Strong Women

I have known a lot of strong women in my life.  Women whose strength is soft kindness, and always forgiving.  Women whose strength is never taking anyone's shit.  Women whose strength is to just keep moving, even when things are terrible.

My great-grandmother raised her children mostly alone, on a farm in Arkansas, after her husband died.  She lost a daughter at age 2, and then, years later, lost her two adult sons within a month of each other, just before Christmas.  She had been through loss, hardship, poverty, and loneliness.  But when I think of her, I remember her laugh.  I remember her vitality, even at 99 years old.  I remember her threatening to turn her daughter over her knee for disobeying her - her daughter who was my grandmother, in her 50's.  I remember her teasing.   Her love for animals.  Her stories of a life well lived. Her unwavering faith. There was no bitterness in her.  Only love and hope, and a mischievous streak a mile wide.

My grandmother, her daughter, was pregnant nine times, but only got to raise three of her children.  Three miscarriages.  Three infant deaths.  And of her three surviving children, one had a life threatening birth defect.  She married the love of her life, but it was never an easy marriage, and then he was diagnosed with cancer and died, leaving her with three daughters, ages 14, 11, and 9.  She lost herself for years to alcoholism, only to drag herself out of it so that she could have a relationship with her grandchildren.  She survived so much, and her life was never easy, right up until the end.  But what I remember about her was her irreverent laugh.  Her smile.  Her tough talks, given with compassion and love, when I most needed to hear them.  I remember her teaching me to garden (which I hated), and to fish (which I loved).  I remember exploring her land, reading in her tree, chasing the cows that lived next door.  I remember how she was like no other grandmother I knew.  There was no softness to her.  Instead, there was "inappropriate" humor and lots of cussing, and zero fear.  But most of all, I remember how much she loved everyone.  The old, the young, the disabled, the gay, the Christian, the Jew, the Atheist.  She didn't care much about the details.  She just loved you.

My other grandmother, my dad's mom.  A tough woman to love, and an even more difficult one to like.  I was one of the few people who could get through her rather prickly exterior to find the soft, loving, devoted woman underneath.  A woman who had married an Air Force man, but soon after found herself married to the musician that man had always been.  His schedule, his paychecks, were never steady or predictable enough, so in the 60's, while raising her four children, she also became the primary breadwinner of the family, as a telephone operator.  I always got the sense that she had been through a lot, but she wasn't one to talk about such things.  I do know that she dealt with a lot of serious health concerns in her later life, and often felt terrible.  But that's not what I remember about her.  I remember how confident she always seemed.  How she always seemed to know exactly what needed to be done.  I remember her love.  I remember her hugs.  I remember how much I loved her.  How much she gave to me, not in the sense of material things, but in the sense of adventure and determination.  She was a formidable woman, and I absolutely adored her for it.

My own mother.  A woman who has been through poverty, abuse, abandonment, loss.  And yet, none of those things define her.  She grew up in a tumultuous household that was constantly on the move.  She often talks about how many different schools she went to as a child, and how she can't even remember them all.  Then, at age 11, her father died and her mother became an alcoholic.  From then on, she more or less raised herself and her younger sister.  Until she was 17, and had me.  And then my sister when she was 21.  Young.  Poor.  Mother to two children.  At a time when most people are celebrating their adulthood with drinking binges, she was singing lullabies and reading bedtime stories.  And her marriage to my dad was rarely an easy one.  And yet, when I think of my childhood, I don't think of the difficulties she faced.  I remember how she faced them.  She went back to school and became a teacher. She turned poverty into a game of finding change and scrapping together enough to go to the dollar movie theater.  She turned food insecurity into an adventure of trying new foods.  Lack of transportation became an epic journey to see if we could walk all the way to K-Mart (we did!).  Everything was a game or an adventure, and it wasn't until years later that I fully understood the truth of how we lived.  To this day, she remains one of the most hopeful, optimistic people I've ever met - even when she has struggled with depression and anxiety.  She is a pillar of strength, but not in the way any of my grandmothers was.  Her strength is the quiet determination to just keep going, no matter what.  And to love her family, no matter what.  My mother and I are very different people, but I still admire her kind of strength.

My sister.  Rocking the single mom thing.  She realized when her daughter was still very young that her husband was not the sort of person she wanted to raise a child with.  So with resolve, she left him and made the best of it.  It has never been easy for her.  She has struggled.  She has moved, sometimes often.  She has lived with other people, to save money.  She has worked ridiculous hours to make sure her daughter never wants for anything.  And in the midst of all that, she is raising a young lady who is very emotionally intelligent (as well as regular intelligent). An almost-7 year old who can talk about her fears and anxiety more clearly than I can as an adult, and seems to feel zero shame about her struggles.  Not only is my sister the definition of a strong, capable woman, she is raising her daughter to be one, too.  And I admire her for that.

My friends. Mommas, you know who you are.  The ones who have lost babies.  The ones who have come terrifyingly close to losing them.  The ones who have struggled with Post Partum Depression, Anxiety, and a host of other mental illnesses.  The ones who have wondered if they are good enough.  The ones who have been through divorce, abuse, homelessness, trauma of all sorts.  The ones who struggle with physical illnesses on top of mental ones.  The ones who doubt themselves, every single day.  The ones who feel lost.  The ones who are confident in their parenting, even if they're confident about nothing else.  The ones with only children.  With seven children.  With every combination in between.  The ones who have loved me and my children as their own family.

To all of us: Happy Mother's Day.  Together, we can do this.  Thank you all for inspiring me, and helping me through this journey.  I love each of you. So, so much.  I cannot imagine this journey without any one of you.

May we be the women our children one day remember as the Strong Women in their lives. <3

What Depression Feels Like...

There is this misconception about how people with depression must feel.  According to common belief, people with depression feel sad all the time.  People with depression cry a lot.  People with depression consider or attempt suicide.  People with depression are easy to spot.

And while some of those things may be true some of the time, none of those apply to me, personally.

I have moments of joy, of laughter, of anger, of loneliness (so often I feel lonely - even when I'm around people) of grumpiness, of feeling nothing at all, and yes, moments of sadness.  But mostly, I just feel tired.  And I feel tired of being tired.

I'm tired of the brain fog.  I'm tired of being exhausted all damn day, only to lay in bed, wide awake, for hours at night before I can fall asleep.  I'm tired of not having the energy to hold a conversation, let alone play with my kids or work on a fun project.  I'm tired of fun things sounding like a chore.  I'm tired.  So.very.tired.

But, I'm not sad.  Not often.  I mean, things make me sad, just like everyone else, but sadness is not my default setting.  Not by a long shot.  Most of the time, my mood is slightly above "meh", but below "cheerful".  I'm overwhelmed a lot of the time.  So much to do that all I can do is stare at my list, paralyzed by the feeling of "too much".  And let me tell you, over the past 9 years, I've lowered my standards over and over again.  And it's still too much, most of the time.

I honestly can't even remember the last time I cried.  Before I started this current combination of meds, maybe?  Certainly not that long ago.  Maybe a few weeks ago?

I don't know.  My memory doesn't track correctly these days.  I can occasionally place the timing of an even based on it's proximity to something I wrote down or has been important for a long time.  Other than that, it's all a mystery.  Everything happened "the other day".  Sometimes that translates to yesterday.  Sometimes it translates to a year ago.  I really don't know the difference, most of the time.

I feel foggy.  Like I'm dragging my thoughts out of some disgustingly viscous semi-fluid.  And when I do grab them, I can't hold them for long.  And I don't know how to fix that.

Annoyingly, when I tell people I have depression, their first question is, "Do you have thoughts of harming yourself?"  No.  In all honesty, I don't. I never have.  I contemplate running away a lot.  When things are really bad in my head, I start planning what I'll take and where I'll go.  At this point in my life, I think that I have enough barriers in place that I won't actually run away.  Barriers I have carefully put in place over the past several years.

And before you ask the follow-up, no, I don't have the urge to hurt anyone else.  I empathize far too deeply with others to be able to hurt people intentionally. (Except that one guy, about 8 years ago, that I nearly punched in the face, but I promise you, he totally had it coming.)  In fact, my aversion to hurting anyone is a large part of why I haven't run away.  My children would be devastated and scared if mom suddenly disappeared. I'm honestly not sure how Patrick would react, but I know he'd be upset.  So, no.  I don't want to hurt myself or anyone or anything else.

I just want to stop feeling tired.  I want to feel again.  But I want to not be overwhelmed by every sensation and emotion. 

I am just. so. tired.