Mothers Day

Most holidays I simply ignore. When I met my husband he informed me that he was holiday challenged. That suits me just fine. No stress. Saturday I was in a department store shopping for a bedspread for the guest room. I think my stepson took the one I had on the bed with him the last time he was here. Anyway, I found something that would work and handed the cashier my debit card. She put my bedspread in bag and told me I could pick out some roses then I remembered it was Mothers Day. For a brief instant I thought I was going to cry. I didn't. I picked out a bouquet of half a dozen roses -- pink and yellow. I wondered if my husband who was with me at the time picked up on that moment. I didn't ask him and I won't.

The roses are beautiful and I spent some of today sketching them. I did make my strawberry cake though I had so much wine Saturday night I had no recollection of eating any. A set back. I had been doing so much better. No alcohol tonight and I hope none next week. I try very hard no to drink during the week.

Speaking of Mothers Day. I didn't do anything for my mother. I don't have a good relationship with my parents. I went to see them this Christmas. It had been nine years since I saw or spoke to them. They were glad to see me. I didn't really get much out of it. Mainly I want my parents to feel forgiven. Especially my dad. He sent me a note after the visit saying that he was sorry and that knew he had not been a good father. I never ever thought I would hear those words. I haven't talked to them since Christmas. I keep thinking I should do something but I have no idea what. The truth is I simply don't like them that much. I am trying to be a better daughter but seeing them takes me back to the past. A past I would just as soon forget.

Update

It has been awhile since I last posted. I sold my house. Lost money. A lot. A whole lot. But it's funny how you can (eventually) accept something like that and move on. At least the taxes and insurance aren't sucking the life out of me. The project I am working on is ending. I put in my notice. I will be going home to Charleston on May 21. My husband is so happy. So am I.

I don't know what I will do for income when I go home but I have some ideas and plans. I got a small place in a consignment shop. I have some antiques there and one of my paintings. I hope to use the space to test the market for my work. The space is very reasonable and I have had fun with it.

I plan to focus on drawing rather than painting this weekend. Well, we're also going to cook. My husband and I are pretty good. Stawberries are in here. I want to try a homemade stawberry cake. Something I have never tried before.

Memorial day weekend marks our fifth wedding anniversary. We never had a honeymoon so we are taking a vacation. We are not going far but I am so excited. Life right now is good. I have decided that this year (fifty) is my year. Last year was a black year. Not my blackest but right up there. This year, I am determined, will be different.

Doing Better

I have been doing better. The tendency is to write when I feel really, really bad. I need to resist that because then the view of me is skewed. I cleaned house this weekend, organized some paperwork, walked my dogs, watched a movie with my husband and went out to dinner with him. I must confess I drank too much wine Friday night. May sound like no big deal but I spent the last several years pretty sloshed and I have been proud of the fact that I don't drink during the week and only modestly on the weekends. My husband is not an alcoholic but a regular drinker and I fear that I will fall into old patterns when I go home. I hope not. I really think it would be best if I didn't drink at all. Drinking and depression don't mix.

Oh, I also painted. I painted, let the paint dry, and then cleaned some more then painted some more. Didn't paint anything great just experiments. My secret desire is to make my living painting. My husband shared a book with me: Talent is Over-rated. The theme of the book is that the great get there by practice and hard work not merely by "having talent." I found that encouraging. I hope to paint some things I have the courage to post. I have a portfolio of "keepers." Things I feel proud enough so sign and keep. I looked at those this weekend.

I don't have my paints with me here, but I look at on-line art lessons on the internet. I also study art and artists online. My favorite living artist is Mary Whyte. I took a class from her once and hope to take more.

I think the fact that it is spring helps. SUNSHINE makes a difference. However, April is the month when most suicides are committed (at least the last time I researched it). Most people think the rate of suicide is highest around the holidays.

It is nice to feel more in control. Last year was a black, black year.

Moving Forward

When I am depressed I think about all the mistakes I have made. I focus on my faults and failures. Unemployed (well marginally employed in a temp position) and feeling lost and scared I began to think of the people I have helped. I have mostly worked in the helping professions. I have worked with people who have had to rebuild their lives after horrible accidents or after the onset of severe mental illness. I thought about these people and how many serious issues they had to cope with. I asked myself if I were my own client, what would I tell me? That created a surge of energy and new ideas.

I would have a client focus on the positives. Such as: sure I have had many jobs, but that has given me a broad range of skills. Also, I have had some phenomenal successes. I have saved people's homes from foreclosure; right out of law school and with one letter I got an insurance company to pay for cancer treatment it was refusing. I charged nothing for the service. I have facilitated supported groups, written funded grants, passed two bar exams the first time. I have a masters degree and was a certified rehabilitation counselor. (I let the certification lapse after going to law school.) I have done a lot and all while struggling with severe depression.

I am capable but I suffer from low self esteem. I always feel "less than." Everyone else seems to have it together and I feel like such a mess. I feel washed up. But I am not giving up. When I was younger and had moments like this the idea of re-creating myself wasn't as daunting. I feel like I should be accomplished, settled into a career. I know there are others like me. People who are having to start over. Especially in this economy. It is up to me. I have to let go of the fear. I am more and more in touch with the relationship between fear and my depression. I have to trust that what ever tomorrow brings, I will be able to handle it.

On My Way to Better Days

Things are getting better. I went to a conference to network and job seek. I also ordered some study materials for a new credential. I'm starting to feel in control and less concerned that I will never find work again. I actually have a plan of action and I am following through. I feel in control of my destiny. I feel strong and capable.

Wednesday Reflections

I have a contract on my house. I will be free of it. I can move on to a new chapter.

I hate that the house became such an albatross. I bought it after my son died. It is a small kitchen house in the historic district of Charleston. It has a wall around it and can't be seen from the street. It is in the heart of the city but very private.

I moved there to escape. After my son died I wanted to be left alone. I walled myself off from the world and started renovating. The kitchen house was where the meals were cooked for the "big house." The big house burned in a fire in 1861.

I searched the title back to raw land and learned the history of the man who built the house and the son who inherited the house. The son was two time mayor of Charleston. I know where the men and their families are buried. I searched the slave censuses to find out about the slaves who once lived there too. It is likely that the slaves who cooked in the kitchen house also lived in it. I found a few names, but little else.

I ran into a lot of problems with the renovation mainly because I didn't know enough about what I was doing. I just jumped in with both feet and learned as I went. I put too much money in it and won't get it back. Taking myself out of the job market wasn't too smart either. I now have to explain my train wreck of a resume. I have done many things but I have trouble staying with any one thing.

I think a lot of my depression is fear. I am afraid I won't find a way to make a living when I go home.

I had an interview once for a job I think would be perfect for me. It was working as an attorney for a nonprofit that litigates on behalf of the disabled. In the interview, I was trying to explain why I didn't practice right out of law school. I gave a little bit of my history and then I just burst into tears. There's no crying in interviews! Oh well. Sometimes I think I will contact the agency and propose working on a volunteer basis.

My secret hope for this blog is that at the end of the year I will be working in a job I love. I will look back at this as a hard year, but one I endured. I hope that I will laugh to myself and say, "Remember how afraid you were?"

I hate the saying "everything works out." When people say that to me I want to respond, "My only child killed himself." Everything does not work out. You get through it. Hopefully, you grow stronger. I just don't think there will ever be a day when I can "see the good" in that event. I am just hoping for a little peace.

Okay, so I rambled. My sitemeter indicates that I won't be boring too many people.

Waiting for the Fog to Lift

Kind of a rough weekend. I spent a great deal of Sunday in bed, but I made myself get a few chores done. I don't live at home during the week so I felt bad that I was not a better companion for my husband. I hope better days are ahead.

My thoughts are with Marie Osmond and her entire family. I am so sorry to hear of her son's death. It is such a tragedy. Everytime I hear of a suicide I wish there had been some way to take away the pain before the person gave up. I know what it feels like to want to die -- to just give up.

I wrote a very short poem some time ago. If I were going to have a headstone I would want this poem on the stone:

Tarry not into the day
Let go your fear
Feel the sun

Lila Grace

About two summers ago, when I was down deep in the dark hole, a kitten appeared in my back yard. We have a problem with ferrel cats in my neighborhood. The neighborhood newsletter always proudly announces how many cats the cat catcher rounded up. I'm always sad to read about the cats. We had just lost a cat so I decided to try to tame this little kitten. I was pretty bad off at the time. I know this because I was starting to get my affairs in order. My husband and I had separate banks accounts because this is a second marriage for both of us. I told him I wanted to put his name on my accounts "just in case." I didn't tell him how bad I was feeling. I started thinking about a will, but I know the laws of intestate succession in my state. My assets, should I have died, would go to my husband and my parents.

So, in this state of mind, I walked to the edge of the property along the fence line with some cat food in hand. I lay down on the ground with my arm stretched out on the ground before me. I rested my head on the ground turned to the side. The mosquitoes and gnats that buzzed around my head were biting but I tried to be very, very still. I waited patiently in this position until I could sense the kitten drawing near. Then, OUCH. The little kitten chomped down on my finger with sharp teeth. I jumped and the kitten ran. It would be a several weeks before she got that close to me again. I went out twice a day every day. I sat at the property line and tossed food in the direction of the kitten. I tossed food closer and closer to me as the kitten became more and more accustomed to me. I loved watching the trust build. Soon she was running out to greet me each morning. I remember the first time she let me touch her belly and the first time she let me carry her into the house.

I feel like she saved my life. Something needing me gave me a reason to hang on. She is now fully tamed and a member of our family. We named her Lila. We added the Grace because she proved herself to be somewhat of a klutz and because it is fashionable for a Southern cat to sport two first names.

The Darkest Hours

After I described my depression to my doctor one time, he asked, "What keeps you going?" I simply shook my head and said, "I don't know."

What I wanted to say is that I'm not really very good at killing myself. I am more afraid of surviving a suicide attempt than I am afraid of death. I have never been an inpatient and I don't want to be one.

When I think of suicide, I think of the logistics. For instance hanging. First you need the rope. I'm not really sure what type to get or how to tie a noose but I'm sure I could get some information on the internet. But how do you know where to tie the noose? I think I would botch the job. A gun. A boss once gave me a gun after my house was broken into. I kept it for a couple of days and then returned it. I knew I was at serious risk with a gun in the house. Oddly, his wife's father killed himself with a gun. Slitting wrists isn't effective, I know the stats. It's also messy. Jumping. Where I live there is brand new beautiful bridge. There is a sidewalk on it where people walk. I think it is about 4 miles long. I would love to walk it but I don't trust myself. I think I could be a jumper. I wonder what it feels like as you're falling. I've tried pills, obviously didn't work. My son killed himself with carbon monoxide. Virginia Wolfe put rocks in her pocket and walked into the water.

The urge to kill myself washes over me several times a day. I push the thoughts back. I think of my husband. The thought of him finding me or having to ID my body is probably the biggest deterent. He doesn't deserve that. He also doesn't deserve a depressed wife. (I'm working on it!)

Strange as it may seem, I have worked on hotlines. I have "talked people off the ledge." Because I am a sufferer, I am very sensitive to the pain of people with depression. I am suicidal but I don't advocate suicide.

After one of my son's suicide attempts I was in the hospital ER waiting for him to be stablized and committed. The man behind the curtain in the "room" next to him was there for a heart transplant. He was rushing back from the bathroom in an big hurry. The nurses told him to slow down, it was dangerous for him to be rushing around. There two people lay side by side one desperate to live and one desperate to die.

I am writing very candidly so that people like me, people who live wishing to be dead, might come together. I talk about a very, very taboo subject. I am writing the blog I had hoped to find but couldn't. Maybe collectively we help each other cope. I also hope to connect with other who have lost someone to suicide.

The Plus Column

The depression still lingers. Right now I live at an Extended Stay America while I work out of town. The work will not last much longer. I'm not sure what I will do next. The anxiety is feeding the depression.

I put my house on the market yesterday. It was rented. I can't afford the taxes and insurance. If my house doesn't sell, I will be in a really rough position. But there are so many people suffering and in far worse positions. I read a book recently "same kind of different as me." It's about a homeless man befriended by an art dealer. After reading it I became ashamed of how despondent I become. Some people have had it so much harder.

I do have things to be grateful for. I have a fantastic husband who is loving and supportive. I have good health. I have a warm, safe place to sleep every night. I am really grateful that I can sleep. I don't know what I would do if I had depression and insomnia. When I am down, I sleep about fourteen hours per day. When I put my head down at night I am often tormented by haunting memories of the past and by my fear of the future. I tell myself "you are warm and safe" then fall asleep.

Sunday Morning

The depression is bad this weekend. I can't stop thinking about ending it all. I am discouraged, afraid, and very, very sad. Strange but blogging, even to no one, seems to help. I am only marginally employed and losing my a__ in the real estate market. I am going broke and I am afraid.

I have been working out of town away from my husband, home, and pets. I am grateful for the work but being away hasn't been good for my mental health. "COPE!" I tell myself. "One day at a time." "Breathe." "Just take it as it comes."

I never really launched a career in law. My son was very ill while I was in law school. He was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He was in an out of treatment centers. He killed himself just months after I passed the bar. He was seventeen. He was a great kid. I hate that I passed mental illness on to him. I beat myself up for all the mistakes I made.

The sun is out. I will try very hard to feel its warmth.

Finding Help

Many years ago when I was a young mother with a failing marriage, I fell into a deep funk. I was on the edge. I wasn't going to kill myself because my son was alive then. I know people who have children commit suicide but when my son was alive this just wasn't an option. I could hang on for him and I tried real hard to put a happy face on for him even if I couldn't for myself, but that night I just felt like I was going to snap.

I called Duke University Hospital. I was going to admit myself. The woman on the other end of the line was so rude and insensitive I hung up the phone. I guess I wasn't too far gone because somehow I managed. But I wonder how many times this has happened. How many times has someone committed suicide and the whole world wonders why the person didn't seek help? My guess is they did -- many times and no one listened.

With the advent of medication and the numerous commercials about anti-depressant medication it seems that the nondepressed public has acquired the opinion that depression can be treated the same way you treat a headache -- take a pill and you feel better. It is a much more complicated than that.

I am working with a family physician right now. I like him. I am more candid with him than I ever would be with a psychiatrist or therapist. I have decidedly negative views about psychiatry. With that said I have several friends who are therapists and I know they are good. They are truly invested and care about their clients. I also know psychiatrists I respect, I just never had a particularly good experience. I think Wally Lamb's book "I Know this Much is True" captures my experience with "helpers" pretty well. It is not my intent to bash the helping profession, I have a Masters degree in counseling myself, I just want to share honestly my own personal experiences.

A footnote: I guess the final message should be keep trying. Your recovery journey is your own. I was honest about my experiences but as I started to closed I started to fear that I may haved turned someone off to therapy or psychiatry based on my experience. Many people have been helped by both. I know I sound like am and talking out of both sides of my mouth -- perhaps I am.

I'm not sure what my goal is for this blog. I think perhaps I have found a forum to discuss my depression with fellow sufferers and those who simply want a better understanding of depression. Only a very few number of people know that I suffer with depression. I don't tell people that I have attempted suicide on several occasions or that often my thoughts are filled with a desire to die to simply end the pain.

I have tried therapy and taken numerous medications. No medication worked. I went off of all medication entirely and vowed never to take another medication. After ten years, I broke that vow went back on medication. My doctor looked at me and simply said, "What have you got to lose." On the brink of suicide, I had to agree but the new medication wasn't any more effective than the medications I had taken in the past. He is suggesting ECT. So far, I just can't get on board with that.

The SSRIs are the worst for me, they actually make my mood worse. Mostly, I am a functional depressive. On SSRIs, I can't get out of bed. The simplest tasks seem impossible. I am medication free again. I keep hoping the next new medication will be the one for me.

When I was younger I honestly thought I would conquer depression. I would go to therapy, work through all my issues and baggage, take medication as prescribed and viola I would be cured. I know that some people have a bout or two of depression and then fully recover, but I also know there are people like me who struggle throughout their lives.

I want to chronicle this year. I am hoping for a good one. I turned fifty this year. I want to try new things. I want to reinvent myself. I don't hope to be cured forever of depression. It would be nice to find new ways of coping -- of managing it somehow. I hope to find people who are willing to share their own experiences with me. There is something so powerfully therapeutic in sharing stories of recovery.

If I had to describe what it was like to be depressed I would say it is like being at a wonderful ball where the banquet tables are overflowing with delicious foods. You fill your plate and eat but you cannot taste the food. You are nourished and your physical need is met but you are denied the joy of tasting.

Blogging. . . .Hmmm. . . . .The only thing I can think to write about is the thing that has consumed my life for about the last thirty five years. Depression. It is my hope that my words might help others who struggle.

I trace my depression back to a day I came home from school. I was a rising ninth grader. I was beaming as I told my parents I was going out for cheerleading. I pictured myself in the green and gold uniform of a Summerville Greenwaves junior varsity cheerleader as I broke the news. The response I got: "We're moving." My father was transferred to Dover, Delaware. I moved into a new house the day before ninth grade started and then the rain came.

I sank into a deep depression. I was so depressed by the end of my senior year, I attempted suicide for the first time. I'm not sure anyone really noticed. My dad was busy transporting the dead back from Vietnam and when he got passed over for promotion (kicked out of the military)my mother had to return to work. They had six children to feed. Besides what is the difference between a normal moody teenage girl and one who is severely depressed?