Fighting Depression

My depression sometimes arrives in the morning when I start to wake. I know it's there because it grabs me with its cold clammy fingers as I reach for the light, and it pulls me back into it's desperate shadows. As my mind awakens, I feel the dread of pain, instead of the hope of a fresh start. I know what's coming when the morning begins this way.

I will fight it. I will not sink. The summer has been too bright and comforting to succumb to this old pain the ass. I will rise. I will write. I will do.

The Girl Who Sickens Me

It's time to write about the girl who sickens me. She's the one who still doesn't seem to know how to say no...not always...not when it comes down to the nitty-gritty...and it's pretty gritty. Understand, she can say no sometimes. In fact, she says it a lot. Her asshole STBX has ridiculed her, asking if she ever knows how to say yes...but she does say yes...against her will...how could he not see it?

The girl who sickens me says no to an extent...to a point...until her asshole STBX insists and persists for a hug or a kiss, often more but she knows to say no to that. But shit, she can't find a way to get through the moment other than by giving in to the fucking kiss or hug. She can't find a way to move on, to get him out of the house, or to get him to let go of her.

Oh yes, she tells him no...two, three, maybe five times, but he persists. And she just wants to escape, to be done with the moment, to be done with him! So she dutifully goes for the peck kiss and the hug and sends him on his way while he turns and insists on another, and another..."Open your mouth this time", he says.

She doesn't open her mouth, but someone deep in her core is violently ill. Someone deep in her entrails wonders how the fuck she can do it...after everything she's been through. It's like she's back with her stepfather...can't say no...how am I going to get home if I don't agree?

The girl who sickens me is me...I make myself sick.

Hiding

I arrived at my therapist's office today in sunglasses. Well, I wasn't wearing them when I walked into his office, just when I arrived. Today was about hiding, and the sunglasses help. Without them, I feel as if anyone can look into my eyes and see...everything. Behind the sunglasses, I can hide the sadness, the pain, the hurt, the anger, the confusion...everything.

I took the sunglasses off before I went in his office...but I wanted to wear them all day long. I threw a blanket over me, partly to protect my exposed summer skin from the chill in the arctic air conditioned room...but mostly to hide.

"Are you hiding from me?", he asked. Yes. Yes, I was. Sometimes, I want to hide from him...from his eyes, his questions, from the way he knows just how to reach me. But who am I kidding? It's not him I want to hide from...it's me, of course.

I want to hide from what I see in the mirror he holds up...from the truth that remains at the bottom of the beaker after all the volatile emotions have evaporated.

That's Where His Power is!

"That's where his power is.", my therapist said some weeks ago when I talked about my fear. I had just told him of my small victory in letting my STBX know that I did not want to hug him and I did not want to be held by him. Then, I felt the little ghost rise like a vapor. I saw it, and I spoke it out loud. "Still, in the back of my mind, I am afraid of his reaction to my words", I said. "That's where his power is", he replied.

So here I am, apparently still afraid, my wedding ring blistering my skin like acid. And after everything I've been through, I can still feel guilt and self-blame. Is it what keeps me from moving forward with the next step?

Welcome Home!

Returning from vacation is, of course, always difficult. Am I the only one who wants to move to wherever it is I am vacationing? Probably not. Fortunately, I've grown enough to realize that living and working wherever I am vacationing will NEVER be like vacationing there - that's why it's VACATION!

Regardless, descending back to my mortal life is a bitch. This time, I found myself dragging it out as much s possible. Because we flew out of an airport an hour and a half away from home, I had a little extra time after landing to extend that vacation...so I did.

After we picked up our van, I took the kids out to lunch...at a sit-down restaurant...that is notorious for being slow to serve...and I let them play checkers...and finish their game before we left.

What can I say? As long as I was on vacation, I felt like I was in a bubble...of happiness. As long as I didn't have to speak or interact with my STBX, life was normal, and I felt at ease. It is only during these periods that I realize the shit I carry around. And yes, it is a million times better than when I actually lived with him, but still there is that fucking residual fear of what the hell he is going to say next or what fucking mind game am I going to have to field or dodge next. Exhausting.

So I put myself on the road during exactly the five o'clock rush hour and drove home slowly...enjoying...and dreading.

Light My Fire!

All I know is that the writing helps me get off my ass, charging me up like the proverbial fire under it. I suppose there is something about facing that which paralyzes me, looking at it square in the eye and putting it "out in the open". I guess it loses some of its power that way...some of it.

I won't do it again today. I won't lie around wondering why I act this way. I'll write, then I'll get up and do, and live...like I did the other night.

Yes, I am aware of the obvious - something inside me feels like I don't deserve the good times, the happiness, a carefree vacation with my children. Digging deeper, I find that I believe that it is a different kind of person who plans and organizes ahead of time in order to minimize stress. Deep inside, I think that it is someone else who leaves for vacation with their house and finances in order and their bags thoughtfully packed. I know, to the average mom, that image seems to come straight out of a fairy tale book. But I'm not talking about the fairy tale...I'm just talking about reasonable sanity.

I have time and space to achieve that reasonable sanity...I just need that fire lit!

Come on baby, light my fire
Come on baby, light my fire
Try to set the night on fire

The time to hesitate is through
No time to wallow in the mire

from Light My Fire, The Doors

Self-Sabotage

In about a week's time, I will be sitting at a beach on an island off the southern coast of the United States, delighting in the warm completeness of having all of my three children around me. It will be marvelous!

But you wouldn't know it by the looks of me tonight. I am doing what I do so often...sabotage...sabotage...sabotage my own good times. There is packing to be done, a house to be cleaned, arrangements to be made...yet I do nothing. I know myself. I know that I do better when things are in order. I am happier when I have ample time to prepare. I do not thrive in last minute rush hour. I know that the way to avoid frantic stress and last minute exhaustion is to take care of things this weekend...but I don't.

I look around the messy house, the wilted flowers in their two inches of milky water, the piles of unfolded laundry on each available bed, the stack of bills that beg attention and I turn away instead. I read Pat Conroy and let his dark and lyrical words push and pull my memories and emotions like his own Lowcountry tides. Reading this book is dangerous, I know, but I simply can't resist him. It would be better if I packed a suitcase, or cleaned my bathroom, or threw away those godforsaken sunflowers...they're bringing me down.

What's it going to take for me to do good for me? I can visualize the way that I want things to be, but I refuse to take the steps necessary to arrive there.

I need to talk.

I Stopped Reading After Newtown

When a friend texted me last night to share some information on the demographics of the victims of the recent Orlando night club shooting, I was amazed to find that I had known practically nothing about the details of this deadly tragedy. All I knew was that another motherfucker went crazy and shot a bunch of people in Orlando...again.

It's not that I don't care... I do. It's just that Newtown broke me. And it keeps breaking me. Every time another one of these shootings happens, I break again. I go back to Newtown, to twenty first graders and their valiant teachers, and wonder what in the world went wrong that these children weren't enough to change things in this nation.

So I had to stop reading and listening after Newtown. When I hear of another shooting, I find myself putting up my shield again...and thinking of the children...and breaking...and wondering what the fuck? I don't attack the web for details and information. Knowing everything doesn't change anything...at least not for me...not during these times. Sometimes I catch something on NPR, and I might let myself listen...a little...an interview with a mother...who is now broken...forever.

The gunman keeps winning.

Can I be Home Alone?

The kids will be at the beach with their father for the rest of the week. Towards the end of the school year, I expend much energy and focus on helping them wrap up their year as smoothly and stress-free as possible. I will be able to spend much needed time focusing on my needs and perhaps a little self-care.

...or so I thought. After seeing my therapist this afternoon, I treated myself to a fantastic dinner at a gem of a local restaurant which I had been wanting to try for quite some time (the chardonnay tasted exactly like an oak room!). It was after leaving the restaurant that it hit me that I did not want to go home...that I was afraid to go home. I was afraid of being home alone and being depressed and just spiraling down. I was paralyzed in my van...in a parking spot...on the street...in front of this restaurant.

I decided to email my therapist and then set my GPS for home. As I was waiting for his phone call, I drove following the directions from Ms. Google and not thinking that I was driving home. When I arrived, I went in the front door straight through the back door and sat in the back yard to write this post.

After talking with him, I knew that he was right. I am going to be OK. I have been in this place before, and I have risen from it. I am different now...stronger. I will not harm myself, and I will not sit paralyzed in a room thinking about it. I will do something good for me. In fact, I already did.

In the past, I have sat on the floor talking with my therapist on the telephone. He would urge me to go outside, to leave the house. At that time, I felt that nothing could be more terrifying. Today, I didn't even give myself the opportunity to go there. I went straight outside, picking up my laptop in stride, and wrote.

I'm going inside now, as confident in myself as my therapist said he was in me. I'll be OK. I can do this. I'll be OK.

Free Write

Today I'm writing just because I know it's good for me...like eating your vegetables (except writing tastes more like fruit). "I have nothing to write about", I thought...but I reminded myself that it just takes a few words to get me going...like the free-writes that my high school English teacher taught us to do.

I have two brutal shifts this weekend - two back-to-back 8AM to 8PM shifts at a store high in volume and low in staff help...and invariable someone always calls out. This is the kind of weekend that requires a lot of self care.

My discomfort started as I walked into the pharmacy yesterday and saw a box cutter that was careless tossed on the robot counter (yes, it counts drugs for us). It was  nobody's fault...busy store...no time to properly put things away...they don't have my problem...seeing a blade like that may not take them back to darker times of self-harm like it does me. I left it there and proceeded with my tasks of opening the pharmacy.

It bothered me the entire day, my mind flashing back and imagining the cutting. It was such an arduous day, I thought I could cut...but I didn't. I've come such a long way. I've been in this spot before, and the difference is that this time I knew that I wouldn't. At the end of the day, I went home, took a warm bath in chamomile-scented Epsom salts, took some ibuprofen for my swollen and aching body, read a book and got a good night's sleep.

...Self care.