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.