Bow-now-now-now-now-now-na-nuh. (Yes)terday was my birthday!

Thank you, The Beatles, for my earworm yesterday. Thank you, Patrick, for singing it into my voicemail. Thank you, Twitter and Facebook, for reminding everyone who knows me online, to send electronic wishes. Thank you, family and friends in real life, who remembered & said something or decided to celebrate a moment for yourselves, as that is really all I ever really wish, on my annual trek 'round the sun, that those who know me will do something fun or celebratory, for just a moment, remembering that I've made it another lap.

So, yeah. Made it another lap. Go, me!

I've been unemployed too long. Stephen thinks I'm Depressed. But I don't feel the same that I usually do when I'm Depressed, which someone else's therapist actually described better as "COMpressed", meaning, All of the Feelings that we might experience in a given day or week are mashed up together so tightly that we don't feel them at all. I've been feeling all the feels and just living, unemployed. So another friend linked an article about High Functioning Depression, which actually sounded a lot like I feel lately. Since I couldn't easily locate that article (it was in a long Twitter conversation/thread, and if you know Twitter at all, you know that important stuff gets easily lost in those threads), I just Googled it:

There are a lot of articles about it. My doc has referred me to the KP "Depression Team" to see if there's any help for me. His referral happened on Friday the 26th of May, after he used the "quick-and-easy" diagnostic tool for depression, a questionnaire that included things like "to what degree do you ever think about being dead or harming yourself?". I didn't hear from the DT Manager (by phone) until Thursday the 1st of June. HE asked me right away to expound on that question in particular (I often, when "feeling" depressed, think about being dead; I never have any impulses toward self-harm or suicide), and after some in-depth conversation, he told me I'd hear from my assigned social worker either that day or the next.

It's now Sunday the 4th, and it's a really damn good thing I don't have intentions or impulses of self-harm or suicide, because if I did, Kaiser Permanente could be (possibly) held liable for anything I may have done before my social worker finally calls me to talk me off a ledge and see me in person!

Fortunately for KP, I really think my diagnosis is going to be one of dysthymia (the clinical name for High Functioning Depression). What I know about my own Depression is that I've had it for awhile, never been diagnosed, and have always just kept calm and carried on. That's exhausting. I want some help. I'll be happy to get any diagnosis, at this point. I'm tired of being deeply angry or even just a little irate over stupid shit, like the "church" around the corner (appropriating my symbolism) or not booking work (feeling unwanted) or coughing/clearing my throat for no reason (wtf is wrong with my breathing?) or or or or....

Ennyhoo. I have penpals to write to, and pages to color, and laundry to wash, and blogs to read, and VO to record as practice, and furbabies to feed, and lotteries to win (it's My Turn, dammit!), and wine-n-chocolate to consume, and and and and...

... and I get to have a colonoscopy on the 12th! Whee! But for now, continuing my birthday in fine form, this will be me for the next day or two

until the cake runs out, that is...