In this terrible last few weeks of my life, I've gone through some crazy swings in my emotions.  The worst part is those swings have been on the downside.  Due to various circumstance, I've been battling severe depression.  After seeing their effect on my wife, I'm reticent to inquire about antidepressants with my doctor.  I've even been too depressed to smoke weed.  That's kind of counter intuitive, I know.  I've got, literally, some of the strongest marijuana that it's possible to grow in my house right now.  I haven't smoked in two days.  This isn't because I'm trying not to, or denying myself, it's just because I'm not thinking about it.  I can't eat.  I can't sleep.  I can't do the things I need to do to finish recovering from my surgery.

I can't even engage in physical activity.  I'm a lot better compared to Friday.  I still can't run or work out.  You want to, at least temporarily, kick back your depression?  Run flat out or do squats until you vomit.  Putting yourself through vigorous physical activity is good for both body and mind.  I still can't walk up stairs too fast.  I also don't see the doctor until tomorrow.  I should find out when I can start working out again.  I swear, if this divorce thing doesn't turn aournd at all at the counsellor's office tomorrow, I'm going to get "shrod" like LORD INFAMOUS.

The gamut of emotions I've been feeling have run across the spectrum of:  pants shitting scared, remorse, regret, sorry, confusion, but mostly a deep, deep depression. 

That's started to change.  I'm starting to get angry.  My anger, in tiny quanta, has started to replace my depression.  I'm just a little angry and a little less depressed.  Anger, for me, is an ugly emotion.  I hate it.  It makes/allows me to act in ways I don't care for.  It makes me feel like a bad person to be angry.  I'm alarmed by the fact that I seem to be embracing the anger, nurturing it, trying to make it grow.  I'm frightened and disturbed by this fact, but honestly, anything is better than the depression.

I'm not a suicide risk, but with that much depression, you need to be careful.  On our picnic yesterday, we went to Tule Springs at Floyd Lamb Park in northwest Vegas.  They have a sporting clays, trap shooting, and skeet range there.  My daughter has expressed an interest in going bird hunting with me.  She's never fired a shotgun.  I have a Remington Wingmaster 16 gauge that I inherited from my father-in-law that she might be able to handle.  When I was at Wal-Mart, buying supplies for the picnic, I almost bought a few boxes of cartridges to blast some clay and let my daughter know if she really wanted to shoot a shotgun.  I ended up walking back to sporting goods and putting them back.  I was afraid to have ammunition in the house.  I would never hurt anybody, but a morbid preoccupation with suicide often comes with deep depression.  My depression is pretty fucking deep right now.

Now, anger is seeping in and replacing my depression.  Redness replacing blueness (fuck you, red, not talking about you).  It's like a drug to me now. 

My wife has started to indulge in some really shitty behaviors.  Before we were at the crisis level we are now, they began.  She has started not directly answering questions.  This has never happened before.

"So want to start going out dancing with your friends on the weekends?"

"Yes."

"Do you think you might want to go out dancing with your husband on occasion as well?"

"You don't dance."

I suppose this is her way of saying NO.  The discussion then degenerates into me trying to start dialogue. 

"What if your husband, in a fit of productivity, in an effort to make his wife happy, practices dancing and becomes motivated to do it?"

I never really did get a straight answer.  Just tell me "NO," goddammit.  I can't stand shit like that.  I've always been a directness and honesty guy.  She has been too.  Last night, I had another example:

"What?  Are you just going to bed at 7:30?"

"Yes.  What do you WANT me to do?"

"How about you make food for the kids and put them to bed.  When was the last time you did that?"

**No response**  (another thing that she's started to do with regularity)

Fine, fuck it.  I went downstairs.  After ten minutes or so, I make my son something to eat because he's starving.  My wife comes down a little later sees my son eating and yells up to my daughter, "What do you want to eat?"

My daughter's reply, "I don't know.  I'm not super hungry."

My wife goes back upstairs.  At about 8:15 I go into my bedroom to brush my teeth (I always do after I eat).  My wife is in bed again. 

"So you're really not going to make them something and put them to bed?"

"Son's already eaten and Daughter doesn't want anything."  (not posting my children's names online for obvious reasons)

So the answer's no, right?  My daughter shouldn't eat dinner?  Twelve year old girls shouldn't have an evening meal if they don't give you specific directions as to its composition?  Kids shouldn't be put to bed?  Nobody gets a story read to them if dad doesn't do it?  The anger clicked on.  I left the room.  I can't lose my cool before Tuesday.  My shitty marriage (that was awesome for over a decade and a half) depends on it.

I ate two Trazadone last night to go to sleep.  It's a mild sleeping pill.  It's actually an SARI antidepressant (totally different action than the SSRIs like Prozac).  It is also used as a mild sleeping aid here in the US.  So, woo-hoo, I actually slept for five hours in a row.  This is, not coincidentally, I'm sure, the duration of a dose of Trazadone.

I woke up this morning, hung over on my bizarre off-label sleeping pills, and staggered around the house looking for my phone.  My wife, sexy as hell, is running around butt-naked in my bedroom (I slept in the guest room).  She askes me if I can take my son to school today.  The anger clicks on again.  In the last two weeks, recovering from my surgery, my wife hasn't done dishes, cooked meals, attended to the children, or anything else you'd expect a wife or mother to do.  Why am I the only parental unit that gives a fuck? 

"Son's already eaten and Daughter doesn't want anything."  Then I went back into the guest room and got back in bed. 

It was immature.  It was inconsiderate.  It was petty.  It was way beneath me.  But, God help me, it felt good.  Anything that replaces the depression is a good thing to me now.  I just can't stand the lowness of depression.  It's paralyzing.  It makes me feel confused and weak.  Anger makes me feel like I can make things happen, either good or bad.  Depression makes me feel helpless and alone.  From age 12 until age 42, I don't think I cried once.  Deaths in the family, personal tragedy, and everything else has lacked the ability to motivate me to cry.

In the last three weeks, I've cried a lot.  Mostly when I'm alone.  The fucking depression makes me unable to predict or control emotion.  So for me, right now, I'm nurturing my little flame of anger.  I'm using it to keep me warm.  I understand the risk involved, how a little flame of anger can flare into an inferno of destructive and unkind behavior.  I'll take my fucking chances.  Any change is a good one for me right now.