Mood Fluctuations and Random Negative Nagging Thoughts

My mood is fluctuating so much it's scary. It seems to get better, but then I start obsessing on things. I ruminate all the time also, which is a key characteristic of depression. The first couple of hours after I woke up were pretty bleak. I started feeling more positive later on, but can't get the thoughts to stop bothering me. Some random thoughts nagging at me this evening:

• In my family, it is almost taboo to say that someone of the opposite sex is good looking, even innocuously. I would never have said it in front of my father for fear, but it's just still awkward in front of my mother. Not that it really comes up, but it's something I would say in front of friends, so I think it's just really weird that I can't say it in front of my own mother. This is kind of a cultural thing, but still. For some reason, in this state of mind, I feel like I shouldn't say it about anyone at all.
• I'm about to turn 40 years old and I still keep thinking about how people would have felt about me in college if I told them that I didn't go to a single dance or prom.
• I'm so freakishly and sadly distressed avout this that two nights ago, I just HAD to talk to this really sweet 22 year old girl who lives in the neighborhood and babysits for us. Without giving the background story first, I asked her theoretically how she would feel about someone around her age being under parental control and being severely restricted and treated like a child, and how she'd feel about hanging out with that person if they did normal stuff with her but had to hide it from their parents. So I created my own double whammy - being intensely ashamed of the parental control and restrictions after coming of age as well as being so obsesed with it twenty years later that I felt compelled to discuss the whole matter with an actual college age girl to get her opinion.
• I keep thinking about the time in 1987 my mom got attacked by a swarm of angry yellowjackets (or some other insidious stinging insect) and her leg got severely bruised and swollen. She got some medicine to put on it daily, but moving the leg even slightly hurt so badly that she would moan in pain when she had to barely move the calf up to apply the medicin. She would tell us not to touch it. One night, my sister and I were sitting on the bed with her while she was gingerly moving the leg to apply the medicine and my father walked in and told her to just put it on. She said that she had to do it slowly because it hurt too badly. He just harassed her to put it on, and when she said that she couldn't, he violently grabvled the leg while she screamed in pain and roughly put the medicine on it. And then angrily told her something along the lines of stop crying, it's not that bad.
• One time, he did something kind of rough with our dog Daisy. I don't remember what it was, but it upset my sister to see it. (I think I was in high school and she was maybe in middle.) My sister said something to him, and I know that it would not have been in a very critical or bossy way. He said that what he had done was OK and, "I love Daisy more than you. Did you know that?" My sister said no, and then he slapped her on the head and said, "Well, now you do." He then turned to me and asked, "Do you know that?" Of course, I meekly said yes.
• We went to the Grand Canyon in 1985, when I was 13 and a freshman in HS. He used to likew to burp loudly in restaurants and in front of our friends to embarrass us. He did it in this restaurant, and I made the mistake of saying somethg about it. He kicked me hard under the table repeatedly and said, "Fuck you!" and of course stopped talking to me (which he did to at least one of us every family trip, which is why I hated family trips so damn much). Breakfast the next day was very awkward (as it was for anyone whom he was giving the silent treatment but who had to be in his presence), but then he started talking to me and saying, "Blood is thicker than water, isn't it?" and acting like we were all pals again. Although I can't imagine him ever accepting blame or feeling a shred of remorse, I can only guess this was his way of changing his mind and giving some substitute for an apology.

More memories, more thoughts I want to straighten out, but too sleepy to go on.