BCC's latest depression post was about depression's impact on relationships. Here's what I said over in the comments:
I feel like I'm a little late to the comments here, but as a depressed gal who worries and worries over the effect it will have on my kids and husband, I've found that being honest with them about what's going on helps.
I tell my kids that there are days that my feelings get out of control or that my mind is hurting and I need a break. They know mommy has a "feelings doctor" who helps out when "the feelings get stuck." They also know I have another doctor who is in charge of the special feelings medicine that I have to take sometimes. I hope that I am being honest with them and that my willingness to answer their questions in an age appropriate way will help them deal with my bad days a little better.
I also make a huge effort to make clear to them that it is my problem and I am responsible for it. Not them. I apologize for things that have hurt them and make honest efforts to listen when they want to complain about it. Then, if I need to, I go vent to my therapist about it.
I'm hoping that being open with them about it will not only increase their understanding but help guard them against similar troubles in their lives. I also hope I'm paving the way for them to ask for help if/when they need it.
I don't talk about what my depression does to my spouse because, well, he's a private person and might not appreciate it. And because I'm not really sure. I know the ups and downs scare him. I know they frustrate him. But, over time and through a great deal of trial and error, we are teaching each other what is and isn't helpful. There's never a clear path . . .
Depression is hard on the depressed person and on the people who surround them. But (and this a point I really had to work hard to understand) just because it's hard doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means that it's hard. And sometimes that's okay.
All right, y'all, you know this is a huge issue and you have thoughts so spill! I'm not always good at responding to comments, but I do read them and so do others. It feels good to share!
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
By Common Consent is taking on depression!
Hi friends!
I can't imagine that many of you out there don't already know about By Common Consent but I wanted to let you know they are doing a mini series on being LDS and depressed!
Here's the overview post by Kathryn Lynard Soper, the founder of Segullah and author of The Year My Son and I Were Born: A Story of Down Syndrome, Motherhood, and Self-Discovery.
And here's the first part Living with Depression, Part I: Recognizing Clinical Depression.
I'm glad BCC is taking this on. It's a huge topic and an important one that I really feel I haven't been doing justice to. I'm also excited because they have both women and men posting about their experiences. I hope you all will take the time to click over there and get in on the conversation!
Their first topic of discussion is how does a person realize they are depressed? I've actually answered this question in a variety of ways. One was when I filled out my own "depression profile." (Remember when I used to run those? I should get back to that sometime.) I also covered it in good detail in my Segullah essay, "That Girl".
Readers, I want to encourage you all to answer this question on your blogs. If you do leave me a link the comments. Seriously, go for it! Or if you want to be anonymous, go over to BCC and leave your story in the comments there. The more we share the stronger we are. (It's cheesy, but I believe it!)
I can't imagine that many of you out there don't already know about By Common Consent but I wanted to let you know they are doing a mini series on being LDS and depressed!
Here's the overview post by Kathryn Lynard Soper, the founder of Segullah and author of The Year My Son and I Were Born: A Story of Down Syndrome, Motherhood, and Self-Discovery.
And here's the first part Living with Depression, Part I: Recognizing Clinical Depression.
I'm glad BCC is taking this on. It's a huge topic and an important one that I really feel I haven't been doing justice to. I'm also excited because they have both women and men posting about their experiences. I hope you all will take the time to click over there and get in on the conversation!
Their first topic of discussion is how does a person realize they are depressed? I've actually answered this question in a variety of ways. One was when I filled out my own "depression profile." (Remember when I used to run those? I should get back to that sometime.) I also covered it in good detail in my Segullah essay, "That Girl".
Readers, I want to encourage you all to answer this question on your blogs. If you do leave me a link the comments. Seriously, go for it! Or if you want to be anonymous, go over to BCC and leave your story in the comments there. The more we share the stronger we are. (It's cheesy, but I believe it!)
Monday, February 8, 2010
A Private Loss
Hi folks. This is a post I'd written for A Motley Vision, but I chickened out and couldn't post it. It's too girly. Too personal. I also couldn't let it go. So I'm posting it here. Sorry it's off topic.
In 2007 I gave birth to my third child and simultaneously vowed to myself that I would become a "real" writer by 2010. I'd be published. I'd have a solid resume. And I'd be proud of the direction my art was taking.
I have not reached my goal.
As many of you probably already know, the third child is quite often when the proverbial diaper contents hits the fan and it was no different for me. My third child had severe eczema, acid reflux disease, and obstructive sleep apnea. He screamed so loudly and so often my oldest child, who was then four years old, suffered panic attacks. Baby Number Three is two and half now and still doesn't sleep through the night.
When he was in utero I was flush with possibilities--for my unborn child, myself, and my writing. I truly believed I was coming into my own. Now, in 2010, I am flush with sleepless nights, piles of laundry, and disillusionment. Conspicuously absent is my writing success.
And I am having another baby. A hoped-for and wanted baby. But a baby that means my literary aspirations will continue to suffer.
Pretty much every female writer since Anne Bradstreet will tell you writing is a lot like having children. But I'm beginning to think it's a sign that God never sent me twins: he knew I couldn't raise two babies at once--just like I can't raise babies and write fabulous literature at the same time--I'm not meant to multi-task.
Those same female writers, including greats like Maya Angelou and Madeleine L'Engle, will tell you writing and mommying is a balancing act. But I'm beginning to wonder if that isn't a bit misleading. Nothing about having children is about balance and nothing about creating art is balanced. Both require complete surrender. You can't get out a scale and put a pile of children on one side and a pile of literary accomplishments on the other and have them ever be equal. They honestly don't compare. Writing opportunities missed--workshops, conferences, contests, little inspirations that don't make sense when I can finally devote time to the random notes I've made--always occupy an ungainly portion of my thinking. But what about the sting of guilt I have over snapping at my kids because I stayed up too late the previous night writing as if I was going to win the next Marilyn Brown Award. It isn't just apples and oranges. It's apples and Winnebagoes.
My children's cravings for parental affection and attention cannot be approached in a balanced, methodical manner. Our best moments are when I am wholly theirs, forgetting my notions of who I should/would be and immersing myself in their world--their problems (oh, the woes of sharing! the frustrations of shoe-tying!), their dreams (to fly, for real, and not in an airplane; can't I feel the wings growing in under her shoulder blades?), their realities (which, since they are not yet burdened by constraints of calendars and clocks, are basically extended dream sequences).
Those moments are the only times I come close to fulfilling the Savior's injunction to lose myself in order to find myself. In their minds I am stronger, wiser, and much more lovable than I perceive myself to be. And the more I am with them the more I become that superhero they think I am. Seeing the growing (and inevitable) realization in their eyes that I am less than perfectly wonderful is a loss--my oldest is only six and is already questioning my abilities--I need their dreams just as much as they do. After all, it is in their dreams I find reflections and reminders of my own pushed aside aspirations, my own stories. It is intimidating and inspiring and it makes me want to sit down and write but I'm afraid to because me being a writer only makes sense in the dream-world my children inhabit, not in the crowded, sensible, grown-up one I live in.
One particularly worthy project has been languishing for over four years now. It limps along with me researching and writing when I can, but my sporadic efforts are not enough to please publishers and I wouldn't feel right about asking readers to spend money on it when I know the book hasn't had the attention it deserves. For the vision of the book to be fully realized would take a full time effort. Because, just like my children, this book needs me to have more wisdom and experience, to be less limited. Just like my children, this book overwhelms me. But unlike my children, if I don't rise to the challenge nobody suffers, except maybe me. The unwritten words are a kind of miscarriage. A private loss.
In 2009 I had a couple writing opportunities that seemed huge to me: I got to write two reviews for Mormon publications, Dialogue and Irreantum. Finally, I was getting my name out there and building up a cache of "real" publishing credits. It felt like everything--my self-respect being the biggest--was riding on these two reviews. But neither worked out how I thought they would. Both ended up clashing with minor family crises. The first suffered neglect due to a bout of anxiety/depression in my oldest child and the second was only half-baked because of a chemical pregnancy/miscarriage. The sudden neediness of my family sucked all the energy out of my writing and I learned that any creative energy I have--whether it be for producing babies or producing rough drafts--came from the same source and it was tapped. When all was said and published, I felt depleted and frustrated and embarrassed. There was no balancing act, only unsatisfactory compromises on every front.
So in 2010, now that there's another baby kicking it's way toward earth life and a book waiting to be resurrected what am I going to do? I don't know. All I've got right now is what I'm not going to do: I'm not going to saddle either with expectations. And I'm not going to try to balance them. I may even manage to avoid conflating and comparing them. (Because, really, no matter how good the metaphor there are limits. My children are not blank pages waiting to be filled and a novel isn't going to be expelled out of my uterus.)
I'm writing this in the past tense, as if these things are over and done with in my life and I am now truly ready to fight the good fight, finish the writing, and keep the faith of my children in tact. But all these attempts at children--both biological and literary--have taught me that failure and success are two sides of the same coin. Both are temporary states of being and one will always imply the other because that's the way agency and opposition and life work: there's always a cost. The price we pay for the things we love is always the private losses registered only in sighs and faraway looks, is always the things we must give up.
In 2007 I gave birth to my third child and simultaneously vowed to myself that I would become a "real" writer by 2010. I'd be published. I'd have a solid resume. And I'd be proud of the direction my art was taking.
I have not reached my goal.
As many of you probably already know, the third child is quite often when the proverbial diaper contents hits the fan and it was no different for me. My third child had severe eczema, acid reflux disease, and obstructive sleep apnea. He screamed so loudly and so often my oldest child, who was then four years old, suffered panic attacks. Baby Number Three is two and half now and still doesn't sleep through the night.
When he was in utero I was flush with possibilities--for my unborn child, myself, and my writing. I truly believed I was coming into my own. Now, in 2010, I am flush with sleepless nights, piles of laundry, and disillusionment. Conspicuously absent is my writing success.
And I am having another baby. A hoped-for and wanted baby. But a baby that means my literary aspirations will continue to suffer.
Pretty much every female writer since Anne Bradstreet will tell you writing is a lot like having children. But I'm beginning to think it's a sign that God never sent me twins: he knew I couldn't raise two babies at once--just like I can't raise babies and write fabulous literature at the same time--I'm not meant to multi-task.
Those same female writers, including greats like Maya Angelou and Madeleine L'Engle, will tell you writing and mommying is a balancing act. But I'm beginning to wonder if that isn't a bit misleading. Nothing about having children is about balance and nothing about creating art is balanced. Both require complete surrender. You can't get out a scale and put a pile of children on one side and a pile of literary accomplishments on the other and have them ever be equal. They honestly don't compare. Writing opportunities missed--workshops, conferences, contests, little inspirations that don't make sense when I can finally devote time to the random notes I've made--always occupy an ungainly portion of my thinking. But what about the sting of guilt I have over snapping at my kids because I stayed up too late the previous night writing as if I was going to win the next Marilyn Brown Award. It isn't just apples and oranges. It's apples and Winnebagoes.
My children's cravings for parental affection and attention cannot be approached in a balanced, methodical manner. Our best moments are when I am wholly theirs, forgetting my notions of who I should/would be and immersing myself in their world--their problems (oh, the woes of sharing! the frustrations of shoe-tying!), their dreams (to fly, for real, and not in an airplane; can't I feel the wings growing in under her shoulder blades?), their realities (which, since they are not yet burdened by constraints of calendars and clocks, are basically extended dream sequences).
Those moments are the only times I come close to fulfilling the Savior's injunction to lose myself in order to find myself. In their minds I am stronger, wiser, and much more lovable than I perceive myself to be. And the more I am with them the more I become that superhero they think I am. Seeing the growing (and inevitable) realization in their eyes that I am less than perfectly wonderful is a loss--my oldest is only six and is already questioning my abilities--I need their dreams just as much as they do. After all, it is in their dreams I find reflections and reminders of my own pushed aside aspirations, my own stories. It is intimidating and inspiring and it makes me want to sit down and write but I'm afraid to because me being a writer only makes sense in the dream-world my children inhabit, not in the crowded, sensible, grown-up one I live in.
One particularly worthy project has been languishing for over four years now. It limps along with me researching and writing when I can, but my sporadic efforts are not enough to please publishers and I wouldn't feel right about asking readers to spend money on it when I know the book hasn't had the attention it deserves. For the vision of the book to be fully realized would take a full time effort. Because, just like my children, this book needs me to have more wisdom and experience, to be less limited. Just like my children, this book overwhelms me. But unlike my children, if I don't rise to the challenge nobody suffers, except maybe me. The unwritten words are a kind of miscarriage. A private loss.
In 2009 I had a couple writing opportunities that seemed huge to me: I got to write two reviews for Mormon publications, Dialogue and Irreantum. Finally, I was getting my name out there and building up a cache of "real" publishing credits. It felt like everything--my self-respect being the biggest--was riding on these two reviews. But neither worked out how I thought they would. Both ended up clashing with minor family crises. The first suffered neglect due to a bout of anxiety/depression in my oldest child and the second was only half-baked because of a chemical pregnancy/miscarriage. The sudden neediness of my family sucked all the energy out of my writing and I learned that any creative energy I have--whether it be for producing babies or producing rough drafts--came from the same source and it was tapped. When all was said and published, I felt depleted and frustrated and embarrassed. There was no balancing act, only unsatisfactory compromises on every front.
So in 2010, now that there's another baby kicking it's way toward earth life and a book waiting to be resurrected what am I going to do? I don't know. All I've got right now is what I'm not going to do: I'm not going to saddle either with expectations. And I'm not going to try to balance them. I may even manage to avoid conflating and comparing them. (Because, really, no matter how good the metaphor there are limits. My children are not blank pages waiting to be filled and a novel isn't going to be expelled out of my uterus.)
I'm writing this in the past tense, as if these things are over and done with in my life and I am now truly ready to fight the good fight, finish the writing, and keep the faith of my children in tact. But all these attempts at children--both biological and literary--have taught me that failure and success are two sides of the same coin. Both are temporary states of being and one will always imply the other because that's the way agency and opposition and life work: there's always a cost. The price we pay for the things we love is always the private losses registered only in sighs and faraway looks, is always the things we must give up.
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