who only by moving can balance

So. Lo these many years ago, when I was young and carefree and taking many many fewer pills per day, I acquired a chunky seven-compartment dosette box not unlike this one.

Shit happened.

I replaced it with something more suited to my new world order (and in all seriousness I've now been using this style of box for a couple of years and I strongly recommend them).

I'm about to embark on a knitting project that uses seven types of bead (yes I know that lists six, there's also the pole star, which I'm doing as a distinct bead).

... guess what.

naamah_darling's launched a new blog: "I want to show people what living with my mental illness is like. Visibility is a major factor in reducing the stigma that surrounds mental illness. For many people, though, it’s risky talking about these things, for having “crazy” be the first thing people know about you. People have to keep themselves safe, and many cannot speak out."

And, you know, there's all sorts of reasons I think it's very important to talk - and talk publicly - about mental illness. So: hi. I have chronic depression with anxiety; I've been depressed at least since I was thirteen. I strongly suspect I also have undiagnosed PTSD.

I started medication when I was 21, because I couldn't put it off any longer. I'd delayed seeking diagnosis for so long because of the stigma: both medically, in that it would have been even harder to get my chronic pain diagnosed if doctors could happily dismiss it as somatisation, and socially/academically. As it is, I took a year out of my undergraduate degree, and every time someone asks about it I have to decide between the bland and anodyne "for health reasons" and the braver - and more informative - "I went very, very mad".

Crazy is a thing I am. It's a thing I can't hide, even if I want to: ask me, maybe, about the times I've suddenly realised, walking through a supermarket or shopping centre, that I've been muttering out loud for several minutes. Or, well, ask me about the way it impacts on my work.

But: "crazy", being crazy, isn't the bad thing here, particularly: it's hard, some days or weeks or months, but I am medicated and I have people and I have a counsellor and mostly, for the time being, I'm alright.

The bad thing is the way people react to "crazy": the way that in trivialising it they trivialise me, or that in fearing it or despising it, it is me they fear or despise, or that in being visibly crazy in public I put myself in danger - and in more than one sense this is not something I can control.

Here's another thing: it feels very strange to say "I am depressed" when my medication and support network are currently keeping me functionally not-depressed [most of the time]. But: I have endometriosis even when I'm not in pain; I have endometriosis even when my painkillers, or my GnRH agonists, or whatever, are working. And I am aware - and sometimes it is painfully, desperately aware - that the only things between me and my illness are my daylight lamp and 30mg a day - forty in winter - of citalopram hydrobromide. Like jjhunter says: and 'history of depression' means there's no defense/perfect enough to keep it from coming back; like Onsind say: yeah it gets better / but it also could get worse / tainted blessing, stubborn curse / and all the same, you just take it day by day (by day by day).

And that? That is why I am going to keep on talking.

Yesterday involved lots of good things: free cake, surprisingly effective past!me, getting a benzodiazepine prescription of my very own, half of Howl's Moving Castle, pasta bake, and the lovely boything.

Here are some things I have been reading recently:

• I am not sure I am actually in Night Vale fandom (currently on episode 11), but I definitely have fanon. Very, very definitely.
  
• have a ginger baby seal (which is also blind and abandoned, but GINGER BABY SEAL)
  
• A little while ago, I ended up writing elsewhere about my approach to creativity
  
• jjhunter is amazing, and some time ago hosted a thoughtful discussion on alternative medicine

Today my baby brother got his A-level results, and very pleased with them he should be too. Middle brother left for Jamaica for a year yesterday (these year-in-industry students, etc etc ;) ), and is talking seriously about applying for PhDs when he comes back for his third year. He is fairly likely to get a paper out of his time in Jamaica; I am squashing all my urges to ~guide him~ when it comes to PhD applications because, seriously, he is (a) a grown-up (b) not my problem and (c) competent, and me hovering won't do him any good. (Those of you who've been following me for years, though, might be surprised to learn he's getting consistently good Firsts in exams in addition to the above...)

I have been having lots of visitors etc over the past few weeks; sorrillia for a few days, then dinner with steorra in passing, and before all that J Who Is Not On DW for a week. (Actually I think they might be on DW as an RPer or something? But if so, we don't overlap.)

... aaaaaaaaaand most of my brain has been going on house-hunting and estate-agent-wrangling. Really, a lot of it. I have been gently reminded that I have told IRC about this at great and tedious length, but haven't really mentioned it here. SO: yep, most my brain at the moment is housing stress.

tapentadol is the magic opioid-SNRI med. No-one will prescribe it for you, at least not while you're on citalopram and amitriptyline. Nonetheless.

I'm going to be helping to run a workshop on sexual health for women who have sex with women. I wasn't able to make it to the first planning meeting; the plan arising that was e-mailed around was 85 words long.

I've just annotated and sent it back (not including the summary of awesome LGBT+ sexual health resources I'm available of locally & online - that's separate). It is now about 650 words long.

Here is some other stuff I occasionally nerd about in ways that surprise people who only know me offline, mostly in my non-fannish capacity:

1. Horses. "NO YOU BASTARDS YOU DON'T LEAVE THE SODDING BRIDLE ON," I yelled at The Hobbit.
   
2. Gunshot exit and entry wounds. "THAT IS NOT HOW ANYTHING WORKS," I shouted at Skyfall.
   
3. Knitting vs crochet vs other fibrecrafts (including brief excursions into embroidery).
   
4. Fandom, pretty predictably.
   
5. Speculative fiction that explicitly examines sociological ramifications of technological advances.
   
6. Ludicrous nationalism regarding tiny not-actually-nation-states nobody but me cares about (and even then I'm only about 50% serious, and otherwise generally strongly anti-nationalism).
   
7. Railways, particularly of the 18th century, with emphasis on Austria & Cornwall & Isembard Kingdom Brunel & Richard Trevithick.
   
8. Alpine flora.
   
9. Pharmacology and drug interactions (I had Issues with a recent episode of Sad Vampire on this score).
   
10. And for #10 let's have my grab-bag of things I think it's obvious I nerd about: wheelchairs. Mobility aids in general. Mental health, biological and sociological bases thereof. Medical and social models of disability, oppression, etc. Volcanoes. Gender Stuff. Endometriosis. Food preservation. Cooking. Castles. Scrabble. Self-care.