A Work Of Fiction

This is a short story I wrote. It's based on my own experiences at the lowest point in my life but is, as a whole, a work of fiction. I felt it fitting to post here.

In my Darkness

I found myself walking on the beach one night. It was so late it was early as my feet sank into the now cold sand. I passed the transients camped along the wall separating the sand from the boardwalk as I reached the rock jetty and turned toward the water. I began picking my way across the rocks under a moonless sky, fully aware that I was putting myself into a corner-- my only company that night being of a not so trustworthy sort. Should someone rise from their sleeping bag and follow me out onto the jetty with the intent to do me harm I had no recourse there, only ocean waves and sharp rocks. But I was not naive. I was ambivalent.

These were my thoughts as I moved methodically out to the end of the rocks where the waves splashed, and breathed as they were sucked back into the abyss. But these thoughts didn’t scare me because I had gone numb. My soul had died...no, not died--it was fried. It was still alive in an emotional skin so charred that consciousness was painful. And there was no event to look to, no particular fire that blazed one day melting and scarring my soul into an aching, gasping, useless life, inside a perfect physical shell. There was no reason. I guess maybe it was a slow sort of burn.

Months ago I found myself tired--tired all the time and then sad. I didn’t know why, I just was. “You seem depressed,” my friends would say. “I have nothing to be depressed about,” I would reply. But I knew that I was. Then the ugly thoughts, cravings for pain, a strange notion that watching myself bleed would make me feel better. The terror that would follow these thoughts when I found myself walking around the house clutching the blade end of a knife while my son napped. Crying spells where I couldn’t breath, feeling as if I were being attacked from the inside out.

With each of these events a piece of my goodness died, a piece of my beauty withered, bits of my soul fell away charred and crumbling and I bled inside. The pain became unbearable and like someone in a horrific accident passing out, I shut down. I let my soul sleep and my body just went on.

This was how I found myself on the beach at 2:00 in the morning, stepping from rock to rock, slipping, nearly falling into the swirling water, regaining my balance, continuing on. There was no reason. I was just there. At some point I would reach the last rock but my thoughts didn’t go that far. Maybe I would turn around and walk back, maybe I would jump in and let the sensation of freezing water give me something to feel, or maybe I would just sit and wait the four hours till the sky began to lighten.

The wind was gentle, chilly but soft, and the waves were loud but not constant. Between their crashing it was quiet. That was when I heard it-- rock hitting rock, a sound from behind. I turned and saw the dark figure of a man approaching me, carefully working his way across the slippery black rocks. This was it. Something was about to happen to bring my physical world in line with my emotional world. Rape, robbery, in a moment I would know and all I could think was, ‘how fitting.’ I already felt as if I had lived through such horror, so I stood, and I waited. My heart began to beat a little faster but I found the fear comforting, a sign of life. And desire for self preservation began to rise in me,  but I knew I had nowhere to go. So I reached into my pocket and wrapped my fingers around my keys, their points protruding from my knuckles. He was only a few feet away now, and then, nearly at arms length the man stopped and then spoke. His voice was deep and worn.

“This is no place for a young lady at this hour.”  He yelled to be heard over the waves

Then he stepped to the next rock and reached out his hand. I could see his face now, a grey beard and soft eyes, a cap on his head. His rough hand remained outstretched toward me. My heart quieted. The grip on my keys loosened. A large wave crashed and water splashed my feet. I stepped toward him onto the next rock in a dazed sort of way and gave the man my hand. He steadied me as I stepped and when I reached him he released my hand and took my elbow like a young person would for a weakening elder or like a Victorian gentleman would for a lady crossing a muddy street. In this way we stepped together from rock to rock. When we reached the sand he released my arm.

“Now thats better,” he said brightly.

“Thank you,” I replied but more out of politeness than sincerity.

“Go home sweetheart.” His voice had a fatherly tone, directing and pleading at the same time. I nodded.

“Okay.” I heard the word slip from my lips and the man smiled. I turned and began to walk back through the cold sand toward the wall and the boardwalk, toward the parking lot and my car, toward home. Then he called after me, his voice carrying on the salty air.

“The morning will come soon.” I didn’t turn around but the words repeated in my mind. “The morning will come soon.”

Imaginary Sand

One day a week I have no babysitter and have to take my daughter to work with me. The last couple of times I haven't been able to get much done, so this week I came up with a plan. I went to the dollar store and spent twenty bucks on cheap toys, so that instead of bringing toys from home she will have special toys that she only gets to play with once a week, and this is where our story begins.

Lately she has been pretending to pick flowers and berries so one of the things I bought her was a plastic sand pail and shovel so she could "gather berries" and "plant a garden." I also got her some mermaid dolls and sea animal puzzles and thus a beach was born in our alteration shop--a beach which apparently had very stubborn sand.

As I sat working Little Miss cries out in frustration, (I have to insert here, in her defense, that she did not sleep well the night before and was TIRED) "Oh! I can't get this bucket full!"
"What are you trying to fill your bucket with?" I asked.
"Sand!" she declared in exasperation as she held up the shovel.
"Well, keep digging then," I said.
"But I can't get it full!" (Now in tears.)
It was at this point that I tried to reason with her, but what do you say to someone who is dealing with imaginary sand and just can't get as much of it as they think they should have?

Well, as a mom I told her that if the bucket was going to upset her I would have to take it away. I then offered to put a movie on for her so that I just might be able to finish bringing in the heavily beaded wedding dress I had, at that moment, turned completely inside-out. But this got me thinking as I recapped it to my dad later that day, and we had a good laugh, "Do we do this? Do I do this?"

I think that as a whole we are a discontented people. We don't have enough, can't do enough, aren't enough, and why is that? Is someone standing over us telling us what we have to do, be, and have? Sometimes. But even then those people aren't holding guns to our heads. Most of us put the pressure on ourselves and ALL of us get to decide if our buckets are full or empty.

I've got this idea of who I think I should be--a list of talents I want, a vision of how I should look, ideas of how each day should go--and when I fall short I get frustrated. "This damn bucket just won't get full!" And I realized today that I am just like my daughter and her imaginary sand. I'm the one who made up all this stuff. It's my imagination that created the image in my head of what a full bucket looks like and for some reason my imagination is telling me that my bucket is far from full.

I think of how I tried to tell my daughter, "You are the one pretending. It's your bucket. It's your sand. Just decide you have enough and it will all be better." But she is three and was exhausted so of course this sound reasoning was returned with a blank look. I, however, am not three, and though I am tired, I can bow to reason. I can decide that my bucket IS full. I am enough. I am good enough. I do my best almost all the time and I AM ENOUGH, right now, I just decided. My bucket is full. It's my bucket and my sand and so I say that my bucket is full of sand!

Now, is this to say that we should all just settle? Of course not. But there is a difference between setting goals and striving while being happy with yourself in the now--a full and happy bucket with its eye out for some bonus sea shells, so to speak--and beating yourself down, making comparisons, digging and digging and wondering why your bucket is never full. Strive, grow and improve, but don't be brought down by imaginary sand. We can all decide today, "I am enough, and my bucket is full."

Best Intentions, Then...DEPRESSION

I had big plans today. Go to work early, be super productive and make a lot of money. (I get paid by the project not by the hour.) Then I was going to come home in time to beat my son home from school which I do three days a week now in an effort to be a better mom. Listen to his oh so important eight year old stories and help him with homework while simultaneously entertaining and validating my three year old. Clean the house, finish laundry and plan dinner. Go to the gym and workout like a total bad-ass and then stop by my mom's dance class to learn choreography so I can be an extra body in their summer recital. That was my plan. Those were my intentions then...DEPRESSION. Bum bum bum.

Work did not go smoothly. I had to deal with a difficult bride and tell her that what she wanted just wasn't possible. (One of my very favorite things to do. NOT.) My anxiety level began to rise. She was apparently devastated because I then got a phone call from the dress shop where she bought her dress, wanting to know why we couldn't do the alterations because she had called them sobbing and wanting to exchange. Blah blah blah. Long phone cenversation. Stress level higher. Etc. Etc. My day was not productive. And I did not make money but I did leave work feeling drained and uptight.

With my plans derailed and me not in a great state to carry on with the next phase of my great day, being an awesome mom, my son comes home with a note from his teacher saying he had behavioral problems. Uggh! Anxiety rising. Coping ability falling...

I get online to try and decompress. My daughter keeps bringing me "tea" insisting we "clink" glasses. I half heartedly comply...about ten times, then I can't take it anymore. I want to snap but I keep it together. "No more tea," I say. Re-enter my son, "Mom, you have to pick me up from school tomorrow at 1:30." (He normally walks home.) "What!?" He hands me a paper. They are doing an emergency evacuation drill. Awesome! I would love to drive all the way home in the middle of the day with no notice, fight the traffic of hundreds of parents and pick up my kid early so that the school can play pretend! Coping ability officially gone. Me officially overwhelmed and from there I rapidly sink into a paralyzing depression. I could see it coming a mile away but with my day and my body against me, there doesn't seem to be anything I can do.

So this is where I start to beat myself up. These are all every day, normal things that I should be able to deal with. Right? I sit and feel angry that I'm not getting anything done. "So get up and go fold the damn laundry then!" But I can't. It's almost impossible to explain to someone who has never felt it but it's like I've been tied up from the inside out. And if I just force myself to fight it and get my butt in gear I'm afraid I will explode. The tears will start and a full on hyperventilating anxiety attack will be the finale to me day. So feeling like a pathetic waste I crawl into bed and hope that a nap will help, which it sometimes does. If I can sleep long enough it's like my body will reboot. Today, however, no dice.

So here I sit surrounded by laundry, wearing my gym clothes but cuddled under the blankets on my bed. There is no dinner cooking and my daughter is in a different part of the house being loved and attended to by my sister. I think of times in the past when my depression and anxiety has ruined a great day, like a high school dance with my boyfriend and dates with my husband. I want to cry but I can't. I feel like a failure and I tell myself, "You are sick. You have an illness that you manage. It's like a diabetic having a spike or drop in blood sugar that puts them out of commission for a time." I try to believe myself but...

I would normally end a post like this with an uplifting and encouraging bit about how I cope, how I overcome and how it is all okay. But I don't have one today. I'm just sharing so if anyone reads this who experiences the same things, they can know they are not alone. To them I say, "Give yourself a break. Depression obliterating your plans is part of your life. It sucks and it's a challenge, but it's okay. Another day soon you will be super mom, super woman even, and those days out number the bad so let it go." Thats what I would say. Now if only I can listen.

Sometimes You Just Need To Check Out

When I am depressed or feeling particularly anxious I am not pleasant to be around. And I don't just mean that I'm no fun or that I'm a total party-pooper, which I am, but I mean that things can get ugly and quick. If I'm having anxiety my patience is zero. I am almost guaranteed to over react, yell, punish unreasonably or even start a fight. I know this about myself. I've been living it for years. I can't say, however, that I have really recognized the reality of this or its destructiveness till relatively recently.

In the past my husband was just insensitive, my children disobedient and my life unreasonably hard. I knew that I felt like crap but if all this stuff would stop bugging me I would be fine! I felt horrible and so would go through my day being horrible and then feeling even more horrible, an ugly cycle with destruction in its wake. Eventually after snapping at my son all day, silently cursing the general public and then yelling at my son for a minor infraction my husband would finally come home and I would dump my shitty day on him and lock myself in my room because I just couldn't "take this day anymore!"

I would usually calm down and realize I had been a horrible mom and come out at bed time, repentant and loving. But with the underlying problem still blazing, a struggle at bed time would immediately send me right back into head biting off mode (backfire.)

Anxiety is an ugly bitch. I strive daily to control her and after years of practice I can say I have gotten better but the struggle goes on. So until that magical day when I am freed of my disorder in its entirety this is what I've come up with to combat the miserable scary wife/mommy monster I can sometimes be. I lock her up before she can even show her face!

This is what I've been trying:

When I know I'm having a bad day which happens occasionally for no reason and usually happens for a few days before my "days of womanly misery," I make it known calmly to my husband as a warning, and to enlist his help. See, just being depressed or anxious isn't what sets me off. Its having to deal with things when I'm in that state. I just can't, and the tension builds inside of me making everything ten times worse. But I've found that if I can avoid stress, keep to myself and try to do things that I enjoy or are mindless, then I stay calm and just quietly feel crumby while everyone else gets to be happy and the house stays a peaceful place. After the pre-monster warning my husband will run interference with the kids, take care of dinner and let me lock myself in my room. When my son asks for a bedtime story I calmly and sweetly tell him, "not tonight," because I know that when I feel like that, sitting in his bed reading something silly for the umpteenth time will send my anxiety level through the roof, so that when he asks for a second story or a third kiss I will inevitably, at the very least, respond curtly and with annoyance. Saying no used to make me feel guilty but what is worse, being told you have to get what you want another day or getting a shallow, frustrating version of what you asked for?

I could seem like a bad mom to some, hiding from my children, letting my husband make dinner while I do online crosswords, but I've learned from sad experience that sometimes I just need to check out. If I don't have the capacity at times to give goodness to the ones I love then I don't want to give them anything. Better to have a break than to break something, especially a heart. And after an evening of coping alone, with no added stress, I feel ok and I can go kiss my kids goodnight with a smile and hope for a better day tomorrow.

My Money Cage

Today I'm feeling it, feeling the grip of my cage, my money cage, or rather, my lack of money cage. I've been thinking about the things I want most in life right now and even though most of them do not seem financially driven, they all come back to money and my need for it.

I miss being home, home with my kids, home and available to help out my friends. I miss baking with flax and whole wheat flour. I miss cooking healthy dinners for my family. I miss being around to make sure that my daughter gets out of her pajamas each day and gets her hair fixed. I want to be able to spend more time helping my son with his multiplication tables and be down the street so that when he takes too long walking home from school I can run out and find him. And the list goes on. So what do these things have to do with money? Well I have to earn it which means 8 hrs at work minimum each day. Why can't my husband earn the money? He's going to school. And why is he going to school? To be able to earn more money!

I want my daughter to take dance lessons so her natural talent can be cultivated. My son wants to take hip hop and gymnastics and wants to be able to play the guitar. All of these things cost money and I didn't even list the lessons and classes I'd like to take. My son is getting piano lessons but its only because he gets them from a friend who doesn't want to be paid. (Tender mercies!)

I want to feed my family free range chicken, grass fed beef and locally grown produce. I want to buy clothes hand made by small designers and items for my home, made by local artisans. I want to support the little guy. I want my dollars to count for other people, but when you only have a few you have to make sure they count for yourself as much as possible. And that means cheap food with a questionable origin and clothes from the clearance rack that were manufactured for criminal wages over seas.

Now don't get me wrong. I know that compared to the majority of the world, I live in the lap of luxury. It's not the lack of the things I want that leave me frustrated. It's feeling like my financial cage is preventing me from being my true self. I have pretty strong feelings about where my meat comes from. I believe strongly that buying locally and supporting artists is important. I believe that most meals should be prepared at home not thrown together by teenagers and handed to me through a window. But what kind of weight do my beliefs carry when I've worked a ten hour day and I have $5.00 in my wallet. The answer is, not a whole lot. It's 7:00 pm, I'm tired, everyone is hungry and $5.00 means five things off some dollar menu.

When I feel trapped in my lack-of-money cage it's not a new car I dream of, and trust me, I could use one. It's not expensive name brand clothes or vacations either. It's being who I want to be. I dream of some day being able to make decisions based on what I love, on what I believe and on what is important to me, not on what I can manage on my budget.

But someday I'm going to escape this cage made of time restraints and bills and my hungry bank account. My family's hard work and sacrifice will pay off and it will show on my plate and in my home and on my back. I will walk through the farmer's market and buy the $25.00 hand decorated onsie as a baby gift, instead of the clearance outfit at Walmart. I'll buy the locally harvested honey even though it's twice the price of generic store brand. I'll buy a painting I love from an unknown artist. I will make my dollars make a difference and I will feel free. Then I will go home and spend the afternoon making whole grain cookies with my daughter while my son shows me what he learned in gymnastics and we'll eat our cookies off plates purchased on Etsy made by a retired veteran in Ohio. That's what I dream of. Those are the things I see on the other side of my money cage. It's simple. It's beautiful and it's me.

Sacrifice?

I spend a lot of time sacrificing. Most of us do. As a Christian I've been taught about sacrifice since I was a small child. Christ's ultimate sacrifice and the sacrifices we should make to follow him, giving up our time to serve others, giving up carnal desires to live a righteous life etc. Then when I became a mother I learned about sacrifice on a whole new level. I sacrificed my body to bring them into the world. I gave up my perky breasts to nurse them. And then I gave up the career I thought I wanted to stay home and be the one to teach and care for my son, then later my daughter.

Then last year things changed again. I was asked to make another sacrifice. After three years of struggling in the post recession world we felt that the right thing for our family was for my husband to go back to school and for me to work full time. I had to sacrifice time with my children to earn the money to feed and clothe us all. These were all good sacrifices; hard sacrifices, but sacrifices I was willing to make for the greater good. But then with a career came a whole new world of demand on my time and in order to "do my very best" I found myself making more sacrifices to make more money or to oblige customers. Working longer hours or taking on appointments to accommodate a bride's schedule at the sacrifice of time with my children or my already limited trips to the gym. I found quickly that work had taken over my life and that I was compromising things of greater importance. This was a problem not only in general but acutely because of my struggle with anxiety and depression.

I was frustrated. I was grumpy. I was tired. I felt out of shape and all of this made me depressed which, bottom line, made me a sub-par mother. I had to make a change. I listed my priorities and made a commitment to myself that if something didn't fall under one of three things or worse, caused me to sacrifice one of those three things it just wasn't going to happen.

My list: 1- Time with my children, and husband.
             2- My personal well-being
             3- Making money to take care of my family's NEEDS

This list became my recourse. A cousin "needed" a prom dress made. "I'm sorry. I already spend so much time at work that I just can't sacrifice more time away from my kids (without a significant financial gain)." I hate not helping but they could figure it out and the added stress of taking on the project would be a sacrifice to my personal well-being. Just not gonna happen.

A bride would prefer to come in on a Tuesday but can't come till 5:00pm. Well Tuesday is my workout day and I leave work at 4:30pm. Skipping my workouts has dire effects on my psyche. Why should I make the sacrifice when she is the one who needs my help? "I'm truly sorry but Tuesday evenings just don't work for me." And off I go to the gym. She may not prefer it but she will come in on Wednesdays.

At first I felt selfish telling all these people no, getting in my workouts and being home every evening to eat with my family and tuck my kids into bed, but I realized I was still making a sacrifice. I'm sacrificing my "need" to be everything to everyone to be what I really need to be and that is a happy, healthy and devoted mother. They are only little for such a short time. Everyone else is just going to have to figure out something else because first and foremost I am a MOM and I'm just not going to give my kids the short end of the stick. Putting my family and my health first is not always easy but changing it from a wish to a commitment has made it easier and my life is blessed for it.

Nails, Lips, Knees And Feet

I was a good kid. So good, in fact, that my dad has admitted remembering no instances of misbehavior. Okay maybe my dad is just getting old, but despite my not being perfect I was by all accounts responsible.  To list my outstanding qualities as a child and teen would pretty much describe me still today: creative, outspoken, emotional (shocking! Ha ha.) and responsible.

The rules my parents made for me were less along the lines of curfews, bedtimes and homework and more along the lines of, "shoes must be worn outside when the temperature is 50 or below," "no black nail polish and no black, green, or blue lipstick!" (I was, however, allowed to wear purple and orange!) and "no knees peeking up from the table at dinner." Yeah I was a little weird.

I went through a serious no shoe phase along with my best friend at the time. She would sleep over on weekends, and in the summer, those weekends could easily turn into a week and we never wore shoes, not to the store and not on our long walks around the neighborhood. We also did not wear our shoes when my dad drove her home. This resulted in about five pairs of this friend's shoes in our mud closet by the end of the summer, an annoyance my parents nagged me about till all the offending shoes made it back to her house. Well the bare feet continued into the winter till my dad came home one day and was greeted by little bare footprints in the snow leading to the mailbox and back. The 50 degree rule was instituted.

The colorful nails and lips phase came in about the same time as the bare foot phase  (age 13-14) and to my parents' credit they barely turned a head to the purple, or orange lips and rainbow nails. But black was where my dad drew the line. I was not in any way allowed to appear gothic. Along with this rule was no black army boots (therefore one of the first purchases made when I left home) and no wearing all black, even if it was a dress shirt, slacks and pumps. (this very obviously led to an all black phase my first year of college) To add to my color obsession I discovered that mixing a large amount of eyeshadow with vaseline made colored lipgloss, thus green and blue lips were born!...and quickly shot down. Apparently they fell into the forbidden "Gothic Zone."

For as long as I can remember I have had a hard time keeping my feet on the ground when seated. My legs are always tucked under me, or my knees (one or both) are up, hugged against my chest. When we would go on long car trips our family's big cooler would always sit at my feet because I wasn't using the space, actually having the cooler there nearly doubled my vehicular real estate which suited me just fine.

Dinner was no exception to my feet-on-floor aversion. But my dad found my knee poking up to be an eyesore I suppose, because the "no knees above the level of the table" rule was born. So I just sat cross legged...and I still do. I still can't keep my feet on the ground. I've been compared to a cat, always curled up. I've been called a contortionist, always tied in knots and I even had a friend once say, "Sometimes I look at you and make a game of trying to figure out which of your legs is which."

I'm certain that this behavior will eventually result in varicose veins but that's how I'm comfortable. What can you do? I am happy to announce that I grew out of my all black and rainbow lips phases and that I usually put on shoes to go outside but I'm afraid that when I'm ninety I will still be sitting on my feet and hugging my knees...at least I hope so.

Rise And Shine Sleepy Head

I have a hard time getting out of bed in the mornings, like a REALLY hard time. The problem is waking up with an alarm. The alarm goes off, I hear it, I open my eyes enough to find my alarm,  (sometimes...half the time I just feel around till I find it) I hit snooze and then I'm back to dreamland before I can even give it a second thought. This occurrence repeats itself every five minutes for about half an hour. Yes, half an hour. So I need thirty minutes to join the land of the living. I know this about myself and I set my alarm accordingly. One problem...I'm not the only one in my bed and my husband HATES it! It's bad enough when your spouse has to get up before you and you have to endure their alarm but to endure it for half an hour?! That's just too much. I totally agree but what am I supposed to do? He says turn off the alarm and get out of bed. Well babe I truly am sorry but that just isn't possible. The alarm doesn't actually wake me up. I hit snooze in my sleep and in fact if I get too used to a ringtone I just sleep right through it. If I actually turned off the alarm it could easily be another two hours before I would wake up on my own. And no, I'm not exaggerating. I am NOT a morning person. I will happily let my kids stay up late if it means they will sleep in and in turn let me.

So back to the alarm dilemma. In my defense I would hit snooze and then put my alarm under my pillow so that I could still hear it but him not as much and he would usually put his head under his pillow to muffle the sound but I decided it was time for a change. I knew that last thirty minutes of constantly interrupted sleep was doing me no good so my husband suggested  putting the alarm across the room. A great idea if it wasn't winter and our room wasn't freezing but it is and I knew I would just grab the alarm and dart back under my cozy covers. Then I  had the idea to put the alarm next to the space heater as an incentive to stay out of bed. It was worth a try.

So 6:50 am rolls around, (Yes I know its really not that early) and my alarm across the room on the floor goes off. I get out of bed, drop to the floor next to the heater and turn it on, enter problem number two. (or four or six, whatever I'm at) I have no problem with the floor. I'm comfortable sitting on the floor, working on projects on the floor and apparently...sleeping on the floor, especially curled up next to a toasty space heater.

Day two: I realize if I am to have any hope of waking up with only one or two "snoozes" I am going to need light. So the alarm goes off and me being the considerate wife that I am, put my pillow over my husbands face before turning on the light and hunkering down on the floor. The light helped and I reduced my snooze hits from six to three! This was progress.

The most recent effort in reducing my rise and shine time came about last week when I placed a magazine on the floor with my alarm and heater. I've found if I can just get it flipped open, along with my eyes, The gears in my brain start turning and I am proud to announce I've reduced my snooze hits to two! Yay me! And so far not a word from my sweet husband about the pillow on his head.

Sun! Glorious Sun!

Wow! I have really been suffering from the winter blues, and I didn't realize how much till the sun came out today and made me gloriously happy. It was a whopping 40 degrees where I am and with as bad as it has been lately, it felt like summer.

I lived in Southern California for 11yrs before moving back to my home town in the Rocky Mountain region a little over a year ago and boy has it been rough. I went from 70 degrees pretty much year round to winter four months out of the year. For someone who has a tendency to get depressed, post-Christmas snow and cold is detrimental. Pre-Christmas snow is delightful, heart warming, and festive but now when it snows YET AGAIN I want to cry, and as I slide around on the roads I curse this place and long for the beach.

My husband on the other hand still thinks it's beautiful and he rides a bike to school every day! That's right, snowing? Rides his bike. 7 degrees? Riding his bike. Roads covered in a sheet of ice? STILL RIDING! He doesn't want to spend money for a campus parking pass which doesn't hurt my feelings any, but really? Rides his bike everyday and sad that the snow is melting? This should tell you a bit about my husband. He loves the outdoors, is eternally up beat, and... he's crazy. You sure as heck won't catch me praying for snow. Thank you Mother Nature for the sunshine today. I know it won't last seeing as how it's only the first of February but today was lovely and I'll take what I can get!

A Fat Man On Her Chest?

A fat man on her chest?... What?! ...Well it's a phrase I use when I'm having a bout with anxiety as in "Ugggh! I feel like I can't breath. It's like there's a fat man sitting on my chest!" or "Grrr. Get this fat man off my chest!"

Anyone who has had an anxiety attack might know what I'm talking about. I feel my chest tighten and a pressure like...well... like a fat man is sitting on my chest. As I try to describe the discomfort that's just the only thing that comes to mind. Phrases and comparisons like that help me to explain the inexplicable to my friends and family, (especially my husband who has a shockingly limited emotional vocabulary) and is an easy way for me to let those close to me know I'm struggling without getting all whiny and boo hooy.

I also find that finding an element of humor (or creating one if necessary) in the most painful times can make things just a little more bearable. I may be feeling an intense and unreasonable sense of doom but in the bit of my mind that manages to keep its sanity when all my happy switches go off I know that everything is okay. I may not be capable of feeling okay but I can treat my pain with a bit of levity to remind myself that the feelings are unfounded. It's just my brain doing what it does sometimes and it will pass.

As I'm sure you've already concluded, I suffer from a depression and anxiety disorder. I treat with medication but take a minimal dose to lessen side effects. I use a lot of self talk, prayer and exercise to make up the difference. I also write. So then it dawned on me the other day, "Maybe there are people out there who could find this stuff useful!" So here I am. I'll write about the good times and the bad, what I do right and what I do wrong. Maybe someone will benefit from my experiences but at the very least I will benefit from putting it out there. Writing truly does help me get the fat man off my chest.