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I haven't written lately because I've been having a really rough couple of days. I walk around all day trying not to scream, and I stay up all night doing what amounts to nothing on this computer, and then I go to bed and lie there holding my bear and trying not to think about anything. I'm fighting it. I really am. I think my biggest problem the first time I got depressed was that I didn't fight it- I reveled in it, and I just kept going deeper and deeper and deeper. But now, I don't want to be depressed. I don't have time to be depressed, and I don't even really have a reason to be depressed. Being depressed for me isn't like it is for a lot of people, where they say "I'm depressed" and they go to bed early and hide under the covers and in the morning everything looks better. When I get depressed, things just don't get better. They keep getting worse, and if the pattern holds true the only way to really get out of it is to be an inpatient for a week or so and somehow, that "break" of doing nothing but therapy seems to knock me out of it.
But I can't do that this time. For a lot of reasons. The biggest being that I'm starting school soon. But also I've gotten a lot better at hiding my depression than I was before, mostly because this time I want to hide it whereas last time I wanted my parents to know every bit of it and I wanted them to do something about it. So now I'm left here talking to a computer screen, hoping some anonymous person will read this and like me, even if I don't know about it, and I don't think it's helping. The last time I got depressed was when I was writing in a journal daily. And I don't know if I was writing in the journal because I was depressed or if because I was writing in the journal and wallowing in everything I got depressed. It's like the chicken and the egg thing. But I kinda think the two of them worked together, to make everything worse, so I'm just gonna go on writing what I was originally going to write today, and forget my fingers ever did these two paragraphs. I'm starting over. I still sleep with a teddy bear. His name is Teddy and I've had him since I was 5, I think, but no one really knows quite when I got him. He was a Christmas present from my aunt Susan, and he was one of those snow bears, that's really white and fluffy and wears a red scarf and hat. Teddy's scarf and hat disappeared really quick. And when I was in second grade I got head lice and my mom washed him in the washer without putting him in a pillow case first, and his fur got all matted down, so he isn't fluffy anymore. I cried and cried when that happened, and mom put one of my baby t-shirts on him, and Teddy officially wore clothes. I buy clothes for him at thrift stores and consignment shops, and once in a great while I splurge at Wal-Mart, but usually I don't spend more than .50 for a teddy outfit. (He wears a size 24 months, usually, but if it's cheap enough he can wear almost anything. :-) I went through his clothes a week ago, and found he has over 20 outfits now. The thing about my bear, is he doesn't just sit on my bed and look cute, which I think is what most people assume a 16 year old's teddy bear does. Every night I fall asleep holding him, and sometimes I still am in the morning. I don't mind teddy's matted fur anymore- the reason he wears clothes now is for protection- his stomach has been completely worn through in most places, and it looks kinda like swiss cheese- there's nothing to sew together. And his back is getting to be the same way. So Teddy usually wears snuggly terry-cloth pajamas. He's been a lot of places, that bear. When I used to go to sleepovers, I took him with me, and when I was in seventh grade (I think it was seventh...) and went to a big birthday party sleepover and took him and he got kidnapped and used as a football outside, I didn't consider not taking him on sleepovers- I just stopped going to big sleepovers with people I wasn't really friends with.... not that I got many invitations after that, anyway. My bear has been to summer camp (where he was the star of the camp, even though I was 14) and he's been to Gramma's houses, and he's been to Washington DC when we went there, and I think he was in the car when we went to the Lilith Fair last year, and Teddy's even been on the psychiatric unit of our hospital. Basically, that bear's been everywhere I have since I was really little. And he's coming with me to college in a couple weeks, although from what I've heard that shouldn't be too hard a transition for him-- when I told my 4yr old cousin that Teddy was coming with me to college she piped up and said her other cousin was taking her pillow with her and that "it's disgusting! It has holes in it...." and everyone there laughed and then someone else said most people take something old and disgusting like that to college with them. So I'm not too worried about that. The reason I'm writing this, is the last time I was in the dentist's office I was reading one of those parenting magazines that they have in places like that, and there was this huge article on "Security Objects" and it was saying all this stuff about how lots of kids have security objects when they're two and insecure and they usually get rid of them by the time they're five or so, and I was thinking "That makes sense, I didn't get mine till I was five or so, so of course I would keep it longer, and I wasn't insecure when I was 2, I've just been insecure ever since..." and then they did these profile thingys of kids who have security objects and they got to this one profile of a 15 year old girl and they get to the part about "socially:" where they're supposed to explode myths about people who sleep with teddy bears being maladjusted, and instead they say "Surprisingly healthy, for a 15 year old who still loves her blankie." And I thought that was awful, and I kept reading, and they said "What she doesn't know: Her mom plans on drawing the line when she turns 16." And I thought that was the most horrible thing I've ever heard. I mean, what better way to psychologically scar your kid than taking away their security object when they most need it? I mean, all the psychiatrists in that article agreed that those things help people feel safe when they're feeling insecure, and how much more insecure can you get than 16? It seems to me that if anybody should have teddy bears and blankies it's the 16 year olds like me and not 2 year olds. I mean, why would any parent try to forcibly take away something that makes their kid feel safe? Especially parents of 16 year olds, because everyone knows that teenagers and parents are not close to begin with- you pull a stunt like that and she'd probably never speak to you again. I sure know I wouldn't. So I had to vent about that. I think special teddy bears and stuffed dogs and blankies and all that stuff are terrific and I think more people should have them. and that's all I have to say 'bout that. |