Books & Baseball & Miscellany

The risk of depression in the menopausal stages: A systematic review and meta-analysis

A review of studies that appear to show that peri-menopause increases a person's risk of depression significantly. This tracks with what I've been experiencing. I've struggled with depression and anxiety due to CPTSD my entire life, and, according to some studies, that increases my risk for severe depression during this period even more.

Doctor appointment on the 29th. We'll see what they want to do. My current doctor is younger, so I hope they are more well-versed in modern treatments than older doctors. I have had too many old doctors who were extremely dismissive of symptoms and lacked in-depth knowledge of current research.

Menopause has officially become worse than anything I went through during puberty. That is amazing if you could see into my memories, because it was really bad. However, I think the real problem now is that, while things were rough in my teens, I had zero responsibilities. My whole focus was on me and keeping myself from becoming a statistic in my small town's immense database on teen suicide.

Now, I have actual responsibilities. These are things that, one year ago, would not have bothered me in the slightest. In fact, they'd have energized me and kept me going. But about two months ago, I started a downward slide. Unfortunately, I had already signed up for all those things. Now, the responsibility is too much, but there is no one to take the reins. My ex has opted out of parenting even more than he had so far. He can't be bothered to even contact the kids anymore. He has no idea what is going on in their lives, etc, etc. Maybe that's a good thing, though. The last time he came to visit, I locked myself in my room all day.

I finally made an appointment this morning. But, since I waited so long, the next available isn't for another month. Of course, I never make appointments unless my job forces me to, so I suppose I should consider this one for the W column.

The short of it is, I no longer feel like the person I was. It's kinda pissing me off. I know that for a long time I haven't been able to write, etc, but this is something different. It isn't those meds that effed me up four years ago, this is something more intense. Though I'm sure the meds permanently damaged me because I still cannot cry. I feel like that would help. Like, if I could just have a really good cry, that'd be awesome. I could release the tension; I would feel so much better.

Other issues:

Last week, I was in so much pain that even my tongue hurt. This is apparently a menopause thing. Though not too much of a surprise, they only gave it a name two years ago. I also couldn't remember how to type, or spell, or words. I told my kids to put me in a home. They never listen to me.

I fell down the stairs. Not sure if that's directly related, but it feels like it must be. When I've tripped before, I've caught myself. I hit my right side. My usual pain is in my left side. It's difficult to use my stupid cane now. I mean, which side?

And kids' stuff; and cost of living; and the job market; and so on.

I don't believe in the idea that each of us was born for some greater purpose. We were born because our parents loved each other, and, well, that often leads to this sort of thing. Or, some guy forced himself onto our mother, and she wasn't able to get an abortion. Or, in my case, abortion wasn't legal, and my father never could keep it in his pants, and my mother was desperate not to become an old maid, so the best way to prevent it was to force a shotgun wedding.

(As a side note: When I was a kid, I used to think it was weird that my grandmother's first words upon seeing me were to comment that I did indeed look like my father's side of the family.)

I say all that because I was not born to do what I am doing. That, I suppose, begs the question: What am I doing?

Oh, I'm so glad you asked. Let me tell you a situation I got myself into here.

So, I went to a library meeting several months ago. At this meeting, I learned a lot. First, what I'm learning for my Master's program has no place in most libraries. Second, not all libraries have Friends of the Library to support them. I had just assumed the two grew up together and then got married because that's what we did back in the day.

This troubled me. So I kinda looked at it. And, being the kind of person I am (namely, the kind that looks briefly before jumping), I said: "Sign me up, I'll put together a Friends of the Library."

I was not born to do this sort of thing. In fact, even if personality is genetic, I definitely was not created to do this sort of thing.

However, I can get past that part. I can realize that, to be frank, no one else can do this. That's, of course, because no one else is willing to do this. And that can get me to accept this situation I have put myself into.

The tax code stuff, though. I'm sorry. This stuff is going to kill me. Do you even know how much work goes into starting a non-profit? I'm on step two of ten, and I want to crawl under the covers and not come out until the next millennium.

I just finished This Blinding Absence of Light by Tahar Ben Jelloun. It is an impactful story about events in a Moroccan concentration camp in the 70s and 80s. I'm not going to give a comprehensive review at this point. I'm still processing it, and I have to write a comparison paper on the text this week — in Spanish. (My choice of book, not the professor's.)

But I wanted to share a portion of the story from about the middle of the book. Here, the protagonist (based on one of the prisoners who survived in his underground cell for two decades) finds purpose in his cellmates' need to hear the stories he's been telling them. This is a low point in his travails; they've been imprisoned for about a decade.

"Every day, Abdelkader would beg for stories.

'Salim, my friend, our man of letters blessed with a magnificent imagination, give me something to drink. To me, each sentence is a glass of pure water, spring water. I'll do without their beans and chickpeas, I'll share my ration of water with you, but please, tell me a story, a long and fantastic story. I need one. It's vital. It's my hope, my oxygen, my freedom. Salim, you who have read everything, you who remember all the verses, the commas and periods, you who recreate the other world where everything is possible--don't abandon me, don't forget me! My sickness can only be treated with words and images....I love your metaphors, I adore your irony, thanks to you I can forget my bruised body and go traveling. I fly, I stroll, I see the stars and I no longer feel the pain that's breaking my back, eating me up inside....I have the feeling that if I stop hearing your stories, I'll waste away.'"

This passage really struck me because we all need stories to get by in life. While I would rather read stories, others get their stories from non-text media. Even popular video games tell stories. I would also argue that sports events are stories, with a beginning, an end, and a struggle in the middle.

Stories help us understand the world around us, sure, but they also help us escape it. People often complain that entertainment distracts us from getting things done. That we ignore reality when we get involved in a TV series.

The truth is, sometimes reality doesn't deserve our attention. The world we live in was created by people with all the power to do whatever they want to us. We all learned quickly at the beginning of COVID that those people do not care about us. We are grist for their mills; we exist only to make them money.

So, take enjoyment in your preferred method of storytelling, whether that is a book, a TV show, or a game. The people who are opposed to it have not taken the time to consider how stories impact us in the day-to-day existence in this world, where we lack all but the most basic control over our lives.

Years ago, I was in a parent support group for people with Trans children. It was a positive support group. Don't freak out. We talked about family problems, future treatments (our kids were in grade school and, despite what Right-wing a**holes say, they don't do anything medically to Trans kids in grade school), etc.

A parent shared how their child was starting to reach puberty age and how they were changing emotionally. This is very normal, but parenting books never warn you about it. Kids can change radically when they reach puberty.

I suggested to her that she should grieve the child she had, grieve for that loss, because the change is both normal and inevitable for all of us.

She did not like that. The idea of grieving was offensive to her. Whether this was because she just wanted to force her child to remain as they were, or for some other reason, I do not know.

The truth is, however, that we must daily grieve. We have no choice. I know that in the US, this is sacrilege. We are just supposed to pretend everything is fine, that nothing bad will ever happen. That if bad things happen, we need to pretend they don't really impact us.

I know it's not just in the US. I had a friend who lived in Australia. Her daughter was born at the same time as my second. They both had severe birth defects. Her daughter did not make it. A year later, at the anniversary of that death, her pastor told her she had to get over it. That god was displeased with her sadness.

How much of all of our collective anger is simply due to not being allowed to grieve? Growing up in the alt-right, true grief was suppressed, often violently--either physically or psychologically. There was no support for sadness, only anger at being inconvenienced by another person's suffering. This extended into adulthood. The Right hates to face the reality of suffering, instead employing it in the use of their usually racialized agenda. But that's a post for another day.

There is also the belief that there is a right and wrong way to grieve. When I was in school to be a CNA many, many, many ages ago, we were taught the DABDA theory of grief. My instructors were at least honest in admitting that there really wasn't an order to it, and that you likely will repeat many of the "steps" over time. Far too many people, though, believe that there is a wrong way to grieve. That just compounds the grief with more grief.

For example, I remember in the mid-80s reading an article in National Geographic about a country in the Middle East that was at war. They described a mother's mourning. She threw herself into the grave, atop the coffin. I thought that was a far more appropriate form of grief than the fake laughter at my friend's father's funeral a few months later, after he'd been killed in a terrible car accident. When I tried to say that, I was told that "Muslims are too emotional and that's why they are so violent." (Also, a subject for another article is just how violent my white Christian family was.)

I think of all this today because it is Mother's Day week, and that means the anniversary of my brother's death. He was killed two days before Mother's Day three years ago. I have tried to be supportive of my mom (and that also needs a posting of its own), but many times I have not just allowed her to be. There have been times I've thought I was encouraging her to grieve, but I realize I was telling her to do it in my way. Even though I might sit here and argue that my way "allows" her to grieve however she wants, that really can't be true, because it was still an attempt to dictate it. It's been a learning process for me.

The other reason is that I had a meeting for my youngest son's IEP today. I have three children who are classified as "special needs." Three children who cannot simply go to a college, get a job, and then go on to live what white America calls "normal lives."

Of late, I have realized that I need to stop living in the "My prayer is to live one minute longer than my disabled child(ren)." That is because I know that it is self-deception. Sure, it sounds great on paper, but in reality, it does not deal with the actual problem. That problem is that I need to prepare my kids for when I am no longer here.

The types of conversations families with disabled children have are not the kind that "normal" people like. Normal people talk about campus tours and the cost-benefit analysis of living on or off campus, etc. Families with disabled children talk about "What is going to happen to them when I die?" And that has been our conversation.

This is a daily grieving process, as well. One day I will die. And they will still be fairly young since I was 40 when my son was born. The US is a sh*thole country where people with disabilities are treated like garbage. The things that are still done to the disabled in this supposed great country are criminal. I have to live with the knowledge that when I am gone, when their siblings are gone, there will be no one to protect them.

So, I must, whether I like it or not, find a way to grieve this daily.

I honestly feel that this can be a natural thing to do. The thought of our loved ones dying one day should not be ignored. We are all going to die. My brother was only 50 when he died. I had a cousin who died at age 3, and another who died at 31. All three died in different ways--murder, a drunk driver, and illness. None of them was expected.

Grief is inevitable. White America does not seem to understand that. We insist on a dream world where everyone is always happy, and no one imposes anything on us.

The problem is that, since it is inevitable and our minds know it, suppressing the feelings only forces them to pour out in other, smaller instances. For example, getting angry because we missed a light or the grocer doesn't have our favorite creamer in stock. These are, strangely, acceptable things to complain and grieve over in a public manner.

I have no hard solutions. That is because each person grieves differently. For me, I now understand that it must be a daily process. At some point each day, I would do well to spend some time processing the multiple things in my life I need to grieve. Preparing our souls for grief is a necessity in life, like studying for school or working out.

The big ones will probably still hit us like a ton of bricks, but at least we might have the system in place to begin processing it all.

One thing I can say is that I'm pretty sure a lot of my stress was induced by media consumption. While I truly believed that I was curbing my stress by engaging in subjects that mattered to me, that does not seem to have been the case.

However, once I realized that, I also saw that the truth is worse than the anti-social media people want to admit. The hard reality is that there is no escape from the stress. There is only temporary mediation. That is what I thought social media was doing for me.

Now, nearly two weeks into this almost full ban on social media use, I can't say that life is any less stressful. As I've indicated before, what would end my stress is a living wage, affordable housing, and universal human rights. Without those, no one can live a stress-free life.

So, now what?

That's a good question. While I do believe I've calmed down a lot, I'm not quite as reactionary, the stress continues to mount. Last week I took a day off from work, and on that day, it was announced that we will be let go a month early this year (my regular job is "seasonal"). Of course, that is stressful. My workmates and I have lost an entire month of pay.

Add to this the madness that is our society (did you see the fake assassination attempt last night?), and I'm honestly surprised that more people haven't burned it all to the ground. But, then, history teaches us an important fact--the common person, be they free or slave, has to be pushed to the absolute breaking point before they become violent. Not true for the ruling class. Violence seems to be bred into them.

As I wrote yesterday, I just finished The Black Jacobins. It struck me how difficult it was for even slaves to become violent. Yet the rulers — the French, English, and Spanish and their soldiers — were constantly violent. Violence was their solution to everything, even towards non-violence.

Last week, NPR in Kansas raised the ire of even Liberals when it appeared to suggest there was a question about whether John Brown was good for society or a menace. (They have since changed the headline to make it sound palatable.) If one knows the biography of John Brown, one knows that it took a lot for him to become violent. He was in his late 40s before everything he'd participated in, starting with the Underground Railroad from his childhood, and witnessed led him to the conclusion that there could be no peaceful resolution to slavery. The truth is, you cannot fight pure evil with reason because evil is not a reasonable human position.

If you look at the way white people write about the Haitian Revolution and Toussaint L'Ouverture, as well as abolitionists like John Brown, you will find a lot of negative words in their speech. There is a lie in the White West that states that we don't need to fight physically against oppression. It is reinforced by the media that runs headlines that question whether John Brown was a hero or a menace.

I remind people at work who brag about working off the clock that common citizens, just like them, literally died for our right not to have to do that. It falls on deaf ears. And to what end? All that work, and we get released a month early. While some members of leadership try to create a hostile work environment by pitting one group against another.

People talk about social media fomenting violence. Meanwhile, the mainstream media promotes the violent acts of our government as if they are just a normal part of life. As if bombing and killing people who aren't white is just one of those things we have to do in order to ensure whites are free.

Social media, from my viewpoint, is likely what is keeping people from doing anything useful. It makes people think they are part of a movement when, in reality, they are just viewing the chaos as entertainment.

So, I am collecting books again. I'm not sure how long it will last. It's been making me feel better and getting me to read more.

Which leads to me state that it's been nearly two weeks since I gave up doom scrolling and almost all social media. Do I feel infinitely better? I do not know. It's still touch and go. I have more time to read. I am not as stressed.

I can see why doom scrolling is essential to maintain the status quo, however. Once you stop, and then your mind starts to clear, you can plan. Doom scrolling, as much as I thought it was helping me, was keeping my mind trapped in that same fear I had as a child in my abusive home, or when I was married in the same sort of situation. I suppose that is actually why I thought it was helping. The mind, for whatever reason, clings to what is familiar.

Back to those books, though. A few weeks ago, I went to buy The Black Jacobins. It's one of those books I think one should have on their bookshelf in case it "disappears" for, uh, some reason. (The version I linked to is a free online version.) I just finished it this week. It's a must read. There is an online "course" from Haymarket Books to help you if you are not familiar with Haitian history. You probably aren't if you went to school in the West.

A few other recent books that I haven't finished yet are The Jakarta Method. (Also, an online free version.) If you want to know just how low Imperialism has gone and will go, this is an important text. In fact, if you just want to challenge yourself to see what our Western governments are capable of and why they've all been silent on the genocides going on for decades, this is an important read.

Lighter reading I've picked up has been Kafka: The Complete Stories. (Same.) It's everything published and salvaged except his longer works. Also, a bio called On Morrison by Namwali Serpell, who teaches a whole dang course on Toni Morrison.

For those of you who don't know, I argue for removing the Shakespeare core and replacing it with Morrison in university English programs. Morrison is the most intelligent and creative writer in the English language ever.

Yes, I've read Shakespeare. I have about the same opinion of him as the French. When I was young and had yet to read outside the White Western Canon that was forced on us in US education in the 70s and 80s, I thought he was great. Once I stepped outside the veil, I discovered that the academy does not use Shakespeare because he's better; they use him to drive home their racism and misogyny. I saw it firsthand at the university. Morrison is infinitely better and is always supplanted by a white male author for "reasons."

Anyway...

The Dodgers and Cubs are running the bases today like their lives depend on it. Dave Roberts has been pushing his pitchers into later innings. Sometimes that works, like it did for Glasnow the other night. Not so much last night for Sheehan. (You can look that one up, if you want to watch the sadness.) Sasaki has just been pulled and I sure hope the bullpen does not pull the same thing they did last night. Pray for me.

The Dodgers lost. We're now neck and neck with the Padres. Good for them, not so happy for us. I mean, historically, it means almost nothing. I'll try not to worry.

I'm gonna be honest. Winning that second World Series really took a lot of the stress off my mind. I know that the casual fan won't get it, but when baseball is your ADHD fixation, that sort of thing has a real impact. Anyway, all that to say that I'm trying to channel some Dave Roberts Zen this season and just enjoy how well we are doing.

As for the books part...

I'm currently reading My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk. I'm not sure I'll finish. I get that people in the world are sick and far too many men are sexually interested in young boys, but, honestly, nearly every chapter? Even before the era of Epstein, I never found that such overuse added anything to a story. If you can write well, you don't need to throw in that much pedophilia. But I'm not a rich man, so what do I know? We'll see. Maybe I'll start caring about the characters soon and actually finish it.

On the other hand, This Blinding Absence of Light by Tahar Ben Jelloun has been riveting. I had to force myself to put it down yesterday so I could get my work done. It's tragic and painful. However, I found the narrator compelling from the beginning. So, my attention to the, a-hem, issues in My Name is Red may be that my mind is bored. It might not be overrepresented.

Both of these books are translations from the original language. This can lead to issues (see Rewriting Homer). However, unlike Homer, the authors are still alive.

As for my mental health:

The advice goes like this:

Avoid the news, and you'll feel better. Avoid social media, and you'll be less depressed.

The advice is sometimes given by people I like; I harbor no ill will towards them. However, it has always been given by people who do not have the same level of political engagement as I have. They might vote, but that's usually the extent of their political understanding.

I realize that most people did not grow up in a political family like mine. The majority of Americans probably don't spend their dinner hour conversing about the day's political events or what action they plan to take regarding certain situations in local or national politics.

Therefore, while I try not to let that part of their personality affect me, I cannot take their advice about how to protect my mental health when it comes to avoiding media consumption. To me, I see that most of my friends are lost in imaginary TV worlds that, for the most part, can affect no real change in society. Sure, they are not going to vote for Trump, but they aren't going to do anything to fight what is obviously coming for us.

In short, I have not met anyone who proffers the advice to avoid the news and is still actively engaged in meaningful change.

However, earlier this week, one person I have a great deal of respect for, who is actively involved in similar political work to mine, suggested that if I wanted to maintain my sanity, I should avoid the news for the first two hours of the day. By "news," he meant any news source: social media, news outlets, the radio, and that little MSN menu that pops up if you accidentally hover over the little icon in the corner of your laptop.

I laughed it off at first. I mean, I scroll to avoid the thoughts in my head. How was I supposed to avoid all those depressing thoughts and fears if there was nothing to drown them out?

The next morning, though, my brain said, "Yeah, you're gonna try that."

Something you should know about me is that if my brain issues that type of command, I cannot do anything about it. There have been many times in my life when I was able to get rid of certain habits and such once my brain finally accepted that I should not do them. (The trick is that my conscious mind doesn't seem to have control over when my unconscious mind is going to put a stop to it or start it. lol)

So, I did not get onto social media that morning. Instead, I read a Spanish story to practice my reading and add to my vocabulary. Then I got ready for work and opted for a silent drive.

Today is day four. But it hasn't just been the morning. I've completely left it all. Not the activity, but the news. Two days after not going on social media for personal interest (I run the social media for a group I'm in, so I do have to visit occasionally), I got a message on IG, so I visited, but I didn't look beyond that.

Gosh, I'd love to tell you I'm cured. I'd love to say, "Yep, this is what will solve all my problems." That would make me like those other people, because the truth is, a living wage and universal healthcare would solve all my problems.

I'm still depressed. I still have anxiety. But, I'll be honest, my focus has shifted to reading books and baseball articles in my free time. And, I haven't hated not being "informed." I haven't felt any pang of remorse at not being "engaged" with accounts I follow. Most importantly, I still believe the workers need to seize the means of production, and the only way any of us will thrive in this world is if we overthrow the oligarchy.

What I'm saying is that it might be possible to be an anarcho-communist without consuming modern media. The jury's still out, though.

Follow here for updates on my mental health...

I grew up in a world I knew was filled with the most perverse and sick sort of people. I was first SA'd at seven by a neighbor, a year later by a babysitter. At eleven, I was chased and groped along a busy street in an affluent suburb of Los Angeles while all the rich white men drove by in their BMWs and did nothing. Because my parents were so abusive, I could not tell them any of this. But these acts done to me were nothing compared to the horror that I would face as a teenager.

When I was 15, my best friend was SA'd by her step-father. Her stepfather was a good friend of my grandparents. The man cried his crocodile tears, like they all do, adding that he'd been SA'd as a child. My grandparents accepted this; they allowed the man in our home, sat him next to me at the dinner table, and shoved me between him and my grandfather in the truck cab on hunting trips.

If you just read that and are waiting for me to get to the part where he had his way with me so you can be horrified, you are part of the problem. Not that I believe you want to hear the gory details, but that you think that what my grandparents did was not the horror.

Let me take you a bit back in time to a story I love to tell people who seem to think that what we have seen in the media the last few years was an anomaly. When I was around seven, and my brother was around five or six, my grandfather proudly informed us of what he'd do to my brother if he came out as gay. "I'd take him out hunting, and there would be an accident." Follow that up with laughter.

So, my grandfather would murder my baby brother if he were gay, but if he SA'd a little girl, no worries, just say "sorry."

Even without that part, the part where my grandfather thought being gay deserved death but being a child rapist deserves acceptance, this story would still be one of horror. My grandparents, people who were supposed to protect me, gave a child SA-er full access to me. And while he never touched me sexually, the fact that my grandparents thought nothing of allowing me to be with a sicko like that, that they shrugged it off like it was nothing, was one of the worst forms of abuse I've ever suffered, and my parents were very violent.

See, I thought my grandparents' house was a safe place. There, I wasn't subjected to the violence and cruelty of my parents. But that was an illusion. They might never come after me with the wooden spoon or leave physical marks on my body, but what they did was so much worse. It made me think that rape was OK to them, that any man could do whatever he wanted to do to me, and it was fine by them.

This would take me decades to work through, especially because they always sided with my abusive husband and father. I was supposed to make my husband happy. Things would be better for me if I just made sure to find what made him happy. My father had such a lonely childhood; I should be more compassionate to him.

Blah, blah, blah.

Every time I have tried to speak up, I've been shunned and told to keep quiet. You know, like all survivors of SA are in this so-called society.

Now, people are loudly talking about this sort of thing because of the Epstein Files. Men are angry, women are incensed. But where was all the outrage from people when the victims spoke out? Yes, I know there was some, but not at this level. We have always known what kind of garbage Trump and his ilk are. Because, to be honest, the stuff you've read about in the files is the same sh*t they were doing to the slaves. This is a long tradition for the wealthy and powerful.

Anyway, forgive me if I don't think y'all are serious about it now. Forgive other survivors for rolling their eyes and saying, "sure you will do something." Forgive us for doubting your sincerity. Because if it took physical images of the victims to get you to speak out, you are no different from my grandparents. Your silence told the victims that what happened to them was OK.