Doing the Hokey Pokey with a Peg Leg

Sounds like I'm having fun, right?

Well, the 'Depression Hokey Pokey' isn't exactly fun but a stage you go through on the road to recovery. It's when, because you are feeling better you try to do or even think about doing, something you used to do (put your right foot in) and realize you're not up to it (put your right foot out) and get severely shaken by it (shake it all about).

That happened to me yesterday.

The local bead show is on so there are things I'd like to shop for and people I'd like to see. I thought in the middle of last week in the midst of happiness due to creating with clay that I was ready, contacted a friend to see if she was going and made tentative plans. I started to seize up Friday afternoon....the blank spot started to set in and time was passing with no motion from me. Now, I try and think of it in terms of something fun so it doesn't send me deeper to depression so I regard the blank spot as 'The Black Spot' and in my head I go all 'piratey' (aye Matey).  Of course you can't do this in the depths of depression but once you're recovering any humor you can find you have to use.

The Black Spot creeps up, it started Friday afternoon, gave me weird dreams and woke me Saturday morning with anxiety. I sat myself down and asked myself what the anxiety was about and the answer was the bead show.

I messaged my friend and said I wasn't up to it, she understood but said to call her if I changed my mind.....as I typed the reply that I would see how I was after my shower I immediately started to hyperventilate. Nope. Wasn't going to happen.

It's frustrating. Because I feel better, I feel like I should be able to go out and be social.....but, it just ain't that easy.

I lost yesterday to staring at the wall, picking work up and immediately putting it down and found comfort in mindless video games.  I play video games during depression because I know that they do exercise my brain even though I'm pretty much zoned out.

Getting Back On the Horse

Below are the first pieces I was able to bead in my 'Great Depression'.

I had to pull out one of my own tutorials for the PonDuo stitch because I couldn't remember how to bead it. The bracelet came first and then the pendant. The pendant reminded me of the 'Bastille', the French prison and so both these pieces take that name.  Art is about the creative soul and it's interesting what comes out when that soul is depressed...for me it pulled up the feeling of being trapped.

The crystal in the pendant does shine through it's cage and it gave me hope.

The Fangbanger Pendant came next and as my friend Mary Byberg said it's from my "Bite Me" period.  And I have to agree...when people aren't nice I tend to respond by just being a creative bitch (and the fangs here set me off on a true road to recovery playing with clay).

I saw my next design as a compass...me looking for direction...but many people told me it looked like a shield and that seemed right too. It also has a zen quality to it which was somewhat intentional...the drop was designed to have an Oriental feel.

All the pieces I have beaded in this period have been hard fought battles in that I don't feel the love for the beads that I did. I still have to shake the association of beads to the bad stuff that made me depressed.

Playing with the polymer clay and coming up with a line of fangs has been the best thing for me. It encourages me to bead and makes me see the way back to tutorial writing. But this weekend I have learned I still have a ways to go.

So right now I'm the peg legged pirate with the Black Spot doing the hokey pokey with my horse at the ready.

That's what it's all about. Arr!