After writing yesterday about how so much of my writing makes it sound as if I hate my role as mother, I got to thinking.
I don’t hate being a mother.
I don’t hate my children.
I don’t hate my life.
It’s the depression talking.
Aside from shoving cotton into the mouth of the Debbie Downer who has taken up residence somewhere in my grey matter, I wouldn’t change anything about my life. I wouldn’t make different decisions. I wouldn’t rearrange the pieces.
Though far from perfect, this is pretty much the life I always wanted to live.
And I’ve known that. For quite some time. I know I have multitudes of blessings for which to be thankful, highest on the list those three little beauties. Only now have I figured out why I couldn’t make the leap to gratitude, to joy.
Goddamn depression.
I’m well acquainted with the irrational/illogical movements of anxiety vs. the rational/logical progressions of what? Someone in her right mind? I can access that part of my mind. It’s functioning quite well, in fact. It just never wins. That raw part of me, that most primal adrenaline-sucking beast always wins. It rules me with an iron fist to the already queasy gut.
The sun is always shining in my part of the world. I’m just below that low-hanging, suffocating layer of clouds beneath it. I haven’t figured out how to fly up and out of it.
from howstuffworks.com
Chopping Potatoes 
Totally understand – i find depression precedes growth, but when covered with the muck of it, hard to believe.
LikeLike
Whole lotta growing going on, then! 😉
Nice to know someone understands!
LikeLike
Warning: This comment is an absolute mess, for which I apologize, but I’m trying to communicate something important which I think you will get, and I can’t make the whole thing come together sensibly. I am so sorry for that.
For what it’s worth, I think I’ve come as close to beating those thoughts as you can when you have life-long, chronic, severe illnesses like bipolar and anxiety disorders, or in your case, anxiety and depression (which I have seen people recover from successfully, so don’t let that thought leave your mind when I mention the crap I deal with — you’re still allowed to hope for yourself) which (in my case) are not helped by pills, were certainly not improved by shocks, and have reached the limit of what therapy can do. The only thing in the world I’ve found that works, and I think you’re already well on your way to doing this, is simply to endure. In my case it was my famed and cussed stubbornness positively refusing to let the thoughts “win”. . .
And I have help, of course. From the girls who love me, from movies that distract me, from friends and family supporting me. I know the thoughts will be with me for life, though thank God there are long periods when they leave me. And I know that everyone is different. In the film version of Tennessee William’s The Night of the Iguana (which is magnificent and I highly recommend if you’ve not seen it), Deborah Kerr says, “Some people take a pill, others take a drink, I take a few deep breaths.”
I’m sorry to have run on again. I guess I make this comment to you because I feel like I can’t make it to so many others: It gets easier with time. Never fun, but you have a strength. Like I said, I think you’re already well on your way.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, you can make this comment to me 😉
Impressed by your strength – and the amazing kindness, empathy, and hope you bring to others.
‘Iguana be in pictures’ is one of my favorite puns with which to torment my husband. I must see that film.
LikeLike
It took me a moment, but that made me laugh so hard! Thank you. 🙂
It’s one of my favorite films, also with Ava Gardner and Richard Burton. I think the first time I saw it my reaction was to say, “I have never seen my own madness reflected back at me so eloquently.”
If you get Turner Classic Movies, it’s on there periodically.
Thank you for understanding what I tried to write. ❤
LikeLiked by 1 person
Found The Night of the Iguana on oslri.org. Reserved it. You had me at Tennessee!
LikeLike
You closet English/film studies major! Love you.
LikeLike
I understand Jennifer…I do…hugs 🙂
LikeLike
Thank you, Sherri. My doppelganger 😉
LikeLike
❤
LikeLike