Post
by AimCat » Sat Apr 30, 2011 2:19 am
Marialuv: That's a great name -- or "handle."
It’s funny that you mentioned your mother. My mother is wound pretty tight and is pretty much guaranteed to drive me right up the wall shortly after any conversation between us is initiated. So out of the blue today when I was visiting her, she said that recently she’d realized about herself that she invariably found herself saying, “That’s really irritating,” about a great number of occurances in her life. That saying this to herself had become a habit. (I was awesomely aware enough not to tell her that she also tended to say this out lout a lot, too. Yay, me.) She said she didn’t know if she was really irritated about so many things or if her saying this to herself so often caused her to begin to actually being irritated by many things in her life. (I am staring at her agape by this point.)
So my mom says that she’s made it a goal to break this habit. When she catches herself thinking “That’s so irritating,” she plans to stop and change the thought into a positive one.
I was amazed at this. Just imagine really uptight mom – it irritates her when my children aren’t wearing matching socks – and then imagine her saying this. I’m taking this as yet more evidence that any of us can change any part of our attitudes that we want to, with the help of our God.
Of course, a few hours later, I’m wondering if she was also trying to suggest that I, too, might benefit from embracing her self-improvement plan for myself. I do think it’s a pretty good idea, and I’ll probably try the same thing myself. I’m even so amazed that I’m feeling generous – or un-mean – enough right now to even tell her about it and give her credit.
I’m sorry the people in your life are not supporting you. It sounds like they have quite a few of their own challenges. When I’ve been depressed, my husband has not been the best support. He didn’t know much about depression, and I can’t say that he’s educated himself much about it since then. Each time I’ve become depressed, it seems I become aware of it because he and I are fighting so much. The first time I became seriously depressed, I thought the problem was our marriage. There were problems, but many, many of them just went away once my depression lifted. Nonetheless, unfortunately for me, my husband often falls into that category of people to whom the idea of depression is foreign and who react with disgust or indifference rather than compassion.
My husband has a lot of good points, but helping his spouse cope with depression has not been one of them, historically. I’m hoping this time might be different, but I don’t want to get my hopes up too high, and I’m willing to take this on myself or with other supporters to get back to my better place.
I’m really carrying on now, but you asked how my depression went away. I was in a bad place, either screaming crazy – mostly with my family – or catatonic (at work or with my family.) I was anxious. I called in sick a lot. I was afraid at work – afraid I would hurt someone, hoping for accidents. I was afraid of driving. I couldn’t stand to go to social occasions. I slept a lot. It was terrible. I tried a (really bad) therapist, Al-anon (because the therapist recommended it, Chinese herbs, anything I could, trying to avoid medication which my husband frowns on, (not knowing anything about it).
I think the anti-depressants, once I finally started on them, saved my life. I went off them twice, and both times, the depression returned. I found a better therapist and a new doctor, a naturopath who gave me vitamins and rechecked my thyroid, and last fall, I made it a goal to go off the meds again. And my husband wanted me to also. He said something like, “those meds make you act not like you,” which I thought was a pretty lousy thing to say considering that they made me and kept me sane so that we were still married and I was alive and he certainly wasn’t specific in just what way I wasn’t me.
And after I went off them he didn’t once ask me how I was feeling or how things were going without the meds or suggest that, yes, it was true, I did seem more like myself and he liked me that way, or any of the things I could imagine saying to him. But, as things started to go south, recently, he started in with “you’re just mad.” It never occurred to him to wonder if depression, my old friend, might have anything to do with it.
Okay, that’s my snarkyness about my husband for this evening.
So, anyway, meds really helped me get my feet back under me. And I really don’t want to be on them forever. I don’t really believe that the Lord made some people who are really only at their best when they’re taking anti-depressants. I wanted to find some way I could accept and cope with this part of me, in great part as an example to my kids that we can work hard to learn and grow and cope with difficult parts of ourselves without relying on drugs – licit or illicit.
I hope you can have positive, healthy relationships too. Do you have even one that’s a place to start from?
In terms of the storybook wedding, I heard an interview with Emmylou Harris on NPR today. I guess she’s 64 years old now. She mentioned that there is melancholy and wistfulness in the looking back, that she’s facing the realization that many of her dreams didn’t come true. But she also determined she didn’t want to fail to celebrate the good things that did happen to her and the way things did turn out.
There are lots of good things out there, good things for you, especially if you help yourself to them.
Hang in there. Take baby steps.
....or think im "crazy". I'm sooo embarrassed about this problem...and truthfully I don't ever want to get angry again. Does anyone have any advice?
You said your depression went away for 2 years---HOW? Did you also have anxiety as well? How did you get to a better place that you mentioned? 
...try listening to Christian music too--guaranteed to put you in a better mood instantly. "Our God is an awesome God" is a good song--you can check it out on youtube. "Open the eyes of my heart Lord"---another good one.