On Depression

For past several weeks, I’ve been severely depressed.  I usually don’t talk about myself that much on my blog, mostly because nobody really cares that much, but I am this time to explain why my blog entries have been sparse in the past several weeks.

I’ve been working as a contractor for the several months.  It was originally supposed to be a six month to permanent position but that contract has been extended by about a month.  I’m not complaining too much about that, it’s just unusual.  In the back of my head, I am paranoid that this means I’m going to be unemployed soon.

It may be true.  I could end up losing this job instead of getting converted to permanent.  But that wouldn’t be a terrible turn of events really.  I would just have to go through the interview process all over again.  And I would find a job one way or another.

But I doubt any of that has to do with my depression.  I mean, sure, such situations would be a case for stress but I think that depression is just something that hits us and we amplify all the bad things in our life as a result.

I know that if I talked to a professional about this, they would probably recommend drugs.  I have no interest in taking drugs to make me feel better about myself.  It’s a crutch I don’t with to have.

Instead, I just have to ride this out and hopefully, things will get more stable in my life later on.  For the time being, however, I have to just live with these feelings and cope as best I can.

I wonder if depression isn’t caused by anything and that people who are chronically depressed are simply more prone to it.  What I mean is, I wonder if there isn’t something we can point to in order to explain or rationalize how we feel.  We know that we shouldn’t feel this way, but we can’t help it.

So we blame external factors we can’t control.  Job security, loss of loved ones, familial stress, childhood trauma, etc.  We know that there’s something wrong with how we feel but we make up excuses for it.

Perhaps depression is merely a spiritual attack.  From what I understand, science has yet to properly map brain activity associated with depression.  So the only thing left, for the time being, is that some people’s brains are merely wired to have problems with depression.

And the Enemies of God exploit this weakness to make people ineffectual.  Depressed people can spiral in very bad ways.  Their relationships fall apart, their dietary habit suffer greatly, and they become less than productive. 

Maybe that’s why the Corporatist Elite push anti-depressant medications.  They wish for people to be happy, dumb consumers and depressed people are a drag on society overall.

Anyway, for the time being, I have to ride this out.  I do feel that I am starting to come out of it, but I am not going to get optimistic about it.  After all, I could wake up tomorrow and feel like utter crap again.

Lessons From my Sudden Unemployment

I have posted in over a month now and there is a good reason for that.

Back at the end of June, my boss called me into an HR office and told me that the team was being restructured and I wasn’t on it.  I was given a full paycheck for the last half of June, a four week severance, and about 13 days of unused vacation income.  Also, I was considered “re-hirable” so I suppose it wasn’t anything I’ve done on Twitter or Facebook.

But it was totally unexpected and left me with no job and a family to take care of.

And so, I was left unemployed for the month of July.  I’m a software developer by trade and I live in the DC Metro area, so I should be able to find a new job, right?

For the first couple of weeks, I was dealing with the 4th of July vacation fallout.  Basically, I was laid off on the biggest vacation period of the year.  So that meant I was stuck talking with recruiters for two weeks while trying to set up in-person interviews.

Eventually, I was able to secure a job offer after nine in-person interviews and about a dozen phone interviews.

So what did I learn?

For one thing, I need to find alternative forms of income, which I can do in my spare time without disrupting my normal daily routines.  This is not to replace my regular job but simply to supplement my existing income and not put me in desperation mode.  I have a good amount of savings to hold me over for a while, but I hate having to tap it, especially because I am also hoping to have enough savings to buy a house someday.

So I’m going to try a few new things, like Twitch, or maybe re-monetize my blog.  Or perhaps I’ll just find another form of income entirely.  Anyway, I’ll try and figure something out in the next several months.

Secondly, even if you’re in high demand, that doesn’t mean you will easily find a replacement job.  In many cases, I found that I didn’t have exactly what people were looking for.  There were plenty of people who could easily get the job over me because they had skills oriented toward what the employer wanted or who would work for less.

Being in high demand means you are also highly replaceable apparently.

Third, most recruiters aren’t going to find you a job.  I think I wasted a lot of time talking with recruiters.  I did get my current job through a recruiter but he was extremely aggressive and sales-oriented.  Find a recruiter who is willing to push you through some hoops.  In this case, he was able to bypass all the useless phone interviews and cut straight to the in-person interview.

So while recruiters can be useful, you may be better off just applying at various places directly unless you can find a particularly aggressive recruiter.

Lastly, never assume that your job is secure.  I fully expected to still be working for that last company for several years, instead I was dumped to curve the instant budget cuts had to be made (I’m assuming that’s what happened, the details were fuzzy from their end).

God-willing, I will be able to keep this current job for a few years, but I should keep my eyes open for better opportunities as nothing is a guarantee anymore.  The days of working for a company for most of your life are gone.

For some reason, we are considered replaceable cogs even though we are highly skilled workers these days.  That probably doesn’t bode well for the future.

Dealing With The Fallout

I haven’t posted much in a while.  There is a good reason for this.  I’ve been on bereavement leave for the past couple of weeks.

My father-in-law passed away in sleep after the machines that were keeping him alive were pulled.  It didn’t take long for him to draw his final breath.  Merely 23 minutes once his ventilator was pulled out of him.

The sad fact is, we’ll never know what killed him.  He was suffering from some kind of spinal disease but whether it was bacterial, cancer, or genetic, we won’t know.  This is because his condition baffled doctors and when he finally got to a good hospital that probably could have diagnosed him, it was too late.

And then my mother-in-law decided, for some unknown reason, didn’t opt for an autopsy.

My mother-in-law is more than likely a borderline.  This means that everyone exists as an extension of her in her mind.

But we all were respectful of her and her loss.  Because good people put aside their personal shit to honor their loved ones.  Yes, it makes for a boring movie.  But that’s real life.

My employer offers a European-style package of paid leave.  In my case, immediate family members who die provide me with two weeks of paid leave.  So I took it because of the travel and because of the fallout after my father-in-law’s death.

And so we have it.  My mother-in-law had knee-replacement surgery last month and is still in recovery.  Now she is alone and unable to leave her home without help from others.  And normally, I’d feel deep pity for a woman in that situation.

But then she insists on driving long before she has recovered.  She is insisting on coming up to visit my wife and my family for Easter and only by driving.  This is despite the fact that she could easily take a bus, a train, or have a friend give her a right.

I don’t know how this ends, but I hope it doesn’t end with her harming herself or others because of her overwhelming emotions.

I’m not sure what to do.  I suppose I just have to let this play out.  We’ve asked her to take the alternatives and yet she seems to be hell-bent on driving here in spite of physical disability.

I can only hope that this won’t end up with me taking another two weeks off.

Prayer in a Desperate Time

Seeing him struggle and cry was a huge shocker for me.  I barely was coherent to read the paperwork the nurse thrust in front of me and sign.  It bothered me that I had to fill out all this paperwork as my newborn son was just a few feet away struggling to live in a new environment.

The emergency Cesarean at 28 weeks was successful.  My wife was recovering in her hospital room.  My son was getting all the treatment he required.  God-willing, he would live for the next few days.  I knew that each day he lived meant that he was more likely to survive this.  And if he thrived afterwards, all the better.

Then the ventilator had to be put in him.  Apparently his lungs weren’t as developed as doctors had hoped.  After visiting him one more time, sedated with needles going everywhere and a tube down his throat, I went home.  My other son was with his grandparents and I was alone.

I did the only thing I could: I prayed.  I prayed to the God of the living that he would live.  He was violently ripped too early from his mother’s womb in order to save his life and I prayed that this would not be in vain.  I prayed that his lungs would develop and heal, his kidneys would work as expected, and everything else would be operating as they should.

And God answered those prayers in the affirmative.  After a day and half, he was back on the SiPAP device, which he would have for four weeks.  Soon, all the needles were removed and he was left with a SiPAP, a feeding tube, and some monitors for his vitals.

When we transferred him to a closer hospital, a doctor who worked at both mentioned that he was a miracle baby.

I confess that the miracle was God’s alone.  The God of the living, of the resurrection of the dead, and of creation itself saw fit to ensure that my son now lives.

Of all the people, of all the things He could concern Himself with, He breathed life into my son and ensured that he did not die.

I know that God doesn’t always intervene in our lives but I tell you it doesn’t hurt to ask.  I am not a deeply prayerful man myself.  I try to do it regularly but I am more inclined to read the Bible and leave it at that.

But when I prayed in my desperate hours, He answered.  And while things haven’t worked out exactly as I have wanted, my son lives.

As does His.

My Personal Exorcism

I was in college at the time and meeting with one of the dozens of Christian groups on campus.  I was fresh out of mission work and was feeling like I was the best guy in the damn room.

But something was aching at me.  Nobody cared that I’d been to Africa and helped out poor people in the name of Jesus.  Shouldn’t I get some kind of acknowledgement?

Something deeper though gnawed on me.  I knew that I was taking pride in something that deserved to be a footnote in my life.

And then the resentment came.  It was strong and palpable and I hated it but hated the people around me even more.

And I knew it was wrong.

One night I cried out to God to take it all away from me.

And then I fell asleep.

In the middle of the night my lips were chapped.  And something was off.  You know how you get uncomfortable sometimes and you’re not sure why?  It was kind of like that, except stranger.

And then a miracle happened.  My pride, my resentment, just left my body.  It was like a breath leaving my mouth, but it wasn’t my breath.  To be honest, I’m not sure exactly what it was, but after it was gone, my pride and resentment left me.

I can only suspect that it was a spirit of some kind, for lack of a better explanation.  Nobody really witnessed it at the time (my roommate was asleep at the time).  So I have no proof beyond my own story.

There are times when I have my doubts about God and the Christian meaning of life.  I wonder if God is even there at all.

But then I remember incidents like this and I realize that He is there.  He may not be exactly as modern Christians describe Him, but there is something.

And my faith is restored.

About My Absence

I’ve had a pretty crazy couple of weeks.

First of all, I had to re-release the latest version of our product without the help of half of my co-workers who are on vacation.  So I ended up working long hours on weekdays and some over the holiday weekend.

While this was stressful, there was more going on at home.  I had contacted my landlord about the old stove, saying it needed to be replaced.  So she set up it up to be delivered.  Along with a new dishwasher.

A contractor came to unhook the appliances and turn off the water, because the dishwater hose would leak, and said he would be back the next day to hook everything up.  Unfortunately, the delivery people didn’t have the full address and because I missed their call, they drove off.

The contractor hooked the old stuff back up the next day but it took another two weeks before the new appliances could be delivered on a day when both the contractor and the delivery people could meet their schedule.

But the microwave needed a separate outlet, which required an electrician.  The outlet is set up and our contractor will be back to hook up the microwave.

On the day that our new appliances came, the A/C broke.  And these are the hottest days of the year (does it ever really break in the winter though?).  So we are frantically contacting our landlord, who is traveling back to South Korea, to get this taken care of.  Fortunately, it has been fixed as of this writing.  Still a little nerve-wracking though.

Lastly, a drain pipe to the shower of our upstairs neighbor was leaking and caused mold to grow in the insulation.  The contractor we have cut a hole to investigate this and then we had to deal with the property management in order to get this resolved.  And that is always fun since they are looking to blame someone else.

The pipe is fixed but the hole remains until later this week just to make sure it is fixed.

I’m writing about all of this to highlight why I’ve been missing for over a week now.  We all face about 20 things going wrong in our lives all at once from time to time.  For me, that time is right now.

Greeting Card Philosophy

It is a sad state of affairs when you cannot find a decent greeting card for your wife.  I don’t know about other men out there, but I prefer to not lie to my wife about how I think and feel about her.  I would prefer to be honest and truthful about our relationship and what I think about it.

Instead, when I peruse the greeting card section for an anniversary card or a birthday card, I am given either two options: stupid funny or just plain stupid.

The stupid funny cards are often under sections like “Birthday - Wife – Humorous” and are really not that funny.  These are cards you get your wife if you want to tell her that you don’t consider your relationship with her to be that serious.  Now, I know that there are women out there who like these kinds of cards, but you have to understand that women put a lot more stock in relationships than men do.

For a man, if you are living in the same living space and are working together to get things done, then the relationship is fine.  For women it is the more complex.  Now, there are times when a husband has to draw the line and tell his wife that she is placing way too much validation in her relationships, but a greeting card is not the way to do it.

So the humorous ones are usually ignored.  But the serious ones are worse.  They are usually worse because they exaggerate the true feelings that a man has for his wife.

What I mean is that we see very long prose designed to basically tell your wife that you are lost without her and that she means everything to you.  In another age, this would be considered idolatry.

Basically, the other cards will place your wife up on a pedestal at the expense of your own authority and manliness.  And let’s be honest, if any man thinks that way, they have more serious psychological issues than merely worshipping at the feet of his spouse.

Ultimately, I hate these kind of cards because they are lies about how I truly feel.  They are exaggerations of my true feelings and thus, I cannot in good conscience give my wife any of those greeting cards.

And so I stand there in a Hallmark store for 5-10 minutes flipping through various cards trying to find the one that states exactly how I feel without any exaggerations or self-flagellating humor.

I usually do find something.  And then I have to find a meaningful gift.  But that is another story.

Seasons of Life and Death

Last Wednesday, my wife’s contractions reached about 3-4 minutes apart.  We proceeded to go to the hospital where we were told that she was only three centimeters dilated and that she needed to walk around for an hour.  We did and was still only about three centimeters dilated.  So we went home.  I went to bed in order to get some sleep.  It didn’t last long.

After four hours, my wife woke me crying saying that the contractions were more intense.  I didn’t waste any time in getting ready to go to the hospital.  My wife felt the pressure to push just before we left and was crying about not wanting to have the baby in our home.  Fortunately, the hospital was only a few minutes away.

I decided to just simply use the main entrance since the ER would just move her to Labor and Delivery after doing some BS tests in order to justify billing my insurance company.  Also, it seemed wholly unnecessary since we were just there a few hours ago.  So I dropped my wife off at the door, parked, and ran as fast as I could to the main entrance and onto the elevator just as my wife got on.

We got to the labor and delivery office and one look at my wife’s cries of pain was all they needed to spring into action.  Immediately we were in the delivery room with my wife ready to go.  She fully dilated by then, so no epidermal to ease the pain.  She would later tell me that she secretly wanted a natural birth, although she was too afraid of the pain.

And so, just 35 minutes later, my son came out.  He was a little guy, barely five pounds.  The OB/GYN had to take my wife to the OR in order to remove the placenta, as it wasn’t coming out naturally.  He came and told me later that it was about 1/3 the size it should have been and that he’s surprised my son came out alive and weighing five pounds.

Despite having to stay in the NICU for a few days due to problems with maintaining his blood sugar (a problem largely due to his weight), my son is now home with us.  He has shown almost no problems with anything that newborns normally do and he has already gained a half of a pound.  He has what I call a surfers head of hair where he has brown hair with specs of blonde hair mixed in.

He is a miracle.  My wife has suffered through five miscarriages before him.  Hopefully, the OB/GYN will have some betters ideas for us in the future so we can avoid some of the problems we have now.  Or maybe he will be our only naturally born child.  Either way, I am glad he is here now.

 

My grandfather passed away last night.  He was the father of my mother and he spent most of his life as a pig farmer.  But after he received bypass surgery, his life began to gradually deteriorate.  Now, I don’t blame the heart surgery itself, as for all I know it may have been necessary, but I do know that he lost a lot of his energy following it.

In the past few years, he was slowly dying.   My mother was sure he would pass away last year, but somehow he made it.   Until last night.

I am saddened by his passing, but in a sense I am happy for him.  He lived a pretty long life, got to see his three daughters grow up and marry three fine men, got to see seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren before he passed on.   His life was not wasted and even though he never did anything significant by the world’s standards, he still led a fairly simple life.

I think that is the greatest gift a man can have though.  To live their own life on their own accord.  Fame and fortune may be great, and I won’t deny my own desire to have both, yet I also desire just a quiet, simple life with my own family.  Perhaps God will grant me that.

 

Everything has a season, as King Solomon once wrote.  Just as my son’s life outside of his mother began last week, my grandfather’s ended last night.  I had heard that before he passed away peacefully in his sleep, he was shown pictures of my son on Facebook.

And so, the cycle of this life continues.  Corny, I know, but sometimes it bears meaning.

Zombie Birthday Surprise

This is a little late for my Saturday post, but I have a good reason.  My wife put together a surprise party for me a little earlier this year because of, well, things that are happening on my birthday.  So imagine my surprise when I came home and found friends and family sitting around with zombie decorations all around my place.

Anyway, thanks to all who came out.  Here’s a fun zombie story from Katy Towell:

Wonder if Rick’s crew knows about the girl?

Downsides of the Holidays: In-Laws

I travelled to South Carolina to spend Christmas with my brother-in-law’s family.  Naturally, my parents-in-law were there as well and, as expect, there were some problems.  My mother-in-law, you see, is a woman consumed with self-loathing for her appearance and has serious problems with envy and jealousy (no, they aren’t the same thing).  She is an extremely abusive spouse and it’s a wonder my father-in-law hasn’t packed up and left her years ago for all the bad things she has done.  I suspect he is incapable of doing so because he seems like someone who is incapable of taking care of himself on his own.  Fortunately, that’s starting to change.  For the past year or so, he’s come to the realization that he’s in an abusive relationship with his wife (did the fist to the pacemaker not convince you?) and he is starting to assert himself.  Unfortunately, he’s also acting like a child in the process at times.

My brother-in-law has sought in the past to change his mother for the better.  But his short temper caused him to just berate and yell at her and blame them for the problems in his own life.  He seems much more understanding of the situation now and also accepts his responsibilities now.  One thing that really turned him around was becoming a father himself and seeing firsthand how things should have been in his own childhood.  Both my wife and my other brother-in-law have accepted that their mother is more than likely mentally ill and more than likely will not get better, but worse before we have to bury her.  I think the oldest brother-in-law has recognized this as well and has set boundaries.

Bear this in mind because what happened on Christmas night is just a small fragment of a much longer string of events that my wife and I have heard about and dealt with.  My brother-in-law had rented The Other Guys, a movie featuring Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell.  It also featured Eva Mendes in a role that featured many shots of her cleavage.  There was no nudity at all in the version we watched (at least what we did watch), just a few attractive actresses showing off some skin.  During this movie, my mother-in-law got upset over this skin, but it had nothing to do with the movie being indecent.  The ugly truth is, she is an ugly woman who lets envy consume her.  She didn’t like watching this movie and she especially didn’t like her husband watching it either.  Also, I don’t think she caught on to the jokes.

A fight ensued when she demanded to know if my brother-in-law would show this movie to his parents-in-law.  He said that he would because it was his house and he would watch any movie he wanted.  If she didn’t like it, she could go to the other room (she knew this, she just wanted her husband to go with her, which he wouldn’t seeing as how he was more assertive of his own desires now).  She shot back that maybe she’ll just leave and go home (it was 10 PM at this point).  My father-in-law responded by saying that they should go then and proceeded to load up the car and prepare to leave.  Fortunately, they didn’t leave that night because I’m pretty sure they would have been killed in a car crash.

This whole incident serves to highlight something though: when you marry someone, you double your family tree.  In other words, you don’t just marry your wife or husband, but their family as well.  And every problem, every annoying relative they have becomes your relative.  This is something you usually don’t hear about in romance novels, romantic movies, or from married couples themselves.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t marry someone if you have a problem with their family.  Think of them as another set of extended family members.  If you set your boundaries correctly, and communicate them to your spouse before you get married, then you won’t have to deal with them often.  The whole reason my wife and I travelled nine hours to my brother-in-law for Christmas was because we were certain that my parents-in-law would come to visit us in our small condo.  And we have both decided that they are easier to manage with one of her other siblings around.  It spreads out the social network and gives us chances to take five from them.  Again, it’s all about the boundaries.

My mother-in-law is not someone who is so deranged that she needs to be committed.  Well, not yet anyway.  But she exhibits many signs of serious mental illness and quite possibly early signs of dementia.  With my father-in-law still incapable of completely asserting control over the household, which is what needs to happen, the situations we find her in will only get worse as time progresses.  And she will continually refuse to give up control in her life as her mental state deteriorates.

I really do hope that many of you don’t have to ever deal with this.  I hope that the worst thing you ever deal with when it comes to in-laws is just plain old-fashioned resentment.  That’s easy compared to dealing with mental illness, believe me.  At least with resentment, you have a good excuse to not visit that person.  How do you tell someone you’re suppose to honor that you don’t like them and hate spending time with them?

Yes, I’m Angry

A few days ago, my father mentioned that my blog was a “angry”.  I guess what he meant was that my blog was surprisingly much more passionate about things than I am in real life.  My wife does complain to me about being an emotional deadbeat, but that’s just how I am in real life I guess.

The truth is, my blog may express my own opinions and those opinions may have a lot of emotional energy behind, but in real life, I don’t really enjoy discussing these things with other people.  Mostly because I know that people will disagree with me and they will be taken aback by my opinions.  Most churches would probably kick me out for being too radical for their tastes.

I do realize that all of my opinions could be utter garbage.  In the face of the Living God, I’m sure now of what I think about life, the universe, and everything is really worthless by comparison (the Apostle Paul referred to such things as shit in his letters).  Still, I can’t help but be enraged by the injustices that are thrust upon me and everyone else at every turn.

When you realize that the government is ultimately a worthless institution, that legal force is just an excuse for tyranny, than you begin to see the world in a much different light.  And when you see the world in that light, you begin to understand the causes behind many of the injustices that normal, everyday people face.

As a Christian, I believe that we are all fallen and that we all sin.  While many Christians disagree on whether some behaviors are sinful (usually, a Christly individual will know, even if he or she doesn’t admit it), there is a general consensus that mankind is a wicked species.  Somehow, knowing the difference between good and evil without the wisdom to truly understand why there is good and evil has tainted us to our very core.

Most Christians in Western culture will argue that this is why we need a government that is accountable to the people.  But what if the people are suffering from some kind of mass insanity?  Certainly such a phenomenon exists, as exhibited by 1930s Germany, so that whole idea falls apart.  And most certainly the individual is wicked and power in the hands of the individual will corrupt even the most holy of men.

This is why I am mostly sympathetic to the anarchists, though I am not wholly one myself in the traditional sense.  While I would certainly welcome the rise of a stateless society, it does not mean that I believe such a system would be a kind of Utopia.  Man is imperfect and therefore any system or non-system of government will be imperfect.

But the problem as I see it is that the more government you have, the more wicked people will use it to their own ends.  A great example is how there are a lot of Muslim terrorist organizations infiltrating the Federal government with the goal of establishing Sharia Law.  Personally, I believe that any standard of laws that has to be imposed by force is ultimately an illegitimate form of laws because if people don’t want to live under it on their own, then they will hate it if is force upon them.

But if there was a much smaller government, this wouldn’t be much of a problem at all.  If there was no government, a stateless society, I doubt Sharia Law would be much of threat because it would have to stand on it’s own merit.

I guess what gets me angry is that people don’t see things my way.  I know that’s petty, but honestly, don’t you all do the same in things that you are passionate about?  So if I come off as angry, it is because I am angry but better in print than in blood.