Way Off Topic: Can't Sleep

I can relate. my job takes me across 9 time zones every 28 days. so for a week to 10 days every month dealing with jet lag it sucks staring at the ceiling at 2am wide awake

I went and saw my doctor a few months ago and got some pills for my depression. He told me all about the side effects like dry mouth and all sorts of other minor things. He completely failed to mention that it would muck up my sex drive completely and also I would feel like I was walking 5 feet behind myself. I run heavy machinery so this was just plain dangerous.  When I checked on the net they were listed as common side effects. I went back and he changed me to a different drug but that one made me feel like I was about to pass out every time I got out of a chair or stood up quickly. Again he failed to mention that it was a side effect. In the end I gave up and flushed the lot. The treatment was worse than the illness. Waking up at two in the morning most nights and thinking about things you can't fix is just the pits. I seem to wake up every two hours most nights but two in the morning is guaranteed .

I can always tell how my depression is going by monitoring my ukulele practice. When it is really bad I don't pick up the uke much. Writing songs, exercise and forcing myself to practice ukulele seems to help but I really have to be hard on myself almost force myself to do it when things are bad.

Used to play WOW as well but gave up as I decided that I needed to focus on my playing music and levelling five 85th level toons up to 90 was going to take too much time and I would be finished just in time for the next expansion to come out.

Feel free to vent. It seems to help me when I do it. Too many people treat depression as a dirty word and a label. Always remember you are not alone. It is amazing how many people will come out of the closet and tell you of their similar experiences. By mentioning it first you help make it ok for them to share as well.

It's stupid. We are willing to talk about a cold or even cancer but dementia or depression are seen as taboo. They will stay that way unless we get out there and talk about it. The New Zealand Government is running a programme to bring it more into the open with adds on TV and a website. John Kerwin is a famous and very successful rugby player and is quite open about his depression and, while I'm not a huge rugby fan, I have a huge amount of respect for someone who puts themselves out there.

There is a big push here to show mental illness as something not to be scared of. If the statistics in the second add are right it is a problem for 1 person in 5. That puts it up there with cancer.

Have a look at this http://www.depression.org.nz/?gclid=CP7 … vQodQ1sCyg

This advert is slightly older, but the replacement advert is not available on youtube yet. I realize most of the people mentioned will be unknown to you but all of them are very special people for a lot of Kiwis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQk8a3-QYKU

Well, right now it is making me so jittery I can thread a running sewing machine needle.

I've only been on it for a week, Peter.

beestie, thank you. It's the way I have felt for a very long time, and it is why I write my blog. I will take a look at your link. Thanks for that as well, my friend.

Bill

Depression is really anger,thats what I was told.

BGD I am a double naught spy. that will tell your age if you get that one. I work in the oil biddness as we say in Texas

im afraid granny is no longer with us. I spent 30 years in the gulf of Mexico before I took this assignment and right now the boom has gone bust

Hell, Doug,

I've skydived; I've ridden cross country on my Trek1000 (VERY cheap road bike at $700.00) twice and twice almost got killed by 18 wheelers; helped run a guy by the name of Newt Gingrich for State Representative and my best friend for Mayor of our hometown. I've addressed United States Senators about the need for funds for Alzheimer's Research and been here and there.

AT 65, the only thing left I wanna do is smoke some cigarettes. Most of my career as a respiratory therapist, I've preached against smoking, but then I put on the skids when a guy who couldn't get the air out of his lungs, and was about to be put on a ventilator by me, asked to go out for one last cigarette. I let him. He came back got in bed and promptly went into respiratory arrest. I Put a tube down his trachea (hard to see due to the black tar residue), connected him to the vent, but he had smoked too long, and we just couldn't help him. 1990, this was.

Long story short, the family sued the hospital, the doctor and last but not least, me. It was settled out of court, and, after being called onto the carpet by the hospital board and being allowed to explain, I kept my job. One board member, an obvious smoker, clapped me on the shoulder and whispered, "If I'm ever that way, please let me smoke that one last one."

So since that time, until the rest of my career which almost ended in the death of another patient which could have been caused by me due to the dementia, I have promised myself never to tell another adult not to smoke again. Kids under 18? Different story.

People ask me, "But what about the uneducated adults, Bill?"

What "uneducated" adults? Those in the deep Brazilian jungles? Those on the Moon? Every adult by now knows it hurts your body to inhale nicotine and tar. What am I  going to teach them? I think I know how hard it must be to come off of those things, but I refuse to insult someone's intelligence by parroting. "Ya know those things are gonna kill ya!" They know it.

So. Back to the meds, right? Doug my friend, after all of that, some little pill's not going to scare me. Hell, get me off this screwed up planet before I die not being able to get my breath. I'd rather float away as a wisp of air than to endure what we on this poor Earth have done to our home.

Yeah! I wanna smoke when I get close, so I can get that "high" everyone talks about, and then I wanna take LSD and explore that. As long as I am a provider for my sweet wife and cat, you can count on me NOT to do that, but one day, near the end, I might.

Now Doug! What did you just do?????

You caused me to write an autobiography when all I wanted to do was respond to your response!;)

Sorry for the length, everyone, but I couldn't stop 'em (fingers and brain) this time.

Love Y'all

Bill