Hope and Help

It is hard for me to express the sheer pain and grief I feel when hearing about a suicide.  The closest thing I can equate to it is how PTSD must feel to people. The tears flow and my mind swims back to March 7, 2014. Mental illness survivor's guilt perhaps?  Why did I survive and they didn't?  My biggest prayer today is that people will try to understand how depression envelopes your brain and incapacitates you and controls every aspect of who you are. Untreated, every single day is a battle to live, to cope, to get out of bed.  

Huff Post:  "It's not even just sadness, it's physical pain and passiveness. The world around you keeps moving and you are there, remaining still and lethargic. That's the thing about depression -- it's silent, and it doesn't care if you are black or white, male or female, rich or poor. You can be standing on a train next to someone reading a book and that person could be screaming inside, clinging on to their last hope of life."

There is hope and help.  I am living proof of this hope and help.  
Reach out.
Be a friend.
Send a loving text.
Care.

In closing, I wanted to repost JT's blog he wrote because I think it is important for people to understand just how difficult mental illness is to see in others.  I pray for this family to feel wrapped in God's love and understanding as they grieve.  

I understand.

That two word sentence is the biggest lie I ever told my wife.  The biggest one I ever told myself.  I understand.  No, I didn’t.  No, I don’t.  No, I’m not certain I ever fully will.  Because I didn’t understand Depression.  To me, it was simply a word…a feeling…it passes, right?  Heck, they named the illness after an emotion…how stupid is that!?  Perhaps that alone made it difficult for me to understand.  Perhaps it is my thick-headed, stubbornness.  Perhaps it is a combination of things…but the fact remains I didn’t understand what my wife was going through.  Oh yes, I said I understood…and maybe I even thought I did.  But that was akin to me sticking my toe in a freezing pool and saying it was cold…while my wife was immersed in the deep end.  Like me opening a cellar door and stating how dark it was…while my wife was enveloped in the darkness.  Like me trying to pick up a heavy weight…proclaiming how heavy it was and putting it down….while my wife was dragging it around.  I never understood.  I couldn’t possibly, because I wasn’t living it.  I realize that I may never truly understand it…because I believe that in order to truly understand…one must live it…not stick their toe in.  I didn’t realize she was freezing, in darkness, and carrying a heavy load…with no one to help…because I wasn’t there.  A guilt I will carry…but that’s a story for another time.  For this time, it is simply one point…I now know I didn’t understand.  My wife suffers from Depression.  So to me, while technically I do not ‘suffer’ from it…I deal with it.  Because I am in this with her…together we are in the deep end and swimming to shallow waters, leaving the dark for a brighter place, helping each other to carry the heavy loads.  I want to understand…and I can try to do that better…but I also think that may be missing the mark just a bit.  Maybe it is not about me fully understanding.  Maybe it is about something else.  Maybe it is not “I understand” that she and people that suffer from Depression need to hear.  Maybe it is not hearing anything…but more seeing and knowing…

I’m sorry.  You are not alone.  I am here now.

My Brain: The All-Hands Meeting

This is a repost from the New yorker i just dug up.  if you are living with a mood disorder, I hope this brings you as much humor as it does me.  

MY BRAIN: THE ALL-HANDS MEETING

By Hallie Cantor

Me: Hey, everyone, thanks for coming. This meeting is just to check in, get updated about what everybody’s been working on in the first quarter of the day, and see how we’re feeling about the future. Coffee, wanna kick us off?

Coffee: Sure, thanks. So, my team’s been pretty active in Q1. We started out with our regular one cup, and, you know, we weren’t seeing immediate results. We’re attributing that to a number of factors. Our target is developing a tolerance owing to her unemployment, plus we all know there’ve been some hiccups in the new sleep schedule—

(Sleep snorts. Coffee pauses.)

Coffee: —but we’re hoping to hit the ground running in Q2 with the second-cup initiative, and build on the foundation that Antidepressants set up.

Antidepressants: Yeah, thanks, Coffee. Can I get that PowerPoint I e-mailed everyone up on the screen, please? Great. Now, as you can see, our department’s not getting the full R.O.I. we once were. Forty milligrams of Cymbalta used to be enough to get her out of bed and to a coffee shop, but increasingly—especially with the overwhelming trend toward mobile—she’s just checking her e-mail on her phone and then going back to sleep.

Sleep: Can I jump in here?

Me: Sure, Sleep, let’s hear from you.

Sleep: Listen, I know my department has been asking for a lot recently. But what do you want me to say? She’s unemployed now. That’s a new climate for all of us. We’ve had to adapt. Her sleeping patterns are being completely recalibrated. Seven hours a night isn’t gonna fly. We need nine, ten, even eleven hours now.

Coffee (under its breath): Ridiculous.

Sleep: And I hate to say it, but, as we enter Q2, the fact is we need a nap.

(Assorted grumbles and groans can be heard around the room.)

Sugar: We don’t need a nap, O.K.? What we need is a pastry.

Protein: Absolutely not. A pastry is a Band-Aid solution! We need scrambled eggs.

Me: Guys, come on. I can’t get into this with you two again before lunch. Let’s circle back to Coffee’s second-cup initiative. Water, how does that look from your end?

Water: I’m gonna have to strongly advise against it. If the first cup didn’t work, why would we double down on that strategy and sink more resources into a second cup? Besides, my team’s projections show that more coffee would frankly be counter to our goals at this point.

Coffee: Excuse me?

Water: She’s tired because she’s dehydrated. It’s always dehydration! How many articles from the Huffington Post’s Healthy Living vertical does her mom need to forward her before this sinks in?

Coffee (sulkily): There’s water in coffee, you know.

Exercise: I’m with Water. The work my guys are doing is pointless without support in the form of more water! All through Q1, we were busting our ass at yoga class and she couldn’t get any of the benefits because she was feeling light-headed from a single Sun Salutation. That’s textbook dehydration. I’m sorry, but it is.

Sugar: Could be low blood sugar.

Exercise: It’s not.

Sugar: It could be, though.

Water: It’s not.

Me: All right, let’s cool it with the crosstalk, please. I want to go big picture. None of us can deny the negative trends we’ve been seeing in mood and productivity. Let’s do a deep dive. Therapy, what do you have to say?

Therapy: I know things look stagnant right now, but it’s a process. We’re pursuing a long-term strategy, and sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. If we just stay the course—

Antidepressants: Oh, stuff it.

Therapy: Hey!

Antidepressants: I’m sick of this asshole taking credit for the work I’m doing! Therapy, have you ever gotten concrete results?

Therapy: I’m dealing with challenges that the rest of you have never had to handle! An off-site partner is not easy to work with, you know. Her Subconscious couldn’t even be bothered to dial in to this meeting.

Me: We tried. The connection was bad.

Therapy: What else is new?

Me: Look, excuses and finger-pointing aren’t going to solve anything. Does anyone have any constructive ideas?

(A calm, wise voice speaks up from the back of the room.)

Meditation: Pardon me, but may I make a suggestion? If you’d consider bringing me on full time instead of employing me on a sporadic freelance basis, I really think I could help out with some of these issues.

Me: Yeah, yeah. Maybe next quarter.

(Alcohol clears its throat.)

Alcohol: I know you already know that we’re all dying to contribute more consistently over in my department.

Weed: Ditto.

Me: Thanks, guys. I appreciate that.

Water: Tell me you’re not considering putting those jackasses in charge.

Me: Not in charge. Just . . . maybe they should have a place at the table. Would that be so terrible?

(Suddenly, the door to the conference room bursts open.)

P.M.S.: Sorry, sorry, sorry! Am I late?

Me: Fuck it. Sleep, you’re in charge. ♦

Hallie Cantor wrote for the third season of Comedy Central’s “Inside Amy Schumer.” She lives in Brooklyn

Turner's Law

Sometimes I wish we could all go around daily with signs around our neck.
"Broken heart," "Diagnosed with cancer," "Suffering with addiction," "Feeling alone," "Overwhelmed," "I am handicapped," "Experiencing a mental illness episode," "We have 3 sick parents."  

I haven't wanted to write in 3 months.  If I'm truthful, the root of it is because I never want to wear the "I am a victim" sign around my neck.  I feel like a victim today.  I want to walk outside and scream, "What else, God?!"  What else are you going to throw our way?  Our plate is full.  The days melt into weeks and into months with 3 parents hospitalized, working, traveling, finances, mental illness.    

I am sad.  I am mad.  I am tired.  

To the off duty flight attendant who wiped my tears yesterday on Delta, thank you.  

To the 7th grade friend who told me just to be still, listen and open my heart and receive the comfort and knowledge that God is in control, thank you.  

To the friend who reminded me to be thankful for a God who gives us a new day.  Every.  Single.  Time.  Thank you.  

And to the man I am blessed to share life with - the good, the bad and the ugly, thank you.  Thank you for reminding me I am not alone.  You are not alone either.  We got this!    

I am searching for my mustard seed and keeping the faith of hope and love.  

I could write for days.....

Never did you leave Ralph Gatlin's company without feeling ministered to, better about yourself, better about life and better about the state of the world in general.  I could write for days.  Below is a list of 21 things he was to me for the 21 years he was physically in my life along with 3 poems he wrote I will forever cherish.    

1. he is a man who loved Joy, Kim and me as if we were his own
2. he is rhyme after rhyme typed in precise fashion
3. he is a Wham! song on a warm summer day
4. he is a going around curves on a long mountain road
5. he is the man you call at all hours of the night and who will come no matter what
6. he is a man with a poem to be quipped at any occasion
7. he is stern yet fair
8. he is a sun tan on a sandy beach in Florida
9. he is "girls, quiet down!"
10. he is a loaner of money never asking for anything in return
11. he is the finest Christian man I know
12. he is benevolent to all
13. he is a pillar of his family
14. he is strength in silence, perspective in words
15. he is a man with no regrets
16. he is "boy, that Kim is really loud"  
17. he is "Priss" in a stern voice, with a gigantic hug of love to follow
18. he is a lifelong friend to my parents 
19. he is a video camera taping crazy girls dance to Whitney Houston
20. he is the serenity and spirituality of the mountains and the beach all wrapped in one
21. he is with the man he served his entire life

As he said to us girls so many times, I say to him today, "you done good."

I love you so Mr. Gatlin.  Nat