The Depression Monster Strikes…..

Depression reared its ugly head this morning.  The alarm went off at 10:00 am and I could not bring myself to get out of bed.  Just a few more minutes, I thought and then I would get up…….and so I lay there….I thought about the past……I thought about recent events……and I prayed,…… “this is the day the lord has made,let me be glad and rejoice.”  But there was no rejoicing.  There was only the blackness that I was feeling in my soul.  I lay in bed and said Hoʻoponopono (ho-o-pono-pono) is an ancient Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness.  I said it for the last relationship I was involved in, “Please forgive me, I am sorry, Thank you, I love you.”  I lay there and I prayed, “Dear God, please remove any psychic, emotional ties to JSB–set him free and set me free.”

This depression did not make a sudden appearance.  No, not at all.  He had been lurking around-hiding in the recesses of my psyche waiting for a moment of weakness to strike me at the knees and leave me unable to move.

I have fought him and have fought looking into the dark abyss that I know as my depression.  But today there was no fight in me.  He caught me.

I finally got out of bed and the clock said 12 noon.  12 noon, really!!!!  It only felt like a few minutes maybe half an hour at the most.  I had to get out of bed there was much to do.  The farmers market would be over by the time I made it there.  I dragged myself out of bed to start the beginning of a day that was already half over.

The other evening Rick Springfield was on Dr. Oz talking about his depression.  I have often thought how is it possible to be depressed when you have all that success and money?  At the very least you could afford good doctors to fix it.  Dr. Oz showed a brain scan of a normal brain and of a depressed brain.  The depressed brain was mostly blue as opposed to the normal brain which had lots of yellow and red areas.  There were a couple of really dark blue patches on the brain and Rick Springfield said, those really dark patches were where the music came from.

I can relate to that.  Much art is born from the pain and angst of the artist re-expressing itself as music or poetry or paintings, etc.

But I have not written a song or a poem in about two months.   Out of pain I can write–I can create.  But with the depression it is a different kind of pain.  This is a pain that comes as a numbness to life.  The perception is that there is nothing–a big zero.  It is like being in a vacuum or abyss in which nothing penetrates–there is no sound-no light-no love-no nothing.

I know that my life has been blessed in so many ways but when this monsters appears at my door none of it matters.

I made it to the farmers market by 1:00 PM and they close at 1:30 PM.  I found many of the items I wanted except for the purple carrots–I was too late.

My next stop was Whole Foods Market.  I actually had a lovely conversation with a woman demonstrating facial products.  This made me feel a bit better, although I think I may have shared too much information about my life with her.  I have always been that way–will talk to a total stranger about anything including my life.  Ha-it’s no wonder I am doing a blog.  She made me promise to go to the beach.

So after Trader Joe’s I went to the beach.  Since I did not have my dog with me I decided to go to a different stretch of beach.  The beach is where I find God and solace.  But today even that was a challenge for me.

The sand felt wonderful against my bare feet-it wasn’t too hot and it wasn’t cold.  It was warm and squishy.

As I walked along the shore breathing in the ocean air the wet sand glistened with gold dust.  I do not know what the specks are or why it makes the sand glisten with gold but it was a delight to see the sand sparkling in the sun radiating golden sparkles.  This stretch of beach had sea shells.  Beautiful shells the treasures of the ocean.  I collect rocks and shells and I may as well have found sapphires and rubies.  I perused the sand hunting for treasure.  I found six little beauties to add to my collection.  And as I went about collecting I started to notice not only the treasures of the ocean by the trash left by humans.  I shook my head in dismay as I thought that life is like this.  Some of the people we meet are treasures to be collected and kept in the heart, while some people are just trash and we are supposed to walk past them and leave them behind as a bitter-sweet memory.  The problems come when we confuse the trash for treasure.

This has been a year in which I thought I was receiving gems and treasure but when I looked in my heart all I had was trash.

As this year is coming to a close I acknowledge that it has not turned out as I had anticipated.  I put my dreams aside to help someone pursue their dream and was left with nothing.  It has been one wild goose chase after another.  I have been in survival mode for the past few months.  I want to get beyond surviving and move into thriving.

This monster, this depression is here so that I can acknowledge the hurts, the disappoints, the disappointing people and in that acknowledgement hopefully move beyond the barriers that keep me from moving forward.

I am looking forward to 2013 as a fresh start to resume the goals I had laid aside at the start of 2012.

Related articles

• Fighting “Mr. D” with Rick Springfield (timesunion.com)
• Depression Linked with Hyperconnected Brain Areas (scientificamerican.com)
• How a Depression Diagnosis Is Made (everydayhealth.com)
• ’80s Icon Rick Springfield Plays NYC’s Penn Station On Subway Tour (fresh1027.cbslocal.com)
• Being depressed is so, well, depressing (abc.net.au)
• Brain Scans Match Drugs to Depression Eyeing $2.7B Market (bloomberg.com)
• Depression and Ruminative Thinking (everydayhealth.com)
• Ho’oponopono: The Hawaiian Forgiveness Ritual (omtimes.com)
• Depressed? Help is Near! (pepeprays.wordpress.com)
• Rejoice in the Lord! (steveatwood.wordpress.com)

Pandora’s Box …Part Five

 

Yesterday my mother told me that she hated her life and did not want to be alive. She said she didn’t have the guts to do it so she asked her husband to shoot her in the head while she slept.  (She must be off of her meds.)

I told her he couldn’t do that because he would go to jail.  She said, “that’s what he said”.

My mother continued to tell me that she told my aunt to tell us (my sister and I) that if she was suddenly to tell us that she was happier.

I told her I already thought that.  I don’t know how I am going to feel when my mother passes away but I do know that I will think,” Well, I hope she is finally happy and at peace”.

I grew up under my mother’s black cloud.  As a little girl all I ever heard was how my mother felt like an 80-year-old woman and how she did not want to be alive.

What do you do with that?  I have often wondered what my life would be like if I had a happy, joyful mother.  Three weeks ago I told my sister that I thought our mother should be committed to a hospital, that she needs to be severely medicated and in therapy.  A friend told me that she can’t be committed unless she becomes a harm to herself or others.

She is a harm to me right now.  I am fighting for my emotional sanity.  I am fighting to complete my thesis.  I am fighting to rebuild my life.  I am fighting not to sink into a depression that will take me to the edge of suicide.  And I don’t know how I can be around my mother and do all of that.

I feel like I am 16 years old again, laying in bed, under the covers pretending to be asleep until it was safe to get up, until the yelling and screaming subsided.

I found a place to move my business out of my mother’s garage and she thinks it’s an awful place. It isn’t. It is a great place but she has never had a word of encouragement to say to me, ever.

I can not do this anymore.  I can no longer be that 16-year-old teenager who is tiptoeing around her mother’s emotional outbursts.

After she said that she had told her husband to shoot her she started ranting and raving about the internet and people exposing their lives for everyone to see.  She was talking about facebook and the fact that my sister allows her kids to be on facebook.  OMG, if she knew about this blog I would never hear the end of it.

She thinks she knows me, but how can she know me when I can not reveal to her how I really feel or think about anything?

She has always treated me differently than my sister.  My sister got off really easy.  I always seemed to be the scape goat.  I think part of the problem is that I look just like my mother.  I am a mini-me of my mom. She says things like, ” I don’t want you to make the same mistakes that I did”, to which my reply is usually, “They are ‘MY’ mistakes and not yours”.

My mother has always lived her life in fear of everything.  I made a conscious decision as a teenager never to live life like that.

No one makes good choices based on fear.

I think my mother should get into therapy for herself so that she can face her demons and try to be happy. But I don’t think that is possible.

My mother has made choices based on what she thought is morally right and correct.  The thing is there is only one way to do things, my mother’s way.  Any other way is just wrong.  She says she does not have a problem.  The problem is with the people that she is around.  If she could be alone she would not have problems.

So, in order for therapy to be effective my mother would have to admit that she has been wrong on the occasion.  And she can not do that.  I think she would rather be right and miserable than wrong and happy.

I have to get off this emotional rollercoaster before I feel compelled to shoot myself in the head…………