The last few weeks have been very difficult. I'm swinging down, which has been hard enough. It almost seemed like it was easier to manage the depressions before I was treated, when I was almost always depressed and so I just got used to working through them. (Brief aside: a really helpful book is Working in the Dark: Keeping Your Job While Dealing With Depression by Fawn Fitter and Beth Gulas. Fawn and I have had a few dinners together and she's an outstanding writer with great insight.)

But to compound the depression itself (and you will find this as unbelievable as I have) in the last two weeks my mother has had surgery, my father-in-law has had surgery that put him on a hospital ward for 10 days and as a result he lost his room in the VA Alzheimers ward where he lived, my uncle died, and my 9-year-old nephew was mauled by a Doberman-Rottweiler mix.

Can anyone say "Enough already!"

I told my boss that if I were he I wouldn't believe what I was about to tell him; described what had happened in my family in just two weeks time, and said I needed two personal days just to process it all. He gave me the time, thank goodness; even though in our organization people tend to soldier on. I went to the library, checked out six murder mysteries, and read three in a day and a half. Then I got up, cooked a couple meals for the refrigerator, finished one of the five or six half-done manic projects, and checked out a web site a friend had recommended.

Have you heard of SparkPeople?

Lots of us need to lose weight because of meds we're on or used to be on. And lots of us need help with motivation because listening to parents or siblings or spouses nag is NOT motivating!

This site is fabulous! It offers you choices among goals that are reasonable for someone in your situation (my exercise options included: "Exercise 15 minutes while watching TV" -- who let them read my mail??). It sets weight loss goals that are reasonable -- as in, for me, lose 40 pounds by next July 15 ... one pound a week. It's full of recipes, support groups both on-line and local to you ... I could go on and on. But instead, I just want to encourage you to check it out.

I'm going to close with a quote from the large section of encouraging quotes on SparkPeople.

"Be yourself. Who else is better qualified?"

All blessings,

The Lady Behind The Mask