Revival

I realized yesterday that I hadn't posted since my ugly post about depression.  Don't get me wrong - it's still there.  But I've made it out of bed every day.  I've brushed my hair, brushed my teeth, fed myself, and kept the house in working order.  I haven't taken the kids anywhere or done anything spectacular, but I've stopped yelling as often.  I think.

I still have bad days.  Worse, I've been having bad nights.  Insomnia has taken hold.  I've spent five nights out of the last six lying in bed thoroughly exhausted and yet unable to fall asleep.  Last night was the worst.  I started drifting off about 2:30 when the thunder started rumbling in the distance.  The rain came at 3:30.  That was when I moved to the couch.  Sometime around 4:30, I think I dozed off, but I know I woke up at 5:30 because I checked my phone.  At 6:30, Oz was up because he had to leave the house early for work.  It's an ugly cycle.  Contact lenses are no longer my friend because by 2 p.m., my eyes are so itchy from fatigue that I want to peel off my corneas, let alone the lenses.  Driving probably shouldn't be on my agenda.  Thankfully it's been cloudy, so I haven't felt too sleepy behind the wheel (I'm weird… the sun knocks me out in the car far more than clouds do), but it's still a dangerous proposition.

I do have to drive, though.  As of last Saturday, I have had things on my calendar again.  Schools are out, the pools are open, and the kids have camps.  This is GOOD.  If I'm doing things, I can't dwell on the ugly and I can't become a hermit.  Having a schedule makes me more human.  On Saturday we went to a friend's house and I helped her paint her kitchen, and then Boo spent the night.  Today we visited another friend's house where I hung some shelves in her son's room, and in a little while, I'll take Boo to her first day of acting camp.  We also have an upcoming family reunion with my dad's family, and another friend is having a combination birthday/moving-away party.  So there are things to do.  

Doodlebug had his physical for his summer camp this morning.  He's 5'5" tall, which puts him at the 99.19%ile.  I find this number amusing for some reason.  The pediatrician did, too.  They have new software at her office, and she spent several minutes this morning playing with it to see what numbers she could plug in.  Doodlebug's projected adult height, based on mine and Oz's, it 6'5".  I'm pleased with that; Doodlebug was annoyed.  He wants to be taller than his father.  The pediatrician said that because he's showing early signs of puberty already, he probably won't grow too much past the curve of 'normal,' so he'll just be tall and not scary tall.  For the first time today, Doodlebug let them draw blood (for cholesterol and general screening since issues run in the family, not for anything specific) without having to be held down.  That was nice.

I'm not out of the hole yet.  I probably won't be for a while.  But things seem less dark right now.  I can keep going.  I'm still giving myself mental high fives for getting out of bed, but some days it's easier.  I hope it lasts.

Let Me Tell You About Depression

I don't like to talk about depression.  It's a selfish thing, because it calls attention to me when I'm trying to be invisible; it causes people to be curious when I wish they already knew and, at the same time, hope that they've never been through this themselves.

To those of you who have experienced depression, I'm sorry.  To those of you who have recurrent depression, I'm really sorry.  I hate when I find others who know this dark place.  Not a 'funk.' Not a 'rough patch.'  No.  Depression.  That special kind of hyperawareness of the normalcy of others that sends you into a black hole of self-loathing and self-doubt that's almost impossible to escape from.  I was teetering on the event horizon for a while, and then I fell in.

I'm writing this today to prevent myself from doing one of the following:

1.  Going back to bed and doing nothing at all until someone makes me.

2.  Hurling this computer across the room and into the wall out of sheer frustration at all the futility and nothingness, this void of life that I'm stuck in.

3.  Pulling the freshly-sharpened knife out of the block and carving lines and words into some random and usually-hidden body part.

4.  Lying on the couch motionless for the remainder of the day, except for those times when I drag myself off of it to do laundry or go to the gym or make dinner, because I have to do those things for other people or they'll notice that I'm not okay.

----

It's interesting to me how depression works.  I am constantly thinking of the line from the movie "Legally Blonde," where Elle says, "Exercise gives you endorphins.  Endorphins make you happy.  Happy people just don't shoot their husbands; they just don't."  I wish that was true.  And sure, I have no intention of shooting anyone.  BUT… if endorphins were all it took to combat depression, I wouldn't be depressed right now.  I've been going to the gym 3-4 days a week, and I really do like it.  My arms have more definition than they've ever had, and I've told myself that when I can use the assisted pull-up machine with only half my weight, I'll get my next tattoo.  But endorphins alone are not enough.  Neither is vitamin D.  Or the smell of flowers.  If I'm in a funk or just hitting a rough patch, some aromatherapy or going outside or vitamins or a good movie or a great date with my husband or a good book can be enough to keep me going and pull me out of it.  This is not that.  And those normal fixes aren't enough.

----

A couple of weeks ago I spent a day almost entirely in bed.  I got up once to use the restroom and ask the kids to do a couple of things, but I didn't even bother to brush my hair or put on deodorant or change into real clothes.  It was all too much effort.  Oz and I had a long talk that evening, and he's been wonderful, but when I'm up and dressed and going about my daily business, I know he thinks that it's all over and done and that I'm back to my normal self.  And I am not.  One bad day - and it may or may not have a trigger - and I'm back down the rabbit hole, except this hole doesn't end in Wonderland, it ends somewhere much, much darker (which is saying something when you're comparing it to a world populated with the likes of the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat), and sometimes it's only six feet deep.

----

I know the 'cause' of this particular bout of depression is twofold.  One of the causes is being addressed and things are on their way to being okay.  The other cause is deeper, more existential.  I can't just 'fix' that one easily.  It's going to take a long time.  I wish I knew where the end was.  That might make it easier.  But I'm not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel today.

----

I hate the way I parent when I'm depressed.  I'm grumpy because I can't parent the way I should… and can, when I'm mentally stable.  I can't take an interest in anything, even the kids.  They're being left to fend for themselves more often than they probably should, and when I do notice something, it's usually something I should have addressed earlier and now have to nip in the bud, except I don't have the energy to approach the problem properly, so I just yell and cry and then ignore the problem altogether because it's just easier.  It's the lazy way out, and I feel lazy, which doesn't help the depression, because I feel like I should just be able to snap out of it and kick this whole laziness complex and DO ALL THE THINGS.  Except I can't.

----

I'm not allowing comments on this post.  I've never done that before.  But I don't want pity or sympathy or empathy.  I don't want to know who has read this and who hasn't and who has been here and who hasn't.  I just really wanted to get it all out, and for all I know, I'll have poster's remorse in about an hour or so and come and delete this whole thing altogether, because it's selfish and awful to rant about being depressed and then not let anyone 'help,' except while I love you all, it isn't really helpful to read about others who have been there or dealt with that, and it'll just make me sad to know how common depression is.  And if you can sympathize or empathize, I'm so sorry.  I really am.

Nobody should know this darkness.

So I'll just leave you with this:

And So It Begins

I've had a feeling for a while that 2014 would be rocky, that 2013 was the 'calm before the storm,' so to speak.  I whined the other day about it being stagnant - and it was - but at the same time I think it was what I needed.

I'm sure there will be good, bad and ugly this year just like there is in any other.  I just have a feeling that the good will be great, the bad will be very bad, and the ugly will be downright nasty.  This year feels like it will be exaggerated.

It's already gotten off to a bang.  Oz is up in Kansas today, helping my grandmother sort through some of her stuff so that my mom (and various other people) can clean out the room at the retirement home and move my grandmother into an actual nursing home.  Her health has been in steep decline for several months, and she can no longer go without full-time care.  My sister, mother and I are all grateful that she got to make it through one last Christmas, but we all are in doubt as to whether she'll see her 90th birthday in March.  We've all made our peace with that.  It is what it is.

Doodlebug has also been difficult the past few days.  Last week I typed up, with great hopes, an electronics usage contract.  It basically asked him to be responsible with his electronics usage - don't steal/hack other's devices, don't visit sites you know you shouldn't, and only use the devices for a reasonable amount of time each day - and to follow basic Internet rules like not sharing personal information, not meeting people, etc.  It outlined specific consequences for breaking the rules plus offered ways out if he broke the rules and was honest about his behavior as well as a long-term reward (a cell phone, which he desperately wants and will more than likely need when he attends school in August) for keeping the terms of the contract.  He read it.  We discussed it.  He signed it.  And then he broke it twice in the first 48 hours… which wouldn't have been as horrid if he hadn't broken the rules in the exact same way each time and lied about it the second time.  Then yesterday he had friends over, and the friends 'accidentally' (it may have been an accident, it may not… his friends are his friends and are just as likely to have been in cahoots with the boy as anything else) left their Xbox Minecraft disk behind.  So Doodlebug was up at 6 this morning - after ringing in the New Year at midnight last night - playing Minecraft.  Ugh.

All in all, none of that would be a big deal.  The real problem is that when caught (my friend texted me to let me know the Minecraft case was empty, at which point in time Oz went upstairs and retrieved the disk and found out about the early-morning gaming), Doodlebug imploded.  "I hate myself."  "I'm just a monster."  "I wish you'd never had me."  I've seen hints at this vague self-loathing now and then, and every time I hear it we sit down and talk about his feelings and depression, but this was particularly vile, and the boy started punishing himself to boot - it was just offering to make himself do chores all day, but it was self-imposed punishment nonetheless.  So we had another chat about those ugly feelings, and I'm going to ask him to share them with his counselor next time we visit.  I don't want him to be a suicidal preteen like I was.

So there's 2014 so far.  How's yours going?