Me

I feel like I can honestly say for the first time in almost 2 months that I am somewhat myself again.

It has not been easy, especially stepping back into my social life and working life. The thing about depression is that not everyone has been through it and so they don't really understand it. Maybe they've been sad before and depressed about their circumstances, but not as many have had their brain taken over by chemistry and hormones and just lost it for no real reason. And the thing about those people is that they tend to say and do the things that are super triggery. I'm in no way blaming them, it's just hard to know that you're going to face such a thing and then to actually do it.  Guilt rules my world when I'm depressed, and when you've disappeared for 2 months, you're going to have to deal with the guilt of being gone. Such a difficult, slippery slope to navigate.

But so far for the most part, I've been able to do it and handle it. And I'm glad I have, because I missed my friends and laughing and just the lightness of day to day mundane life.

The plan for me was to take it slow back into reality. I came out of this "episode" right as my kids were heading back to school. I spent my days last week running the three of them to buy school supplies and clothes, haircuts, doctor and dentist visits, school meetings and events, etc...all that mom stuff. As busy as we were, it felt so good to be able to concentrate fully on them for the entire week, and it also opened my eyes to how pulled thin I feel the majority of the time. I'm trying to run two businesses and be a stay at home mom, and I just don't think it's working. I loved the feeling of being helpful to them, spending time with them, talking to them, laughing with them, without worrying about all of the other things I should be doing.  I gave myself permission to just let those things go for a period.

I knew last weekend that this coming week would be a difficult one for me, considering what I've just gone through, and because it was going to be hard no matter what. My youngest, my baby girl, the one I was 8 months pregnant with when I first discovered that my first husband was cheating...started Kindergarten on Monday. I don't think either of us were ready. It snuck up on me, I guess like it did with the first two.

I've been dreading Kindergarten since her first day of Pre-K last year. Even with her in preschool, I've had her home two full days a week, and I saw her every morning and dropped her off at school, even when she spent the night with her dad. Now he drops her off at Elementary along with her big sister on his mornings, and I don't see her for almost a full 24 hours. And I struggle with my depressive thoughts of "Why did I have to get divorced and split my time with them?" "Why did I agree to this custody arrangement?" It's so hard not to get caught in that thought cycle. I feel like a bad mom even though I KNOW it was not my fault. And dammit, I just miss my kids.

Next week I plan to tackle my work again. All extra-curricular stuff is on hold until I find my footing again.

While the medication does seem to be helping, it's not perfect, and I have moments that still slip through. I'm sure that will be an ongoing thing that I will have to learn to deal with, and as long as it doesn't overwhelm me and suck me down the black hole that I was in the last 2 months, I should be ok.

My wonderful husband is getting me away this weekend, one last distraction while the kids are with their dad so I'm not sitting around being sad about it. My ex has decided lately to wage another war against me, luckily I've been able to laugh most of it off. I actually feel sorry for him, he seems to be stuck in a place of anger and hatred, all aimed at me. I'm removed enough to see it for what it is and as long as he's not threatening my time with them, it's all just sad.

Emerging

I'm slowly emerging back to life.

I remember very little detail of the past few weeks. I don't know if it's because I had to medicate myself so heavily just to be able to deal with the pain, or if I was just that detached or in my own head. I have pictures in my phone I don't remember taking. I have texts I don't remember sending. If I didn't have what I wrote here I would remember very little of how it felt. I don't know if that is my brain's way of protecting me or what, but it feels bizarre.

The anxiety effects of the anti-depressant seem to be getting better, although my jaw feels almost bruised from grinding my teeth. I'm starting to sleep again. My husband said he was glad to see my smile back this weekend. I have spent a lot of time with him and my puppy, alone. Luckily it was my kids' weekend at their dad's, and it was nice just to have the pressure off of being *needed* for a few days.

I admit that I'm still completely isolated, and feel awkward trying to come back from that. I don't want anyone to ask me where I've been and have to explain. I am so sensitive right now to anyone needing anything from me that I'm terrified to even reach back out. I don't want to go backwards. I don't want to be triggered back into the oblivion and guilt of the past few weeks. I need to get stronger and back to who I was. I need the medicine to take full effect. I need so many things right now so that I can have my life back.

But the steps are being taken, albeit small ones. I'm eating. I'm exercising. My kids are home and I'm tending to them. I left the house this weekend. I worked a little bit Friday. I had dinner with my best friend and our husbands that night, and could smile and even laugh.


I don't have much to say. There's a lot of empty space right now where the pain resided before. I'm sure that it will fill back up with the happy hum in the weeks and months to come, and just being able to say that says that I'm a million times better than I was before.

To my friends and those who left encouraging comments, thank you and I love you. To those suffering, hang in there. It does pass. Reach out if you have to. I'm scared to think of where I'd be right now without having done so.

Less Than Human

Stop the world, I wanna get off.

Sometimes, in my deepest and darkest moments, I wonder if depression is truly just a chemical imbalance, or if we as humans or maybe just Americans have made life so ridiculously difficult for ourselves that our brain chemistry cannot keep up and forces us to just stop.


I literally cannot make myself do....anything. The exercise is starting to go, too, which is just unheard of for me. I can't make myself eat. I have work piled up around me for miles. I have a new business I was getting off the ground that was doing really well that I've just....let fall apart. I can't face it. I cannot accurately describe the terror in my chest when I think of all the responsibilities that I face that I cannot make myself tackle. It's too much. Soccer forms and signups and school supplies and emergency paperwork and laundry and dishes and cooking and planning and keeping myself in shape and keeping my kids healthy and is my son depressed, too? and is my marriage starting to suffer? and there is too much crap in my house and so much work to do on my business that pays my bills and so much studying to do on the business I want to transition to so I'm happier and friends who are also suffering who probably need me right now and my ex husband wants to know if I'll start alternating holidays with him which I've NEVER done? and I'm letting my husband down by not getting my work done and making money and putting more pressure on him to pay our bills and this is definitely starting to wear on him too as well as everyone else in my life and there's ANOTHER soccer email coming in saying we need to fill out more forms and I haven't registered my baby for kindergarten yet even though it starts in a few weeks and they all need haircuts and backpacks and clothes....

and all I can do is try. I really, really try. I have every intention, every morning, of getting out of bed and just getting it done but my body seems to weigh a trillion tons right now, and making any contact with any person causes my chest to squeeze. I just want to stop feeling sad and anxious and worthless and I don't want one more person to ask one more thing of me.

I don't understand what has happened to me. I don't recognize myself. I was motivated and driven and happy. I'm just broken now. I'm less than human trying to become human again.

My husband took me to a doctor Monday and I shakily admitted to her that I have every single scary symptom of deep depression. I am a very proud person, and to sit there across from a stranger and my husband and admit that I am no longer in control of myself, and my thoughts, was humbling to say the least.

They started me on new medications which, as you can probably tell by the tone of this writing, are currently making me highly anxious. I hate feeling like a lab rat. I hate taking medication. I hate all of this. I need to accept it, I know.

I've also contacted a psychiatric program recommended by a good friend. I'm trying. I want to ask the world to forgive me but the world won't stop long enough to let me.

And it rages on.

I've been researching various treatments both holistic and medicinal. I have been able to keep up my exercise routine. I took a break from exercise, too. I adjusted my calorie intake when I discovered that my lack of appetite had translated into me eating half as many calories per day as I should. I've tried listing out the things that I am grateful for, I've made every attempt to participate in the activities that give me joy. My wonderful husband made an all out effort this weekend by taking me for a massage, to my favorite restaurant, out for coffee. I can't imagine how frustrating this must be for him.

The only time I feel any relief is for the 45 minutes that I am working out and am forced to think about what to do with my body instead of the racing thoughts, and for some reason, during hot showers.

Even sleep brings no relief as my nightmares and dreams have been just as cruel as my waking thoughts.

One thing I don't know that people understand about depression is how very physical it feels. Everything buzzes. My vision feels skewed and like I'm looking through thick plastic lenses. My arms and legs weigh a thousand pounds, and I have a cramping in my gut that has no origin but makes me want to cry.

Some days, it's anger and numbness that are the primary emotions. Other days, I just feel so raw that I could cry at just about anything.

If you've ever been depressed then maybe you will sympathize with the long journeys that your thoughts take, the deep wells they descend, the epiphanies about life that you think you have, that are never good. There are so many thoughts that hit me all at once in a millisecond.

When I had to make a list to remind myself of the things that I had to live for, when I found myself angry for having people in my life who would be hurt if I disappeared forever, somewhere deep inside my sanity spoke up. I thought about driving myself to the ER, but decided to just try and make it through the night, and here I am writing this.

I told my husband that I couldn't take the pain anymore. He is taking me to the doctor. I wrestled with feeling like he is just as sick of me as I am of myself, but the sane part of me texted that to my best friend and she gave me the right words, as she always does. He does love me. It's hard to even type that because I don't believe anyone loves me right now. But he does.

Not to be dramatic emo girl, but the song below is sometimes the only thing that gets me through. This, to me, is the musical translation of what I've been feeling the past month or more...not just the lyrics, but the entire sound.

 

 Say I'm okay
I'm bleeding fire
Eating nightmares

So tell me how to do away with love
I'm a maze
Can we say goodnight now?

Take this world away
And strangle it with wires for a lifetime

Make a pretty face and say I'm fine
I'm okay
Only in the nighttime

Take this world away
Strangle it with wires for a lifetime

Make a pretty face and say I'm fine
I'm okay
Only in the nighttime

Love was the only thing I ever needed, I ever needed

Love was the only thing I ever needed

Love was the only thing I ever needed, I ever needed

Rants of a Lunatic

I'm a cliche.

That's what I'm thinking right now. As I sit here in what must be the seventh or eighth day in my latest bout with depression.

The bouts that seem to be coming more and more often as I grow older. Or does it just feel that way.

It's humiliating to type. I hate. HATE. feeling out of control. I hate admitting my weaknesses.

I'm hoping that just writing it down this time will turn it around, and like so many times before, tomorrow I'll wake up and feel like my normal self. Stable and in control. Emotions in check with reality.

But right now, I'm coming out of a day of raw emotion and pain and into a day of mind numbing fog and isolation.

Frustrated beyond belief that I thought this was under control once with diet and exercise, and yet it reared it's ugly head. Frustrated again because after an extremely humiliating and weepy visit to my local clinic that up until now, only my husband and best friend knew about, I thought the medication they gave me was working.

Yet for the last week, I've felt less and less like talking. Or working. Or mothering. Or cleaning up. Or bothering to get dressed. And yesterday, emotion so raw and painful that it physically hurt. Every second was a battle to get through. Today is a fog of numbness, I imagine the brain's way of compensating for the rawness of yesterday.

"What is it? What are you thinking about that upsets you like this?" my husband asks helplessly. Do you have any idea how hard it is to explain depression to someone who has never really had it...there's nothing wrong, but EVERYTHING IS WRONG.

The racing thoughts. The problems that felt normal yesterday that feel completely insurmountable today. The overall feeling of doom and self-loathing. The endless spiral of "I am so fucked up" that makes you feel even more fucked up that makes you feel even more fucked up. The desperate mental searching for an end to the pain, anything to alleviate it, even a little.

And today I felt like crawling under the covers and telling everyone to fuck off. I hate myself like this. I hate me today. Somewhere on some level, the normal me is watching and is horrified at this version of herself. She feels sorry for everyone in her life. She is disgusted at herself for not being able to cook, work, and mother her children. Round and round and round we go.

But this is all I have today. I left my house today, and it took everything in my being to do it. Being self-employed is the greatest blessing and curse when you suffer from depression. I can hide if I need to, but really, I shouldn't be hiding. Every step I force myself to make is one step back to normalcy.

I'm trying to think of this as illness so I'm not so hard on myself and can deal accordingly. Then the guilt of all the illnesses I ALREADY BATTLE besides depression...the Meniere's, the anxiety, the autoimmune disorders...and the "I am so fucked up" starts again.

I feel guilt hitting the publish button on this post. I feel that everyone wants to hear about the happy hum and I should leave it at that. I'm a story somewhere in la la land that will cheer them up, and here I come along and fuck that up too with my negativity. SEE HOW THIS WORKS.

And then I choose not to hit publish for the 80th time since I've begun this blog. Except this time. Because I'm tired of isolation. I'm just. so. tired.

Please just let me wake up *me* tomorrow.

The Happy Hum

I don't have long to write because life has taken me on so many new and exciting journeys in the last several months, I don't have a whole lot of time to self-indulge and write about it.

But the weather has changed and like it does every season, this change makes me nostalgic. Recently, I began musing to my husband "remember when we..." and he finally looked at me and said, "why are you so nostalgic all of a sudden?"

And then it dawned on me that it was summer, and really just beginning to FEEL like summer. And summer is when my life changed forever, 3 years ago. July 18th to be exact.

That is the night that I walked into a small music venue with my bestie, having just declared myself Done With Men and Single Forever. It was that night that his friend hit on us and asked us to join his group of friends. That night that I scanned the faces that I now know as his buddies, and found myself drawn to the shy one sitting furthest away. That's the night that he asked me who I lived with, expecting my answer to be "roommate" or maybe even "boyfriend", and I held my breath, answered "my three kids", and waited for the hasty retreat that I was used to (or maybe the even dumber response I had from one moron who actually lifted my shirt up to see my belly).

That is the night that we talked until our voices ached, exchanged numbers, and he vowed to take me out for the short time he was in the country. The night I went to get breakfast food with my bestie afterwards, looked at her with my head in my hands and said "Amy, he's 27 and drives a Corvette WHAT THE FUCK am I thinking?" as he sent me a text while driving away, telling me goodnight.

And now, life is life. There is no big excitement, no staying up all night talking, just what I like to describe as the Happy Hum. Maybe I don't get butterflies in my stomach everytime I look at him, because most of that time we're either solving problems, discussing the kids, cleaning up dog poop, etc. Ordinary life. But every single day, I thank the universe that he is my husband, my partner, my absolute soul mate, and that I found him. My needs are all met, and if they aren't, I can bring that to his attention and he ACTUALLY ADDRESSES IT. Things are exactly the way that they are supposed to be. This is what marriage SHOULD feel like. I feel equal, I feel heard, I feel loved and cherished and supported and valued.

Then there are the evenings that we are discussing plans for the future, our goals and hopes and dreams, which we do quite often. We look into each others eyes with the knowledge of what we have and how lucky we are to have it. And it hits me how much we are actually on the same page and I do get chills and butterflies all over again.

Nostalgia is my way of respecting what brought us here to the present, which is where I am the happiest. I love to think of those nights, picturing him attempting to memorize my kids' names, but watching it in my mind with the knowledge that those names are now his children too. It blows my mind.

As the summer goes on and starts to change to fall, I'm sure the wave of nostalgia from just a year ago will begin to hit me as well. September 10 will be our 1 year wedding anniversary. I think of us sitting in a dark movie theater in September 2010, looking at my iphone, and choosing the date 9-10-11 based on visitation schedules and birthdays, and it makes me giggle.


I don't want to say that my life began 3 years ago, because everything that happened up until that point brought me to exactly where I needed to be to have my Mr. Wonderful. I'm so grateful to now be living in the Happy Hum that I never knew existed. It has wiped away all of my fears and anxieties that I brought into this marriage.

Equally I see my kids enjoying the Happy Hum as well, and I can't help but wonder what would have become of them if they never got to experience it. What happened 3 years ago, July 18th, was just as important to their futures as it was to mine...if not more important. They not only adore their stepdad, but they bask in the stability of our relationship, and our happiness. They share in it just as a family should.

And with that, back to the Happy Hum.

For Tracey

Many people who read this blog found me through one of my best friends, but most likely it was Tracey's blog that brought you here.

So most of you know Tracey's story, and I don't really want to re-hash it, because we don't really like to re-live it.

If you don't know, I can tell you that a little over two years ago, I was holding Tracey in my arms at a 5K event as she fell apart. I had just become engaged two weeks prior and was at the happiest point in my life yet. I looked at Tracey huddled up in my arms, pale as a ghost, a completely raw and open wound of a human being after finding out that the two closest people in her life had betrayed her, that her reality for the past year or more had not been reality at all. I held her as she sobbed and I was so. fucking. scared. How do you get past that? How do I console her and reassure her that it would all be ok, because to be honest, I wasn't sure that it would be?

When my Dad was diagnosed with a brain tumor, we had lots of people come to us and say "I know so and so who survived a brain tumor, this way...". It gave us hope, it gave us a direction to look.

But when this happened to Tracey, everyone around her was basically like me, mouth agape, this just doesn't happen. I don't know the course to recovery because I don't know of anyone to go through this.

I did the best I could and told her that it *would* all be ok. I didn't go through anything like her situation, but at the time it was the worst thing I could think of and I did survive...not only survive but my life was so much better off now. I clung to that and that was my mantra to her over the next two years.

There was a man by her side at that time who supported Tracey and stood by her, even through the darkest times of anyone's life. When I first met him (and this is his FAVORITE story about me), I waved my finger in his face and told him to back off, let her heal, leave her alone. I underestimated them both.

M was exactly what Tracey needed. Had M backed off, I truly believe that Tracey never would have been able to trust another man again for the rest of her life. Her story was different from mine. She was able to heal and grow and learn and thrive again, but she also needed proof that there was still good in life...that there are men that can be trusted and value morals and honesty as much as she does. She needed M to heal; his unwavering devotion, his unwillingness to let go of what they have - he was living proof that not all human beings were capable of such hurtful actions.

Tracey and I like to use the hashtag #twinlives when we are texting about our situations. Like me, she is marrying a man with no biological children of his own, an independent bachelor who likes his space and alone time yet for some crazy reason is dead set on joining this nutty, chaotic life of three kids and a busy work schedule no matter how hard we tried to push them away. We had the same transitions, I usually about a year ahead of her. How many times have we sent texts to each other "HOW DID YOU HANDLE THIS"! I call her my Yoda, because even though I am already married, she has got this shit down. She knows how to focus on the good, process and release the bad, "bubble" herself and her family.

8 months ago on my own wedding day, I cried alone because I missed my friends so much. Tracey had written to me that she didn't think she could be any happier for me even if it were herself getting married. This week as we prepare for her wedding, I feel the exact same way.

Not many know what it is like to pick yourself up and rise from the rubble of a disaster with three young children by your side, looking to you for guidance when all you really want to do is lay down and give in to the pain. Then to have the courage to take the step forward, not having any idea where you are going, knowing that the three little faces at your side need for this to be the right direction. Then to one day, after much time has gone by, look up and realize that you somehow managed to not only find your way out, but you've made it to paradise. The way it should be, the way it was supposed to be but never was. To realize that there is now another hand holding onto the little ones, and they are beaming up at him with the same respect and trust they have for you. That you both know exactly where you are now headed, together.

If my wedding day wasn't the perfect metaphor for that feeling, I don't know what else could be. I was a witness to Tracey's own devastation, I watched her fall and get back up again with her babies in tow. I watched her analyze every situation with her children's best interest as her only factor of reasoning, their happiness the only factor of moving forward. And here they will all stand together this Saturday, together, happy, but just one step in the journey of the rest of their lives together. And I am so honored to be there to see the resolution, the happy "beginning".

I'm terrible with words, I am. There are really no words I could think of to describe the feeling and fulfillment of watching someone you love secure their own happiness after not knowing how they would get through, and also knowing firsthand how that feels. But I know that no words are needed, she is my best friend and she knows I know.

*Cheers*, to Tracey and M.