3x Thursday: A Little Help

I am not as ambitious as Melissa, and cannot come up with thirteen things of a single topic in a day's blog entry. Instead I'll do this.

1. Do you believe there's such a thing as a chemical imbalance? Do you think that treating these problems with drugs is a good thing? Why/why not?

Yes, on both accounts. I have had family and friends who suffer from depression attributed to chemical imbalances. Without the drugs, they would fall apart to the point of dysfunction each and every day. My mother has no thyroid. She needs to take prescription drugs so that her body may accomplish what a body with a healthy thyroid would do on its own. It should also be said that being without a thyroid (or an over-active thyroid) affects not only your physicality but also your mental functions as the chemicals go to all parts of the body, including the brain.

I'm not sure what you intend by the word "good"--I would say that it's good that people can now do for themselves what was never even in the realm of possibility half a century ago. My great grandmother spent the better half of her life in an asylum due to any number of mental problems (and probably thyroid dysfunction, too), because no one knew what to do for her. My mother doesn't have to suffer the same thing because she can take drugs for her problems. Yes. I call that good.

2. What about drugs for brain-related stuff like depression? Do you think one should be able to get over it themselves, or do you think sometimes we all need a little help, and sometimes we need meds for a while?

I don't believe there's an all-inclusive answer to this question. Anything brain-related should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Prescriptive drugs will help some people some of the time. Sometimes just exercise will help. Sometimes turning to religion helps. But then sometimes nothing will help an individual. Don't get me wrong. I don't think anti-depressants and anti-psychotics should be given out like M&Ms, but I disagree wholeheartedly with those who would discount them entirely.

3. Whom do you turn to when you have emotional crisis? Why?

It might be a lazy cliche, but "I get by with a little help from my friends"--and when I'm done pouring my heart out to whomever, I sit down and write my reflections. Writing is a very therapeutic activity for me.

Bonus Question: Are you ready to deal with Christmas? Will you be happy or sad when the holidays are over?

I know this was meant for the comment section on the source site, but I may as well go on, right?

I'm nearly ready for Christmas to be here, though I'm still not entirely convinced that it is nearly here. I'm in Boston, and it's been unseasonably warm here for the past three months; I think we've only had two days where it flurried a little. I suppose I'll have a bout of sorrow after the day passes, but it probably won't hit me until January is underway. Mostly, I'm looking forward to the after-Christmas sales.

Turn the page ...

Close the book ...

binging on life

Eat a live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.
Unknown

"Participants must promise that they will try really really hard to update their web sites every day from December 1, 2006, to January 1, 2007. With holiday obligations, this realistically means you might post a minimum of 20 entries for the month." - Holidailies

So, counting this as the twenty-first post of the month, I can at least be proud that I've reached the minimum for Holidailies. Excellent. Though I'll probably end up dropping off the blog-map once I get to North Carolina.

And I'm leaving tomorrow night. I still haven't really packed anything, though most of what I intend to pack is sitting on top of my suitcase on the floor by my bed.

I think I might splurge for a cab from work tomorrow afternoon. It's not that I won't have enough time if I go by T; I just don't feel like dealing with the crowds of people, which are likely to be akin to the ones I encountered at Thanksgiving. It took me two tries to get on the red line, and another two tries to get on the silver line. A maddening human sardine experience. No, thank you. Not again. Not right now.

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There was another box from Amazon waiting for me in the vestibule when I came home yesterday evening. It was a Christmas present from my friend Sue, the third and final set of DVDs from Forever Knight.

After opening it, I decided to follow my own plan and take pictures around the apartment--of the presents I've received, our decked-out Christmas tree, the weird little ornaments I bought at Target. I was uploading the pictures to my Flickr account when Michelle came home from work.

She went on a hunt in her room for the final episodes of Witch Hunter Robin; because I've had two copies of the final disc sent to me from Netflix, and neither of them has worked (the first was cracked down the center and completely unplayable, and the second could only play the first two episodes on the disc because the remainder was damaged too much). So Michelle burned those to CD for me (remarkably good quality, too), and I watched half of the first episode on the disc--until I decided that I would be clever and save the rest for tomorrow night when I'm sitting around Logan.

I also watched the first three episodes of Forever Knight Season Three, but fell asleep during the fourth one, waking up around 3 A.M. to the glow of the main menu screen. Turning off the television, I went to my laptop and checked my mail.

Arkaidy had posted an additional chapter to "Across Time"--one of the links I have in my "Favourite Fanfiction" in the sidebar--which I then proceeded to read until about 3:45 A.M. It was an interlude to explain the survival of Ares, Hercules, Zeus, and a few of the other gods into the present (because, if we follow a certain element of canon, the gods should fade out and die--but they don't, and Arkaidy has a decent explanation for their continuation).

Actually, the godly come-back makes sense to me because of "Yes, Virginia, There Is a Hercules"--a modern day episode where Ares and Strife show up at the end. So, surely, Ares has to survive in some way; and Strife has to be resurrected after his death-by-hind's-blood ... somehow.



But I shouldn't have read it last night. After I finished reading, getting back to sleep was nearly impossible. And when I did go to sleep, my dreams were vivid and strange and all too real. Actually, I sort of wish one of them had been real. I was enjoying it until my consciousness went, You know this is a dream. This would never happen. Being a conscious dreamer sucks sometimes.

When my alarm went off I didn't really hear it until forty minutes later.

Turn the page ...

Close the book ...