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.

Gratitude

You're getting an After-Thanksgiving-I-didn't-post-Wednesday-making-up-for-it-now sorta post today.

Gratitude. It's part of a healthy lifestyle. I had 19 people at my house yesterday, and, though I love them, let's start there.

I'm glad they're not still here. :) Imagine the food consumption, the mess. No, yesterday was good. lol

I snuggled with my daughters this morning before getting out of bed and having cinnamon rolls. Yep, another gratitude moment.

I'm really glad my husband made the turkey yesterday. It was PERFECT.

A writer friend recently asked, as part of a contest, where/what would you be if you could have anything or be anything you wanted? I pondered this, probably more than I should, until I realized I'm LIVING it already.

I'm not saying my life is perfect. But perfect is boring. Challenge is growth and, please don't take this as an open invitation for challenges, but I know their value.

This is actually what I mean:

I wanted to be a schoolteacher for years. That was my goal, until I discovered writing. I'd always loved to write, but didn't think I could actually do anything with it--until I wrote my first book in high school.

My goals changed. I wanted to raise children and write books.

Then I got married. And we struggled. A lot. For a long time. When my twins were babies, I tried to get a job. Didn't work. I tried working at home. Didn't work. We moved from OK to UT in that time, and when my daughter was a baby I got an opportunity to work for my brother's new company. At home. In my jammies. It was a good job financially but, ultimately soul-sucking (at least for my creativity). So I tried day care. Fun and rewarding in its way; hard and challenging too. But between that and my own family, it left me almost no time to write. At least if I wanted to sleep. Ever.

Something had to give. After the first book came out in 2010, I struggled with time to write and money to live. We never seemed to be able to find the balance. In July, we visited OK again and chose to move back here.

Now, after so much (much of which I have not gone into here), I have a home for my family. I'm writing. I have time with my kids. And my husband. It's an amazing place to be in. That's what I've wanted since I was 14. Sure, there's room for growth and improvement. Furniture, at the moment, would be a great improvement.

But that's the fun of it. I wouldn't want to have everything I wanted right now. Where would the growth be then? ;)

You Should See the Other Guy!

I had such plans for Monday. I was all set to wash all the girls' clothes and get in and pack up their room, leaving out ONLY the essentials for the next two weeks.

Then I didn't have to work, so I slept in.

Then the kids got up and wanted to go play.

Then I had a lady coming to look at/take my computer desk.

I broke down and let my 10 yr old daughter go out to play, since she'd asked me about a dozen times that morning. The other kids I assigned various chores while I cleaned off the desk and thought about doing some laundry.

Then I heard people on the stairs. Trust me, where I live, you can hear people come up your stairs to the front door. Knock, knock. I thought I heard sobbing.

I opened the door. Supported by a friend so young she only comes up to her chest, was my daughter. She was crying, and no wonder. She had a large gash in her forehead about an inch above her left eye, and blood seeping down her face. She'd already gotten blood on her pants and shirt. She was hysterical.

Fortunately, I'm not a panicky type of person. I tend to deal with what's going on and react later. It happened when I pulled a dog out of the drainage canal in Phoenix. It was the same when I was robbed at gunpoint. It was the same Monday.

I took her inside, yelled for my husband (still in bed--his day off). Had her sit on the couch. Grabbed some baby wipes to wipe off her face so I could see the damage for myself. Hubby comes out, and by then I was able to relay to him what my daughter said happened to her.

"She got hit in the head with a golf club."

There's something you don't say every day.

The cut was not long, but was deep and would require stitches. My daughter had calmed down enough that she could speak coherently, and as my hubby got dressed I got her ready to take down to the ER. Then I had a thought. Maybe the Dr could just do it in his office? So I called. Yes, he can. Great. I just knocked our $125 ER visit copay down to a $20 office visit copay. Looking back, that was incredibly logical and detached to even have that thought. Weird.

We took her down together, leaving the other kids at home with the 14 yr old in charge. Usually we leave a phone, but didn't. On the way to the Dr's office, we took pics of her wound with our phones and let her call her big sister--who had survived her own share of head wounds and could commiserate.

When the Dr saw my husband, he called us back immediately (particularly after we told him why we were there) and put us in a room. I think he didn't want my daughter scaring the other patients. It is a pediatric practice, after all. It took some time to get it all taken care of, but my little girl was a champ through the whole thing.

Then my dear hubby said, "I'm just glad he didn't hit her an inch lower and slightly to the left."

Her eye. A fraction of a difference in what happened, and she'd have lost her eye.

I glared at him a little. "Gee, thanks." That lovely thought hadn't even occurred to me. Other would hit me later.

Had the hit been any harder, she could have cracked her skull. The blow could have killed her (though likely not by a 10 yr old boy).

She was just playing outside. They weren't even fighting; they were getting along. Playing golf. She'd hit the ball the farthest, and he wanted to match her hit, so he swung hard--and she leaned in for a better view at just the wrong moment. Wham.

Four stitches and hours later, she's okay. Her head is tender, especially now that all the lidocain has worn off, so I gave her some Tylenol and sent her to bed. It's her 2nd dose. She has shown absolutely no ill effects from her ordeal, other than some lingering pain. She never lost consciousness; she never got dizzy or showed any kind of impairment.

(But, of course, everyone has a story of someone who was perfectly fine just after an accident and dropped dead a few days later. And of course I'm thinking about that, and watching her, and not looking forward to a great deal of sleep.)

The thing is, it was an accident. I KNOW it was an accident, and I'm not angry, really. But I'm having a hard time processing this. And it's really bothering me. I just want to hold her, and hold her, and hold her. I'm so grateful she's okay, but I'm still kind of tense and freaked out. It's taking me a long time to come down from everything that happened.

She is going to have a sweet scar, though. It probably won't show much in a year or two, but for a while it will look really cool. And, if it ever bothers her, she can just grow her bangs out again.

Motherhood

My brother sent me an email yesterday. He's speaking about mothers and motherhood in church for Mother's Day, and wants to know the good side of being a mother.

I haven't answered him, yet.

It's not that I don't know what the good things about being a mother are, it's just that I struggle to express them properly.

This is what he wants: Can you each email me with a description of the benefits of
motherhood? What are the good things you, personally, have enjoyed
from being a mom?

His goal is to get his mom, grandma and sister (me) to weigh in on this, so he has a multi-generational picture to share with the congregation.

I feel a responsibility to show motherhood in it's proper light, but he only wants the good stuff (kidding, lol). How do I properly portray how I've always wanted to be a mommy, but how I didn't want to have as many kids as my mom because she never seemed to have time for us all? And then, how it ended up not mattering anyway because God has his own ideas about things like that. :)

What about how it feels to feel the first flutterings of life inside you? Or the bond that forms when you hold your child close, whether you can nurse them or not? Or the amazing feeling of giving birth (or at least the aftermath), when they put that squalling, wriggly baby on your belly and you've never seen anything so beautiful in your entire life (even though it's a gooey mess lol)? Or the heart-stopping moments after they take the baby out and before you hear his or her first sounds?

How about the ways you find to relate to each child individually, because they are each so unique? And yet, you still subject them to the same house rules and guidelines, because everyone has to learn to get along in this world.

Sigh. I'd better get started. Mother's Day is only 2 Sundays away.

I finally got back

Last week sort of vanished from my world. Not entirely, I mean, I remember snatches, but really most of it is a blur. That can happen when your child has surgery, even minor surgery.

We've had our share. When Jeffrey was 10 months old he had the abdominal surgery that saved his life. (for years he said it saved his "wife" lol) He doesn't have an appendix, but otherwise he made a full recovery.

In October of 2006, I had my nose surgery. In Feb of 2007, on Valentine's Day, my twins had their tonsils and adenoids taken out. The next month, it was their sister's turn. After that, the youngest had her turn. Brandon is the only one who hasn't been under the knife.

Daniel took a nasty fall out of his top bunk around Thanksgiving 2006. Aside from the concussion, the blackout and all that great stuff, he also mashed the cartilage inside his nose. They tried to fix it the same time they did his tonsils, but he freaked out post-op so they had to take all the packing out of his nose and the fix didn't take. We knew we'd have to get him in again to get it fixed, but, like everyone else, our finances kinda tanked.

Well, we finally did it. My mom pushed a little to get us to get him in while she was externing with the surgeon's office. Financially we should have put it off a little while longer, but Daniel really needed the procedure. The poor kid couldn't breathe out his nose, which leads to all other kinds of problems. And it had been going on for almost three years. Yeah, I'm a great mom aren't I?

He had the surgery Mon Feb 15th. Gah. The kids had the day off, of course, but I didn't. So last week I took care of Daniel, slept in the living room with him, and still did all the regular mom and work stuff I always do. That's the mom's job. It's what we do.

But, it's kind of exhausting. Tuesday night, he freaked out and pulled out his packing. Wednesday the doctor made a special trip into the office to help us out. By Friday, he was feeling pretty good. No more medicine. He was talking and acting as normal as possible with a bandage across his nose.

Oh, and Thursday night I hosted an author's meeting in my home. Yeah, I know. But it went really well.

Friday I pretty much crashed. Hung out in my jammies until mid-afternoon. Even taking the kids to school that way. Good thing I didn't have to get out of the car. I literally got nothing done. The kids ate leftovers from the fridge for dinner and I slept nearly all night long, but still on the couch.

Things are pretty much back to normal today. Daniel went back to school. His nose is no longer leaking ridiculously. I slept in my own bed last night, finally. And it feels pretty good. In fact, I think I'll head back there when I'm done here.

But I wanted to leave you with one thing. Thursday night, as we bedded down for the night, Daniel in the recliner (that broke Saturday--timing) and me on the couch, he said one simple sentence that made my mommy heart swell.

"Mommy, thank you for taking care of me after surgery."

Anytime, kiddo. Anytime.

Today, I'm grateful

I love my kids. I really do. But what's more, I like my kids. I appreciate my kids. They're spectacular people. For one, they put up with me. I'm not always the easiest person to get along with. (throw a little appreciation for the hubby in there too) But there's more to it than that.

I have somehow found myself in the middle of raising 5 polite, caring, compassionate human beings. The other day, my 12 yr old spoke of the feelings of others. He was telling me about one of his really good days--playing in the rain at the curb during a summer storm--and mentioned the part where an ambulance drove by. I know, like most males, he likes the large machines--trucks, trains, emergency vehicles that make noises--so I said, "That just would have made it better for you, wouldn't it?" to which he replied, "Maybe, but not so good for the people who needed the ambulance." My heart melted. I'm so easy. Compassion. What a kid.

My second son brought me his report card yesterday. We'd barely hit the road after picking them up from school when he announced his D in independent reading was because he failed to turn in his reading log for December. I'm actually very okay with that. For several reasons, I object to a school system "grading" a child on how much they read. I know he reads, I know he comprehends--I'm not worried about the grade. But that one thing brought low his entire reading grade, and his writing grade because they're connected. The rest of his report card was A's and B's. He gets Honors in citizenship. This is not the kid we worry about in school. But he's going over the report card with me and talking about how he can do better next time. Those C's are NOT okay with him. What a guy. This is the one who's wanted to be a doctor for the last 6 yrs.

I'm a very lucky mom, and I know it. In the interest of blog length, I'm not going to single out each child--but I know I've got good ones. It's been a rough week emotionally, especially on my Mother heart. My husband's friend lost his wife. I grieve for their 9 yr old daughter. A member of my niece's extended family made a heartbreaking choice two days ago, one that I know can't have been easy for her, but still makes me ache with sadness for the losses that resulted. This is the time where I squeeze my kids a little tighter, where I wax nostalgic about their babyhood gone by, and where I bask in gratitude for the people they are becoming.

Now back to work. :)