but see how the wind it blows, all the birds scatter and I’m out here alone

Sunday, 11/27/16, 12:28pm

Today is one of those slipping at the edge of a deep dark hole kinda days. One where every once in a while I feel like I'm sitting there, with my butt just barely on the edge but enough to rest. And then it feels like I slip again, with Nasser or a friend reaches down to hold one of my limbs and helps me climb back up.

I think being out of reality in Steamboat Springs this past week has been wonderful but also, well, out of reality. I pushed away the depression and anxiety when it hit, I guess until now. Yesterday was my birthday, Thursday was Adam's. They were ok days in fact, all things considered. Better than I expected at least. Maybe all those feelings were just delayed until today.

I happened to glance at the subject line of a Quora Digest from yesterday, entitled "What is the loneliest thing in the world?". I have not yet looked at the answers, right now I cannot. But I can start formulating my own answer.

I would venture to say, as one who suffers from depression and anxiety, that the deepest, darkest feelings of depression is the loneliest thing in the world. That state, that one that breeds those darkest feelings of despair, is so lonely, that you are incapable of seeing those parts of your life that are not lonely. When I am starting to feel despair about my life, I think that everyone around me is judging and hating me and would rather I not exist. That's a big part of what breeds the suicidal thoughts.

To me, yes, a state of life and love and health and companionship and community and many other wonderful things often prevent people from feeling lonely. However, the state of depression will typically remove the ability to see the good. To see what's all really wonderful and what's to be thankful for. The state of depression makes it all lonely.

And then there's the stigma. I know, I know, here I am talking about the stigma again. But. I do believe that the stigma prevents us sufferers from sharing with eachother oftentimes. I write this blog, and I know, from people sharing with me once in a while about their own struggles, that I am not alone. But depression still feels very lonely. I don't feel much more able to reach out for help or support usually, other than to blog or to send a vague text to a friend. Of course, I reach out to Nasser all the time, since he sees my depression regularly and is really the only person in the world who really, truly gets what my struggle is. He sees it day in and day out and knows about every single depressive breakdown, even if he only finds out into the recovery. I don't know what I would do without him.

Today I'm writing, but I don't feel all the warm and fuzzies about the blog as I usually do. Today I feel like a failure and that totally and completely extends to my feelings about my blog. It also feels like a failure and a waste and perhaps something to just scrap. I do feel that way about my blog sometimes, when I'm feeling really bad or I've had another vulnerability hangover; I feel like I should delete its existence. There is too much awful stuff about me for others to read and know. How can I let that exist and be available? I don't know and I'm often not sure I will forever. Sometimes it is just too painful to share.

I will leave with some non-depressive thoughts. I have some pictures from the week. My constant pajama-wearing kiddos played some card games, also enjoyed being kids with eachother, also tried some fun new activity mats, and learned how to better use chopsticks.

More games pictures. :)

Believe it or not, we made it onto the slopes for a bit on Friday. It was not too successful and we made it down one long run, switching between green and blue difficulty, but the boys (and we) were super grumpy by the end. Some newish snow on top of packed icy stuff was not great and some sections were a bit too steep for the boys as it was the first run of the season. I have no photographic proof of this skiing adventure since we were all way too grumpy.

Nasser made me a mocha and yummy breakfast for my birthday yesterday morning...

And here's our best family photo from Thanksgiving, all. Love to everyone.

but the fire is so delightful

Tuesday, 11/22/16, 8:50am, 10:12am

I haven't wanted to blog. My last two posts were more political, and I'm sure I probably offended somebody. I still stand by how I felt when I wrote them, and I stand by how I still feel. Regardless of how much I get called "crybaby" or "sore loser" or whatever else. There's been a lot of name calling. If you haven't figured out by now that I have some real, pretty valid concerns about the Trump administration and the hate crimes that have been going on, then I suppose you would name call. The same people that name call are the same people that don't listen to other people are the same people who refuse to tap into that empathy that they are born with.

Because I do think to some extent we are born with empathy. Children typically are empathetic. Babies "sympathy cry" with eachother when they're near another baby that cries. And most children stop to comfort when another person is upset or hurt. I think we can always nurture our empathy further, some need to more than others. And at a certain point in life, many people push their empathy away. We are taught that feelings are bad and we should hide them. Men are expected to be "tough guys" and women are taught that crying in public is weak and in order to make it in the working world, we are forced to hide all emotion. Empathy, on the other hand, forces you to face all the emotions. In order to empathize, we must try to feel what someone else is feeling. We recognize a feeling in others and we admit that yes we have felt this before in this instance or whatever and we allow ourselves to feel some semblance of that emotion again.

Let's do a quick refresher on empathy. You all remember Brené Brown, right? Here again is that empathy cartoon she narrates that's always worth re-watching.

Brené says that you must be vulnerable in order to be empathetic. You must feel a little of what the other person is feeling, and that's not easy. Most people don't want to be upset and avoid it at all costs. So it ends up beings difficult to try and gain support from others when things aren't going your way. You see this on platforms such as facebook. It's those new baby, new job, new house, amazing vacation posts that get the most attention. People generally scroll past the things that bother them or make them uncomfortable or bring up feelings that force them to be vulnerable. And I suppose that's somewhat fair since most people are turning to facebook to get some sort of mindless break from reality. (I'm not dissing those that spend time on facebook, I do it too, a lot). I'm not sure I use facebook the same way as the general population. I have "liked" so many different news organizations, professional athletes, people like Brené Brown and Cheryl Strayed and Glennon Doyle Melton, my favorite senators, comedians, NAMI, etc that I get a lot more out of my facebook experience (I feel) than just catching up on all my friends' lives. Lately I've additionally appreciated the support from politically like-minded people there. Not to go on a tangent about facebook, but there are some good things about it.

We are spending this Thanksgiving week in Steamboat Springs, as a break from life and work and school and commitments and reality. Adam's (Nasser's brother, who as you may recall, passed away in May) birthday falls on Thanksgiving this year, mine two days later, and we are expecting both to be potential triggers. The place we've got is super nice, 2 bdrm, 2 bathroom, great amount of space for us, has a hot tub, and it's super convenient to the free shuttle. We actually did take that shuttle yesterday into town to go to the hot springs pools. There's a climbing wall, coming out of one of the pools, in 10ft deep water, that RG and I attempted, but never accomplished, several times. Nasser, of course, rang the bell at the top on his first try. His extra height is what helped him so much; that's my story at least.

So far though, we haven't done much. We've each done a lot of what we each want to do. There's been a fair amount of video games as well as some house design planning,

TK and I are the only ones to have tried the hot tub so far- it's awesome though, RG and I played Ticket to Ride yesterday,

Nasser and I played Red 7 the day before, the boys have been trying out the Playstation 3 that's in the master bedroom.

We've all been eating and relaxing A LOT.

We have a few more things we may do, although some are dependent on the snow conditions on the mountain (the ski resort is supposed to open officially to the public on Thursday, but we'll see if that happens), we have lots more board games to try (several that Nasser and I enjoy but haven't attempted with the kids yet), more hot springs to potentially check out, and more relaxing to do. I like this trip so far.

Today's view.

Also my children truly are Colorado kids. This is how they dressed for the road trip to get here.