything about that. What I do know about, is not having the inner resources left to do something that appears easy from the outside.
Writing all this, makes losing the house (our home - it was never just a house) look completely different. Yes, it really broke our hearts, and it still does. We know it's possible to love an object now, because we love that place. Still, that was what it took to break us out of that depressive ditch we were in. Now, we have some options that we simply couldn't reach out and take hold of while we were still in that house, in that situation.
He started bringing up sex quite a bit, and also made some snide remark about my mother as compared to his mother. But, the mother-remark I defused pretty quickly, and he didn't persist. Also the hinting at sex, around camping - I told him this body's too old to return to some of the past things that he was talking about. He dropped the subject of sex then, and in fact on the way home he said he does think maybe we should start either day-camping or camping in a cabin. That's fine with me.
The rest of the day, was actually very pleasant - a lot better than I thought it would be. I was dreading going, but went only because I had agreed to it and didn't want to go back on my word. Now I'm glad I went. (And in all fairness, he didn't drop the camping thing altogether when I made it clear I was no longer interested in sex in the wild.)
I never know how much of his affection is real, and how much is a ploy for sex. What I do know, is that I will possibly never have the answer to that. I just know that he treats me worse when we're having sex, than when we're not, and I don't like to be treated worse, so that one's pretty easy to solve.
We stopped by Russell's (which is our old house) on the way out of town, to get some firewood and use the bathroom. No one was home, we just went in, and then I went on out to the back yard. I didn't expect Forest's reaction. We visit there often, but today for some reason the smells of home and the sounds and the sights just struck him wrong, and he started to cry, so I was sitting out in the back yard with tears running down my face, hoping Rusty wouldn't notice. (He didn't.)
I think it might have been a combination of, Russell's been talking about letting the house go; we know we can't get it back; and we were there with Rusty, in a very different way than we ever thought we'd be.
Anyway, we all survived it, and had a great time day-camping.
Last night I had a version of the house-dream again, though that wasn't the main 'plot' of the dream. In this dream, we as a family lived in both sides of a duplex - the family on one side, and the other side as like a guest house where I could go and live by myself if Rusty and I were fighting. The kids were little again, and there was a screened-in porch all around, that we used for a smoking porch. Ross (who was about seven or eight in the dream) lit up a cigarette in the house, and I told him, "take that nasty thing out to the smoking porch." In a real smart-alcky tone, he said, "Why is it nasty, when you and dad both smoke ?" I said, "It's nasty because we're your parents and we said so, now take it outside where it belongs!" Then he took his cigarette outside, and was very well behaved after that.
Then, in the dream, I was looking in the cabinets of the guest-side of the duplex....and there was so much extra food stocked up for an emergency. I thought, "Why don't we ever use this ? Some of this stuff the kids would enjoy, and some of it we run out of on the family side. But I never come over here and draw from this supply." Thinking now that the extra food supply might have symbolized love, or some kind of warm emotion, something that I keep all to myself instead of sharing it with the rest of the family.
(In real life, I've had to do that for a long time....or at least I did back in the old house. Never really got to that point, before we moved there....the bedroom was my sanctuary and I often shut everybody else out to get away from their demands, but in the house on Grape Street I started to stock up food and empty coffee cans and toilet paper, so I'd have what i needed and I wouldn't have to go out into the rest of the house.)
Oh. That reminds me now...while we were back at the old house this morning, Rage started to act up. He was in tears as well as Forest, but then he started complaining. It was Forest who cut him off, by telling him, "You had your part in us losing this place, it wasn't just mom and Rusty. Also, things were not as rosy as you remember. We often escaped out the bedroom window, and rented a motel room until we ran out of money, in order to let things cool down. The bucket we used for a step-stool is still on the ground outside the bedroom window. We couldn't do anything about the constant tension and undertone of violence, because if we did Mom would take back the house. Now at least we're in a place where we don't have to take *that*."
He was right. Things here at the apartment don't ever build up to the explosive point like they did back at the old house.
Also, at the old house, we felt more and more like we were already dead and we were rotting. Other than the seasons changing and Russell and Brittany, every day and every night were exactly the same. Rusty and Ross always had the same story to tell at the end of the day. We never could sleep, never could get on the computer and write.....we couldn't cook or keep house. We didn't have friends or any activities. And we dislike TV, so we fell into watching the same movies over and over again. (We went to AA, but it was the same meeting at the same place with the same people telling the same tales!) At one point, we thought we'd rather do anything than to be up at pre-dawn hours one more time, staring into the same corner over the TV and listening to those last repetitive strains of music at the end of "Shawshank Redemption." It was very weird, because of course we knew that we only needed to do something different....but we didn't have the energy. Seriously. That damn music would come on,a nd we didn't ahve enough energy to get to the remote in time to cut it off. We wound up watching the movie too much, because it was often the only thing that would relax us. When people talk about boredom and depression, I think they often don't realize that such small but serious minutae is what they're really talking about. That it's easy for someone who isn't depressed, to say, "Well why don't you watch a different movie tonight, and go somewhere different tomorrow ? And maybe paint that corner and put up some different curtains, for crying out loud....?"
We once had the same attitude, towards and acquaintance who was in a wheelchair. She had a fit when she missed a trip to the pet store because a wheel ame off the chiar again. We thought, Why don't you just do maintenance on the chair, and then this wouldn't happen ? But then we thought, wait a minute, that's pretty easy for us to say, sitting here able-bodied. If we had to deal with the constant dependence and stress and possibly boredom of being in a wheelchair, plus the hopelessness of knowing it would never get any better, would we have the energy left to perform repeat maintenance ? Or would we be trying desperately to take our mind off it every chance we got ? Personally, for me, I know the answer to that one. My energy would run out, I would *not* be doing what I "should", instead I would be doing every kind of mental gymnastics in the world in an attempt to save my own sanity. Because I would find it very hard to be in a wheelchair, in a world full of peole who walked upright.
Hope it's not wrong of me to say that - but that's me.
Anyway. Being that depressed, has taught me some stuff about judging what others can or can not do. Maybe some people really *won't* do for themselves. I don't know anything about that. What I do know about, is not having the inner resources left to do something that appears easy from the outside.
Writing all this, makes losing the house (our home - it was never just a house) look completely different. Yes, it really broke our hearts, and it still does. We know it's possible to love an object now, because we love that place. Still, that was what it took to break us out of that depressive ditch we were in. Now, we have some options that we simply couldn't reach out and take hold of while we were still in that house, in that situation.