depression

Depression Lies

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​[Warning: Mentions of suicide and depression.]

I’ve been struggling to write this for several days now, and it’s kept me from my regular postings that I’d planned for last week. The truth is this topic has been on my mind ever since I was shocked by a text from my sister telling me about Robin Williams’ death. His was one of the no, you can’t be serious exclamations and that despite my MSNBC hiatus at the time, I immediately turned on cable news to find out the latest.

I wouldn’t say that I was a true fan of Kate Spade or Anthony Bourdain, although I knew at some point I’d introduce them to my children. My daughter loves designing her own outfits, has made pocketbooks out of t-shirts, and has her own wonderful style. My son, while not keen on cooking as a chore, he does love to try new foods, and made a chicken stir-fry with ramen as well as helping his sister with her vision of chicken alfredo.

For myself, I didn’t pay close attention to their careers, even though Anthony Bourdain gave me the knowledge to avoid restaurants on a Monday night, and when not to order certain foods. That stood out in my mind, no time more so than when I was eating out on a Monday night, whispering to my husband, we really shouldn’t be here today. It was less admonishment, and more asserting my knowledge as Jeopardy contestant.

As someone with clinical depression who continues to take medication and see a therapist, I am always struck with the equivalent of an emotional lightning bolt when someone loses their battle with depression. There but for the grace of G-d, and all that.

The first thing that people who have no understanding of depression say is Kate and Anthony have children. How could they do that to their children? Why didn’t they think of their children? When I was deep in suicidal thoughts, I thought deeply of my children. I thought about what they could do with my life insurance money. I thought that they’d be happier without my mood swings and lethargy. Even today, I try to make up for the moments lost with my daughter as a very young child because of the interference of the depression. At the time, the only thing that kept me here was the thought that they wouldn’t have the money to replace the one car we had.

But it was still a struggle.

For anyone who reads me here, I liken my depression to a recovery process. Kind of like twelve steps, but twelve steps in different orders, and directions, and each series of twelve steps is interrupted by other steps that no one tells you about until you trip over them, and then one day you wake up, and get to start again, but you don’t realize it until you’ve already completed two steps that didn’t need to be completed or that needed to wait until after this new step, oh, and by the way, have I showered today?

There were dozens of news reports and articles detailing what not to say to someone with depression as well as an equal number of what to say to someone with depression. Be ready when they reach out. Reach out if they don’t. Don’t be too pushy, but don’t be too complacent. Don’t talk about how their death will affect you, but tell them how much they mean to you. Don’t tell them to feel better, don’t give them advice, don’t ask what you can do to help, but do all of these things. You’ll know what to do.

Well, guess what?

You won’t know what to do.

I live with depression, and I don’t know what to do for others.

Like many of you, I posted the Suicide Prevention Hotline number and a variety of websites and chat lines, and I hope that whoever needs them will use them. As pollyannaish as those memes and graphics saying how much you are loved, and if you’re looking for a sign not to kill yourself, this is it, sound, they actually worked for me in that moment when I saw them. They were a sign, that I needed, and heeded, and appreciated. So I continue to post them as well.

It’s easy to think if this celebrity or that celebrity that has seemingly everything going their way can’t handle it, how can I? Well, you can because your low moments are different from theirs. They may have looked at you and thought what a great life that person has. Perspective is something that we all need, but we all see different things from our side of the fence.

I have my religion and my writing. I have my mantra – it will be okay. I have Julian of Norwich and Mary Magdalene, LIn-Manuel Miranda, Misha Collins, and others that reach out in their own public ways and isnpire me, mostly to simply take a deep breath, and then take another, and try again. Take one step and then another.

You have yours.

Share them here in the comments. You never know when someone is looking for another coping tool, and yours may be the one they need.

Before I go, I will leave you with something that writer/actor Wil Wheaton says about depression: Depression lies. Whatever it’s telling you is a lie. Don’t listen.

So, come into the light, just for a moment, and see things differently. Talk to a friend. Talk to a chat line. Talk to a professional. They are here to help.

I’m here to help as well.

Suicide Prevention Resources

Travel Thursday – Anxiety

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​As much as I love the idea of traveling, and the actual visiting places, the anxiety associated with the anticipation of planning is one of the most debilitating and horrible things to deal with. It’s something that needs to get done, or the trip itself is a no-go, but starting the planning…

And it isn’t even the actual planning. I love the listmaking, and the reading the tour books, researching what i want to do when I get there. It’s the starting. The monumental decision of putting the money into non-refundable tickets. Hitting that send or buy or submit button takes three times as long as filling out the information on the forms.

In the case of our Ireland trip this summer, it isn’t just buying plane tickets; it’s renting a car. There’s the anxiety of finalizing the search with a credit card number, but there is also the shortness of breath and shaking hands just thinking about driving in the UK again.

After eight years back, I thought I was ready. The memory a cry in the distance, but the closer it gets to reserving a car and planning a route from the airport to the cousins and the cities, and the ferry to Wales, my stomach jumps up into my throat and I feel a choking sensation. I can’t imagine what it will be like to get on the plane with this feeling gnawing at me.

It’s almost unbearable, and there is no earthly reason to feel this way at this moment, weeks in advance of actually having to do it.

My kids are coming, so compiled in all of that stress is the stress of pretending that there is nothing to be anxious about to soothe their own normal, rational fears, so I must hide my own, some irrational fears, but fears all the same.

I feel quite sick writing about it right now.

I vividly remember the white knuckles, the terror of every intersection, every roundabout, reminding myself to breathe, the post-it note on the dashboard telling me to turn into the left lane, always the left lane, thanking G-d at every church passed, the slight sound of scraping as I inched too close to the town wall.

It’s all coming back to me.

Not the feelings a few years later that maybe I could do it again; I got through it once, and it wasn’t that bad, but the anxious screaming IT WAS THAT BAD, PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME!!!

But as with all things, it will be okay.

Between that time and now, I have received many tools to get me through this one little hitch that seems so overwhelming, but I can get through it; I know it.

One of those is a diagnosis and treatment for the elevated anxiety that falls into the not quite normal range of emotion and brain chemistry as well as the same for depression, not entirely unrelated, but the destination will assist in alleviating any extra. I have a therapy session planned for a week prior as well as reconciliation with my priest. Not for anything specific, but you know…anxiety and such.

Another thing was something I heard at one of my first masses, actually it was at my first healing mass, the anointing of the sick. My entire life, no matter how severe, no  matter how stressful, no matter how bad, I would tell myself that it would be okay. I didn’t necessarily believe it, but just saying it to myself did have a calming affect.

At that first anointing, my priest quoted St. Julian of Norwich, subseequently a new found favorite of mine.

All will be well.

All will be well.

In all manner of things,

all will be well.

How perfect, and how needed, then and now.

Yes, I’m still anxious, and som of it will be debilitating, but all will be well.

50-44 – Postpartum Depression

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​When you give birth for the first or second time, the expecting books, the online information sites, and the doctors and nurses are very much aware that this is new for you, and they take great care in giving you as much information as possible including on postpartum depression.

postpartum depression can occur in women who’ve had no other history of depression.

You are told very clearly what to look for: loss of appetite, fatigue, lethargy – because none of those things happen when you have a new baby unless you have depression, right?

Two other symptoms to watch out for are if you can answer yes to the following questions:

Do you want to hurt yourself?

Do you want to hurt your baby?

Since my answers to both of those questions were  resounding NOs, I knew I was in the clear.

Despite that I couldn’t make decisions or do anything that wasn’t taking care of the baby, or even lying on the floor with the tiny baby, both of us crying hysterically. It went on and on, and every time I thought I must be depressed, I need to see a doctor about this, I would go back to those two questions and answer them:

No, I do not want to hurt myself. No, I do not want to hurt my baby. I just need a vacation; a day off. And I muddled through. I just wasn’t strong enough to handle a second baby. I must be doing something wrong.

Not to mention that my mother had just died; eight weeks after the birth of my son, which came eighteen months after the death of my dad. Of course, I was depressed, but I wasn’t, you know, depressed.

It wasn’t until eight years later and actually becoming suicidal, wanting it all to just end and being diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety was able to look back at that time, lying on the floor crying, not wanting to do anything but sit in a chair, sometimes holding my baby, not cooking or wanting to eat, did I realize that I did, in fact, have postpartum depression.

It’s hard to look back and know that if only I’d looked deeper into it, I could have come to of it sooner. As it was, when I became pregnant with my third child, when my second was only six months old did the hormones kick in, pushed the depression away, and saved my life.

I was miserable, and I had help. My husband stayed home and worked as often as he could, especially after baby number  three was born, and my mother-in-law visited and stayed with us for extended periods to help us out and visit.

We need to listen to new or not so new mothers when they complain about how hard it is. Even if we complain all the time, we need to take a special listen after the baby’s born. Offer support; don’t wait until it’s asked for. By then, it’s probably too late and the request is coming from a shrieking, arm flailing door slammer.

The questions shouldn’t be will you hurt yourself or your baby; the question should be how are you, are you okay, can I help? Do you want me just to come over and watch you and the baby sleep for an hour?

postpartum depression is hard to recognize. I never recognized it until I was on anti-depressants and in therapy for about six months. I was lucky. I never wanted to hurt my kids. If they were with me, I wouldn’t hurt myself, but looking back it is one of the scary experiences I’ve ever had, more than when I was actually suicidal.

The good news is that I came out of it. I survived. I look at my kids everyday and I’m glad I’m here with them. I survived and I’m still surviving. I’m hyper-aware of how I feel. I have my coping mechanisms, which I’ve adapted to over time.

Don’t let anyone tell you you’re crazy or imagining things. Take care of yourself first. Love yourself first. Always keep fighting.*



[*Always Keep Fighting and Love Yourself First are from the Always Keep Fighting (AKF) campaign to raise awareness and fight depression through Supernatural actor, Jared Padalecki’s charities.]

50-25 – Charm Bracelets

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Did you ever collect charm bracelets? Collect might be a bit strong of a description for mine. I’d get them at a variety of tourist spots on vacation, and then promptly lose them upon coming home. I remember looking at them in the gift shop, twirling them around my fingers, examing each charm. I’d wear it for a little while and then it would disappear into the netherworld of lost socks and board game pieces, never to be seen again.

I have vague memories of tricorn hats, moccasins, cactus, oranges, palm trees, revolvers, horses and buggies, Amish hats and other like trinkets in fake silver and gold.

After college, I made myself a charm necklace with pendant charms that I liked but no longer wore, strung onto a shoelace or a thick piece of twine, each separated by beads. It became too heavy to wear.

In recent years, I began collecting charms again; this time on a chain bracelet. I picked things out that were meaningful to my life now. I did lose one of a bow and arrow that I’d had since the SCA and archery practice in the ’90s, and that made me sad, but I substituted a bow and arrow that I found on a keychain of The Hunger Games.

Each one means something different and symbolizes some aspect of my life now.

The charm bracelet was the first place that I put a cross after I’d begun my RCIA studies.

The compass symbolizes the constant journey I’m on, and keeps me on the path and going in the right direction.

The salt vial keeps the demons away. Actually, it’s a symbol of Supernatural, a television show that is one of my coping mechanisms for depression (along with others). It reminds me that I’m part of the Supernatural familly and to always keep fighting.

The Tree of Life is nature, and life, and something that is bigger than me.

My griffin is from my original charm necklace. It is my favorite animal. Part lion and part eagle, they are both majestic and confident, and their golden feathers are gorgeous.

The feather is in place of a quill for all my writing.

Each one is special in its own way. It is like my secular rosary.

A newer charm bracelet that my family got me for Mother’s Day. It has only a few charms that werre important to me. (c)2016

2/8 – Prayer

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As part of this Year of Mercy, today is the Marian Jubilee, a Feast of Mary, Mother of Mercy. We can listen to the Pope’s homilies,.both for last night’s vigil and this morning’s liturgy in St.Peter’s Square.

I know that I’ve been looking at more ways to find and to show mercy and one of those has been to pray to Mary.

Prayer was never something that I was comfortable doing growing up. We were religious in the sense that we followed the traditions abd celebrated the holidays; we observed Passover and Yom Kippur. My parents lit yartzeit candles for their parents, and now I light them for mine.

I didn’t pray as much as talk to G-d when I needed to say somethihng or meditate on something or to ask for help or guidance.

I was really shown how little I actually prayed when I didn’t know how to express myself during a National Day of Prayer after 9/11. I went to a local temple with my four year old, and they didn’t know why I was there, and I didn’t know how to ask for what I needed. I sat with my son, and we muddled through, not knowing what to do or how to say it, but trying to do it anyway.

In starting my journey through the Catholic Church, I still didn’t know what to pray for; or how. There is a moment of silent prayer during the mass – well, several moments – and I never know what I should pray for. It feels weird to pray for people. I don’t know why that is…was.

In those prayers of the faithful I had my faithful trio of prayers, mostly for myself to get through another week, waiting for the anti-depressants to kick in or the talk therapy to take effect.

Patience.

Strength.

Courage.

I found Mary, Untier of Knots, and that really spoke to me. I was excited to find out that this was Pope Francis’ favorite devotional.It made siense in my life too – all these knots of crap happening, and I could slowly, methodically untie them, like Mary does in the painting and on the prayer card.

I began to say the rosary. I found it comforting, and deliberate.

I think I identify with her as a parent, and I try to emulate her unending patience and mercy for those around her, a perfect example depsite what was done to her son. She is full of forgiveness and accepting of G-d’s will.

Find your own prayers that work in your life, both in their substnace and the time to include them in your meditations.​ I will continue to try and do this in my prayer life.

Happy Pesach

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Passover begins at sundown this evening. Some years there are conflicts. We travel to my mother-in-law’s more often than not for Easter or right before Easter when the kids are on recess, and so we’ll only observe Passover for part of the eight days. Even after my baptism, we continue to celebrate.

This year Easter was early and we aren’t able to travel to Grandma’s for recess because my oldest son is in school and working two and a half jobs so timing didn’t work out for visiting.

However, we will be home for the entirety of Passover.

To be truthful, I hadn’t really decided to celebrate/observe until I was in the grocery store shopping. I was supposed to get a roasting chicken and potato pancake mix for tonight’s dinner, but I could feel the D-A (depression/anxiety) clueing me in that it was going to be difficult to me for this holiday.

While I want to do Passover (even if we don’t usually do a seder), I could not feel the cooking.

I looked through my wallet and found the raincheck for chicken tenders. I heard the lightbulb click in my head; over my head.

Fake it.

No roast chicken, no standing over a stove frying latkes (we eat more latkes during Passover than during Chanukah), and that’s it. Fake it.

Chicken tenders, frozen potato pancakes, can of cranberry sauce, matzoh. Lunch – gefilte fish.

I can do this.

My point is simply that there are ways to get around those pokes that depression uses to try and bring you to lethargy and apathy. It isn’t a fail safe. There will be depressive moments. There will be times when you have to ask for family for more patience and support, but when it’s important, try. That’s all you can ask yourself.

I wanted to celebrate Passover. It’s important to me to continue these traditions, for my kids to understand their Exodus from Egypt. Even before the Eucharist, I’ve always talked about Passover in the present.

Why do we celebrate Passover, I’ve been asked. We were slave, and we’re leaving Egypt. We’re escaping. We’re crossing the Red Sea. We carry the matzoh with us. It’s happening in the past, the future, and now. it is within and without time.

History and heritage are important.

So is dinner.

Food is the lifeblood of culture and family.

Sometimes depression gets the best of me, but it can never win because I keep fighting, I keep moving forward, I keep keeping on.

I fake it unhtil I don’t have to anymore, and then I fake it again, but I keep going.

Happy Pesach.

Massiversary

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I was running late this morning, and wondered if I should even try to make it to the 9am Mass. Since it’s Tuesday during Lent (the last Tuesday in fact) there is another mass in the evening. I thought a moment more or two about which one to choose, and then decided to go to the first one.

I was glad I chose that one. Today is my Massiversary, so it was really important for me to be in attendance then.

When I first started showing up at this church, it was random. If I got the urge that I should stop in, I did. I’d find a pew, also randomly, and read that day’s readings from the Missal. Often, they were right on target for what I was feeling or what I needed to hear at that moment. I was going through a lot at that time, and all I wanted was a quiet place where no one would bother me and I could sit quietly. Somewhere I could be anonymous.

I wouldn’t describe it as a perfect solution to what I was feeling, but it was peaceful and what I wanted; what I needed when I needed it. I did this for a couple of weeks, probably closer to almost four. It wasn’t everyday; It was perhaps ten times in total but they were important to me. They centered me and got me ready for my recovery. I hadn’t realized what else I had to look forward to, but all that was on my mind in these first few moments was evening out my mental health. I still call it recovery.

I had been talking about my depression on Facebook and talking about my church visits and receiving encouragement from a small group of close friends who knew what was going on as I started my medication and therapy. One of these friends, T was a college student in Nebraska. He talked about going to the seminary, but was in college for a different major. He was an incredible friend during this time, posting encouragement on his own page that really resonated with me. Scriptures, Antiphons, quotations from saints and holy people. He sent me a very nice, personal note that I still look at on occasion and it gives me abundant feels. Another friend, B, loves choir music and he would also post a variety of encouraging things unbeknownst to him until I mentioned that I found the posts and the music encouraging.

On one of these days, T suggested that I attend an actual Mass, telling me that the Easter week masses were really quite beautiful and he thought I would enjoy them.

I took his suggestion to heart, and showed up on the Tuesday of Holy. Week. A woman was sitting at the end of a middle pew in the church. I noticed her because of her jacket. It was black with multi-colored flowers and stems and leaves embroidered on it. She was also wearing a light colored straw pill box hat. She would wear a hat every day. I loved the embroidery, so I sat two seats behind her. I stood when she stood, and sat when she sat. I didn’t kneel or cross myself, but I followed along as best I could.

The service really affected me, the priest’s homily hit on things that I, again, needed to hear,  and I went back the next day and the day after that. The day after was not a Mass, but a prayer service. At the end of Holy Week the masses are in the evening. We went to visit my mother in law and I borrowed one of the missals for the weekend. I read it every day that we were away.

That was the start. Over the course of that first year, I’d either sit directly behind that woman or two rows back, depending on when the other women arrived. We’d switch back and forth until one of the women sat right next to me. We still sit together.

Today when I arrived, an elderly man was in my usual seat. I sat behind him and about halfway through I realized that this was my original seat that first day, two rows behind my first church friend with the embroidered jacket who’s not here anymore.

I hadn’t intended to make such a memorable statement on this morning, but it was nice that it randomly happened that way.

It was nice remembering that first time. Every day, it’s like the first mass. Except I know what I’m doing. I pray, I cross myself; it all came in its own time, and each different ritual when I was ready. I hadn’t told myself that I was ready; I just did something and realized after that fact that I’d participated in some aspect of the mass.

The rebirth and renewal of Easter is the perfect time to remind me of my beginning with the church. I was baptized two Easters ago even though I’ve attended since 2012. This week is full of those anniversaries, but that first Tuesday will always be a special one for me.