Leave Me Alone. I'm Fine.

Today was one of those days. I was all set to write about my next two relatives and it just wasn't happening. The day felt upside down from the moment I woke up. I hurt everywhere, physically and emotionally. That is just the truth of it.

After staring at the keyboard and photographs for hours, I decided to just be honest instead of trying to make something happen that wasn't going to happen. So, I'm writing tonight about my depression and what it looked like today.

This is not going to be interesting or matter to most people and that's ok. I promised myself I would write every day this year for me. It was something I needed to do to move forward from my sisters death. So, I'm doing it. Some days, fairly well, other days, not so much. Either way, I'm pressing on and that's huge for me. 

Today wasn't one of those scary dark days. Depression isn't always unbearable. Sometimes, like today, it's just flat out annoying. It trips you as you try to walk a straight line. I had trouble concentrating and trying to complete the simplest task seemed impossible. But I kept moving forward. It might have been at a snail's pace but I'll take that over being stuck in one spot any day.

The last week or so I've been facing some issues I don't really feel like facing. That is an open invitation for depression. For me, anyway. Anytime I try to outrun or stuff down pain, it eventually catches me and usually when I least expect it. I tell myself every time this happens, just face it, it's so much easier in the long run. I should probably listen to myself one of these days.

Anyway, I'm reminding myself once again, there is no magic formula for grief. There is also no expiration date. Grief is such a strange thing because it brings up things you didn't even know were there or maybe you did but you chose to ignore them. I don't know. I'm not a shrink. I just play one in my head.

I do know this much. As soon as I start cocooning and telling myself I don't need anyone, I just want to be left alone and other such lies, that's my que to move in another direction. I am choosing to stay open no matter how much I want to close down. I am choosing to keep hoping and trusting in people, well, some people, no matter how much I just want to live alone in a barn with my cow. I'm choosing. 

Funny story, my major when I went back to school was psychology with a minor in sociology. I wanted to be a counselor and save the world. Then I realized my mother was right, I can't save anybody. I also noticed many of the counselors I knew were messed up. If that's not depressing, I don't know what is. The biggest reason I stepped away from my degree was I knew I would be a terrible counselor. I don't have patience for people like me. I have compassion for hurting people. I don't have compassion for excuses. I would have been the worst kind of counselor. A real Dr. Laura. She's pretty brutal but I tended to agree with her a lot when I was a listener, back in the day. No wait, I would not have been a Dr. Laura. I'm much tougher than that. I would have been a Dr. Bernice! Or a Dr. Sisi or Dr. Ruth. Not the sex therapist. She seemed nice. No, my Aunt Ruth who was also pretty brutal like Bernie. Hey, if you can't take the truth, stay out of the Walter women's kitchens.

Ok, enough. I'll be back at it tomorrow with a few stories about two more of my mother's siblings. Until then, keep choosing. I am.

 

Hang On! Rain is on the way

 Oh my gosh, I'm in such a funk. I really do believe that as I go through more and more boxes of these photos, I have to watch my mental state. On one hand, I'm so grateful to have them and be able to sort and share with the people they should go to. On the other hand. There is always that damn other hand. It's depressing. Absolutely a downer to look at all the wonderful adventures that life held with my parents and sisters in them and have to face the reality that my parents and Kelly are gone. Don't even start me on my aunts, uncles and cousins. I don't handle death well, in case you haven't noticed. 

The truth is, I have struggled with depression just about my entire life. My parents had me in counseling for a year in my teen years because of it. Don't think it helped but that's another story. Then, in my early thirties, I had a bit of a breakdown and went back into counseling for another year. This time, I started medication hoping to find some relief and I did, for awhile. Over the years, I have had my way ups and my way downs but I've carried on. Bob has been an amazing support and I honestly don't think I would have made it through without him. 

Right about now, if my sister Kelly was reading this, my phone would be ringing. Kel would be yelling at me to not put all my business out there for the world to read. What she actually meant by that was don't tell the truth. Keep the perfect Casas family facade going at all costs. But that was never me. We were never perfect. We were just real like every other family on the planet. There were absolutely wonderful things about us that I wouldn't give up for the world. Then there were things that I wish never were. Isn't that just life? Why should we hide from that? Why do we want people to think we're something that we're not? I've never understood that. My honest evaluations of life drove my mother and Kelly bananas. That was never my intent. I just had to be honest in how I saw things even if no one else understood. 

Talk about your reality and your mental well-being or lack thereof. Be honest with people. If they don't want to know the truth they shouldn't ask how you are. Tell them anyway and keep telling them until you find someone who cares and will listen. It's important. You are important.

Anyway, I'm tired of being separated from people. Absolutely over it. I haven't seen my sisters in too long and I'm starting to get edgy about it. I need to see them both sooner than later. The last four months with this broken ankle have left me extremely isolated and introspective. These are two very bad things for someone like me that needs people, adventure and laughter. I've also spent way too much time on Facebook and have watched some of y'all behaving very badly. This has left me even angrier about life in general because I now have to face the fact that some of my friends are as screwed up as I am. Maybe we all need medication and counseling at this point. Just a thought. I know I could use a night out of drinking, singing and dancing, at the least. None of which I do well, by the way. 

Tonight, I ran across the picture below. This is our farm in Oklahoma. It was on fifteen acres with a two acre pond. We loved this home. It was constantly full of people and fun and laughter. There were always parties being planned and it felt exactly like the way my parents raised me. In a house full of life. We lived there a long time and we thought we would always live there, honestly. Then Bob lost his job, my father died, my sister died, a record drought hit and went on forever and I was working seventy plus hours a week just to survive. Life got very complicated. The final blow was the dead fish. 

The year before the drought hit, we had stocked our pond with hundreds of fish from a hatchery. It was so exciting to see them grow and walk down to feed them every evening. We loved our pond and all the fish. Then the record drought hit and went on and on and on. Every day the pond grew smaller and smaller until we could see the fish dying. It was horrendous. We tried saving as many as we could by taking them to neighboring ponds and also putting them in our stock tanks but it was all happening so fast with so many fish that it was simply overwhelming. I can't tell you how many evenings Bob and I would walk the property crying together. It was really awful.

Anyway, when I found the picture of the farm during the drought, it really hit me hard tonight. It's a perfect picture of how my depression feels when it hits me. It can come on suddenly and unexpected and can last way too long. It sucks all the color out of life and leaves me feeling dry and empty. It's overwhelming at times and no matter how much I scramble to try to save the bits of life I can see, it's a losing battle at times. 

I just keep reminding myself, droughts eventually end.