Ada destroyed the VCR remote the other day when we left her out of her crate while we were gone. She’s previously destroyed a TV remote, which we had to replace, at the cost of about 20% of what we paid for the TV. We’re not going to bother replacing the VCR remote, as we hardly ever use it now that we’ve got a DVD player.

Electronics are Ada’s favorite chew toys. Her current obsession is the cable box. She also once destroyed the base station to an mp3 player. When I heard that bulldogs were expensive dogs, this was most certainly not what I had in mind.

Brutal Women: Raising Children, or Lack Thereof

Interesting post and comments at Brutal Women discussing the place of kids in the workplace and society as a whole. I agree with all the comments posted (including my own, of course).

One thing that surprised me about the yogaferie is that I didn’t lose weight when I was there. I remember when I used to go to camp when I was a kid–I’d come back usually 10 pounds lighter from all the activity and better diet. I figured that a full week of vegetarian food and lots of exercise would help me lost some of the weight I’d put on from the Remeron and depression.

No luck! I think I may actually have gained weight while I was there, despite eating very little, eating very healthily, and exercising a LOT. I’m the fattest I’ve ever been now, and the number on the scale just keeps going up and up and up. I felt OK about the weight gain when I was depressed earlier this year, accepting it as just what’s going to happen when I was getting so little exercise and eating pure crap. I figured that when I brought my activity level and diet back to what’s normal for me, my weight would regulate itself back to where it usually is. I’ve been wearing the same size for about the past four years now, and my size has been only minimally affected by the usual fluctuations in my weight. Well, my activity level’s been coming back up to normal now, yet my weight keeps going up. If I didn’t lose weight even after that week in Nissedal, something’s seriously wrong and something has to change.

I knew that weight gain was a risk when I decided to go on this drug. It doesn’t show any sign of letting up, however, so I’m going to have to go off it, or at least lower the dose and see what happens. It’s one thing for someone who’s average or even a little pudgy to gain weight while on an antidepressant–it’s quite another thing for someone my size. Many of my clothes don’t fit anymore, and at my new size I’m so big that no place here in Norway sells clothes in my size. Even the clothes that do fit look bad on me since I used to like to wear relatively form-fitting things. Most of the weight seems to have gone to the bulge on my belly between my gut and my boobs, which now sticks out even farther than my boobs, so all my form-filling clothes showcase my bulges instead of my waist, like they used to. I’ve had to order clothes from the US so I can have some clothes that fit me, and that costs an arm and a leg in shipping, taxes, and customs fees. My center of gravity has changed, so my body and gait don’t even feel like mine any more. My knees hurt more and my calves are having a harder time carrying me.

I am extremely unhappy with these developments. Problem is, what can I do about them? If the yogaferie didn’t help me lose weight, it doesn’t seem like any behavioral change I can make will help. Therefore, it seems like a change in my meds is the only thing I can reasonably do. Ideally I would have liked to have kept the dose of the Remeron the same and added something else that might help me lose weight, e.g. amphetamines, selegiline, or Wellbutrin. My pdoc doesn’t seem too keen on the idea of combining meds like is so common in the US, though. She said I could stop taking the Remeron, though, so I’m going to start tapering down. The Remeron does help with my sleep quality, and I am definitely more able to get out and do things, but I still feel depressed. I don’t get anxious and I feel relatively stable, but I don’t feel good. I still feel like I don’t give a rat’s ass whether I live or die, even at the same time I’m taking steps to try to make my life better. I feel like I’m just going through the motions. At least I am able to go through the motions, though–before the Remeron, I wasn’t even able to do that.

My shrink said to me, “The drug itself won’t cause you to gain weight, it’s what you’re eating”. I just about wanted to smack her. For one thing, based on my lack of weight loss during the yogaferie, this seems to be blatantly false. For another, even if it is true in one sense, it’s an extremely simplistic way to look at weight gain. Maybe this is what my aunt was talking about when she said that she wouldn’t recommend this doctor to anyone with an eating disorder!

Anyway, I’ve decided to taper my meds down to the original dose. I’ve also started to chart my weight, which is something I’m loath to do, but I have to see in which direction things are going. If my weight doesn’t stabilize on the lower dose, I’m going to have to can this med altogether. Which will be sad; at the very least, I’ll miss the improved quality of my sleep. But I hate being this fat. I hate the way I look and feel. I hate feeling like I have no control over things. So far, it looks like my weight might be stabilizing, knock on wood.

These kinds of issues are so difficult to deal with. It’s unfortunate to have to stop taking an antidepressant because of weight gain. I can never know what’s causing the weight gain for sure: my eating habits, the med itself, the inactivity from depression…who knows? I cannot know what’s causing you to lose weight: the lower dose of the med, the acupuncture, the improvement of the depression…who knows? There isn’t much science that can be done on just one person.

I ask myself why I’m blogging about this stuff. It’s terribly personal, especially in light of some recent debate about blogging anonymously or not. I guess I want people to know how incredibly complicated it can be dealing with depression. It’s not just a matter of “you take a pill, you get better”. Often as not, the pills you take don’t make you better, they make you significantly worse in one way or another. And you always have to balance the pill’s good sides with its bad sides. Some pills don’t seem to do anything at all, and some work terrifically for a while, then stop working at all. When you take a pill, the whole time you’re on it you have to wonder if what you do, say, and feel is you or just the pill. If you feel better after taking the pill for a while, is it the pill doing its job or just depression’s natural remission? Every time you take a pill, you wonder if you’re going to end up worse off afterwards. Is the gamble worth it? I decided once before that it wasn’t, ’til the depression got so bad that I did the only reasonable thing to make the pain end. It’s not just a question of taking a pill to cure your disease–these are major questions of personal identity you have to deal with. That’s one reason I think therapy should be requisite for people taking psychiatric meds. Requisite.

Another issue I’ve been thinking about with regard to the meds is how far they can take you on the road to wellness. In his book The Noonday Demon, Andrew Solomon uses the analogy of a tree being strangled by a vine to describe depression and its healing. Medicine can be seen as killing the vine so the vine stops killing the person, but simply killing the vine won’t result in the tree regenerating all its damaged limbs. Somehow you have to not only get rid of the disease itself, but also regenerate the parts of you that have been killed off by the disease. This therapist I’ve got now seems to be really good, and I’m hoping she can help me with this regeneration. I’ve had probably five major depressive episodes since I was a teenager, after all. I feel like I’ve never lived my life fully, with normal goals and expectations for myself since…well, since I was in high school, before I realized the depression would keep coming back, and worse. There’s a buttload of regeneration to be done.

So, this is probably it for the Remeron. Next up is Lamictal. At least weight gain isn’t a side effect. No weight gain, just headaches, muscle aches, and a deadly RASH. <sigh> I’ll keep ya posted, you can bet on that.

Oslo varmere enn Roma og Malaga - Aftenposten.no

The headline, for those of you who don’t speak Norwegian, reads “Oslo hotter than Rome and Malaga”. Yes, it’s true. Today I saw my digital thermomete read 37 Celsius–that’s freaking body temperature, or 98.6° Fahrenheit.

The weather this week was forecasted to be record-hot, and the forecast seems to be panning out. The articles about the weather talk about how happy the Norwegians are with the weather, how much they enjoy the sun and heat. I just don’t get it. The only kinds of fns they have here are those useless oscilatting fans that just move the air around, so I cannot even get the house cooled down at night. No homes here are air-conditioned; even most public buildings, with the exception of grocery stores, seem to be without AC. I’ve been frying in my yoga studio and accupuncturist’s clinic. I just cannot get the house any cooler than the outside, and it’s hot outside!

I’ve finally decided to get a portable air conditioner for the bedroom, at least. We can only get AC’s powerful enough for one room, and they cost 5000 kroner (760-some bucks). With the primitive windows that are the only kind of windows in this country, I have no idea how we’re going to run the exhaust hose outside, butI guess I can hack something together. <grumble> Summer really makes me hate this country. That’s part of the reason I’m getting an AC. Johannes has agreed to get it for me as an early birthday present. It’s the most thoughful gift he’s ever given me. Maybe with my brain not frying 24 hours a day, I can get some decent reading done.

Most people who are anti-choice believe that abortion should be illegal. If abortion is made illegal, then how should the women who have illegal abortions be punished? The protestors at the Libertyville abortion demonstration, despite having been involved in the anti-choice movement for many years, seem never to have considered this question. Very interesting film. If you are anti-choice (or whatever you like to call yourself), I’d love to hear your input on this question.

(If you don’t like RealOne player, download RealAlternative!)

“I really think that everyone, American or not, could deeply benefit from living abroad, even for a short period of time.”

Indeed. I agree so completely with so much of this post–it’s a wonderful and concise statement about what it’s like to be an American abroad.

I got back from the yogaferie on Saturday evening. I’m just now feeling like I’m getting caught up with things: laundry, bills, housecleaning, etc. It was a good experience, but not necessarily a joyful one.

Every day I had to get up at 6:35 every morning, then we had yoga for two hours. Breakfast was usually porridge of varying kinds (millet!), plus the usual Norwegian bread-and-pålegg spread. Then we had two hours of “karma yoga”, which was basically just working: working in the kitchen, cleaning the grendehus, working up on the new lot Amrit and Thomas had bought. Afterwards we meditated for an hour, then had dinner, which was the biggest meal of the day. We had a few hours off after that, then met back up at the grendehus for more yoga at 16:30 and dinner afterwards. Some nights we also had an evening meditation at 9 PM. So our days were very full.

All the food was vegetarian, most of it actually vegan. I was a little worried about that at first, because I’m not too big on vegetables and I eat very differently from the average Norwegian, but it went well. I learned a lot about vegetables, and picked up a few tricks that I hope to put into use in my own cooking.

I did have a good time, but it was far from the joyous experience of, say, a NAAFA convention. Since the new lot Thomas and Amrit bought is up a huge, steep hill, I had to ask if it would be OK if I worked in the kitchen the whole week instead of going up to the lot, which is what we were supposed to do if we weren’t specifically on kitchen or cleaning duty that day. I felt really awkward about doing that, but I am simply not in shape to walk 15 minutes straight up a steep hill and then 15 minutes back down. My knees hurt just thinking about it! Amrit said it would be fine if I worked in the kitchen every day, so that’s what I did, but just asking made me feel like a shirker. Mostly I peeled veggies. Beets, potatoes, carrots. I did get to make an interesting gluten-free bread one day.

The yogaferie was held at a camping ground/community area in Nissedal county in Telemark. It was absolutely gorgeous there, and the weather couldn’t have been better. There weren’t even any mosquitoes! I definitely felt the rift between myself and the Norwegians, though, due to the differences in how we view nature. In Norway, it’s just understood that it’s always better to be out than inside. Regardless. So during the free periods, everyone else went out on the requisite walks in the woods. Norwegians also still lay out in the sun to tan–they just love the sun. Of course, this also results in most of them looking like their skin is made of leather. People don’t understand why I avoid the sun. “Don’t you want to get a tan?” they’d ask me. Uh, yeah. Right. I like my pale skin, and prefer to keep it nice, white, and cancer- and wrinkle-free. Of course, it’s seen as nigh-on immoral that I prefer to sit inside reading a book instead of lying in the sun or going on a w3alk in the woods. There weren’t any open conflicts or anything about my behavior, but, as usual, I definitely get an unpleasant vibe from them. I tell ya, sometimes I just want to be back in my own culture so bad it hurts.

But it was an overall positive experience, because I learned so much. I’ve done a little yoga every day since I got back, even if just one sun salutation. That’s what I wanted to bring back from this experience, so I’m satisfied.