Another week in June has just about gone by.  I am tired today.  I got up early and ran 6km, then showered and off to work. Work has been really busy, half of the staff are sick and I got left holding the bag.  I am still trying to figure out things but as acting Office Manager I have been trying to get it all done.  I have been feeling good.  A little shaky today which always makes me nervous cause I am never sure where it will lead to.  I have been telling myself it’s just your tired. So tonight I will sleep and sleep in no running tomorrow, (hopefully I sleep)  just relax and see what the day holds at the office.  Its fathers day this weekend and I am lucky on two accounts. First I have a great Father to my two kids – my husband of 20 years, and I had the greatest Dad as a father.  Gone now almost 15 years.  It’s hard to lose someone so wonderful and major influence in my life.  Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if he was here. Sometimes I wonder if he would think badly about me and my meds and my depression.  I am still trying to get it through my head depression isn`t my fault.  That is not an easy thing to do.  Why! it’s the way people look at you if they know.  It’s the comments people make about people with depression.  I had a comment made by a friend about my friend’s son who committed suicide, because he suffered sever depression.  He said  that boy was a “realy different sort of guy” He was creative, friendly, loving. he suffered from something he could not control. And that is the rub of it all.  Its something I can’t control.  That should let me of the hook right? No it never does. I am on the hook.  Control freak here– who feels like a freak cause she can’t control her emotions.  I am raising two teens, how do I guide them on how to live; how wonderful our Lord is and how to depend on God if I can’t depend on him myself sometimes cause I am too afraid and depressed and feeling betrayed by my mind and my body.  So I have my triggers.  I still suffer from panic attacks that the meds are suppost to help with, the problem with meds are they need to take effect and they take a while to really work.  So I wait in shame in silence except for one or two friends I say nothing to anyone.  Not even my Mother.  I love my Mom she is wonderful, and my best friend too.  My mother comes from a time when if a woman was suffering form panic attacks and depression they would put her in to the hospital.  Mom decided she “just wasn’t going to let it get her down” Depression doesn’t work that way, and she and I even though we look alike we are not build the same and my chemicals in my body have always had a mind of their own.  When I was 28 and had my first child, after a preplanned C section, I started the night sweats and hot flashes.  After my second child some thing only worse, and she was another C section, preplanned.  So I never had labour, and wonder if I had the natural birth experience, if chemicaly, I would be better off. A wonderment that I will always wonder.  My kids had to be C sections, I couldn’t have them natural so no choice in the matter. I have been having the physical side effects of menopause for almost 18 years.  So I always figured , Hey when it gets here it will be a snap at handling all of this.  I never figured in the emotional side of things. I never knew there was a depression side of things.  An anger side of things, A desperation side of things. A losing control of things and feeling like you have gone crazy.  Those women in my mothers time that were sent to the mental hospital, maybe it wasn’t so bad, Yes you had to leave your family, but the husband would say “my wife is helping a family member recover and will be back” it was never talked about and the women got really good drugs to come “around”  Mind you there was also shock therapy, so maybe a padded room isn’t the best thing.  But there are times I want to run a way for some quiet time.  To distract me from the voices of depression and rest and have no responsibility.  But that isn’t life. So the reality is cope the best you can.  I have made some changes in my life.  I don’t shop alone, I’m not allowed, I seem to become panicky when I am out by myself so one of the kids or my husband come with me which is difficult sometimes cause my boy and husband hate to shop.  So I buy  a lot of stuff at Costco, cause my hubby will go there, and Canadian Tire.   I  Pray.  God loves you He created you, he knows the hairs on my head and has them numbered and how many will and are turning gray, and for some of you what your natural colour was! Jesus walked this earth and delt with depression too.  He saw first hand how hard we struggle as humans on this earth.  He was full of compassion for us, he wept with us when his friends passed.  Jesus was distressed in the moments before he was taken to be crucified.  He was distressed to the point of depression because of the things he had to do to make things right between God and us.  He paid the ultimate price for us to come to God and for the forgiveness of our sins. He leads us to greater joy and love through God. Pray that God leads you to the light and away from the darkness.  God is Good he will look after you. I cling to him in my darkness.  He holds me when I am desperate. I will pray for you all. till next time