The Dialogue That Needs to Change

*Disclaimer* These are my thoughts based on my own personal train ride. Yours will, and probably are, different. But that doesn't invalidate mine. This is going to be pretty raw, so if you've a weak stomach, you may want to skip this post.

I am not a victim of depression. I refuse to be labeled with the term victim--because, to me, it means that I am helpless to control my circumstances or my reactions to them. That is simply not true. I was a victim of an armed robbery--to a point. I am not a victim of depression.

I was diagnosed with depression at age 16. Growing up was kind of rough and it affected me deeply, profoundly, in ways that I could not control. My doctors put me on medication and I balanced out a bit. The medication came after the suicide note, the realization that I could not make myself better, and the asking for help.

I was lucky--and I don't deny it. Too many kids don't ask for the help they need because of the negative way depression is characterized in our nation. They either don't recognize what they're going through for what it is, or they are too afraid to voice it aloud because of what people will think of them. Or they fall into the trap of believing that they can just "get better" on their own.

I'm here to tell you that it doesn't happen that way. I've struggled with depression for 23 years. There have been good bouts, long stretches where I'm doing pretty good, and other moments where I have considered blowing my brains out. I'm not exaggerating--rather, I wish I was. In dark moments I imagine the sweet relief that would come from ending it all. In dark moments I think that my loved ones would be better off without me dragging them down. That they don't need me, or that they would be far better off without me.

But I can't talk to anybody about those moments because they're scary. I tried once, to open up to my husband about how those thoughts do creep into my mind. It freaked him out, rightly so, but it confirmed my harbored suspicions that this was not a 'safe' topic that we could discuss. We can talk about our kids, the right and wrong choices we've made, we can over-analyze to death everything else in our lives.

I cannot talk about the Darkness. Darkness is off limits.

And while I understand why, because it *is* frightening to hear someone you love occasionally entertains thoughts of suicide--even for a fleeting instant. We all know that no action comes without first being a thought.

Before you freak out too, let me clarify. My life is beautiful. I love my life. But for me, and I suspect millions like me, Darkness will ALWAYS be there. When things get super challenging, or we face yet another huge life upheaval, Darkness is there, whispering, taunting, urging. It was there when I lost my baby. It was there when I got my first publishing contract--on the heels of foreclosure. It was there for that year and a half we crammed our family of 7 into half of a duplex and I felt like a colossal failure as a wife, mother, and provider. It's there now, looking at my two beat up cars and a future of part time jobs and schooling, near adult children, and not knowing when I can provide better transportation--or if the cars we have will last long enough for me to save the money.

Darkness is there. In all of us, really. It's just got a louder voice in some than in others. Here's the dialogue that needs to change.

People, individuals, those you love, need to know that they have a safe place where they can express even their darkest thoughts without judgment. Without condemnation. Sometimes we just need to get them out. Darkness is less scary when exposed to light.

We need someone to talk to. We need coping skills for when the Darkness speaks. When I'm having a good day, it's easy for me to tell the Darkness to shut up and go away. When I'm having a bad day, the Darkness's whisperings are comforting and difficult to pull away from. It would be great to have a therapist, or a psychologist, to meet with once a week or so and talk it out. But not everyone can afford that, and many insurances don't cover it, or enough of it.

We need to talk about depression. We need to be open about the fact that we can't control the Darkness--it's there, inside of us. All we can control is how we react to the Darkness, and, sometimes, we can't even control that.

I don't talk about my depression much. I don't admit to people that I'm on medication for it. I'm a private person, and I don't feel it's anyone's business. But, again, that's part of the problem. If we always keep it a secret then we risk missing opportunities to help one another.

Denying the Darkness, trying to pretend it doesn't exist, is exhausting. Eventually we just can't run anymore, so people choose to turn and embrace it instead. So many of us are afraid that if we share the deepest parts of ourselves, those we love will turn away. They will leave us. They will prove our darkest fears true.

We aren't freaks. We aren't losers. We can't just pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and soldier on. We are wives, mothers, fathers, husbands, parents, children, doctors, lawyers, writers, artists. We are neighbors, friends, cousins, aunts, uncles, siblings. We are worthy. We have value.

Sometimes we struggle to get out of bed. At all. Sometimes we struggle to go to work. Sometimes we struggle to have a conversation. But we are intrinsically tied to your human experience. We are family. We are part of you. We are you. We.

Being the Fat Girl

 I've been all over the scale, really, but something has been on my mind for a while that I feel like I need to express. So, here goes.

I hit 125 lbs at age 13. I was probably about 5'4", so it definitely wasn't my thinnest but it was hardly overweight. This picture is of me at age 16. I'd hit 5'8" and was pretty sure that was how tall I'd be for good. The scale didn't move from 125, unless it went up to 129--which is pretty much where I hovered, between those two weights. I walked and swam whenever possible and I had a pretty good arm (and muscle definition) from throwing newspapers (paper route) for four years. That was basically my fitness plan. But, hey, I was 16 and knew I was benefiting from a great metabolism. One that I also knew would change, so why not enjoy it why I could?
This picture was taken of me shortly after my wedding. I'd hit 5'9" but had no idea. Still 125. That didn't change until November of that year when I got pregnant. My first trimester was a killer. I could hardly eat anything and by December I had gotten sick with the flu and and ear infection. I lost 10 lbs between my first and second OB appointments. 119 was my weight in December 1996. In January we moved to Oklahoma and I can remember Bryan taking me to the shores of Waurika Lake only to have the wind off the water blow me back. I couldn't stand in one place and had to use him as my wind buffer.

But here's the thing: I never felt thin. My stomach was never flat and my thighs were always bigger than I liked. From the moment I started caring about that stuff those were my problem areas. That's what I didn't like about myself. And nothing anybody else said could change it.
This picture was taken in my second trimester. The whole picture is really cute. It's me, Sissy, and Bryan all lined up showing off our bellies. I had to pull the shirt in so you could even see the baby bump. I was maybe 135 lbs in this picture. Not that I didn't regain the weight I'd lost and then some on my almost-nothing-but-ice-cream diet, but at this time I really wasn't very big. As you can see. Cute, but not very big. ;) This is our glorious Disneyland Vacation. I put this in here because it's a decent picture of me having fun, and it's also a picture taken after I've had all my kids. At the time this was taken I'd had some stress related health issues and lost some weight, so I was probably around 160 lbs. Not bad for 5'9". In fact, it's within the range of healthy for my height.

This picture is closer to 169 lbs. We were in Manhattan and it's one of my favorite pictures of me. As you can see there's more definition to my curves but I still look pretty healthy, right?

This pic on the right (blue shirt) is the first indication that things were starting to go downhill. See, I've never blamed having my kids for my weight gain. Sure, after having kids I was bigger than I wanted to be, but I was still (barely) in the healthy weight ranges for my height. But this is when life took a turn.

This was when we lost our house. I was a mess. In the same month I signed a contract with a publisher for my first book and got a letter in the mail saying we were in foreclosure. There wasn't anything we could do, but we tried. Finally we just had to bow out, pack up our stuff, and move our 5 kids to a 3 bedroom upstairs duplex.

The duplex of Hell. No, my sis Jen is not the duplex of Hell. This is another shot and I remember seeing it and instead of going "Oh, how sweet" I went "my arms are horrible!" The happiest day of her life and I'm all feeling fat and slobbish about my arms. Yes, I know I still looked okay. And everyone is going to look at this picture differently, but this was the start of my fat girl journey.

In that duplex I struggled with horrible feelings of guilt for letting my kids down and having to move them out of their home and making them suffer in that horrible tiny space. So I ate. I ate to mask the hurt. I've always been an emotional eater. This wasn't a discovery I had to make. Only this time I just let go. I stopped worrying about the results. I stopped caring how I'd work those calories off later. I stopped caring about a lot of things.
Except, I also hit my mid 30's. And as we all know, this is about the time that a person's metabolism slows down. So while I was eating, my body was storing. And storing. And storing some more.
 This is me at my heaviest. 235.6 lbs. I can tell you that a lot of things change when you gain weight but I think you know this.

But this is what I experienced. I actually used to get fairly regular complements on my outfit, my shirt, my hair, whatever, by friends and random kind people at church. That well dried up pretty fast the bigger I got. The only person who complemented me was my husband, and even that had changed.

I was so tired. I had no energy to do anything. It was ridiculous. And I was so down about it all. I looked awful and I knew it. I felt awful about it. I knew I had to do something about it. So I tried. Weight Watchers, but the meetings were over an hour away and I didn't feel like I could keep up with the plan. I tried self control, but I'd lose a little and then regain it and then a bit more.

Six months ago I finally just said that was it. I'd had enough. I contacted a friend who had been sharing her and friends' weight loss success stories with me via email (with my permission of course). I knew it was a huge financial commitment but I figured that was part of my penance for losing so much control of myself for so long. I needed to feel the price, feel the sacrifice. I needed for it to hurt a little.

I needed it to have significance.

So far I've lost 67 lbs. I feel so good. My insomnia, something that has plagued me since that first picture of me at 16, has almost completely vanished. Instead of it being a regular nightly issue I actually have to be incredibly stressed out to have trouble sleeping. Like last night, but I digress. And once people started noticing the pounds come off, the complements have started rolling in. Again. And while I don't doubt their sincerity they still make me uncomfortable.
Was I really not pretty at 235 lbs? Or are we just so constrained by societal prejudices that a person can't look "nice" if they're overweight? I can tell you I felt ugly. I felt hideous. I felt unworthy.
And probably that heavy person you pass in the street feels some or all of what I felt. But does that mean they don't look nice? It's hard enough to have a decent view of your own self worth without people around you ignoring you because you're fat and they don't have anything nice to say. Or why-ever they ignore you. Because they do. They ignored me.

Declaration

This post is more for me than any of you reading it. Not that there are a great many of you, but that's cool. Right now I don't need a huge audience. :)

I've spent the last year and a half being really, really lazy. I know I can throw out all those fun excuses like babysitting, having kids at home, spending lots of time in front of the computer. Let's face it: Being an asthmatic writer allergic to most things that grow doesn't exactly make me a prime candidate for physical fitness.

But, see, I went to the doctor a couple weeks ago and got some really disturbing news. Without going into details, here's the thing:

I weigh more now than I ever did while pregnant--and remember I had twins.

I weigh 75 lbs more than I did 20 yrs ago.

I weigh 50 lbs more than I should. Ick.

I'm not a dieter. I watched my mom diet most of my life, and it doesn't really work. This is my plan. I will eat better (not necessarily less because it's not quantity that's my issue) and move more. This is going to take time. It's not one of those commercials where you see this gorgeous woman in a bikini who says she lost 50 lbs in 12 weeks, or whatever. I'm not crash dieting, and I can't suddenly let physical fitness take over my entire schedule, or my life. At this point, I'm not even in charge of what food we have available in the house to eat. And I certainly don't have the money to purchase those meal plans.

This is a slow process. I'm only going to weigh myself when I go to the doctor, so I don't become a slave to the scale. It may be months before I post any kind of progress. I've been doing a lot of sitting and very little moving, so it's going to take some time for my body to get the idea that we're moving more. Again, it's slow going.

But I'm doing it. I'm tired of being tired all the time. I'm tired of being sick all the time. And I know the things that will drastically improve my state of being.

Now I'm committed to doing them. Wish me luck. :)