A Funeral, A Novella, A Niece, and A Revalation

I went to a funeral yesterday. He was the son of a very good friend. Her family and my family have been friends for 30 years. Her mom and my mom used to call each other Laverne and Shirley. I used to babysit her and her brothers. At 20-years-old, this young, man committed suicide. During the service, I realized that I was really angry at him. I was angry at what he put his mother and grandmother and brother and sister through. I was angry at what his son was going to have to deal with when he became old enough to understand what his father did. I'm pretty sure that most of the tears I shed yesterday were tears of anger, rather than sadness. All I could think was, "The selfish, little bastard killed himself. Typical." Life didn't turn out the way he planned when he was 14, so he killed himself. Perhaps you think I am being harsh. Perhaps I am. But I can't help the way I feel about what he did.

These feelings reminded me of when I studied the novella The Awakening by Kate Chopin in college. I was just as angry, if not more so, at the protagonist in the story. She committed suicide, too.

Taking place around the turn of the 20th century, The protagonist was given a choice of staying with a husband who thought of her as property for the sake of her sons, or divorcing him to become the woman she wanted to be and never seeing her sons again. I was angry at the character for not actually making a choice. It was argued in class that suicide was a third choice, but I was never able to accept that. Who did suicide help? Her sons were still without her: the sons she felt she couldn't abandon through divorce. It didn't actually do anything to fight against what was causing the torment, either. (You know, the fight for women's equality.) In fact, the only purpose it served was to run away from a conflict, and that made me mad, mad, mad!

I guess it's natural to assume that because of my reaction to these two situations, I don't think suicide is the answer to anything. You would be wrong. Sometimes, I do think it is the right answer.

My niece, the one who had the heart transplant, chose to die. She was almost 12-years-old, and she had spent more than half of her life in a hospital room. By the time she decided she had had enough, her body was rejecting her heart, again, and most of her other organs were failing, as well. Were there things that could have been done to extend her life? Maybe. But she would have been hooked up to machines and in constant pain. She didn't want to do that, so my brother granted her request to be taken off all of her medications. She never would have seen 20. She probably wouldn't have even seen 13. She was tired, and forcing her to stay alive only served the purpose of keeping her around for us, her family. That didn't make her death any harder to bear, but I don't feel that her decision was a cop-out. I don't feel like she was running away from difficulties.

I'm not saying that I wasn't angry at my niece. I was. It's part of the grieving process. But as I moved through my grief, I realized that I wasn't really angry at her. I was angry that I would never get to see her, or hold her hand, or study with her, or tuck her in, or go to the Renaissance Festival, or do a million other things with her ever again. I wasn't angry at her for choosing to end the pain. I was angry that she had to make that decision. Maybe I'm angry at God, or the universe, or whatever, but I'm not angry at her, anymore. I just miss her.

There is a time to fight, and a time to give up. Elizabeth fought as long and as hard as she could, and she only gave up when there really wasn't a reason to fight anymore. That's why my friend's son's death angers me so much! He was healthy, young, and intelligent, but he was also spoiled, selfish, and entitled. (I'm not going to sugarcoat his defects just because he is dead, so don't yell at me for it.) His death feels useless, meaningless, like he was running away from something rather than putting an end to something. Maybe that's why I'm so angry.

Or maybe it's because I spend every day clawing myself through every hour trying not to think about how easy it would be to kill myself. Trying not to think about how much I want my pain to end, but don't want to increase the pain of my family and friends. They say that if you have a plan to kill yourself, you're more likely to do it. Well, I have several plans. I've thought of various ways to kill myself for over 25 years. I've even gathered what I needed once or twice, but I never did it. I believe that suicide for no reason other than to escape, to cause pain to someone else to alleviate my pain, is selfish. You may not agree with me, but that's okay. You don't have to. This way of thinking, though, keeps me from taking my own life every time. It doesn't, however, stop me from wanting to die.

As I'm writing this, I find that I have thought of another reason for being angry. I'm angry at my friend and her family for not recognizing that her son was in so much trouble. Heck, I'm angry at MY family for continuing to not recognize the struggle I face every day. I've talked to them about my disease, disorder, situation, illness, whatever you want to call it, but still they make comments and jokes about things that they seemingly don't realize I am going through. Yesterday my mother said something to me and got offended when I didn't laugh. She asked me why I didn't laugh, and I told her that I would have if she hadn't been talking about something I was going through. My Swiss cheese slab of a brain won't let me remember what she said, just that it hurt knowing she didn't realize what she was talking about was something that affected me, and it wasn't funny.

Is that what was going on with my friend's son? Did he have severe depression and generalized anxiety disorder, too? Did no one try to get help for him, get him diagnosed? Did anyone bother to try to understand his disorders? Did people tell him to just "get over it," or to grow up because life wasn't fair? Did his friends and family make comments and jokes about mental illness that made him feel like he couldn't be open with them? Did they know that he was ill and still make those jokes? Did he feel like no one cared, too?

Maybe I'm not really angry at my friend's son, after all. 

On Writing, Job-Seeking, and Feeling Like Crap!

So, I figured out one of the problems I have trying to write every week. I don't have appointments every week, so I don't have much to report, accept for my daily struggle with uncontrollable emotions. (And that gets boring hearing about after a while.)  Before I started therapy, I thought it would be on a regular schedule. Maybe I watched too many movies or something, but I really thought that I would get assigned a therapist, and then I would be assigned a day and time to see that therapist every week or every other week. But it's not like that. I see my therapist anywhere between every 3 to 6 weeks, depending on her schedule. I feel like I need more structure in my therapy. I mean, I already feel like life is just tossing me around, and I can't grab hold of a rescue rope. It would help if that rescue rope were being thrown to me at regular intervals. I don't know. Maybe I've just been watching too much T.V.. Maybe this is the way therapy really works.

Anyway, I mentioned in my last post that I'm seeing an employment councilor. Right now, she's seeing me every week, and this past week she gave me a couple of job leads. I've heard back from one of them already. You guessed it. "Thanks, but no thanks." Hey, at least they actually let me know I was out of the running. None of the other jobs I have applied for over the last 2 years has done that. So, if nothing else, working with an employment councilor has led me to more polite employers.

I also applied to teach for a non-traditional school that utilizes online courses with one-on-one teacher time. I was really excited about that one. I had the interview 2 weeks ago. They said they would be making a decision last week. I guess I didn't get it, because they haven't called me. I was supposed to do a follow up call last week, but I didn't. I started to, but when I tried to find the correct phone number to call, not only did the website not have the number I needed, but I couldn't remember the name of any of the 4 people I interviewed with. I cried. Then I looked up memory loss and menopause and found out that it's pretty darn common for women who have surgically induced menopause to have major memory problems for the first year afterward. Apparently it starts to get better again after that first year. Now...if I can only hold on until October...

So...what else is going on? Hmmm. Oh, yeah.  I feel like crap physically and mentally. Everything hurts, and I wake up feeling more tired than when I went to sleep. While I don't cry at the drop of a hat anymore, I still cry every day, sometimes more than once, and for weird things. For example, the other day, I started thinking about my niece coming home on leave this week and started to cry. Not happy tears, even though it makes me happy that she's coming home, but big, ugly, pain-filled tears. AND I DON'T KNOW WHY! While I was crying I was saying to myself, "You're happy she's coming home! Why in the hell aren't your tears happy, too?" I kept trying to convince myself that they were happy tears, but I know how happy tears feel, and this wasn't it. WTF!

Anyway, my doctor and I have decided to address the sleep issue, since nothing else is helping all that much, and studies have shown that poor sleep can be a major factor in physical and mental health issues. He asked me when the last time was that I woke up feeling refreshed. I told him I couldn't remember. I can't. For all of my adult life, and at least some of my teen life, I only remember waking up feeling like I hadn't slept, feeling in pain. In fact, a lot of times, the reason I can't get to sleep is knowing that I'm going to wake up feeling worse than when I went to sleep! He thought it was time for me to do a sleep study. I think so, too. I'll be doing an at-home study next week. That should give a preliminary diagnosis and determine whether  I need to do a full study in a sleep lab. I'll let you know later.

One other thing that I have to talk about is how horrible I feel to complain about my life when I have a very dear friend who has so many more problems than I do. Her life has been so hard. She's one of the smartest people I know, and like many smart people, high school bored her. But because of the time and place we grew up in, rather than help her, society told her she wasn't worthy. She dropped out of school and became a bit of a party animal. After a couple years of parties, she decided to take control of her life and joined the Job Corps, where she was raped so brutally, she was told she would never have children.

But then came a son from a truly horrible boyfriend. She got rid of the boyfriend, but kept her miracle child. She moved in with her parents, and has been with them ever since, but they had major health problems, so she spent as much time looking out for them as she did for herself and her son. Of course, they looked out for her, too, though. While her son was still a baby, she mangled her dominant hand in an industrial accident and has never regained full use of it, even with multiple surgeries.

Things went okay for a while after that. We lost touch due to a misunderstanding, my fault, but came back together around 2004 when we were brought back together by a mutual friend at college. (I'll forever be grateful to our mutual friend for that!) After graduation, we ended up working for the same soul-sucking pharmacy benefits management company.

Shortly after I left the company, she suffered a debilitating stroke that put her on social security benefits. While she eventually recovered much of her functioning, she still had speech issues and some slight motor issues. But then she and her father were in a major traffic accident. They both survived, but her father was placed in a care facility that neglected him. He passed away after being in the facility only a couple months.  It took a big toll on the family. On top of that, while my friend was in the hospital from the accident, they discovered that she had a softball-sized malignant tumor on one of her kidney's. They removed the kidney, and after about a year of radiation treatment, declared her cancer free, though they will be keeping a close eye on her other kidney.

Through all of this, she has been MY rock. She has been the up-beat one. She has been the one that tells me it's okay to be who I am. It's okay to not be okay. And then last week she had another stroke. This one was much worse than the first. I went to see her on Monday, and she can barely speak. She understands, but only a handful of words come out of her mouth sounding like words. She is also paralyzed on her right side. But she still smiles when anyone comes in the room. She still gets excited when she sees the flowers and gifts her family and friends bring her. She still has positive things to say. It makes me feel so angry that life has beaten her up so much. Of all the people I know, she has had the hardest life, but she has remained the most positive. She is my hero, and I wish I could be more like her.

But I also feel guilty. I think to myself, "What are my problems compared to hers? Why do I have depression and anxiety when she is the one who is actually having the shit kicked out of her by life?" I start to question why I can't be more positive, why I can't just pull myself up by the boot straps and soldier on? I know it's because her brain is not wired like mine is, but that doesn't make me feel any less guilty. I know that what I have is a chronic illness. I know that my illness is legitimate. I know that my life hasn't really been easier than hers, just different. I know all of this, but I still feel guilty. Did society do this to me? Do I feel this way because people who don't have psychological illnesses don't understand how my illness works? Or is it my illness that makes me feel this way? Is my illness simply perpetuating itself by feeding my guilt? Or is it a combination of both? I don't know. I don't know. All I know is that I'm having a hard time understanding myself, right now. I kind of hate me because I can't be more like my friend. I kind of hate her because she can't be more like me. 

The In Between Time or Waiting for the Next Step

I had to stop going to the Mindfulness Stress Reduction class a couple of weeks ago. My mom has been having eye problems, and since my dad is an on-the-road trucker, she needed me to drive her to her appointments. Unfortunately, her eye surgeon only has office hours on Wednesdays in a town 40 miles away from us. He's a pretty busy guy, so morning appointments weren't guaranteed, and there was no way I could get back in town in time for my 2:30 class. I had to make a choice: class or my mom. I chose my mom. Honestly, I'm really not upset about it. I enjoy the class, but I'm having a really hard time in it. It's the yoga aspect. I'm really not comfortable with yoga, yet. It's painful on my joints, and I'm so fat, I can't get anything where it's supposed to be.

I know, I know. Yoga isn't about doing it. It's about doing it the best that you can. That's all well and good when you're doing it at home with no on watching you, but it really sucks when you're doing it in a class. I'm not a fan of crying in public, and knowing that I can't bring my knee into the same zip code as my chest makes me cry, especially when it was only 2 years ago when I would have been able to do it. (Not that I was skinny then, but I was skinnier and more bendy.) Until I can do yoga without crying because of shame or pain, I will stick to doing it in private. On to the next!

I've started seeing an employment councilor, Kelsey. She's very nice, and I like her. However, she seems a bit stuck on my teaching credentials and keeps asking me about what I liked and didn't like about teaching. It's so hard to put it into words. I loved talking about literature with the kids. I hated everything else: grading papers, talking to parents, learning the standards, dealing with the administration, discipline, having to buy the supplies for my classroom, etc. (I only had to deal with large class size for 2 of my 6 classes. That was lucky, I guess.) But I really liked talking literature with the kids. I'm think that teaching in a traditional setting isn't for me. Unfortunately, I'm so confused right now that I'm not sure what IS for me. I feel bad for Kelsey. She's got her work cut out for her.

About 7 weeks ago, I asked Meredith about putting me on an antidepressant. It took a lot for me to admit that I need one, but I'm having a really hard time motivating myself to do everything I need to do to get well. I think medication will help me find that motivation. Like I mentioned in my last post, medication may be a necessary component to reaching wellness. However, it shouldn't be the first choice. I knew from the start that I would probably need an antidepressant, but I wanted to try doing it without pharmaceuticals first. I wanted to see if just talking and relaxing/meditating would help. While both do help, they aren't enough. I don't know how to explain why, but I'll try.

Talking with someone who isn't judging me or judging her own past behavior with me is wonderful. I've started to recognize my negative self-talk when it happens. I've even started to give myself pep talks. So that's good. Purposeful relaxing and being mindfully in the present is also helping. While I'm still not very good at either, I can see improvement from how I was before. What's causing the problem is that I have no desire, no get-up-and-go, no passion, no purpose. Every day I still wish I had died in my sleep. Every day I still want to cry, not as often each day, but still every day. I still don't know what the point of me is, and that's okay. The problem is that I'm not really motivated to look for the point of me. I've been on medication before, and it made me feel a lot better. However, at the time, I wasn't in therapy, so I never developed the tools to cope off of medication. This time, the whole point of the medication is to help me develop those tools, not just get me through this episode.

At my appointment last week, Meredith asked if the clinician had called me yet to set up an appointment to evaluate me for medication. They hadn't. She said she would contact them again. I hope they call me soon. It's going to take about 6 weeks for it to start working, so I'm looking at another 2 months, at least, before my will-to-work kicks in. That makes it really hard when you're looking for a job. Speaking of which, I'm supposed to be filling out job applications for my appointment with Kelsey tomorrow. I really don't want to, but I guess I should.

Negative Self-Talk or The Mean Girl in Your Head

I know I haven't been seeing a therapist for long, but I have had enough therapy to have learned that the most harmful thing to someone with depression, and the most difficult thing to change, is negative self-talk. It's also the difference between having a depression disorder and being depressed.

Everyone, EVERYONE, gets depressed. When something bad happens in your life, depression is a normal reaction. (NOT being sad when your favorite aunt dies is a symptom of a different, much more scary disorder.) There is not a single person on this planet who can claim they have never been depressed, never been sad. Sadness is a normal, healthy part of life. Depression, however, is not normal, nor is it healthy.

So, what changes to make "being depressed" become "depression?" I think you may remember a couple months ago that I drove to Seattle with my father for my uncle's funeral. On our trip, my father asked me to explain depression to him. Unlike my mother, he doesn't suffer from this disorder, so he doesn't understand that I'm not just sad. Before I explained how I felt, I asked him what he thought about the disorder. This is what he told me.

What he said was that he didn't understand why I couldn't just put on a smile, and go do something. Doing that always makes him feel better, always actually cheers him up. He wasn't trying to be offensive, or to hurt me, but it did hurt. I told him that if doing that worked for me, wouldn't I do it? I asked him if he thought I enjoyed feeling useless and sad and angry and worthless all the time? He shut up, and I silently cried for a while. Once I gathered myself enough to talk some more, I apologized.

I told Dad that I knew he wasn't trying to be hurtful, but this disorder blows everything up and makes it hard to talk about, which also makes it hard to get help with it...figures! Anyway, I tried to explain what it feels like to have depression, tried to explain negative self-talk. I think it helped him to understand me a little better. For those of you reading who suffer from depression, I write this to let you know you aren't the only one. For those of you reading this to understand someone with depression, I hope this helps.

Negative self-talk is the thing that affects a person with depression the most. In fact, I might venture to say that the reason we suffer from depression is because we can't control our negative self-talk. Everyone calls themselves an idiot for doing something stupid, but most people can move on afterwards. People with depression can't move on. We become fixated on that mistake, and idiot is the least of the names we call ourselves for it. Here are some of the things I call myself when I make a mistake, little or big:

stupid, worthless, ugly, fat, know-it-all, loser, soul-sucker (yes, I actually call myself this,) drain on your family, unworthy, unemployed, lazy, bitch, useless, hopeless, unwanted, not able to hold a man or a job, unable to make a good decision, poser, freak, smelly, hairy, incontinent, unwomanly, half-woman, infertile, hag, spinster, FAKER!

I call myself every single one of these things, and more, EVERY TIME I make a mistake, no matter what the mistake is, no matter whether it's actually a mistake or just something unfortunate that has happened. In my mind, all the bad things that happen to me are my fault, whether they actually are or not (kind of like the opposite of entitlement.) Can you see how this could become a problem? What does being hairy have to do with dropping a spoon? (Yup, I run through this list when I drop a spoon.) I can't stop calling myself names! As I explained to my father, imagine having a bully following you around all day long, every day, saying the most horrible things possible to and about you. After a while, it wears you down. Now, imagine that the bully is your own brain. My father asked me why I didn't just tell my brain to shut up? (It's a valid and intelligent question.) I told him that I do tell my brain to shut up, all the time! But it doesn't listen to me. It won't shut up, and it won't turn off. I told him that for people with depression, our own brains are our worst enemy. While I don't think he really understands what I go through, I think he understands that an "attitude adjustment" isn't going to be a quick fix for me or others like me.

And that leads me to something else I want to talk about. You know all those cute, little memes on social media that talk about changing your attitude, that say all you need to feel better is to take responsibility for your own happiness, and make yourself feel better? Well, they really piss the fuck out of me! (And there's the non-obligatory cursing.) Yes, to a certain extent these memes are right. The only person who can make you happy is you, and in order help yourself, you must help yourself. But they are so, so simplified and patronizing! Grrrrrr! They make it sound like all you have to do to fight depression is slap on a smile, or go fishing, or commune with nature, or grab a friend and go dancing, or whatever else is being proposed on the meme. 

For norms, this might work. People who are sad can often be cheered up by a quick change of location, situation, frame of mind, etc. But people with a depression disorder have to work a lot harder to make these kinds of things work. JUST spending some time at the beach isn't going to fix everything. It may help to get that vitamin A, but it's not a quick fix-all. (Emphasis on the quick part.) The only things that can help someone with depression get better is therapy, learning positive coping techniques (which include, but are not limited to the above quick changes,) and sometimes, medication.

Which leads me to the most important part of recovering from depression: be patient. You must understand that it takes time to learn new behaviors, to apply the new behaviors, and to believe in the new behaviors. Like I said earlier, there is no quick fix, so patience is the only thing that is going to keep you going. Medications may help, but even they require up to two months to kick in. Once they do, you will feel better, but pharmaceuticals are not an actual cure. They WILL become ineffective over time. If you have not learned what is at the root of your depression, and how to cope with the problems that arise from your depression, you will be right back where you started. Medication is only a tool to give you time to learn what you need to learn. While it is an effective tool, ultimately it is a temporary one. 

Please, please, please, be patient! You deserve to get better! I deserve to get better! No one, I don't care what your faith or your politics say, NO ONE deserves to feel like their brain is bullying them. NO ONE deserves depression. No one.

I Just Don't Feel Like It

Wow! It's been a while since I wrote, and I think an apology is in order. I'm sorry. I said I would write at least on a weekly basis, but I haven't written in almost a month. What? Oh my god! I didn't realize it had been that long. I wish I could say it was because I'm all better now, and I was just too busy having fun to write, but that would be a lie...mostly. I was busy, but only having a little fun, not a lot. Memorial Day was nice, and the following weekend I visited my parents for the day while they were camping at Lake Deweese. (I don't camp. I don't like it. I think I mentioned it previously as one of the things I DON'T have in common with the rest of my family.) Other than that, I've been busy making sure family members get to doctor appointments, working on crochet patterns to sell (gotta make money somehow,) and losing my mind reading about U.S. current events. (I internalize a lot of external issues. It's part of my problem, part of the reason I have such high anxiety levels. I'm working on it.)

But don't let me fool you. While all of what I mentioned above kept me from writing, the biggest thing that has kept me away is that I really haven't felt like writing. I haven't felt like sitting in front of my computer and putting pen to paper, figuratively speaking. I haven't felt like exposing myself, again. I haven't felt like agonizing over every word I use. I haven't felt like taking time away from computer games, crochet, my dog, cooking, and various other stalling tactics I have been using to keep myself away from my blog.

I'm tired. I'm sure you understand what I'm talking about. I'm ass-draggingly tired. All I really want to do is lie in my bed with my dog and my Netflix while I create the crochet pattern that will ease my money problems. (I don't need to be rich. I just need to make enough money to support myself!) But this isn't going to happen. We all know that this is just a symptom of my depression. Right now, I count it as a victory that I actually get out of bed in the morning. I count it as a victory that I make it into the office to answer phones, to get in my car to take my dog for a walk by the river (which I haven't done in a week.) I count it as a victory that I cook dinner for myself and my brother. I count it as a victory that I'm still here. It makes me question if I'm about to start another down cycle. But then I hang with my dog, and she makes me so happy that I think that there is no way a down cycle is starting. But why, then, am I so freaking tired?

I'm already on thyroid medication, and my levels are looking very good, so I don't think I need a medication adjustment. My estrogen levels are good, too, so I don't think hormones are to blame. I am still overweight, though. In fact, I think I'm getting fatter, even though I exercise more! (Don't talk to me about muscle weighing more than fat, because when I talk about getting fatter, I don't just mean I weigh more, I'm bigger, too, and I don't get it.) I'm working very hard on not eating processed food and actually becoming a healthier cook. I know I should cut out soda, but I'm not quite ready for that. I have 1 or 2 sodas a day. I will eventually stop drinking soda, except for the occasional cook out. (I don't actually believe in completely cutting anything out of your diet unless you are allergic to it, or it's on the "if you eat this, it will kill you" list. If you know you can have it occasionally, you're less likely to overindulge when it crosses your path.) Anyway, my diet is infinitely more healthy now than it was last year! So what gives? Never mind, I'll deal with it later.

I started a mindful meditation class 3 weeks ago. It's going all right, but I had to miss this week's class so that I could take my mom to her eye appointment. According to the instructor, though, I should be okay missing just the one class. If I miss anymore, I'll have to quit and take a different class. So what is this class about? Well, it's about teaching yourself to pay attention to your body, your surroundings, what's going on right now where you are. Sure, that sounds easy, but do you know how hard it is to meditate and be mindful of your big toe without falling asleep? (Did I mention that I'm really freakin' tired?) What keeps me awake is my mind thinking and thinking and thinking. With mindful meditation, the goal is to move away from "thinking" to live in the moment. Thinking usually takes you to the past or the future. Again, this sounds easy, but do you realize that following the presidential candidates, being aware of current events, tends to make you think about the future rather than present? Yeah, it's a conundrum. Anyway...I'm not really very good at this mindful meditation thing, right now. I may never be good at it, but I'm going to stick it out and learn more. I'll fill you in later.

That's pretty much what's been going on over the last 3 weeks. I don't know if I'm getting better or worse. I don't know if my depression and anxiety is coming or going. (Heck, I don't know if I'm coming or going.) I do know that I'm back, though, whether I feel like it, or not.

Today I Hate Everyone

 I will not be posting anything to help you through your illness today. Today is only about how I feel. And today I hate everyone.

I hate corporations that want to have "human rights" when they are not humans; they are only run by humans. I hate the government who gave them those rights. I hate the government that wants to take them away from me. I hate every employer who won't hire me because of my degrees or because of my poor credit rating. I hate everyone who looks down on me because of my mental and physical health, my obesity, my age, my sex, my liberal beliefs, my I.Q., my compassion, and about a hundred other things I don't want to list. I hate them all.

I hate my friends, the ones I love and the ones that are just Facebook friends. I hate the friends who are only my friends because we went to high school together. I hate the friends who are shocked when they find out that I believe love is love, everyone deserves to feel comfortable in a bathroom, no one should go hungry, everyone deserves shelter and health care. I hate the friends who say they understand and then post horrible memes about my beliefs. I hate the friends who claim to believe as I do, but get angry when I disagree. I hate the friends I love because I feel undeserving of them.

I hate my family. I hate my extended family because they don't know me and really don't want to know me, just look down on me. I hate my extended family because I once believed that they weren't racist or homophobic or xenophobic or misogynistic, but they are. I hate my extended family because the ones who aren't like this, do nothing to stand up for me when the others are horrible.

I hate my niece. I hate her because I have been helping to raise her since she was 3-years-old, but she only thinks of my mother as a mother figure to her. I hate that she had a boyfriend in high school who told her ugly things about me and the rest of our family to keep her away from us.  I hate her for believing him. I hate her because, on some level, she still believes the stuff about me. I hate her for sending flowers to my mom on Mother's Day, but not even sending me a hello message on Facebook. I hate her for making me cry.

I hate my brother. I hate him because when I said I was going to be "all in" to help him with his business, he decided to drop out of making any decision concerning it. I hate him because he doesn't realize that though I accept only a $100.00 a week allowance to help him in the office and cook and clean, it's not enough to live. I hate that he thinks that the only reason I don't have a life is because of my health, instead of my desire to be as small a financial burden on him as possible. I hate that he is an alcoholic. I hate that he spends so much money on booze, and doesn't see how it is hurting him and the business. I hate that he wants me to make the business decisions, but then doesn't follow my advice or the protocols I put into place. I hate that he puts me on ignore.

I hate my father. I hate him because he doesn't understand how he sometimes hurts me with the jokes he makes to cheer me up. I hate him because he doesn't understand how embarrassing it is and how much like a failure I feel when I ask him for financial help: he just thinks he's taking care of his family, doing his job. I hate that at 45 I am still his "little girl."

I hate my mother. I hate her because I have been suffering from depression and anxiety since I was 17 years old, and she never realized it. I hate that she never saw through the acting to the real person within. I hate that she suffers from the same illnesses, but she never saw them in me. I hate that every time I try to talk to her about my therapy, she changes the subject. I hate that she, inadvertently, makes me feel ashamed to be me. I hate that she tries to make me "feel better" when what I need to do is just acknowledge my feelings and work through it, use the tools I am learning. I hate that she is the best friend I have, the only one I want to talk to about what's going on, but now I feel uncomfortable doing so. I hate her because I feel like I make her uncomfortable when I mention therapy or depression or anxiety or my emotions or my "tools" or anything that has to do with anything not good. I hate her because when I confronted her last week about her ignoring my therapy, she said, "I always thought you were stronger." I hate her because I know she meant stronger than she is, but that's not what she said.

The only things I don't hate right now are my animals. Duke, Castiel, and especially Hermione keep me alive.

Hermione, Mother's Day, and Mom

While I'm writing this, I am watching "Once Upon a Time" on Netflix, playing 3 different worlds in Elvanor, and trying not to disturb Hermione sleeping on my chest as I crochet her new sweater. (Yup. Leaning back in my chair and writing is not very comfortable. But I'm not going to wake the dog up. No way.) Remember me talking about doing a lot of stuff to keep my mind out of the present and off the crazy? Yup! I'm a multi-tasker. And apparently, I'm not doing well with the mindful meditation exercises.  

I'm still not at 5 minutes of meditation, but I'm not sure whether I'm bothered by it, or not. Why? Because most of the reason why I'm unable to do it is because Hermione keeps interrupting me. Now that she is becoming more comfortable with me and her new home, her personality is revealing itself. She's very eager and mischievous. And sneaky. Whether it's knocking over the kitchen garbage can to get in it more easily, or sticking her tongue up a nostril in a surprise licking attack, she has a way of grabbing my full attention whenever she wants it. Apparently, she feels that mindful meditation time is time that would be better spent loving on her, and honestly, I tend to agree.

Yesterday was a really hard day for me, and if it weren't for the antics of my beloved Hermione, I'm not sure I would have made it through the day as well as I did. Mother's Day has always been a difficult day for me. I've always wanted kids, but I didn't have them. It's not solely because I never married. After all, at the tender age of 18 I told my mom that when I thought I was ready to have children, I was going to have them, husband or no. For me, being ready to have a child included 3 things: wanting them, being ready emotionally and mentally to make them the first priority in my life, and being financially able to support them. A husband was optional.

By my late 20s early 30s, I had met the first two criteria, so I started working on the third. Unfortunately, that's about the time that a single person started to have a hard time supporting him or herself in this country. There was no way I was going to be able to support a family alone. I let the child dream rest until I could find a partner to share the joy with. I still haven't found one. Mother's Day became a little bittersweet. This year was especially hard. It's the first Mother's Day after my hysterectomy.

Until this year, there was still the hope that I would find "the one" and start a family. I was a little worried about infertility, but knew that with the right person, I could get through that. Now, the hope that I will ever give birth is gone, and it really, really hurts. I know there's adoption, and I've always said that I wanted to adopt whether I could give birth or not, but I'm still not financially able to support a child.  No one in their right mind would give me one, right now. So, yesterday, seeing all of the Mother's Day posts on Facebook, reading all of the Mother's Day news articles, scrolling through the Spoiling-Mom-on-Mother's-Day pins on Pinterest really messed me up. Throw on top of that seeing the lovely flowers my niece sent to my mom to thank her for being "like a mom to her," whilst said niece ignored me, who also helped to raise her, and I felt like the only thing I could do was curl up in a ball and cry until my sinuses became so full they exploded and took my head with them. My niece is the closest I will probably ever come to being a mother, and she didn't even acknowledge me as being such. It hurt.

But then...Hermione. She sat on my lap all morning and kept me grounded. I cried, Don't get me wrong. I cried a lot. But her unconditional love helped me to just feel sad, not suicidal. Her patience with me, allowing me to dress her up, cuddle her, and take care of her, gives me just enough mom feels to make not really being a mom not okay, but livable. I worry, though, that I'm going to over-do everything, and she will end up spoiled and bad tempered. I don't want to become that fur-mommy who lets her dog control every aspect of her life. I want to find the balance between crazy dog lady and loving fur-mommy. But for this Mother's Day, I was the crazy dog lady, and it's exactly what I needed to be to get through the day.

None of my friends know how much I wanted kids. Most of them actually believe it when I say, "I love children, as long as I can return them to their mother." The ones that don't believe that, think that I don't really like children. I think my mom was the only one who knew I actually wanted kids, but I don't think she understood how much it hurt me to lose the opportunity forever. Until Saturday.

On Saturday, we spent the evening together. I went to her house to pick her up to take her to a get together we had been invited to, and she immediately pointed out her flowers from my niece and started gushing about what a surprise it was to get them, and how pretty they were, and how much my niece loves her and considers her more of a mother than a grandmother, and on and on. I did very well and just smiled. I couldn't say anything, because if I did, the tears would start, and I didn't want to start our fun mother/daughter evening that way. So, smiling and just making positive sounds was all I could do to acknowledge her wonderful gift.

She finally stopped talking about it, and we made our way to the car. We were going to a girls only party about 45 minutes away, so we had a lot of time to just talk. I love driving with my mom because I love talking to my mom, but about 15 minutes out of town, she started in on the flowers, again. I just smiled and nodded and felt thankful that I had my glasses on so the thick handles could hide my eyes. She went on and on and never noticed that I wasn't saying a word. Then she asked me a question. She waited for my reply, but I just couldn't. If I opened my mouth, I felt like the only sound that would come out was the keening of grief. She asked the question again. When I didn't answer this time, she asked if I was all right. I whispered, "No." And then I spent a minute composing myself so that I could speak.

I said, "I'm really happy that Alicia loves you and sent you those flowers to say thanks, but when you talk about it, it makes me feel like crap. She's the closest thing I will ever have to a daughter, and she doesn't see that. She doesn't even want to be around me." My mom then interrupted and asked, "What makes you think that." And I told her, "Because she doesn't want to hang out with me anymore. She has her friends she would rather be with, and I understand, I was a young Airman and wanted to spend my leave with my friends. But she never even acknowledges how much like a mom I was to her: driving her to school, cooking her meals, buying her health and hygiene products, supporting and cheering her at school events, buying her clothes and teaching her how to size herself for a bra, helping her choose a prom dress and hundreds of other little things." Mom tried to interrupt again with, "She does that because...," but I stopped her. "I don't care why she does it. It makes me feel like garbage. I will never be a mom. Before I had hope, but now I don't, so Al not acknowledging me hurts more." During this whole thing, tears were running down my cheeks, snot was running out of my nose, and I was driving. Mom was quiet. I think that was when she realized how much I wanted kids.

It's now the day after Mother's day, and I'm still a bit wrecked. I look at my brother's girlfriend and wonder why the hell does she get to have 3 children and 1 grandchild (with another on the way,) and I get nothing? She's a horrible mother! She doesn't even like her children. She's off Saturdays and Sundays and spends every minute of those days, up until Monday morning, when she has to take her youngest child to school, with my brother at our house! Her middle child dropped out of school and does online school now, but rather than go back home on Monday after dropping the youngest off, she comes back to our house! My brother has gone to work, and I'm in the office, and she just hangs out watching T.V. here, because she doesn't want to go home and "deal" with her child! Then I look at all the news articles and stories about women who are even worse than she is who get to be moms. Why didn't I get to be one? Why?