Summer Vacay Blues

Last week was a pretty crazy week. It was full of cannot-miss appointments and was complicated by a virus that Jeremy fought for four days. The only symptom was a fever. Further complicating it was that he detests taking liquid medication. It's always been a struggle to get him to drink Motrin or Tylenol (Bekah, on the other hand, longs to be able to take these medications). I did discover, partway through the week, that he is able to take a pill form of Junior Motrin. That seemed to work better though he still balked at taking the medication at all.

His illness, coupled with the appointments and the steady rain for a couple of days, meant we were on pretty tight lockdown. I've discovered that's not how I want to spend all of summer vacation. We watched a LOT of TV and I let Jeremy play on his iPad way, way too much. It was just a survival week.

Bekah's recital capped off the week. It was on Saturday and she absolutely killed it. Her best friend, Bella, is in her dance class. They were always distracting one another. Bella's mom and I remarked just a few weeks ago that we weren't sure they were going to put on a cohesive performance. Alas, they were saving it all for the recital! Everyone remembered the routine and they did a great job as an ensemble.

The only bummer was that our babysitter fell through (a scheduling snafu on her part) and though I scrambled to find a replacement, Brian ended up having to stay home. We are going to purchase the DVD and have a big party (really, a party with Bekah, Jeremy, Doug, me and Brian) to watch it. I can't wait for Brian to see it because I know he's really going to enjoy it.

Meanwhile, I spent a lot of time brainstorming a blog entry and then arguing with myself in my head about whether or not to write it. I am still fighting a lot of depression and anxiety. There is a part of me that says, "self, you need to write about that because I'm sure there are other moms struggling and they would love to know they're not alone." Then another part says, "enough already, retard! Stop with all of this, pull it together and just act as if everything is fine. Nobody wants to hear you whine and complain." (As you can see, I have a few really rough neighborhoods in my head.)

The image that stuck with me is from the movie Constantine, starring Keanu Reeves and Rachel Weisz. I have seen it numerous times. There are some pretty awesome scenes. It's based on a graphic novel and it deals (in broad strokes and with a liberal bent) with the war on earth between good and evil. I am not offended by anything said in the movie. I don't think the director intended his movie to be a gospel when it comes to spiritual warfare. It's a work of fiction.

That being said, I loved some of the conversations and imagery in the movie. The one that sticks out comes at the end of the movie. Constantine (played by Reeves) is a supernatural detective/crime fighter. We learn early on that he is dying of lung cancer. He smokes in most frames of the movie.

At the end of the movie, Lucifer (Peter Stormare, who played Steve Buscemi's partner in Fargo) comes to collect Constantine, who has just committed suicide. After having a conversation with Constantine, he tries to drag him to hell only to discover that he no longer has domain over him (I know it sounds convoluted, but I'm telling you it works). In the next scene, we see Constantine's body/spirit floating up to heaven. Lucifer, angry that he's lost that soul, reaches his hands into Constantine's chest. As he pulls them out, we see they are covered with a black, tar-like substance. It drips off of his hands and seems to stain them.

(I'm sorry it took so long to explain but I really do think you should see the movie, it's really well-done.)

Every time I've considered my depression and anxiety over the past week, that's how I've pictured them. Black, sticky, heavy, gross. I picture it spilling out when I talk to friends about it. I realized that the reason depressed people don't have a lot of close friends is because of that tar. I feel like as people listen to me it starts to coat their ears and hands. It makes their shoes stick to the ground, like walking through a swamp would do, making that schlooop sound as they try to pull themselves out of it.

I imagine cleaning all of it off is exhausting, as it's exhausting to live with it coursing through my body. I don't wonder that I've lost friends over the years. I don't blame anyone or harbor ill feelings.

Quite frankly, I don't want to be friends with myself. Though it would seem like I'm just wallowing in self-pity, I can assure you that the way I'm seeing the world these days is as if the color and dimension has been taken out. Everything is flat and gray. Bekah's performance, wonderful as it was, only broke me out of this feeling temporarily before the tar slurped me back in.

I don't feel like I've anything to offer anyone. I do what I can to make sure my kids are fed, have clean clothes and basic care. We went to the library yesterday so I could enroll them in the summer reading program. Though I don't feel like it, I'm reading to them in fits and starts. Jeremy is obsessed with our iPad. Once he started feeling better, we went back to our strict 1-hour limit of playing time. He doesn't like this. He is making my life miserable for enforcing this rule.

Everything in my mind is screaming, don't fight it with him. Let him play on it as much as he wants. When he is on the iPad, I don't have to worry about him or engage with him. It's one less stream of steady questions, whining and demands. It's one less person to worry about throughout the day.

I want to leave Doug in his crib for too long. Granted, it takes him a while to take a nap and then he still takes a 2-hour nap. I have tried cutting out his nap but he's not ready for it. The point is, if he is in his crib, then I don't have to engage with him or worry about him destroying my house.

There is a play date tomorrow with my MOPS friends. I don't want to go. I am afraid that my crazy 6-year-old will trample someone's little person and it will be mortifying and we will have to leave abruptly. When I found out it was going to be inside (possibly, because of the rain) instead of outside, that made me not want to go even more. We had a disastrous experience at a birthday party recently (Jeremy was involved in a bottom-of-the-slide pile-up, where one of the smaller kids ended up on the bottom). I apologized profusely but am positive that my kids will never be invited back to this person's house.

And the real problem with this depression-tar is that it poisons everything I read and hear. Someone tonight made a comment about taping my mouth shut so I don't talk too much. I am about 60% certain it was a joke. The person's demeanor, though, didn't read like she was joking. She didn't say "just kidding" afterwards. Or did she and I didn't hear it because I was feeling so self-conscious about that one defect of mine that I hate the most--I chatter on incessantly.

So I spent the rest of the night trying to be as quiet as possible. I don't want to carry on a reputation as the one who must monopolize a conversation. I don't want to talk about my depression simply because it's exhausting to fight it every day. I don't wake up and hit the floor running. I wake up hoping I can stay in bed for another hour because we have no place to be. I wake up crabby with my kids. I wake up feeling overwhelmed with the clutter in my home that I can't seem to manage well.

I had another friend say she felt like she was responsible for my feelings. I assure you, she's not. The only person responsible for how I'm feeling is me. I don't want anyone thinking they're responsible for helping me because I think I'm at the point where only professional intervention is going to help me. I don't want to burden people who are living happy lives, with happy families. I don't want to worry that if they ask me how I'm doing I'm going to offload some of the tar. I don't want to and trust me, if I had a friend like that, I would slowly stop reaching out to her, too.

I get exhausted just thinking about it.

I don't know what the answer is. I wish I could say this was just related to my cycle, but when it's going on 3 out of the 4 weeks of the month, that's not cycle-related. That's just depression.

This is not to say there aren't brief periods (and I do mean brief) of relief. I can generally "put on a face" for about 1-2 hours. After that, it becomes too much. I can have small periods of respite where I'm able to chase Doug or tickle Bekah or joke with the kids, but even those small periods are exhausting.

So yeah, I haven't blogged because this is what it looks like between my ears 24/7. I would love to shut off my brain for like, a day, so that I could just not be aware of or think about it. (Even when I'm sleeping, I'm having dreams where people are being critical of me. That's a bit neurotic.) I would love to be able to snap myself out of this for a long period of time. Heck, for like 3-4 hours.

I guess I hope that my readers reading this will escape tar-free. Those who are feeling the same way, I hope you know you are not alone. The message in my head is that this too shall pass. There's nothing more definitive or even a general timeline, but I'm hoping it's true. And if it's true for me, then it's true for you, too.