So I realize it has been months, and months since my last post. Honestly, I was thinking of just giving up on the blog all together until a friend mentioned to my daughter that she hasn't seen anything new on my blog in a while and would love to see an update. And here, I thought I was just doing this for myself. Really, I figured, this was my way of keeping a family journal. I didn't think anyone actually read this. So, for my friend - that I really wish I was somehow related to since she is so amazing but I will be OK with being friends, maybe honorary niece??? Anyway, here's another post. Although it may not be what you (or anyone else, for that matter) may be expecting.
I figure since the title of my whole blog is "thoughts from Rene'e's (MY) life" I might as well share some of my more recent "thoughts" and an insight into why I haven't posted in such a long while. I have Depression...dun dun da. OK so not quite so earth shattering news but true none the less. I was diagnosed nearly 20 years ago and it definitely isn't something I share with everyone in the grocery line BUT it is something that is a part of who I am. It also isn't something I am hiding or embarrassed about. True, I used to be embarrassed to admit it but I feel like I have gotten to a point in my life where I realize it is just me and like any other medical condition, I didn't choose it. Even though I was "officially" diagnosed at 19 I know I have had it all my life. I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't have to deal with the effects of depression.
Luckily, the type that I deal with is more cyclical, or "seasonal" for a better term. Not that it corresponds with the seasons but it is more of an on again off again kind of thing. Basically, I can go for months or even years without having too much of a trouble with it at all. Life is basically normal. Then for no reason I can figure, it will creep up on me. I can even feel it happening and despite trying to face it with "positive attitude" or even avoid it, before I even realize it, I am in a hole looking up with no way to get out. I'm not talking about the couple of days of blues that we all get. I am talking about the months on end where logic kinda shifts to the negative and I am super short tempered and critical. Purpose in life just kinda eludes me. Spiritually, I kinda give up. When I don't feel the Spirit, it doesn't make sense to keep working for it when I don't feel that effort reciprocated. I know, I know, it doesn't make sense. THAT'S depression.
If I could get away with it, I would sleep all day & watch TV all night and never leave my house. But, fortunately, I don't let myself get that far. I have a wonderful husband who recognizes when I am in my hole and holds my hand from the top. He keeps me going and reminds me that I am a wife, a mother, a primary chorister and a business owner and I just don't have time to hang out in my hole all day. SO...despite the darkness inside, I take my kids to practices and games and scouts and young women, I go on dates with my husband and make dinner and keep the house clean, I prepare for my calling and I show up to church every Sunday with a smile on my face and I sing happy songs to happy children, I show houses to clients and send out notices to tenants and all the other things I have to do in my life and more or less, I do it with a smile. Which is how you probably are just finding out that this is my life. I am a great faker. (Is that even a word???) I fake it. Oftentimes, I fake it a little too much and people start to get annoyed at my chatty-ness.
The one thing I have learned over the past 20 years, medication doesn't work for me. Been there and tried that, it just doesn't work the way they say it should. It isn't like the commercials. When is it ever? Use this and you'll have shiny hair, use that and you can loose 10 lbs a week, use this and you will look 10 years younger. Whatever. What I do know is, at least for me, it is all just a matter of time. Sometimes it is only a few months, sometimes it takes a year but every time it ends, just like it starts, gradually. But it does end, and before I know it, I don't feel the walls of the hole closing in on me anymore. I see things in a more positive light again and life has possibilities and when I say my prayers it feels like someone is actually listening again.
So, it is just me. A part of who I am and a part of my path in life. My only regret with having to deal with this is my family. I feel bad for my sweet husband that has to hold on to me instead of just holding me. I feel bad for my kids, that they have no choice but to have a mom who gets mad for almost no reason and isn't "really" there for months on end. I know it makes them stronger but I feel really bad that they don't get a perfect mom because they deserve one.
My name is Renee and I have depression.
OK that made me giggle. A little bit too much drama queen??? Oh well, those are my thoughts.
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