I have been following Heather since she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I read her blog tonight from about a week ago. I am overwhelmed. She sums up Grace so simple, so sweet. She puts the human experience into words in ways I cannot explain. Read her blog…you’ll be changed.
http://www.especiallyheather.com/2008/03/20/if-you-really-knew/
That’s my motto. 1 day..1 day…1 day. If I look at my life as 1 day it’s not overwhelming. And it’s only TODAY. Not yesterday. I can’t change it. Not tomorrow. I can’t change it. Today. I only have today.
When you have depression, you can sometimes find yourself explaining again and again why you haven’t done what it is you are supposed to do. But this weekend…I found a difference. I did not meet a goal I should have. My first thought was to crawl into bed and hope it would go away. I argued about how I would do it tomorrow. Then I argued that I did it yesterday, I shouldn’t have to do it again. Finally, I told myself to just do 1 step of this project. So I began. I did 1 thing. Then I told myself, Hey, let’s try it again. I took each step and as I did I found something happen. I found myself wanting to work harder to finish the job. Finally, I finished! What a great triumph!
Tonight I am going to bed early, and my office is clean, my daily work quota was met, the dishes are done AND the basement is clean. A small task for some…for me it represented a mountain. I climbed over that mountain and I did it! It feels good.
So, if you find yourself facing that mountain, Don’t look at the peak. Look at the next step in front of you. Take that step. Then take the next. Pretty soon you’ll see that the peak is a little closer and where you are is farther behind…but don’t dwell on that. Dwell on the next step and the next until you reach the top. Then rejoice…YOU DID IT!
May your days be a little brighter.
~ Taunya
Well, I’ve now the mother of not 1 but 2 children with ear infections. What is it about kids that has to attract bugs that like their ears? So, I’m on round 2 of antibiotics in our house. The pink stuff is becoming a permanent fixture in my fridge.
The most amazing thing is how the 2 responded to the ear ache.
Kid #1 - SCREAMED, WHINED, BEGGED, PLEADED…I need my medicine now! This was after the doctor said it was only slightly red and to wait and see if it would become infected. 1 hour later…the entire world knew it. Then it went away after 10 minutes. But then it returned it’s ugly head after bedtime. Of course after daddy rushed neck speed to the Pharmacy to get it at 8:55 pm (pharmacy closes at 9) she refused to take it. Darn KID! We managed to get her to take it after bribing her with a gummy bear. This was from just a little “red” ear.
Kid #2 - Mommy, my ear hurts. We go to doctor’s today. The kid has a bulging ear drum. They were surprised she wasn’t crying or screaming. Nope, she just looks at them and says “My ear hurts” all while pulling her ear and sucking her thumb. She had a worst infection then her sister. Of course she has decided the medicine is icky, but she takes it anyway.
I can’t believe how different they are. And to tell you the truth, it matches their personalities 100%. Kid #1 takes after her daddy. Kid #2 takes after me…poor thing 
I have clinical depression. It’s relatively under control at the moment. However, if I forget my medication even one day, it creeps back into my life like a body snatcher. Sometimes though, it shows up despite the medication. If you mix female hormonal imbalance with a mental chemical imbalance…you have me. If you’ve never experienced true depression, you can’t quite understand just what it is.
Some of the things we often hear are: “You can’t be depressed. Your life is great.” “You just have to buck it up, get up there and do it”. “Christians don’t have depression.” ”I overcame it, you can to, you just have to tell it to go away.” Or my all time favorite…it’s a classic I tell ya…
“It’s all in your head.”
Um yep, that’s the problem! Oh how I wish it were that simple. Oh how I wish that being a Christian meant that I didn’t have to suffer this illness that makes my world crazy within 24 hours. I wish I could just tell my brain to quit thinking a certain way…to control my moods. But I can’t. And some days, some days it really makes me mad.
It’s hard to live with the feeling that you can’t stand people. That the thought of them looking at you, touching you, telling you they love you, makes you physically ill…like you’ll throw up. It’s hard to live with feeling like a mountain of lava just waiting to explode and knowing the one who’ll feel the heat of your searing words is probably the one you love the most. It’s hard to wake up and see yet another rainy day and get enough gumption to get out of bed and function. Rain & gray make me immobile. My soul & mind yearns for spring. November to February are my hardest months of the year. The medication helps, it takes the edge…but it doesn’t make the disease go away. It’s still there and every once in awhile it has to say hello, just in case I forgot about it (as if I could).
That’s why today I found myself in an online discussion about depression. The comment was made that telling someone who is depressed and not taking the steps they know they need to make to GET GOING, is well, insensitive. It’s not. As I said, “When you’re depressed you need a lifeline, not sympathy.” It’s true. Sometimes the best thing for me is for my husband to pull the covers from me and say, “Get up. Now.” It’s the little kick I need.
Well, one of my favorite posters made this comment and I have to share it. It really sums up what depression is like…what it’s like to be a mom or a housewife or a housecleaner or a business owner or even just a human being, when you have depression.
The effort a depressed person has to make to pick up one little pebble is the same as a healthy person has to make to pick up a boulder.
Reflect on that. If you know someone who is depressed find a way to give them a little more strength. Remember what you see as just a bump in the road, is actually a huge hill to climb to them. You only need to get them moving and once they are going keep them going…keep encouraging them.
Good night all
Laundry in our house has 1 cycle…never done. It’s so nice to wash, dry, fold and look at my nice clean laundry floor. Success. I shut the door. I walk away. I kid you not…2 hours later I open the door. AAAAARGH! The laundry had babies! I now have laundry here and laundry there and laundry everywhere!
It’s the nature of kids. They have absolutely no dirty laundry until the minute Mom declares the laundry service over for the week. Suddenly, they find that old pair of wet underwear (we still have a bed wetter), the gym socks they need in 3 minutes, the new shirt that they accidentally spilled juice on and forgot to tell you. They put that into your laundry room and then the Bird & The Bees Happen.
“Jimmy, when the mommy shirt and the daddy pants say Hello…you get baby, baby, baby everywhere”
Sometimes reality is just no fun. No matter how hard I try, my laundry basket seems to always be multiplying and multiplying. I need a wife. Oh wait, that’s what I’m supposed to be. What I really need is a housekeeper, because honestly I’m not one.
Mom of three trying to manage my home, my family and my business.
