Truthful Tuesday: My Journey through Depression

So as you can guess from the title of this post it's not all rainbows and unicorns with roses blooming in the spring. But it's not all bad, and I'm not yet hibernating in my bed because the thought of facing the world is horrendously overwhelming, panic attacks aren't happening, and I can still find laughter and good times with my friends. I'm not in the bottom of the pit of depression, but I am definitely dancing along that pits edges and some days I slip down a ledge and others I pull myself up.

So this

this


and this is what my depression looks like.

To an outsider looking in, it actually doesn't look that bad, I blame social media for that.  I feel compelled to post positive things because I do not want people constantly coming up to me wanting to help, I appreciate that they want to help, but I have reached out and gotten support from those I feel I need it from at this point in time.

I am in counselling right now, and I am working through things with her.  I get that I have to choose my reaction to various stimulus in my life, somedays this is easier than others. I feel isolated, but I know I am not, I feel shame because why am I feeling this way, I feel guilt because I know I am not being the best mother, wife, friend, sister, teacher I can be. These are my feelings, these are what I am dealing with daily, but I am faking it until I make it, and God Damn It I will MAKE IT through.

My journey is unique, as is everyone's journey, and I am not here to cast blame, or shame on anyone else, if you have been in this situation and journeyed through I applaud you, this mud that is depression likes to suck you down.  If you are still struggling with it, I applaud you, it's a long arduous path to get back to our happy places.  If you have made decisions or are considering decisions, life altering decisions, because of this depression, I hope you are getting the help you need. But I will not judge you or the path you choose to take because that is your own journey, and I am not walking in your shoes.

I'm going to share with you in a few posts about my journey, how I came to recognize it in myself and the signs I missed.  I am doing this for a few reasons, I need the journalling and reflection piece for my own healing (welcome to my journal), and if I can help one person realize they are not alone, that maybe they can reach out or use some tips I share then I am glad to help, also I find our collective stories need to more brutal truths in them.  I'm not saying we should be rude but if I'm not happy I should be able to share that with whomever wants to read this and feel safe, so that our collective history doesn't become a child's happy fairytale ending because no one pointed out that without sadness you can't really know joy! (thanks inside out)

I'm going to start with the first time I felt like something was going on, where I realized something was different.  Where in that moment making some different choices could have lead down all kinds of different rabbit holes, but I made these specific choices and where I found myself later.

Let's go back to August, this summer.  This summer the boys and I went on a road trip as you probably are aware, and when we got back in August I started noticing that my patience, tolerance and all over mood was not positive.  I would become frustrated with the boys, I would lose my temper, I didn't want to play games. 

I had no reason to be this way.  I have a good life, my boys are typical boys for their ages. I have a hard working husband, who does so much around the house and helps with the boys when he is home.  Money was tight, but actually we were doing well and we weren't missing any payments but things were off. 

To be honest, my husband was frustrated with his job, long hours, low pay and little gratitude for all the work he actually did do at the office didn't always predispose him to be raring to go for a good time. To be honest, I struggled with communicating with him, I felt like my suggestions or ideas were brushed off, especially if it had anything to do with renovations, and I should just be worrying about cooking and taking care of the boys and their needs.  To be honest, our relationship was struggling, and this isn't a blame game, we lost how we should communicate to each other and WE let outside stresses push us further and further apart.

I chose to ignore it back in August.  I hoped that my husband would figure out how to come home and leave his work attitude at home.  This in hindsight was unreasonable for two reasons.  One I never actually verbally asked him to, I may have only passively aggressively suggested he was grumpy most nights, but I never asked him to work at leaving his work frustrations on the doorsteps as they definitely changed the mood of the house.  And two, this is not something my husband is good at doing.  And why should he be if he's never been asked or never practiced it.

So we were on the avoidance path, because if we could avoid the problem, maybe it would go away. 

Avoidance never works, because much like avoiding laundry, it may work for awhile, but after awhile you have no clothes left and no money for new clothes so now you have to face this insurmountable pile of stuff. 

So for me that was my first sign something was wrong, that something didn't feel right and it very much altered my dealings with a lot of people as the months continued.  More next week!

Thanks for reading!

Please if you feel you need help please call a local help line! Reach out, it is seriously the best thing I've done!


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