I do not know when my depression started. I am like the frog in the boiling water. I just continued to live, proud that I was "adaptable". I have discovered my best quality of adapting to every situation could be the culprit that led me to this depression. I was adapting by letting situations roll off my shoulder. Years and years of this, had me depressed and I didn't even know it.
Taking meds for depression for so many years may added to my depression by allowing me to live without emotion. I haven't had my depression meds for 3 days now. I started by taking 3/4 dose in December and monitoring my side effects of brain and body electrical impulses which as I understand are uncomfortable, but not life threatening. I am happy I took my time to wean myself off. I wonder if going off meds can lead to brain damage? This is one reason I am happy with my decision to take as long as I needed.
When I was a very young girl, my mother would go to church with me on Easter. Most Sundays, I walked to my great grandmothers house about 2 blocks away and escorted her to Sunday School. She smelled of coffee she drank from a saucer and never had her teeth in. I will always remember the quietness of her home, she did not believe in television, she was Pentecostal. I remember being a bit frightened in church when my great grandmother, Emma, interrupted sermons with standing and speaking a foreign language. This was called "speaking in tongues" as she so lovingly told me. To this day, I wonder if this was real or just her way of interrupting the sermon because she was as bored as I was.
Getting ready to go to church when my mother was also dressing up, was disaster waiting to happen. She wore hats and dresses that she never wore otherwise. She was often angry at me or dad while getting herself ready. I remember I needed to be very still on those days, not even blinking my eyes, when my mother was putting my hair into my pony tail. Too many times, I was the cause of the disaster by not staying still enough to not provoke anger by making it difficult for her to brush my hair. I dared not say her roughness hurt me, or I may get the back end of the brush on my head. I learned early to adapt, be be the great actress to keep my mom and dad from getting angry. It was scary when the fits of anger turned violent. I remember I would hide and listen to the physical fights my mom and dad were having.
Even though these fights would happen, we usually made our way out of the door and to the church. My mother would come home carrying the hydrangea, always her prize for going to church. The month of May this same thing would happen. Hydrangeas were also given at the church on Mothers days, but only to the special few that "won". The category that bestowed the award unto my mother is "Youngest Mother". She was 14 when she had me. She couldn't be over 18 years old when she happily brought home her winnings.
My mother is still alive. I don't know how or what to do about her upcoming birthday, which is April 9.
April has marked some of the greatest times and some of the worst times. My anniversary is coming up on April 6. This is the weekend my husband and I would be enjoying a weekend full of fishing, laughing, caring, but mostly just being ourselves together. I celebrate the wonderful times we had fishing together and many times we were avoiding the Easter holiday by celebrating our union at the lake. Neither one of us was too fond of Easter. I thought that all was right with the world if we had our yearly trip together. One of us would always remember to bring the bit o honeys to remember our first Easter spent together when I woke up on a brilliant Sunday morning in a tent in the wilderness to bit o honeys under my pillow.
Today, I will continue to see the greatness of my life.
I haven't spoken to my mother since Christmas. I forgive myself for needing this time away. I now know I must survive and the isolation was needed in order to get clarity and advancement of good mental health. I have healed some of the wounds of my past, so for this I am in love with my depression. I am getting closer to forgetting my mothers face that terrible Christmas weekend. The death wish she had for us both (or was it just me) was probably depression. My greatest wish is my mother could find her soul in the depths of despair and climb out of the hole as I am doing. I am no where near the top, but maybe half way up? We will see. There is no measuring stick. I don't know if I can have a healthy relationship with my mother. She is human, has those same human traits as I do. How can I anger her so? Is her anger with herself but placed onto me by some warped coping device? Can I make myself strong enough to be truthful with her? Does she deserve or can she handle the truth? Should I rise up above what she can or can not do and just be with her? How do I let her negative emotions, her berating, her negative judgement, and her needs of being loved and adored by me, without loosing myself? Do I adore her? The answer to that question is no. Do I still have guilt that my parents are older with health problems and are now being shunned by their only two offspring? The grandchildren have no desire to be the pawns. I have not taken the grandchildren away. They are old enough to know what they could loose if they too try to meet the needs of my mother. Does this effect the grandchildren (my nephew and my own children).
My nephew (my sisters dear sweet boy) is having his first baby. It is a boy. What a blessing it would have been if we could all share in this wonderful cycle of life. My sister knows her limits and has set the boundary which isolates her. I feel her pain. I forgive her for not being able to cope with having a relationship with me. I no longer ask why. I now know what she has been through. My hope for her is to go deep within and out again having the strength to learn from the deep dark abyss. This is how I have come to this day, my greatest pleasure only out of the depths of pain could this day be so blessed.
No comments:
Post a Comment