Category: Mental Health

Spin the Wheel

It’s been a hot minute since I posted, and it’s not been for lack of inspiration. I have a note on my phone with seven different posts I want to write! But, life has been crazy. I’m fairly certain that life will be crazy for the foreseeable future. 

Life with five kids is a lot. For me, going from two to three was a challenging transition, and then going from three to four was just the gradual process of becoming a parental figure to my stepdaughter, Penny. She’s our oldest, so it wasn’t exactly the same as adding a new baby to the family. 

With Finley, I really feel the five. FIVE. It’s grueling, to be honest. 

You would think that co-parenting with four parents would be easier in a way. We only have four of our kids about 50% of the time, because the other 50% they are with their other parents. And in some ways, it is pretty awesome. We get to have some quiet nights with just Finley, and some nights with just Finley and Penny, and some nights with the Westys (that’s what we call my three kiddos from my previous marriage) and Finley, which is a different dynamic than when we have all five. 

Having times without all of the kids gives me and RJ the ability to decompress a bit and recharge for the next time we have them. When we have all of them, we call it “Kid Chaos,” and the name is fitting. It can feel a tad chaotic when you’re holding a baby, two kids are crying at once, and the other two are asking you for things. Oh, and there’s poop, too. Where? Just everywhere. In diapers, unflushed in toilets, in the dog’s crate, possibly on me somewhere. It’s par for the course. 

So the days when we have fewer kids are really helpful for our sanity—or what’s left of it.

But, in other ways, our co-parenting lifestyle is more challenging. The scheduling alone could be an Olympic sport. Even as someone who enjoys organization and lists and calendars and schedules, I can’t always keep track of who’s supposed to be where and when. I absolutely hate being the one who dropped the ball in the parenting game. 

The hardest part, though, is the emotional side of things. 

My mental state is drastically affected by which kids are with me on any given day. When it’s Kid Chaos, I automatically go into Mom Boss mode. I summon the patience and energy to keep things running (mostly) smoothly. I pull out some of my best parenting tactics and often find myself satisfied with my work at the end of the day. 

But, if Kid Chaos goes on too long, I run out of steam. I sometimes describe stress to my kids like air in a balloon. If you’re blowing up a balloon, and you keep adding more and more air, eventually it’s going to burst. If you stop adding air, and maybe even let some out, then you will be able to fill it up again later without it bursting. All the things in life that cause stress are like air that you’re adding to your balloon. Taking time to release some of that pressure—to pause, rest, and recharge—is important to prevent a blowup, AKA an emotional meltdown. 

So, needless to say, when Kid Chaos goes on longer than my personal balloon can handle, it doesn’t end well. Those are the days that I consider “bad parenting” days. Am I too hard on myself? Possibly. But in any case, yelling at my kids is not something I want to do, ever. So when I fail at keeping myself regulated and end up adding to the chaos with my own out-of-control emotions, I consider that a parenting fail.

When it’s time to bring the Westys to their dad, I usually have a complex tangle of emotions to process. I feel relief, because I can finally let some air out of my balloon. Even if my balloon didn’t survive, well, at least I have time to acquire a new one. (Metaphorically speaking…) When I get a break, I have a chance to mentally recover from any bad moments I had with the kids. That brings a sense of relief, because God only knows I need those breaks. 

But the feeling of relief is very quickly followed by guilt. Mom-guilt is a powerful force, and I have loads of it. There’s guilt over feeling relieved that I get a break from my kids. There’s guilt over needing a break at all. There’s guilt that I’m only half of a parent to the Westys, because I’m only with them half of the time—I know that this isn’t true, but it’s what that little voice in my head tells me. 

There’s guilt in knowing that our divorce has caused and continues to cause pain to my children, because they are sometimes upset during the transitions and often miss the parent who they aren’t with. There’s guilt in hearing my kids tell me that they wish we all lived together. There’s guilt in every meltdown, misbehavior, and moment of conflict, because what if it was caused by the trauma of our divorce? 

Guilt is heavy, indeed. 

Plain and simple sadness is also entangled in the ball of emotions. I’m sad that I’m not with my kids. I’m sad and nostalgic about the simplicity of our lives when we were a nuclear family. I’m sad knowing in my heart that Cory and I were not meant for each other forever, and nothing that I did or he did would have changed that. I’m sad knowing that the first part of my adult life was spent with Cory instead of RJ, and that the first part of RJ’s adult life was spent with Amber instead of me, and knowing that I still wouldn’t change a single thing because it brought me my kids exactly as they are. 

I’m sad that out of all our kids, only one will know what it’s like to have an intact family. I’m sad that I’ve done to my kids the one thing I never, ever wanted to do to them—and vowed never to do!—because I didn’t want them to experience the pain that I experienced as a child. I’m sad because I know that life just isn’t as simple as I once believed, and we can only do our best, and nothing is guaranteed, and things change in ways we can’t predict. 

I often find that when I’m with my kids, I feel stressed and overwhelmed, and yet somehow also energized and motivated. But when I’m not with all of them, I feel relieved, and yet also sad and anxious and depressed. It becomes this paradox where “I can’t live with them, and can’t live without them,” as they say. I’m unhappy in both situations, just in different ways. 

It can feel like each day I’m just spinning a wheel to see what it lands on. Chaos? Stress? Guilt? Sadness? Depression? Anxiety? 

Which will it be today? 

Of course, those aren’t the only things I feel. I feel joy and excitement, amusement, contentedness, satisfaction, and so many more positive things when I’m with my kids. They make me laugh, delight me with their adorableness, and warm my heart with their sweetness. Above all, when I’m with my kids, I feel love.

There is no love like a parent’s love for their child. I would do anything—anything—for my kids, and my highest priority in life is to take care of them. But also, there is no love like a child’s love for their parent. To your child, you are a hero. You are the one human in the world (or one of a very select few) that they need and love more than any other. You are the world to them. Even when they say they hate you, or that you’re mean, or any other angry and thoughtless thing that kids can sometimes spew at us parents, we still know that they love us and will forgive us. We can mess up again and again and again, but as long as we do our best and try, our kids will still think we hung the moon. That is such a privilege. 

To love and be loved as a mother is the most priceless gift. Despite the immense challenges that come with parenthood, I wouldn’t give it up for anything. My kids are my biggest source of both pain and joy in my daily life. They are everything.

So, onward I march. I’ll continue to take my days as they come, one at a time. I’ll continue to spin the wheel. Or maybe the wheel is spinning me? At this point, I don’t think it really matters. I’m just along for the ride. 

Brain Thoughts and Things

You can learn a lot from the internet, you know. It may sound funny, but I’ve actually learned a lot of very interesting, helpful, and insightful things from videos on TikTok. It’s become my favorite social media app.

One of the topics that comes up often in my TikTok feed is mental illness. ADHD is a very popular subject within this genre right now, and I think that’s really awesome because it’s bringing awareness to the different ways that ADHD can manifest in adults, and women especially. It’s no longer just a “kid’s” issue—and although there are negative aspects to ADHD, there are also ways that it can be seen in a positive light. Some people prefer to use the term neurodivergent nowadays to describe many mental differences, including people with ADHD and those on the autism spectrum.

The word neurodivergent is great because it reflects the reality that people with mental differences aren’t somehow broken—rather, they are simply different. And being neurodivergent gives those people special strengths, as well as challenges. The challenges are mostly due to the way that society is structured to work best for neurotypical individuals, anyway. That’s one reason why neurodivergents often need to seek professional help and/or medication to help them cope with their challenges.

Anyhow, that went down a rabbit hole. My point with this post was to talk about hyperfixation. This is something that is most commonly attributed to ADHD. What it means is that people can get super-focused on something (or someone) and that thing (or person) can take over the majority of their thoughts and attention for a period of time. There are also food-related hyperfixations, in which people might want to eat a particular meal every day for a period of time. A common hyperfixation can be on a hobby or interest, a TV show, or a book.

I have given a lot of thought to whether I have ADHD or not, because there are a few ways that I definitely relate to the “symptoms.” One of those things is how I will start doing one task, but then get distracted by another task that needs to be done and start doing that task, and so on until I’ve started several tasks but not completed any. This, however, I mostly attribute to my lifestyle. Being a mom, and homemaker, and pet owner, and partner… well, it leads to many people (or animals) needing things from you, often at the same time, along with a lot of chores that continuously need to be done.

Ultimately, I have landed on “no”—I do not believe that I have ADHD. I do suffer from depression and occasionally anxiety, and I have recently realized that I do tend to hyperfixate at times. But the interesting thing about this is that I just learned that hyperfixation is not only attributed to ADHD, but to depression and anxiety as well. So that makes a lot of sense for me, and I feel weirdly excited about finally having a word and an explanation for some of my behaviors.

My hyperfixations in the past have often been pet-related. I will decide that I want a certain pet and then hyperfixate on that—including figuring out what I need to buy for the pet, what care the pet needs, setting up the living area for the pet, and adding the pet’s expenses to the budget. Then of course I get the pet and enjoy it for a while… but eventually, the hyperfixation ends and then I’m left with more responsibility than I needed on my plate. And so, I’ve rehomed a lot of pets in my lifetime. While this isn’t ideal, I also am very diligent about finding good homes for them—and as I’m learning this about myself, I am also trying to end the cycle.

Other hyperfixations have been on hobbies, exercise regimes, daily schedules, meal-planning, home organization projects, budgeting, homeschooling, potential career paths I could follow, and even people (specifically, romantic partners).

For me, hyperfixations aren’t extreme. I don’t spend every waking minute thinking about or doing the thing that I’m fixated on. But I do spend a good amount of time on it, in between my mandatory tasks such as taking care of my children, home, pets, and occasionally myself (haha, joke…).

From what I read, and it totally makes sense, hyperfixations are a way of diverting negative emotions, like those stemming from depression and anxiety, into something more positive. They can become a problem if they interfere with living a healthy and balanced life, but they can also be a suitable coping mechanism at times.

My current hyperfixation is karaoke, of all things. I went to an arcade with karaoke rooms the other night, and had some fun singing there with my boyfriend and brother. As it turns out, my singing in the car doesn’t translate perfectly to good singing into a microphone in front of other people! And even though I had fun, it was definitely humbling. Instead of saying “well, never doing that again!” I decided to practice until I get better, so that next time, I can sing confidently in front of more people. And as it turns out, it’s pretty fun to practice singing with the goal of getting better. And this has been a source of stress-relief for me that is very needed.

Right now, there’s a lot of stress in my life. I have a busy co-parenting schedule with Cory, which means a lot of kid-swapping and time alone with the kids, as well as time to myself. It’s a really good balance, but it does take a lot of mental energy to keep up with. I also have my boyfriend’s schedule and time with his daughter to consider, not to mention keeping up with chores and pet care. My dogs Buddy and Macy and my cat Leo live with Cory, and he takes care of them. I have my dog Pepper, my boyfriend’s dog Dezi, and our cockatiels Pikachu and Eevee living with us at our apartment, and we share the responsibility for taking care of them. Since homemaking and being a stay-at-home mom is what I consider my job, I do most of the chores at the apartment as well. Cory has taken over the vast majority of chores at the house, though I help him with some things still. All in all, I have a lot on my plate, but it’s still a manageable amount of things to take care of.

My stress also comes from challenges with building a relationship with my boyfriend, in the midst of both of us getting divorced and both struggling with mental illness. I’m used to being the one with the “issues,” and now I have to learn a new skill of supporting a partner through these things as well. We have had some incredibly painful experiences as a couple while figuring out these new dynamics together, and even though we’ve made a lot of progress, it’s still not easy.

I love RJ beyond words, and I am committed to being with him forever, just as he is committed to being with me. But that doesn’t make our relationship easy. We have challenges and things that we need to fight through and work hard on. It’s the first time in my life that I’ve been in that position, because things were honestly always so easy with Cory. And that fact alone has its own weight, which can add to my insecurities and stress over this relationship!

What it comes down to is that right now, my stress levels are high and my depression and anxiety are a daily struggle. But if singing “Let It Go” a dozen times in a day makes me feel a little better, then that’s what I’m going to do!

I love learning new things about myself and discovering that other people do similar things—it makes me feel less alone, and more “normal.” So, this is my reminder to go ahead and use hyperfixation as a coping mechanism, even when it feels silly. Because it’s okay to be a little weird and silly! It’s all just part of being human. 🙂

The B Spectrum

I’ve realized something interesting about myself recently. I guess I already knew this on some level, but I never really defined it before. What I realized is that there’s a sort of “goldilocks zone” for my happiness, which I have named the B Spectrum.

On one end of the B Spectrum is Boredom. When I don’t have enough to keep me occupied—physically, mentally, and emotionally—I get bored. And when I’m bored, my anxiety is often triggered. This will lead me to try to make changes in my life to add some excitement, such as a new pet or a move or a new project or goal.

Being a stay-at-home mom keeps me busy in a lot of ways, but they’re not always the right ways. This job—and yes, it is a job—has the unique properties of being utterly exhausting while simultaneously being mind-numbingly dull. Keeping kids safe, fed, and otherwise well-cared-for requires the presence of a responsible, mature, and capable person—but it doesn’t require a whole lot of thinking, or interesting problem-solving, or any sort of mental stimulation, really. Yet it is still completely exhausting to deal with constant requests for menial labor, ridiculous bickering, emotional outbursts, and never-ending (and often disgusting) messes.

So, simply put, I get bored! And then I get antsy and anxious.

On the other end of the B Spectrum is Burnout. When I feel like I have too much on my plate, I get overwhelmed and stressed out. This usually triggers a depression. And then I might react by trying to simplify my life, such as by quitting a project or rehoming a pet. (This might sound terrible to some, but I always make sure that any pets I rehome go to a loving family that will take just as good care of them as I would, if not better. And for the record, I never set out to adopt a pet only to re-home them down the road, this is just a pattern that I’ve noticed, and I’m trying to break it.)

Again, being a stay-at-home mom is exhausting, and frequently does lead to burnout for me. What it comes down to is that I’m doing a job that is very demanding, despite being often unengaging.

Please understand, though—I love being a stay-at-home mom. Yes, it is hard. But I adore my children and it makes me very happy to know that I get to be the one home with them day in and day out during these early years of their lives. I feel very blessed to be able to do this, because I know that not everyone can.

Nevertheless, it honestly isn’t the best job for my mental health, because it triggers both sides of the B Spectrum simultaneously, which exacerbates my anxiety and depression. I can and will continue to find ways to cope with these challenges, because I believe it is worth it. But I also truthfully look forward to my kiddos being in school so that I can have other projects to work on that that challenge and excite me.

In the middle of the B Spectrum is Balance. When I can manage to find Balance between doing too much and not having enough to do, that’s when I feel the best. Right now, with the shifting dynamics happening in my family, I am finding more and more balance.

In some ways, I’m busier than ever. My life is essentially controlled chaos at the moment. I have schedules in place with Cory for who has the kids and when (on evenings and weekends). This means that I finally have regular time that isn’t with the kids, and so does Cory. Both of us are able to do things that we want to do as individuals, and that has been wonderful! That alone has gone a long way towards giving me some more balance between mom-ing and me-ing.

For the most part, boredom is not a problem lately. There’s still depression spells, probably from the stress, but keeping busy is helpful for keeping those at bay. The more pressing issue is making sure that I don’t get burned out, and so far, it feels like I’m staying in that golden zone of Balance for the most part.

I don’t know exactly what my life will look like in the coming months and years, but I feel like I’m moving toward something positive. Some days are better than others, but for right now at least, I’m feeling good. 🙂

Stredepranxiety

My stress, depression, and anxiety have now merged to form a new and exciting phenomenon: Stredepranxiety. (Yes, I did take longer than probably necessary to come up with that word. Thanks for noticing!)

What is stredepranxiety, you ask?

It’s when stress builds up to such a degree as to trigger a depressive episode, which is also sprinkled with periods of anxiety. Sometimes, the anxiety is about the stress and depression. Sometimes, the stress is about the anxiety and depression. And sometimes, the depression is about the stress and anxiety. Wahoo! It’s a non-stop fun-fest that just keeps on self-perpetuating. Welcome to the party.

While mental health is no joke, sometimes I just need to joke about it anyway.

The truth is, it’s been a pretty rough… oh, I don’t know, two years for me?—emotionally speaking. I struggled with antepartum and postpartum depression, and then just regular depression (which has been pretty consistently part of my life since I was a teenager, but I’m more aware of it and able to label it these days). Anxiety has been a struggle on and off as well. As a teenager and young adult, it was social anxiety. Now as an adult, it’s been more of a general anxiety, and it’s not severe but it is nagging and annoying.  

Stress is just a part of life, and mom-life is no exception. Kids need a lot, and it can be stressful and exhausting to meet all of those needs day-in and day-out, often with little to no breaks. The auditory overstimulation alone is enough to make me want to scream into a pillow most days.

Recently, my stress has also been through the roof because of huge life changes that I’m going through. Mainly, separating from my husband and figuring out what our new lives look like both individually and as a family. But also, being by my boyfriend’s side as he goes through a much more emotionally volatile divorce of his own. Watching the person you love be verbally and emotionally abused and being able to do nothing to stop it is extremely stressful and painful.

Being in a new relationship with RJ and experiencing all of the ups and downs of falling in love and learning each other is stressful enough (even if most if it is good stress), but doing that while simultaneously navigating the ends of both of our marriages has been a lot. Doing all of that while also living an hour and a half apart and managing our children and other responsibilities—well, it’s taken its toll for sure. I’m stressed, no way around that.

When stress overwhelms me, I get depressed. And usually when I’m depressed, I alternate between mostly feeling down, sad, tired, and hopeless—typical “depressed” feelings—and feeling anxious.

When I feel anxious, I tend to find things or tasks to fixate on, and get extremely irritable when I’m interrupted from those tasks. I do a lot of “problem-solving,” organizing, and scheming in my anxiety. Which doesn’t sound too bad, to be honest, but the problem is that those things don’t really take away the anxious feelings. I need constant distraction, and when I’ve run out of problems to solve and things to organize and schemes to plan, then I end up watching TikTok for hours or trying to find some other meaningless thing to do. Which of course, still doesn’t help. I feel restless and that something is wrong or I’m forgetting something. I don’t feel at peace.  

The worst thing right now is that my depression is consistently reaching levels that I’ve only felt a few times before in my life, prior to the last year and a half. It used to be rare that I had “not interested in continuing living” feelings, but now it’s a pretty frequent occurrence.  

To be clear, there is a big difference between “not interested in continuing living” and “planning to discontinue living.” I am zero percent planning to discontinue living. I have kiddos and parents and a boyfriend and husband (weird sentence) who all need me to stay living. So.

But anyway, the feelings are there and they suck.

There’s a lot of reasons I could give for feeling this way. Such as, my life has taken a completely different path than originally planned and that’s scary and makes me question what’s the point of anything. Yeah, it’s a bit of a spiral that doesn’t really make much sense, but there you have it.

There’s also a big fear I have of “never being happy.” Whatever that means! Basically, I sometimes question whether I can be consistently happy on a big picture level. I don’t mean that every day has to be great, but just that the average day is more happy than not. It’s absolutely not quantifiable, which makes it a fantastic measuring stick for the valuable-ness of my life. *sarcasm*

I have days where I feel content and happy. I have moments in my days where I feel sparks of joy and excitement and positive things like that. But I also feel that many of my days currently are more characterized by feeling worn out, listless, and unexcited about life. Worse are the days when I feel those dull waves of sadness or sharp spikes of despair throughout the day. There are still pockets of happiness throughout my days and weeks, but it’s hard for me to tell if they outweigh the sadness.

One thing that scares me the most is the thought that I’ve tried so many different things to find happiness, and I always just end up back at depression station. A narrative I have in my head right now is that I just blew up my entire life for the sake of trying to find happiness, and I’m now worse off than before. I was content in my life, but now everything is a mess and I’ve ruined everything.

Is this narrative based in reality? No. Is it still in my head? Yup.

The reality check I need to give myself is this:

I didn’t blow up my life. I have made changes in the pursuit of living more genuinely as myself, and those changes have been successful. I am on the right path. I was living a good life, but it wasn’t a full life. I am in a season of challenges as I navigate these changes, but overall I am in a better place in terms of my life trajectory and potential for happiness than I was a year ago. I haven’t ruined anything. My kids are happy and healthy, my relationship with Cory is positive, I’m in a good spot financially, and I have a bright future. I’m madly in love with RJ. We’re extremely happy when we’re together. We’re planning a beautiful life and future together, and what we found with each other is worth all of the difficulties and stress that we are currently facing. There is more peace and joy and a life very much worth living on the other side of this, and we are going to get there together.

Until then, I’ll just be here, slogging through my stredepranxiety one day at a time.

My Drug of Choice

I have struggled with depression for as long as I can remember. As an adult, I’ve come to accept that cycles of depression are just a part of my life. They come and go, sometimes lasting for just a few days and sometimes lasting for a few months, but never longer than that. They always end, eventually.

In between my depressive episodes, I feel perfectly normal and happy, but when I’m in them, I can often feel like I will never be happy again. Even though I know it’s not true, and that my depression always lifts, it’s hard to remember that when I’m in the middle of it.

I’m in the middle of a depression right now, but it was hard to recognize at first because it seemed to come and go very dramatically from day to day. In fact, there is a very clear pattern to my good and bad days—on the days I get to see my boyfriend, RJ, I feel great. On the days I have to say goodbye, and the days in between seeing him, my mood plummets again.

So at first, I chalked this up to being “crazy in love” and adjusting to the new relationship. But now I’ve recognized that these low feelings aren’t actually caused by my relationship with RJ—they’re the all-too-familiar feelings that I’ve been living with on and off for decades. And that’s when I realized that I’m actually in a depression right now, and RJ is just alleviating my symptoms on the days I get to see him.

Upon further research, this makes perfect sense. There is a theory that depression is caused by lowered levels of certain hormones in the body, specifically serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. These three hormones are also produced or increased when you are falling in love or in love with somebody. In addition, oxytocin and endorphins are also produced through activities like cuddling, kissing, and having sex—and these hormones are mood elevators. They make you feel happy!

RJ is, quite literally, my drug. So naturally, I want as much of him as I can get.

Through the last few years, I have learned a lot about myself and the way my mental health operates. I’ve learned that when I get depressed, my mind tries to find a cause, or something to blame for the low feelings. Then, I can solve whatever problem I’ve discovered as the culprit and feel better. Ta-da!

Unfortunately, the reality that I am now coming to accept is that these “problems” I find to blame for my depression are not the true cause. Making changes in my life does give me a mood boost (probably also because of hormones!) which in the past has seemed to support the idea that “fixing” the problem is all I need in order to end the depressive episode.

But now I believe deep down that my depression is caused by something inside of me—not a trauma that I need to heal from or a disorder that needs medication—but just something that is part of the way I operate. Could medication help me? Perhaps. But honestly, even when I’m depressed, I function amazingly well. Depression doesn’t negatively affect my life on a practical level. Does it feel shitty? Absolutely. But medication isn’t something I’m interested in, because I truly don’t believe that I need it. There are other things I can do to cope with these feelings, and even if I do none of them, they always pass in time. Medication comes with side effects and other things that just aren’t appealing to me. I think it’s wonderful that it’s available to people who want or need it, but for me, I’d rather not go down that road.

So anyway. My best coping mechanism at the moment is to stay busy when I’m not with RJ. I focus on my little daily routines (which bring me comfort), as well as taking care of the kids and pets, catching up on chores, and doing things I enjoy such as writing (hello), reading, watching TV, organizing, and having solo dance parties. I treat myself with grace and care, and let myself have “survival” days when I need them—doing the bare minimum and letting go of the rest.

Then I get to enjoy wonderful feelings of utter contentment, overwhelming love and affection, and of course excitement and passion whenever I’m with RJ. As our goodbye approaches, I often feel the sadness creeping back in, and that part always sucks. Sometimes I can fight it off until he’s actually gone, and sometimes it casts a bleak shadow over our last few hours together, but the great part of this is that RJ is so sensitive, understanding, supportive, and caring. He doesn’t get annoyed or frustrated at me for feeling down. He doesn’t think it’s silly or stupid, even when I do. He’s amazing, y’all. He gives me comfort, sometimes tries to distract me, and lets me have a safe place to feel my feelings.

I know that in a few days or weeks, I won’t be struggling with this anymore. I will still miss him when we say goodbye, but I won’t feel so deeply sad, hopeless, or lost when we’re apart. I’ll be back to my “normal” self. I write this knowing it’s true without feeling it’s true—because despite my past experience telling me that this is how it goes, I still can’t see the truth in it right now. I still feel stuck in a dark, black hole that I think I will live in forever. But sometimes, we know things are true even when we don’t feel them. And holy mother of Moses, that’s hard to accept as an empath! Wow, I just realized this.

As an empath, I have a high level of confidence in my intuition and the truth of my feelings and what I sense emotionally in others. That is making it very hard to accept that my feelings aren’t my reality right now. This is a big realization for me… and I think it’s very helpful, too. I can accept that this is true, because now I have an explanation. Okay. Feeling better about that.

On that note, I don’t know how to end this post exactly so I’m just going to say this…

Depression sucks. But it gets better. In the meantime, find whatever joy you can and let that be your drug. I know I found mine, and I’m going to get as much of it as I can.

(Please don’t take this as medical advice. This is just my personal experience. Duh.)