So, This Is What It Feels like

I am not so different than most people. Discovering. the good, bad and in-betweeners.

We are all just trying to figure it out. How to enjoy life- survive loss, be the best we can be.

I have tried to run so long from something I cannot outrun. I have decided to stop exhausting myself. It be what it be. Depression. Oh, I said it. There are more components I could address,

but for me it pretty much always will be this bugaboo. I have fought this dragon with

great nobility. No stone left unturned. I do realize what an unpopular topic this is. If I could talk of sunshine and flowers and waterfalls, my heart would

be overjoyed. I am beginning to see a pattern here. Perhaps beginning to accepting myself today a little more. Sitting in a Target parking lot of all places, talking to my sister on the phone.

This is not what I want to do with my life. I already had it buttoned down.

Writing..... no brainer. I now need it. It was a luxury before, now it has become a necessity.

How and when did that happen? I was going to dedicate my life to Hospice.

I am supposed to be there right now, tonight as I am writing these words. I cancelled. Not out of flakiness.

I can't do it right now. My heart is not in it. Not because I don't love it with all my heart.

I have a pulling, tugging, that I have been ignoring. I have not wanted to come forward.

I am so comfortable waiting in the wings. Pushing those I love to their destinations.

I missed my calling. I would have made a great pushy agent. I am great getting in everyone else's biz. Pushing hard. Now it's my turn to push myself hard and be my own agent.

But I don't wanna. Don't feel like it. Can't somebody else do it? Why me? There's enough

other people doing it, they don't need me. Whoever they are. I know the me is scared to step out of my comfort zone. Then what? I am just plain ol' scared. I am scared to stand up and be counted. To tell my Readers Digest version of how I made it out of wanting to constantly

blow my brains out. Day in and day out of hopelessness and complete, utter despair.

I am still wondering what good I have to offer those suffering deep, profound depression and loss. The road has been excruciatingly long, I won't lie. For me, there were no short cuts.

To not acknowledge a chemical imbalance in my brain, there would be no point going on writing this piece. I tried the Tom Cruise approach: just take vitamins. It almost killed me.

I guess this is my feeble attempt of saying no more. Step one. Until you have lived in debilitating depression, please don't tell someone to shake it off. That is not an option for someone suffering a chemical imbalance. It's like telling someone with cancer to cool it with the chemo. How ridiculous is that? Neither is respectful. If a person could shake it off, they sure as shit would! They are already ashamed of themselves and feel weak and less.

All they want is to feel normal. Wake up and pray that the day isn't bleak, black, hopeless.

Sunshine and love and happiness is the daily prayer. It certainly isn't hope for dark clouds and disaster. Tears flow, or a brick wall stays up for years from the sheer weight of the darkness.

The battle. Quite understandable how horrifying and difficult for those who live with someone with overwhelming depression. Especially left undiagnosed, untreated.

I always thought it was my fault, my fathers moods. My mother's mantra, "he's always so moody."

She would make constant announcements that he didn't like crowds. That in it self as her lip would curl in disdain would let us know that something was definitely not normal with him. Didn't everybody like crowds? So it cut short many trips. He was the villain and she would be in tears. We would feel disdain for him and not know why at times. The obvious of course, when he was cruel but so much was seen from her point of view. She would simply say he's just like that. Like what?

What's that mean, and how are we supposed to decipher any of this as kids?

I just always felt like I was doing everything wrong, in a nut shell.

My dad only seemed to look happy when he was smoking his cigs. It seemed like all the

answers to his problems came with each inhale and exhale. The way he looked I thought

world problems could be solved. To this day, I am so fascinated by the look people have when they step out for a smoke. They look out into the cosmos, and seem like they just know.

What that is I have no idea, they just know. It always captured the attention that I could never come close to.

It seemed normal growing up that way. I thought everybody's dad was always bummed out.

It seemed to fluctuate between bummed out or angry. Six kids in the house, things are not going to run like clock work, I am pretty sure. He would get very upset literally over spilled milk. I am angry right now that I have spilled tears on these keys as I type at the burning shame I felt just being a child. Throughout my children's lives, I don't think I have said anything to them when they have spilled something. If I did, my first words would be,"are you okay, did you get hurt"?

I don't know why this ridiculous spilled milk story is hitting me so hard. It just is.

We just wanted to be kids. That's all. Maybe I am getting how hard it has been to live with a severely depressed person. My mother has disliked my father so much. I don't know if he would have ever gotten help because the simplest things were and are battle with him.

It's not even 'pick your battles" with him. Everyone of them has been. "It's too cold to do it. Too hot." You name it , he'd tell you why the answer was no.

Up is down and down is up. Here's the tragedy. I took him seriously. It took me until not too long ago to figure out he is one of the most frightened people on the planet. I probably always knew. Just couldn't own it, too painful. That is my father. Clamping down our whole lives not for any reason but fear.

Now he is old and sad and sweet sometimes. Sometimes hurtful as well.

This is where the depression lies. I think my mother seemed a little happier earlier on.

Now they are both depressed. She more out of lack of mobility. I have to look at his side of the family. Not the happiest group of kids. They were not chipper by nature. I don't think either rocked the Captain Fantastic Ride. Not great genes to begin with!

I feel like I can breath a little more. Truth will set me free. I hope so. I am certainly not out to hurt anyone. I just don't want to hurt anymore, either. Depression. It is what it is.

Stories of how, why. Just stories. Hopefully relatable to some. It's just my experience.

See where it takes me next. Carole King singing in my headphones about love. I accept.