Most online depictions of depression differ greatly from my own experience of major clinical depression. Because of this, reading them often makes me irrationally angry.

For the past few weeks I’ve been playing an iPad game called Royal Envoy wherein you are a city planner dispatched by a monarch to rebuild cities on colonial islands in increasingly elaborate scenarios with various specifications and time constraints. I’m not ordinarily much of a gamer but the truth is that I can become addicted to just about anything and now, having finally managed to achieve the gold star for level 57, it’s safe to say that I can add Royal Envoy to the list addictions, past and present: alcohol, cigarettes, candy, cupcakes, coffee, Monster Energy Drinks, and crystal methamphetamine.

Depression is a popular topic for blogs and I’ve written before about how I’m not overly fond of writing or reading about it. So let me apologize in advance for the next few paragraphs. Depression is an annoyance and if untreated it can be dangerous, but fortunately we live in a time where its treatment is drastically improved from even just a few decades ago. It is my experience that there are fantastic medicinal technologies available and I have a gifted psychiatrist. Most of the time I operate in the world as if I am not a depressed person. I am not one of those people who thinks, “Oh, I feel better now. Maybe I will try going off the meds.” I am not under any delusion that my condition is going away, and it doesn’t really bother me: I don’t consider it a disability, I don’t consider myself to be crazy, and I don’t find a need to handwring about it.

Most of all, I think it’s important to say that I don’t need my depression to explain things to people.

When I do suffer symptoms it is because there is a problem with some aspect of my therapy, such as (just a hypothetical), I have to switch medicines because I’m not able to lose the eighteen pounds of pregnancy breastfeeding weight I put on because of Effexor, and unfortunately there is no way to switch medicines without first weaning off one and then slowly going back up on another.

Here are the symptoms of major clinical depression, as I have it, for anyone who might be curious: I get overwhelmed by things, I become very unproductive. I crave repetitive, soothing tasks, or things that require no attention span whatsoever. Generally I read, play iPad games, watch TV shows, enjoy time with my children, and just wait out the medicine adjustments.

That’s what I’ve been doing, and that’s why I haven’t been around. I find it tough to take pictures of things and produce content when I’m in this state. Fortunately, I also know it’s not permanent. So, for now, back to building fountains.

Last week for date night I suggested that we go see We Need To Talk About Kevin, the movie about the mother of a young sociopath which stars Tilda Swinton. It was a long shot because Mr. Right-Click struggles with watching movies that have negative themes and children — whether the children are the victims or the victimizers does not seem to matter — so I wasn’t surprised when he said he would rather not. We went to see A Dangerous Method instead, because I like Freud and everyone said it was good. (It was not, though I rather enjoyed the absurdity of Kiera Knightley’s version of a hysteric, and the fact that Freud’s office was full of kitsch, because this level of historical detail was not something I expected.)

Anyway, I’m glad we didn’t see We Need To Talk About Kevin because I decided to read the Lionel Shriver book upon which the movie was based instead. If you haven’t figured it out already, this is all an elaborate means of explaining why there haven’t been as many new posts here lately. I love a good book about a sociopath, and between that, schlepping Mini to preschool, taking LL for shots, and obsessing over the fact that the backs of my hands suddenly look like those of a sixty year old, I’ve been fresh out of time to write (this is a lie).

The truth is that I’ve been struggling with posts here for reasons I’m still trying to figure out. On a practical level, I have less time to write now that I have two children. I feel bad even saying that given that I have help with my children. Also: I now feel bad admitting that I have help with my children, but it would be absurd to pretend that I don’t because the bald fact is that I am a better mother if I am not exclusively responsible for the caring and feeding of my children at all hours of the day. My strengths and weaknesses on this point are things I had to accept about myself back when Mini was under a year old, but I have always been a little cagey about it on this blog, because it’s kind of a touchy subject and I’d rather not get involved.

[Aside: Everything I sit down to write lately seems to go exactly like this post is going: one issue brings up another one, and then another one (that I don't really want to write about because there will be too much explaining), and then another tangentially related one, and before you know it I'm 1500 words into something I didn't intend to write in the first place.]

Here’s what I have been worrying about lately:

  1. that while I do technically have a few free hours in the middle of the day, I never actually feel like writing or doing any kind of work during that time, preferring instead to check out by watching episodes of Downton Abbey or reading about fictional sociopaths;
  2. that really I should be sleeping, if anything, during those few hours because I know I will regret not sleeping when I’m on the second nighttime feeding with the baby;
  3. that the morning hours before the nanny comes and the evening hours after the nanny leaves are really exhausting for me, because I haven’t figured out the rhythm of dealing with two kids instead of one yet, and that I always feel like one of them is being neglected, which stresses me out and makes the whole endeavor more difficult than it really needs to be;
  4. how troubling it is to me that I find these hours so challenging, because I feel like I am defective somehow, as if the balancing of the demands of multiple children gene has somehow passed me by; and, oh by the way,
  5. what is it that I’m planning to do with my life, anyway?

One of the things about the blogging phenomenon that is interesting to me is that, howevermuch people try to present themselves to the world as they want to be seen, bits of their real, unidealized self always seems to creep into view. In the background of a picture, or in the offhanded remark, or even a word choice or omission, the real self is there even in cases where the editor is working overtime to let you see only the best of everything. People present a mask but if you are paying attention you can see through it.

Does everybody see through it? All I know is we are not supposed to talk about it.

In We Need To Talk About Kevin, one of the central conflicts concerns the mother’s perception of her son and how that differs from how other people — most notably her husband and her other child — perceive him. She always believes the worst of him, and in retrospect, is nearly always correct in her take. Is she the only one who can see him clearly? Or would everyone else just rather not get involved?

I’m tired, internet. And I am not sure of my place in this discursive space anymore. Or perhaps I am still figuring out what I want it to be. I’m not sure. While I figure it out, I present to you this picture of LL, which Mr Right-Click says looks like George W. Bush:

Cute, but definitely hiding something.

So, according to People magazine, Mariah Carey has lost all of her baby weight. It’s been about eight months since she gave birth, so that makes her actually behind the curve on celebrity post partum loss — it only took Posh Spice about two months to lose the three pounds she gained while pregnant, and Rachel Zoe looked totally normal about before her reality show had even wrapped last season. People think that celebrities can lose the weight so fast because they have personal trainers and chefs, but I’ve decided the issue is much greater than this. The postpartum body resists weight loss even with good diet and rigorous exercise — my theory is that celebrities who lose baby weight so quickly do not breastfeed (or breastfeed for a very short time if at all) because they are ingesting so many substances to kill appetite and counteract hormones that their breastmilk would be toxic.

The reason I bring this up is because I am currently struggling, really struggling with my own postpartum weight loss. Now that I’m not sick anymore, I find that food is a lot more appealing that it has been for me in nearly a year. That, coupled with a lack of sleep and the increased appetite I have from breastfeeding, is making this whole thing really difficult for me. Intellectually I know that I’m not a bad person because I’m overweight (or that anyone who is overweight is, for that matter) but my feelings and years of conditioning have not caught up to this yet. I still cringe at my reflection in the mirror and beat myself up for needing to lose weight, as if extra pounds are evidence of some kind of moral degeneracy or something.

I hate that my brain does this to me. I hate that I think this way. And before we really get into this here, let me tell you that the first person who tells me to relax and enjoy this time with my new baby will be socked in the face.

One of the reasons that I was a little anxious about having a girl is because of my issues with weight and food. I really don’t want to pass these problems onto my daughter, but unfortunately I think one of the most effective ways for me to encourage her to have good self esteem and eating habits is to model them for her. That’s where I run into trouble. Post partum body issues exacerbate this, and though she is happily far too young to pick up on this, I feel like the clock is ticking on this problem and I need to get it under control before she gets too much older. I’m failing at this miserably so far. Somebody asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I told them that all I want is to lose weight, which is really sad but there it is.

Those of you who have daughters, how do you deal with this stuff? Am I the only one who worries about this?