What "The Struggle" Looks Like... with Depression

            For the sake of authenticity, this post is a one-shot. That means it was drafted and posted with very little review or editing.

            Monday came this week with great ado: This is the day of the Total Solar Eclipse. There was much fanfare and many social media updates with photos of the sun varying in quality.

            I awoke with my daughter, ready to face the day and accomplish a set list of tasks. My intention was to do laundry, work out, get homework done, and clean up my room at least a little. So, I began my day slowly, as tends to happen when I don’t have school or actual requirements for a day.

            Things began well. I put my daughter on the toilet, dressed her (in big-girl panties!), gave her breakfast, dressed myself and prepared for the gym, and drank my morning tea. I stopped to visit my friend on my way to the gym. It was a good time and I felt good about how the day was going. I wasn’t even upset about missing the eclipse, as there’s another one in the United States in 2024. I’ll drive to Texas to see it, even. It doesn’t bother me.

            I got to the gym and they told me that because I haven’t been a member with Planet Fitness for 90 days yet, I can’t change my home gym, and because I can’t change my home gym, I can’t work out at the Tacoma location again unless I pay a $5 franchise fee. Well, that’s just asinine, so I told them to suck it by saying, “Thanks anyway,” and walking away.

            Coming home, I thought I might go for a run while Persephone slept. She had yet to go down, so we had some lunch and I even cooked my breakfast to eat for the next two days. My plan was to get Persephone down after lunch and get busy working out, but then I heard from my friend. I thought he’d be able to work out with me, so I postponed working out and instead made progress on an essay for my communications class.

            My friend’s car broke down, so he couldn’t take me to my home gym for us to work out, so I finished my homework. Then, miraculously, my grandpa gave up the TV and I was able to start Sweatin’ to the Oldies 2 by Richard Simmons. The video started and I don’t like it nearly as well as I like the first Sweatin’ to the Oldies “aerobic concert” of his, but I was determined to get through it just to have done an exercise.

            Alas, I was interrupted by my daughter, waking from her nap with a load of poop in her pull-up.

            Inexplicably, all good humor was gone from me. Without shouting or even saying a word to my daughter, I gathered the materials to change her and went about it. I said very little except to direct her to lie down for cleaning and then get up when I was done. I allowed her to get her big-girl panties from our room and wear them, despite having had a poopy accident, because she’s done very well these past couple of days with using the toilet.

            Suddenly, I was filled with sadness. Depression, even, and I asked Persephone for a hug to help me feel better. She was happy to oblige.

            When I say that my depression is a daily struggle, this is what I mean. None of these events was enough to put me in a mood. Nothing that happened on this day could possibly have been enough of a trigger to set me into a depressive spiral, and yet here I am, wondering why I feel like garbage.

            To itemize my day like this makes me sound like I’m whining about choices I made. That isn’t the case. Things are outlined in this post because I felt it relevant to show that it doesn’t matter how well a day is going (there has been very little wrong with today), depression can come at any time and hit as hard as it wants to.

            Everyone goes through ups and downs. Some days are all up; some days are all down; some days are a roller coaster of emotions. Everyone experiences this. Some people might think that what I went through today is nothing short of normal, but here’s the way I see it: Normal would be the ability to recognize that the day has really been quite productive and refrain from the crippling, all-consuming depression that enveloped me for some time, this afternoon. Even as I write this, I feel it lingering. Every keystroke is a hand, grasping upwards to avoid falling into the bottomless pit of sorrow and meaninglessness.

            Thanks for reading.

Progress and Moving Forward with Depression

If you check my social media accounts, you'll see positive posts about a mother who loves her family, with nothing to indicate the true nature of the emotional roller coaster I've been riding over the past few weeks. I say, "Things get better every day." And I mean it. Because no matter how upset I am, no matter what I bitch about to my friends in private conversations, the fact remains that I am incredibly grateful for what I have. Yes, I want better. I've always wanted better. But the truth is, what I have is reasonable, for now.

There isn't a lot to get me down, anymore. I'm treating my depression daily. I socialize daily with multiple people--family, friends, acquaintances--and I am getting accustomed to exercising every day, though the means vary while I determine how I can work out with friends (two birds, one stone--socializing and exercising!) who have different schedules. I've really accomplished a great deal in a short amount of time. My accomplishments make me feel like I'm actually moving forward in my life and they give me confidence, knowing that I am in charge of all of my finances. I feel secure in the knowledge of what my bills are, how much they cost each month, and I am confident in my ability to manage future bills that come under my name.

Yet, the depression comes back. I suppose that is why they call it a disorder. I truly believe there is a chemical imbalance in my brain, but I've never been scanned or tested that way. Some of my friends on Facebook post a lot about their depression and how it effects them, how it prevents them from doing things. Now I know that most of that is bullshit, though I certainly bought into it over the past few years. However, that doesn't mean depression isn't persistent.

One friend, in particular, told me that when he was the most active, exercising regularly, he still wanted to kill himself. He still felt depressed and deeply unhappy. Some of the things he posts indicate that he uses the depression as a crutch, trying to make people believe that he cannot do things based on the depression he feels. From where I now sit, I know that is not true. He can accomplish things as long as he has support. Sure, the depression could come back. After all, I had a great day yesterday, really, and still the depression hit me with full force after everyone had gone to bed. While I waited for my bedsheets to dry, I found myself crying while folding clothes and text-bombing my gossip buddy about my feelings. Thankfully, he was there to respond, though he was at work.

My support is not exactly what I thought it should be. I'm staying with my grandparents, which is simultaneously supportive and restrictive. I have only so much time I can spend online each day; my grandmother insists that I accomplish tasks and prioritize according to what she thinks is most important; I can't just drive out to see my friends at any given time I feel like because, while I love my electric car and it does what I need, it does not get the range to keep going out all day and it doesn't charge as quickly as someone can fill a fuel tank.

However, I am free to leave almost at whim. I am free to go to the gym on base and work out, take care of my errands and important tasks independently, and use the Internet to update my blog and social media, albeit briefly each day. My family surrounds me and I have my daughter. She is the most important person in the world. She is the most important thing in the universe to me. She deserves the world; she deserves better than anything I've experienced. She deserves the kind of love I've only dreamed about due to lack of examples in my life. And she loves me. Nothing is better than her love, her hugs, cuddles, and kisses, and her sweet voice as she says, "Me wuv you, Mommy."

Finding the words for my blog this month has been difficult. A large part of me wants to sit here and bitch, like this is my private journal, where I write all of my nasty, private thoughts down so that I don't spew them at those undeserving. But the fact is, what I am working on now is how to better my own behavior and language. How can I stay on task and keep up on what I know I need to accomplish on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis?

Lists. Naturally, my grandmother recommends that I make a list for everything and have an alarm for the rest, since I have alarms set to keep me on track with Persephone's potty schedule. It works. She's had dry pull-ups for about three consecutive days with only poop accidents. She has yet to poop in the potty, but I know it will come. She makes me so proud every day, the way she sings songs we've been singing to her, she asks to go to the park, she eagerly brushes her teeth and pitter-patters off to bed each night (as long as she's not overly tired, in which case she fights tooth and nail like any small child). So far, making lists and setting alarms has worked for me. So, I'll continue with them and see how I can be as efficient as possible (after all, no one wants to hear a phone alarm go off every 5 minutes).