This weekend it happened. That one day of the year that I hate and hope I don't notice. The day the sunlight changes. It always happens after Aug. 15. So I spend my days in Aug. busy. I keep myself as busy as I can hoping that one day I will look up and it will be Sept. or Oct. and I won't have noticed the light change.
It never works.
This past Saturday was hot and muggy and a bit cloudy and then it rained. Sunday was cloudy all day so it appeared dark. Then Monday I looked out the window at school and dang it- I noticed the angle of the light from the sun was a bit lower, a bit darker. I hate that because that means the depression is coming. This is how it starts, Noticeing the light change and fell a little switch inside turn and then a darkness seems to creep up and start to envelpe me and I am caught and everything seems worse than it really is. And I am tired. So, so tired. So tired that I just want to hibernate. I wonder if this is the same thing that triggers that instinct in animals. Too bad I can't sleep off all the weight the way the animals do.
It lasts, gripping me in its deep darkness until that magical day in December that the light starts to shift back. Dec. 21. The day that is the shortests in the year. I watch the shadows each day after this as they last longer and longer and it takes longer for the sun to set. And then it is April, we change the clocks forward and the switch switches again. The darkness lets go of it's death grip and I can breath again.
**** My depression is mostly situational and if my life circumstances were different the ever present depression would leave. However, the winter time SAD (seasonal affictive disorder) would still be there. There is just not enough light in Utah during the winter. I just have to make sure that I am in the sunshine as much a possible.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Sunday meetings
Sometimes I hate Sunday meetings. Now don't get me wrong, I have a testimony of the truthfullness of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, but sometime I just have hard time sitting through the meetings without wanting to scream that people need to get real.
Take today for example. Today the speakers spoke about attitude and how we make our lives what they are by the things we say and do. The sister that spoke was thin (even though she has three small children under the age of 5), her hair was perfect, her clothes were perfect, she was cute and perky and all smiles and giggled at the lame jokes her husband made. Then as she is giving her talk she states, "If you are sad or things are not as you want them to be, then just decided that that is not what you want and decide to be happy and put a smile on your face and you will be happy."
I really wanted to choke her at this point. If that was all it takes to be happy, then why am I not happy? Why was there another sister in the bathroom after sacramen meeting crying big heaping sobs because she is not happy? We both paste the fake smiles on our faces and pretend to the world that all is right in our homes. Then why are we not happy? I won't go into the deal with the sister in the bathroom, because that is hers to do, but we have had the same discussion before (and in the bathroom after sacrament meeting no less among other places). But I know why I am not happy and it is NOT my fault.
I know another person that was having a problem with depression due to overwhelming life circumstances. She used some medicine for a bit and it helped but was then able to use an herbal remedy. She said she was amazed when she woke up feeling like her old self. That caused me to ponder- it has been so long since I have seen my "old self" that I do not know that I would recognize her if I saw her. Do you know her? Would you describe her to me so that when, if ever, she shows up I will know it is her?
So why am I unhappy. Life choices and most of them not mine. The biggest bad choice that I made was in who I married and that has caused all the rest of it. He is not a righteous man. He is a liar and a good one at that, obviously, I fell for it twice. If I could see a way out, I would take it. But the way out has to not harm my children. There in lies the problem. Why should they have to pay for my mistake in letting this evil man back into my life?
Enough rambling about this, I will probably revisit it as I post in the future, but right now what I want to say is this. I mostly hate Sundays when the meetings are all about faking it through life with a plastic smile. I just don't relate to people that are happy. I don't know what that feels like. I don't know what it feels like to love my husband, or want to be around him, or to enjoy him, or to miss him when he is gone. I want to feel that sometime before I die {I just don't want it to be this man}. I also believe that pasting a smile on and faking it are not what the atoinment is all about.
I believe that Jesus Christ atoined for me personally. Not just for my sins an missteps, but for my sadness and depression as well. For my loneliness, my sorrow, my broken heart, my inability to care whether this person I live with dies or not, for my fear when this man decides it is time to punish me for something I did or did not do, for the fact that I have not slept in 22 years. He atoined for my feelings of apathy toward, no let's be honest, my feelings of pure hate towards this man that is the father of my children. For the angry, spiteful, mean words that come out of my mouth when he is around. (anyone that knows me well, would be shocked to hear them).
And because I know that He is my Lord and Savior and that He willingly atoined for me for all of these things, I know that someday I will be able to be happy. I will be able to know what joy really is, because I cannot believe that He nor my Father in Heaven would want me to feel this way forever- that in my opinion is what Hell is. So for this purpose- that He loves me and wants me to be happy- I suffer through the perky, paste a smile on meetings. And if I cover the back of the program with doodles of flowers- well, I am in the meeting and my children are in the habit of attending.
And then you get to go to Relief Society and the dearest, sweetest 84 yr. old woman gives the lesson and tells you before hand how afraid of standing in front of all the women she is. She reads a poem that she wrote when she was younger about her sadness. She makes it all worth it and you get to give her a big hug and she tells you she loves you. Then she gives you a cookie.
Take today for example. Today the speakers spoke about attitude and how we make our lives what they are by the things we say and do. The sister that spoke was thin (even though she has three small children under the age of 5), her hair was perfect, her clothes were perfect, she was cute and perky and all smiles and giggled at the lame jokes her husband made. Then as she is giving her talk she states, "If you are sad or things are not as you want them to be, then just decided that that is not what you want and decide to be happy and put a smile on your face and you will be happy."
I really wanted to choke her at this point. If that was all it takes to be happy, then why am I not happy? Why was there another sister in the bathroom after sacramen meeting crying big heaping sobs because she is not happy? We both paste the fake smiles on our faces and pretend to the world that all is right in our homes. Then why are we not happy? I won't go into the deal with the sister in the bathroom, because that is hers to do, but we have had the same discussion before (and in the bathroom after sacrament meeting no less among other places). But I know why I am not happy and it is NOT my fault.
I know another person that was having a problem with depression due to overwhelming life circumstances. She used some medicine for a bit and it helped but was then able to use an herbal remedy. She said she was amazed when she woke up feeling like her old self. That caused me to ponder- it has been so long since I have seen my "old self" that I do not know that I would recognize her if I saw her. Do you know her? Would you describe her to me so that when, if ever, she shows up I will know it is her?
So why am I unhappy. Life choices and most of them not mine. The biggest bad choice that I made was in who I married and that has caused all the rest of it. He is not a righteous man. He is a liar and a good one at that, obviously, I fell for it twice. If I could see a way out, I would take it. But the way out has to not harm my children. There in lies the problem. Why should they have to pay for my mistake in letting this evil man back into my life?
Enough rambling about this, I will probably revisit it as I post in the future, but right now what I want to say is this. I mostly hate Sundays when the meetings are all about faking it through life with a plastic smile. I just don't relate to people that are happy. I don't know what that feels like. I don't know what it feels like to love my husband, or want to be around him, or to enjoy him, or to miss him when he is gone. I want to feel that sometime before I die {I just don't want it to be this man}. I also believe that pasting a smile on and faking it are not what the atoinment is all about.
I believe that Jesus Christ atoined for me personally. Not just for my sins an missteps, but for my sadness and depression as well. For my loneliness, my sorrow, my broken heart, my inability to care whether this person I live with dies or not, for my fear when this man decides it is time to punish me for something I did or did not do, for the fact that I have not slept in 22 years. He atoined for my feelings of apathy toward, no let's be honest, my feelings of pure hate towards this man that is the father of my children. For the angry, spiteful, mean words that come out of my mouth when he is around. (anyone that knows me well, would be shocked to hear them).
And because I know that He is my Lord and Savior and that He willingly atoined for me for all of these things, I know that someday I will be able to be happy. I will be able to know what joy really is, because I cannot believe that He nor my Father in Heaven would want me to feel this way forever- that in my opinion is what Hell is. So for this purpose- that He loves me and wants me to be happy- I suffer through the perky, paste a smile on meetings. And if I cover the back of the program with doodles of flowers- well, I am in the meeting and my children are in the habit of attending.
And then you get to go to Relief Society and the dearest, sweetest 84 yr. old woman gives the lesson and tells you before hand how afraid of standing in front of all the women she is. She reads a poem that she wrote when she was younger about her sadness. She makes it all worth it and you get to give her a big hug and she tells you she loves you. Then she gives you a cookie.
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