The grey, pink, & blue cotton candy coloured clouds cut & dotted the sky above me like ripples cut into the sand by the tide as I walked to Rona to pick up a few 40lb bags of wood pellets we use for cat litter. For years I’ve been purchasing it from @vanderveen.hay_pet.supply but being carless, that hasn’t been an option. I googled & found stores like @canadiantire & @ronaen carry it for a reasonable price, under $10 a bag, far less than the $25-30 or more price at pet stores for a 20lb bag.
But something else happened today that was positive overall but crippling at the same time. I don’t want to get into any kind of specifics about this but it is why I’ve spent time trying to cobble together what became a 38 page letter (2 pages are a works cited list) that details with supporting documentation my struggles with anxiety & major depression & how that has fed my binge eating junk for decades leading to severe physical health issues & a very unorganized home life. But one of the letter’s recipients was completely dismissive of it through their comments & questions in an important public forum. Their comments strongly suggested that I should not have even wasted time writing it. Ultimately I should take solace in the fact that the decision maker they were presenting to dismissed their comments & noted how it would have been difficult for me to deal effectively with things when I was being treated at the hospital daily for long chunks of last year - but what was said still stuck.
Of course this isn’t the first time I’ve had my persistent major depression dismissed by others, I’ve had former friends who have been dismissive of it as well as another individual in a position of authority who, as of last year, may have successfully blocked my ability to (how do I keep this vague?) get going with a career making art.
The rest of the day saw me slide into flight mode. @doordash_ca dropped off a dozen @timhortons donuts. I found a dozen oatmeal chocolate chip cookies & ate those. I had a few @briskcanada ice teas. By bedtime my fingers ached so badly, neuropathy dialled to 110%.
@bell_letstalk? Yea right. Terrence Real (@realterryreal), in his book I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT, writes: “We tend not to recognize depression in men because the disorder itself is seen as unmanly. Depression carries, to many, a double stain—the stigma of mental illness and also the stigma of “feminine” emotionality… Depression in men—a condition experienced as both shame-filled and shameful—goes largely unacknowledged and unrecognized both by the men who suffer and by those who surround them. And yet, the impact of this hidden condition is enormous.”
(230/365).