Feeling Truly Good for the First Time in Years

Well, the St. John’s Wort and surcease of bad behavior from Cat have combined to make me feel better than I have in easily years!

This can’t be overstated. I’m stunned at how much better I feel! Cat really did have me fucked over in a bad way. She wore me down terribly. And yes, I am blaming her because I am reacting to her behavior. She’s been telling me during her down periods (which is over half the time we’ve been living here) that she’s ready to “give up” or “walk away” or “kill herself” because she had a bad day at work or got frustrated that something broke or something. Which, for me, dependent upon her, registers as a direct threat! I’ve explained and explained until I’m blue in the face that she triggers panic attacks when she keeps doing that, but she kept doing it.

Now that she’s stopped– oh my gawd!! The difference! I’m not walking on eggshells waiting to set off a bomb!

The St. John’s Wort is doing it’s job as well. I’m sleeping MUCH better and all the suicidal thoughts are GONE.

I prefer SJW to Prozac or other prescribed medications because it doesn’t kill my joy and sex drive. I can feel happy, not just gray and “not sad” which is what western mood meds tend to do, so I understand the reluctance to take them (by Cat or other people). But a newer or milder depression is better treated with high quality St. John’s Wort anyway, and it’s proscribed in Europe for those conditions with good reason. The only real side effect is that you’re more likely to get sun burns or a rash from the sun. So, shade and sunscreen! I’m not a sun lover anyways (natural red head!) so this Goth is fine with that!

Today I woke up, looked out the window at the spring flowering trees in our yard and it was all just so PRETTY! I feel… truly good. It’s very weird to feel so wonderful after such a long time without it. I think I was teetering on the brink of depression for the last year and a half after the whole thing went down with Erica coming to stay with us and then dealing with my mother. My sister didn’t do that, though– dealing with Mumsie’s mountains of trash and realizing I had abandoned my sister to live in my mother’s trash pile with her was what did me in…

‘Cuz see– I fucked up. I fucked up big-time!

I didn’t have to face that reality for 20 years– but my mother’s fall and broken bones required that I get involved again (and was allowed to due to my Aunt Dora’s needing help desperately enough to accept me back into the family.)

THAT was genuine guilt, as well as shame, for walking away from my autistic and intellectually disabled sister for far too long. I didn’t have a lot of power, but what I had wasn’t used when it could have been. I was stuck not knowing what to do, and my mother wasn’t going to relent and so I was back to fighting with her all over again. And dealing with things that overwhelm me easily like governmental bureaucracies didn’t help at all!

Cat’s bullshit negativity and untreated or undertreated depression was too much on top of my ongoing and unsolvable family crisis. When I asked her to back off of saying things that triggered panic attacks, she would half try and then just pound on me relentlessly because she thinks that she should have the right to say and do what she wants even if it hurts other people! Talk about entitled!

So, I started to sink into depression at the same time I was ripping apart at the seams from PTSD panic. My anxiety was so bad that almost every conversation with Cat ended with me having grinding stomach aches along with shaking that wouldn’t stop for over an hour after we talked.

It’s only been 3 scant weeks! But the turn around in my life is drastic.

Clearly, I need to take SJW when I start to feel overwhelmed and can’t feel good at all anymore.

Clearly, I need to call Cat on her shit and not allow her to run over me out of fear of having no where else to go anymore either!

Lesson learned!

I forgot what “okay” felt like. That means this has been a problem for a while. But no more. I’ve paid enough. Time to insist upon better.