Time Flies

How has it been a whole year & a half of not writing?!?!?  I've been busy... and drowning in depression/anxiety/life.  The more things change, the more things really do stay the same.

Our Little Man is getting ready for transitioning into middle school..... HOLY COW!  I'm not sure how that happened, but it's been crazy challenging.

I'm going to try and write every other week,... to get my groove back.... I'm totally out of touch..... I've lost my funny.

Since I was talking about scouting in my last log - lot's has changed.... but here he is in all his glory!

Break the Silence ... Throw the Lifeline

There are a few new mental health initiatives going around right now – 

The Semi Colon Project,  Always Keep Fighting,  Medicated and Mighty, and a whole slew of others.  I think that’s great – fantastic in fact.  I support every chance in getting the word out there in spreading awareness in understanding mental health and getting help for yourself.

I applaud every opportunity to make sure we are supporting each other.

But as a community, are we doing enough?  I don’t think we are.  I think we have more to do on a one-to-one basis. When we say “hugs, I’m there for you…” are we really?

Case in point… There was one of our own on Facebook who had come to the end of her rope.  She reached out and said that she was done.  She was drowning in all that was going on.  She was emotionally, physically, mentally exhausted. That she wanted to give up, but she knew that she didn’t have any options.  It was hard for her to ask for help, but that she desperately needed help.

After the end of the many comments of “hugs”, “you are not alone”, and “we love you’s”

The silence was deafening.

A week has gone by…..   not one single person has checked up on her.

No emails.  No messages to see if she is doing ok.  No silly memes sent to make her laugh. No texts to see if she needs help.  No phone calls to make sure she’s gotten out of bed. No family, no friends.

Is this how we have personally helped someone in our tight little community?

I know she understands that people have lives and things going on. I know that she gets that others struggle just as much as she does, and that she cares.  I know that she has loved on people during the time she was hurting, because they were hurting too.  I know she realizes that not everyone fully gets that she was at her rock bottom and that if suicide wasn’t against everything she believed in that it might have been an option. I know she is hurt that friends didn’t make the time or effort….. but be damned, if it were them, she would do it for them in a heartbeat – even now, because she loves them. 

 

But, I also know, that she will probably never lay herself out bare again, exposed for the world to see, because asking for help is so hard……… so fucking hard.

And if we can’t ask for help we might truly be lost

If we know better - we can do better.

So, let’s do better.   It just takes a second to send a quick message to say:

 “I’m thinking of you”

“How are you doing”

“ Here’s a funny joke”

Or send a cat picture, the funny photo you got off the internet…. Pretty much anything!

It’s not hard, it doesn’t even have to be “right”, if it breaks the silence – it is a lifeline to the person that is drowning!

We need that life preserver thrown to us.

Because our lives depend on it

Because my life depends on it

Because that person was me

But I don’t. I just can’t.

I’m trying not to give up….. but it’s hard. 

I put on makeup, pulled my nice jewelry out of the safe and dressed as if I cared. 

But I don’t.   I just can’t.

I can’t make myself be what I’m not.   I didn’t want to get out of bed, but I am a responsible adult, so I did what I had to, but I can’t get myself to wake up inside.

Some days I am raring to go……. Motivated, wanting to do 17 things at once. Color my hair with crazy streaks and so on.

 And then the wrecking ball comes and knocks me down.  Flat on the ground, the air taken out of my lungs.  I can’t breathe. I want to give in to the feeling and stay there.

But I don’t. I just can’t.

Because I’m supposed to be a responsible adult.   I’m tired of having to be a responsible adult.  I just want to give up, let go, crawl into bed and never get out.

But I don’t. I just can’t.

Because nobody will do what needs to be done for my boy.

So…… I do, because I have to.

shoelaces & letting things slide...

I’m a bad mother.  I’m not sure when it started, maybe it was before he was even born.

He has troubles tying his shoes, so each day he slips them on.  We are in such a morning rush to get on the road for a nasty commute that I don’t even pay attention or notice anymore.  They are on his feet, there was not a meltdown of epic proportions and we are out the door.   And…. Yet I know in my heart that it is not the “right thing”, it’s not teaching him.  I don’t even know if it is just because I don’t want the fight at 6am to get out the door, or if I’ve just become too lazy to even care.  I’m tired, he’s tired, it’s done.   He needs to learn independence, self-reliance, handling the world around him, and yet, I’m letting him become reliant on me to get things done, or not even try to tackle any of it.

I guess it stems, to be perfectly honest, from me having depression and being bi-polar.  Some days I can barely even get myself out of bed to get ready, but I’m in charge of getting another human being ready for the day.  Then, to add on autism where he really only wants to do “preferred activities”, I have no patience other than to trudge along and get things done no matter what, no matter who has to do them. The process doesn’t matter, just the end result……. 

But , the process does matter….. he needs to learn things,  I’m not going to be here for him forever.

I’m at a loss, I know what I should do, but don’t have the energy to get it done.  I also know that I need to just stop doing things for him, he is a resourceful capable 9 year old that should be able to do some of these things.  I was forced at the very young age of 4 to survive and carry the load of many household things because my mother was ill.  I cooked, cleaned, did the laundry……. I never wanted that for my child, but in trying to “change the future” and let him be a kid, I’m not teaching him the stuff that needs to be taught…..

I’m a failure…….. and I know it…….. and I don’t have the energy to fix it…..

Fear on the Roller Coaster

Clink, Clink, Clink…….that sound of each notch of the roller coaster climbing up that hill.  Anticipation, joy, excitement, but then knowing that that fear is coming, waiting for the bottom to drop out from under you. 

Then you are plunged full force into the abyss, faster than you expect or want. Falling……not knowing when the bottom is going to hit.  Then twists and turns, every which way. Making you dizzy and losing your way.  Smaller ups and downs, unexpected and out of place – not knowing if they are going to be big or small ones. The rush of going faster and faster, the excitement of mania.....shopping, eating, everything more, more, more. Some areas of the track bright and clear…… clarity abounds.  Then a new turn and you are forced into a dark tunnel and you can’t see your way out.

If it goes on too long – you are ready to get off.  Then the sweet relief of coming to a halt and getting off of the ride…..

But – you can’t.  There is no relief……no way off…..no ride operator to stop the coaster.  The utter sadness that you can’t just run away from it… to close your eyes and make it just all go away. The utter fear that you can’t just jump out because other’s need you.

This is how I feel……. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

Numbness……. Just for a week, a day, an hour………that would be sweet relief.

I’ve wanted to jump out of the train more times than I can remember. As a child, I was torn between this and being the caregiver to my ill mother.  She needed me to cook, clean, even take off her socks. I felt like I couldn’t leave her – that I had to be there to help her.  As an adult, I held on tightly to the little hand of a blond boy that I loved to keep me from jumping.  He needs me in the car, as I fear that someday he will need to hold my hand on the roller coaster that will be his life. 

I’ve been too afraid of the unknown to just hop out onto the tracks.  Fear has held me back from every important decision in my life. I still haven’t dealt with the lowest dip of the ride.  That is tucked on a shelf, sealed up tight with layers of tape – I will not open it, it will sit there while the dust collects, but my mind is never far from forgetting about it.

This is the first time I have written about this in anything other than my journal. I am tired of being bi-polar……. Manic depressive……. The really high highs, the really low lows……..I want the ride to slow down and to let me off…..