When Depression Flares

For those of you who don’t know I was diagnosed with depression a few years ago and have since been on medications to control it. My medicine works wonderfully most of the time. However there are still times when I have a bad day. A bad day for me can mean not wanting to get out of the bed or worse.

Back when I first discovered I actually had depression I was at the lowest point in my life. Some of you were right there with me through most of it. My marriage had falling apart completely and I was facing a future of uncertainty. I couldn’t make a marriage work along with a lifetime of other “issues” that my mind created for me. I was ready to simply end it all. In fact, I had gone so far as to research how to do it and made all the arrangements I thought I needed to. It was in those seconds right before that I remember thinking how disappointed my father would have been in me.

How he had taught to “go back in there.” That is what he said to me once when I was having a issue at work and called him telling him I was going to quit. He told me that I was an adult and to put on my big girl panties and go back in there. Running away didn’t solve anything. I did as I was told and managed to resolve the issue. By giving up I wasn’t honoring him or myself. How could I let someone else have such control over my life that without them I would give up?

I checked into a clinic the next day and have been getting help ever since. The thin about depression is that it doesn’t care about your background or how strong you are. When it decides to take you down it does. Most days I am okay. I take my meds and I go to therapy each week. That helps, having someone to talk to who is not directly involved and doesn’t care if I sound crazy while attempting to express my feelings.

With the kids it can be difficult because at first, I didn’t want my depression to affect them. I learned that it affected them regardless and now when it gets bad I tell them I am having a bad day. Last week though was a bad week altogether. I had the hardest time just getting out of the bed and then when I did combing my hair become a mountain I couldn’t climb. Nothing gets done when it flares like that. I do make a point of getting an extra therapy session or talking with my doctor. One thing I have learned is to allow myself to have a bad day or two. It happens and it is okay to take a day off even if I hadn’t planned it. I have OCD as well and I will tell you know that depression and OCD do NOT play nice together.

Those two conditions make my daily life h**l at times. The driving need I have to do certain things when I emotionally and mentally can’t bring myself to do them is enough to make me want to pull my hair out. Those are times I feel the worst. All of this affects the blog as well. There are times when days will go by before I post an article. Trust me when I tell you that it is driving me insane to know that when I have a plan in place. That is something my therapist is helping me with. Learning to be okay when things don’t go as planned. Things like that can actually be a trigger for my depression.

I never thought I would end up with depression. I was a happy child and for most of my adulthood I was happy. I was (and still am most of the time) a glass half full kind of person. I always saw the good or the potential in everyone and everything. When things went wrong in my marriage I began to doubt everything I had every done or said. How could I get it so wrong? Maybe if I had been better in some way. What I have learned is that my marriage wasn’t a healthy one from the beginning. What I thought was true love was a man controlling everything I did. I worked in Human Resources and Accounting before I met him. After I quit my job and stayed home to care for him and his children. Those children have been the joy of my life.

When I began to stretch my wings again and find my own voice he began coming home less. I know now that he wasn’t faithful from the first moment we met. I thought he was but I was a fool. His indiscretions is what brought my twins into my life. Their biological mother didn’t want a reminder of her affair. Still I stayed through all of that because we loved each other. When all of the lies came to light I felt broken. I stayed with a man who not only cheated but brought home his children by another woman. I adopted and loved those children. What kidn of an idiot does things like that?

I was at the bottom. Now I am somewhere in the middle and okay with that. I love all of my children and they are mine. I am the woman who cares for them, feeds them, clothes them, holds them when they are sick. I am the woman they call Mommy. Yes, they came into my life in the most unconventional way but they need me as much as I need them. We are a family as strange as it may seem. My ex rarely,if ever, sees them. When he does my depression tends to flare up because old hurts and insecurities come to the surface.

I am as far from perfect as I can be and for once in my life I am okay with that. I have days where I don’t comb my hair because it hurts to much to manage that. That is okay. The next day could be better and stay better for weeks or months to come. I am learning to take each and every moment as it comes.