Mum drew up a nice long list of chores for me today, with a note saying that I could "prove" that I could handle managing the house in St Vincent if I did the chores promptly and "willingly". Obviously her understanding of depression has some serious gaps - chores are never done "willingly" by me.

Anyway, with nothing much else to distract me today, I eventually (at about 4pm) managed to start them. I started by using the raker thing (dunno what they're called, like a mower but instead of cutting it rakes the moss up) on the front lawn, and then got distracted (natch) by another job that I took upon myself: trimming the front lawn where it meets the road.

Christ, what a job! I had to use the edge of the spade to chop a line all the way along the edge of the grass, and then shovel up all the grass, moss, soil and gravel that had slowly spread into the road like a living carpet. All this had to be dumped round the back of the garage, down the steep slope to the river.

Anyway, I am absolutely knackered now, which makes a change. I hate pointless exercise, but this feels great; not only have a exterted myself, but I've achieved something.

Still didn't get half the things on the list done though - lol!

Labels: depression, family, personal

This page starts a long, step-by-step explanation of the causes, treatments etc. for depression. Although it's long-winded, full of ads, and trying to sell you an idea, the idea itself is quite interesting, and one I've not come across directly before.

Basically, the authour believes that depression is caused by negative thinking, which builds up in a part of the brain as stress. When we dream, the writer believes we re-live this stress as part of a natural process, but being depressed, we build up so much stress that we over-tax the brain and dream too much. Apparently, REM (dream) sleep is not actually restful, and thus we wake up exhausted. The process naturally has a negative feedback loop - the more exhausted we feel, the more depressed we are, and the more negative thoughts we build up for the next night's dreams.

This strikes me as interesting for a number of reasons. First of all, I've noticed that I dream a lot, and this has come up in therapy before. Secondly, I've subscribed for a long time to the theory that dreams are a sort of "garbage disposal" mechanism for the brain, getting rid of stuff that we don't need for everyday survival. This ties in with this theory in the sense that the writer is arguing that we are in effect building up to much garbage during depression.

I haven't actually got to the end of this piece (I did say it was long-winded!) so I'm interested to see what the authour recommends as treatment for this vicious cycle.

Labels: depression, personal

Labels: depression, personal

This short video is a clever look at the evolution we have seen over the last 15 years in our use of data. From the humble beginnings of text on paper, the authour takes us through digital text, the web, and on to the new paradigm that is Web 2.0. I'm not sure about the theme of "programming the Machine"; what stood out most for me was the idea of content and design being separated, allowing easy transfer of data between different sites and people, allowing for much more flexibility in presentation and usage.

I guess that a lot of these sites not only present the data to us in new and wonderful ways, but also track which data we find useful, fun or whatever, and thus create more data that explains/enhances the original data. But talking about feeding "the Machine" really doesn't add anything to the debate.

Labels: links

No energy today. Got up at about 10.30 with the prospect of doing the hoovering downstairs to motivate me... Mum sent me an email last night complaining about how I had left some washing up for her to do, how she had been working all day etc. etc. and I didn't care about her, I was hiding behind my depression, and because I don't talk to her about "how I feel" how is she to help me?

Problem is, Mum creates so much work for herself; she keeps the house as if she had a coterie of servants to do all the work, but she doesn't. She insists on exact mealtimes, and even though there are just two of us, she wants to have a full-blown sit-down dinner once a day. She can't see that she is getting too old to cling to standards of housekeeping that went out 50 years ago.

The other problem is that she can't do something for anyone without expecting some sort of payback, and she forces food on people and then gets upset when there isn't some grand gesture of gratitude in return. As Aunty Pat pointed out the other day to me, for Mum, food is currency. I'd agree with that, and add that the exchange rate is way too high for my liking.

This is going to be a problem if I have Angel down here to stay - she's on holiday from next week - as Mum will insist that I take full responsibility for looking after her, while at the same time expecting us to attend her meals and expecting Angel to behave, well, like an angel. It just ain't gonna happen. Angel has a healthy disrespect for authority, especially the kind that doesn't hold itself accountable. Looks like I might have to go up to London sometime, maybe spend a couple of days at Nick's if I can, and take Angel out for a day in town.

Labels: depression, family, personal

An interesting article, it's a shame I missed this program. Nick and I both read a book by Michael Crichton called "State of Fear" which also tries to debunk global warming (specifically, the link between CO2 emissions and rise in sea level), and we were both impressed by the huge bibliography he had to back up the claims he'd made in the novel. I've also seen a bit of "An Inconvenient Truth" and agree with the Firetop author's findings about that film. A lot of the time, Gore is simply poking fun at the Republican administration's attempts to address global warming, which, no surprise, are laughable.

So my stance is still that of the skeptic.

Labels: links

For the last 6 months or so I've been off the radar. Apart from helping Mum around the house with chores and such, I've been sleeping, playing games, reading and not much else. I've had Google Talk turned off, and haven't made much effort to keep in touch with anyone except Angel. Why? I can't say for sure; I wanted to crawl into my shell for a while, whether as a result of leaving NewsNow, seeing my Dad, or something else.

I've kept telling myself to try and get on with stuff, as I always do. I've been meaning to get driving lessons for ages. I've been meaning to get this site up and running. I never really meant to lose touch with so many friends, but again my desire to contact people has never developed into action.

The only thing I have managed to do is see a doctor about my depression, and I had a few sessions with a nice lady who practices locally and does a counselling service for the clinic. I also got back on the pills - one called Citalopram this time - although I've not seen any results yet.

I've just come back from 3 weeks in St Vincent with Mum. She was going out anyway, and invited me along. My cousin Roger was also out there with Anneke his wife, and actually I spent a lot more time with them than I did with Mum. He manages the land that his Mum (my Auntie Pat) owns, and has built himself a house on the top of the hill overlooking the beach at Indian Bay. A fantastic spot, and a goldmine, although I don't think he's ever going to sell the place. I'll write more about the trip later.

I guess there's a lot to fill this site with, and I hope I'll have the discipline to keep it going. It'll be a nice place for friends to come to keep up with stuff, and I hope it'll encourage me to keep in touch more.

Labels: depression, personal

Now that Google has taken over Blogger, my old blog seems to have been lost in transit, and probably a good thing too as it was just full of links to articles and sites of interest. I'm hoping that I can actually make this new blog something more personal and creative. At the moment I'm just trying out a new template, so this first post is just to help me in the testing phase.

Labels: personal, site