It now kind of ok to  talk about this.

I have written recently about my struggles.  I sat last night with a plan.  I knew how I could end my life quickly and with minimum mess.  I reached out to a couple of people but was too ashamed to tell those who I knew would drop everything and come and help because it was Saturday night and I knew they had plans and time to spend with family and loved ones while I sat alone.

Dramatic huh.  Didn’t feel dramatic at the time.  Intellectually I knew I wasn’t suicidal because I had done a check on myself that I have done countless of times with others:

• Do I have a plan? yes
• Do I want to end everything or just make the pain stop – the pain of being a failure is overwhelming and I can’t keep hurting the boys.

Such is the liar that is depression. It has told me that I am unlovabe, ugly, useless, it whispers to me that the boys would be better with their respective fathers with their stable relationships and double incomes. It guides my hands to track pants and baggy tops, it glues my head to the pillow, it hides my tooth brush and my hair brush.  Simple jobs need extensive mental planning and far more energy than I have.  It hit home the reassurance that I gave to Jeremy so many times that the price to pay for living with joy and exuberance is sometimes a general blue feeling, on occasion it is a slide into depression.  I know this about myself.

Intrinsically I know I am no more a failure to my sons that I am poor at what I do in my profession.  I am awesome at what I do professionally and will be back working soon, would probably be back working now if I could shake this liar out of my head.  I am a good mother, my boys have all that they need materially and emotionally and frankly nearly everything they could want as well.

Without making excuses I have to acknowledge that the many multiple factors that have led me to this current period of depression are just that – multiple.  There is no one single event that has triggered this. Moving, redundancy, my eldest son’s depression, Jeremy’s depression, Jeremy’s transition, the end of my marriage, the end of my last long term relationship and the loss of a dream attached to that and the residual effect of confronting a dark chapter in my childhood have not been fully acknowledged and should be.  In coping with these factors I have not fully finalised how I feel about any of them and I have the tools to do so.

Time heals, I know that.  Time will hep me, I know that too.  Last night and during the last week I have had so many signals that to move past this current depressive episode I should confront those things that I have identified and look into the dark recesses of my mind and make sure that there is nothing lurking in the background.  It will be exhausting and confronting but from past experience will help lay the negative emotions to rest, and hopefully help bring the sunshine back into my mind.  It is a trusted method that I have used before and it works, but the cloud in my mind has hidden the solution for a while.

Depression is not being sad.  I am lucky that I have a group of women around me who know this and can see through the lie that I put to the outside world every day.  I am not ok.  I will be.  That is the key, I know that I will see the sun come up tomorrow.

NOTE: my method for dealing with depression is one suggested to me by my psychologist.  I know that there are many who benefit from antidepressants and I would always recommend seeing a mental health professional.