Tag Archives: depression

Robert Wright…

30 Saturday Jun 2018

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…is my go-to, out of a large-ish group of current intellectuals who debate everything from the implications of particle physics, to whether or not religion is good, bad, or indifferent, to the trajectory of society in general.

I’m currently reading his book (shortlisted for a Pulitzer–fancy!) “The Evolution of God,” and I watch one of his talks more or less daily. To date, this is still my favourite Robert Wright talk, not least of all because it covers a subject I enjoyed learning about during my psychology degree… maybe more important to me personally, I think reminders of ways we can work towards a better world are darn useful, when my depression is bad.

Robert Wright’s “NonZero Sum Game Talk”

It’s 20 minutes of your life you’ll be glad you spared–he’s clever, amusing, not bad-looking, and because he himself is not wildly optimistic by nature, his optimism feels more accessible to someone like me.

I hope it’s accessible to someone like you, as well.

Update: Marriage Soon

15 Sunday Oct 2017

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Before I talk about my new guy, a little background:

At the start of this year, I was with a guy who blacked my eye the week before Christmas, who continually made snide comments about my children, who regularly believed the very worst interpretations of my actions, who shouted at me and belittled me virtually every time I had the audacity to disagree with him… I remember lying on his couch, so many afternoons in January and February (because I was too lonely and unhappy to lie in the bed with him at night, so I was trying to get sleep during the day, sometimes skipping lectures at uni to do so) and listening to this song on repeat:

All I wanted, was someone who made me feel that way–someone who would feel that way about me. It sounds macabre, but this was the only song that would settle me, late last year/early this year. It was the only adequate lullaby, for sadness like mine… and you can call that maudlin purple prose if you want, because it is maudlin purple prose–it’s also true.

Then–I swear to all the gods that ever were–in February, on Valentine’s Day no less, my stepdad killed himself. Fella-who-hates-my-kids came to the States to hold my hand and whatnot, and he *loved* my sister’s (neurotypical, or near enough) kids. It just drove the point home, in a way I could no longer ignore–kid-hater didn’t hate ALL kids, he just hated MINE.

Because they’re autistic. Like that’s *their* fault.

I had no idea what to do, or how to feel, to be honest with you. But I came home from the States feeling closer to filling my pockets full of stones and walking into the ocean than I have in years. I spent 2 weeks, again, listening to the Death Cab song on repeat, pining for my kids while I was at uni, and trying not to think about the asshole lying in bed in the other room.

Then–at some friends’ Stag and Hen Night–a miracle occurred.

Back in the Saddle/Blogging for Mental Health

29 Monday May 2017

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So. Here I go again, on my own, etc etc.

If anyone’s been following me, they’ll know that I’ve largely been Missing-in-Action (MIA) for a while, now. If they’ve paid enough attention, they’ll even know the why behind the MIA-ness: I’ve been at university, full-time, and it has been really difficult, as well as extraordinarily time-consuming.

Of course, in what spare time I have had, I’ve been going through men like hotcakes (i.e. I’ve started 3 and finished 2 relationships) as well as neglecting my children wherever possible.

That last bit isn’t true. It’s how I feel, because I’m a bit flat today. If I’ve done anything right, consistently, over the last decade, it’s looking out for those 2… thank all the gods that ever were, they’re such *happy* kids. I was much less happy, during my childhood.

At the time, this may have been something to do with all the shouting and occasional hitting and general instability of my childhood, rather than any intrinsic fault in me–the damage is done now, though. There’s only so much happiness I’ll achieve; and I can say that with some confidence, as I’m coming to the end of a degree in Applied Psychology. What can you do?

Make sure your kids have a better childhood than you did, is the answer. And I have… thus far, anyway. We’ll see how puberty goes, for them. If they can come through that without any major dysfunction, I can die relatively at peace.

Not that I’m saying I’ll cause my own death, or anything like that. Just making the point that when the end comes, it’ll be nice if I’ve got something I can say I actually achieved.

In an effort to encourage more achievement and less wallowing, I’m going to start journaling for mental health (which is a thing, apparently, with some evidence to back it up).

Well, who knew. Letting things out in a neutral environment, rather than holding them in ad nauseam, can be beneficial to your mental health.

The answer is, of course; I did. I knew. And I *still* let myself get so bad, again…

Anyways. Like the title says, I’m back in the saddle, now.

Fingers crossed I don’t fall off.

Is It Me?

03 Thursday Dec 2015

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A weird thing just happened (or it might be me, I really can’t tell)…

I went to bed with someone last night (not for sex, although I was fairly grope-y and stroke-y and whatnot) and me, I just couldn’t really properly sleep, and I was (in my half-asleep state) being what was probably overly cuddly and a bit too talkative.

I can see how they might not appreciate that. Makes perfect sense to me. Seems completely fair, right?

So I ask them, at several points when I think I’m disturbing them, “Do you want me to go in the other room?” and variations on, “Sorry, doing it again, should I stop?”

And they answer with several variations on, “No, it’s fine, just don’t expect me to reciprocate because I’m sleeping,” (fair, I thought) and also, “No, don’t go in the other room, stay here,” and at least 2 or 3 times, “No, it’s nice.”

So, about half an hour ago, I realize I’ve started talking again, and I ask if we can swap sides in bed (I’m now back-achey and wanting to cater to my sciatica) and they do–way too quickly, and I think, shit, for all their naysaying, they are awake, I am keeping them up, gotta be quieter/sleepier/whatever, and so I proceed to do that.

I ask them a question a few minutes later (because I’m starting to drift off, finally, and unfortunately I sometimes start to talk as I’m relaxing into sleep–so do they, come to think of it….) and they give a kind of snappy answer and I think, alright, fair, I get it, but I also make some half-jokey reference to them being like a drug (so, like, I can’t help myself, right?) and which point they really sharply go, “I don’t care,” (as if they can’t tell it’s a joke, maybe? or they’re just not in the mood, which is fair enough too) and then a few minutes later (out of nowhere–I’ve been completely silent since then, I’m again just starting to drift off) they announce, “It really HAS got to stop now, it’s time for sleep,” and I go, “….I’m not doing anything…?”

And they go, “Well I’m going in the other room now.”

“….but…. I’m not doing anything…?”

“Well, I just require coolness and space.”

Giving it’s one way to get it, I suppose.

The thing that makes it all a bit off, for me, is that literally last night–like, an hour before going to bed?–I said to them, “You have to make peace with the idea that I don’t always sleep well, I’m an insomniac, and sometimes, you’ll just have to let me go in the other room, so you can sleep,” and they were all, “No, once we’re in bed you must STAY in bed, I want the cuddling,” etc etc, and I was laughing a little, but I thought they were more or less serious (all the more so, when I kept offering to go in the other room and let them sleep, and they said no repeatedly)….

…so to me, that means they a) perceive being left in the middle of the night as some sort of rejection or slight, and b) they intentionally did that to me, rather than “let” me do that to them…

….and I dunno, I just feel that’s not on. A dozen conversations, more, we’ve had about this, over the last year or so, about it being okay to pet them and snuggle them in the middle of the night, about how they prefer that to sleeping alone, the last of which took place LAST NIGHT RIGHT BEFORE BED….

…and then they stormed out of the room after telling me I was fine, and left me wondering what I did wrong, wide awake (well you would be, wouldn’t you, if you’d finally started to get to sleep and then the person you had your arm draped over–which is often how you sleep with this person, who actually asked you if you’d mind spooning them at the start of the night, rather than the other way ’round–suddenly shot up and snapped at you and huffed out, huffed back in again to retrieve something, and then went to their room) and, let’s be completely honest, crying because I suddenly felt in the wrong… after checking all night (and many times previously) that what I was doing was okay.

What makes it worse is that this person pretty regularly does this (or something like it) when they’ve got something other than me to look forward to (dinner this evening with an old friend, and I have to leave town this afternoon) and so it begins to look like they don’t mind my (admittedly excessive)  levels of attention when they’re alone and without plans, but as soon as they’ve got something on, I’m too clingy/needy/in-your-face…

…I can’t, can I? I can’t be with someone who finds me indispensable and irreplaceable and mostly charming, right up until they have something else to do. As far as self-esteem goes, I’m just asking to have mine gradually eroded.

Aren’t I?

The Amanda Show, Episode 2

01 Sunday Nov 2015

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So. That was said to me, several months ago now, and anytime I feel a little worthless or down, I use that as a stick to beat myself with: “Of course no one’s invited you this weekend, why do you expect them to?–it’s not always The Amanda Show. Of course your semi-friends/acquaintances didn’t recognise you in the shop, even though you recognized all 3 of them, even the one you’ve only met twice–I mean, why should they recognize you, it’s not like it’s The Amanda Show. Of course no one’s replied to your emails about your uni assignment, why should they, they all have lives, and just because you’re doing group work doesn’t mean it’s The Amanda Show.” On and on and on it goes, until I can barely assert myself even when I know… I mean, I’m 90% sure… I mean, I’m fairly certain… I mean, is it even possible I could be in the right? Maybe not. I’ll just stop talking. It’s not always The Amanda Show, after all.

When it happened, I told someone what had been said to me (someone who, at the time, I considered one of my closest friends–someone who I thought loved me) and I’m pretty sure they laughed. (Can’t be completely sure, it was a FB chat.) Last week, we were talking about… oh, let’s call it the differences in our perspectives on morality… and this is how one part of the conversation went:

Me: The point’s not whether or not ____ could stick around forever, it’s that he doesn’t twist everything to be my fault, as if none of the other people involved have any say in it. You try to pretend I’m the one calling all the shots, and it’s just not the case

Them: It isn’t always the Amanda show.
Do those words, from a fairly objective place, not haunt you?

From a fairly objective place. A woman who’s several years older than me, who’s just gained a lot of weight while I’ve lost a bit, who’s very ill and understandably jealous of people who are not, who wants to be up on a stage again but who doesn’t have the energy, who remembers what sex was like and thinks she’ll never have it again (whereas I do, admittedly, have it fairly often with some of my friends)… this is an “objective” place? (She also spends a lot of time chatting to my friends, including some of the ones I sleep with, but not really to me, so… she’s not even possibly going to be “on my side” really, is she?) First of all, who could see her opinion as “objective”?

And secondly, how can that even be an objective thing to say? “Your own life is not about you. Stop living it as if it is. Don’t…” (well here I get stuck, since I genuinely don’t know what it is I’m supposed to do–sleep with fewer people? Do it, but don’t be so open about it? Don’t talk when I’m in a group?–although the very person who said it, once *also* made the statement, “I can see why people fall for you, because I’m talking absolute drivel right now, and you’re looking at me like I’m the most fascinating person in the world”–so I’m guessing I do an alright job of listening to other people talk…)

Objective, huh? In the vernacular of Inigo Montoya, you keep using this word, but I do not think it means what you think it means.

I’m uploading pictures from a night out, right now. It was meant to be my early birthday (because I’m in lectures on my actual birthday, and the closest weekend to my birthday, the day after my birthday, we’re going to someone else’s birthday weekend) and every time I go to upload a picture of myself, I stop and think, “Is this too many? Will this one make it too much? Are there other people in the shot with me? It’s not always The Amanda Show, and it wasn’t even *really* my birthday…” (a fact which I kept apologising for, and when someone else had “Happy Birthday” sung to them by the bar staff, one of my friends wanted to have the same done for me, but I begged him not to, because I hate having a roomful of people looking at me and it’s not even my birthday anyway; but I might’ve borne it with good grace and just felt a little awkward, if I hadn’t already been thinking we were spending too much time on The Amanda Show…)

It took me years to get to the point where I could take a selfie and upload it, like, without taking 50 and picking the best one (I still do a bit of weeding out the worst ones). Getting to the point where I didn’t die of embarrassment to see my make-up smudged, or a little belly bulge, or my hair looking a bit dirty… that took years. I’m still not comfortable having my picture taken–but I’m *also* not comfortable with the fact that, most of the time, I feel utterly out of place and far from home and as if one of these things is not like the others/one of these things just doesn’t belong… I’m trying to ground myself, trying to put myself into some sort of group, trying to form some sort of attachment to my surroundings, trying to make a habitat where I feel like I can live and grow and be happy, and now, I feel like I’m completely in the wrong for that.

In the end, I took fewer pictures of everyone than I normally would. I usually always have my phone out, I’m constantly getting group shots and selfies with people, and I DID have a few bursts of that, but… I just couldn’t do it, last night. Not like I usually do. I mean, someone had set up a tabletop game for me, and it wasn’t even my birthday. Someone else wanted to get the bar staff to sing to me, and it wasn’t even my birthday. Someone else bought me a drink, and I tried to refuse, because it’s not even my real birthday (in the end he said, “Aye but we’re celebrating your birthday now, what’re you having?” and I did)… and I had a good night, because lots of my friends got up and sang, and they were all surprisingly good (except one of our friends, who we all know has the voice of an angel, no one was surprised by her bringing the house down) but I was also constantly talking myself down, reminding myself that it’s not all about me (we were meant to be out for my birthday, I repeat again…) and if I thought people didn’t want pictures or video taking I just stopped, I didn’t ask for clarification or go take a photo of someone else or whatever, I just put my phone away.

And I tried so hard to smile and be friendly and go along with everyone else, and when a drunk acquaintance kept wanting to kiss me I’d give him a hug and a peck, and when my friends were onstage I cheered and danced (so nervous dancing in public!) and when another friend was sat down with back pain I offered her some painpills (non-prescription) I had in my bag… and all I can think now, while trying to get the pictures on FB, is how many can I upload, before it looks like all I do is take pictures of myself? How many of my own face am I… allowed?… to add, before it’s The Amanda Show, and all I care about is myself?

The Amanda Show, Episode 1

27 Tuesday Oct 2015

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A few months ago, in the middle of what I perceived as a traumatic event (a relationship breaking up, I thought because the other party wanted it to) someone made this statement to me:

“I love you, but you have to remember, it’s not always The Amanda Show.”

The person who said that does *not* love me–she knows me a little, and largely disapproves of my living a life that actually looks a bit similar to hers, but LESS self-centred–but more than that, she doesn’t even know me enough to understand how those words would hit me.

End of 2011, I went through a bad patch. By which I mean, I was past the point of wondering if I should kill myself, and planning it out as carefully as I could. In the end, a few things stopped me (as they always do, for people who genuinely want their pain to stop but don’t manage to do it): 1, I was the primary carer for my very young children, at the time, and although I was *pretty* sure they’d be better off without me anyway, I still held out a little hope that that was just my depression talking; 2, even if I *did* think they’d be better off without me, I didn’t want them to find me (I didn’t think THAT would do their little psyches any good–better for me to just disappear, rather than them finding Mommy unresponsive in a pool of blood); and 3, I wasn’t sure whether I needed to take them with me.

I know how that sounds, obviously. It’s the ugliest thought in the world, but… I mean, they were so little and helpless, and I was clearly their favourite person out of all the other people in their lives, though I couldn’t see why… so yeah, I was struggling with the, “Well it’s wrong to kill them, but they’re SO young to be without their mother, and I’m not sure how much longer I can stick around….?” –and then of course, I started taking some medication (just a basic anti-depressant and an anti-anxiety med) and within a month, less I think, I was looking back at that and thinking, “Oh Jesus CHRIST what was wrong with me, how could I have even…?????”

Fast forward a couple of years, and I’m trying to make up for lost time. On my good days, I take the kids out (sometimes spending more money than I have, further racking up debt I can just about afford to pay off in another 30 years, no I’m not exaggerating there) and we do as much as we can, before I just can’t do any more.

When I’m with my friends, it’s much the same; I will pick up the bar tab, if I can, and cover someone’s meal, if I can, and I will get my partner to give lifts and lend out my sofa and spare room and do whatever is possible, to get as many of us as possible, all in the same place, having a good time.

And for all of it, I am the undisputed *queen* of the camera phone. This year alone, I managed to fill 4 separate folders (kept on my desktop, sloppy I know) all with at least 200 pictures in them, of us all just out having normal friendship days. That’s not counting the folders full of pics of the kids; although there are probably less of those, since I’m happier to push adults to let me take pics, than I am to push my (still semi-non-verbal, autistic) children. In a number of the photos, I am front and centre, grinning a pretty unattractively toothy grin, make-up on, pushed into a good bra and wearing colours that suit me and doing everything I can, to make it look like, on that day, I was happy and I had a good time and there were people around me that love me.

Is that what’s meant by “The Amanda Show”? My admittedly unending need for people to show me signs of affection, and, where possible, to have it documented? “On this day in 2015, from approximately 21:30 to midnight, Amanda was in a pub surrounded by people she knows, who are all smiling and laughing and some are even posing for selfies with her, and even though she’s at the edge of the group and struggles to talk to more than 1-2 people at a time and she’s so drunk she’d have trouble standing if she closed her eyes, hey, she looks happy” (and even though I know that I was probably a little too drunk–I *am* drunk, or I’m not laughing and smiling, in a large group–I still feel a little better, looking at a photo like that)… is that what they mean?

Is it as simple as the fact that if I’m sleeping with someone and they suggest I sleep with someone else, I usually do it? Is that what they mean by “The Amanda Show”? But… I mean… I’m openly polyamorous, so why would that surprise anyone…? And actually, the person who made the comment has had A LOT more dick than I have, and you know what? I think that’s great, more power to them. But unfairness gets to me. I genuinely don’t understand why it’s okay for one person to have multiple lovers but not another–how can someone accuse me of being a narcissist for engaging in behaviour that they themselves engage in?

Also. I am a person who has to be drunk (are you seeing a theme here…) to get up and sing karaoke with a friend (I have literally never sung on my own, in front of people, since reaching adulthood) and this is a person who made their living on stage, for a while (not on a proper stage, I mean they did a sort of entertainer-at-Butlins style job, but even so). I mean. That’s an ACTUAL show. This person left their child with grandparents to travel around singing onstage when the kid was 14 or so–I’m currently suffering the tortures of the damned being away from my kids 3 days a week, to try to get a university degree, to eventually make my kids’ lives better–and I’m the one who’s obsessed with my own personal show?

I just don’t get it, I don’t understand. I mean, I get that the person who said it is unwell (seriously unwell, think of a bunch of life-threatening illnesses and it’s one of those) and may well have been high when making the statement (morphine is not the friend of cognition) and maybe it just sounded glib and amusing in the moment, because I *was* fairly upset over a romance gone wrong (and I have a long-term partner, and it was not that relationship that was going wrong, and polyamory is not widely accepted, evidently, even by people who practice it themselves….).

But for me. For someone who spends every day feeling useless, ill-equipped to deal with life, for someone who’s grabbing onto as many lifelines as she can (because *I* have a life-threatening illness too, it’s just that no one believes depressed people are in any real danger until they actually kill themselves) to be told that, actually, she’s taking up too much space and other people’s time and energy… I mean…

Is it *not* always the Amanda Show–in the same way that your show is the Whatever-Your-Name-Is Show, and everyone is the star of their own show, etc etc–just, how am I supposed to take that? “You have to remember, it’s not always The Amanda Show.”

What does that even mean? It means… stop talking about myself? Stop asking for help with my problems? Stop taking multiple lovers? (I was with 2 men at the time, not a hundred, not that it even matters; but if you’re stuck off uni for a year due to a registration cock-up and both the guys work full-time and your kids go to school full-time and EVERYONE is getting on with their lives except you, for the moment, it’s not inconceivable that you can give a reasonable amount of love and attention to 2 other people.)

I don’t know how it was meant, but I know how I took it. I took it as someone telling me that my entire life (aka The Amanda Show) had run for too long, and should just be taken off the air.

Daft Poetry

20 Friday Jun 2014

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I’m currently sitting here in my under-things. The house is too hot and no one in the Northeast of England has air conditioning (including me) but that’s not really the reason… really, the reason I’m sat here, half-dressed, is because I can’t be bothered to put the rest of my clothes on.

Or do much else.

However, when I woke up this morning (because I just could not do any more sleeping–and may I just say, 12 hours of sleep is ludicrous, both in general, and in the specific) and went to lie down on the couch (I shit you not) this little bastardization of, “Green Eggs and Ham” was bouncing around inside my brain. As far as I know, in spite of all the rip-offs of that poem in the world, this one is mine:

I do not like this wonky brain,
I do not like it in the rain,
I do not like it in the sun;
It is not fun for anyone.

I do not like it with the meds,
They make me less fun in the beds.
I like it even less without,
Without, I rant and cry and shout.

I do not like this panic attack,
It makes me tend to over-snack,
I do not like this mood that lags,
I do not like these crying jags.

I do not like these sleepless nights,
But the sleepful ones just don’t feel right.
I do not like my crazy brain,
I wish that I could just be sane.

And there you have it. What I woke up feeling like, today… while off my meds.

Mood Diary–A Recent Entry!

12 Thursday Jun 2014

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This started out as a mood diary entry from a couple of days ago, but once I got into the swing of it, I altered it a little for public consumption.

The fact that I even need to *do* a Mood Diary tells me a lot about how this individual affects me; I’ve been regulating my moods without the help of a diary for over a year, now. (By the by–I originally began using the diary not long after “meeting” this guy… again, this tells me a lot. Anyways, the entry:

Mood–a 4, maybe. Alternating between wanting to cry, and wanting to strangle someone with my bare hands.

Mostly the latter, to be fair.

I’ve just been advised (by someone who continually paints me as the villain of his entire life, up to the point of blaming me–someone he’s only ever “met” online–for his poor performance at university, his insomnia, his mood swings, etc etc) not to give in to Karpman Drama Triangles, in which he’s cast as the perpetrator, I as the victim, and my fella as the rescuer/hero.

It’s the hypocrisy that gets me with him, every time.

How can someone who’s blamed me for everything from their life-long insomnia to their recent academic performance actually have the gall to accuse me of casting them as a scapegoat?

In fairness, he has an ASD; and since he refuses to talk about it, get coping strategies for it, or even acknowledge it (even to his healthcare providers) I understand that his mind blindness and lack of self-awareness will be at crazy heights. Additionally, his skills at projection are unparalleled–there’s nothing he won’t accuse someone of, if he’s done it himself. And I get it, at least in theory; if you won’t even glance at yourself, there’s no way you can notice the details of what you look like or how you behave. In practice… I don’t get how anyone can be so blind.

Me, I look at him, and I see what I could have become, if I refused to take responsibility for my actions, refused to accept my own social awkwardness, refused to acknowledge that sometimes I get the wrong end of the stick (and if I were blisteringly, eternally angry about my situation, AND thought it was someone’s fault but never mine)… the one good thing about meeting this person is, and always has been, that he illustrates very clearly the potential flaws in my personality, and gives me excellent examples of how not to behave.

(And after this point, I’d realized I was going to post:)

That, and sometimes he’s so ridiculous, you can’t help but laugh at him. My sense of humour has saved me from despair more times than I can count.

Anyways, I think I’ll be posting about this guy a few more times. In the interests of protecting his privacy (he once threatened to sue someone because they’d told me he has an ASD) I’m going to give him a pseudonym. Henceforth, in my blog, he shall be known as “Peevin’ Larvae”.

That’s because he’s always peeved about something, and he’s emotionally stunted, ergo, a larva; but he has mood swings so often, the plural makes more sense. So. Peevin’ Larvae. More on him to come soon… I might do a comic strip, if I can figure out a way to condense one of his 2-page-long monologues into 4 or 5 sentences.

And if I learn how to draw. Lol.

PS In a Karpman Drama Triangle, I’d cast myself as the rescuer, just for the record. It’s something I’m working on.

http://coachingsupervisionacademy.com/thought-leadership/the-karpman-drama-triangle/

Depression Poem (from long ago)

05 Thursday Jun 2014

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I wrote the original version of this poem when I was… 13? 14?… before my first religious flip-out, anyway. Before I became frightened of using biblical imagery and metaphor, and when I still thought King David was an aspirational historical figure.

Those days may be long gone, but I’m glad my memory of the poem survives enough for me to create a passable, new version of it.

God I used to be cheery.

Mothers weep on days like this,
When the house is empty and the heart is dark,
And no little children run out to play,
Mothers weep on days like this.

Fathers rage on days like this,
When there’s rain aplenty, but nowhere an ark,
When there’s nothing to do and less to say,
Fathers rage on days like this.

Children cry on days like this,
When the sky is black and the heart is blue,
And the stories of monsters turn out to be true,
Children cry on days like this.

Will I ever give up on a day like this?
When my feet are stuck in the miry clay,
And the cavalry’s not coming over the hill,
And nobody’s going to save the day?

I may.

But not today.

If you’ve got a good name for it, please, I would welcome your suggestions. Super-Depressing-Poem-with-Biblical-Imagery is about the best I’ve come up with, on my own… that’s a *bit* of a mouthful.