depression

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Shame

I write this blog because it helps me sort out my feelings, my thoughts about my life, and to share my experiences with some folks who either can relate or those who care about me. I do not ask for anything but a few minutes of your time if you are so inclined. But my last post brought gifts from some of you. You read my piece and felt for me and my family’s current situation. Your generosity and kindness was and is appreciated, and I am honored to call many of you my friends. I know you did what you did because you love me and the thought of me hurting in any way made you want to help. And I love you for it. I truly do.

But to be honest? I felt tremendously embarrassed and ashamed afterwards. I didn’t share to “get stuff.” I shared just to show this new thing I was experiencing and how frustrating (and humbling) it can be to eat from a food pantry. After the influx of gifts, I was kind of a mess for a few days until I had therapy. When I explained my dilemma to my therapist, she said something pretty dang profound. “Sometimes, Holly, it is our job to receive.”

*mic drop*

That one sentence changed my perspective on these gifts. I ended up using two gift cards for a trip my son and I had planned from last year. (We drove to Washington, D.C. to look at colleges and we needed snacks, friends.) I did refuse a few offers when I was able to, and others? I put some of the gifts aside for a little later when I know we’ll be more desperate than now.

Do you know what’s really disturbing about all of this? When my son and I went to D.C., we stayed with some old friends, who have become part of my family. My dear friend, a woman I’ve known for 30 years, had asked me about these cassava flour brownies that I made. I said that I got the flour from someone, but I could not say the words out loud, “I got it from the food pantry.” (Which, btw, that’s pretty great to get anything gluten-free from a food bank, and this was from our local high school’s food pantry.) I know for a fact that she would never judge me. Not for a second. Yet I was too ashamed and embarrassed to say that I got it from a food pantry. That shame is so deeply ingrained into me. I just want to starting yelling, “I have a good job, a fucking master’s degree, so don’t look down on me!”

But who is actually turning their nose up at me? Is it you? I don’t think so.

I think it’s me.

I shouldn’t be in this situation. I should be helping people that need an extra hand.

I should be you.

But I’m not. And I’m angry about it.

Then today, I brought this walker up from the basement. When my husband was on a respirator and in a coma back in 2020, this was given to him once he was able to leave the hospital. It was necessary then, so we kept it, hoping we wouldn’t need it for years to come. This morning, my husband’s knee was swollen, his neuropathic feet were hurting, and he was having problems standing up from his living room chair. Before I left for work, he asked me to get the walker from the basement. So I did.

On the drive to work, I couldn’t take a deep breath. I knew I was having an anxiety attack. I was thinking about my husband, my son was home sick, I was missing some friends I haven’t been able to talk to, I was feeling alone and scared…but I just needed to get to work. Once there, I pretended all was good until I couldn’t any more. I asked a colleague if they ever had anxiety attacks (I was pretty sure they had) and asked what they did. They sometimes would just go into the bookstacks and center themselves. So before we opened the library, I went to a section of the stacks, sat on the floor, and sobbed. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak. I just sobbed and rocked myself. After a few minutes I was able to stand up and go back to work. A different colleague checked on me and we talked for a few minutes and they let me vent and cry some more, and that was the end of it.

When I was a Trevor Project volunteer, I helped many teens get through anxiety or panic attacks. Often I used the 54321 grounding exercise (name 5 things you see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste–the taste thing is always odd). But while my brain is freaking out, I could not name anything I was seeing because everything was a massive blur. Hell, I couldn’t remember the order of seeing, touching, hearing, etc. But today I learned that sometimes being alone to cry, drinking water, taking a brief walk or finding a place nearby to get a good snack, are all good things to help calm me down to a place where I can function again.

Did I feel a bit embarrassed and ashamed for having this mini breakdown? Oh yeah. I see people every day who have no home, who keep every possession they have in a shopping cart, who only eat what is given to them. And I’m crying over a husband who can’t work and a life that I wasn’t expecting?

Well…yes. I am. Do I wish I could suck it up and just get on with whatever life I have? Yes, yes I do. And somedays I do a great job at it.

But today wasn’t one of those days.

You know what, though? Tomorrow is a new day. So there’s always hope that I’ll function tomorrow, that I’ll be able to get up on time, exercise, eat well, and smile more often than not.

That’s my goal.

How about you? Are you ok? No matter what I’m going through, I’m still here to listen. It’s the least I can do for you, like you’ve done for me. ❤

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Trying to Look Ahead…and Failing

Hi friends.

I am struggling.

There is no other way to say it.

I am trying to look to the future to give me some positive vibes. I know I have a lot to look forward to this year–a trip to Belize with four of my best girlfriends, touring colleges in Washington, D.C. while also visiting another one of my favorite humans, watching and preparing my son to apply for colleges all around the northeast. This should be an exciting time.

But while I am at home I feel…stuck? Unmotivated? Sad? Living with and loving someone who has a chronic illness and will eventually die from that illness, is incredibly difficult. There is so much anger to go around–from myself, from my son, and sometimes from my husband. Watching my husband shuffle when he walks, take naps every day because he doesn’t have the energy to do much, and come to terms with the fact that there is only so much he can now do to fix his health is heartbreaking–and honestly rage-inducing.

Here’s the thing: I want my husband to try and enjoy whatever life he has left. Hopefully that will still be 8 or 9 years, but at this rate, I doubt that figure. I know that for him, enjoying his life means he’ll watch films he loves, spend time with our little family, listen to a variety of music, and dream about winter camping. Little things bring him contentment. But to enjoy this life, it also means that he’ll eat basically whatever he wants. And in doing so, his diabetes is not under control and his congestive heart failure symptoms have increased.

This is the part that frustrates me to the nth degree.

Living our lives, no matter how we live them, brings consequences to not just ourselves, but those around you.

I am relying on my partner for not only emotional support but for financial support. And with the many days of work missed and a few unpaid hospital bills, it has created a tremendous stressor in our household.

Our son, a junior in high school, has begun applying for scholarships for college. I set him on this path because every school he’s interested in is out of state and all have hefty price tags. But now he’s become obsessed with applying for the big scholarships, the ones with full tuition that are so dang hard to come by. And I know that that is my fault. I honestly do not know how we will help pay for his schooling.

Currently my son’s main goal after college is to make sure he has a job that can pay his bills. He wants to love what he does but right now that does not seem to be his main concern. He has watched us struggle financially his entire life due to bouts of unemployment, short-term disability, or my choice of career that has never paid what I’m worth. And now that he is on the cusp of adulthood, he will do whatever he can to not live that life.

I am frustrated, scared, and just so unsure of what our future is. I tried to start a vision board for this year. I had ideas a few days ago and now I just feel lost. The one thing I wrote on it was about making and feeding my son healthy meals. Do you know why I wrote that? Because he asked me to feed him well so he could concentrate on his studies, work, applying for scholarships, and to start exercising again. 

Recently I was doing laundry and I told him I would do his laundry for him, too. But later that weekend, I fell in some kind of awful dark place. and I didn’t do the laundry. A few days later he called me while I was at work and asked where his work pants were. That’s when I realized they were still in the hamper because I just couldn’t function that weekend. So? I told him the truth. I said I had a depressed episode (I don’t really know what to call it, but that sounded accurate) and I didn’t do the laundry. Do you know what he said? He said, “Ah. Ok, I get it. That’s fair. I will just wear dirty pants to work. Love you, Mom!”

I love this child with every cell of my being.

Just a month ago I would have turned to running to help with all of these feelings. But I just don’t have it in me to do that right now. I did run one day this week and took a walk on a few others, so I’m moving at least. But something has to change.

I am grateful for my work, because that has become my sanctuary. I get to be with people I care about, I get to help others, and I just feel…useful. I feel like I make a difference. I don’t always know what I should do or how to do things correctly, but thankfully I have a team of people who support me and help me find my way.

If you have ever cared for another individual during their sickness and have felt this helpless and sometimes hopeless, I’d love to hear from you. Or if you have some wise words of encouragement, I’ll take those, too.

Thank you, friends.

Hugs to you. ❤

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Coming Back from the Darkness

I have been 5 weeks social media free. I feel like I should have a blue chip of some sort. I started the break because of how I was feeling–mentally and emotionally fragile. I can’t say my mental state has dramatically improved, but it’s certainly better.

What I’ve realized during this break is that I don’t really talk to many people that are not work related. I think I conversed with 27 people via text, phone or email since October 1, that I am not related to or work with. Yet I have over 300 Facebook “friends.” Do I miss some people I would “see” on social media? Absolutely. I have a cohort of lovely folks from the library I left in May that I’d like to see and hear from again. I haven’t wanted to this past month because I think I needed to cut all ties for a while. I didn’t want to know what the library was doing and to be completely honest, I still really don’t. In a weird way I left a little piece of my heart there. It reminds me a bit of a divorce. I truly love my new workplace and colleagues and the job itself is the exact thing I want to be doing, but I was hurting from not being a part of this small library community. I had to grieve in a bubble for a while and deal with changes in my life. I have embraced those changes, but still, change is hard!

But what have I learned during this month? I’ve learned that social media eats up a lot of my brain power and often fucks up my emotional health. It is a time suck and takes away from my reading and my family, and honestly? Just thinking! I’ve been observing my son as he takes college classes through his high school, reading challenging materials and I see what a deep thinker he is becoming. I used to be just like that, too. Yet in the past decade or maybe two decades, I’m no longer that person. I’m not sure I think deeply about much of anything except how I’m going to get out of debt. (And that’s not really thinking, that’s just stressing.) I feel…superficial. Like a cardboard cut-out of the person I used to be. Is that who I am now? I don’t want to be. I want to be that person who reads a variety of novels and nonfiction, who loves to talk with people about what they’ve read and are reading and have discussions about all of it. I don’t always want to talk about current events or politics because honestly it often hurts, but maybe that’s ok sometimes, too.

I’ve been reading lots of romance novels lately, partially because they make me feel good. I want the HEA (Happily Ever After) for myself and everyone else, so if I can read it about it and someone else gets it, then kudos for them! But it doesn’t take a lot of brainwork to read these books. They bring me joy, for sure, and I’m not going to give them up, but I need to start adding other things to my reading repertoire again.

A month ago, my son kept encouraging me to read “Darkness Visible: a Memoir of Madness” by William Styron. It’s a very short book, really a long essay, about Styron’s depression. My boy has been dealing with his own depression for several years now, but last spring he was in a very dark place. He found this book at the school library. He curled up in a corner and started to read it. For him, it was the first time someone described what he himself was feeling, “a veritable howling tempest in the brain” (p. 38). He felt seen and not quite so alone. And yet…I couldn’t read the book. I kept putting it off, saying I’d read it eventually. Finally last week, I made myself read the first page, then another, then another. I couldn’t stop reading it until it was finished. It was…literary and lovely and difficult. Difficult only because the pain described is what I knew my son felt, yet it was lovely because now I understood a little more about my child–all through literature.

And maybe it helped open my eyes to reading things again that are not so…easy to understand. Challenging ourselves is how we grow, right? I run longer distances to challenge my body and build up endurance to run even longer distances. So why aren’t I challenging my mind to do the same?

I just…I just want to keep using my brain. I want to keep learning and listening and philosophizing. I had an incident two weeks ago where I couldn’t hold the thread of a discussion in a meeting I was in. Is it menopause brain? Is it early onset dementia? Whatever it is it scared the bejezus out of me. I didn’t tell anyone but my therapist at first. I want my doctor to run some tests to see what’s going on with my brain. (But now I don’t have health insurance for a month, so that’ll have to wait!)

So until then, I’m hoping to read more, work on my Spanish, maybe even try a sudoku. (I’ve never done one in my life.) I’m back to eating salmon once or twice a week and upping my vegetable consumption. And with all of that in my mind, I think I might dip my toe back into social media once again. Just to see some of my friends’ faces again, to see their children, and to see their holiday decorations. (Seriously, you know how much I love the decorations!) But if I start to sense that fragility in myself again, I know what I need to do. And maybe I need to downsize that friends list a bit, too.

Baby steps, right?

Thanks for listening, y’all. Hugs to you. ❤

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And then….

It’s 2020. The roaring twenties? A new year, a new decade, maybe even a new you? I used to love the beginning of the new year–a fresh start, a clean slate. Time to start eating better, exercising more, doing new things, achieving those goals I couldn’t get to last year, and becoming a new person.

Starting over used to really appeal to me. I used to love the thought that I could become a new person, someone I would like more and others would like me more, too. I really thought that losing weight would do that for me. So I did it. I lost over 85 pounds and kept it off for nearly a decade. As a matter of fact, 10 years ago yesterday I began running. I had already lost the weight I had intended, but now I wanted to challenge myself. And so I did. I became a runner. I became that crazy lady you saw at 5:30 on a winter morning with the head lamp running in the dark. I ran some road races but really just ran for me. Did I like this new person I had become? Sometimes. But not completely like I thought I would.

And then 2017 came along. I started to struggle with running because of injuries and motivation. And then my brother died and I didn’t want to live anymore. I didn’t know how to and I honestly didn’t really care to. But I did. I even tried to run some but often I’d start to sob in the middle of the runs or stop a half mile before home and drop to my knees because the darkness just overcame me and I couldn’t put one step in front of the other.

So I stopped. I started to care for both of my parents off and on and tried to parent my son the best I could and still be a wife that was semi-present at least and still work 40 hours a week. I stopped caring for myself or about myself. I was no longer moving forward but backward and if I was lucky, sideways.

Then my husband was laid off. Backwards I went. Then I got a new job directing the library I had loved for over 13 years. A few steps sideways and one forward.

Then my beautiful, hilarious, sweet dad died. Back and back and back…

Then my husband got a new job. A hop forward. Then I broke my arm so badly I needed a metal plate and 9 screws and 6 months later I still can’t completely move it. A step to the back.

And then my mom died. My loving, badass mom. Backwards I fell. Literally. (I passed out the evening of my mother’s service.)

And now we’re here. January 1st, 2020. Am I a new person? Well…yes. I’ve become a new person over and over and over in the past two and half years. Every time an “and then” occurred, I became a new person. Every one of these life-altering events made me into a new person. A different person. I don’t always like the new person I’ve become or am becoming, but that’s something I have to figure out. I don’t even know who I am most of the time, but that’s something else for me to discover and manage.

I do know that losing the 20 pounds I gained these past 2 1/2 years will not make me a new person or happier. Will I try and lose it? Of course! I need to be a healthy me and I need to fit in my clothes better because restrictive clothing makes me a very grumpy Holly and no one needs that. But will I try and lose it by going on a diet? No. I can’t be that person anymore. I’ll eat as best I can, but I’m hoping that running will help me lose some of it.

I hope I do not become that person I used to be that constantly posted my stats or photos of running because honestly? I hated those assholes for the past 2 1/2 years when I didn’t have it in me to run. Look, I know we all need to do it sometimes. We need that encouragement or pat on the back. I get it, I do! I’ve done it many times, too! But I’ve also been on the other side where I couldn’t run due to injury or grief and I felt like my friends were rubbing my nose in it. “Look what I can do and you can’t or won’t, you lazy bitch!” (Hey, I know you didn’t say it and probably didn’t even think it, but my mind just went there.)

So let’s make a deal. I’ll post this photo of the end of my run on Christmas Day.

Me in my dooryard at the end of my first 5K run in eons. This was a happy moment. Just before this run, I had been sitting in my living room sobbing and rocking myself while I thought about my family. There is so much photos don’t say.

This will be it for at least a week. Of course, I’ll probably be on the treadmill or in front of my tv for the next 2 months due to Maine weather, but whatever. Feel free to keep doing whatever you’re doing and posting what you’re posting. If I start being annoying with running posts, tell me to pipe down and give it a rest. I will probably oblige because I’ve been there.

Or I’ll tell you to fuck off because my pants are still too tight and I’m cranky. But I’ll still love you. That much I can promise.

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Trying to Care

Since just before Thanksgiving Day, I have walked a mile a day. It’s not a lot, but when my friend and colleague, Sonya, put the challenge out to a private Facebook group, I decided that if I didn’t have it in me to run, that I could at least walk. Some days it’s just marching for 20 minutes in front of my tv, and other days it’s on the treadmill watching Netflix. As long as my mind is occupied and not in tune to what my body is trying to do, then I’m ok.

Today, though, it was 50 degrees at 7:30 in the morning…in Maine…in December. It wasn’t raining, just gloomy. I even had extra time before work. So I had absolutely no excuse to at least walk outside. So I plugged in my headphones and listened to an audiobook for a bit while I trudged a half mile. At that point I thought I could jog past a few telephone poles. I did but tuned into the radio then to give me a little pep. I did this for 2 1/2 miles and thought, “Ok. This is why I used to run. This feeling that I can accomplish something and that I’ll be alright. Now maybe I don’t have to go on antidepressants.” This little jog/walk left me feeling more positive then I’ve felt for a very, very long time.

I got back home, stretched, cleaned up and went to work. Yet minutes after I got to work, I could feel myself deflating. Not just energy-wise but attitude, too. I was starting to feel overwhelmingly sad and emotional and honestly?

I just wanted my Mom.

And my dad.

And my brother.

I can’t always separate my longing for one member of my family. Sometimes I desperately miss one person, but other times I just miss everyone and want to see each of them and talk with them. And not just one more time. Fuck that.

I want many more times.

But I don’t get that right? Right. So…what now?

Thankfully, I got busy at work and then received a really nice email from a friend that was sent just to make me feel good. The combination of the two brought me out of my darkness enough to get me through the day. Once I had a cappuccino in the late afternoon, I felt mostly ok again. I could more than function and went on with my day.

I’m guessing that’s how much of my life will be now. My stepmom told me this week that we have to keep going. We have to keep living somehow and some days will be easier than others. And although I know all of this, I also know I might need some help. I’ve had a bottle of antidepressants in my cupboard for several weeks, but I’m holding off taking them for now. I no longer feel “bad” if I have to take them. I know it’s ok for anyone to ask for help, although I never thought it was ok for me. But after the past two years? If I didn’t ask for help then I’d be even more lost than I feel right now. And that scares me.

For now my helper will sit in my cupboard. I’m done with turning to food or wine for help. The food (and pounds) have just made me feel worse, although sometimes it was exactly what I needed at that moment. I needed some kind of comfort and that quick little hight of “happiness” was what got me through these many months. But now if a walk or run doesn’t help me or if writing this blog doesn’t bring me some sense of comfort or control, then I’ll give the pills a shot.

And if I can find a counselor that I like, then I might give that a try, too. But since I’m a little gun-shy after the last one, I’ll wait. Let’s attempt just one thing at a time.

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That First Step

I’ve always said that blogging has been my own source of therapy. I write about my issues, get everything out of my heart and head and typically I feel better. I often get feedback from my readers, many of them being my friends, and usually I feel like my head is clearer, my body a little lighter and I’m not as alone as I thought I was.

But now….now I think blogging might not be enough.

As I’m writing this post, my brother has been gone for 11 weeks, 5 hours and 11 minutes. I think I hurt more now than I did that day. Everything was fresh and raw and horribly painful that day, but now I feel empty. Hollowed out. Lost.

For the past few weeks, I’ve known that I should seek out counseling. The combined stress of trying to care for my mother and dealing with my grief has been overwhelming.  One morning when my boss encouraged me to give the counseling program a call, I broke down in tears and told her I just couldn’t. My mom’s health has deteriorated very quickly in the past few months and I’m taking her to one doctor or another each week, sometimes twice a week. The thought of adding something new to my schedule broke me.

Then my best friend started nudging me, trying to get me to make that call. I put it off for another week then finally made the first call. This was just to set me up and give me a list of counselors I can call and try to meet with. My stomach hurt the entire time and I willed my voice not to shake. After the call ended, I put my head down on the table and cried. If it’s this difficult just to get a list of names, how the hell will I be at an actual session?

Now that I have my list, I still haven’t been able to call anyone. In fact, two days after getting the list I thought, “Ok. This is good to have, but I’m really fine. I can handle this.” I spent the afternoon cleaning my mother’s home, having lunch with her and taking her to the store. Sometimes when I spend time with Mom, I miss her. I miss the person she used to be. I felt like that this week, but I also tried to make the best of the situation. We chatted about food, my son, our cats and how beautiful the leaves were looking. “I can do this, ” I thought.

And then I spent the evening with my son. We’ve been watching The Flas71289d196e3604c520bb1fdd7bf20310h on Netflix. So, if you haven’t been watching season 3 of The Flash and intend to, skip this part now. *SPOILER ALERT*  In this episode, Cisco, one of my favorite characters because he makes being a geek look so damn cool, has been seeing visions of his dead brother, Dante. Cisco gets his hands on an artifact that messes with his mind and he eventually must seal the artifact away. But in doing so, he will never see his brother again. His rational mind knows that this image isn’t really his brother, but it doesn’t make the task any easier. So he has to choose–see his brother again or lose his brother forever but save his friends’ lives.

As Cisco makes his choice, I cover my face and sob into my hands. My son asks me what’s wrong, but I can’t answer. I’m sobbing so hard that it’s difficult to breathe, much less talk. My sweet boy then slides closer to me on the couch and hugs me. I end up crying on his shoulder, literally. I finally pull myself together after a minute and let my boy go. All he says is, “Uncle?” I nod. I apologize to him, but he said that it was ok. Then he takes off his shirt and says, “Here, Mom. You can just use this as a tissue.”

I love that kid so much.

So…after that little breakdown, all from a damn tv show no less, I think I might be able to make that phone call. Or I know I should.

I know I have to at least try. That’s all I can promise myself right now. But it’s a start.

 

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The Pretender

Dear Phil,

I really don’t like this.

I’ve cried every day since we said goodbye. Most days have been those horrible gut-wracking sobs, the kind where snot runs from your nose to your mouth. I’m not sure when those will stop.  I’ve cried everywhere. Every room in this house, in the car every day, other people’s homes, at the library, in bathrooms, at a bar, outside during my walks, even at the Maine Discovery Museum. But you’re probably not surprised by any of that. I cry at everything, right?

Yesterday, I wanted to call you. Not only did I find something totally cool in a library book, but I heard on the radio about a restaurant in Japan that has monkeys as waiters. Monkeys, Phil!!

waiters-1

I wanted to talk to you and laugh with you so badly…that’s happened every day, too. I hope that doesn’t ever stop.

We went to your house today. I’m not sure how Larry does it. He’s strong, I know, but this is hard. I sat on your bed and cried. I just kept looking at that green and white striped shirt you wore so much. It’s hanging in your closet, waiting.

The boy couldn’t go inside your home yet. I thought he was ready, but not quite. Maybe next month….or next year.

So…I did something kind of weird. A few days after we spread some of your ashes around my house…I panicked because it had rained and I thought all of your ashes would have dissolved into the ground and I wouldn’t be able to see…well…YOU anymore. But there was a bit under that little bush by my front steps….and I scooped you up into one of Mom’s empty memory medicine containers.

I know, I know! It’s fucking bizarre and I’m sure you don’t want to be there but you’re not there anyway. Just a little bit of your body is.

I just….I just can’t let you go. I didn’t think I wanted any of your ashes because that’s a bit freaky for me but when it came right down to it? I couldn’t bear the thought of not having you somewhere near me for the rest of my life.

It may have been a fantasy, but I thought we would get to be old together. I thought that you and Bonnie and I would get to sit on my porch with our creaky bones and sit in creaky rocking chairs and reminisce about the old days. I just…I really didn’t think you’d go this early, Phil. As sick as you were? I really thought we all had more time with you.

I really did.

I miss you. Every single one of us who loves you misses you. The world was pretty fucked up before you had to go, but it’s even worse now because you’re not here to make fun of it and make us all laugh at the absurdity of it all.

I can clearly hear your voice telling me that I’ll be fine, that I’ll be ok, that I’m stronger than I think I am. (I know, I know, because Bonnie said that, too.) But right now I’m really not ok. Instead I’ve become very good at pretending to be ok. I keep on working and tending to my family and I thank all that need to be thanked, but I feel so fucking sad and empty that sometimes I cannot take a breath.

So….yeah. This sucks monkey balls. It really does.

Love,

Holly