No Sleep and Depression Pondering

 

See the turquoise bird posing at the top of the wall? That's a Mot Mot, one of the rarer birds to be seen here. They are around, but they hide many times on the edges of the forest. They are frequently skirting around the edges of the property here. Notice it has no tail, just one long stick coming off with a turquoise spoon like feather. So beautiful!

I need beautiful today. I didn't sleep much last night, and now this morning Jim has his new 'trainer' here. I am not amused, particularly when I was summed pre-coffee into the kitchen to make smoothies. Showed the men where the knife and cutting boards were and quickly left. I am not the smoothie maker in chief. I've always been cranky pre-coffee, but since the stroke I am now serial killer level cranky and I have no clue why. Before I was "ugh, just leave me ALONE!" and now it's "ugh, just leave me alone before I bury the machete in your stupid head"

Ugh! And the trainer just tried to get me to drink one of those damn smoothies rife with idiotic levels of sugar and fruit. No, no, back, back!!! It would involve having to take metformin if I drank that! Don't make me use the machete~

We're getting the first bands of rain from Hurricane Iota here at the top of Costa Rica, pressed up against Nicaragua. Hard rains, no sleep and peppy exercise dudes do not mix with me. Mix in mcas stomach woes that involve lots of meds and feels like an ulcer and you got my mood. But it's not depression, just irritation. Starting to wonder if the asthma and sleeplessness have more to do with the barometric pressure than anything else.

The thing I've been thinking about a great deal lately has nothing to do with myself or my myriad of stupid medical problems that have gotten boring to recite. I'm been pondering why it is that the more fundamentalist the religion the higher the numbers of seriously depressed women. I keep seeing this play out, again and again. In my old church, among Christian friends, real life, online and elsewhere.

Some cannot even admit it is going on at the time, only copping to years of depression after the fact, after leaving. My friend that left here and left her husband at the first of the year fits that pattern. I was talking to her just the other day and she told me about her many years, YEARS, of depression where her very controlling ex would not allow her to do anything beyond stay home and homeschool her children. 

Her story isn't even unique, this is something I keep hearing on repeat, ad nauseum. I know breaking away from toxic religion is hard, but I struggle to understand the willingness to stay in that state. Not the religion, I mean the depression. I guess it's because I've never experienced a depression that was more than a month or so. I haven't been there so I don't understand it. But I'm trying to.

I think a good start is checking on our friends during this crazy depressing time of Covid and election nonsense. I have my list for today including on very religious lady I know whose marriage recently fell apart that she's blaming her years long depression. Sadly I think her depression is likely to continue as long as she's under a theology that literally blames women for living. It's an emotionally unhealthy space to live your life in for anyone.

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