Just the basic facts - Can you show me where it hurts?

It's strange how easy it is to get so caught up in the business of living... only to find you've been so busy dealing with the day-to-day you failed to see that the strength you worked so hard to build up has been quietly eroding.

The ADD meds have worked wonders in getting me moving. I get up in the morning, I get breakfast crack-a-lackin', I let the dog out, feed the dog, let the dog out again. I make coffee (or at least reheat yesterday's coffee still in the pot... for which I can actually hear Mocha gasping in horror.) I get T out the door to work, and Jack with him on preschool days. I check email, read the news headlines, and attempt to straighten up the kitchen. I catch up on a few blogs from ye olde blogroll.

For a while, just staying in motion was enough to keep the depression at bay. As Dr. WonderShrink predicted, the meds had an antidepressant effect in addition to keeping my ferret-on-crack brain focused on the tasks at hand. For a while.

The last week I have felt the misty gray hand of sadness closing around my chest again. I have fought it, railed against it, and sought that quiet place in my thoughts where I can find calm. It's elusive, but when I get there I can breathe deeply and think clearly.

I haven't been a very good mom this week - I haven't given the boys the attention and interaction they so desperately need. I have not gone to bed at a decent hour, either. I'm procrastinating, but what exactly it is I'm avoiding is impossible to put into words. Because I don't know? Because it's the same old sob story? Because I am totally ashamed of being sad when there is so much to be happy about?

The new camera is a treasure trove of promises for creative growth and professional success. Jack started preschool and is growing into this amazing little person that any sane individual would be totally gobsmacked by, simply basking in his presence.
And tonight? Some sweet neighbor tagged our porch with "the phantom ghost".. which is a neighborhood chain letter of sorts. It consists of doorbell-ditching a basket of halloween goodies on the doorstep of 2 neighbors, along with a copy of a cute little poem instructing them to each follow suit within 24 hours. It's a neighborhood tradition, but this is the first time in the 3 Halloweens we've lived here that we've been tagged.

I have every reason to be ecstatic, or at least content, despite the never-ending roller coaster that is our life. And even so, in a way that makes no sense, I am sad.

This feeling has nothing to do with what is going on externally. That's the rub, isn't it? It's what makes a depressive person feel the chilling breath of despair - the self-guilting over each realization of what they're missing, what they are "squandering" by not feeling the full joy of the joyous things in their lives. The feeling of being disconnected, and the pain of that disconnect. Then comes the emotional withdrawal from the pain, leaving just the isolation of it all.

I've been to that place, and I have no desire to go there again. I am determined not to cut off the ones I love from my unprotected, squishy underbelly. I just wish I knew how to break down the gauzy barrier that has erected itself, before it is allowed to grow, cancer-like, unchecked, into a wall. (I have now officially ear-wormed myself, and will commence humming Pink Floyd tunes until I sag into unconsciousness in my bed.)

I am trying to make allowances, to take into account the things that have thrown us for a loop of late. T's professional future is uncertain. My parents are leaving for Africa in 2 weeks. We are gearing up for a battle royale breaking out at the HOA. Jack is 3, and has already figured out that he is probably smarter than his parents. And he knows something is wrong with me.

It is normal for these things to cause upheaval, even feelings of mild panic.

And I am not sleeping enough.

Even so, I fear the darkness, the wasted days and weeks that I can never get back, and the ones I could yet miss if I don't find a way to fight off the swirling, foggy sadness.

Then I read this. And this. And then this. And this.

My inner cynic snerked a few times, reading my own thoughts and feelings over and over and over as so many others confess their demons. It's like we all fell down the rabbit hole, and are all trying desperately to get the mad hatter to shut the hell up already about the tea cups and door mice because please, we just want to know how to get back to where we came from.

Because back in the real world there may be no groovy talking caterpillars, but at least the things that matter made sense.

But there is hope. There is always hope. And when I read something like this I realize that, though the spectre of depression will always be hovering just around the bend and out of sight, there are many many good days yet to come.

It's the letting go. The letting go is hardest to do, because it means giving up the illusion of control.

If I can just allow myself to stop moving for a minute and loosen my death grip on life... to push cars around with Jack even when I am tired or there is vacuuming to do... to let Toby attempt to use his spoon, mess be damned... to let the dog go ahead and lick my chin without immediately thinking of all the unholy things I have seen in his mouth. To go to bed without checking email just 'one more time'.

I hope...I may just find that the chaos I fear most is actually the good part.