I used to be a knitting addict. Almost two years ago, I just stopped. Like a complete halt. If I recall correctly I think I started taking Lamotrigine around that same time to counteract the beginning signs of TD. I stopped drinking last summer and watched for months as sober people posted how they started having hobbies again....
Sounds like it might be anhedonia, which is typically associated with depression, but could also appear outside of full-blown depressive episodes. Lamotrigine is supposed to help with anhedonia (at least in rats), but that doesn't mean your unique neurochemistry will respond that way.
It's really hard to rely on memory (especially with bipolar, lol) to remember exactly when anhedonia started and whether it coincided with lamotrigine. It could be that you also went into a depressive episode at the same time, and the lamotrigine kept the edge off enough to where you don't feel fully depressed, but the anhedonia is there.
Either way, I'd encourage you to bring this up with your provider and advocate for an adjustment in medication. I know for me, lamotrigine had to be supplemented with Vraylar (atypical antipsychotic that also has a strong antidepressant effect).
I'm also a knitter (hey!) and I went through something remarkably similar. I just stopped enjoying my hobbies. And I kept insisting the meds were working for the longest time (because I wasn't going nuts, right?) until my husband sat me down and said "You're hating life. This isn't normal. If you're going to take medication, let's make sure it actually allows you to be happy and joyful, at least sometimes."
He was so right. I was stuck in this "meds are working, I'm not 100% depressed, so nothing else can be done" mindset, when in fact a lot more could be done!
I hope this helps - and maybe just knowing you're not alone. I cried so much because I wasn't creating anything, and I just wasn't happy at all, but just ok. It did get much better with a med change and some habit changes (I can talk a bit more about that and behavioral activation, if you'd like. Already wrote an essay, lol).
Alex and Colleen Ellingboe initially thought they were sending their year-old daughter to a “magical place.” For $2,000 a month, children ranging from six weeks old to kindergarten age can learn alongside a big koi pond with tasteful bridges over the water. The day care center looks like a little, old-timey village — complete with a gym, hair salon and library.
“Unfortunately it’s all a facade,” Alex Ellingboe said.
In August, the couple received a call from Crème de la Crème’s director, saying their daughter’s teacher, Patricia Dilport, had yanked her hair multiple times as punishment for pulling the hair of another child in class. Their daughter fell to the ground and cried.
Crème de la Crème management suspended Dilport after the incident and notified the state licensing department. But the center didn’t tell the child’s parents for a week, the family alleges.
“I was outraged that they didn’t tell us right away,” Colleen Ellingboe said in an interview.
The Department of Human Services, in a case report reviewed by The Post, said Crème de la Crème’s “corporate lawyers advised not to tell parents and that they wait to see what (Department of Human Services) says.”
The caseworker told the day care center that “they should always inform parents when there is an incident involving their children.”
The Ellingboes learned, though, that Dilport’s troubling behavior previously had been reported to management — but not to authorities.
Fellow teachers told investigators that Dilport has been known to verbally abuse the children, calling them names like “fat bastard, fat piece of (expletive), stupid, dumb, bitches, idiot and fat (expletive).”
She also has previously made “statements of violence” directed at the children, other staff members told authorities. Dilport has said she “wanted to choke a child,” the police report states, “while making the hand gesture of choking.” In another instance, the day care worker said “How about I stab you?” after getting frustrated with a toddler.
The caseworker wrote that Dilport’s behavior appeared to be burnout-related, and there were multiple complaints about her.
“Those complaints should have been documented and action been taken to ensure Ms. Dilport’s behaviors did not continue,” the report’s author noted.
Tracey Murray, Crème de la Crème’s regional manager, told social services that they are “a bit gun-shy and do not want to report too often, but they don’t want to fail to report,” human services officials wrote.
The caseworker told Murray that “if they have a concern, report it.”
The day care center fired Dilport after the incident. She pleaded guilty to misdemeanor child abuse in February and received a deferred judgment with a year of probation, court records show. The former child care worker did not respond to messages seeking comment for this story, and her attorney declined to comment.
The Department of Human Services, in an October inspection report, found the day care violated several stipulations of its probationary license, including failing to notify the child’s parents of an incident, the use of corporal punishment and subjecting children to physical or emotional harm.
The Ellingboes sued Dilport and Crème de la Crème last month in Douglas County District Court, alleging the day care center took no action after being alerted to Dilport’s troubling behavior.
The couple, soon after learning of the incident, moved their daughter to a different day care. But the transition took a toll on their child, who began lashing out through biting and hitting. She still clings to her mother when dropped off every morning, Colleen Ellingboe said.
“It’s absolutely heartbreaking,” she said. “I couldn’t help but think, ‘Should I not be working? Am I a terrible parent for sending her to day care?’ It’s doubt and guilt — it’s so tough.”
Crème de la Crème did not respond to questions regarding the lawsuit.
This isn’t the first time a Crème de la Crème facility has come under the microscope.
A Texas couple sued the day care company in 2021 after teachers at a center outside Houston allegedly restrained their 1-year-old child for hours at a time (the parties settled before trial). Crème de la Crème had been cited 119 times over the prior five years for failing to meet minimum child care center standards, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services found.
At another Crème de la Crème center in Las Vegas, a teacher pleaded guilty last year to attempted child abuse after she broke the leg of a 2-year-old and tried to blame the injury on another toddler.
Six years earlier, parents of a child outside Atlanta accused Crème de la Crème educators of locking children in a dark, windowless bathroom for long periods of time with the lights off (that case also was settled before going to trial).
In December, police again came to Crème de la Crème’s Lone Tree center to investigate child abuse allegations.
Detectives determined the accusations were unfounded as criminal offenses, police records show. But the suspected staff member told officers that she has been “sexually harassed and assaulted in front of her director and he has done nothing about it.”
Police alerted the state licensing department of the new complaint. The licensing official, Sam Nikui, informed the detective that Crème de la Crème was still on probation from the previous incidents — making it the third or fourth round of probation for the day care facility.
“There have been many requests to shut down the Crème day care due to issues within,” according to the detective’s summary of the conversation with Nikui.
Nikui expressed concern for the culture and environment at the child care center.
“Sam is going to be going back out to the Crème due to this complaint and will be requesting that the center is closed, but the decision to close will be up to the state licensing board,” the police report stated.
The state’s Licensing Compliance Review Team, an inter-agency multidisciplinary team that recommends disciplinary actions to the Department of Early Childhood, initially recommended the revocation of Crème de la Crème’s license, said Hope Shuler, a department spokesperson.
But after settlement negotiations with the facility, she said, the parties agreed on more probation.
“The department continues to monitor Crème de la Crème monthly to ensure compliance with the requirements detailed in the plan and the stipulations outlined in the probationary license,” Shuler said in an email.
After KinderCare Learning Companies acquired Crème de la Crème last year, the company retrained Lone Tree teachers and staff on a variety of topics, including state policies and best practices, Colleen Moran, the company spokesperson, said in an email. The training will continue through the end of the year.
In addition, licensing officials will conduct regular, unscheduled school visits to observe classrooms, she said.
There’s no definitive number of violations that lead to license revocations, leading some child advocates to wonder what the criteria is for problematic facilities.
“In light of that, it becomes a discretionary system that allows some entities to continue operating poorly for months if not years,” said Stephanie Villafuerte, Colorado’s child protection ombudsman. That means the state could keep a day care center such as Crème de la Crème on perpetual, endless probation. She called the Lone Tree center’s history “incredibly concerning.”
“At the end of the day, you’re dealing with extremely vulnerable children: infants and babies and toddlers,” Villafuerte said. “Unlike older children, they don’t have the ability to self-protect, the ability to cry out for help and disclose sexual or physical abuse. That’s the real danger here.”
The Ellingboes don’t want other parents to be in the same position. Both said they believe Crème de la Crème should lose its license.
“Culture trickles down from the top,” Alex Ellingboe said. “This day care is too focused on the bottom line, as opposed to the children, to adequately implement a culture change.”
When Crème de la Crème opened its $5 million day care facility in Lone Tree in 1999, it promised to be the largest, priciest and most advanced child care center in Colorado.
The Greenwood Village-based company, which now boasts 47 locations across 14 states, “aspires to be the Harvard — or perhaps the Ritz Carlton — of day care,” the Rocky Mountain News reported in a 1998 article.
Its “Disneyland-like” amenities included a 32-foot-high atrium housing a Victorian cityscape of themed classrooms. The company’s centers sport mini water parks and kid-sized basketball and tennis courts.
But beneath the opulent veneer lies a day care facility at risk of being shut down by the state over years of consistent violations, including repeated child abuse and neglect allegations, according to a review by The Denver Post of hundreds of pages of licensing records and police reports.
At least two teachers at the company’s flagship Lone Tree day care center have been the subject of police investigations over allegations of injuring children. One employee this year pleaded guilty to child abuse charges after yanking a baby by the hair and threatening to choke and stab infants during moments of frustration.
Now Crème de la Crème faces a lawsuit over that employee’s conduct, with the child’s parents alleging negligence.
“It is a repeated pattern with this place that does not show signs of slowing down,” said Alex Ellingboe, who, along with his wife, filed the complaint.
The Colorado Department of Early Childhood, which regulates day care facilities in the state, last year fined Crème de la Crème $10,000 after finding staff at the Lone Tree center did not report child abuse allegations to authorities for more than 200 days. State licensing officials told police in December that every time they visit Crème de la Crème, they find 10 or more violations and “they are making no improvement.” A state licensing compliance review team in February recommended the department revoke the center’s license, but ultimately agreed to keep Crème de la Crème on probation.
“There are major concerns for the culture, staffing and environment at the Crème,” a licensing official said in a Lone Tree police report.
Crème de la Crème declined multiple interview requests through a corporate spokesperson and did not address a list of emailed questions from The Post. In a statement, the company said it is retraining its teachers on child care best practices, including staff duties as mandatory reporters.
“The actions taken by our former teachers are in no way reflective of the high-quality care and education we at KinderCare Learning Companies strive to provide to the children in our care every day at our programs nationwide,” said Colleen Moran, a spokesperson for KinderCare Learning Companies, which acquired Crème de la Crème last year.
Probation and a $10,000 fine
Crème de la Crème’s Lone Tree day care center has been on a probationary license with Colorado since 2021 due to frequent violations of state regulations. Facilities on probation agree to probationary stipulations, with the terms unique to each license.
The current stipulation, signed May 1, mandates the day care center and its employees ensure children are free from physical or emotional harm or humiliation and requires staff to undergo mandatory reporter training, among other conditions.
The state inspects facilities on probation every month for six months, and day care centers can reapply for permanent licenses. But if the child care facility has “consistent violations of the probationary stipulations, any founded child abuse investigations, founded complaints, or fails to complete any of the training/course work listed on the probationary license, the application may be denied,” the state’s Department of Early Childhood says on its website.
Crème de la Crème has applied for permanent licenses several times over the past five years. The state continually denies the company, records show, keeping the day care center on probation.
A state licensing worker, in the December police report, said the Department of Human Services has screened out more than 18 reports — cases that didn’t go beyond an initial intake call — and assigned 10 complaints since 2016 regarding the safety and care of children at the facility.
A review by The Post of years worth of inspection reports shows state regulators have routinely found violations at the Lone Tree facility, including findings of physical and verbal abuse by teachers against small children that prompted criminal investigations. In 2018, a teacher slammed a child onto a mat and pulled children by their arms into the hallway, according to one report obtained through an open records request. Video footage reviewed by state inspectors showed staff members forcing children to take naps by holding them down, placing their arms and legs over the children’s bodies.
“This does not demonstrate knowledgable decision-making or concern for children,” state regulators wrote.
In April 2021, Lone Tree police received a referral from the Department of Human Services about an incident that occurred six months prior. Parents told investigators that when they picked their child up from Crème de la Crème one day in August 2020, the kid was favoring one of their arms. A doctor’s visit revealed the injury to be nursemaid’s elbow, a slight dislocation in the elbow that can occur when a young child’s arm is yanked.
A witness told police that one of their fellow teachers that day grew frustrated with a child throwing a fit. This individual watched the teacher grab the child by the arm and lift them off the ground, according to the police report. When she let go, the child began to hold the arm in pain.
Staff said they had concerns about the rough manner in which this teacher interacted with children. The educator would wrap her legs around the children’s legs to forcefully hold them down on her lap. She would pat their backs “really hard to the point where you could hear her hand hitting the child’s back,” one teacher told police. Children acted differently in the presence of this teacher, other staffers said, including wetting themselves.
Teachers brought several incidents of aggressive behavior to the attention of management, the police report states. Nothing was done.
“The directors would say they cannot do anything because there is no proof this is occurring,” the police report quotes one staff member saying.
Management learned the educator in question might quit so they “didn’t want to do the paperwork to fire” them, one teacher told authorities.
Other staff members said that they were taught management would handle concerns about how children are being treated at the day care. The higher-ups, they told police, would then assess whether those issues needed to be addressed by law enforcement or human services. Parents would often be left in the dark.
One teacher “was told to keep her mouth shut and it wasn’t her place to notify the parents of these incidents,” police wrote in the report.
The teacher accused in the 2021 incident, whom The Post is not identifying because she was not charged with a crime, told investigators she received training as a mandatory reporter “but she just skimmed through it and didn’t take it seriously.” She acknowledged struggling to pass a class about getting upset in the classroom.
Authorities didn’t learn about the child’s elbow injury until April — six months after the incident.
The day care’s director at the time, Sarah Nelson, learned about the child’s injury from a parent but “failed to take further action,” Crème de la Crème management acknowledged to the state.
Lone Tree police submitted charging documents against the teacher in the 2021 case to the district attorney, records show, but prosecutors declined to take the case.
The Department of Human Services, in a July 2021 inspection report, found Crème de la Crème violated numerous state statutes, including failing to report a child’s injury to authorities and failing to notify the child’s parents. Regulators also found the day care violated laws surrounding corporal or harsh punishment and did not reassign the staff member after being made aware that they were harsh with children.
The state fined Crème de la Crème $10,000, the maximum allowable under Colorado law.
Crème de la Crème management, in a response letter, told the state that the center had “taken so many steps — steps of which it is very proud — and is confident that the department will agree that it has improved its technical compliance.”
Nelson — who “hid things, told half-truths and was not transparent with management,” Crème de la Crème officials said in their response to the state — quit. The employee who injured the child was fired. (Nelson did not respond to inquiries from The Post.)
The company changed internal procedures, policies and training and revised its child abuse reporting form. Crème de la Crème also hired an outside consultant specializing in compliance monitoring.
But despite these assurances, the problems continued....
The defining stretch of the NHL offseason is arriving with the draft and free agency days apart — events that will shape some organizations’ cores for years to come. Then there’s the Avalanche, comforted by a familiar nucleus but faced with the increasing likelihood that their roster’s depth could look very different, very soon.
Start with the end of an era: Erik Johnson is expected to try the open market as an unrestricted free agent July 1, a source told The Post, confirming a report Thursday by ESPN’s Emily Kaplan.
The Avs aren’t in position to re-sign the veteran defenseman, taking into account the team’s salary cap space and the $6 million AAV standard set by Johnson’s expiring contract. A dramatic pay cut would be necessary for Johnson, 35, to return for a 14th season with the same team. He was on a seven-year deal worth $42 million.
The Avalanche’s other prominent pending UFA situations seem destined to play out similarly. J.T. Compher ($3.5 million x four years) and Evan Rodrigues ($2 million x one year), the headliners of a forward lineup in flux, both might have priced themselves out of Colorado’s range last season — especially because they’re surrounded by what is widely considered a weak NHL free agency class. There’s at least one team out there bound to get hasty.
Whether Chris MacFarland and Joe Sakic actually want to bring back their other pending UFAs is another matter: The Avalanche’s bottom six failed to score a single goal over the course of a seven-game playoff series in which Colorado was favored. The lasting image of the 2022-23 season was Nathan MacKinnon on fumes, trying to will the Avs to a tying goal late in Game 7 without help from his other lines. That makes it difficult to want to run it back with Matt Nieto or Lars Eller. It even raises questions about the Avalanche’s restricted free agent forwards, Alex Newhook and Denis Malgin.
All that to say the winds of change could be upon Colorado. No athlete currently on a Denver professional sports team has been in town longer than Johnson, who played 717 games for the Avalanche. Assuming he signs elsewhere in free agency, Charlie Blackmon will take over the title of Denver’s longest-tenured athlete, with Gabriel Landeskog close behind. Blackmon made his Colorado Rockies debut June 7, 2011 — four months after Johnson first appeared in an Avalanche uniform Feb. 19, the day he was traded from St. Louis.
“Whether it’s the end of the road or not, I was just proud to play here for as long as I did,” Johnson said through tears after Game 7 this April. “And just grateful for everything.”
The former No. 1 draft pick won his first Stanley Cup with the Avalanche in 2022. By then, Johnson was a third-pairing, stay-at-home defenseman utilized for his steady presence on the penalty kill and at even strength. After averaging more than 20 minutes in 11 consecutive seasons, he only played four games while hurt in 2020-21, then his ice time dropped to 17:16 over the last two seasons.
Johnson liked to refer to the Avalanche’s injury misfortune in 2022-23 as their “championship tax.” Short offseasons catch up to you eventually. It was a wise sentiment from a trusted locker room leader.
The long-term tax of winning a Stanley Cup is different; it’s more than a few bruised shoulders, knees and toes. Contractually, the Avs have the star power to contend for the next three years at least (probably more). The roster-building challenge during that window resides on the fringes. When Nazem Kadri wins a championship as a second-line center, his value skyrockets. When Compher wins a division title and receives Selke buzz as the next 2C, his value skyrockets.
When forwards play next to MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen, they look better. Their value skyrockets.
GMing after a championship is a constant race to find the newest affordable depth pieces. The Avs know where they stand in relation to the salary cap now that three of the biggest offseason dominos have fallen. Johnson’s $6 million dent from last year is no more. Landeskog will miss the entire 2023-24 season, meaning his $7 million cap hit won’t apply to the team’s. And Valeri Nichushkin does plan to return, leaving no questions about his $6.125 AAV.
Colorado has $62.5125 million in one-way contracts on the books for 12 players (five forwards, five defensemen, two goalies) as July 1 nears. Those contracts eat 74.9% of the team’s cap space if the league salary cap increases by only $1 million, as has been projected. It’s common for at least one player on a two-way deal to be on the NHL roster at any given time, so those contracts (Brad Hunt, Ben Meyers, new trade acquisition Fredrik Olofsson, etc.) will factor in intermittently as well.
A chunk of the $20 million available will go to RFA Bo Byram, but it’s still difficult to predict how much. His contract could end up structured as a long-term or bridge.
From there, MacFarland and Sakic are left with the resources that could yield an exceedingly different collection of role players from the current ones. MacKinnon’s league-leading $12.6 million AAV goes into effect this season, which will catch every eye in the NHL — he’s unimpeachably worth the investment — but it’s the remaining however-many-million that will truly begin to shape the Avalanche’s 2024 fate.
Outfielder Zac Veen, the Rockies’ No. 1 prospect, has been lost for the season after undergoing surgery to repair a tendon in his left wrist. He was playing for the Double-A Hartford Yard Goats.
Chris Forbes, Colorado’s player development director, confirmed that Veen had the surgery Thursday in New York. The procedure was performed by noted surgeon Dr. Michelle Carlson. MLB.com first reported the news.
Veen, ranked as the Rockies’ top prospect and No. 29 overall by MLB Pipeline, was having a difficult season at Hartford as he struggled with his wrist injury, which Forbes said had been bothering Veen on and off for quite some time.
“His appointment in New York determined that surgery was the best option,” Forbes said Friday.
Veen, 21, hit .209 with just two home runs and 24 RBIs in 46 games (201 plate appearances) for the Yard Goats. Veen’s agent, Jason Romano, told MLB.com that the surgery was to the extensor capri ulnaris (ECU) tendon in the left wrist. That’s the top hand in Veen’s left-handed-hitting swing.
The ECU is one of the major wrist tendons and is located on the ulnar side of the wrist, which is the same side as the small finger. The ECU tendon starts on the back of the forearm and crosses the wrist joint directly on the side.
“He just lost all kind of ability to stay through the ball, because the top hand just gives out and gets weak,” Romano said, adding that Veen has been dealing with the injury since just before the 2022 All-Star break. Veen hurt his wrist while diving for a ball in the outfield playing with Class-A Spokane.
The Rockies were hoping that Veen would make his big-league debut this season, especially after a strong spring training. In 20 Cactus League games, he slashed .271/.314/.375 with one home run, two doubles and eight stolen bases.
Last year, Veen played in the Arizona Fall League and batted .333 with six doubles but hit just one homer. But he was named the AFL’s offensive player of the year.
This is one of the most popular Soviet WW2 posters by artist Irakli Toidze. It uses the imagery of "Mother Russia," which was popularized during WW1....
If I gave you $1 million in cash to spend in 1 hour, after which the money will disappear, what would you buy?
I have asked this question to countless people (mostly in hair salons) as an alternative to small talk, and it always yields interesting results....
The official app is hot garbage
On a whim I decided to give the official app a try because a lot of people will be forced to use it, if they decide to stay on Reddit....
Loss of interests
I used to be a knitting addict. Almost two years ago, I just stopped. Like a complete halt. If I recall correctly I think I started taking Lamotrigine around that same time to counteract the beginning signs of TD. I stopped drinking last summer and watched for months as sober people posted how they started having hobbies again....
Facilities closed due to high water levels at Cherry Creek State Park. The water level is expected to rise by six feet. (www.9news.com)
Colorado insurrectionist sentenced to four years (www.9news.com)
It was once called the “Ritz-Carlton of day care.” Now this Colorado child care center is at risk of losing its license [PAYWALL - ARTICLE IN COMMENTS] (www.denverpost.com)
Avalanche Journal: Erik Johnson, free agency and the likely end of an era [PAYWALL - ARTICLE IN COMMENTS] (www.denverpost.com)
Shut up, brain! (lemmy.world)
Hazel is waiting for her treat (lemmy.world)
Shoutout to my people (lemmy.world)
Zac Veen, Rockies’ top prospect, has season-ending wrist surgery [PAYWALL - ARTICLE IN COMMENTS] (www.denverpost.com)
How to Play Pickleball in Denver (www.5280.com)
"The Motherland is calling!" [USSR, 1941] (lemmy.world)
This is one of the most popular Soviet WW2 posters by artist Irakli Toidze. It uses the imagery of "Mother Russia," which was popularized during WW1....
Antipsychotics: before and after (lemmy.world)
That should fix it (lemmy.world)
Unstoppable (lemmy.world)
Thursday PM update: Extensive damage across southern Denver metro area from tornado, wind, and hail (www.weather5280.com)
The Clarion Hotel in Globeville is turning into income-restricted housing and shelter space (denverite.com)
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