The Many Headed Monster

I have mentioned that I suffer from chronic depression, it seemed that my psychiatrist and I had finally found a combination that was working for me, but like any medications they have side effects, one of those effects is to decrease desire for physical intimacy. I struggle so much to feel and be present during physical intimacy that I decided to decrease one of my meds because I want to feel, so I decreased one of my meds. I usually do better as the number of hours the sun is up increases and the weather improves to sprinter(yes I called it sprinter) time, tulips are blooming, I don't go to work in the dark and come home in the dark, so I figured I could do it, it's not like I was going to quit taking them all together. While I am not as low as I can go I am once again tormented by the monster, I hate this balancing act between feeling too little in one way or being semi functional in the rest of my life.

I am not saying I can't find joy, I have plenty of things that I smile about, laugh about, and even want to do, but each of those things takes more of a physical and mental effort. Problems and upsets that are small feel like big problems and big problems feel enormous. If feels like carrying around a monster with several heads each whispering to you all the things about you that are not perfect, the things you see about yourself you don't like. That black and white thought process takes over and I feel frozen.

I want to be normal, whatever that is. I know life is not without ups and downs, there are too many ducks that don't stay in their rows for there not to be days that are better than others.

Enough for Now

Little White Lies

I went and saw a counselor on a more or less emergency basis, my work has it set up that you can't just decide you might need to go to counseling without going in for an assessment and telling someone you don't know your secrets in 20 min or less and then they decide if you need someone to give you regular counseling. My psychiatrist has wanted me to go to regular counseling for the last year but I have avoided it since I hate the process of starting over and with our system it means doing it twice. Spilling your heart to someone and waiting to hear their judgement is horrible, but I knew I didn't like where my thoughts were going, for the first time in months I felt like I couldn't take it anymore and wanted to be gone, I try not to give such thoughts a home but they can be insidious.

So I went and I sat and I told my secrets, sure enough she told me she thinks I need regular counseling, so I will get to start over again. She was a very reassuring person and I would have liked to see her as a continuing counselor but no one there is like Marcia was and skirts the rules that I can only see them three times and then I must move on. She asked if I was actvely suicidal and I told her the truth my thoughts were trending that was but that I was still in control, she asked if I was safe with myself and I told her yes I was. Then she asked what I would do if I wasn't safe with myself and I told her the truth I would lie. She was a bit taken aback by my answer and looked at me and said, wrong answer. So I told her what she wanted to hear, I would tell my husband if I was suicidal, I would check myself into the hospital, I would not hurt myself.

Part of what I said is true, I will not hurt myself, I do not want to die, I just want relief from the never ending battle that life presents. I want all "my" ducks to stay in a row and I don't want to be told they aren't my damn ducks. I want my dog to not have cancer, I want to be able to pay all my bills and have enough left over to not feel guilty doing things for myself, I want my sons healthy, I'm tired of the weakness of mortal bodies, of the endless pain.

I am going to go to a counselor on a regular basis, what she asked did I want my counselor to be like, hmmm, no one has ever asked me that, so I was honest, not too Mormon, someone who has experience with sexual abuse, not younger than me, I don't want a counselor my kids age telling me how to do things she learned in a book, needs to be female. Our time was done, she looked at me and said you are amazing look at everything you do every day, Now I was surprised, but she meant it, I get up, I take care of my grandson, I work as a nurse, I work in our tax business, I do laundry I breathe, I take care of a child with a chronic illness, I do what I have to, trying desperately to keep the ducks in line as best I can, even if they aren't my damn ducks.

Enough for Now

They're Playing My Song

Welcome to K-F--- radio! Playing all negative, all the time!

My friend Horatio calls it playing K-F--- radio when your head is endlessly filled with thoughts of how inadequate you are, what a screw up you are being, going over all the things in your life that are causing stress, things you can't change for the most part, like a childs' chronic illness, or your adult childs' choices. The thoughts are rarely rational, or helpful, serving only the purpose of self flagellation.

 I know this but I still let K-F--- radio run through my head like the latest hit song until I'm sick of myself. Lately it is the only station I can seem to listen to, awake or asleep there is no escape, my thoughts even follow me into my dreams, often leaving me more exhausted upon awakening than I was when I went to bed, this is provided I can turn off my head long enough to fall asleep at all.

I haven't felt this trapped and depressed in a long time, I can usually remind myself that each day the sun shines a little longer before the darkness begins, but right now while I am in the middle of this bone deep sadness it is difficult to see that it will have and end, that I will feel better in time.I don't feel like I can share my feelings with others, I have learned that I lose the ones close to me if I burden them with my dark thoughts. So instead I put on my mask and go out and pretend I am fine, and I share here where I am anonymous, where the tears of my heart can be released.

Doubts

I am a descendant of the first Mormon pioneers to enter the Salt Lake Valley, I am amazed at the faith they must have had to make the journey. My ancestors were persecuted, their money, possessions and  property taken from them, they were forced from their homes and even at one point a declaration of extermination was made. In spite of this and all the struggles on the trail they persevered, they endured to the end, I know along the way some fell into apostasy, I have relatives in the eastern United States and up into Canada who are the descendants of Joseph Scotts' daughter who left the church while the saints were still in Missouri.

I admire the tenacity of my ancestors and hope I have in some small measure the internal fortitude they showed to not only endure but to thrive. My parents are fourth generation descendants of those who came into the valley, my parents have not always been active members but they instilled in us their belief that the LDS church is the fullness of the gospel come to earth. I never really questioned whether or not the gospel was true, there is something in me that can see that this world is too complex to have been a random act and then after I was abused I thought the only way to salvation would be to be the most perfect member I could.

Any time that I began to question anything I squashed the thought, I read my scriptures, attended, seminary, and prayed, always believing that if I did it right, if I endured, then maybe, just maybe, I would see heaven. If I wasn't accepted, or if I questioned, I figured this was my failure, it was that nameless evil within me that I could not have a constant and enduring testimony.

Heaven is a place I shall not see, Heaven was not made for such as me.

Still I continued to attend, I went to the temple and was sealed to my husband and children for time and all eternity, I am not saying that I would not have ever gone to the temple at a later date, but they day we went I think I would have left if there were not so many of our family members and church members there to see us. I did not do it for myself, I did it for my parents, the people who I felt judged me for being a teen parent and because it was expected if I was ever to erase the stain on my soul.

 I still did not question, I raised my children in the LDS church, baptized each at age eight, and agonized over their salvation since if parents do not teach their children then they are under greater condemnation by God. I thought that to be a good member that anything that appeared evil need to be avoided, I could not associate with anyone who had views differing from what was taught, I lost opportunities to spend time with friends and family who were not members or were not active members to avoid this "appearance of evil",or I so tightly controlled those times we were together that true closeness never developed. I regret every day the missed closeness I could have shared with good people.

Religious people(myself previously included) explain away hardship, tragedy and the failure of such things as blessings by the laying on of hands by saying such things as it was God's will or that it was your fault because you obviously didn't have enough faith, or you have not prayed hard enough or the right way or long enough. You need to endure to the end and God doesn't give us more than we can handle. I internalized this well, my depression, chronic physical illness, the death of my child were all because of the flaw in my own soul, no matter that I spent countless hours asking, not to be healed of my illness but just to know what was causing my illness, relief from my depression and above all for my sons to be protected, somehow it was my failure, I caused it. Supposedly God doesn't interfere in the natural course of events, and yet stories of miracles abound, stories of healing, timely interventions, and yet there was no such thing for my son. God was fickle, of course thinking this just proved I was bad and I pushed my doubts away.

I was angry, well meaning people would spout the phrase about God not giving us more than we can handle, I just nodded my head and refrained from telling them I didn't believe that. I thought about Emma Smith, she was the wife of the prophet Joseph Smith, she left the church after the death of her beloved husband after years of tragedy after tragedy and finally the martyrdom of the prophet.She could not take one more thing and stayed in Nauvoo when the other saints left, this great woman could no longer endure. Push the doubts away.

Four years ago I went on a pioneer reenactment, they needed a nurse for the medical staff, I was really excited and really wanted to go and have a small taste of what my ancestors experienced. The other staff members had been meeting for months previous to the trek and had established relationships, I was a last minute add on when the original nurse could not attend. Talk about being an outsider, there was no room for me in the staff circle, and as staff we were not part of the families that were put together of the other participants. If two people had not taken pity on me I would have been sleeping on the ground by myself, they even forgot to feed me the first day and I had to mooch off others. There were things that were wonderful and I have some good memories of the trek, but my feelings of being an outsider in the LDS faith were growing.

I chose to no longer be active just over a year ago, I gave up my card carrying status and began questioning the beliefs that I had been afraid to question before. I am sure I shocked people when I said that I was not so sure that there was a benevolent God watching over us or if there was he either had a wretchedly wicked sense of humor or he dropped us off here and left our world to its own devices to succeed or fail as we will. LDS beliefs are unique in our view of the universe and I just can't accept them at this time, my friend calls me rebellious and I suppose I am, but I also feel free for the first time in many years, I am still a Mormon by covenant and record but I will choose if I return for the right reasons, it won't be for guilt, or for family, it will be for self.

With my decision to revisit tightly held beliefs I worried my children would be angry or feel I had lied to them, I was surprised and relieved when talking to them, they accept and love me without question. I told them they are each old enough to make their own decision about what they choose to believe, that I want them to do it only for themselves, to be driven by their decisions, their faith, to never do it for me, or for any other person on earth. Lee is having a little more trouble understanding the me I am becoming, I don't have all the answers and he too will have to find out what he wants for himself without me dragging him along like if I could get him saved I could hold onto his coat tails into heaven.

Enough for Now.

Ideations

When you are so distressed you have thoughts about but no plan or actions tied to committing suicide they call these ideations. Most people have had transient thoughts when things are tough of killing themselves and if all followed through our population problem would cease to exist. As it is suicide is the third leading cause of death for children 14-19 years of age and children as young as 8 years of age have died of intentionally self inflicted injury.

 In previous posts I have told of my own attempts starting at approximately age 9. For many years I found comfort in having my plan formulated, it gave me a kind of peace that treatment did not. I am a sufferer of chronic depression. If you know someone with chronic depression you know that living with them day in and day out can be draining, medications that worked suddenly stop working and you start the cycle of trying to find balance all over again. We also have a tendency to stop taking meds when we are doing well because there is still a heavy stigma attached to mental illness and we think the depression won't reoccur.

Suicide is often referred to as a selfish, cowardly act, a permanent solution to a temporary problem, I do not see suicide this way. One of our most basic internal instincts is that of survival, the tiniest of premature infants will try to push away things that touch their face and are occluding their airway, they are not strong enough to stop it but they will try.

 Suicide is self execution, the person must override the most ingrained instinct to preserve their own life often using methods of execution that the ACLU would brand as cruel and unusual.

Why this subject? On November 18th my youngest son will be 14 years, 4 months, and 11 days old, he will have outlived the brother who we lost on Fathers Day June 17, 2001. Colley was our second child, part of the Sensational Six, bright, talented, not perfect, but perfectly ours. I name him here by his pet name because I want to remain as anonymous as I can, although I so dearly want to see his name and hear it, to feel this most important part of my heart has not disappeared. Colley died of depression, the instrument he used to self execute was a nine millimeter handgun, I do not often talk about him not because I am ashamed but to protect him and his brothers from the intentional or unintentional cruelty of others.

Colley has a story and in time I will give voice to it, I miss him fiercely, I will never be who I was before he died, but he was not selfish or cowardly. He was broken and felt that he was so damaged by his own secrets of abuse that for our family to be whole he needed to remove himself. I know that pain only chance has kept me here.

Enough for Now