Thursday, November 28, 2013

Thankful

2013 has been the worst year of my life.  And yet, as I say that, I recognize what a treasure this year has been, as well.  I have so very much to be thankful for, and much of what I am thankful for has blossomed or surfaced in this dark, dark year.

I'm thankful, first and foremost, for my infinitely patient husband.  He has watched me writhe and fall so many times this year and he has lost none of his affection for me.  I know I have frightened him this year.  I feel I must have disappointed him.  I'm a shell of the person he wanted years ago, but he is still here.  He supports me.  He's silently, always exactly what I need.

I am thankful for my three sweet children.  As I have suffered, they have suffered, but they also spread so much joy.  They are forever loving, kind and forgiving.  There were days when, but for their hugs, I wouldn't have survived.  As for my eldest, who has had her own struggles this year, she has been a rock and an absolute joy.  K, I couldn't have made it through this year without your support.  I am devastated to think that it has come at a cost, yet I'm thankful to know that we will always share a bond that no one else can touch.  Here's to a better 2014.  

I am thankful for three incredible, generous, supportive, wonderful women that came into my life this year.  Who knew a boat in the street could be the start of so much?  You girls have welcomed me with open arms and made it feel safe to be exactly who I am.  You have seen me at my very worst and I look forward to years of a better me to come.  Regardless, you were there without judgment and I love you all for it.

I am thankful for my parents, both the set that I was given and the set that became mine when I married.  I know this was a difficult year for them too.  I can't fathom what it has been like to watch what I've been through without any capacity to fix it.  The love and support they have shown has been endless and so needed.  I have spent so many days feeling like a disappointment and they have never reflected that.  

I am so thankful for the wonderful young people that have become part of my family this year. A, M, H and S, this summer was a difficult one, as you all know.  Yet, I could count on a house full of laughter and joy every Wednesday.  You brought life to a place that needed it so badly.  Although our dinners have become seldom, I know it's only a matter of time before I'll see your precious faces again.

To my readers, friends, strangers, and support network, I am thankful for you.  I cannot express, nor would I expose, how much support I have received from the people out there.  I have gotten messages from friends, acquaintances, and even strangers, in support of my struggle this year.  To each and every individual that reached out to me, shared their own struggle or just offered a few words of encouragement, I don't believe I could have done this without you.  I needed this outlet, even with the backlash it has come with.  I needed to admit exactly who I am and what I was surviving to survive it.  I didn't do that for the support and I didn't expect it, but it has been ceaseless and amazing.  

So, as we celebrate this day of thanksgiving, and as the year comes to a close, I am grateful and thankful for so very much.  I am so lucky to have these few quiet moments in the morning to reflect on what has been a very full year.  I look forward to spending more moments recognizing the beauty in everything, even in a year like this has been.  

Monday, November 25, 2013

Intention v. Instinct

I'm a big believer in "mind over matter."  The human mind is an amazing thing, capable of so much impact.  Unfortunately, when it is your mind that is broken, there's no power to fall back on.

I woke up this morning with the best of intentions.  That used to be one of my biggest hurdles.  I'd wake up with one or both of the kids, and I would be tired.  I would lay on the couch, under a blanket, not asleep, but not awake, for as long as I could before HAVING to get up and get the kids ready for their day.  I'd wait too long to be able to make a homemade breakfast.  I would be rushing the kids into their clothes before we absolutely had to leave.  I was often thankful that my eldest would play the computer for forty-five minutes, so she wouldn't be asking me for anything.  It was not how I wanted to spend my mornings, but it was all I could muster.

As things have improved for me, this was one of the first signs.  I was no longer a morning zombie.  I have been getting up and staying up.  I rarely laid on the couch, unless it was at the request of one of my littles.  Like today, I woke up with good intentions for the day and felt prepared to accomplish things.  For a while, that feeling stayed with me through the morning and the day, until today, that is.

I woke up with a list in my head.  I would do four things that have been weighing on me at work.  I would spend some time building my Wildtree world.  I would clean the basement and organize the files down there.  I would shovel the delightful snow that, when I woke up, gave me a sense of new beginnings.  When I returned to the house, I sat on the couch.  I was going to relax for a bit until I started (a procrastination habit that comes from the intense stress I feel when I start to work).  I was cold, so I snuggled under a blanket.  I put a documentary on and slept for three hours.  I had even set an alarm, but when I'm in a state like that, the alarm barely registers as I turn it off.

I had really good intentions.  Now, the battle will be, what can I accomplish in four hours, instead of seven?  I can probably do all that I intended to do the first go around, but I'm already imagining taking a break for lunch or setting an alarm before I have to start.  It is most frustrating when your intentions are at odds with your instincts.  My intentions are good, my instincts are to hide.  My instincts are strong, raw, survivalist.  My intentions are good, but they're fighting a stronger opponent.  It's difficult to exist when I am always at odds with myself.  I can't mind-over-matter this.  And so I sit, wishing I was doing anything else, but seemingly unable to coax myself into movement.

Sunday, November 24, 2013

The World Keeps Spinning

I've been in this holding pattern for so long.  I often think it's September and I feel like October and November have both passed me by.  It's winter now, a time to retreat within, to wrap up in blankets and to contemplate.  I feel like I've spent the last eight months in this winter, but somehow the rest of the world keeps spinning, moving forward, making progress.  All of the contemplating I've done has left me here, in winter, right where I started.  This depression started sometime the summer or fall of 2012.  I can't believe I've lost an entire year.  And yet, I have to keep hope that next year will be a year of growth and rebuilding.

There's a part of me, deep inside, that is hopeful.  That part of me knows that this can't last forever and that, when you've met your worst self and survived it, the you that comes out of will be better, more empathetic and perhaps more capable.  Yet, I just want to arrive.  This world keeps spinning around me, but I feel still.

When I think about what I want my life to look like, I see a blank canvas.  Some might feel encouraged that they have all that clean space to work with.  For me, I'm just freaking out that it's not done.  I didn't want my life to look like nothing when I was 34.  I wanted to have an established existence.  In many ways, I do.  I have wonderful children, friends that feel more like family, family that loves and supports me.  All the people around me are exactly what I would have painted on my canvas....but they can't "be" my existence.  I have to figure out how to build MY life and MY future.  Instead I watch the world spin, the people move, and I stand still in the middle wondering what my canvas should hold.

It's really hard to dig through the rubble of my imploded life, to set aside the few things worth salvaging and to walk away from those things that bring me no joy.  It all looks the same when you see it all together.  You really have to dig to see the difference.  And I haven't had great strength to dig.  I feel like I'm getting closer, but after a year and a half of depression, feeling like I'm getting closer still seems so far away from better.

Friday, November 22, 2013

Relapse

To me, the term speaks of addiction.  In reality, a relapse is any recurrence of a past condition.  I am relapsing in my depression.  Yet, I wonder, can you relapse when you haven't yet been whole?  What is recovered?  How long do I have to feel okay before feeling like I'm falling down the rabbit hole is a relapse.

Down I go.  I long for the day when I can look back and know that, if this ever happens again, it's a relapse.  Today, although I feel as low as I did six months ago when my foundation crumbled beneath me, it seems just an extension of the same bout of depression.  Yet, I was doing better.  I was enjoying things in life.  I was not crying daily.  I was feeling.  Now, I'm back to that place where I want to claw my own skin off.  I long for a tattoo or an accidental injury.  Something that will make me feel something.

I need to shake all of this off and I just can't seem to.  I want to climb back out of the hole I keep stumbling down and I just can't seem to.  I want to be content and I just can't find it.  I'm lost in a strange world and I only want to find my way back home.  It has, thus far, been too much to ask.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Some happiness

As I sit eating a delicious lunch with my pup at my feet, in my warm home, in the office that is all mine, while I chat with a friend, it occurs to me, as it often does, that I have much to be thankful for.  Throughout this dark period of my life, I have always been able to see beyond the gloom to the beautiful things in my life.  They just seemed at arms' length.  As they get closer, I am reminded of the wonderful things in my life.  And so I've made a list of 12, one for each month I've survived this depression so far:

1.  Support - Whether the words came from friends, colleagues, or strangers, I have received so much support through this ordeal and I am blessed for that.

2.  Understanding - My husband has stood by my with complete and total lack of understanding of the daemons in my head, and yet a perfect understanding that I needed him to be gentle, quiet and to wait until I was ready to explain things.  He never once pressured a single decision I have made in the past 6 months and he lends his supportive words to all of them.

3.  Pharmaceuticals - Yes, me who is anti-go-to-the-doc-unless-I'm-dying, who is anti-flu shot, pro "rub a little dirt on it," and who was downright terrified at the effects medication might have on me, is thankful that they exist.  My current medication is working wonders.

4.  Children - They're so innocent that they don't ask painful questions.  They treat you exactly the same, even when you need a legitimate break.  They never cease to need you, which provides you the motivation to get out of bed when you otherwise lack it.  Or, if you're especially lucky, you're also blessed with a child who is a confidant, a support and a champion of my cause.  If you're especially lucky, you will have a friend and ally in your needs.  If you're especially lucky, you will have what I have in Kailey, an exceptional, beautiful, wise young woman, who loves me for me, as I love her for her.  No conditions, no expectations.

5.  Yoga - For a while, it was the only place I could quiet my very dark and ugly mind.  And now, it will take me into my future.

6.  Sister wives - Well, we don't share a husband, but the moniker sheds light on how we raise our families together, spend time together, plan holidays together, and feel like family.  I desperately needed this family when they came along and scooped me up.  I will return the favor for a lifetime.

7.  Writing - Good or bad in someone else's estimation, writing has saved me.  It's brought me back to a state of mind where I can examine and make sense of my thoughts.  When I'm writing, they don't spin so fast that I can't get them on paper and when they're down on paper, I can start to see the meaning.

8.  Family - This wasn't easy for anyone, least of which my families.  My husband and children suffered, my stepdaughter suffered, my parents and in-laws suffered for me.  I am thankful that, despite their varied knowledge of what's happening inside my very private head, I never had to question their support.  They asked difficult questions, I felt defensive.  They raised eyebrows at choices, but didn't object.  They have been solid and right beside me, even when they had no idea what to say.

9.  Nature - I am thankful that the forest still exists, that there are babbling streams and logs fallen over valleys.  Nature is a place that I feel strongly connected to, that brings me peace.  I am thankful that I can go out and find places bigger than me that make me remember the small significance of me and therefore of my failures.

10.  Photographs - I am thankful to be able to capture the good moments, so that I can remember they've been had.  I sometimes get so far down that I can't remember the last time I smiled.

11.  Hope - I had forgotten what hope felt like.  My hope is tempered, as I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop, but I do have hope.

12.  Belief - Belief that this WILL GET BETTER.  Belief that this last year of my life can be isolated, corrected and walked away from.  Belief that I won't always define myself by my perceived failures.  Belief that there is good in the world, even when I feel like I can't find it.  Belief that there was a purpose for this suffering and belief I will be able to answer that "why."

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Waiting for the Other Shoe

I've always felt that the other shoe was always just about to drop.  In grade school, being friends with the wrong people ended in tears, and often.  In high school, a good job and new friendships ended abruptly and entirely accidentally.  The week I landed a big case, I had a car accident.  When babies start sleeping through the night, they get sick.  When I'm finally starting to feel better, my life remains in chaos.

I want so desperately to believe in the good of people, in the good of the universe, but it feels like chaos.  There's no rhyme or reason.  There's no fair.  There's no right.  There is just chaos.  You do a good thing, a right thing, you kill yourself to take the high road, and it might just fall right back on you because no one cares and no one is making it right.  That's a frustrating place to exist.

You might try to be honest and thoughtful.  You might try to be considerate and understanding.  You have plenty of people out there who think you've done something worth achieving, but somehow someone else will always speak up to belittle you or to take away the satisfaction you might begin to feel.  It is heart-wrenching, crushing and damaging.

I can't get past this last piece.  I'm feeling so much better.  I'm doing many things differently and perhaps, most importantly, I am doing many things!  But the universe seems to want to have a laugh at my expense, or at least keep me humble.  So I am.  I am humbled and, for that, I can't find any lasting joy.  It is there and it is beautiful, but it is fleeting.  My mind won't let me rest in a comfortable place.  There is always anxiety, chaos, right around the corner.  And so, in the very best moments, I am tempered by the feeling that the other shoe will drop at any moment.  And I can hardly bear it.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Fear

I desperately, desperately want to get better.  I do.  I'm taking away the worst things from my life and I'm adding in things that I'm positive and passionate about.  I wake up in the morning, excited for the day to come, instead of dreading it.  I turn on my computer with the intention to do some good, necessary work.  I am taking so many steps forward and trying to remain optimistic and positive.  And then the doorbell rings at 10:20 a.m. and I panic completely.  I suppose I didn't panic as badly as I have before.  I didn't hide.  I certainly didn't answer the door.  It sounded like someone tried to open the door after knocking.  I just panicked.

A moment later my phone rang.  It was my mom.  I completely forgot that she was coming by to pick up something that Mikko had forgotten this morning.  It was just my mom.

She walked in and I was already crying.  I just hate being scared in my own house.  I hate being scared everywhere.  I hate having good days shattered by something as silly as forgetting I'm expecting someone.  I hate how far that sets me back.

I want to hope that this day will turn again, but that hope is somewhere stuck in my throat while my panic attack wanes.

Monday, November 11, 2013

Refusing to Quit

I have had a tremendous pressure to quit writing this blog, to shut it down or make it private, to write in a journal instead...  Some people have been kinder than others with their opinions, but the consensus about the blog is that it's damaging.  Either it's damaging to my reputation (and it might be), it exposes me to the cruelty of others (and it has), or it allows me to stay mired in the negative feelings I'm feeling (and that's true too).

My answer is always the same.  First, it is cathartic for me.  Yes, I get stuck for a little longer in those negative places, but it also allows me to explore those feelings.  Before I entered into the hospital, I was so numb that I didn't realize I had negative feelings.  I didn't think it was strange that I felt nothing, that I tasted nothing, that I saw no beauty, that I didn't want to exist.  Unpleasant as it is in my shoes sometimes, feeling is living.  People have slowed down a bit and really ask how I am, instead of barreling beyond the niceties of "Hey, how are ya," and moving on to other things.  That is worth something, even if they are pitying me because they read my story.

Second, I don't want to hide anymore.  I pretended to be fine for SO LONG.  I wore mask after mask to appease those around me.  I wore a mask for my clients, courts and counsel to prove how strong I was.  I wore a mask to my friends because they liked the me who wasn't this me.  I wore a mask for my parents because I wanted them to be proud of me.  I wore a mask for my husband because I was afraid he might leave me.  I wore a mask for my children because I wanted to be the mother they deserved.  I was only me when I was crying in dark rooms and I desperately didn't want that to be me.  I have had countless people come to me and say they wish they had seen something and that they were so sorry they didn't know.  That was the point, my sweet people who have expressed that.  I didn't want anyone to know.  I love that you love me enough to believe you might have missed something, but I had mastered hiding and I refuse to do it anymore.  I want to be raw and honest about what I am experiencing.  It IS real and it IS my life right now.  Why paint a pretty picture that ultimately leaves me worse off for wishing my life was something that it isn't?

Last, and perhaps most importantly, it is helping others.  Honestly, that was never my intention.  My writing was for me and the publicizing of it was simply to avoid feeling like I was hiding my daemons.  But so many people have come forward with support, not only for me, but for my writing.  They call me brave, and while I feel so very far from brave, I recognize that they mean that there are so many others out there who deal with what I'm dealing with who don't feel safe or strong enough to be honest about it.  Most recently, I had two family members express to me their struggles and how they could relate to me because I write the blog.  One of them said that it made her feel better to know that someone she loved and respected was going through something that makes one feel so weak and alone.  I have had complete strangers contact me and thank me for saying what they are thinking or feeling.

Perhaps most poignantly, I recently had a mother contact me and say that she'd been reading my blog with her teenager who struggles with some similar issues.  She thanked me for writing and said, "There are many  days I wonder what she is feeling and thinking and when you write something it gives me insight on her feelings, fears and just the feeling of being completely lost.  What you write helps me be better to her."  This communication came in over the last week, as I've been struggling with the pressure of those who care about me suggesting that I might be doing more damage than good.  The message from this mom was proof that it's doing far more good than damage, even if there is some collateral damage on my end.

I will keep writing and I hope that my writing continues to evolve as I get better.  I want to be better and when I am better, it will offer hope to those who are reading silently, too afraid to ask permission to read a private blog, too afraid to put their own truth where everyone can see it and too afraid that they're all alone.  Those people now know that they're not alone and they have my support, even if I never know they are reading.  The value in that is priceless to me and although my reputation and my privacy matter to me, this is helping me and so I will continue.


Sunday, November 10, 2013

I Am Getting Better

I still have bad days.  I still have panic attacks so bad that I throw up.  I still cry.  I still startle at things that aren't really there.  But I am getting better.

I have made a decision to wind down my practice.  I have a few clients that I am hanging onto for various reasons.  I will still be available to those that I can deal with, but I am closing my physical office and I'm scaling back dramatically.  It's like a deep breath of fresh air after drowning.

I'm concerned about the future, but I'm not unable to function.  I don't know exactly what I'm going to do, but I know that I am going to spend more time with my little people and focus more on love and less on fear.  I'm going to pursue my passions.

I've started a home-based sales business that I'm actually really kind of excited about.  I am registered to begin yoga teacher training in February, which I am downright blissful about.  I am going to stay home with my kids during the day.  I am going to live my life.

There are so many changes that I can't pinpoint exactly how I feel better.  They adjusted my medication and I think we finally found the right fit.  I have been blessed enough to become incredibly close with some wonderful, wonderful people.  I have the support of my family and my friends.  I have the forgiveness of the people that matter for all of the things that I feel are failures.  I found enjoyment in simple things that I used to love, like cooking and hiking and laughing.  I see the joy in my children's faces when they recognize the mommy that got lost for a while.

It's hard for me to revisit those darkest times, but I will.  I have every reason to believe that I will have setbacks and I am realistic enough to know that I may be where I was again some day.  Although I like to talk about what I dealt with in the past tense, I understand that it is still a present tense problem that is feeling better for the moment, but I will keep fighting and I will relish these calm times.

I will continue to write.  I will continue to battle.  I will continue to be grateful for all of the love and support I've been shown over the past six month.  I won't ever get those six months back and they were life altering, but I'm glad that although they changed the topography of my existence forever, they did not break me forever.