Is It Over Yet?

I have always lived my life by the axiom That which doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. I believed it, and often blithely made that comment to others when they related their latest trials or tribulations. Certainly, I had lived through enough life experiences that felt to me as if I should have died from them, and certainly, those experiences had indeed made me stronger. So, it wasn’t just a trite statement that I was mindlessly tossing out to my friends and family. I had lived it. I believed it.

Summer of 2010. My mantra for living no longer contained any sign of optimism or strength. My once cheerful, hopeful disposition had morphed into one of cynicism and despair. Although I had lived under the cloud of depression for all of my adult life, I had managed, through therapy and the prudent use of prescribed medications, to keep it in check, if not completely under control. Not anymore. By the time the summer of 2010 rolled around, I had become a glass half empty person, refusing to believe there might be brighter days ahead. I had convinced myself that the specter of gloom and despair that had been my constant companion for the previous five-and-one-half years was the norm, that I had somehow lucked out in having a long run with good fortune prior to that. Now, I routinely told myself, any good fortune was solidly planted in my rear view mirror. I had become the kind of negative person I had always avoided.

My naturally buoyant nature kept trying to reassert itself, but every time it did, my newfound cynicism firmly planted a boot atop it and pushed it back down. I doubted, I scoffed, I ridiculed, I disparaged. Pessimism settled into my bones like arthritis where it ached and throbbed, robbing me of any sense of peace – be it physical, mental or emotional. At my lowest point, I went to bed every night with one thought in my head: Is it over yet?

That one thing alone should have scared some sense into me, but it didn’t. After weeks of that single despairing thought tormenting me every night, I let go. I pitched myself into the blackest of pits, the deepest hole of despondency and I settled there. I waited to die.

I didn’t ask myself how I got to that place. I didn’t care. I just wanted to die.

But, how did I get there? What started me on that downward spiral? I was well-versed in the matter of dealing with depression. I had danced with that particular devil on numerous occasions and never before had I allowed myself to be hurled into the pit. I was a survivor. I made things happen; I didn’t just let life happen to me. I was a motivator, an encourager, a go-to girl who always had answers. That woman had disappeared and I hadn’t even noticed.

The erosion of my ebullient self began with the death of my father in February of 2005. His death set in motion a chain of events that would challenge even the most determined optimist. Still, I forged ahead, doing what had to be done, fighting the good fight, believing that good triumphs evil and that truth eventually wins out. Settling his estate involved lawsuits, the FBI, a number of mind-numbing betrayals and the discovery that evil in its purest form can and does touch our lives even when we think we have done everything possible to protect ourselves.

All of the deeply held beliefs that formed the foundation for my life crashed down around me during the next five years. Somehow, I managed to keep up the pretense of living my life, but my mind and heart slowly, inexorably crumbled into tiny pieces, leaving me completely broken on the inside. For the sake of brevity, allow me to present a short synopsis of the events of those five and one-half years.

My brother went to prison (framed by my dad’s wife and ex-business partner), the business partner and my dad’s bank then stole my dad’s business, a $300,000 life insurance policy that was held as collateral on the business, and I came to understand (through very bizarre circumstances) that my dad’s death came at the hands of his wife. No, I can’t prove it, not without exhuming his body, but I know it to be true. Arsenic poisoning. I suspect this is the same method she used on her two previous husbands, who also died mysterious deaths.

All of these things happened in the first two years after my dad’s death. Try as I might, I was not able to close the estate for another three and one-half years. During that time, my mother passed away, as did my grandmother, and I lost three jobs (no one wants to employ someone who is totally bat-shit crazy and can barely hold a rational thought.) Additionally, my sister and I embarked on a failed crusade to get my brother out of jail and prove the bank had illegally seized the business from my dad’s estate, my daughter suffered a miscarriage (during which time I was too far gone to be of any comfort to her), my son went to jail, then prison (drugs), and I lost my mind.

And that, dear reader, is the path which led me to the point where I let go and fell headlong, without resistance, into that blackest of pits.

Now, I know that horrible things happen to people all the time. Long chains of horrible events happen to people all the time. I have always considered myself a strong person, one who is able to withstand most any hardship. But, I have also always been someone who does not ask for help. Call it pride, call it stubbornness, call it what you will, but the simple act of asking for someone to help shoulder the load has always been anathema to me. Even my online moniker is a tell-tale sign of my unwillingness to admit any weakness or the need for help of any kind. Unbreakable.

Ah yes, Unbreakable: (adj) unable to be broken. And yet, I broke. My mind broke. I couldn’t take it anymore. I felt like a failure (after all, I had failed to get my brother out of jail, I failed to get the business back, I failed my daughter, I failed my son… the list goes on.) To sum up: I was a failure, a broken failure.

I was at the bottom. Apparently determined to stay there. But, I’m not there today. What happened?

Continued…

Originally published March 2011 on Open Salon

Into The Light

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Well, whadya know? I find myself in a most curious state. As I left my office today and stepped out into the crisp air, a thought ambushed me. I am content, I thought. Then, immediately on the heels of that thought, Huh. I really am content.

After the longest happiness drought in the history of me, not only is my head above water, I have actually climbed onto the shore and am standing upright looking into the sun. Looking into the sun! For the last few weeks, I've been asking myself two questions:

Number 1: How in the world did I get to the place where I went to bed every night thinking, Is it over yet?

And, Number 2: How was I able to find my way out of that wretched place?

If you're expecting profound answers to either of those questions, I don't have that to offer. I can only tell my story in the simplest of terms and hope that, in doing so, I can offer even the slightest hope to anyone reading this who may be going through the same type of darkest hell.

Melancholy has been a familiar companion to me for the better part of my life. Depression is a condition I have wrestled with on more occasions than I care to count. My dark companion had dogged my steps so closely and so often that I began to understimate the power of the disease. I grew weary of the label and the stigma of depression and, maybe, somewhere in the back of my mind, I began to believe the lie that I could wish it away or power my way through it.

I never stopped taking the medications which had been prescribed to me, and when the clouds rolled too close, I would return to my doctor seeking a change of medication. This approach worked well enough, if not ideally, until February of 2005, when life began delivering a series of knock-out punches that just kept coming.

I won't go into detail about all the life-shattering events that took place over the last six years because my experiences are not unique or even all that unusual. Perhaps, had it not been for the convergence of so many traumas in a relatively short time period, I might have come through it, if not unscathed, at least on the friendly side of sanity. Possibly, there could have been a different outcome if I had more fully appreciated the insidiousness of a disease of which I had become too accepting. Finally, maybe it was a combination of all those things - a 'perfect storm,' if you will. I don't know.

What I do know is that I began to feel ever more powerless to fight the clouds of depression that surrounded me more often than not. As I sunk deeper and deeper into that dark pit, I did exactly what I knew I shouldn't do - I began to withdraw, incrementally, from my life until I eventually found myself on the outside looking in. Oh, I would rally somewhat on the odd occasion, but it never lasted long. And it never made much of a difference.

There came a point when I stopped being the "glass half-full" person I had always been. I made that choice. I remember making the decision that I had been wrong all my life; that I had been fooling myself all along with childish optimism. That was the turning point. From that moment forward, I no longer looked at life and saw possibilities or opportunities. I sat down and wallowed in my depression.

Make no mistake, I am not taking the simplistic approach that the control or lack of control of depression is a mind-over-matter situation. On the contrary, I know that the treatment of this disease is multi-faceted and a truly monumental task. But, I also believe that one's mindset is a powerful tool and can either help or hinder the process. I could no more will myself out of depression than I could wish it away; but, my willingness to be overtaken by it or to fight against it was, and still is, a major component in the degree to which it affects me.

For whatever reason, after nearly six years of spiraling downward, something snapped in me and made me reach for a lifeline. That lifeline came in the form of a wonderful therapist and a decision on my part to participate in my own life once again. I don't claim to understand the forces that were at work to push me out of the deepest, darkest pit I've ever experienced, nor can I even begin to identify the impetus for it. But I am grateful for it. Whatever it was.

The path from is it over yet? to I am content was a journey of both agony and joy - a mystery that I may never fully comprehend. One thing I do know, however, is that familiarity does lead to contempt. My familiar and cavalier acceptance of my disease was almost my undoing. I won't make that mistake again. Depression is a formidable foe. Understanding that is key to surviving it.

Someday I may write of the depths to which the darkness took me, but I think not. I choose to remain standing in the sunlight. I like it here.

I am content.

Originally published February 12, 2011 on Open Salon

Learning From the Negatives

Okay. Here’s what I’ve been thinking. I’m pretty sure that how I got so “off track” was that I was so busy trying to figure out who I needed to be, I forgot who I am. Despite what I tell myself when I’m in the depths of depression and self-loathing, I really do know who I am and what I believe, etc, etc. But I have a tendency to slip back into that people-pleasing mode from childhood (you know the one – you get it from growing up in a bat-shit crazy family with a bunch of alcoholics and drug addicts. Yep. That one.) And when I do that, the people-pleasing thing, there is no possible way I can be true to myself. That, of course, is crazy-making behavior. Voila!

When I start twisting myself around trying to make someone else comfortable, I’m the one who suffers. Now, I’m sure this isn’t a big revelation to a lot of you, at least, not to those of you who have all your shit together in a tight little bag, but to me, it’s HUGE. For whatever reason, I keep having to relearn this particular lesson. For pity’s sake, I wish it would stick already!

Count me a bit behind on the New Year’s resolution thing, we’ll just call it a new resolution. And here it is: I resolve to be ME – 100% unadulterated, unapologetic, and only slightly filtered (let’s face it – there are some things that just don’t need to be said.) I’m going back to my no-holds barred, shoot from the hip, take no prisoners style. No wonder I’ve felt like my skin didn’t fit right lately. IT DIDN’T! I don’t know whose skin I’ve been walking around in, but it sure wasn’t mine.

I feel better already just thinking about it. In fact, I may break a bone trying to pat myself on the back. Let’s think about this for a minute or two. How does one lose oneself (one’s self? – come on, all you editors out there, help a girl out here) so completely that one does not even recognize that one is lost? One does not know, but it surely happens. I’m sure I’ll be pondering this for a while trying to come up with some answers. Those of you who know me well know that I like for everything to fit into a neat little box with all kinds of reason and rhyme to back it up. It’s been so long since things (and when I say things, I mean LIFE) made any sense, that I can hardly remember what that felt like. But, I tell you, I’m about to find out again.

For one thing, I’ve walked through life tentatively for the last few years, not making decisions, just allowing the ebb and flow of circumstance to push me along. That is so NOT ME. Well, NO MORE. No more tentativeness, no more wishy-washy, no more on-the-fence.

Who was that masked woman??

The Vince Vaughn Train Has Left the Station

As I watched The Ellen DeGeneres Show today, it became apparent to me that I have not been paying enough attention for the last… oh, quite a while. Ellen’s first guest today was my favorite lust object, Vince Vaughn. ***Major sigh***

 

Vince was there to plug his new movie, which comes out today, but also to talk about his newest and most adventurous role to date – fatherhood! Wait, what? Vince Vaughn has a baby? Then that must mean… gasp! … I listened in shocked silence as he gushed about his wife!  His wife. He’s not only a daddy, he’s married. What hole have I been hiding in that I was not aware of this important bit of information?

As it turns out, this is very good news for my husband. I informed him today when he came home from work that he is no longer in danger of my leaving him to run off with Vince Vaughn. As you can imagine, he was hugely relieved. Now that Vince is out of the picture, I can safely say that I’ll be staying put. Vince is married and that’s that.

 

Of course, there is always Johnny Depp, but frankly, he’s just too bohemian for me. Yes, I do know that his bohemian bent is largely responsible for his incredible attractiveness, however, my primarily conservative nature would probably go on tilt with a full-time diet of Johnny Depp. I’m not saying that a short ride on the Depp train wouldn’t be a mighty nice diversion, but, well…

 

 

The Mystery of Grief

Grief is a sneaky thing.

On my way to a job interview two days ago, I was feeling particularly buoyed, having had the benefit of several almost back-to-back sessions with a new (and apparently very capable) therapist. As I drove, I reflected back on the conversations I’ve had with the new doctor, filling her in on the traumatic events of the past several years. In particular, we had concentrated on the events surrounding my dad’s sudden death: my very strong suspicion that my dad was poisoned, the horrific probate fight that drug on for years, the ex-business partner and my dad’s banker who framed my brother for bank fraud and sent him to prison for fifteen months (stealing Dad’s business in the process.) Yes, I know, I sound like a paranoid delusional crazy person, which is why I don’t talk about it much and that has apparently contributed greatly to my shaky emotional status of late.

All of this was in the mental stew that was boiling in my mind as I drove along heading for my job interview. I happened to notice a new business, a steel fabrication company. It just so happens that was the kind of business my dad owned. As I read the sign with the company’s name, I felt a little flutter of happy in the back of my mind. Pure reflex kicked in as a fully formed impulse presented itself in my consciousness. I reached for my cell phone, actually had it in my hand before reality yanked me back to the present. I was going to call my dad, anxious to tell him that I was taking control of my life again. It all happened in a split second – the jolt of happiness, the impulse to call, and then the clutch in my stomach as I remembered – he’s gone.

Suddenly, my mouth was agape, my eyes filled with tears and I felt the grip of grief. My dad has been gone for six years, not to mention the fact that I was consciously reviewing the circumstances of his death at the very moment that I had the impulse to give him a call. It was a surreal moment. I marvel at the capacity of the human brain to compartmentalize so completely that such an event can occur.

I wonder if the trauma of those events somehow stunted the natural process of grief. As I woodenly marched forward through all those months following his death, performing the necessary tasks by rote, somehow managing to do everything that had to be done, did I so successfully compartmentalize the events that I never fully experienced the grief? Or was it just some kind of “brain glitch” that allowed the two experiences to fully co-exist in my brain that day – the full realization and analysis of my dad’s death versus the complete momentary lapse of awareness that he is gone?

I don’t know the answer to that question. I only know that the stunned realization that I couldn’t call him that day, or any day, was so fresh, so intense, that it took my breath away. I miss my dad. Maybe the healing process has begun.

 

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Have You Seen My Missing Life?

 

 

It just goes to show you, it’s always something. I’ve never been one to ascribe to this line of thinking, but the tragedies falling like so many dominoes around me for the past six years have flipped a switch within me, turning me into the Roseanne Roseannadanna of the twenty-first century. Mimicking the attitude of the brash, explosive character played by the lovely and talented late Gilda Radner was certainly not something to which I aspired. For most of my life, I have considered myself an unapologetic optimist, a glass-half full kind of gal with a penchant for looking for the proverbial silver lining in every cloud.

I tell you, I thought I was gonna die! Another Roseanne Roseannadanna gem, this phrase has taken on a life of its own for me. Oh, joy! As if I always wanted to be a bitchy, 53-year-old woman with a healthy sense of impending doom. In my previous life - before I became an unrepentant pessimist – friends would have described me as happy, fun-loving, friendly, and (not to be forgotten) optimistic. My smile was perennially plastered on my face. Where the hell has that woman gone?

What are you trying to do, make me sick? I remember when I turned fifty, I was seeing a therapist (and in this case, I use that term very loosely, a more fitting title would be emotional terrorist) who glibly informed me that very often, when women turn fifty, they redefine their lives and emerge as a stronger version of themselves. This she told me as I sat in her office a blubbering, shuddering mass of exploding emotions. A year later, after extensive torturous mining of my shattered emotions, I made the decision to leave her office and never return; resolving instead to find my own way through the minefield that had become my life.

So, how did that work out for me, you may ask. Not so great. Not really great at all. Seems my therapeutic skills leave much to be desired. Hence, the pessimism, bitchiness, doom and gloom attitude, etc, etc.

Having grown weary of being the reincarnation of the brash, road-weary, explosive Ms. Roseannadanna, I jumped back into the pool and found another therapist. She is the polar opposite of my former emotional terrorist therapist. I’m actually starting to believe that the sun may very well rise again and someday I may start looking for those silver linings again.

Maybe I’ll even find my sense of humor again. What a bonus that would be!

The Only Way Out

 

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LIFE IS ALWAYS MORE TROUBLE THAN YOU THOUGHT IT WOULD BE...

As we near the end of yet another year, so arrives the inevitable impulse to engage in reflection. We grade each passing year – assigning words like good, worst, best - as if the preceding twelve months have somehow earned a rating, a pass or fail on some celestial report card. We hand out wishes for a happy new year like so much confetti at a parade. We stack last year alongside previous years and compare, judge, rate; we reflect. We make lists chronicling the year: the best of, the worst of, my favorite, my least favorite. Again – reflection, grading, rating.

When we finish dissecting the year past, we start on the year to come. Now our reflection turns to speculation. We wonder at what the New Year holds, we set goals, strike bargains with ourselves, hope, wish, and dream. More confetti wishes sprinkle our conversations with each other. It’s not that our words aren’t sincere, for indeed they are. We certainly hope for better times, both for ourselves and for our loved ones. It’s the human condition to seek improvement, to long for more or better.

Given all this reflection and wishing and hoping, the question begs asking: do we stop there; or are we moved to action? There is a choice to be made on every level, be it personal, professional, relational, and even on a grander scale all the way to global. Do we make the choice or do we settle for wishing and hoping?

On a personal level, I am forced to admit that I have become a voyeur of my own life. I have allowed myself to become so overwhelmed by the capricious nature of life that I have settled for letting my life take its own course, instead of grabbing the reins myself. The state of malaise I have wallowed in has led me to a place of deep discontent. The bad news is that I’ve reached a dead-end. The good news is that the only way out is up.

All of my reflection has led me to understand that I’ve been waiting, waiting, waiting for my life to take a turn for the better. I have graded the past six years and found them wanting. Yes, those years were filled with knock-out punches, but that is nothing novel. Who among us hasn’t faced some of the worst life has to offer and still come back swinging? I simply stopped swinging back. It’s as if I sat down in the rubble and refused to get back up. Then the tide of life easily carried me to that proverbial dead-end.

I don’t like this dank, dark dead-end I find myself in. I haven’t liked it for years, but it became familiar enough that I was willing to stay there. For whatever reason – providence, divine intervention, the encouragement of family and dear friends (yes, you, dear ones) – I finally remembered to look up. Yes, indeed, the only way out is up. I’m headed in that direction.

It’s a beginning…