The Same Old Shame

As a response to my previous post, I am writing this without barriers. I am looking into the icy gray wind and facing the honest answers. This is what I see when I ask where the anger comes from.

She emerges from the suspended comfort of December, from the holiday-fabricated bubble that postpones making decisions and facing any difficult or otherwise soul-ripping situations. As she steps into January, ice hits her like a million grains of sand cutting her to pieces, but she stands still and strong. She knows it's time.

Yet, it is this very knowledge that wants to defeat her. It is knowing what must be done and what hasn't been done that shames her. It is knowing that she has, at times, compromised her resolve in the name of peace. It is the image of her obliging a man in the name of peace that shames her.

And every time she remembers that there are things she hasn't done, because for now it's easier to keep the peace, she feels the same old shame...and she wants to slay it...with her images...of cutting.

Afterthought:

I have been trying to answer this question for a few weeks now, and every time I sat down to write the proverbial wall went up. I found that I couldn't bring myself to look into this part of me. Finally, this morning I started to write again and decided to try to look at it in the third person. I thought maybe it would be easier to write about myself as if I were watching from the outside...it worked.

Slaying My Shame

"Loving your shame doesn't mean you love what happened to you. It means you love you."

-Terri St.Cloud

The Fabric of Her Dancing Shoes

Trigger Warning: Self-Harm

I don't fully understand the meaning of this quote, but it rang somewhere deep within me when I read it this evening. It felt like it applied to me, like I can somehow relate.

Perhaps it's because my shame has surfaced in so many ways during the last few months...and I'm so tired of seeing it, of feeling it. In fact, I've mastered the art of slaying my shame. Lately, I've been cutting it down with a virtual blade.

Every time I feel it rise and spill over like burning lava emerging from the core of my anger, I trample it with my images. I vividly visualize scenes of cutting. The painful pangs are replaced with flashing pictures of my blade...of my wrists. The more the shame, the more the pictures...the blade cutting across the skin...the red and angry cuts staring back at me, asking for more...because it's never enough.

The last time I called him from the low and lonely floor, my therapist asked me who I was so pissed off at that I felt I had to take it out on myself as such. I replied that I would have to figure it out, but he said not over Christmas.

Well, it's not Christmas anymore. January is here like the piper wanting to get paid. I have to face the bare branches now. The answers are hanging in the cold gray air...but I'm afraid to look.

10,000 Page Views!

I opened my blog today to find that I had reached the 10,000 page-view mark! How exciting for me! I remember when I started blogging just about three years ago. I was shy and afraid and sure that no one would ever read what I wrote!

I have since published 232 posts with over 1,000 comments! I want to say thank you to my readers for supporting me and encouraging me and for following my story. Thank you for your comments, which materialize your presence and have often served as a lifeline for me.

I often wonder about the quiet readers who leave no visible mark other than a notch in my stats page and little extra color on the map. I hope that if you feel my pain, you do not feel alone and that perhaps you might be walking some of my baby steps with me.

I am proud of this blog. I am proud of the work that I have done as I have written these pages. I am proud of the candid words, the flowing tears, the honesty of it all. This is my place to come clean. This is where I lay it all down.

Thank you, again, for 10,000 page views.

Ice is Better Than Steel

The ice maker was broken...or jammed...or something. I had to find a way to fix it, because the alternative was a sharp blade...and ice is better than steel.

I've come a long way.

Alone With My Sadness

In about thirty minutes, I have to be a mom. I will have to pull myself together and be the caring and attentive mother that my children need.

...but for now, I can just feel my sadness. I can just be downhearted and low. Behind my closed doors, I can be as gloomy as I feel without ruining anyone's joy. For now, I can close my eyes and feel hopelessness without having to find a way out of it. For now, I can sit on the floor and feel depression engulf me without having to do anything about it.

Back After Some Techncal Difficulties

So much for writing every day. It turns out that on Thanksgiving night, my internet, television and telephone service (I get them all through the same company) went out. After spending more hours than I care to on the cell phone with the cable company, it was determined that a technician would need to come out to fix the problem...next Wednesday night!

After I had succumbed to my involuntarily unplugged world, the internet mysteriously reappeared tonight! After I had already drunk a glass of port. I am not really in a condition to write. I am too sleepy from the wine and can't really formulate coherent thoughts. I just wanted to write...to string words together...to connect again.

Thanksgiving went better than expected. It turned out, company was what I needed.

My eyes are closing. I was not expecting to write tonight...but it sure feels good to be in my safe place again.

Are They Coming Now?

When my nephew's mother asked me what I was doing for Thanksgiving this year, I replied that I would probably cook and she and my nephew were certainly welcome. I make Thanksgiving dinner every year, so it was easy for me to say that. She said that if she didn't travel to see her mother, they would come over. Now, I am praying that she goes to see her mother.

Weeks ago, my next-door neighbor offered to come over with a bottle of wine when her daughter is in town for Thanksgiving. I happened to move next door to the parents of one of my son's close friends during high school. When she proposed this visit, I was quite open to it, as I wanted to spend time with the young lady as well as catch up a little bit with her mother. Today when I got home, she approached me to make concrete plans for this weekend. I almost panicked!

The truth is that I have a house full of boxes and am in no position to host or entertain anybody! Who in their right mind would ask somebody who moved less than two months ago to receive them in your home? The truth is that I would have preferred for my nephew's mother to have asked me to have Thanksgiving at her place...but really, I would rather she just go to see her mother, so I don't have to even try.

And my neighbor...oh my god...how do I even act normal? I haven't seen her kid since 2006. Seriously, what I wish is for these people to just scoop me up and tell me that it's OK to rest. I don't feel like I have anything to give to them right now.

Self-Care

I don't have much to say, but I decided that I would write every day until the next time that I see my therapist. It's not that I have a need to broadcast anything of importance or even to offload anything. It's just self-care. I have a need to write.

I'm going down, I know, and I won't see him until after Thanksgiving week - December 1st to be precise. Until then, I have to do the best that I can to keep myself afloat. The first thing I did was to call and make an appointment to see him. I needed to know that there was a specific date that I need to make it to. Having this appointment on the calendar lets me know that I need to hang on...but not indefinitely.

Next, I needed to figure out what would help me hang on until that date. In the past, writing has helped me get out of my head. I can scream, I can cry, I can get it all out of my head when I write. I also know that sometimes, in the past, I have been too depressed to even write. I have felt unable to reach out of my darkness, unable to put the hurting into words. I thought maybe if I just told myself to write every day, no matter how little or much I have to say, maybe even if I fell that low, I would still write, I would still reach out...just out of habit. It would just be part of going through the motions

I chose to write in this blog rather than in a private journal, because I also need to feel a connection. Once it begins, I tend to feed my depression with isolation. I don't want to do that. Writing in this blog means that sometimes people will read and leave comments. When they do, I know that I am not alone, and it feels like having a branch to hold on to.

So this is it, these are my steps toward self-care. I cannot believe that it is me writing this. I have come a long way. I have been here before, but like I wrote at the end of this post, I stand on different ground now.

What if I Popped a Pill?

As I doled out antidepressants of all types today at work (Zoloft for this one, Prozac for that one, Pristiq for him and Effexor for her), I considered...I entertained...I imagined that I could possibly also use one of these medications. There's even a super high dose one that you only have to take once a week!

I am tired and tired of fighting. It has been a turbulent couple of years, and it ain't even over yet.. I can use some help. Maybe, I just need something to get me through the rest of the fight, because I don't feel like I have the energy. Yet, by even admitting this, I feel defeated...as if making it without medication is winning some kind of fight...as if taking medication is losing. Yes, this is I, the pharmacist, the keeper of the drugs, the giver of the pills who feels this way.

I wondered today if life wouldn't be just a little bit easier if I took a little Zoloft, if I wouldn't have more energy with Prozac.

...or maybe I should just deal with my shit.

Insiduous Depression

Depression can really sneak up on you sometimes. Like when you are just trying to live your life, trying to keep up with the kids' schedules as well as your own. You are just doing all the musts and what-nots, and you talk to your kids. You respond to their questions, you give them directions...but they keep telling you that they can't hear you, they keep telling you to stop mumbling. You realize that you've been speaking at a level audible only to yourself and are keenly aware that you barely have the energy to project and repeat yourself. You're tired, you tell yourself, you should get more sleep...this has been going on for weeks.

Then, you drive fifty-five miles to a work location and realize that you've missed your exit and you're half and hour away from your destination. You will be late, and you want to cry. In fact, you try to cry, but you can't. You wonder where in the world your head was for twenty-five minutes!

You get to work...late...and are ready to burst into tears at any given moment. The entire shift, you want to leave...you want to sit somewhere quiet and private and cry it all out. You know it's coming, you feel yourself slowly falling...slipping, knowing you can't stop yourself...and you know that you're depressed.