The Victorian Strolls happened again this year. Please note the lack of enthusiasm. My spirit is weary.
I did the Saratoga Victorian Streetwalk with my family on Thursday, November 30th. The planners brought back the magical window ballerinas, in even greater numbers than last year.
TMS had a way of teasing out my problems. I had been blaming my daily naps on rheumatoid arthritis, but it turns out a lot of it was depression. I do still have to take naps several times a week, but it is no longer a daily obligation. I never would have guessed depression was playing such a significant role in my full body shutdowns, although looking back, it does make sense.
TMS took care of the depression. My goofiness is back. I had kind of forgotten about it? This Laura laughs and is weird and silly. (I told you I wasn’t afraid of her.) On the other hand, I’m feeling my feelings all the time now.
Several years after that, I posted similar sentiments. We struggled to get a tree in a timely fashion, which meant we had to drive from tree farm to tree farm only to find all the U-cut trees sold out and the precut pickings slim. It was hard to get the holiday foods made. One year we never decorated the tree at all.
This summer I got TMS and blasted the depression out of my brain, although I hated every second of it. I’m pretty sure this is the first Christmas I haven’t been depressed in my entire adult life.
My emotional cell membrane is vapor-thin these days. Everything makes me cry. Mainly the pain in the world, and there is a whole lot of that.
It feels like every interaction is a reminder of how difficult life is. Positive interactions make me cry because I can’t take kindness for granted anymore. Negative interactions make me cry, often because it’s frustrating when seemingly simple things are complicated because of rigid thinking or bureaucracy or both.
I know I get a bit obsessive about these detours into the Possible Magic Pill That Will Fix All My Problems (all duds long term, for the TLDR), but I’m going to stick my head back in here for a moment and finish documenting the old TMS journey, for myself and for anyone else who is looking for accounts of the treatment that are somewhere between rainbows/unicorns and YOU RUINED MY LIFE.
