My breakdown can wait for later, though, because honestly yours sounds worse.

nooo I don't want you to put off what you were going to say because of my rant. There's no worse or better there's just suck.

I'm thinking if I ever get to see another doctor, I might talk about executive function as well as depression, because I can't seem to accomplish anything

Yes, executive function. I don't know if I should bring that up with a doctor, though. I don't want to split their focus and confuse them?

Are you sure the good times only last a little while? Is it possible you're retconning them from a depression place?

Reasonable question, but nope, I'm sure. I've been paying attention to this for years. The good days usually last for two or three days in a row, and they don't come around often.

Maybe life is just something you alternately enjoy and suffer through, and doesn't build up to something.

That'd be fine, but "enjoy" and "suffer" seem disproportionate and not normal in either intensity or relative degree.

You HAVE had better times, I'm sure. Maybe they don't last forever, but nobody gets 100% uptime.

No, I haven't. I have not had any point in my life when I was happy in a normal way. I know what a happy life must be because I've had brief episodes of feeling the way I'm sure life is supposed to feel -- when the bear gets up and I feel lighter and doing everyday normal things isn't hard, and I see other people acting like they feel like living is a fun thing to do and they don't comprehend what I mean when I talk about how I feel. If I were normal the normal happy people would understand me. This is not normal.

I'm not asking for 100% uptime. I'm asking for a normal life. I'm asking to be able to get up in the morning and shower and get dressed and make breakfast and feed the cats and sweep the floor and sit down to do my work and put on a little makeup and have lunch with a friend and go to the store and put the groceries away and do some laundry and put the laundry away and read a book and work on my hobbies and hop on the treadmill during The Daily Show and go to bed and sleep, and do all that as if it were normal and simple and easy to do, and the next day? have the energy to do it all again. I'm not asking to be joyous every moment, I'm asking to be able to function.

Is it toxic, or do you just wish she hadn't damaged it? Honestly, that sounds like she amused herself in a relatively harmless way. But then I live with puppies.

Anyway, she was unharmed and probably happy. You're a great parent.

I'm not the worst parent ever because ltc just gnawed a hole in the binding of her book.

If she hasn't choked, and I assume she hasn't, she's fine. Babies are supposed to put everything in their mouths, it's how they rev up their immune systems. IANAP!

Maybe the lack of Prince has sucked joy out of the world, with the blast waves also going backward in time. This would not altogether surprise me.

I didn't get out of bed till 12:30. I'm basically not doing anything besides Neko Atsume (got Sapphire and Jeeves, yay, that's like the best thing that's happened all week) and obsessively refreshing my two CraftBeer.com stories to see if I've made any progress on Facebook shares, which, if I get 400 of them, I get $500 rather than $300. I've been feeling so despairing of my writing lately that apparently I've attached an insane amount of emotional validation to getting these two pieces shared on social media/Facebook.

Plus, Prince is dead. He's DEAD. This sucky ass world lost one of the few things in it that made it slightly less sucky.

Many hugs to Zen, Emily (good to see you here!) and Kristen. And alla mah Bitches.

Normal sounds EXHAUSTING. But my expectations are also skewed. Anyway.

Eh, it was my attempt at being reassuring, but again - skewed expectations. I was resisting the urge to say "Maybe life is this hard ALL THE TIME, but some people don't notice. Or maybe we're just made wrong, and there's nothing to be done about it." That didn't seem very helpful.

If you'll excuse me, I need to go run a SINGLE errand that I've been putting off all week. Maybe next week I'll make the ONE phone call I've been putting off for several months. I sort of have the can'ts recently. No, screw you, spell-check, that's totally a thing. Don't you fucking edit me.

Whoah, hello there, misplaced anger! I'll be using you as a fuel source!

I'm going to just assume that as a brand new baby book that it isn't toxic. No, she didn't choke. I am feeling guilty that I wasn't giving her 100% of my attention and therefore a brand new gift was destroyed.

Zen, all of that sounds so familiar. I find I function well enough at the moment that ltc is always clean and fed and amused. Comforted if she needs to be etc., but showering daily, making the bed, cook etc.

therefore a brand new gift was destroyed

nooooooooo! It sounds like she thoroughly enjoyed her gift! And, also, she doesn't need 100% of your attention when she's safely positioned and occupied! You get to give your attention to things other than your baby and still be an awesome parent.

And, ugh, for everyone having a hard time. Depression is a motherfucker.

I am sorry that it is so hard, Zen. It's not fair that there's no way to really slough off your load once in a while and let someone else carry it for you. We are here for you, even if we can't necessarily carry it for you.

And sj, you are a wonderful parent. Chewing holes in books is one of those things kids do, especially when there's a book handy. Another way to look at it is you've just hit a new parenting milestone.

Thanks. Most of the time I feel I'm doing okay as a parent, but every once in a while I feel waves of guilt that this beautiful, sweet baby girl is stuck with me for a parent.