Nothing to be ashamed of!

I wrote this blog post on another blog and then out of shame deleted the blog. :/ This was my first post on the blog and it was very hard for me to write. After reading a blog post by my favorite blogger, The Bloggess, I decided it needed to be posted again. For anyone out there dealing with this craziness. I have depression, but it goes beyond that. I also have PTSD, anxiety, and I self harm. I may also be a bit ADD or ADHD. After reading the post by the Bloggess (link above) I realized how strong I am. I have been fighting depression off an on for 10 years now and pretty steadily for the past 3. I kick ass. And I can kick depression's ass. Anyways... this post needed to be put back up again. Judge away. I don't care now (I do but I'm trying to convince myself I don't... so let me pretend okay!) 

WOOHOO

Somewhere for me to finally post all the f'ed up craziness inside my head. It's hard on Facebook cause everyone's like "It's a status, not a diary." And it's not necessarily appropriate on the family blog... So here it is!!! YAY.

So lately my depression has been getting worse and worse. I stayed up until 6AM last night/this morning. Insomnia is a B-word.  (I'm trying so hard not to cuss... but some are part of my normal vocabulary... proceed with caution.) I was finally able to get the voices in my head to stop by sitting at the computer and typing all their bull crap out. Thought I'd post it here for the world to see... talk about airing dirty laundry.  Well this dirty laundry is covered with pit stains and skid marks... It's nasty.  Here goes.

12-1-11

Well, I have gone off the deep end again. My depression is back and it seems like it is back with a vengeance.  I was doing pretty well… not extraordinary, but well.  I don't really know what triggered this episode, except maybe my lack of drinking ASEA.  If that is truly the case, then HOLY COW.  That stuff can work wonders when I take it, but the lack of it… HELL.  I am up at 5:00AM. I have yet to go to bed. It's fine though, because I napped this morning from 8-11 or so… while all 3 kids (my 2 girls and the little boy I watch during the day) had to fend for themselves. I'm awful, I know. 

But I have no will power. I will probably give in and sleep half my day away and wake up feeling like SHIT and have to apologize to my 3 year old daughter for not being her mommy today.  Hearing her say "It's okay mama," and then my lies about doing better tomorrow break my heart. Crush it, rather. I truly hate myself. I even kept my 4 year old home from school today because I couldn't stand the thought of having to get out and go pick her up at the end of her school day. 

Do you think I need a shrink?  Ha!!!! I can't afford one, so I get to suck this up on my own. I feel like there is no one I can go to, except my Savior. But even then… I had a conversation with him in my head tonight. I sat and thought about this… this back and forth I constantly am doing. Depressed then not, paralyzed with fear, then superwoman. I realized that this is probably going to be the rest of my life.  I will do this up and down, back and forth, happy and sad, joy and pain for the rest of my life. I can't do it.  I honestly can't. At least I don't want to. That's not how I want to live my life.

 But how do I change it? And also, how do I keep my children from seeing this? My 3 year old is to the point where she is forming her first memories that she'll have for the rest of her life.  Will she remember me sleeping away our days on the couch, unable to move because of how much I HATE myself? I say to myself, "I HAVE TO CHANGE FOR HER." Yet I do nothing. I have the best intentions. I start to clean, I start projects to teach her, help her learn and grow… then I slip back into my cave, back into depression, back into the darkness. I'm so sick of it… I don't know what to do.

Should I take up drinking? Not so that I can deal with it all, but that I numb the pain and hatred enough to fake being the mom I need to be for my girls. I love them to the ends of the earth and back.  They ARE my world… but I know I'm failing them and I can't do that. 

I'm not depressed about my life… I love my life. I love my family. I am blessed beyond belief. I have the most perfect husband in the world. I couldn't have dreamed up a better man. I have two absolutely gorgeous daughters who are so good… so sweet… so kind… so well behaved… who are best friends. We have a great home. My husband has an amazing job and I'm able to stay home with my children. I have no excuses for my depression… according to some people… yet my depression is not about the life I live in… It's about inside. It's about the hate I have for myself. It's about the difference in who I am and who I was meant to be. 

My depression is not what I've heard others talk about anymore. I don't want to kill myself. I don't want to run away from my life. I can laugh and find the humor in life. I still enjoy doing some things and I very desperately want to do those things. But I don't. I just want to have the strength, the courage, the will power to do the things that I envision… To get up and have a clean home, to follow a schedule, to do fun things with my kids, to continue to date my husband, to be the right kind of mother, the right kind of wife, the right kind of Latter-day Saint. 

I know I have a Savior, that he can help me through this… but how? How do I give this to him? How do I quit hating myself? How do I gain the strength to get up and make breakfast every morning? I didn't feed my kids dinner tonight until it was just 30 minutes or so before their bedtime. WHAT THE HELL!!! I've been hiding how bad it is, even from myself. I lie to my husband and family and friends. They know part of it. But they don't know how bad it is. When I tell my husband that I just napped a little bit… he doesn't know that the only reason I got off the couch at noon was because he was coming home, that a 2 and 3 year old had a complete run of the house on their own until then. And if he doesn't come home, then I don't get up until 1 when I have to put clothes on to go pick up my daughter from school. Even simple things like showering and eating are chores to me… not worth doing… or I'm too lazy. 

I'm so disgusted with myself. I cannot believe that this is what I am. I really feel like a monster. I wonder if this is what a nervous breakdown feels like… I'm sick of hiding how bad it is, but what do I do to make it better? Who do I go to? I keep thinking of some magical place in the future where I no longer struggle with this… but is that a reality or a dream? I've been day dreaming about my 30's for a few years now, and I always picture them as just perfect.  We're in our home… Chris has an amazing job that's steady but has freedom as well, the girls are in school and maybe we even have a couple more kids, I can sew and clean and take my kids out to the park and playground. The girls do their homework as soon as they get home, we have family prayers, family home evening, and even read the scriptures together daily. I am happy and my kids don't have any clue of the depression I USED to struggle with.  But is that even possible? If I am still struggling with depression then like I do now, that dream isn't possible. 

I truly feel bad for Chris and the girls. I feel like because of who I am, they got cheated.  I feel like God did them a disservice by placing me in their lives. It's not fair to them. My depression doesn't just affect me, obviously!!! It is a burden on them. It is NOT fair! They deserve better. They deserve more. WHY CAN'T I DO AND BE THAT? What the hell is wrong with me? 

I watched the Mormon ad video the other day about men's hearts failing them, and the apostle spoke about that meaning fear. I don't know that I'm necessarily afraid of anything, but I do feel that my heart has failed me. I have no strength. I have no courage. I have no will power. My weakness is more powerful than any strengths I possess. But God will give us nothing we can't handle… I know I can endure. I can keep dragging along, going around and around, but that never gets me anywhere. I’m not progressing. I’m not learning. I'm damned. 

What am I supposed to do? What will help? I'm trying to go back to before I was a monster. Remember before I was bad… Have I always been this way? Does it go all the way back? I remember happy times… but I feel I've always been bad, like a sinner, or maybe just damned… or damaged. 

Madison said something that terrified me last night. She said Heavenly Father didn't love her. Why does my 3 year old feel that way? Have I taught her to feel that way? Have I taught the exact opposite of what God wants me to teach her? Words cannot express the failure I feel in my heart and soul. It is just black. Not even evil… just void of anything good or pure. And I long so badly for peace, for comfort, to feel as if I've done an okay job. 

I don't expect to be perfect in this life. I DON'T. But I expect to do my job, and do it well. And I'm not doing that. I want to do that. I envision it. I plan. I have all the right intentions, but I never get there. Okay now… So I think I'm very nearly out of words… or too exhausted to continue this right now. So what to do? Show this to Chris? E-mail it to my bishop? Send it to a friend who shares my disease? I don't know what the freaking hell to do. But just simply writing it, acknowledging it has made me feel a tiny bit better… and worse at the same time. Because there's hope that comes with that tiny bit better. Then I realize it's a vain hope, because I will never overcome my depression. I think it will haunt me until I become completely paralyzed by it all.

So dramatic much? YES! I am.  But that's honestly how I was feeling last night. After I wrote all that out I chugged about 6-8oz of ASEA. I went and laid down for a bit. I got up this morning, gloomy, and got Taylor dressed. I laid on the couch... woke up to get Madison breakfast and turn on the Lion King for her, and fell back asleep. Doing my usual lazy mom thing, but I gave that to myself this morning. I don't feel guilty for it today because heck, I was awake until 6AM! I have to give myself some allowance, because I know I'm not perfect. That was my break for today (plus my facebook games... I'm saving pinterest for after I'm done cleaning my room.)

I did print out that journal entry or whatever the heck it is and show it to Chris so that he knows how bad off I've been. He told me he wasn't clueless to how I was doing. I know he wasn't but I don't think he realizes how bad it gets inside my head. How can he? I'll share bits and pieces with him, but never the whole truth. At least not usually. But writing that all out and sharing it with someone helped me to feel tons better.  Just getting it OUT of my head helped I think. Putting it in writing helped to quiet the mean people in my head who never leave me alone. (Seriously, there aren't people in my head and I don't hear voices.  I'm talking about talking to myself in my head... not outloud, cause that's crazy.  I'm crazy, but not that crazy.) I also drank a ton of ASEA this morning, so my brain is working like it should and letting me be in control instead of it controlling me. Sounds strange, maybe ridiculous, but someone somewhere must understand what that means. 

I'm excited for this evening, for the motivation I have right now to get things done. It's keeping that excitement that is the key to pulling myself out of this funk. I have to make the cleaning an indulgence. Get me a Dr. P, put on 'My Fair Lady' or 'Say Anything', and then get to organizing my crap. 

Okay, so massive post. I'm done now. Just want to put down for future reference 3 things about my depression I realized last night.

1. Being honest with myself and others about what's in my head helps me to get over it.
2. Writing out what all those voices are saying helps to quiet them down, and helps me sleep better.
3. ASEA really does help. It really does work. Every single time I've quit drinking it in the past year and a half I have relapsed back into my depression, and I think each time, I drop very low before I realize I haven't been doing what I should. 

I highlighted those because I want to remember them, so the next time I start to relapse, maybe I can catch it before I'm in too deep. At least today I'm hopeful. And that's a huge blessing.