The Devil You Face...Every Single Day

This is not a happy go-lucky blog. It isn't one gushing about how great the summer has been and how I'm feeling so good with myself. This is a blog about how things started to go downhill really hard and the time that has passed since I broke a promise to myself.

It started back in 1976. I'm not kidding. All this really started back on the day of my birth. Well technically that is not true. It happened at my conception in 1975. I am the combination of two incredible sets of DNA provided, of course, by my mother and my father. It was a wonderful creation because I came out of it!

During my development, physically, there was also development about certain genetic traits that were not understood back then. Many people then, and some still now, believed that depression and mental illness (I hate that term. Mental illness. Is the mind really sick?) isn't genetically passed down but science, physical and psychological, have proven this to not be true. Depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder etc are all things that can be passed down from one generation to the next and so on. Are you going to be bipolar because your mother/father/relative suffers from this illness? You may have the genetic code for this but you deal with it in a different manner so it does not impact you in the same way that it may impact others. This could be that you are surrounded by positive reinforcement that keeps those shadows at bay whereas another person is affected negatively and can't develop those reinforcements or they simply can't hold it off for long.

Your mind is a phenomenal machine. It never stops working and in my case, it kept the depression and anxiety constantly circulating. The mind tells you enough times that you aren't good enough, you will never accomplish anything or simply holds emotions away from you and eventually your own mind will break you.  Think of it in terms of your body being an airplane with the mind as the pilot. Oops someone in first class fell down and spilled some wine, the pilot says "fuck it all" and decides to crash the plane. Nothing else is wrong but the pilot feels that it has had enough and can't go on. Not realizing that the wine can be cleaned up. That there is nothing wrong with the plane and that the journey can continue but the pilot doesn't see it that it can go on. All the pilot can think about is that spilled wine and how everything is crashing around it. 

The truth is that with depression comes a lot of spills and the brain makes those spills often a lot worse than they are. For those that do not suffer from depression, anxiety, bipolar or any number of psychological issues, this is a foreign concept. They may be appalled that anyone can think death is the answer. Logically on a good day I agree. I know the damage it does because I have seen it in my own family. I know the fallout. You may recognize and KNOW that on one day but on another day your mind hides that from you. It makes excuses and the lies it tells itself to keep fueling that illness.

So back to that broken promise. In 2015 I was going through a really rough cycle and reached rock bottom. I decided that when all things were right and my tasks done, then I could finally say good-bye. I gave myself one year and promised myself that in July of 2016 I would commit suicide. Why 2016? It would happen after my youngest daughter graduated from High School. I thought she would be in a place where she could understand it and would not be affected. Same for my oldest daughter. They would no longer need me.

My depression lasted a really long time before cycling out. And it really never truly "cycled out." I began to just live day by day. But I never stopped thinking about the coming date. 

During this time I also found out I had IIH. IIH is Idiopathic Intercranial Hypertension. Another name for it is Pseudo Tumor Cerebri. And it acts just like the name. Your brain thinks it has a tumor pressing into it. What actually happens is that your body produces too much cerebral spinal fluid and it can not drain it off. It builds in your skull and compresses it. To say it hurts is horribly understatement. I was going through weeks and weeks of level 9 migraines. I could barely hear at times for the tinnitus. My vision was if you were trying to peer through a black screen door. Nothing was clear.

Work was horrendous as well. I left my company and went to a job I thought I was going to excel within but that good old friend depression, combined with massive pain, sabotaged me. It is a common theme with me and I hate it. I self-sabotage and really fuck things up. Looking back at my life I can see where I did that a LOT. But I broke that promise.

The new job happened around the time of my promise. That date I had scheduled the year prior. I was still lonely. I still missed my friends and family but I had a new focus. I kept pushing the promise date out further and further. Then the self sabotage hit. I failed at my job. Leaving there was rough. I was suddenly facing the holidays and the pain, depression and feeling like a failure kicked my depression and anxiety up to level 10's. That meant having to find new dosages of medicines. I still kept pushing that date out though. I wasn't going to end it at during that time of year but the fall from October to December is ALWAYS a low time for me. It's been that way for about 27 years. It started at 15 or so and then my dad died. My grandmother died and that year my aunt died. All close together.

I could have used my downtime to write and work on my 2nd book, or edit the first one but I couldn't focus enough to do that. Instead I started drawing. I'd draw flowers. Making a garden of blooms in a time of decay. They may have been paper but they made me happy. Sharing them with others made me happier. 

Fast forward to today. I've sabotaged myself a few more times and I currently feel overwhelmed but I'm not pushing my promise out day by day any longer. For now that date will remain a broken promise and I'll move on with my life. I'll use personal development tools to keep me on point. I am not delusional though. I know the depression (regardless of the tons of medicines I take) will still be with me but as long as I acknowledge it, rather than try to hide it, it can't take me. 

That pilot isn't going to crash me today or tomorrow. The pilot doesn't have a landing date yet and the engines are still good to go. There is some gas in the tank and I know that spilled wine doesn't mean you have to toss out the whole plane. Will I ever get past the suicide line into all is peachy and dandy? Yeah some days will be good. Some will be bad. 

I will keep fighting that fight. That is how people cope with depression. They find things that make them want to fight. And I want any of you to know that I get it. I'm here for you at any time on any day. I will help you fight it. It may be a long conversation due to distance but I'm still here. I know that for me, I have to start finding activities that take me out of my isolation. Whenever I keep isolating myself is when the depression kicks in the hardest.

Deciding to write this down wasn't easy. I don't know how it will go over but I do want my family and friends to know that I'm not hiding these things. I refuse to let it silently crash my plane and it also lets them know that having depression, especially in my family, is always watching. We band together, be vigilant and know that we have each other no matter what.