Carol of the Woods

I’ve written about Rusty a few times before. He’s peed outside the box for years and I’ve been desperately trying to find ways to deal with that. The best way so far has been to give him anti-anxiety drugs. You can find a whole page devoted to my efforts here. Anywho, I started to feel guilty about keeping the poor cat drugged for several years, so I took him off it for a while. Boy oh boy, was that ever a mistake! He’s actually more crazy now than he’s ever been. The first few days off his med he acted kind of sweet and funny, but he gradually became more obsessive and aggressive.

At the end of the experiment, right before I put him back on his med, he paced from window to window using the same route every time, and he got very frustrated if anyone interfered with that route. He was absolutely driven to walk the same path over and over again, and part of that path took him up over my body, from feet to head, as I was laying in bed at night. When he wasn’t pacing, he licked and pulled out tufts of his hair. I suffer from some obsessions myself and felt that he was probably in a painful emotional place, but what really convinced me to give him his medicine again was his aggressiveness. Billy is a very docile and submissive cat and when I saw him approach Rusty with his head bowed, asking to have his head licked, and Rusty attacked him, that was the end of the experiment.

Rusty has calmed down now, and I don’t feel guilty anymore when I chase him down to give him his medicine. And, by the way, he peed all over the place when he was off his med too, so that’s under control again. Thank the Goddess.

The St. John’s Wort worked for my depression. It really did. I haven’t been depressed since I started taking it about six weeks ago, but my anxiety came back and came back strong. On a scale of 1 to 10, my anxiety was ranging from 5 to 9 daily and without relief. I couldn’t get to sleep and I slept poorly when I did finally drift off, I felt phobic about driving, and my old obsessive compulsive problem with locking the front door came back full force. (When that old friend visits, I have to touch the lock a few times to convince myself it’s really locked.)

So, off to the doctor I went and I’ve been taking Celexa for the last seven days. This was the first stuff I took the last time I tired meds for my anxiety, and it worked well but had one side effect that was hard to live with - “libido problems.” (”Libido problems” is a nice way of saying “close but no cookie” … if you get my drift.) Anyway, I tried at least eight other medications that year, one each month, and each one affected my moods differently and had a combination of side effects that were worse than Celexa. Another reason to give Celexa a second chance is that it’s available as a very low cost generic, so I’ll be able to afford it even if we don’t have health insurance. (We do have insurance now, but who knows what the future will bring.) I’ve gone through menopause since the last time I tired it, so maybe it won’t effect my “libido” as badly this time. So far, so good.  ;)

The Goddess is so kind. I stepped away from my priestess duties for a little while this year and the Goddess didn’t mind at all. I had to put my energy into other things and it was so easy to not bother with the Sabbats and Esbats. And my magickal workings were all aimed at myself as I struggled with the tasks I was trying to accomplish and with bouts of depression. But now I feel called to take off my shoes, slip on my green robe, and step back into my priestess role.

The Goddess has been very kind to me with my priestess duties, too. She never demands too much, and what I can give is always enough. I spin my energies over this small home and the small piece of land it sits on. I nurture my husband, our cats, and all the wild animals and plants and bugs that live around us, and try to tend to all the nature spirits who surround us too.

My mission as a priestess is a very homey one. I keep our hearth warm and happy and try to extend that energy as far out in all directions as I can. I sense all of you out there too, spinning your own energetic webs around those you love and around all who have been put into your care. Goddess Bless you All.

I’m very excited! My drawing called “Fire Birds” was published in the Fall issue of Circle Magazine on page seven. You can see the drawing and the invocation I wrote for it on this page.

And my good friend Lady Becca created the cover, so I’m feeling very loving toward this issue. :)

I’ve been taking St. John’s Wort for three weeks now and I’m doing well! The first two weeks my moods swung very low, with a few anxious days and a few good days mixed in. This week my overall mood has been stable and very tolerable, and my energy keeps increasing too.

I have three main emotional states and they are happy, sad, and anxious. I rate my moods on a scale of one to ten, with one being just aware of the feeling, five is feeling the mood too much and into the ouchy range, and ten is nearly unbearable. Three weeks ago, my depression hit the 8 or 9 range and that’s what finally drove me to make an appointment with my doctor. When I first started taking the SJW, it was like my body went through what the SJW was giving me too quickly and I needed more and my moods swung quite a bit. At three weeks, my moods all stay within the 1 to 2 range. I still feel angry, anxious, sad, disappointed, and happy but all those feelings stay within that tolerable level.

I want to mention that I’m taking Kava too. I’ve always enjoyed taking Kava Kava and have a good supply of quality stuff stashed away. It relieves anxiety and gives a pleasurable feeling. I mentioned the Kava Kava to my doctor and he didn’t freak out, and my liver test came back ok, so I feel safe enough continuing to take the Kava until the SJW kicks in all the way, and maybe beyond. (St. John’s Wort is supposed to be fully effective at six weeks.)

I’m very sure that I do need to take something for my anxiety and depression now and if the SJW ever stops working I won’t hesitate to go on prescription drugs. I don’t think I’ll ever be “cured” and my brain’s structure is made to feel things too severely. The SJW does not seem to have any side effects and does seem to give a more gentle moderation of my moods than the prescription drugs I tried did. I’ve got my fingers crossed that it will continue to work.

Some helpful links from my travels on this journey:

Highly Sensitive - A few articles about highly sensitive people and anxiety.

Depression and Creativity - Several ideas about how depression and bipolar disorder influence creativity.

The 10 Paradoxes of Creative People - Heh, you’ll recognize yourself since Pagans are some of the most creative people on earth.

The Psychology of Creativity: Redeeming our Inner Demons - Purpose and passion.

Help For Depression - Down to earth suggestions about how to cope with and / or come out of depression. (It’s different for everyone.)

It’s working pretty well too. I started taking it ten days ago. I was tired all the time so I went to my doctor because I thought my thyroid medicine needed adjusting. He said it was most likely depression, although we did do a blood test to make sure. (It took two technicians five tries to get the blood and I came out of there with both arms covered in bandaids!) Anyway, the doctor and I had a long discussion about anxiety and depression and how they can coexist, and about my mother. I did take anti-anxiety meds a few years ago and didn’t like them. They cut off the super charged feel good highs I have. It turns out that those feel good highs, and also miserable feel bad lows, might be inherited from my mother who was Bipolar.

My whole family is a little nuts. Mostly they’re alcoholics, bless their drunken hearts, self-medicating themselves into numbness. I tried that myself for a while, but stopped before I hurt myself too much. Anyway, as I age, I just turned 54, I see my moods becoming more extreme and, more often than not, settling into deep depressions.

So, my doctor suggested that I try St. John’s Wort since the anti-anxiety medications always seemed to have some side effect I didn’t like, along with putting the kibosh on my lovely hyper highs. I feel it working already. My moods are much more steady and don’t swing so wildly. I have more energy too, and that must be because I’m not spending as much dealing with gleeful highs and painful lows.

I did a lot of reading online and found a neat free Electronic Mood Chart that works in Excel. (The site was put together by J. Phelps, M.D., and has a lot of information about Bipolar and “Soft Bipolar.”) I’ve been using the mood chart for ten days and see how my sleep patterns reflect, and maybe predict, my moods. Knowledge is good!

I’m sorry to say that I didn’t find a lot of reliable information about St. John’s Wort on the web. Kelly’s St. John’s Wort Pages was about the most down to earth. If you’re interested in trying St. John’s Wort and you haven’t done a lot of research, please be forewarned that there are a lot of misinformed folks out there and an awful lot of stupid thinking going around about taking anxiety and depression medication.

I settled on NSI brand St. John’s Wort. All my reading did make it clear that quality varies a lot, so it’s best to stick to one brand and adjust the dose until it works. I’m taking quite a bit more than recommended on the bottle, but my doctor ok’d that. I won’t give the NSI site’s url here because I don’t want anyone to think I’m an affiliate or anything like that. I just choose them because they were convenient, affordable, and I couldn’t find any bad reviews of that brand which I took to mean they were a fairly respectable company.

So, now you know what I did with my summer. I found out that I’m willing to trade my heady highs for a middle-of-the-road steady state. And I’m happy now. Pleasantly, calmly happy.

We went to Lake Michigan yesterday and walking in the sand and across rocks near the shore was exhausting because I had to concentrate on keeping my balance so hard! I could have really used a staff.

I discovered the joy of walking with a staff at the Pagan Spirit Gathering last year. During my Croning there, I acquired one and immediately felt a new sense of balance! A staff gives you a third point to distribute weight on and is quite handy in crowds too. People make room for you when you’re carrying a big stick.

I’ll be 54 next month and the truth is, my knees and ankles have seen better days. Sometimes I lose my balance for no reason at all, and I have a hard time rising from a squat, but I’ve never been brave enough to use a walking stick in “normal” public situations. Well, I just read a great article called Quarterstaff Revolution and I feel fully empowered to take up a staff and proudly carry it whenever I need to! (And a lot of other elders and near-elders are feeling empowered to do so too.)

I’m thinking about getting two different kinds. A telescoping hiking stick with a camera mount would be very handy, and a lovely brightly painted staff for other occasions would be wonderful. Think I’ll make the painted one out of one of our trees. Our trees wouldn’t mind contributing a nice stout branch to the cause.

Rocks are slow moving spirits and they are all Elders. Rocks may seem cold and unfriendly but they’re not. You just need to be patient until they speak. The most talkative Rock Elder I know lives next to Grandmother Ash and, when the light is just right, he has a human face. I often look at him when I sit under Grandmother and he gives advice occasionally. He tells me to work slowly to build what I want. Be steady and firm in the basics so that the imagination and intuition can wander wherever they want and always have a safe home to return to.

I often get so involved chasing one idea after another that I neglect the foundations of my life. I have to remind myself of the plans I’ve made and check to see if the current glittering idea that’s caught my imagination’s eye is part of the plan or a diversion. Diversions are important too, but they can be a lot like cotton candy; delicious and fun, but not very nourishing.

Rock Spirits are about stability, building foundations slowly, home, and safety. If you suddenly find yourself attracted to rocks, you may need to pay attention to these areas of your life. If you’ve always been a rock hound, then honor the Rock Elders by giving thanks for the guidance and balance they’ve brought to you throughout your life.

I’ve changed the name of my blog to match my domain name but the address is still the same. I added this blog as an afterthought to my main site, so I gave it a different name and tucked it away in its own directory thinking I wouldn’t give it much attention. To my surprise, the blog turned out to be the area of the site that I love the best and all my energy goes into it, so I’m rearranging things a bit. I’ll be slowly moving the content of the other part of my site into the blog so I’ll be able to take better care of everything.

I wanted to mention, too, that my old host was so awful that hardly anyone was able to leave comments and I’m delighted that so many of you are leaving them now, but I’m still figuring out how they work! So if you posted a comment and it never showed up it was probably stuck in the spam filter. I’ve just now noticed that some of them get caught there, so I’ve released them and will check it more frequently.

Our crazy neighbor has been very quiet since the shooting incident two weeks ago, but we heard more gun shots from his yard tonight. Our house is several hundred feet from his, so we’re safe enough here but it’s still unnerving after what happened. My husband is seeing about registering an old handgun that’s been in the family for so many years that it never had any paperwork.

Thank to you all for posting here throughout this mess. You reminded me that were sane people left in the world, and that was extremely important to me.