Tag: depression

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Into the dark.

tec

It comes on so fast.

Fucking bulldozer.

I’m fine.

And then I’m not.

I’m really not.

It’s like liquid mercury reaching out and sliding through me. Becoming me.

I can feel it. The pouring. Warm suffocation.

Kelly once told me she worried about me because my normal is so borderline. I think about that randomly. I even thought about it this week. I overcome it–somehow–so often that it’s easy to forget. It’s easy to imagine it’s no big deal. That it’s navigable.

But I left the house to get R and I was okay. And then I was not. I was consumed with the slippery tentacles. The squeezing in my chest. The liquid slipping past eyelashes. The all consuming vast nothingness.

I kept hearing Beth say I’m doing good work and that voice telling me it’s a good lie. That the work isn’t real. That I hide too much to make progress. That I won’t ever unearth it. That I’ll never be able to differentiate between compartmentalizing and progress.

That there isn’t more than the emptiness.

And me–my voice and my mind–I can only….experience the darkness.

And know it’ll pass. Know I’m not okay. Know I’m not me and I have to wait it out. Know that I am fucking drowning. Know that it feels like a fucking split personality. Know that I have to bide my time. Know that I have to fight if the darkness wants to take action along with the thoughts.

It is fucking exhausting.

adventures in quarantine, Uncategorized

I can live and breathe and see the sun.

tec

Alright. As my week wraps up and I review the hellish “through not around” that I waded in with my daughter this week, I want to take the opportunity to note some tangible tools I have learned.

Embrace the steps.

Step one. It’s not about me. It’s unmanageable. It’s not mine. Step two. Someone else has got this. Step three. Take a step back and let it be that someone else’s. Step six. Practice the pause.

I realize I’m skipping four and five here.  It’s not to minimize them. Those ones have deeper digging. They do not pertain quite yet within my immediate, tangible action.

Create the tiniest gap.

My goal–that I haven’t taken much time to write about–is that I want the voices in my head to quiet. That quiet is the peace I am aspiring to. That quiet is a return to my best and highest self.

When the thought loops run rampant, as they are wont to do unchecked, I spiral out. I want so much more than that for myself. I am so much more than that.

I have options. I can tell the voice to fuck off. I can turn my attention to constructive actions. I can write down the thought loops and walk away from them. I can mantra in my head “words and opportunity”. I can ask to have it taken away. I can journal longform about it. I can ask myself “Am I acting from a place of love or s place of fear?”

Whichever I choose, the act of pausing and deciding creates a gap for the universe to come in and support me.

Move.

This is just a good go to on any day. Gets me simultaneously in my head and out of my head. It grounds me to the earth and the universe. It provides the connection back to self.

Reality is kinetic.

Perspective dictates that not only can people have entirely different experiences to the same situation, but those experiences can morph and muddle with time. Reality can shift and transmogrify, and none of it is real and all of it is real. Whatever we remember and however we filter it creates a picture through our lens and it becomes our truth.

This isn’t good nor bad. It’s life. This is something I’ve always been aware of, but I had many attachment thoughts about it. It is now clear to me it is something I need to accept. I don’t have a “how” for that right yet. But all the other tangible things I’ve come to acquire this week tell me that I can ask for the how and then I can wait and it’ll be given to me when I need it.

So….I’m learning to do the work and also just stop. Both and neither. Click click and click.

~~~~~~~

I want to add. My process normally is that I write and then I share and talk about it with Chris. I’ve found in the past that when I talk it over first, I never write about it, and I don’t like losing that part.

I’ve been trying to write this particular post all week and none of it came. It was too wordy and circumvented all the tangibility.

I was finally able to, yesterday, share with Chris the events that unfolded over the week. His week began with a seizure and recovery, and mine was full of navigating Tuesday with R and the week with the boys.

After connecting with Chris last night to share the story of my week, and after he listened so attentively and responded so compassionately, it allowed this post to flow easily. We were us, with all the extra personal growth we’ve worked for. It is goodness.

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A song to take the pain away.

tec

I sat in for a therapy session with R. It was supposed to just be five minutes. Enough to tell her counselor that we’d be starting the process to get her on antidepressants. It is time.

It was not a decision that I came to lightly. There were a multitude of factors. Mostly it was that she was getting so much more explosive, and to me, that meant her pain and hurting were at its max. Unfortunately the only factor that really stuck out for my girl was that her behavior was scarring her brother and his trauma was my highest priority and that’s why I finally agreed to the medication.

This turned a five minute conversation into an hour and a half session.

She hurts. I know this. I never know just how much. And it always catches me off guard. The one person who it would be helpful to be privy to said information doesn’t get to know. It’s just part of the mom deal, I suppose.

Being a parent is hard. Knowing all the logical psychology doesn’t really help much. I mean, sure, in the long run sorta. The short run is a different beast.

The long run tells me that she can lash out at me because she feels safe with me. The long run tells me that she will viciously push me away over and over in order to see if I’ll abandon her.

Depression runs her short game.

It requires her to believe she is nothing and not worth sticking around for. Pushing me away and me following suit gives the depression its validation.

Depression begets depression. We feel like things are shit. That we are shit. We feel worthless so we seek all the ways we’re unworthy. And because we get what we look for, all she sees are examples of her nothingness. The cycle feels impossible to break.

~~~~~~~

Depression is a big fat liar and not even this strong, badass mama can contend with it.

I can show up. Over and over. No matter how much it hurts. No matter how it can bring excruciating heartache and practically break me.

But it can not change her perspective. I learned that today.

It hurt a lot.

I have always known that she is hard on herself. I have always known that she has ridiculous expectations of herself. Expectations that no one could ever meet. I know she thinks in black and white and that she truly believes perfection does, in fact, exist.

I know I have always been the first to say “you did great!” and “what do you mean a B on your chem test isn’t good enough?!” and “of course I’ll be at your musical!” I have supported her through countless endeavors. Providing moral support and transportation and peptalks and space when she asks.

Despite her spending so much time trying to convince me she’s nothing, I haven’t faltered in being her biggest cheerleader.

This is my lens. This is how I see it.

No, I don’t notice every single thing that happens. Yes, there are things she’s told me about that I’ve forgotten. Yes, sometimes I’m annoyed that she needed to be picked up at 5 and she still isn’t ready at 5:40. I’m human. I’m fallible. I make mistakes. I don’t always show up how she prefers, nor do I show up 100% of the time. But I show up. I show up often and to the best of my ability.

And then today, the short run played its game. She tells me that I make her feel worthless. That I make her feel like nothing. That she feels like a nothing because of me. That I have instilled this in her.

No amount of logical psychology could have kept my feet firmly planted. The short run won.

~~~~~~~

Her lens is so much different than mine.

I never knew–I never understood–that the voice in her head feeding her all that bullshit is my voice.

It is a devastating blow.

~~~~~~~

Not all hope is lost. I’m silver lining girl after all. Navigation is required. A whole fuckton of navigation. As well as extra reinforcements for this sad mama’s heart.

Above all else, I show up. I may not be able to contend with her depression through her lens, but I won’t go down without a fight. Especially when it’s my daughter’s life at stake.

I don’t know what that looks like yet. I don’t quite know yet what I need to do. I know that whatever it is, I can do it. I will do it.

First tho, I will cry and grieve.

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Find the light.

tec

I’m sitting in my daughter’s room. In the dim glow of her permanently placed Christmas lights. It’s the eve of her 16th birthday. Just 24 minutes left.

She is asleep now. Just a half hour ago she was awake and miserable. She’s hurting and I don’t know how to ease that pain. I don’t know how to ease the projection of that pain. I don’t know how to shine light on the reality that she is loved and loveable. That she is human. That she is full of worth. That she is enough.

I don’t know how to instill these things in her. I don’t know how to make her see truth. I don’t know how to have her see the reality I give her. I don’t know how to contend with her fucked up translator. I don’t know how to help her hear what I’m actually saying to her when I talk.

Sixteen years ago tonight her dad worked late. Til after 1am. And I packed for the hospital. I talked to Kristi on the phone for hours.

There were lots of things I imagined for the future. Some awesome and some not. Never did I envision this kind of pain for her. Never did I picture that she and I could have such heartbreaking moments of disconnect.

I’m going to keep showing up for her. I don’t know any other way. I hope that she feels it. I hope that it makes a difference. I hope and I hope and I hope.

Happy birthday, angelface. May there be days you feel as loved as you are. May there be moments that feel light. May the goodness find you and may you feel it when it does.

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Dream a little dream of me.

tec

I stayed up all night accidentally and now, suddenly, the sky is light and the birds are chirping away and it’s 4:57. My numbers.

I never got tired. Even now I’m not so tired. What a weird night. And a weird morning.

It feels like it was supposed to happen. This May turned June. This hallowed space and time.

I’ve been hiding for the past month. My vortex May turned into Chris’s vortex May. And I just spun.

I simultaneously floated and dragged my way through the month. Feet never properly touching the ground. I tried. Sometimes. And I succumbed others. Mostly I used those fine-tuned self-preservation skills to compartmentalize the month. Two months. Three.

I was kicking ass and taking names. At the start. And then some weight got heavy and I got tired. And then I chugged along. And then more weight. Until moving was the only thing I had. So I just kept doing that.

Kinetic Jill.

And it wasn’t all self-preservation. Those parts don’t make the mindful parts any less significant or successful. I’ll take it all. It just means a whole bunch of different terrain to navigate.

For now, I’m going to sleep for a few hours. And take the terrain again come (late) morning. It feels light again.

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To divide something so real.

tec

So I want to talk about all of my weekly goals. Delve a little into what they look like and what they mean to me. How it all came to be. I should probably do this before I have weeks and weeks and weeks of thoughts that I can’t catch up with. (Newsflash: it’s been weeks and weeks and weeks already.)

First, I want to say that the precipitous to all of this was a workshop of sorts that Rachel Martin held on her Finding Joy page. She posed the questions, (I’m paraphrasing and filtering through memory and self here) “What is it that you’re waiting til 2020 to do? Why are you waiting 8 weeks to get started? What would it mean to have 8 weeks of progress come the new year?”

The seed was planted.

Then the universe kicked life into gear from there. And now I stand here telling my story.

Week one (Nov 11): Commit to an eating window from 9am til 7pm.

Eating is continually the thing in my life that I navigate. I used to live deeply inside a binge eating disorder. I have always used food as a friend, a connection, a coping mechanism, a stress reliever, an avoidance, an <insert thing here>.

Back in 2013 it was the worst it had ever been. I didn’t even know I had an eating disorder. I thought I was too fat to have an eating disorder. I thought I could only have an eating disorder if I was thin. Hell, I wished I had an eating disorder so I could be skinny! (I was sweet and naive…)

It wasn’t until I was back in school and studying nutrition and learning about eating disorders that I realized that I was drowning in one. I ate so much food it’s painful to think about now. And I never really gained weight because I ate so clean. I only ate proteins and fats and some vegetables. No grains, dairy, sugar of any kind, fruit, nuts. It was just about Whole30, but more strict, for three years. But a crazy obscene amount of food.

After acknowledging my eating disorder, I worked to navigate the things I was hoping to satiate with food and eventually ate mindfully and presently and satiated my pain in healthier ways. Or so it felt.

I lost weight and it was awesome and I felt great. And then I got the flu and after a few days of no food, I succumbed to an orange. Which feels really strange to say. I hadn’t had sugar of any kind in years and thought of it as my heroin.

Everything unraveled slow like molasses after that.

Fast forward six years: a pregnancy, a miscarriage, a wedding, another pregnancy, a newborn eventually turned three year old, a tween, a teenager, the rest of my family, and navigating lifetimes of….just..everything. And I was (am) still using food to function. (Far less destructively and dangerously as I once did, but still.)

I wrote, publicly (…with my name attached to it and everything) to another group I’m in that my goal would be to be healthier and have a healthy relationship with food, but that I’m terrified.

Terrified of not functioning. Terrified of not keeping up. Terrified of drowning. Of losing the comfort of friend, connection, coping mechanism, stress reliever, avoidance, <insert thing here>.

Rachel, the head of said group, told me to pick one small thing to focus on and I retorted my penchant for very much being an “abstainer” and not a “moderator” and referred her to Gretchen Rubin’s moderator vs abstainer, with the caveat that I believe the thought line, but not to my core per se and that life should be grey and not black and white, but in this case for me this one thing is black and white.

Which is obviously ridiculous in hindsight. And in regular sight as well, which is what prompted a quick reevaluation and remedy.

I do stand by the fact that some people are good to live with moderation, while others just aren’t. But I believe too that we don’t have to be pigeonholed to these things by chains or live our lives in paralyzing fear. I didn’t have to stand still just because I work better with abstinence than moderation. I can be afraid and move at the same time. I can moderate where I abstain.

So, I gathered up all my fear and all my brave and decided that an eating window was my next safe step.

I wasn’t going to stop eating this or stop eating that. I wasn’t going to limit food in any way, except by time. And also, the first thing I eat will always be a meal.

The first week took some balancing. Sometimes I counted down the minutes til 9am and other times it was suddenly 11 and I was getting lightheaded from not having eaten, but I hadn’t obsessed the time away. Some days at 9am it felt like I needed to eat in order to navigate anxiety/depression/stress/overwhelm and I would choose to indulge it. Other days I was able to recognize the anxiety/depression/stress/overwhelm and say “I’m going to wait until it passes” and employ other ways to feel all the things.

A few times teacher parent conferences or driving my kids around delayed eating until after 7pm and I carefully chose in those moments to eat dinner and then be finished with food, and it was always before 8. Some days even tho I hadn’t eaten dinner, I decided to forego it altogether because I wasn’t even hungry.

Week 2 (Nov 18): Commit to drinking seven glasses of water a day.

Hydration always feels better and also, by default, helps offset (perceived) hunger. There have been a couple days here and there I’ve only hit five, but it’s only interesting to note because I went right back to my plan the next day. No issue, no shame.

Week 5 (Dec 9): Commit to an eating window from noon til 7pm.

The next natural step for food felt like increasing real me time and limiting destructive eating time. Seven hours is more than a reasonable duration to eat. I rarely get hungry for real before noon anyhow.

There was one morning I was so wrapped up in emotional hunger that I was counting down the minutes til noon and didn’t even realize until 11:30 that I hadn’t done any of my regular morning routine. I was on an emotionally-depleted autopilot.

It was an eye opening example of how much control food can have and that I, solely, am the one that gives it power. For now the seven hour window gives me the reminder and opportunity to focus the rest of my time on experiencing life.

In the weeks to come, now that I have a solid foundation with time windows, my goals in regard to food will really be in regard to practicing positive coping mechanisms. I acknowledge I am not yet using food how I wish to be. I’m okay with that–it’s just not where I am yet. I need new, safe things squarely in place before I can take old, destructive things away. That plan feels like the best navigating.

Up next: weeks 3 and 4. Stay tuned!

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The minor fall and the major lift.

tec

What a difference a year (or six) can make.

The last two weeks have been one crazy thing after another. My insurance is no longer accepting my doctor and physical therapist, so I either have to change insurance or change doctors. The $673 radiologist bill I should have never gotten, that I had fixed and was taken care of in November, suddenly appeared again and hadn’t been resolved afterall. I spent an hour and a half on phone calls getting it resolved again. (Shout out to Tamika who was my own personal savior.)

I’ve been trying to get ahold of a doggie day care place so Harley can run around and play with other pups because ohmygoodness is she in anxiety overdrive/bordering aggressive because she just wants to play play play and has no outlet. (I finally heard back today! Woo!) I ran with her on Sunday (ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod!! I ran! Two laps around the house!!! Freakin’ AMAZING!!!) and then promptly fell on my right knee and palm (and elbow and shoulder). Bright side: I hurt myself, but didn’t injure anything. Less than bright side holy oww and recovery time. (Bonus bright side: I tried Chris’s ghost pepper sauce and I’m a fucking rockstar!)

At 1am today instead of seeing Chris’s paycheck in the account, there was a $900+ fraudulent charge, just in time for me to pay the $150 medical bills today. Kitten’s first vet visit…wait….she has worms?… Oh, our dog’s been eating her poop when we’re not looking?…oh….well…that’s..special…

Have I even mentioned yet we adopted a kitten?! Meet Hazel. R’s early Christmas present/our new family member.

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And I paid the $4.60 on my daughter’s dentist account….that they were going to send me to collections for. Ha. And I was allowed to pay on (instead of pay off) another bill. Thank god. Bright side to all of it: the deposited paycheck offset the $700 overdraft and we’re blessed to have family who can help out until the bank refunds the locked charges.

R has midterms next week and is underslept and overstressed and navigating big adult problems while still being in a teenager’s body with a teenager’s brain. (Given the option to ignore the warning signs of a close friend or make the hard call to betray confidence in order to keep him alive,  she chose life and I couldn’t be more proud.) And S is navigating the end of the semester and a week of unprecedented homework he just hasn’t been able to keep up with, especially when his parents have been a bit m.i.a. in the evenings when it’s time to work on homework because of appointments and meetings. (Given the option this morning of staying home today to work on everything or go to school and own up to the consequences, he chose to go and I’m so freaking proud of him.) And L is still recovering from being sick last week and a bleeding diaper rash to boot because he’s been eating butternut squash soup for days and apparently he’s allergic. (This morning he slept in his own bed til after 5am. Whether fluke or trend, I’m so proud of him.)

Have I worn you out yet? ‘Cause I haven’t run out of material. I could keep going. I won’t tho. Because the only point I wanted to make is that I’m still standing. I didn’t even have to stand back up from this shit show because it hasn’t even knocked me down.

What a difference a year makes.

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The sun broke free of the clouds.

tec

A letter to my husband:

He once told you that I feel trapped. And I feel like it’s the biggest disservice he ever did us.

There was never ever going to be me convincing you otherwise because his word was gospel. So while I never argue the point, I never agreed with it either. I know at the time I said I didn’t agree, but any time you’ve brought it up since, I’ve let it be. It felt too big a thing to put my energy against. Because that’s what it was. Energy against. And not energy into.

Pouring energy into something is positive and constructive. Pouring energy against something is just…insanity.

So I let it be.

This morning a wave of depression crashed upon me. Yesterday was more than I could take after last week. Then this morning when the tire pressure light came on again and I was driving on empty it all got really big. I still went about life anyway. Kids needed to be taken to school. Dishes needed to be done. Life goes on.

But just now as I was washing the dishes, a snapshot of a text conversation flashed in my mind. I was in the basement doing laundry. There was a suggestion to do something fun because it was my birthday. The insinuation that I could go elsewhere with elseothers. “Go out and do karaoke.” I would like that, I had replied. “So go now with Chris.” It’s not the same, I replied.

It’s not the same.

That one line. That one line caused someone else to form the belief that I felt trapped.

He told you I felt trapped. The assumption was always that it was about you and our children. That was the lie I haven’t been able to undo.

I see it clearly now. As I stand here with half-washed dishes behind me. Because this just couldn’t wait. I had to type this out right away. Because I couldn’t squander this moment of clarity. This opportunity of having all the right words.

I said it wouldn’t be the same doing karaoke with you. It wasn’t a slight against you. It wasn’t because I felt trapped by you. I felt trapped within myself.

It wasn’t until just right now, while I stood under a shroud of heavy depression that I could better recall that night. A night filled with depression. Months of depression. And when I said I would love to go out, it was the image of escaping me that filled my head.

I would never go somewhere and sing in front of people. That sounds terrible. But I wanted to be the person who could do that and think of it as fun, just so I could get away from me.

I wanted an escape from me, for just a moment. The thought of a physical escape from being trapped inside myself was appealing. Desperately appealing. For just that moment I needed the illusion of escape.

If anything real existed in that illusion, it would break. So, if you–the most real thing in my life–came, it wouldn’t be the same. You would have broken the illusion.

I never felt trapped in this life with you. I felt trapped in my own head. He didn’t think to differentiate.

I’m sorry I didn’t have the words until now. I’m sorry I felt so small and that that conversation gave way to a misunderstanding that was so big. I don’t feel small like that anymore, not even today under the weight of…all the things. I don’t feel trapped inside myself. It would mean everything if you’d believe me that I never felt trapped by you. It would be everything to heal this part.

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Forever your girl.

tec

Three hours ago, it was like this.

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Screenshot_20191008-180030_Instagram

And then the kids came with me to the store! We drove the 12 minutes to Stop #1 and I came to realize I didn’t have my driver’s license or money. So we drove back home and all the while I was thinking, “It’s a really lovely day” even with the kids bickering.

And then I didn’t get stopped by a cop! Because I don’t believe in “it figures”. We made our three stops and I appreciated the luxury of being able to do my own shopping. I drove home safely, while watching the more reckless drivers from a safe distance, wishing them well all the while.

When we got home Harley ran outside to greet us and then wanted to hunt squirrels. I managed to drop my phone and trip over her twice in order to get her into the backyard because it was closer than walking around to the garage. After she was safely inside, L and I walked around to the driveway to be greeted by Harley. Apparently the door to the house was open. And all I could do was laugh at all the follies. Even feeling the creeping blanket of depression today, I can still see all the light.

My super power is my silver-lined optimism.