Well into the afternoon, I felt the warm sun on my face, the air on my arms, the pull of muscles in my legs. For the first time all day.
It took all day to get up, get moving, get dressed, fed. And I only did it because the bus would be arriving at the end of our street, depositing two of mine I’d sent out into the world. The littlest had been my only saving grace all day, tucked under my arm on the couch, smiling up at me.
Holding her hand, toddling down the street in the sunshine, I wondered if perhaps God sent me children to save me.
From myself. From getting lost in the bottomless pit.
They haven’t made it easy. Sometimes annoying and painful. But they got me out into the sunshine yesterday – even if it was late in the afternoon.
A purse that may or may not even be an original piece.
I don’t know her.
Yet, when my husband told me yesterday the breaking news about her death, my mood instantly plummeted. I stared at the black and white text and felt the sobs come.
Not because I know her. In a cliched way, I know her pain. In a frightened animalistic way, I see how quickly I could become her.
Facebook friends who know mental illness posted their sadness and support at the news. Some hinted at public posts with ugly comments and sage advice given too late. But I don’t read comments – of the general population anyway – for my own mental health.
And then one of those comments wormed its way into a personal post I saw.
It was easy for me to lament that stigma was still alive and well, that we’ve so much farther to go, and how sad it is that people still think that way – when I hadn’t read the comments. And then I saw how alive and well stigma is, how much farther we’ve to go, and how scary it is how some people think.
To think that suicide is a choice. To think that those who have reached the point of contemplating suicide are doing so as part of a rational decision-making process. That they eschew their many blessings in life purposefully.
Suicide isn’t supposed to make sense. That’s the fucking point. The mind, the psyche is not working properly. Depression is replacing the authentic voice of self with lies.
You would think the fact that it strikes down even people with blessing piled upon blessing would make people realize that there is something more to suicide than horrible circumstance and selfish choice.
It came as quite the shock this morning when I had to wake up and rouse myself and kids to face another school day. The holiday weekend seemed much longer than three days, as if we’d all already slipped into summer mode.
The long weekend was some weird sort of stasis. It was neither too long nor too short; not stupendous nor horrible. It was good. In the midst of PMS and prepping for my two-year-old’s birthday party, I managed to not lose my mind and then relax a bit and enjoy the rest of my weekend.
Yet, even though I cleared out a wood pile that had been lingering in the yard and set up my compost area; even though I cleared a garden bed and planted two long-waiting potted plants; even though I enjoyed laughing with my husband and girls as we ate our first outdoor ice cream of the season – my thoughts turned last eve to how it all may not have been real.
The fact that I survived and thrived may have been a fluke. The fact that I managed to not only be productive, but enjoy it; that I could not only enjoy my children, but feel joy with them; the fact that I wasn’t overly irritable, low, or unmotivated – I couldn’t just be in these wonderful feelings.
As I looked to a return to routine, I wondered whether I’d fail on my own. Without the buffer of helpers in the house, would I be overwhelmed with the task of caring for my little one? Would I feel trapped without the option of another set of hands if I had to tend to a household task or take a moment for myself? Would my mood plummet without the excitement of a holiday weekend and the drudgery of the everyday?
It is said that comparison is the thief of joy. Depression is as well. It’s also said depression is a liar. It is. It is telling me lies about how I may fail. And anxiety is helping spool out its prophecies far into the future.
I may have reached a point where therapies and supplements are finally coming together for my success. But I cannot trust that. If I do, the bottom of what I wish for so vehemently may fall out from underneath me. I may have just had a pretty great weekend. But even that, I can’t enjoy. Because I figure my balance is due and I must pay up at some point.
iSpot.tv
I look forward to celebrating the holiday where the right treatment and my own ability to sit in and take a moment for what it is converge; where no thing is the thief of my joy. That will be a true celebration.
I’ve had this article in my archives for a while now (click above for link). Shanley offers a great primary source of living with depression. Also, mental health’s place in greater society.
“Mental health has a bad PR firm. It only seems to be on our radar when a well-known individual speaks to it, either in life or death, or when there is a mass killing. Suicide is a word rarely spoken, and if so, only in whispers in back rooms. Some of us know people who have stood on a bridge. Some walked down. Others did not.”
Ok, I can’t in good conscience blame all of my troubles on on-demand television services, but I can make a good case for their use attributing to my condition.
I’ll be the first to admit that I find cable television seasons highly annoying. You wait an inordinate amount of time for a show to start up again, only to watch it whisk by in five to six weeks. Each episode ends on a ridiculously frustrating cliffhanger, leaving you lunging at the TV for more, an urge you must tamp down for the following week. This manipulative cycle of desire and gratification has got us viewers trapped hook, line, and sinker.
Enter the world of on-demand services.
They don’t solve the week’s wait between new episodes, but glom onto a show just past its prime, and all the episodes are there for the taking. Want to see what happens next? No problem, my addictive friend. Binge away.
Such binges lead to a glorious few days or a week, depending on how long you stretch it out, but leave you – at the end of it – in the ubiquitous showhole. My kids don’t get that commercial. I find it eerily accurate. The fact that I recently learned to knit adds to the effect.
But choose a show so popular, there are scads of episodes, and the showhole never becomes an issue. I’ve recently fallen under the spell of Criminal Minds. I never watched it when it initially aired on network television. I missed that highly popular boat. I discovered it on one of the four over-the-air stations we were left with once we cancelled cable – the only one not airing paid programming or home shopping. However, the marathons I loved so much on Mondays and Tuesdays gave way to other crime shows I enjoyed much less the rest of the week. I searched Hulu to no avail. When we added Netflix a few months later, I was so excited to see all seasons represented. I could watch whenever I wanted and start from square one.
I would settle onto the couch with my pregnant morning snack or lunch or under the afghan when I needed a rest, my BAU friends entertaining me while I vegged. I could rationalize sitting there vegetating as long as the episode continued. Just until this episode finishes, just until they find the unsub, just until they solve the mystery.
However, when motivation is not high to begin with, and I haven’t been sleeping through the night, and I’m growing a child, and whatever low-level mental health issue is ailing me come together and Netflix plays their shows on a constant loop, it’s easy to stay on the couch for the next episode and the next and the next . . .
About half way through the third episode, the show isn’t even that scintillating anymore. It’s the construct and the comfort that leave me there, rooted to the couch, all semblance of productivity drowning in the abyss of my mind and pool of my guilt.
There is definitely a pleasure seeking/reward system at work with any media viewing. We seek solace, relaxation, a treat in our favorite show. But just as that huge bowl of ice cream eventually empties out, so our show ends, leaving us wanting and needing more to fill that reward center. With the overzealous access of on-demand services, it can become very easy to remove oneself from time, place, social connection in search of an elusive endgame – whether it’s escape, entertainment, distraction, avoidance, or happiness.
Holding Netflix responsible for my lack of mojo and self-control is about as ridiculous as suing McDonald’s for getting fat. I need to set up fail-safes and proactive measures to keep me from swirling ever closer to the rim of the showhole. But it’s so easy to drift along on the gentle current of complacency, detachedness . . .
In an online forum, a mother asked if she was the only one who thought about her experience with postpartum each and every day since she had given birth four years earlier.
I am six years out. While it’s not an everyday occurrence, it often comes to mind. In many ways, it has and continually shapes who I am – as an all-around human, not just certain aspects of motherhood.
Though I wouldn’t recommend it as a means of self-discovery, my postpartum experience taught me a lot about myself. I realized, that while I had been managing it, I’d been suffering from low-level depression and anxiety for years. What I thought was a failure to contain, control, was actually the event horizon of a long-simmering beast’s debut.
So I find it hard when people talk about postpartum recovery. I don’t feel as if I’ve recovered from postpartum depression. I feel like I’ve learned to manage it, but it’s the new normal. While I took an extended hiatus, I’ve returned to my therapist. I never stopped taking my meds. I still have low points that make me wonder if I’ll ever be healed; that make me seek out new treatments and pray for cures.
A cure lies somewhere within the intersection of self-acceptance, medical marvels, and divine intervention. I think it’s impossible that any one will work without the combination of the others.
I need to accept that this may (notice I’m not quite ready yet) be how my chemical makeup operates. That I didn’t fall short on some courage or stick-to-it-ness factor. That I didn’t fail to attract good things through my thoughts. I cannot will myself better with positive thoughts. Though my heart works that way, my mind simply is not wired for that.
Taking medicine to augment your mood is okay, even acceptable. It’s beneficial to your quality of life. It quiets the rage and keeps the nervous energy at bay.
And to fill the gap that always is – there is God. A spiritual dimension to the healing process is essential – and one I was missing for a long time. Unfortunately, this is not a one and done. I must continually seek this solace.
All three spokes of the wheel need continual attention. They all need periodic tweaking and developing. Much to my chagrin, my recovery and learning to live a full life is not a mountain to be scaled and topped with a banner of victory. I have to drag that flag with me wherever I go. As long as it still flies, I guess, there is still hope.
“When we first lost our house, I told Reba, ‘I just want things to go back to normal. When is that going to happen?’
‘Soon,’ she promised.
Soon seems awfully far away.
‘Your mom’s on medication that makes her tired,’ Dana Wood explains.
‘What’s wrong with her? She’s never been like this.’ I’m trying to get a breath. I feel sick to my stomach all of a sudden.
‘The early diagnosis is that she had something called a severe depressive incident. That can happen when people are very stressed and then something tough happens and they can’t bounce back.’
I sit down. ‘Like not getting the job she was counting on?’
‘Exactly. It was the last straw, and she shut down.’
‘She made it bigger in her head than it really was.’
‘That happens often, Sugar.’
‘But it’s not normal, right? Normal mothers don’t do this!’
‘What I can tell you is that most people sometime in their lives make something bigger in their heads than it really is.’
‘But they don’t end up in the hospital!’ I’m trying to breathe normally, but it’s hard.
‘Sugar, the doctors and nurses here know how to help.’
That doesn’t tell me anything. ‘How long does she have to be here?’
‘A week, probably.’
‘Then what?’
‘We’re not sure yet, Sugar.’
I’m getting tired of this. ‘I want to talk to somebody’s who’s sure.’
‘I’d feel the same way if I were you, but right now, no one’s sure.’
I have another question, but I’m not going to ask it.
One side,
so dedicated to hope and wanting to believe in its existence.
In life.
The opportunity for joy at every corner
despite the struggles.
In the goodness of humanity.
The side that must be so strong
it survives
in spite of
the other side.
A dark pessimism,
the cloud of depression
that tells me it won’t work,
you won’t find joy.
You will constantly struggle and be weighted down by me.
I am the first side.
The second side haunts me like a shadow.
It won’t win, but it makes things a hell of a lot harder.
Writer balancing between two worlds. Fiction and memoir. Written and real. Parent vs. self. Want vs. need. My pen as my constant companion and key to comprehension.
— from 
Chopping Potatoes 
This is My Bag
Jennifer Butler Basile
This is the closest I’ve gotten to Kate Spade.
A purse that may or may not even be an original piece.
I don’t know her.
Yet, when my husband told me yesterday the breaking news about her death, my mood instantly plummeted. I stared at the black and white text and felt the sobs come.
Not because I know her. In a cliched way, I know her pain. In a frightened animalistic way, I see how quickly I could become her.
Facebook friends who know mental illness posted their sadness and support at the news. Some hinted at public posts with ugly comments and sage advice given too late. But I don’t read comments – of the general population anyway – for my own mental health.
And then one of those comments wormed its way into a personal post I saw.
It was easy for me to lament that stigma was still alive and well, that we’ve so much farther to go, and how sad it is that people still think that way – when I hadn’t read the comments. And then I saw how alive and well stigma is, how much farther we’ve to go, and how scary it is how some people think.
To think that suicide is a choice. To think that those who have reached the point of contemplating suicide are doing so as part of a rational decision-making process. That they eschew their many blessings in life purposefully.
Suicide isn’t supposed to make sense. That’s the fucking point. The mind, the psyche is not working properly. Depression is replacing the authentic voice of self with lies.
You would think the fact that it strikes down even people with blessing piled upon blessing would make people realize that there is something more to suicide than horrible circumstance and selfish choice.
May God save us all.
Pass the Potatoes:
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Posted by Jennifer Butler Basile on June 6, 2018
https://choppingpotatoes.com/2018/06/06/this-is-my-bag/