The Spiral of Depression

   

     The many celebrity suicides have brought some well needed attention to the topic of Depression. These suicides have seemingly taken the stigma away from being depressed, whether they suffered from depression or not. Not every depressed person thinks about suicide, and not every suicidal person is depressed. There is not always a cause to the effect. Life as a mom can be trying enough without factoring in any sort of mental illness, yet when a demon like depression is thrown in to the mix,it can (and most likely will) affect the way you parent, the way you wife, and the way you self. It has the power to grab a hold of you like a riptide and refuse to let go until you drown.
     I have suffered from some sort of depression for as long as I can remember. At the age of 11, I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, yet did not even grasp what that was until seeing Girl Interrupted almost 10 years later. I was on and off medication, locked down, shuffled around, and most of all, alone. This allowed not only the depression to fester, but also for anger to grow, opening the door to rejection and violence. If you fast forward 10 years, it was more of the same, on a different level. I was no longer a child given chances, just being moved when I became a problem. I was a full fledged adult. Now I had to answer for myself, and many times that meant bumping my head into the legal system.
     Now I am 35 years old, a wife, a mother to four children, and a member of society (whether I like it or not) and yet the depression continues to have a hold over me. I still find myself being triggered to the point of a mental breakdown. Those are even occurring on a more regular basis. If it were not for my hubby, I honestly do not think I would have made it this far. I battle daily with the demons that ride along with being depressed. I am pretty sure a person can look at me and assume that I am depressed, stressed, battle anxiety, etc., no matter how much make-up I put on or how I dress. I have lost about 50 pounds over the course of a year (maybe less) without wanting to. I call that the "Olivia Pope syndrome" when a person is so stressed out that they forget to eat. That is me on the regular! A person who has never battled with or loved someone who battled with Depression would be hard pressed to understand the actual goings on that we battle with. For most people, it is simply "get over it" or "move on" yet it is not that simple. To say easier said than done is a drastic understatement.
     Without the proper help from a trained professional, I personally do not believe that a person can just get over depression. That help can come from many different avenues, from a counselor to a pastor, as long as the person can grasp that this is not a simple feat. In some cases, medication is needed to balance out the imbalance that occurs in the brain, as it has most likely been messed up for a long time. As with any life change, the person has to be ready to make that change, or they will be fighting it every step of the way. Depression will battle against you, posing as your inner voice. Depression will beat you up worse than the outside world ever could. Depression will make you appear to be lazy, unmotivated, unloving, and at times very crazy. The real you may not get to shine through the darkness of depression, making life very lonely. No one wants to be friends with the crazy girl.

Find Your Tribe

Welcome back to me and my followers! I've taken a bit of a hiatus from writing to attempt to find who I am. Being a mom and wife is hard and at times we as moms begin to feel "lost in the sauce" of our everyday lives. Over the past few months, many things have changed for me and my family that even today we find ourselves still trying to adjust. There have been physical changes (we moved), emotional changes (past infidelities have surfaced, my battle with Bipolar and Depression has become MORE of a daily battle), spiritual changes (we have fallen way out of Church), even financial changes (hubby lost one job that he loved to gain another that he prayed for, I went back to work on a part time basis while starting two business ventures). The past few months have been a roller-coaster, for lack of a better term. To be honest, it has actually given me so much fuel for the Uncommon Moms that I can write for WEEKS!
     In any sense of the term, our family has seen many trials over the past seven months. When most families are facing the things we have faced, they have some form of a support system to help get them through those difficult times, whether it be emotional support, or physical support it is there when needed. For my family, there is no support system. A little background- my mother passed away when I was 12 years old while I was in a youth program (borderline orphanage), my father (whom I had a strange, but tight relationship with) passed away just over five years ago, and both sides of my extended family are very estranged (haven't seen in person in over 20 years) and I believe have stayed that way intentionally. I have always been the black sheep rebel of the two families. My hubby only has his mother who lives 2,000 miles away from us and has plans on moving out of the country in 2019. Over the decade that we have lived in Texas, we have yet to establish and real roots- no friends, play cousins, barely acquaintances. We have been bamboozled more than a few times into believing that a person was a friend when they in turn were an enemy or came with motives. This not only makes life lonely, but it also makes those times of struggle that much more difficult to bear.
     Not many people can understand what its like to be an outsider almost everywhere you go, but inside be one of the dopest people in the room. Being accustomed to being judged in every situation has become second nature. As a person who battles depression, and is easily triggered, this only contributes to the depression and anxieties that follow you like a shadow that never goes away, not even in the dark. My hubby likes to remind me that I am never alone in any battle, we go through it together and we have our children, who at the end of the day can always make us laugh and forget the stress, even if just for a second. As a SAHM, just knowing that all you have is your immediate circle can actually contribute to the loneliness rather than alleviate it. It makes that circle just that much smaller, making it feel as though you are moving through life on an island. A 35 year old mom who battles with some things isn't exactly the type of person most people want to be friends with. Many will say that they "feel your pain" but when it comes down to it, they usually have some form of support from family, long time bestie, etc., that they don't need (not to be confused with being needy) the friendship in the same way you do. On the flip side, there will always be people who will "act as if" they are your friend, but when they make every excuse to not be around you while just keeping you around, is that really a friend?
     As kids, my dad had this yellowed ripped and taped up piece of lined paper that hung from our refrigerator for as long as I can remember. On that piece of paper was the Webster's Dictionary definition for "friend". One of the most important things that my dad drilled into my head as a young child was that not everyone is your friend. This was one of the things my dad would not only speak about, but also be about. He knew a lot of people through his garage, but not all of those people could he consider a friend. Along this train of thought, my dad also instilled in me that not everyone belongs inside your home. If they are not considered a friend, they do not enter. An associate doesn't care about you or your home therefore it would be easy for them to disrespect it. I was basically taught to be a loner from a very young age. I was not taught much else in the way of life's virtues, no real coping skills for life's challenges so I sit here as a 35 year old wife and mother who is striving to learn while I am responsible for teaching what I am learning.
     Do you realize how difficult it is to get through life without a support system? It is like swimming with your eyes closed. To not have a mother to turn to when I need advice, to not have a friend to turn to when I need to vent. No girls nights out, no babysitters for date night, no family reunions. Just the questions from my kids, and even myself. Questions like, why don't we have grandparents to come to our school on Grandparents Day, why haven't we ever been to a family reunion? Most parents will never have to look their kids in the eye and say, "Because we have no family" but this is an answer that seems to come to me like second nature. I have to think that it is easier to make friends in the woes that we know as High School, than to attempt the feat as a 35 year old adult. To all of my followers, when you find your tribe in life, do nothing but cherish them.