Ratties, Ratteries, and Pets

Shortly after Avi's death I had a really hard time with my depression. We're talking absurdly hard time. I would cry when I saw her empty cage - and it took me a good week to finally move it out of my room. I had a very hard time adjusting to not having any pets.

Then I read a horrible story about a kitten killed in a horrific horrible way (no link, because the story is old and because it's so sad: here's some links to cute things instead) and it made what I was dealing with worse.

Well, then I started planning on getting married and moving in with Tene. I started doing better when I moved in, and I soon saw a doctor (I like my doctor) and she put me on Zoloft. I haven't done excellently on Zoloft (I was started at 50mg, which wasn't enough and so was raised to 100mg where the side effects made me feel miserable practically all of the time and my mood didn't improve at all, lowered back to 50mg - again wasn't enough for me, now I'm on 75mg ... Next time I see my doctor I'll likely be referred to a psychiatrist and I'll play the "Wheel of Meds" game again), but I've at least been functional/moderately able to manage my mood. I've still had a lot of motivational problems, as well as mood problems. No hyperactivity, though, which is good.

Something that seems to help me is having something - really anything - to take care of. At the moment, that's my plants - the bamboo and my bulb. The bulb is starting to sprout finally, and I'm becoming excited to see what kind of plant it is (I found the bulb downtown, unplanted, and figured I'd take care of it). I tried planting some bonsai seeds, but they're not sprouting - I suspect that they're far past their expiration date. Anyway, I think that I should try to take care of something that can return my affections.

Unfortunately it's unlikely that I'll be able to have rats in the current apartment, and I would have a hard time affording some basic things for them right now (let alone spaying and/or neutering them ... ). But, our lease is up in June, and we might not sign on for another six months, but instead move to a different apartment complex - perhaps one that allows pets! Or one that would honor therapeutic pets (this complex allows companion animals for the blind/deaf/etc, but not therapy animals).

So, in the meantime, I'm going to try to save some money up for some new rats - 3 of them, to be exact :). I'm also going to keep my eye on two local ratteries: Adelaide's and Frannie's. I've sent an email to both of them about my intention/desire to adopt in six/seven months, and I hope to keep in touch with them over the intervening months.

Tene and I have also talked about getting a cat, but I'm uncertain if we're actually going to or not.