Feed Your Soul

This has been a challenging week. It has been a long time since I've been in such a dark place - four years to be exact. I fought my way out of that darkness, and many dark places prior, but each time it happens, it feels as though it will never get better. I will never be myself again. 

I don't know how to describe depression to someone who has never experienced it. There's a sense of heaviness - an almost physical pressure on my entire body. It weighs me down. It dulls my senses. Nothing tastes good. Nothing feels good. Colors fade and my world becomes monochromatic - mostly shades of grey. I feel disconnected from everyone and everything around me. I can be sitting across from someone, listening to them talk, yet I really don't feel like I'm there. I laugh when I'm supposed to, but inside I fight back tears. And those tears...there are so many of them. For everything. For nothing. For the fact that I want the pain to go away.

I've felt this brewing inside me since July. It started as a weird, fleeting thought. I passed it off as me being stressed. The sadness would creep in, but I was able to push it away. Stuff it down inside and go on with life. I shouldn't be surprised that it finally reared its ugly head last week. Nothing that strong can stay down forever. 

In this last week, I've had a chance to think about my life and how I've been handling things. It turns out that pushing aside those red flags and stuffing your emotions away is not the way to go - shocking, right? I realized that I spent a lot of time trying to be happy, and trying to make others believe I was happy. I was looking for outside validation to fill some of the emptiness I felt inside. But it doesn't work. Sure, for a short time it does, but it doesn't last very long...and then I'm left feeling emptier.

No one, not even my family, can do that. Sure, they can support me through this, but they can't fill the emptiness and insecurities for me. I have to do that myself.

I need to find my own way, heal my own emptiness, feed my own soul.

That is just what I intend to do.

Writer's Block

Now this is the story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down...

OK, not really, but you've got that theme song stuck in your head right now, don't you? You're welcome.

This actually is the story (or maybe just a quick post) of how one of the things I love the most has taken a backseat to life. And believe me, I'm fully aware that no one reading this has ever asked themselves, "What the hell has happened to Tracy's writing? Did she ever finish that last novel?" In a nutshell those answers are nothing and no. So if someone asks me how many novels I've written (and for the record no one has ever asked me that question), I get the pleasure of giving the stupid answer of "three and a half." Gah! That half really screws with me.

For as long as I can remember, writing was how I dealt with the thoughts swirling through my brain every second of every day. It was how I worked through my emotions. It was how I got to escape from reality - whether it was boring or just too overwhelming. But now? I can't write. Part of the issue is that I don't have time. I swear, if a single person tells me that in order to be a successful writer I need to make the time to write, I will have to kick you in the shins. Seriously, come a little closer.

There are 24 hours in a day. I work eight of those. If I'm lucky, I sleep six. When I have Griffin, I'm cooking, bathing, entertaining, reading, monitoring, building Legos, and snuggling. Somewhere in there I'm supposed to be cleaning and doing laundry. I spend time on the phone with debt collectors, negotiating payment plans and promising them that they will get paid. Someday. I deal with banks and credit card companies and even Medicaid. I fill out paperwork on what seems like a daily basis. And then there's the little matter of getting my house ready to sell and finding another place to live.

Oh...and I worry. A lot.

In the beginning I tried to write. I tried to schedule it in, but grew frustrated when the words wouldn't come. My mind wandered to the stack of bills on my desk or the list of phone calls I needed to make the next morning. In the last few months I've decided to put my writing on hold until life settled down. Considering how long I've been in this mess, I have no idea when I will start again. But I will, and that's what matters to me. The ideas are there. In fact, I still walk around with my notebook in my purse, jotting down plot ideas, character traits, or bits and pieces of awkward conversations I've overheard.

Letting go of that pressure is one of the best things I could have done.

I will write again. And when I do...look out because I've lived through more in the last 18 months than many people do in a lifetime.

Coming Clean

I believe this is the record for the longest gap between blog posts. I'm not proud of it. I used to write weekly...maybe even more often. It drove me nuts that I wasn't writing and I actually felt guilty for such a long hiatus. Who was I kidding? It's not like anyone was waiting to read what I had to say about parenthood, work, and the stress of balancing all of that while trying to someday possibly reach my dream of becoming a published author. It was when I let go of that self-imposed guilt that I discovered that I really did have something to say.

You know the whole elephant-in-the-room phenomenon? That's pretty much what has been going on over here on my end. The more I tried to avoid what was going on, the more excuses I found not to blog. When you try your hardest to ignore something so enormous you end up becoming paralyzed. Frozen. Completely blank.

So 2012 sucked. From the first day to the very last. As Griffin likes to say, "I'm not even kidding about this." From a severely sprained ankle to a skin cancer diagnosis and surgery. From the death of my dear, sweet grandfather to the near death of my marriage. The year drained me. It robbed me. It took my soul. You know that feeling when you coast into the gas station on fumes? That was me. All the time.

I didn't want to talk about it - especially the marriage part. I  was ashamed, embarrassed, confused, and frustrated. I still am, actually, but it just depends on the day. It consumed me, though, and all those other things I already mentioned simply piled on top of that and pushed me down lower and lower. A wise person once told me that sometimes we all just need to tread water. I couldn't even do that. It seemed like every time I was able to break the surface, something stronger than me pushed me back under...and held me there.

Sometimes I feel as though I lost an entire year of my life. Physical therapy, biopsies, doctors' appointments, futile attempts at marriage counseling. I was out-of-control. A puppet. But as the year came to a close, I realized that I did have control over some things in my life, and that it was just a matter of knowing what those things were. I cannot control whether or not I develop additional skin cancers (though I would love to be able to control that!), but I can do my best to prevent them and continue to see my doctor every few months for checks. However, I can control whether or not I let all of this consume me. I could stay paralyzed, watching life pass me by, but that means missing out on everything that I love - Griffin, my family, my passion for writing, pursuing my dream of publication, etc.

Everything that happened last year will always be a part of me...a part of my history, but it is a conscious decision not to let them define me. That's the tricky part. It is so easy fall into the victim mentality. By no means have I conquered that. There are many days when I let myself stew in some sadness. Sometimes it's just what we need to do. But I have learned when to get back to life, when to suck it up and move on.

I have no idea what is going to happen this year. People tell me I have nowhere to go but up, but in all honesty, that makes me uncomfortable. Sometimes I feel like I'm just waiting for the next shoe to drop. In the meantime, though, I will continue to be a parent (a pretty darn good one, too), a maybe-wife, a friend, and as always...a writer.

Growth

{photo credit}

When I was a little girl, I loved visiting my grandparents' house because they had an amazing vegetable garden. The funny thing is that back then, I wasn't all that interested in eating those vegetables, but was amazed at how someone could start with a tiny seed, add some water, sunlight, and TLC, and grow bright, red tomatoes and crunchy cucumbers. During my visits, I watched my grandfather pluck the cucumbers from the garden and lay them out on the counter, while my grandma worked her magic in the kitchen.

Ever since we moved into our current house a little over six years ago, I've wanted to plant a vegetable garden. We even had the perfect spot in the corner of our backyard, just begging to be transformed. I put it off while Griffin was a baby - just too much work. But this past spring I made the commitment. I pulled weeds and turned over the soil. I spent my Mother's Day buying seedlings - tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, basil, and strawberries. Together, Griffin and I planted our garden. We stepped back and I crossed my fingers. I can grow anything in a pot on my deck, but could I keep alive a real backyard vegetable garden? I could only hope.

The quick answer is yes. Our garden is thriving and growing each day. We just picked our first cherry tomato and everyday Griffin asks when we can pick all the other vegetables. Soon, baby. Soon.

While our garden was simply intended as a way to grow our own vegetables - cut back on expenses, eat fresh, try new recipes - it has provided us with so much more. Griffin has been learning about science and the lifecycle of plants. He is interested in eating the vegetables and fruits we are growing. But most importantly, he takes pride in his work - standing alone in the garden with me as I picked weeds, he opened his arms wide and said, "My garden makes me happy."

And as for me? Well, I've spent a lot of time during the past year in a major funk. OK, so it has been more than a major funk, but you get the idea. Lots of sadness. Lots of worry. Our garden has given me a place to work off those emotions (it's darn hard work in that garden!). I've committed to something and followed through with it. I started with nothing but a six-by-six square foot section of grass and overgrown weeds and brought it to life.

It has given me a purpose outside of my regular life as a wife, mother, and employee. That might sound silly to some of you, but when you feel the way I've felt for the past year, it means the world. Each day that I watch it grow, I feel myself grow - farther away from the tears and the worry. I am learning to leave them behind.

My garden makes me happy...

Life at a standstill

I'm tired of this blog. Actually, I'm tired of not having anything to say. Anyone who knows me personally probably got a big laugh out of that last sentence since I rarely stop talking...aside from when I'm sleeping, and even then, my brain is in overdrive. I have weird, vivid dreams and I remember all the details. Sometimes I wish I could slow down, or just empty out my brain and start fresh.

What I really meant to say was that I have nothing exciting to report. I avoid my blog because how many more times do I want to write that Patrick is unemployed? And how many more times do you want to read that? But the truth is that this is my life and it's what is on my mind. I never started this blog to entertain anyone else. I don't write here to have an audience. It was a place to document what was going on in my life. A place to vent.

So here it is. My rant. Unemployment ran out last Thursday. It was a shock as they had previously told Patrick he had one more round to go (another 12 weeks). Apparently the person who told him that was wrong. I wonder why she still has a job after making a huge error like that. Hmm...maybe Patrick could take her place. I'm over the shock. It's time for reality. And our reality is that we're pretty much screwed. We already have Griffin on state-funded health insurance (he's been on that since March and we are utterly grateful for that - there's no way we could have had his surgery or gotten his epi-pens or been able to pay for all of his doctor's appointments and medicine). I've tried looking into help with child care, but we don't qualify since Patrick is unemployed. Griffin desperately needs to stay in day care for two reasons: 1) He thrives there; those are his friends and his second family; he has learned so much from Christina and has had so many wonderful experiences there, and 2) Patrick needs to be able to go on job interviews and apply for other jobs. Taking a two-year old on a job interview is not going to make things better.

We just were accepted into a loan modification program which is supposed to help us keep our home. However, the day we signed the paperwork and found the money to pay for the first month, we found out about the loss of unemployment. The bottom line is we can't afford the mortgage - even with the lower interest rate. Right now I'm waiting for them to send me a request for income verification. I hope they're able to help us, but I'm doubtful.

I'm going on and on about this and I never intended to do that when I sat down to write. It's no one else's problem but ours. A few weeks ago I didn't think things could get any worse. And then they did. I truly hope this is rock bottom. Something has to give. Sooner or later Patrick has to get a job. Things have to get better...right?

Too tired and too stressed to think of a clever title

So I haven't blogged in a while. It's been over seven days, but who's counting? Here's the truth. I could come here every day, or even every other day, and write something. Anything. But I don't want to force myself to do that when I don't have anything to say, and I definitely don't want to make anyone come here every day and read whatever nonsense I write because I didn't really have anything to say. But isn't that exactly what I'm doing right now? Eh. Whatever.

Here are some very valid reasons (in my humble opinion) for my recent blogging hiatus:

Work
I work for a non-profit child care agency that helps low- and moderate-income families with their child care. I write grants and do all the PR and craft an annual fundraising plan and coordinate special events. This year is our 40th anniversary and we are not only hosting a celebration, we were kind of pushed into launching an endowment campaign. Basically, we are trying to raise about $1 million. Needless to say I've been swamped. The event is in less than two weeks and I've encountered almost daily migraines. Blogging is being put on the back burner until life returns to normal.

Children
We have a teenager and a toddler at home. Need I say more? Yes? OK, well did you know that in the state of Iowa, you only have to be 14 to get a driver's permit? Duncan will hit that magic age in about four weeks. Add to that the fact that Griffin has been battling his asthma issues and we've been battling him with his tantrums. Really Griffin? You seriously need to wear pants when you leave the house. Wearing a shirt and a diaper is not negotiable.

Finances
I'll keep this one short and sweet. Patrick is still unemployed. We're living off of my non-profit salary, unemployment, and our tax refund. Being depressed and being at home with another depressed person is, well, it's depressing.

Migraines
See the previous categories for an explanation.

My blogging will continue to be sporadic, at least until this huge special event is behind me. Only another couple of weeks and hopefully I will be back with more positive things to talk about - like NaNoWriMo, a description of the painful process of editing the first draft of a novel, and of course a discussion of our Halloween 2010 plans (you didn't think we wouldn't come up with another great family costume idea, did you?).

Edited to add: No one really reads this, so I have no idea who I think I'm talking to in this post.

Where do we go from here?

Patrick didn't get the job. We didn't even talk about it last night. Neither of us brought it up in conversation - it was much easier to ponder the Cubs' fate next season, or why Griffin likes to throw things when he's tired. I used to obsessively think about things. I could ruminate on one topic for days on end until I was exhausted. I guess I still do that at times, but for the most part, I just do my best not to think about certain things. This is a good example. When I called and told my mom, she started to ask questions. What did they say to him? Do you think he wanted too much money? I simply told her I didn't want to talk about it anymore. It was the truth - my brain was already on overload and I couldn't think. I didn't want to think.

But here I am talking about it, right? The original reason I started this blog over four years ago was to journal my thoughts. I gave up on the pen and paper journal years ago, and thought this would be a good substitute. So I feel that I can comfortably blurt out anything I want to say without forcing anyone to listen to be feel sorry for myself. If you don't want to hear about you, you just stop reading.

I really thought Patrick was going to get that job. It seemed too good to be true - type of work, location, salary and benefits, etc. I could get all philosophical and talk about how there's something better out there for him. The Perfect Job. I could say there's a good reason why he didn't get this job. But you know what? I don't think those things. If there is a good reason, I'd really like to know what it is. And the perfect job? I don't think that exists. In fact, I don't see an end to this anytime soon.

Patrick sold one of his prized possessions the other day so he could bring home some money. It made me sad to watch him sell it. Here I go feeling sorry for myself when there are thousands of people in our same situation. But guess what? This is my life. I'm sure in a few days this will all pass and we'll be right back where we were before. Struggling, but healthy and happy.

A little hard to admit

* photo courtesy of flickr

During my pregnancy I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. That rocked my world and my diet. Up to that point I had been eating rather well - fruits and vegetables, very little sweets, lots of water. Thanks to non-stop nausea from weeks 7 through 15, I didn't even gain my first pound until I was halfway into the pregnancy. It was only a few weeks later, when I finally got my appetite back, that I found out about the diabetes. Everything I wanted to eat was off limits. I only ended up gaining 16 pounds by the time I had Griffin. I'll be the first to admit that when I found out I was pregnant I worried about gaining too much weight. I know I shouldn't have been thinking about that, but I did, and I know I'm not alone. I was 35 years old, so my body was different from what it was ten years earlier.

I was happy that I only gained the 16 pounds (and I ate a healthy diabetic diet), and I was even happier when I got home from the hospital and saw that I lost all but three pounds. I ended up losing all the weight in about 5 days and eventually lost another 7 just by walking a colicky baby throughout the neighborhood three times a day. I was finally below my pre-pregnancy weight (I was not happy with where I started when I got pregnant). I kept it off for a while, mostly because of all the walking and the stress of a newborn.

Something happened along the way. I don't even know when it was, but the weight slowly started to come back. I think I can start to trace it back to when Patrick's dad was in the hospital and then in hospice. I was home alone with Griffin, who was 6 months old at the time. He was having trouble sleeping (I swear he could sense the stress in our house), and was waking up every 45-60 minutes. I barely slept. When I'd visit my father-in-law at hospice, someone would inevitably offer to run down to the cafeteria and pick up coffee for everyone. I'm not a coffee drinker, but I'd ask for a Coke. I never drink pop before 12 PM. I never have, but I did then. I kept pushing it earlier and earlier, and before I knew it, I was drinking pop at 10:30 AM. My point is I started drinking lots of pop back then. Everything kind of spiraled out of control after that. It seemed like everyone was depressed and under a lot of stress. I was tired and depressed and didn't feel like exercising. Just a lot of bad habits.

So here I am, two years after giving birth and I actually weigh two pounds less than I did when I was nine months pregnant. Seriously. Two pounds less than being nine months pregnant. Gross.

I know it doesn't really look like it (I can hide it well), but it's very obvious to me. I'm uncomfortable and depressed about it. So I'm finally trying to take control of the situation. I have never been on a diet in my life, aside from the diabetic diet. I did great with that, but I had a really good reason to stick with it. I need to eat better (and less) and I need to get back to exercising. It sounds so simple, but I know it won't be.

So wish me luck!

Two pounds less than full-term pregnancy weight {shudder}.

The post where I want to bury my head under the covers and pretend none of this is really happening

Life has been tough lately. OK, so that makes me sound melodramatic and incredibly ungrateful for the fact that I have a job and a healthy family. I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but things really have been tough.

No news on the job front for Patrick. We did get an extension on our unemployment benefits, so now instead of having them run out in mid-March, we have until early June. I think we might be eligible for another extension, but we're hoping Patrick is employed by then.

I continue to be amazed at how extensive the effects of unemployment can be on a family. I am overwhelmed with being the only one bringing home a paycheck. Don't we all have those days when wejust want to tell our boss we quit? We don't really do it, but the fact that we could is enough to sustain us for another few weeks. I am swamped at work - too many deadlines and not enough time or energy. The fact that I can't just up and quit my job (even though I wouldn't really do that) is suffocating. There is such an enormous amount of pressure on me to stay employed (let's not even discuss the Illinois budget and the fact that I work for a non-profit that is expecting to see major cuts).

But that's not the only effect. There's this constant biting of my tongue that I must engage in so I don't say something angry or spiteful toward Patrick. I don't blame him for his situation (although I do go over and over in my head all the ways he could have circumvented this situation), but there are times when I want to say something to him. Something like, "Since you don't have a job, would it hurt you to run the vacuum/wash some pots and pans/fold the laundry/fix the window in Griffin's room/etc.?" It's such a delicate balance of being supportive and not going over the deep end myself because I take on all the responsibility.

I know that being unemployed is having an effect on Patrick. I can see it in his face and in the way he sits and in his voice. I feel for him. I know he feels a sense of responsibility to our family and he's doing everything in his power to help. It's hard to watch and it's even harder to walk on eggshells each and every day.

We have gotten to the point where we are accepting help from places we never imagined. We're still waiting to hear if Griffin will be covered through the state of Iowa for his health insurance. There was a lot of paperwork that needed to be completed/submitted and I think we might finally know something by next week. For now, we can't afford his medication, but because I work for a social service agency, I've been pointed in the right direction to a couple of places that might be able to help us out with the cost of his epi-pen. We tried to apply for assistance from WIC so we can pay for some groceries for Griffin (milk, bread, juice, peanut butter, etc.), but we make just a bit too much to qualify.

I told Patrick the other day that he and I have both been in denial about our situation. We have been living on one paycheck and unemployment for almost one year. We have drained our savings. We have borrowed from both of our families. We cannot pay for our mortgage, credit card debt (even just the monthly minimums), utilities, groceries, and day care. We owe more than we make each month, but somehow we've "gotten by." Some people get paid, some don't. But it has caught up with us.

I always felt like we weren't as bad off as some other people. But I don't think that's the case anymore. We are the people who don't make enough to get by each month, but make just a few too many dollars to get help. I finally told Patrick that we need to get help wherever we can and in whatever form - food pantry for some of the basics, local agencies for Griffin's medication and help with our utility bill (so that doesn't get shut-off), the home retention program through our mortgage company (we're already in a trial period), etc. Whenever I think about this I feel as though I'm taking help away from someone else. Maybe things aren't as bad as I think. Then I look at my checkbook and the stack of unpaid bills. I see that the mortgage company has sent yet another letter threatening to take our home. I receive another phone call from a debt collector. Add all of those up and we deserve the help as much as the next person.

I don't think Patrick wants to think we're at this point. I believe he still thinks we're going to be OK the way things are. We're not. He keeps saying that once he gets a job "everything is going to be OK." Eventually, yes, but not right away. We're going to have to work our way out of this pit.

So for now, I am the one who calls for help. I will be the one to go to the local church and get some free food. I will be the one to wait and see if we qualify for Medicaid for Griffin. I will be the one who apologizes every time a bill is late. I will be the one who begs for a little bit more time to find money to pay our mortgage. Just another burden added on my shoulders.

It's January 7th and that means...

- I totally forgot to write a New Year's post. Honestly, I was on vacation from work and being near a laptop made me think too much of writing grants and all the piles of work that were sitting on my desk just waiting for me. I didn't feel like posting anything.

- Today marks the 11th anniversary of my aunt and uncle's house fire. It seems like just yesterday that he died. It's even harder to believe that she 's gone now, too.

- I have a lot that I need to post about - the holidays, my new medication, writing, and the weirdo ear infection I had last week. Seriously, my ear was messed up for over a week...while I was on vacation. It sucked.

Because I haven't posted anything in a while, I need to ease back into it. So here's a total cop-out. It's a video I took just a couple of hours ago. It's Griffin being, well, being Griffin. There's really no other way to explain it. Just do me one favor - don't look at or comment on or even judge me for the condition of our family room. I'm chalking it up to fatigue, total vacation laziness, and the weirdo ear infection. Just watch Griffin and enjoy...

Courage

"Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow."

- Mary Anne Radmacher

The weight of the world

I don't think the blues I've been experiencing on and off since August are going away. I want them to. I desperately want them to, but they're not. Over the past 24-hours I've been trying to think of how to describe it because I know I'm going to have to see the doctor to talk about things. The word "depressed" doesn't cut it. Neither does "overwhelmed," although I feel both. This morning, when my alarm went off in my ear, it hit me. Heaviness. Bogged down. I wake up every morning, sometimes to the alarm and sometimes to Griffin fussing to find a more comfortable position in his crib, and I want to cry (and sometimes I do as soon as my eyes open). Why? Because I feel the weight of the world on me. And you can all try to convince me that I'm just overreacting. On a cerebral level I know this, but my goodness, it sure feels that way...and that's what's important. I feel this heaviness pushing down on me every single day. Every single second. And as hard as I try, and believe me, I've tried, I can't get out from under it.

The heaviness is work and financial stress. It's taking care of people - Griffin and Duncan and even Patrick. It's feeling like I have nothing that's truly mine. Seriously, as hectic as NaNoWriMo was, it was so lovely because it was all mine. It was my challenge and my time to do something for me. I've lost myself somewhere along the way and what I'm left with is this weight that sits on me, pushing down harder and harder. It makes me feel trapped and sometimes I have these flashes of "this is my life now" and that makes me feel even more claustrophobic.

I worry all the time. About Griffin and finances and everyone's health. I used to love sleep, but now I find myself dreading going to sleep. As strange as it might sound, I'm worried that something bad will happen in the middle of the night. I think about Griffin's bout with pneumonia and how he just woke up and had this insanely high fever. I think about the phone call we got at 2:30 AM almost one year ago that Patrick's father had a heart attack and was on life support. I figure that if I stay up, nothing will startle me in the middle of the night. Stupid? Yes, but I don't know how to work through that. And when I do sleep, I wake up to the smallest sound and I stay awake.

I have an appointment with my regular doctor this afternoon to discuss antidepressants. I tried my hardest to avoid them, but right now, I don't see how I can. It makes me feel like a failure, like I couldn't do it on my own (even with seeing a psychologist). It makes me feel like I'm not strong enough when I always thought I was pretty tough.

I don't want people to think I'm relying on medication to make me better, but I think I need a jumpstart. The weight is so heavy that it clouds my view on everything. Going to work is frustrating. Cooking dinner is too much to handle. Griffin's recent meltdowns are driving me to tears. This isn't me normally. It's the weight. And right now, I don't see any other way to help lift it.

I think we've all felt this way at some point

I was browsing some of my favorite blogs during lunch and came across this gem of a post from All & Sundry - I don't think I could have said it any better myself. Especially after the past couple of weeks.

And yes, Griffin, I love you very much, but seriously?

Official diagnosis

I went back to the doctor yesterday for my third appointment. She showed me my paperwork with my official diagnosis:

Major Depressive Episode (moderate)

Specific Phobia/Generalized Anxiety Disorder

I've opted for no medication at this point. I'm not trying to prove a point to anyone. In fact, there are times when I would really, really like to take something because I just don't think I can do it on my own. But that's the whole problem. I know what I  really need to do to deal with this - everything I never did over the past 20 years. So without getting into the details, I've got a long road ahead of me. I'm not looking forward to it because it's going to be a lot of hard work and a lot of retraining my brain to think and react differently, but I think it will work. It's what I've known all along would work, but was too scared to try.

{This all sounds like some weird science experiment, but it's just a form of therapy where you challenge your current way of thinking. I'm an all-or-nothing, black-or-white type of person. For example, I think I'm a horrible mom because of that time I didn't want to be around Griffin when I was exhausted and had a migraine and he was fussing. I felt awful and guilty and I cried for two days. Am I really a horrible mom? No, but I need to retrain myself to stop thinking that way. That's just one small example. The list could go on and on. And it does...}

Lost and found

Why does the title of this post sound eerily familiar to me? Did I just use it? At this point, I don't care. I like it and it fits with what I have to say.

It has been two weeks since I saw the doctor and I've got another week to go. Somehow, I've managed to make it. I don't know how because there were days (and nights) when the sadness and anxiety seemed unbearable. It's not so much the anxiety as it is the anticipation of the anxiety {and anyone who has ever experienced this knows exactly what I'm talking about}. I could be sitting at work, having lunch with my coworkers and then all of a sudden, a wave of dread washes over me: I'm not better. This hasn't been some awful nightmare. I still have to face it every day.

I have these moments when things seem normal {whatever that means}. I cook dinner. I flip through a magazine. Sometimes I even sneak in a laugh. But it always hits me. The dread. It's like some invisible person pokes me in the arm just to remind me of how awful I feel.

I like getting lost in those little moments - those small breaks from the sadness. I want more of them because I'm tired, so tired, of dragging myself around. I'm tired of faking smiles at work and with family. I'm tired of pretending. I'm just tired.

I'm very impatient this time around. I want to feel better and I want to feel better NOW. I know there's work to do and it's not something I can rush, but it's really difficult when I wake up each morning and dread going to work to have to deal with things that don't seem very important. And it's difficult to come home exhausted and have to take care of my family when all I want to do is crawl into bed.

One more week.

My backup husband

I had a dream last night that I was dating my backup husband. He called me from his tour in Europe to tell me he missed me and would be home in a couple of weeks. This was much better than the past few weeks when I battled insomnia...



{William Elliott Whitmore - aka "The Backup"}

Sigh...

And miles to go before I sleep...

Patrick is out of town tonight, so I'm home alone with Griffin and this is causing me a huge amount of anxiety. I'm scared he's going to wake up in the middle of the night and I'm not going to be able to take care of him. Or worse, that I'm not going to want to. It's those thoughts that drive me deeper and deeper into a depression. What kind of mother thinks those things?

I'm trying to do anything to keep my mind occupied. TV. The Internet. Writing. I just don't know if I'll be able to go to sleep tonight. I've been suffering from such horrible insomnia lately - waking in the middle of the night and then the anxiety keeps me up. Sometimes I only get 4 hours of sleep a night.

All I do at night is stare at the baby monitor. It's an awful feeling.

We'll see how long I make it tonight.

The only benefit of depression

Sometimes I am most creative during my darkest moments.

She's a little runaway

I'm in Chicago right now. It was a really tough decision, but I had to leave. No, I didn't leave my family for good, but I had to leave for my own sanity. For my own good. For my mental health. Things came to a head last night/this morning and after a long talk (and some choice words), Patrick and I decided (OK, so I made him decide for me) that I needed to visit my parents for the weekend.

I was torn. The pros are that I get a break from the routine, the rut of my everyday life. Maybe I can return to my family tomorrow with fresh eyes and a fresh outlook. I hope to return with a new appreciation for all of them because they truly are the center of my world. The cons are that I feel such a sense of guilt for bailing on them. I feel as though I have let them down, especially my baby-doll Griffin. I have this obsessive thought that he will be scarred from this experience. That somehow, at the age of 25 he will end up in therapy because "that one time my mom took off to Chi-town for the weekend because she didn't want to be around me."

On the upside, I think Patrick might finally be beginning to understand the depths of my depression. He has never experienced it himself (thankfully), so I know it is difficult for him to comprehend how it feels. Explaining it isn't easy. This morning, I held Griffin while I tried washing bottles and sobbed. I didn't know what to do.  I couldn't make a decision. I was paralyzed. Everything was going on around me as usual, but I was paralyzed. It is a horrible feeling.

The funny thing is that even though I'm at my parents' house, and I don't have to worry about waking up in the middle of the night watching the baby monitor and listening for Griffin, I'm still as anxious as ever. What's that all about? I thought I'd be feeling great. I don't get it.

I just hope that these 24 hours really give me a break. A much-needed time to breathe and regroup.

Only time will tell.

Day one

I wasn't sure if I should title this post Day One of Square One. The whole point is that I'm starting over. I actually felt a bit of relief yesterday morning when I left the psychologist's office - partly because I finally was able to talk to someone (a professional) about things, but also because I felt like I was on the right path. Moving forward. Getting better.

That only lasted for a little while before the doom and gloom came over me again. The dread. The fear. The anxiety. The I-can't-keep-doing-this. As I stood in the doctor's office making my next appointment, I couldn't help but feel defeated. Am I seriously here again? When am I going to be done with this stuff? When am I going to conquer it all? It's so disappointing, which only fuels the depression.

I have these brief moments when I feel motivated and I think I can handle things. I like those moments. They actually make me smile. The only problem is that they're so short-lived. Maybe 30 seconds if I'm lucky. Then it's right back to the dread.

I'm my own worst enemy in this battle. I'm very aware of that. The rational versus the irrational parts of me. Right now the irrational is winning. The I'm-never-going-to-get-better part of my brain is a lot louder.

I want to go back to yesterday morning when I felt good about everything. How do I get that feeling back?