The big D and I don't mean Dallas...(or divorce).

Photo by Joth, taken on his Little Tykes digital camera.

My computer is bunk...so you get what you can off of Hubbs lappy.

Two and a half years ago, I couldn't tell you what it felt like to feel desperate, or in a dark place. I am almost certain I knew the grips of depression, but I was somehow able to find my way through, continue each day and live. Then when all hell broke loose , and then again, and again and again, I lost bits of me to that hell. Parts I wish I could get back, but hard as I try, I can't seem to find them.

“If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to
break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward
many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It
kills the very good, and the very gentle, and the very brave impartially. If you
are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too, but there will be no
special hurry.” --Ernest Hemingway

This quote almost perfectly describes how I have been feeling. Especially if you subsititue 'world' with 'depression'. I feel like depression has been trying to break me. I hate it.

The other night I was SO tired, and the insomnia hit, everything hit and I cried myself to sleep. I wrote on my facebook wall, how much I would love to know how it feels to navigate this world without having to carry depression on my shoulders. It is a heavy weight and the good days and bad days are so interspersed that I don't know who is friend and who is foe anymore. It is heavy stuff. What does that feel like friends? What does it feel like to be free, to be able to wake up and make breakfast for your kids, walk them to school, without coming home and wanting nothing but to go back to bed? What is that like to feel otherwise?

I talked with Casey a few weeks back. She suffers from depression as well, and one thing we both have in common and which we discussed, and which she put on her blog a few days ago, is the lack of the ability to take full breaths. Really. Think about it. The anxiety and depression are so terrible some days that most days I don't take full breaths. Even as I sit here, I am not. No wonder I am depressed, my brain is lacking sufficient oxygen. ;)

I am courageous, I am brave, I am good, and I am gentle, I am trying to be strong in my broken places regardless of this depression.

Regardless if I must row the boat through the misty darkness for the rest of my life, I still see the light at the end of the tunnel. I see the happiness around me, I hear the laughter of my sweet children, the love of my husband, and they keep me rowing. I love myself regardless of you depression. I may have to get out and wade through the churning waters at times, but I will never stop because of you. I will never allow you to hurt me so much that I let you overpower me, and I may find bits of me in this murky water, and I will salvage the pieces of me that I can from you, and arrive safely 0n the other side, and when I do depression, I am going to punch you in the throat and kick you in the nads.