Monday… not all Mondays are bad.   They are the day that the Lord has made. I should rejoice and be glad in it. Some Mondays are harder than others to rejoice in that kind of furfor, however it is a beautiful sunny and warm day so it’s not all bad.

I stopped taking my Cyberlax  anti-depressant.  Its kinda like getting rid of a annoying friend. This friend doesn’t leave with a quiet exit. It slams the door stomps off and yells all the way down the hall, comes back and yells through the door some more. There are side effects of course. The shaky hands and twitching are back and the racing heart and tremors too. Today I have been fighting anxiety I think I have it under control but it is going to take a bit. I had a dizzy spell at work this morning and I’m thinking is this worth it. I mean really – I have been feeling better and my energy is up and the vitamins I am taking are making a huge difference, but getting off of this drug is so hard I am afraid once I am off what if the depression comes back, going back on it may kill me.   Too far ahead to think bout that. But for now, the side effects make me feel like I am bouncing around in a washing machine, battered and brused.

As for my daughter we have come to a truce for now. So she is behaving better and I am relaxing a bit. My husband is running interference so that helps. She had been working a lot so that have made a difference.

I have been spending a lot of time at home alone it’s  been nice to relax and just be. The turmoil in my mind lately has enjoyed the quiet.

I know I am through the worst of the depression and this is just another stage….but the stages of an illness can wear on you.

So what do I do…I plug away try to get some quiet time to sooth my mine and bite my tongue through the shakes and tremors and pray, pray that God protect me from the darkness, cause I hear it calling for me to hide in its shadows but I know that there is no peace there –only in God’s arms will I find it. I think I need to be over the top OCD about my sleeping, what I am eating or drinking. If I am tired I can slip into the darkness, eating healthy will also keep my body strong. Weakness is a foot hold for darkness. I sound like I am going into battle- but it is. As I allow the medication to seep out of my system, and adjust my chemicals to fend off naturally , imbalances –it will be a battle.

Till next time………..

Saturday…. its been a ok day. feeling a little better, the depth of the sadness has lifted.   I have been able to stop the confusion and the loudness in my head.

I am deeply troubled by my daughter’s actions. I don’t want to go into it but what do u do when your children completely ignore the teachings u give them and throw it all away? I keep coming back to the phrase ‘sins of the Father.’ I see her doing the things I did. and don’t want her to do.    The other thing I can’t stop thinking about is my depression, how my absence cause I was totally distracted by my inner darkness has left my girl alone and ignored when she needed a mother. I remember reading something she wrote stating that she thought I hated her. I can not tell u how deep that cuts. My inner turmoil gave her the impression that I hated her – when truth was, I hated myself.

I was also thinking about my childhood. My mother started to work and Dad started to travel when I was 15. I think they figured I was ok, but had they been more involved in my life I wouldn’t had made some of the mistakes I did then. Don’t get me wrong I knew my Mom and Dad loved me. I never talked to them told them my fears, hopes, dreams. I was expected to get a job get married and have babies.  I didn’t do that – I wanted an education, which I was denied, farm girls didn’t go to college. It was just a sign of the times. I did go to college- on my own dine.

So I was the ignored child..a Hazard of being the youngest child. I can’t stop thinking that I stayed home and looked after my babies and then I went to work when my oldest was entering grade 9, my girl was only in grade 6. It was the right moment to get a job with the school board, but not the right time for her.

So the sins of the father.

So u can probably tell – I am feeling extremely guilty and hurt and shocked.   I look at this almost 18 year old girl and think….who are you? I have to remember she is my lovely little girl.   The mistakes she makes are hers. And there is nothing I can do about that- I can yell, freak, and impress upon her what I believe is right. But in the end God gave us free will and she will do what she thinks.

In the mean time. I need to love her – impress upon her the rules that she needs to follow in our home and pray for her, and trust God will look after her.

That is the rub though…..we struggle with letting go and watching them make their own decisions and for good and bad they do what they do. How patient and frustrating must God be with this human race. When Eve distrusted God, believed the serpant that God would surly not kill them, and to eat from the forbidden tree, and they did, God could have destroyed them. But he endured the loss of his children and prepared a solution for them and loved them. So I follow God’s example, love, pray, and continue to show them the path and hope my children see and follow.

Till next time…..

I am in a grrrr mood.  I am particularly agitated.  I can’t seem to get any peace.  You know when you have a cold and your head is full of cold stuff and you can’t get relief, I am kinda in the same situation except my head is full of voices, swirls and clutter.  The outside is crowding in on the inside, and I am in need of some quiet. 

Last night was Ash Wednesday service, it was awful, I have been haggling over some issues with my daughter, myself, and I haven’t had a chance to sit and think and be still in front of the Lord.  So what happens – my husband makes us late, he is bugging me in the service to ‘cheer up’ and I wanted to sit behind and pray and that didn’t happen either.  It’s a whine and I should be grateful for people around me but everything is so loud and I can’t stand it.

Next week, is March break.  My son will be home, and daughter is grounded so she will be home, and my husband at work.  Surely I can get some peace and quiet sometime.  I need to be alone.

till next time

I have been feeling good, really good, and in some ways I still do, but I tripped and fell down.  I have more energy, when I workout, and I do boot camp type workouts, I am finding I am feeling more powerful when I do them. That makes me feel more with it, – I want to say more in control, but maybe to say I feel more capable is a better way to put it.  I have learned that there is no such thing as control.  The only thing in control is that God has me in his hand, he is in control, I am ‘words with out wisdom’ (Job 38 old testament).  I have been sleeping better, till this week and that helps me think clearly, which again makes me feel I am capable of so much more.  I have even been thinking about my involvement in church and may join the prayer group again.  I have dropped out of everything. So to be thinking about something make me feel happy. 

However:  you knew that was coming – however I fell down on Sunday, it was creeping up on my on friday and into Sat and the darkness showed its ugly head on Sunday.   I have been feeling down and as the sadness crept in, and as I was fighting all the negative voices,  then I made a discovery of stuff my daughter is up to.  A 17 year old.  Discovered she has been smoking, and smoking dope, has been having panic attacks, and has done some self harm.  Sounds like I am describing myself, minus the dope,  the self harm stuff if from about a year ago, the dope stuff has been going on for about a year, off and on.  How could I have missed it? Well I didn’t totally,  I have had my suspicions  all along.  I knew she was having difficulty in a depression way and I have been supporting her the best I could, I didn’t know the reasons why,  I though it was typical 16-year-old hormones.  some days she would be fine and be fine for weeks then have a patch where she was sad, then she would be fine again.  I should have known better that there is an ebb and flow of depression, and mid teen girls suffer more often than older girls.  She is at the beginning of the hormone changes as she is becoming a women, I am at the tail end of hormone changes –I should have seen more.  We are supporting her now, we have doctor apts set and other support for her a long the way, but truly, I have for the past four years been focused on me.  The first year or so I didn’t say anything to the kids about my depression and she thought I hated her.  When I told her I was having difficulties and it was taking all my energy to function it was unrelated to her and she understood she felt betterour relationship got way better- there was some dope smoking then, and we did all the parent stuff to stop it, and she was doing really well – till now.  As for her- she has applied to several schools for post secondary positions.  She wants to be in film production, which she has a passion for so I am so happy to have her find something she loves, but to get into these schools it has required a portfolio and essays and lots of stuff to do, so she has had lots of stuff and stress.  Sounds like I am making excuses for he, and maybe I am — but through her most influential years,  I was trapped in a darkness that I couldn’t cope with me…let alone help her.  She is an ignored girl, and now I feel I am making up time for it.

That is probably an unfair judgement on myself, but I wonder if it could be different had I been with it.

In the mean time as we deal with this, I am also dealing with this sadness.  I cried Sunday night and couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. Since I have lowered my meds that seems to come more easterly. Not sure if it is a good thing.  I have been distant and heartbroken.  I have the trembles again and feel the heaviness of the darkness .  My husband has been a little freaked out.  I think he relaxed when I was feeling better over the past months and is worried again. 

As Gilda Radnor said “there is always something ” but why all at once, cause today I feel like I am drowning.

till next time…………………..