Your intuition will tell you when you should help others, and when to let others help themselves.
Keep in mind that sometimes we enable people or prolong their life lessons when we actually think we’re helping them, so using your intuition to discern when to help is key.
I don’t want to say it but I feel like I need to say it because even though I don’t want to say it I don’t care if it offends people and I do care if just one person reads it and feels a little better because of it.
So, I’m going to tell the self-judgmental demon on my shoulder to kick rocks for a minute and just go on with it… I clicked “Write.”
I don’t care if people don’t get it.
I don’t care if people have all the advice and well wishes.
I don’t care if people care.
I’m tired.
I want to go HOME – not a home here – HOME.
This is depression.
I tried to overcome it with my ways, like with this picture. Walking outside. Focusing on the boy’s writing skills. These animals. This music I was working on. The papers I was reading. The proofing I was doing for another article for another site…
But this is depression. It doesn’t care.
It won today. It is still winning.
My chest is heavy. I feel like I can’t breathe. Every breath I take is literally a huge effort right now, in this moment, like purposeful deep breathing but it’s like…well, not a choice.
I am MAKING MYSELF BREATHE.
This is depression.
Seeing/watching my son makes me feel guilty and selfish for ever bringing a child into this world, and no – I don’t want to leave the house.
This is depression.
I care but I don’t care. I want to care more about some things and not care at all about some things I shouldn’t care about.
That one is normal for most of us on most days, lol, but it’s also heightened by depression.
I love myself enough to live but I hate myself enough to think about dying even though I tell my brain to STOP THINKING ABOUT DYING.
This is depression.
I’m tired of trying and getting nowhere and being told not to give up. It’s been 30 years of this same cycle in my brain. I want to give up. I want off this ride, despite what I have to live for.
This is depression. I know many don’t understand this. But it’s true – it is depression.
I know that people love me but I don’t want to talk and I don’t want to see anyone. I can not physically move from my desk right now and I’d really rather be in bed. It’s not you. It’s me.
This is depression.
I don’t need sympathy – or want it. I don’t want the attention drawn to me, I want it drawn to the stigma and the thing – the depression. So, I am terrified to post things about depression but here we are, because I don’t care enough about anything right now to care if the trolls come.
This is depression.
Why? Where does it come from? Is it the (menopausal) hormones? Is it grief? Is it my chronic MDD? Is it the world? Is it the war? Is it the financial bullshit of the money for the few and near poverty for most of the rest of the people? Is it being afraid of cancer? Is being afraid of disappointing anyone?
I don’t know.
It’s all of those things and none of those things.
Why doesn’t the nature and the sun and the water and the walk and the kiddo cuddles and the writing and the music and the deep breathing and the tools – all of the tools I have to help me – seem to be working today?
I don’t know. But I AM trying. I messaged my therapist. She said nothing useful which is why I fired her in the first place. But I made the effort, or so I tell myself.
I put two feet on the ground this morning. Earlier than usual, even. I put two bare feet on the ground outside, even though it was wet. I ate breakfast, for once. I took the supplements and the meds. I told my people I loved them – well, most of them anyway… I even drove to the corner store for milk. UNHEARD OF for me to do that for just one thing…I’ll suffer and wait til I know it’s not going to be full of people and get a lot of things before I’ll brave running into four people to get one stupid thing.
And yet? I still feel like the scum of the earth, inside…despite knowing I’m not.
Anyway, the point is this – I’m not really ok in this particular now. And if you’re not ok? That’s ok. We can be not ok together. It’s valid, even if we feel guilty for some of it.
It’s not about feeling sorry for yourself. It’s not about you not trying hard enough. YOU ARE NOT LAZY. YOU ARE NOT USELESS. YOU ARE A WONDERFUL PARENT. YOU ARE A BEAUTIFUL HUMAN.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
And it’s OK. 
PS: Thank you to my friends who do understand, and for the random ways you’ve helped me focus or cheered me up, even if you didn’t/don’t realize you did. I will be ok. And if you’re reading this, and you just feel maybe a little heard or understood and you’re breathing deep just to get the breath in you, maybe you will feel ok again soon, too.
Be patient with yourself.
Be patient with others.
Help is here.
1-800-950-NAMI (6264)
1-800-273-8255
I can’t sleep, so…here are some trees. #ilovetrees
Also, two things are heavy on my mind tonight, both I feel like sharing because two other friends have shared these same thoughts in the past day:
Anyway, just some “unpopular opinions” that I have been arguing with myself about for a little while now.
Do good. Be kind. Be compassionate. And remember, all of those things are verbs, not just words. You’re not perfect either, so give others a break – especially when they’re already down. Try offering a hand to lift them up instead of a foot to the side while they’re down that makes them not WANT to get up. People need help, not hate. One day, you’ll need help, too. Love y’all. 🙏
In nature frozen green things are beautiful and interesting, yet ice and the color green are associated most often in the human mind with unkind and ugly things like envious, bitter, hurtful and hateful hearts. Sad, yes? I’ll stick to nature, thank you very much. 💚❤️
…until you have actually and fully been there.
Until you have actually walked this road in a way that leaves the soles of your shoes worn out and developing holes, and your feet blistered and bleeding twice as much as your heart pumps through you and until you have not only seen but had no choice but to actively participate in the sights and scenes DAILY, because there literally was no one else, for so long that you feel like you’re in a Stephen King novel, no – you will never know what it’s really like.
How it can wear you so thin that it nearly destroys you, the way water seems to work like acid and melts cheap toilet paper.
How it can tear you down to a level that you, as compassionate and kind a person you are or try to be, think, “the next time someone tells me I should smile more, or I should look on the bright side (which is what? That eventually she’ll die and I won’t have to do this anymore?) I’m going to punch them in the face.”
How you start avoiding people because you’re sick of their hypocritical judgments and comparisons, OR the way they pretend to understand when you know good and well they have no clue so you just stop talking about it and pretend it’s easy and everything is fine…
100%. Until you’ve done it, you’ll never understand completely what it’s like. I shared a lot of our journey. Even then it was only a fraction and what I did share was picked apart by completely irrelevant, inexperienced people. But I will keep sharing this until we have real reform and raise the standard of care for caregivers and their loved ones with dementia. (Thank you, Martina.)
When my mom died, it broke me. It wasn’t the grief that broke me, it was the RELIEF that broke me. Because I had no idea what to do with it. And I felt guilty for feeling it in the first place.
Finally being able to breathe and stop and rest after SO LONG of being a full time care giver going between two homes and three people (wait, four – but I never really thought of myself, lol) and dealing with doctors and being sick myself…?
THAT almost killed me.
I’m not exaggerating or trying to be dramatic or draw attention, which is what people always love to say when you share thoughts like this (which reallllly doesn’t help so just shut up because that kind of thing can drive someone over an edge you will never understand when they’re grieving loss after caregiving).
I just finished writing a whole chapter about this. Maybe I’ll share it via my blog… For now, here’s the thing I want you to know and remember:
If you’re in a situation like this or are grieving after a situation like this, know that you’re not alone. Know that there ARE those who see you and feel you because they’re there, too, or they’ve been there before.
I pray not one of you ever has to go through it (or go through it again).
If you are forced to go through it, I pray you get the resources you need (financially and otherwise) sooner than a month before your loved one dies because the only thing that finally saves the day is hospice.
I pray if you do face this situation, you have less people than more coming at you with what you need to do and how you need to act but NEVER actually doing anything to help you do what they think you should do and regularly acting the same way you’re acting despite not being in your shoes and instead having everything they could ever want or need.
And I pray that if you ever find yourself in those shoes, you give yourself grace and you forgive yourself daily, before the day begins, for the fact that you’re never going to be perfect. You’re not going to get it right and keep your cool and manage your emotions well EVERY DAY. You’re just not. Period. So accept it and be gentle with yourself and just keep doing the best that you can. You’ve got this. You really do. You don’t think you do or feel that you do, BUT YOU DO. 🙏💜🙏
And if you’ve never been there at this level and never have to be? I pray you don’t take that privilege for granted. Because you ARE privileged.
💜💙💜
catacosmosis 