but she wants to be sure, 'cause you know sometimes words have two meanings

Friday, 10/27/17, 8:50am, 10:33am, 11:26am (hah, again, my birthday time- 11/26)

Today's not the best day, depression-wise. It started last night, with a conversation with Nasser about my therapy appointment yesterday and how I'm doing lately, generally. He's had, well, a different view/opinion of my mental health of late than I have. We both certainly acknowledge that I'm doing much, much better than I was for the last year, mostly since Adam died. But he was saying, compared to two years ago, three years ago, four years ago, he doesn't know that I'm any, well, happier per say.

Three years ago, four years ago, "ish" because you know my memory completely fails me now, I was biking to work every day. I was doing triathlons, various running races, I was much more active.

I told Nasser last night that I'm having trouble getting back into my active state because I'm currently so out of shape. When I do exercise, I feel like crap, at least during. I sweat, a ton, it's hard to breathe, and I want to and often do quit early. And then I beat myself up for "failing". And I can't seem to get past all this, to exercise really regularly again, in order to get back into shape. I have no interest in dieting to lose some weight, which would probably make exercising easier too. And I don't know what the underlying problem is. Nasser thinks I'm not doing as well as I should be, which means maybe we need to talk with my psychiatrist(s) more about medications, and there's this whole genetic testing we recently found out about which can be used to better understand interactions with medications. We even have a test kit, given to us by the ECT doctor, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Today I'm feeling like the depression is all-consuming. Most days I can function pretty well and get stuff done or at least poke around on the internet, passing time. But I might not be "happy" because a lot of the activities that make me happy have been really difficult- exercise and reading books to name a couple (I can't figure out if my brain is simply cognitively not there yet or if I haven't had the motivation to read, neither reason makes me feel too good). My lack of memory has made things difficult, in many ways. I just picked up a book from a series that I really enjoyed not too long ago- the Wings of Fire series- and it pained me to recognize some things, like characters' names, but not remember the majority of it. And I get it, there have been plenty of jokes, that I've made as well, about how I can read/watch things "again for the first time". After awhile, that doesn't feel too comforting anymore. And it certainly doesn't feel comforting when it's in the context of (not) remembering previous events with friends and family. It's just... depressing.

This morning, so far, I've been laying on the couch a lot, under a comfy blanket, mostly watching The Princess Bride, a good comfort movie for me. 

And maybe the fact that I do remember the whole movie (I can't even begin to count the number of times I've watched this movie across the entirety of my life) is comforting to me as well. Finding something I remember kinda helps. Yesterday morning I found myself rereading old emails between Nasser and me, before we started dating. I didn't remember all of it, but it was extremely comforting and gave me a lot of sentimental feelings. It was nice.

I'm feeling a little bit better since writing the beginning couple of paragraphs, which is a good sign. I washed/wet my hair in the sink so that it's a little less bedhead, I brushed my teeth, I had another cup of coffee with a nice chocolate biscotti, and I'm getting to some exciting parts of my movie.

"Have fun storming the castle!"

"Think it'll work?"

"It would take a miracle"

"Good-BYE!"

Oh, another thing I did, was start a 7-day mindfulness exercise in this app on my phone- "Calm". I think it's a fairly popular mental health/mindfulness/meditation app that's out there. There's a 21-day practice in there too, but I figure if I like the 7-day one first, I'll try out the next one. Maybe this will be a good practice I can do on my own to improve my, well, everything. There were several things my therapist gave me yesterday in my appointment to work on, and I think this app will help with some of them. 

There was another thing we talked about in my appointment that I did attempt to put into practice last night during that difficult conversation with Nasser. We talked about my ease into the thought "I want to die", almost like it's a habit. When I get super depressed, this thought does come up rather often, rather easily. My therapist suggested I try and start challenging these thoughts. To try and recognize, in the moment, that this thought doesn't actually mean I want to die, but that I'm looking for an escape from how I feel in that current moment. 

Last night, I was fighting an incredibly strong urge to sob at one point and had these overwhelming "I want to die" thoughts. And I was able to remember what my therapist said and I did what she said. And I felt slightly better. What she said worked. It at least stalled or stopped the "I want to die" feelings even if it didn't totally avoid the tears. Of course, hopefully the more I practice this, the easier it will get.

This week has been difficult for a few reasons, other than the stuff from last night and today. Tuesday I started going through my closet and emptying out the things that no longer fit. My increased weight has made a lot of my clothes too small. This doesn't help my depression by any means. (Of course my therapist yesterday reminded me that doing this wouldn't put most people into a good mood). I was super productive Tuesday and Wednesday with this task of taking out the clothes that don't fit, which I think will help in the long run to not constantly be looking at these too-small clothes and feel horrible about it every single day when I'm trying to find something to wear. And the productivity helped me feel good about myself in a different way. In the same way that completing a bunch of laundry yesterday made me feel good about myself. Doing tasks around the house, getting started and making progress on house projects has made me feel better in the last few days, and it did (prior to last night and this morning) make me feel like I'm on the mend. 

Maybe I need to be careful about expecting too much, too quickly. Maybe getting to that regular working out and in shape state is just going to take lots of time, and expecting myself to work out everyday isn't yet a reasonable expectation. I am still more active than I was during much of ECT, and I'm getting better at these cycling classes, even if I do, on average, only go once a week. We already made plans for me to be able to go tomorrow. And maybe treatment every 2 weeks is still too much for my brain for reading books. Maybe I need them a little more spread out to cognitively handle it. And maybe that's a little worse than what's average/normal for most ECT patients, but I should discuss it with the doctor before deciding that it means something's wrong with me.

And it's not that Nasser thinks I have things "wrong with me." He's trying to make sure we get to the best possible outcome with my treatment(s), including all the medications I'm on. I think I really took it personally last night, thinking I'm failing because I'm not as happy as he'd like to see me, compared to times that he has seen me really happy in the past.

With my movie over now, and having moved on to Pandora and my "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" station...

... I'm feeling more... reflective and understanding and willing to see room for improvement rather than failure. My underlying mood affects that willingness a lot. And sometimes it takes a lot of work to change that mood, sometimes it takes hours and hours. But it's good to be thankful that it doesn't take days or weeks like it has in the past.

As a final side note, I did some Halloween decorating yesterday, after having previously decided I'd skip it this year. The kids liked it and enjoyed helping decorate more.

this is the sound of all of us, singing with love and the will to trust

Saturday, 10/21/17, 12:54pm

I felt the first twinges of depression when I was a pre-teen, middle school/ junior high -ish age. I can't remember exactly. I do remember that I felt lots and lots of suicidal thoughts then. It was often, probably almost continuous, and something I didn't tell a single other soul at the time. I simply thought I was screwed up, I was wrong and different, and I certainly was nowhere near normal.

Today I felt a rush of those feelings I felt as a pre-teen come back from a video I watched. It was this amazing 7th grader delivering a poem she had written about the societal pressures on girls and coming to terms with "you are good enough". It's worth a watch.

In watching her poem, I was reminded of how alone and wrong and awful I felt at that age. I was reminded of how, when my hormones calmed down or whatever, in high school and college, I pretended like that part of my life had never happened. I still didn't talk about it, I still had no idea how I had "gotten over it" or whatever, and I probably just embraced the stinking stigma even more. Perhaps it's part of the reason my depression hit so hard the second time around. Perhaps it's part of the reason I was/am treatment-resistant.

My mother-in-law is in town this weekend, this is Adam's mother of course. She has become even more involved with NAMI and such since Adam's death, and she was telling us about this NAMI conference she went to in Chicago this past week. She attended the keynote on suicide prevention and was telling us about what she'd learned. It was so... touching/moving/tear-jerking to hear about some of these things that are known and taught and are, from my experience of feeling suicidal at many points in my life, so right on. She talked about how the biggest deterrent for people from acting on their thoughts is thinking they won't succeed. (So true).

She also talked about a man who spoke to them about having survived a suicide attempt of jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, I think one of the ones in this story.

Here's the video of the one man telling his story, also worth a watch (whew, personally sobbed through this one, big time, but again worth.the.watch.):

Sorry, dear readers, that this is such a heavy, heavy blog post. It's important stuff though, stuff that I think I tend to gloss over more often than not. And even though I'm doing so, so much better than I was just a few short months ago, it doesn't mean that all of this is gone. The depression that hit about a week and a half ago was hard. And not devoid of these thoughts. I think that I had had these really high expectations, since "getting better" from ECT, these expectations that I'd never feel the "I want to die" thoughts again. And maybe that's why it hit as hard as it did that day. Because I had convinced myself that I'm too much better for those thoughts.

I don't really know what recovery totally looks like. I know that I have a lot more good days than bad these days, LOTS more. So I consider that recovery. I know that typically when depression hits now, it's not as hard as it used to be. So I consider that recovery. But I guess it probably doesn't mean that it will never hit as hard as it used to. And that can still mean recovery.

I've never acted on the "I want to die" thoughts. I've never cut myself, or attempted suicide. I suppose that doesn't mean that I never will, despite the recovery. But surrounding myself with people who love and support me helps, and keeping up with mindfulness/meditation activities helps, and seeing my therapist and psychiatrist regularly helps, and continuing to find new and extra ways to help helps. The battle never really ends, and I can never really be, well, off my guard.

But that can still mean recovery. And I can still revel in that.

To finish, some fall colors from yesterday's run attempt, which turned into a walk to finish. And some yardwork to get ready for the big town compost pickup this morning. And TK's last soccer game.

Oh and one more thing. Today is World Singing Day, which we didn't attend the event in Boulder for it today, but I still hold it dear in my heart. I am not doing choir this year, because of treatment and getting better and all that, but I do miss it in so many ways, and I miss regularly singing, even though I've picked it back up for boys' bedtimes again more recently.

that's the way it goes, it'll all work out

Thursday, 10/19/17, 4:46pm, 9:22pm

This post is going to be written at various different points. Right now, RG is supposedly working on homework on the loft... dunno if that's actually happening at all... TK is doing a "brainy" type game on my phone because he already accomplished the couple things he was supposed to do after school including going over "rainbow words"- words he needs to learn to recognize and then spell (good 'ole 1st grade stuff, right?). Poor RG certainly has harder homework, being in 4th grade and all, but then you throw ADHD on top of all that, it's hard. He is on medication again, not sure if I've gone into that on my blog, but I also don't care to give you every detail of his medical care since he is a minor and all, so whatever. Anyway, his new med is helping but then it doesn't last all day, so when he comes home from school is kinda the medication wearing off period. So yeah. Homework isn't the easiest thing.

So that's what the kids are doing, and we're currently waiting for my parents to come by. Nasser is on a business trip in San Diego, has been since yesterday morning, but then he comes back late tonight, so YAY! It's good that it's a short trip for the first one in over a year (have I mentioned he hasn't done a work trip since last August... mostly because of me? yeah...). Mainly just because it's good to kinda get used to the business trip thing slowly at first again. And you know, I'm still going through treatment and all... just had one this past Monday.

I should address the depression that I had end of last week... I think I kinda freaked out about it because it was the exact 3 and 4 days before my next treatment, and it was sorta what the doctor had warned to watch for. But then Saturday and Sunday were totally decent days, so it's not the same as what he was talking about. Likely it was just some depression that hit, randomly, and kinda hard, maybe worse so because it had been awhile and worse still because I freaked myself out over what this depression "meant" and what was going to happen with my treatment because of it.

So really... it's ok.

Also, just something small I need to correct, because yeah, perfectionism coming through here. A couple posts ago I told you how many posts I had, but the number I gave was my total published plus drafts. And that's not really fair. I should have only given the published number because that's the official one, which is currently 188. Not a huge huge difference, but enough for me to care about.

So... things have been going decently well this week, despite treatment, despite Nasser's business trip. I'm not trying to put my expectations too high while he's gone, I'm not really doing any cooking with him gone, because I don't want to trap myself into any triggers. I'm keeping it easy. Yesterday, we just hung out, after school, we ordered Domino's delivery for dinner, RG was doing a lot of homework after dinner, then I attempted to get the boys to bed early, which basically just ended up "on time". But it was good. I felt a confidence boost in handling everything myself, which I really needed. I had decided that trying to go somewhere in order to get together with other people would end up too stressful for me... it honestly took a long time and a lot of discussing (with various family members, and Nasser, and my therapist, and myself) to figure out what I was going to do. And then I figured today, being the second day of the trip, would be a good day to have my parents over.

I'm definitely hoping RG finishes his homework before dinner today. He worked on homework last night, after dinner, but then still had stuff to finish this morning. Ugh... stressful. It shouldn't be stressful for me, I'm not the one with the homework, and yet it still is. Sigh.

Oh. I have to share something RG made for me yesterday, when he wasn't doing homework (apologies for the continuous talk of homework). Anyway, he bought this multi-color pen at the school book fair yesterday, and started off drawing snowflakes on my arms (because he remembers my obsession of doing this on myself for tatoo ideas... I have vague memories of writing a post with pictures of these at some point but cannot seem to find them to link to so we're outta luck with that here). At some point, I was like "Ah, this is just too painful. I think your pen is not meant for skin; it's meant for paper." So he drew me this...

*heart melts*


Ok, so I'm going to tell you that right now it's much later... after 9pm... boys are in bed and I am too but wondering if I should finish up this blog post (!). So since I mentioned how RG is now on a new medication, I should also mention that silly, trying to remember everything me, this morning, completely forgot to give him his med. And he had a total meltdown at bedtime since his homework wasn't finished and it sounds like he probably had more homework to finish because he didn't have his medicine today. So that made me feel really crappy, and give him some extra time to work when it was truly past bedtime, and I reset the alarm clock in their bedroom to be a bit earlier so he can wake up earlier and hopefully finish in the morning. Honestly he works decently well in the mornings... new energy with the new day, etc, I guess.

I'm impressed that I didn't totally melt down when I realized I had forgotten RG's med this morning. I guess I was slightly triggered, but I kept my calm, I comforted RG during his meltdown, and I tried to find some solutions. And I still kept moving toward the goal of getting the boys to sleep... it was later than I would have liked, but it all worked out in the end.

Alright, it is barely past 9:30pm, but I'm .... going to sleep. Because I do that, especially since getting this CPAP to sleep with. I dunno, it's like maybe I am catching up on all the sleep I missed for so long. Well, until next time, dear readers.

and all this time, thought I was in control, but fate she held her own

Friday, 10/13/17, 7:21pm

Oi. Well, yesterday afternoon/evening and today evening have both turned out to be not so good. Honestly, I'd had quite a streak of good days, even longer with only a few "meh" days mixed in, but days since a true depressive episode... it's been like 2.5 weeks. I had to check my mood tracking app- Daylio- to figure out when it was, because I couldn't remember. Oh and since the beginning of September, I'd only been having one bad day at a time. It's been awhile- over a month- since having this happen two days in a row.

Although, I should take a step back. It hasn't been all bad days today and yesterday. Yesterday I had a really good morning/early afternoon with friends, helping one of our friends get ready for a full year of traveling with her family (woah!!), and the bad mood didn't hit until later in the afternoon, after a large argument with the kids. I lost my patience with them, I reneged on our plan to go outside because I felt like they weren't listening to me (big surprise there right, with kids? though at the time I just felt like a complete failure because I haven't done much parenting in awhile- between treatment[s] and lots of depression, etc), then it just felt like a big screaming match with a bunch of crying in between. Finally I gave up, let them watch a show, and hid upstairs in my bedroom to cry more and feel like a terrible parent/person.

This evening isn't nearly as bad as yesterday's big big depressive episode. That hit... hard. Really hard. And it lasted pretty much the entire evening and I only got slightly better before going to bed, although I still wouldn't call it a recovery by any means. And maybe some of it being so bad was the fact that it had been awhile. I was certainly being really hard on myself with the parenting stuff, but it's also hard not to be when I haven't been doing it regularly.

Today during the day was pretty good. Kids had off, as did all their cousins, and we went with most of them to the science museum in Denver, which was fun, but fairly crowded. I actually think I did rather well, parenting wise, today with lots of stubbornness at various points from both kids, but especially from TK. But then at TK's soccer game, I mentioned to Nasser that I think really packed days might not be the best thing for me right now, like I think I'm having trouble handling that and really need more me time during the days. I was feeling more on edge, although not triggered truly yet. What really felt triggering, after dinner, was an argument with Nasser. Obviously, I hate arguing with him, and thinking about it now, after spending time typing away, I feel much more relaxed and think I could probably talk much more calmly about things with him. But before starting the blog tonight, I told him "I'm done, I'm going upstairs."

I am worried though. I'm worried I really can't handle busy days. I'm worried because my next treatment is on Monday, and the doctor had warned to watch out for any major deterioration the 3-4 days before treatment, and now of course I have these bad afternoon/evenings suddenly exactly 3 and 4 days before treatment. I'm worried about Nasser's business trip next Wednesday and Thursday. I'm worried about my parenting skills. I'm worried that the only reason it feels like I've "gotten better" is because I've been so hands off with parenting for so long. I'm worried about my ability to handle anything really, including just generally... my life.

There's all these things I want to improve about me, about my life, about my parenting skills, and really we own a bunch of specific books that address many of these things I want to improve (at least like 4 or 5 or so that have been on my list for some time). And yet I still haven't gotten myself to sit and read. Maybe one issue is I don't really know where to start. And I'm still afraid of my cognitive ability to actually do it. Then I have treatment on Monday and I did notice with my last treatment that I had some of the short term memory loss again in the days surrounding treatment, so I feel like I need to be careful with that as well. It's... hard... really hard. It's hard to not be able to do all the things I want to do, many of the things that I feel would help. I mean there's the whole exercise thing too, right? I'm so completely out of shape right now, that everything I attempt feels really hard and really... just... confidence bursting.

Maybe it seems like I'm just coming up with excuses. And maybe I am doing that because I'm currently in a bit of a hole. It's not like I want to be here. But, sadly, my depression isn't completely gone, despite however much better I have gotten. It's hard to be hit with it again after quite some time, and to feel, I dunno, really shocked by it happening again or something.

If this does last the next two days, then it will be a big thing to talk about with the doctor in terms of treatment frequency. We'll figure it out, and clearly he mentioned it as a possibility, so clearly this is something that happens to people. I shouldn't (and I will try not to) feel bad about this happening. It's just... I hate to feel like we're taking steps backwards. I really don't want that.

I will briefly note that today is Friday the 13th. Unfortunately, it's no longer something I can get excited about in any way over the creepiness or whatever of this day. Adam was killed on a Friday the 13th. So it's forever going to feel sad, bad, and ominous (but real ominous, not silly ominous).

Anyway. I will try to end with some happier things. Some pictures from our museum trip, again with only most of the cousins. The missing two were next door at the zoo, but we didn't end up seeing them at all today. (PS- after writing and adding the below, I do feel a bit better).

Starting with some fun pictures of the five of them outside the museum...

The three youngest cousins, including TK, playing in the space exhibit play area, and walking together, super cute. TK is the youngest of the three, but he is within 5 and 6 months of the other two.

I got a pic of the five cousins plus my sister and brother, all checking out this satellite table that you can move around to different areas, plus zoom in. So we found all our houses on it.

At the Expo for the Denver Rock n Roll Half Marathon (plus other distances but the people I know are doing the half. I'm not doing it- are you crazy??? We were there for my sister and brother to pick up their packets). This is what happens when you tell five kiddos between the ages of 6 and 9 to "pretend to run". They each have a different interpretation of what that means. Super, super cute.

With the Geico Gecko, because of course. They all got these neck gaiters for free at the expo and then wore them the rest of the time because they all thought they looked super cool.

well I know what's right, I got just one life in a world that keeps on pushin' me around, but I'll stand my ground and I won't back down

Wednesday, 10/11/17, 7:56am, 9:15am (and Tuesday, 10/10/17, 12:51pm, 1:46pm but I just couldn't get myself to finish it)

Do you know what? I have written 196 blog posts. That feels... crazy/ridiculous/maybe overkill?, to me at least. My "blogiversary" is coming up in less than a month- November 7th- and I'll have had this blog for two full years then. That doesn't seem very long, although it does feel like a lot has happened, emotionally speaking, in that time.

It's weird, looking back at some of my earlier posts, and emails to friends and family, sharing my blog. There was a lot of "I've figured out how to live with my depression" attitude. I'm not entirely sure if I was truly doing much better back when I started the blog; I mean it was before Adam's death and I know that triggered me quite a bit. But then, last November my psychiatrist diagnosed me with "treatment resistant depression", which was really a reflection of the bunch of years prior to that, not simply those few months. And as many of you know, if you've been following along with my blog, or my facebook, or just me, I've been doing much better, as of late, after going through 5 weeks of electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) acute phase (as in 3 treatments a week) and getting to a point of going every 2 weeks for treatment during the maintenance phase now. I'm also on some medications, and going to therapy regularly again (I quit going for a little while during the intense and very regular ECT treatments due to the short term memory loss), and I've gotten a lot of support from many different people, so really it's everything working together.

I've shared some about my "state dependent memory" loss, but there was a bit more that was hitting hard yesterday. I was going through old emails of sharing my blog, and the responses back and forth with various friends and family about it, especially with people who felt able to tell me about their own struggles, after I'd shared about mine. And it pains me, a lot, to realize I'd lost some of the memories of who else out there struggles. It's not like I necessarily discuss our shared illness regularly with most of these people, but I hate that we had these very personal emails about it that I simply don't remember. Thank goodness for emails saving and being able to look back on them, right? As Nasser reminded me this morning, looking back on all those, remembering all the people that share this illness or something similar with me, helps to remind me of how I'm not alone as well as why I share, most especially in the hopes that it helps others who struggle.

It's hard having memories that are just gone though, with no control over that. I guess I just need to keep reminding myself that it's just a sign that I really am doing much better.

I recently discovered a writer on the internet, who I'm a little obsessed with. I discovered her on Quora, where she's answered over 550 questions... woah. I have actually linked to one of those answers (hers is the top one here) before... to the question "Why do people suffering from depression always call their struggle a battle? What exactly are they battling?". Turns out she has a website, and she writes about all kinds of stuff, but I've been most intrigued with her posts about mental illness/depression. I really appreciated her post on helping a friend with depression. I've tried to write about this at times, but I think she writes a whole lot more eloquently than me. So I urge you all to check out her writing.

So this morning I opened up something like 5 different tabs on my Chromebook for "Couch to Half Marathon" training plans. I've definitely gained a lot of weight in the past... 4 months? 6 months? 12 months? more? It's been... needless to say... frustrating? embarrassing? confidence busting? And it shouldn't be. I don't, hopefully, judge others who weigh more than they want to or whatever. We are who we are. And it's so much better to embrace who we are. But I'm not very good at that... as probably most people aren't as well. It certainly bugs me that a lot of my clothes don't fit well or right or at all, but it definitely bugs me more that I haven't been able to run more than 1 and 3/4 miles yet (because it's so low, I have to count by the quarters!), I get winded really easily, I can't hold a plank in yoga for more than a couple seconds, the cycling class I've started going to with my brother-in-law once a week has me sweating uncontrollably and I often feel incapable at going at the higher resistances or reaching the cadence goals. Mostly I want to be in better shape. I want to be in the kind of shape to be able to hike 14ers (14,000+ mountains), bike long distances, run a half marathon again, do triathlons again, and plenty more. I expect some kind of body shape will follow if I focus on those things, even if I don't lose all the weight I've gained.

I rolled my ankle 2 weekends ago, which hasn't helped my exercise goals/attempts. I haven't run since prior to that; unfortunately my ankle isn't quite feeling right still. Luckily I was able to book a last minute physical therapy appointment for later this morning to get help with the ankle. Hopefully that helps. Until I'm back to more running/walking, I'll be trying to focus on the cycling stuff, yoga stuff, hopefully more swimming stuff too. At least I'm exercising a lot more than I was for much of treatment, right? I gotta appreciate the little steps forward.

I'm going to finish off with some gorgeous fall pictures, mixed with the snow, as well as my boys playing in the snow on Monday. (Did I mention that our crazy Colorado weather brought us snow on Monday? It's all melted now and today has a high of 67 degrees. Gotta love global warming!) Oh and FYI, the snowman is holding his own snowball and sitting in the sled, because apparently he went sledding too? And... TK is wearing flip flops because... Colorado kid? He had taken off his snowgear already when I insisted on some pictures with the snowman, and flip flops were his solution. Of course.

I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wings, coming down is the hardest thing

Sunday, 10/08/17, 11:23am, 1:34pm, 3:33pm (plus all the draft times this week, including the hour this morning that I'd been writing and nothing saved, you effing blogger, you!)

Oi, whatever. I've had some time to get over losing the entire post that was ready to publish, and I've decided that this new one will just be better.

That's the attitude to take when things go wrong, right? And that's certainly not something that is instinctual for me, but I'm working on it.

I haven't blogged since the Las Vegas shooting that happened last Sunday evening. I don't really want to say much, there's plenty being said out there anyway, but the one thing I want to add to the conversation is my frustration that every time we have a mass shooting (and they happen way more often in this country than they should), many, many people decide to blame mental illness/ mental healthcare so that they can take the blame off of some of the more obvious and true factors. I appreciated this article which discusses the many reasons "Better Mental-Health Care Won't Stop Mass Shootings." I could quote the entire article here to state my case, but I'll just put in this one bit:

“If we were able to magically cure schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression, that would be wonderful,” Jeffrey Swanson, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine, told ProPublica. “But overall violence would go down by only about 4 percent.”

Personally, my depressed and anxious thoughts have never once led to thoughts of mass killing or violence against others in any way; the only "violent" thoughts I've had have been directed towards myself. It's so unfortunate that these mass killings keep happening, obviously, for many reasons, but it most certainly doesn't help the stigma against mental illness. And that just makes the journey towards recovery that much more difficult for people like me.

And yet, the difficulty I encounter doesn't deter me from "daring greatly" and continuing this blog and continuing to tell my story to neighbors and acquaintances and friends and family and friends of friends. I've had the uncomfortable silences and quick topic changes and shifting glances with people plenty of times before, and I've been told in various ways to "get over it" or lost friends or been recommended all kinds of things that don't help, or I've tried plenty of times before, or aren't even applicable to depression versus simple sadness. I've had to sit through all kinds of completely non-entertaining jokes that undermine the struggle I've gone through. And yet, I've also been told, by many people, that I'm brave, that I'm strong. I've been thanked over and over for being open about my struggles. Now that I'm doing quite a bit better, so many people have shared with me their happiness over my recovery. I've been hugged and been offered help and love countless times. I've been shown appreciation by fellow sufferers of mental illness for being open. The good bits make it all worth it. And when it's someone who has similar difficulties who feels helped, even just remotely, by my blog and by my being open, that feels the most touching to my heart. I told an acquaintance today that I am a patient, first and a mental health advocate, second. I hope to make things better for all of us sufferers as much as I can.

I also wanted to share with you fine readers some things from this week. This was my first full week being off the 24/7 supervision requirement. (As a reminder, I'm still going through electro-convulsive therapy, or ECT, but we're down to treatment once every two weeks right now. I guess we are truly into the maintenance phase of ECT, but we're still hoping to spread the treatments out even more eventually. We'll keep it at every 2 weeks for several more treatments to make sure I'm not deteriorating the few days prior to each treatment before we spread it out more. Oh and I still have 24/7 on treatment days, of course.) I'd say that the week went pretty well, but I think I noticed a lack of confidence quite a few times. But I think I need to figure out, it feels like it's from scratch, how to live with myself, for myself, all over again. I think I haven't really known how to do that, successfully, for many years now. I have a pile of books I want to, plan to read, several of which are of the more "self-help" type, but it's been rather difficult to read for quite some time now. The treatment made it really hard to get through any kind of reading, like my brain couldn't handle it, maybe still can't handle it. I started re-reading this week a book I got years ago, at the recommendation of a therapist, called Mind Over Mood, but I haven't gotten very far yet. And this one has lots of exercises in it too, so not strictly reading. It feels like therapy has been helping more the last several sessions, than it has in a long while. I'm also practicing more with a phone app I have to help with calming down in the moment. The only one I like so far is called "Meditation Game", although I've been downloading several more free ones to try to find a few options for myself. I've still been using the mood tracking app, "Daylio", and it's actually been a full two weeks since my mood has fallen below the average rating, or "meh". That's pretty good, in my humble opinion. I'm still working on my schedule for this week, but I plan to put a little more responsibility onto my shoulders, at least a few times, even if it's only for short periods of time.

I have another big thing to tell you all. I drove yesterday, for the first time in almost four months... woah. It didn't go entirely to plan, because originally I was going to drive my car, which is automatic, but when it was time to leave with the kids, it wouldn't start. I guess it shouldn't come as much of a surprise since we haven't actually started it in several months. We ended up using Nasser's car, which is manual, so... that was fun. It really wasn't too bad, but I learned stick shift later in life, so it made the driving again experience a bit more stressful. We didn't have the kids with us, of course; RG had a birthday party and we took TK to my parents' house for a playdate with his cousin while all the grownups watched the Cubs' game (stinkin' Cubs yesterday!!! ps- yeah I'm a Cubs fan since I grew up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago). We started me off in an empty parking lot, then progressed to the empty road in the business park, then on to real streets (taking the smaller roads where possible) back to my parents' house. We hung out for a bit and put in an order for Thai food before heading out again. This time I drove on some of the busier streets to pick up some dessert before even busier streets to then highway to get the Thai food. Nasser took over after that to pick up RG from the birthday party and head back to my parents' house. All in all a decent amount of driving, and I feel a bit more confident, although I'd prefer to get back to my car sometime soon, once it's fixed. We haven't decided yet when I'll drive on my own, and of course, then eventually, with the kids.

It feels like lots been happening, even though it hasn't really been that much, it's just... life. Despite being so much better than "before" (before ECT really), there's plenty of ups and downs, which still surprise me, oftentimes. As a friend said at the Moms' Night Out we had this week (which was so, so, so wonderful to be around my big group of mom friends again), "it's hard to be human."

Let's finish off with some gorgeous fall colors pictures... before we get snow (pwhat???!!!) here in Colorado tonight and tomorrow. (This is real, I'm not kidding...)