Work In Progress

I want to believe every word my mental health care team says.  My psychiatrist, my naturopath, my psychologist, my family doctor..... The problem is, it sometimes feels like they are all saying different things.  The thing is, I want someone, ANYONE, to tell me what is the next right thing to do so I can be happy. That is all I want.  Some say I am a victim, or acting the victim and letting things happen TO me and my depression is caused by working hard without what I perceive to be "the right" recognition, having no control over what happens to me at work or home and having a very strong set of values that beliefs that if defied, will erupt into righteous indignation and judgement.  Typical Type A burnout ...sounds about right. Some say what is happening to me is that I have been asked to take on too much and in my normal form to not disappoint anyone, I have accepted it.  It is unrealistic to expect I can step into a job where there were two man...

"Nev er be ashamed of a scar. It simply means you were stronger than whatever tried to hurt you."   Unknown It has been almost three years since I started writing, suggested by my therapist, as a great way to get the immortal hamster off the squealy infinity wheel of anxiety.  Writing helps take the looping internal dialogue of negative self talk and stretch it out into a linear format, where it has a beginning and an end.  It's a bit  like taking a pencil and jamming it into the noisy hamster wheel.   Ka-POW.... Which would probably send the hamster flying, or at least give him a tiny concussion, so I wouldn't really do that... but you get the idea. At one point, the squeaky wheel was accompanied by a very loud clock, keeping time to the squealing wheel.... TICK -TOCK-TICK-TOCK.   SQUEAK...SQUEAK... Not only were there a million things to do, a million things to fix, there was a countdown clock.  Figure it out. TICK...

here are moments in time that define you. They are etched in your memory in a way that if you close your eyes you can see them again; feel them again. They are an emotional echo ---so strong, they leave an imprint on your soul. When I was eleven, my favorite "uncle" died suddenly, in my house, while I was off at the grandparents. He and my "aunt" came to town for a week long visit after moving away one year earlier and my parents decided to throw a grand party and invite all their old friends. My sister and I were sent to the grandparents for the weekend, and I was promised the week after we could come home and I could have "Uncle Bill" all to myself! I learned much later that early Sunday morning, my "aunt" woke up when my uncle accused her of stealing the covers. They both rolled back over and went back to sleep. Between then and 10 AM when she work up again, he had experienced a cardiac event (not his first I am sad to say) i...

This is new to me---exploring this thread of invisibility. Tugging on it to see what unravels. Only last year did my mother say to me, "You and your boys are very close.  I see how you keep them near and how they like to spend time with you." At the time I had no idea where she was going.  I knew she was very close to her mom so I suspected it was yet another shot at me for not answering the phone when she calls.  That's another story though... "When your dad and I were together......you kids didn't come first.  I always put your father first." I didn't know what to say at the time.  There didn't seem to be any judgement attached to the statement, more like it was something that just occurred to her.  Only later, as I rifled through my memories of kids' dinners and separate, late night parent dinners....frequent sleep overs at my grandparents or "aunts'" houses to allow for parent vacations, did I see the truth in...

The first time I turned invisible I was ten years old. My sister was 18 months old and had graduated from adorable living doll I could dress up and feed, to a demanding toddler.  As a former only child and only grandchild, I was used to being the centre of most things in my world and finding myself summarily dismissed I was determined to redirect the spotlight back to its rightful place---on me. First, I tried flinging myself onto my bed with a dramatic sigh.  But since our house was a rather a spread out, no one seemed to notice.  Sometimes I would stand behind my bedroom door and wait until I heard someone coming to that end of the house---and then fling myself again.  LOUDER sigh.  But no one came.   WHY OH WHY DO MY PARENTS NOT COME INTO MY ROOM AND SIT ON MY BED AND ASK ME WHAT IS WRONG LIKE THEY DO ON THE BRADY BUNCH!! Those were REAL parents!  Those were LOVING parents!  They had some sort of internal guidance system that...