if you fall I will catch you, I'll be waiting, time after time

Monday, 08/29/16, 3:14pm (It is pi time. I am such a nerd), 4:15pm

Things have been hard. Yesterday was a long and difficult day, and so far, today hasn't been without struggle. It's like I'm continuously, mentally fighting these thoughts that pop into my head throughout the day. Thoughts that I was too scared to voice aloud in therapy this morning. Thoughts that I know are not a representation of how I truly feel or who I truly am, and yet they appeared in my head, without warning. This has been going on for several days.

And I know that I'm especially worse because I'm switching medications. I'm in the weaning process of the old anti-depressant while I have simultaneously started up the new one. There can be side effects to being on 2 anti-depressants at the same time, and I theoretically should be having some dependence type symptoms from weaning the first. Oh and from what I know about anti-depressants, they can take up to 4-6 weeks to kick in. Can be earlier, so we will hope for that.

My therapist told me to view it like I got a really bad case of strep throat, one that resisted the first round of antibiotics and just takes weeks to get better. I would have to cut myself more slack. In the same way, with however long this medication change takes, I have to cut myself slack. I should be resting more, doing things for myself to help make things better. I shouldn't feel guilty or shameful because right now I need to do that.

I created an "affirmation wall" on our bathroom mirror earlier today, as a suggestion from therapy. I'm really happy with the outcome.

(So sometimes "doing things for myself" is not worrying about kids playing Minecraft during their playdate while I blog in my bedroom, and listen to the Minecraft background theme over and over while the boys chatter about what they're building, etc).

I'm sick of setting myself up for failure with the expectations I put on myself, especially around my depression and its treatment. I can't expect for the treatment to be fail safe, ever, I can't expect to never have bad days, and I can't expect for changes in my treatment to lead to immediate recovery.

It's pouring rain outside right now, which is just perfect, to me. It makes me feel less guilty about kids playing video games just a few minutes longer, and it sounds and feels like all my emotions can temporarily be represented by the weather.

We're going to end with some happy pictures (not that the rain picture isn't happy- for me it is). The boys and I enjoyed the hammock a bunch yesterday and took some goofy shots.

I wish I was special... but I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo, what the hell am I doing here?

Sunday, 08/28/16, 10:57am

Sometimes depression and anxiety can really make me feel "crazy". I feel like I truly am that stigmatized view of a crazy person. I'm crying for no apparent reason, I shout over stupid random things, and I can't seem to handle myself when it appears from the outside that I have a great life. But then depression and anxiety know no reason. Why do we think that the only people who have the right to be depressed are when they are truly dealt with the crap of life? We think you've got to be dealing with poverty, abuse, trauma, physical illness, grief, or whatever else to have the right to depression. Someone like me, someone who's got the luxury to be at home with her two wonderful, always well behaved children, someone who's got a suburban house with a basement, a mortgage, a supportive husband and loving family shouldn't deserve that right. It's just so stupidly nonsensical for someone like me to have depression, you just want to say "shut up and stop feeling sorry for yourself", right?

Of course when I go down that path of thinking myself, I start thinking that's true, I don't have that right. And yet inexplicably I still have this depression. It hits me like a ton of bricks sometimes, and if I question all those feelings and say to myself "what is wrong with you? what do you have to be depressed about?", I feel that much more shame over it and I spiral downwards that much further.

Not only do I feel (in this state) extreme sadness over my life, worthlessness about myself and my existence, but on top of that I feel extreme shame. Crippling, desperate shame. I'm supposed to know how to get better. I'm supposed to be able to pull myself out of this. I'm supposed to be able to will myself to be happy, or exercise, or eat the right things, or practice mindfulness more, or read the right books, and it will work. I'm just failing and that's why it's not working.

Instead I find myself crying on my bed silently, hoping the kids won't leave their show downstairs to try to find me and discover me in this state. I don't want to actually tell anyone how I'm feeling, I don't want to reach out to someone who can help me, because then I have to admit the shame that I've let the depression cripple me again.

But I am switching medications right now and that is hard stuff. I haven't "let the depression cripple me again"; I am fighting these feelings with every ounce of my being, I'm fighting to keep them out, to keep out those thoughts that I am a bad person and everyone would be better off without me. Sometimes, it just takes every bit of me to fight those thoughts.

I think some people think I'm crazier for sharing about my depression. Maybe some people think that we shouldn't be discussing this stuff openly, maybe some people think that I should just snap out of it, and maybe some people learn more about me and think I'm just this stupid, scary, crazy person. Whatever. Maybe I am crazy, but I'm dealing with it as best as I can, and I am still trying to be as good a mother as I possibly can. Maybe I'm not doing it the way you would be, but I'm still trying my damnedest.

Nasser is out of town this weekend for a bachelor party. I've been trying so hard not to share my struggles with him because I wanted him to have a happy, carefree time, but this morning on the phone, I broke down. After Nasser listened for awhile, he gave me some ideas, told me he loved me, and assured me as he always does that I can do this. I did some mood tracking, texted someone for potential help (very casually of course because I apparently can only be this honest on my blog), and now here I am pouring my thoughts into my Chromebook.

It's going to be ok. Some day this new medication is gonna kick in and we'll see if it's good enough long term for me. I keep trying, sometimes it's a big struggle, but it always gets better eventually, right?

teach your parents well... and feed them on your dreams

Tuesday, 08/23/16, 11:24am

I've gone back and forth on what exactly is my diagnosis. To be honest, I've never truly had a doctor independently diagnose me. I've always come to them and said, I have depression. A lot of the diagnosis is self assessment anyway. It really makes mental healthcare confusing.

I suppose in most cases, people present fairly clearly as having depression, or schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder, or obsessive-compulsive disorder, or anxiety, or alcoholism. But when you have multiple things going on and a variety of symptoms, everything gets a little murky.

I know that I often exhibit signs of depression as well as anxiety, although probably with fewer occurrences of anxiety. I spent some time reading definitions in Wikipedia and WebMD about these, but haven't felt all too satisfied with how everything is categorized. Even reading technical definitions of what is categorized as a "depressive episode" is a bit triggering.

I need to stop here and correct something that I've been writing for some time. I've been referring to "depressive episodes" for quite some time, here, here, and here, for example, but I've had the technical definition wrong. For me, what I've been calling depressive episodes, I'm going to start referring to as depressive breakdowns. For me, it's any time where I have debilitating feelings of worthlessness types of feelings which prevent me from being the person I want to be. Sometimes these events can affect me for half an hour and then I can recover (but that's rare and I think some of those times are the start of anxiety attacks, with some crying to relieve the buildup of stress). But sometimes these events affect me for an evening or a whole day or several days.

Here's the actual definition of a depressive episode, courtesy of WebMD:

An episode of depression involves feeling sad or blue, or getting no pleasure from life, plus at least five or more of these additional symptoms most of the day -- nearly every day -- for two weeks or longer:

Symptoms of depression:

• Loss of energy
• Feelings of guilt, hopelessness, or worthlessness
• Loss of interest or enjoyment from things that were once pleasurable
• Difficulty concentrating
• Low energy
• Feeling physically or mentally sluggish or restless and agitated
• Increased need for sleep or inability to sleep (insomnia)
• Change in appetite causing weight loss or gain
• Thoughts of death or suicide or attempting suicide

My therapist pulled out the DSM definition yesterday so we could discuss it together. I certainly present many of these signs when I'm feeling depressed, and some often, but I don't really meet that time criteria
regularly. So I suppose I don't really have chronic major depression. But maybe chronic depression (without the major) is more correct? That doesn't seem to be a true scientific term.

It's probably another discussion I should have with my psychiatrist.

Regardless, whether or not I have major depression or minor depression or some anxiety, a lot of the treatment is the same. It makes sense for me to be on an anti-depressant and to have some anti-anxiety medication for when it's needed, and it makes sense to be seeing a therapist regularly to work on cognitive behavioral therapy because that's been shown to help with both depression and anxiety, and it makes sense to be practicing mindfulness and exercising because again they help with both.

So does the exact diagnosis matter? No, but I do apologize for messing up the verbiage I use sometimes. I will try to start referring to depressive episodes correctly and will start to use my own non-scientific terms perhaps.

Today I ran for just under a mile with my littlest running buddy, TK. He started kindergarten but only goes every other day (for 2.5 days of each week), so he is home today.

We also prepped apples together and there is some applesauce cooking in the crockpot. (As much as it looks like he is about to cut off his fingers here, there were no casualties. And at least it's a special kid knife that's not nearly as sharp as our regular ones).

And since I'm on a picture kick, we have some nice ones of the first day of school yesterday, both before,

and after school.

2.5ish more hours until we get RG from the bus. Gotta be done with the blog and get moving on lunch, maybe some puzzles and practicing the alphabet, and perhaps a shower.

on a stormy sea of moving emotion, tossed about, I'm like a ship on the ocean, I set a course for winds of fortune

Sunday, 08/21/16, 3:44pm

It feels like I've been fucking up for the last several months. Most especially, since the tragedy of Adam's death. Since then, everything has felt off, everything I've done has felt like a failure, and I've personally let down several people in my life, maybe.

I feel like I'm shirking responsibility for my own life by putting this all in perspective of Adam's death. But I have been rather affected by it. I've talked about this at length in the past, but the grief isn't magically gone now that more than 3 months have gone by. I feel like some of it has been delayed and pushed away at times.

This summer, despite some great travels, has been hard. We've needed more our little family time and less social obligations. We've needed more downtime, more allowances for messy house/screen time/fewer activities. But now we're trying to get ourselves back to normal, since the school year kinda requires us to. And it's hard.

RG was sick this week and he actually missed the first two days of school. It was a real bummer and definitely threw me off a little since I had much different expectations for those days. But being a good "take care of my kid when he's sick" mom helped improve some of my self-confidence.

I'm starting to wonder about changing my meds right now. There's also several other changes happening in my life too: kids are starting up school again, TK in kindergarten, we'll be in a new routine, I'm going to have some more free time to get in exercise and therapy appointments, and I'm also trying to get back into practicing mindfulness. It's hard to ever have a more controlled experimentation of medications, but it's so hard to reduce all the variables. It's not like I want to avoid getting back into an exercise routine right now in order to remove that as a variable. It's possible that I will be getting much better in the next few weeks due to all theses other changes, and not necessarily the medication.

It just makes treating mental illness that much more difficult, accounting for all the variables.

Did you know that Adam's death certificate lists (not sure if it still does since there was some family effort to change it) the cause of death as "suicide"? It's probably easiest to label it that and I'm sure they saw "schizophrenia" and figured there really is no other thing to list since it was probably, at least in part, caused by his mental illness. I've gone back and forth on what I think happened, and I think we all probably do. I think I have to not call it suicide, for my own sanity and because of my own fears for my self in my lowest of lows. But sometimes those thoughts creep back in of maybe it was suicide and we didn't see the signs because he was good at hiding that part. It's possible. With mental illness, it seems like there's so much of hiding from other people.

I understand why we hide our struggles, and there are so many reasons to do so. For one, we don't want to worry those that love us. But I think there's this big part of it that is perpetuated by the stigma of mental illness. We don't want others to look at us as "crazy" or "weak" or "mentally unstable". We don't want to be seen as a failure because we aren't able to just overcome the illness.

I think it's critical to be more open about our struggles in order to receive the best treatment. We have to be honest with our care providers, our doctors, and our therapists, but we also have to be honest with those who can support us, those who care about us. I think the support network thing is a huge component of the treatment, and yet the pressure to keep these things silent prevents getting all the support we need.

We had a surprise birthday party for my sister and her husband in celebration of their 40th birthdays (a month apart from eachother). It was a success, although I still feel awful over the people we forgot to invite, or didn't have email addresses for, etc. I did another specialty cake, this time to honor their love of skiing.

The backstory here is even though they are both normally skiers, my sister is snowboarding because now that she's 40, she feels ready to try new things. :) Finding skier figurines in August did not prove to be an easy task.

Although I mostly just got pictures of the cake, I got a few of us getting ready to surprise them.

I haven't been social much lately, mostly due to recent sickness, my depression, the grief, social anxiety, and some Nasser stomach troubles. But last night was nice, it was the right setting for me, the right people, to feel supported through it all. Unfortunately Nasser and TK were sick yesterday (probably from whatever RG had), so that made for a more stressful day, but the success of the party was enough to make me feel more normal last night.

I look at the world and I notice it's turning, while my guitar gently weeps

Wednesday, 08/17/16, 10:05am

School starts back up tomorrow. RG will be starting 3rd grade, TK will be in kindergarten although he doesn't officially start until Monday. We need this probably but I don't really feel ready. Even though theoretically I'll have all this extra time, at least when TK is at school (he's only part time for kindergarten).

I haven't been doing so great lately. Really I haven't been doing well since Adam died, but his death is not the only reason I'm not doing well. I also made the choice to share my blog more widely which has been a good experience in a lot of ways but also a bit terrifying, overwhelming, and in some ways shaming. Although I don't believe there is any shame in living with a mental illness, I feel shame when I think about what others think of me after reading what I share. I wonder if I just come across as a "crazy", confirming what many assume and stigmatize about mental illness. I feel less connected with some people in my life since sharing so widely. Perhaps this blog was a better thing to keep guarded and well protected, for my own sanity.

But then I do wish mental illness could be more talked about, I want (for myself and others) to feel that I can be open in sharing my struggles, and I want some of that mental illness stigma to break down. I suppose how can I bring that about without being open?

Someone said something recently to me with relation to internet/facebook/blogging and getting a job. There is so much out there now available to learn about people, I suppose my blogging could prevent me getting a job in the future. If I struggle as much as I do with depression, am I qualified to hold a job?

One of the reasons I quit my job last year was because of my depression. It was also for the kids and having the opportunities to be more involved in the school, etc. Of course. But there was a part of me that felt like working was too hard with my depression.

I think I keep finding things in my life that I can't keep up with and that just further validates (in my mind) the belief that I'm a failure.

Nasser and I have been trying to look back on my time with depression and see if we can pinpoint any times where I was doing much better. We can't really say that my life has been significantly improved by any of the medications I've tried. Maybe it's hard to determine that in hindsight, but it's enough to prompt us to want to try something new. I had an appointment with my doctor yesterday and I'm now in the process of weaning my antidepressant and will be starting a new one next week.

I guess we wait and see.

I've been scared for a long time to try a new medication. I'm scared of the side effects of weaning off one. And I'm worried the new medication won't help or maybe it will make me worse. I'm scared.

But it's time. We take a deep breath, maybe count backwards from 10, and say "it'll be ok". Maybe this time I'll find the right one. If not, we'll figure it out. That's really how my life has been for a long time now: we'll figure it out. As long as we can take this attitude, I think we'll manage.

Monday morning, for the first time in a long time, I got up early and went for a run, before Nasser needed to leave for work. It seems like I should have been able to do that regularly this summer, and it probably would have helped me so much with the depression, but lately it's like I can't get out of bed in the mornings. Monday I did though. I did a 3.8mi run and felt good.

Of course yesterday I was cleaning up a bit in the house, and I pulled my hamstring while I was bending over. I feel so stupid, but it's bad enough I can't really run. After parking at the school open house this morning, we all ran across the street and, oh my, that was painful.

whispered in the sound of silence

Sunday, 08/14/16, 10:06am

One of the things that I do (a lot of people with mental illness do this, hell, even a lot of you normal people do this) is I ruminate. Here's the definition I found in Google:

ru·mi·nate

ˈro͞oməˌnāt/

verb

1. 1.

   think deeply about something.

   "we sat ruminating on the nature of existence"

   synonyms:

   think about, contemplate, consider, meditate on, muse on, mull over, ponder on/over,deliberate about/on, chew on, puzzle over; formalcogitate about "we ruminated on the nature of existence"

It's funny, reading the definition I don't think there's an implied negative connotation, but I've always used it negatively for myself. I ruminate over little things people say to me, a reference someone made in an email; I ruminate over relationships in my life.

I wish I didn't do it. I'm working on stopping. It's exhausting to ruminate over things that are out of my control. And it's exhausting to try to stop myself from ruminating over things that are out of my control.

I've been ruminating a lot since I had my little facebook breakdown the other day, although I've been improving since yesterday. I know that the medication part of my treatment is going to take some time, but for now, I can work on some of the things I've learned in therapy but hardly ever practice really.

The big thing I'm working on for now is mindfulness. It's a practice used to be more aware of your thoughts, and start to control those thoughts a little better. I've mentioned it in the past, but now I need to take it more seriously.

I've done a few things to "work on" mindfulness. I downloaded a useful book again on my phone, called "The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness", and I've started reading bits here and there. I pulled out my old "Mind Over Mood" book from 2 therapists ago and started reading a chapter on negative "core beliefs". My negative core beliefs, the negative irrational thoughts that keep coming back just about every time I get depressed, are like "I am a failure", "I'm a bad mom", "I suck at life", and "I'm a burden to everyone". When I get depressed, it's like I have blinders on and all I see is the evidence that supports these negative core beliefs.

I'm trying to also figure out how to incorporate mindfulness in my daily routine. I remembered yesterday that I'm great at practicing mindfulness in the shower, feeling the water pour over my face I can forget everything that's wrong and just be in that moment. I think in general I need to work on "being in the moment". Last night, I thought about that when I was singing TK to sleep. I've got this weird ability to read on my phone while I sing certain songs from memory, but when I do that I'm not being present in the moment. Last night, I kept my phone away and sang and thought about the words and enjoyed giving TK a back scratch.

My mother-in-law sent me a great, well researched email of support, with links to various groups in the area that I might find helpful. There is one on mindfulness that I'm strongly considering to start with, if I can work out the logistics of childcare, etc. There are other groups to consider as well; as much as I've been scared of groups, maybe it's time to suck up that fear and try it. Of course, I keep feeling this guilt over costs- of therapy, of medication, of extra doctor appointments- and now of group therapy. Nasser keeps reminding me that it's worth the upfront cost if we can get me to a better place. Sometimes it's hard to picture that better place or think that it's possible.

Love and peace to all. Even if I've offended or blamed or disconnected with you this week. I've never meant to and I make my way through my depression in what I find is best for me at that time.

and I'll try, oh Lord I'll try, to carry on

Thursday, 08/11/16, 9:41am

Sometimes I question my choice to be so open about my depression. It's not an easy thing to do, and although I write a lot about my struggles, doing so doesn't feel easy in a lot of ways. I guess it feels easy to write about it. To just let the words rush out of me, putting all those thoughts down, and I don't really consider the aspect of people will read my words. When I'm talking about my depression in person though, it's easy for me to "lose my cool", my teeth chatter out of nervousness, and sometimes I break down in tears. Something about writing makes it so much easier for me.

I do get a lot of really supportive and appreciative feedback on the blog. I now have a lot more people in my life who have opened up to me about their own struggles, and many of them feel a sense of connection, of comfort, of support in reading about my life. I hope that is the case for all my readers. And I hope that with my words, I can give many people a better understanding of mental illness and break down some of the stigmas.

Despite all the good support, I notice the ones who "ignore" it all, choose not to respond (for whatever reason) when I do share, and sometimes I get "support" and advice from people who mean well, but don't really get depression. I don't say this to discourage others from sharing what works for them, etc, because when framed that way, it can do a lot of good.

For some background, I was in a bad place yesterday and I decided to reach out on facebook for support. Perhaps it was a bit more negative than most facebook posts and it sounded pretty desperate, but you also have to know I felt pretty desperate at the time. And I wanted to put it out there honestly, without any of the cutesy facebook things to downplay what I was going through.

I did get a lot of great support. In the form of facebook responses, likes/reactions, texts, phones calls, facebook messages, and emails.

But I felt some real pain from one attempt at support yesterday. And it put a damper on everything, and that's probably a reason that I don't make a good, tough person to be blogging and putting myself out there. I don't deal with criticism well, and I never have. But when that criticism comes in the form of "stop feeling sorry for yourself", I do lose my cool.

I don't want to go into much detail, and I still owe it to that person to explain why it doesn't help, but to me that's Depression 101. You don't ever tell someone with depression to "snap out of it", "stop feeling sorry for yourself", "just think positively". I get that people mean well, but before you go giving advice for an illness you clearly don't understand, read up on it.

I found this article about supporting someone with depression and thought it was really good.

She states at one point:

My depression is well-managed, and I still have very bad days. But even on my good days, I spend a lot of time and energy managing my mood, my sleep, my diet, my activity level, and my relationships so that I can continue to function.

This so rings true for me.

Depression is an illness of the brain. It is real, even if you don't always see it. It is a struggle, sometimes constant, and it often requires medical and/or therapeutic treatment, as well as a strong support network.

So I posted something super negative on facebook. I was in a place where I was already getting a lot of support- from family and Nasser, I had blogged, I had tried coping mechanisms at home. I had had therapy earlier that morning. And I was still in a really bad place. Maybe you think I should have taken myself to the hospital, but based on my previous experience, I have no interest in going back there. Maybe it's good for getting out of "crisis" mode, but for me, the hospital doesn't help much long term. One of the great reasons to be in a psychiatric hospital is to have the safe, controlled environment in which you can find medication that works. For me, with depression, that wouldn't work so easily. Antidepressants usually take 4-6weeks to kick in, so that would put me in the hospital for a long time. The trauma of that "failure" (the way I would think about that, being in a hospital for months at a time) would have such negative effects on me that it wouldn't be worth it. We all remember that I consider myself a failure because I couldn't nurse RG... even though I exclusively pumped breastmilk for a whole year. How stupid and irrational is my thinking sometimes, right? And yet, I always see both sides of the coin. I see those emotional, negative thoughts and my rational side knows that those thoughts are ridiculous. But when I'm in a depressive episode, it's very difficult for my rational side to show itself, at all.

I am doing better today. Recovering from the vulnerability hangover of having shared so openly and honestly yesterday. I am recovering from the painful and ignorant advice I was given yesterday. I am recovering from the shame and embarrassment of having shared, of having required so much support. And I'm trying to be kind to myself and remind myself that there is no shame in reaching out for help.

Here I am today, working at being better.

no alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)

Wednesday, 08/10/16, 8:53am

I'm a wreck. I was a bit of a wreck last night, and I'm a wreck this morning. I'm supposed to do a bunch of things today, including go to a therapy appointment, and all I want to do is crawl back in bed and sob until I become too exhausted to stay awake any longer. I want to hide from my life and responsibilities.

I don't know what I'm doing with my life. It's been a long time since I've felt really productive or successful in my life, even with regards to the kids. Nasser mentioned this morning that maybe it makes sense to go back to working (although I felt the statement came across more judgy and frustrated with my depression) and that just triggered me into the feelings of I am a failure as a mom. His statements of you're not alone with my feelings then made me go into the if I'm not alone with these challenges in parenting, why am I the only one falling apart?

I feel like a failure at my life. And I can't seem to find the motivation to be better at my life and feel less like a failure.

Probably getting help from my sister today which should help, despite any further feelings of failure that I need to be saved today. Somehow I need to fight those feelings, but it's so hard to give in to outside help sometimes.

I'm not functioning too well on my own, this summer, maybe all year, or maybe since the depression first manifested. It's not clear whether or not the various medications I've been on actually do much. So we've decided to start considering other treatment options. Of course due to the nature of this illness, that requires discussing with all my doctors, figuring out what to do with the variable of the birth control medication that doesn't seem to be working anyway. It likely requires weaning off the medications I'm currently on, and trying out new ones, a process that I'm truly terrified of. It requires real vigilance on my part to track my moods and figure out whether or not I'm better when we change something.

As Nasser said last night, there's no good measure of how well an antidepressant works. It's all dependent on how the patient feels. God, mental illness sucks so much and the treatment is so incredibly complicated to figure out and needs to be even more personalized than it currently is. I have no idea if we'll get there in my lifetime, but sometimes I feel like my life depends upon it.

Please give me strength and patience and motivation today in your thoughts and prayers.

and I'll be your friend, I'll help you carry on

Monday, 08/08/16, 12:58pm, 2:05pm

I shared my last post on facebook, since I was "fulfilling the Love your Spouse Challenge". And, like most of the times when I share a bit more widely, I felt some of that vulnerability hangover that I've felt before. That sick to your stomach feeling of oh crap, I just shared some really honest things about myself! And the inevitable does everyone who reads my stuff just think I'm nuts and what they read confirms the stigma around mental illness? I hope not, but I don't often get much feedback. So far it's been all positive, but I wonder if the negative opinions have just been keeping their mouths shut not wanting to say it because they know I'm "delicate" with my emotions. More likely people don't know how to respond to the things I write about or don't feel comfortable doing so. And that's part of what I'd like to break down in writing about mental illness.

Is it a question of you don't know what to say? Personally, I just like knowing that there are people out there who care about my well-being, who support me with thoughts or prayers or good vibes. Whether that's a quick email/google chat/text/facebook message/+1 to the blog post to say how are things going today? Or just a smiley face to say thinking of you. It's hard to know how to support someone who is going through something so unfamiliar to you, or even familiar, but has a stigma. And supporting someone who is a bit emotionally volatile. I guess I am that, although it's hard to admit.

It was hard to support Adam, my brother-in-law who many know suffered from schizophrenia. He was often emotionally volatile, and there were the added side effects of his illness; you often competed with the voices in his head.

Sometimes supporting is staying out of that person's issues until called on for support. Sometimes it's offering kind words on a random day. Sometimes it's watching their kids for them to get in a run or bike ride or therapy appointment. Sometimes it's sitting with them while they cry. Sometimes it's chatting electronically so that they can hide their lows comfortably.

For those of you out there who worry about me but aren't sure how to express it, please know that I am trying as hard as I feel I can when it comes to my mental health treatment. I get that the state of my well-being sometimes is scary, but those times don't magically disappear with a pill, even if it's the right one. I'm working on it, we're working on it, and support from you means the world to me and helps me improve.

Lots of love to all my readers, wherever you may be. I hope that you all have a strong support network for the struggles you go through in life, whatever they may be. Whatever support I may provide in writing, I hope to provide it. I am humbled by those who have told me they find comfort in my words, and only wish to continue doing so. If you are having a tough day or hour or year, it's often hard to remember that it gets better. But it's true, it gets better.  And if it doesn't, get help. From those who love you, from the girl blogger from cloud cuckoo land, if there's any way for her to help. ;)

the first time ever I saw your face, I thought the sun rose in your eyes

Saturday, 08/06/16, 11:36am, 2:22pm, 4:20pm

I've been tagged on facebook in the "Love your Spouse Challenge", where you're supposed to post a picture of you and your spouse for 7 days straight and tag 2 friends each day to pass the challenge along to. The idea behind it, which I can get on board with, is a celebration of love and marriage, etc, etc.

But there's several things I haven't loved about the challenge. I read a blog post about it that really hit home for me. She quotes a friend who summarizes the facebook issue up nicely, 

“You know one hundred percent of your own life,” she said. “But on social media, you only share the best five percent of it: your baby’s first steps, your trip to the Bahamas, your graduation day. That’s all anyone else sees. It’s fascinating to keep up with those things, for sure. But it’s also why Facebook can be so discouraging: we compare one hundred percent of our own life to THE BEST five percent of everyone else’s.”

I think that's exactly why I've been feeling so down after being on facebook for some time. It's nice in a lot of ways, I like getting support from my friends on facebook sometimes, I do like to share the best 5% of my life on facebook, but I balance it with sharing much of the lowest parts of my life in my blog. 

I also don't like flaunting my marriage on facebook. There are plenty of my friends who are unmarried, some who are divorced, and probably many who don't have the perfect marriages they profess on facebook. So I'm going to fulfill this challenge my own way, with a balance of the good and the bad.

My first pictures are taken from the very first time Nasser visited me in California. I took him camping in Joshua Tree National Park, which is where we had our first kiss. We went hiking and scrambling up rocks and I really pushed Nasser out of his comfort zone that day (he was afraid of heights but I didn't know it yet). This was at the very beginning of our relationship, although we hadn't even quite discussed the whole dating idea yet. And I was still really resistant to long distance dating (at the time, he was starting a new job post graduation in Champaign, IL and I was in Temecula, CA- not the easiest places to travel between). 

Nasser convinced me to try the long distance thing, and it turned out about a week or so into the new job at Motorola, they announced they were closing the site and he was getting laid off. Turned out to be a great thing for us; he basically got a paid summer vacation out of the deal since they didn't have work for him having just started, and he was able to take several trips to visit me. In the fall he found a new job with Qualcomm in San Diego, not far from me. Here's a couple photos from when I came back to Chicago for a weekend, just a month into our relationship.

Last more blissful pictures are from celebrating my birthday while we were dating. We did a "wasabi challenge" at the end of the meal (I totally drank beer and sake that night, ate sushi, ate a lot of wasabi without knowing I was just barely pregnant).

Then we found out we were pregnant and to be honest, my perfect little world came crashing down at first. If you haven't read my background story on this, go here. We were only about 6 months into the relationship, about a year into knowing eachother. We found out right before the holidays, which was incredibly difficult with only sharing the news with a handful of people, avoiding questions about me not drinking, and of course, telling our parents. We had several holiday parties where my mind was probably incredibly vacant other than thoughts of this new challenge. We appear happy in these photos, but what it doesn't show are the feelings of terror, disappointment, and overwhelming responsibility. 

We had a lovely wedding with lots of family and friends, and by that point, people knew about the pregnancy. There was this expectation still by some to "hide" it, which only made the shame more poignant. All those judgments about the order we did things in still hurt. And it frustrates the rational part of me because I shouldn't feel shame about RG and my "out of wedlock" pregnancy. Who does our unplanned pregnancy affect other than us??? Despite the happiness of our wedding, it still hurts when people refer to it as a "shotgun wedding". 

Now if you've read my background story, you know that I had a really tough first year of RG's life. That's when the depression really manifested and it took me a long time to seek help. The first antidepressant I tried, had some not so nice side effects. First it didn't mix well with alcohol and it took our friend's wedding to realize it. Here's a shot with the bride. We probably look happy, but I spent several hours of that wedding feeling sick to my stomach, laying on a couch in the bride's getting ready room. Nasser was probably happier than me in the photo, but he was not without concern. At this point we'd only been married for a little over a year, only been together for two, and only known each other two and a half years. Gosh, that feels ages ago. And to think of how far we've come in so many ways, and what we've been through.

We were still learning much about depression, and treatment, and what to expect for me. On a trip to Napa with most of Nasser's family, we decided that first medication wasn't right when the suicidal thoughts seemed so prevalent. Would you have guessed that I felt suicidal on this trip?

I got onto a different medication, but the depression was never gone. We look pretty happy here, but big outings, like taking RG ice skating for the first time, were never easy for me. Looking back it was probably usually anxiety/social anxiety/new parent anxiety that made each of those things so hard.

When TK was around 2 months old, we did a family trip to Aspen. This is one trip where I can't remember any low points. We kinda look like we have the two kid thing down. Here's a stop on the drive.

This next picture is from the family birthday party we had for RG and TK, when they turned 4 and 1, respectively. Could anyone have predicted that just 3 days later, I would be admitted into a psychiatric hospital on a 72 hour hold? My life never feels secure when I remember that. And I know that was one of the scariest things for Nasser to have gone through when it comes to my depression.

This next trip was not one of my better ones. It was good in many ways, we celebrated Adam's 21st birthday, spent a lot of quality time with Nasser's family. It was bad for my depression, my anxiety, and our marriage in some ways. I think I came back from that trip and said something to the effect of we will never travel for any major holidays ever again.

This next one was at Nasser's mom's wedding, which was a very happy occasion, and despite some anxiety, I did rather well. This photo is of the boys showing off how they can all touch their tongues to their noses, while I can't, as hard as I desperately try. I love how this portrays the goofiness of our marriage and of our little family.

Last summer, Nasser and I, along with several of my co-workers, hiked his first and second 14ers (14,000ft mountains). It was only my second and third and I hadn't done that first one in quite some time. We got a fantastic babysitter to arrive at our house at 3am, so that we could drive up and get started in the dark still. We didn't get home until late afternoon (makes for an expensive date!). Although it makes me feel guilty that this was without the kids, it was definitely one of the best days of my life, and one I felt such accomplishment (it was TOUGH), shared with my partner.

Another "big outing" with two kids in tow, which certainly wasn't my most calming experiences as a parent, we took the kids to see the Nutcracker (the WHOLE thing) last November. Behind those smiles, Nasser is thinking why do we have to take another family picture and I'm thinking please, boys, make one of these shots good and acceptable for a holiday card. Ugh, I need to not be concerned about such trivial things. We failed on our holiday website this year anyway, we only almost finished it.

Next is skiing on the last weekend before closing at one of the resorts this spring. It was not one of my favorite ski days (I hate slush and I distinctly remember telling Nasser on the slopes something like this is stupid we should never have come), but now I'm glad we got to experience this fun day with the kids.

The next one is our family at Mt Shuksan in the North Cascades this June. We have big smiles on our faces, but we'd just experienced a big loss with Adam's death in May. It's strange to be thrown into all these wonderful, happy experiences with the gnawing pit in our stomachs of this big grief.

Now, today? Today, I am blogging in bed with Nasser feeling miserable with digestive issues. We were supposed to head up to Rocky Mountain National Park to salvage the rest of our camping weekend (we chose not to go up yesterday due to the rainy weather forecast). When I started this post, I still had the hope that we would start driving when he felt better, but we're not there yet and it feels late enough to call it. I'm not yet depressed about our failure to fulfill this commitment to our friends and family for this weekend, but I am sad. I certainly don't like backing out on something that we committed to 6 months ago, but I also have to accept that I don't have control over everything, much less Nasser's very picky stomach. Just as it takes effort for him to be empathetic sometimes with my depression, sometimes my disappointment makes it difficult for me to be empathetic with his stomach. Today's picture is the reality of marriage sometimes.

Where are the kids, you ask? Playing Minecraft on the Xbox. Yeah that's right, maybe I share about my stupidly meticulous Pinterest type birthdays cakes on facebook, but there are those days when I seriously question my ability as a parent because I feel shame and guilt over giving them screen time. Some of that's from my depression and some of that's from societal expectations that are stupid. 

There's the societal expectation that we have a perfect marriage and if we don't (which come on, face it, no one has that, perfection in humans does not exist) we have to hide it. Just like the stigma over mental illness, hell there exists stigma around physical illnesses and disabilities, we feel we have to hide the pain and struggle. As I've expressed many times in this blog, I'm done with that. 

I love my marriage, I love Nasser and my kids. I would not wish that this life didn't exist (despite whatever thoughts have occurred in the lowest of lows of my depression). But it is not perfect. We have scars, and we almost always have recent bumps and scrapes, but we are committed and loving and we keep trying and keep working at it, forever and ever, as we vowed to eachother over 8 years ago.

o wise and beautiful tree... tell me your story in the garden

Friday, 08/05/16, 12:53pm

Soon after Adam died, we were gifted a tree, a Magnolia tree, to plant in memory of him from some dear friends of mine from college.

We are so touched by the gift.

The thing is we didn't plant it before we started our hectic summer of travels. Honestly, a few weeks ago, I thought we had killed it, and I was devastated. The leaves had all turned brown and fell off and we called it a goner.

But then it came alive again. It got new leaves and buds formed.

Last weekend we started digging a hole.

Yesterday the boys and I finished the hole...

 and Nasser and I planted it in the rain last night.

We've got our instructions for watering it, etc, and it is Nasser's and my goal to help this tree "take root and thrive" as the card said.

I feel so honored to have this tree in my yard and to call it Adam's. To the kids, we've been referring to it all summer as "Amu Adam's tree". And that's what it will always be.