Third of a Lifetime

I mean, for me, personally. When I was a kid, I always welcomed the start of school as a marker for new adventures, new (non-life threatening) challenges, and new hope. I created ways to become increasingly lost in my studies, as a means of not dealing with my particular hell-for-a-childhood reality. Starting school was a legitimate avenue of escape after surviving some especially treacherous summers.

I am once again on the precipice of exploring myself in very public places. The Internet has changed dramatically in the last five years, both in scope and function. When I began The Survivors Forum on CompuServe 10+ years ago, it was pretty much the only game in town for a person with little computer expertize to set up a forum online. And it came with all manner of strings and compromises. (Not to mention, no real control over its fate: AOL, sadly, pulled the plug on The Survivors Forum around 2000.)

If I were looking to go that route again, wow! The difference is stunning. Now anyone can set up their own “social network” at places like Ning. And it’s free!

What I am more focused on this time around is developing my writing, which is where it all began as a child. I want to participate fully in the online experience, but leave time and head room to finish all the writing projects that have bounced around in my head for 10 years. It’s a fine line. I write better in an environment where I can bounce ideas off of people, but I also get majorly distracted in that environment.

I’ve got a lot of technical process to catch up on. (Like learning how to use ACT! software; getting in the swing of Facebook and Twitter, all that stuff, on top of writing daily.) But the “start of school” has once again excited me, this time for all the right reasons.

As with just about everything in me now, I am searching for a balance.

You know, I spent most of my life trying to not eat, and feeling guilty and self-loathing when I did anyway, or using food as a control device — when it’s not controlling me — or actively not caring if I was committing slow suicide and eating whatever I damned well felt like eating. Me and food go way back.

As I mentioned in Dancing for Normal, my entire relationship with food changed radically when I decided to get serious about my Type 2 diabetes management. I eat according to my meter, I focus on protein and complex carbs, and lately my blood sugar numbers are actually getting too low for comfort. Like, out of the blue, a 58 yesterday, my all time (so far, hopefully the last time) low.

My endocrinologist and I are recalibrating the dosages of my diabetes meds. That sounded fairly uncomplicated when I saw her a few weeks ago. Just cut one pill in half and call her in four weeks. I know the dosage I was taking is too much, but cutting the pill in half sometimes results in a number too high. Depending on how carby my meal is, how stressed I am, how not ill I am. Sometimes there is no correlation whatsoever.

I’m really not interested in going back to numbers in the 120s. (80-100 is “normal range” for fasting blood sugar.) But when I get down to 58, for the first time in my life I’m realizing that I must eat. Literally, it’s medicinal, and not optional. Don’t treat the low, and you can pass out and not wake up again.

Doesn’t diabetes suck? When I have a green light — actually, a mandate — to eat something carby to treat a low, I really don’t want it now. Such rich perverse irony.

After years of scribbling URLs, special offer codes, and phone numbers on scraps of paper and backs of envelopes, then forgetting where I put them, I graduated to creating a draft in Gmail, which at least made a centralized dumping area. Unfortunately I now have almost 400 drafts.

I have capitulated and dragged myself into the 21st century by purchasing ACT! 2009 contact manager software, and the No Stress Tech Guide To ACT! 2009. I hope the “no stress” claim is not just hype. (New software always freaks me out to a greater degree than most “new” anything else. A very patient techie hubby is a must.) I am determined to free myself from the tyranny of disorganization. Really.

We wouldn’t put up with it if a stranger entered our home and demanded all of our time, our energy, our hope. But that’s the net effect of depression. It robs both you and the ones who love you. It takes what you cherish and makes it seem worthless. And it digs in its heels, fighting every step you make to try and rid your life of it.

Over the years I’ve tried to vanquish depression in so many ways. Sometimes it works, sometimes … not so much. I’ve done depression both on and off of prescription anti-depressants. (Although I never tried them until my father died in 2000, which was a weird source of pride to me before then.) Maybe it’s just me, but I think all those years on Wellbutrin I could have taken a placebo and never known the difference. I wanted it to work, which may be some of why it did.

I know DIDers who are on (plural) anti-depressants, and it’s hard to get a read on whether they really work within a DID framework or not. For chemically based depression, perhaps — although DIDers are notorious for different alters presenting with different brain chemistry and PET Scans. Plus, I had at least one alter whose mission in life was to confuse me about whether or not I had actually taken my pills, so I know I missed some doses.

What I know works, from experience, is to move outside of my “depression radius”. It’s like a blast crater when it hits, rippling outwards. It feels all-encompassing, and as if I am a leaf blowing on the wind, without control or discernible direction. It takes time and tremendous determination to crawl outside of that crater, but that’s always my goal. Anti-depressants probably help me to focus on tasks that are do-able and helpful, when I would otherwise zone out. (The tasks are not always “productive”, as that’s a kind of setup for me. But helpful is good.) If I can step outside of the blast zone, I can turn myself around.

I went off anti-depressants six months ago, because I was feeling more energy and enthusiasm than I had in a long time. The meds did their job, as far as I know, and I was ready to move on.

And take my life back.

I am a person who is great at making lists, but not so great at doing something with the items on my list.

Having just discovered Mashable a few days ago, I am delighted that Jordan English Gross is already inside my head with his new article, 5 Steps to Getting Unstuck and Pursuing Your Goals.

Using online resources, he outlines 5 steps to go from thinking about a big picture goal, to actualizing it, and to eventually paying it forward by sharing your process and results online.

I like how he thinks. He’s showcasing online resources that I might not have used in the same ways he does. I’m going to give his methodology a test drive, and report back how it performed.

The latest issue of DiaTribe – research and product news for people with diabetes reports that:

Syringe and pen needle maker Becton, Dickinson and Company . . . pledged to donate five million insulin syringes and pen needles through Direct Relief, a nonprofit humanitarian medical relief organization, to over 1,000 community health centers and free clinic partners nationwide. This announcement follows Eli Lilly’s decision to broaden income eligibility for their patient assistance programs from qualifying income at or less than 200 percent to at or less than 300 percent of the US Federal Poverty Level (i.e., $44,000 or less for a family of two) . . . . BD products will be available at participating clinics beginning August 10, 2009. The company has set up a website at www.bd.com/diabetesdonation. Patients who would like to see if they quality for the Lilly program, should visit www.lilly.com/responsibility/programs.

If you’re diabetic, or care for one, DiaTribe is an excellent — and free — source of the latest research, drugs and drug trials, and gadgets, as well as online resources.