Parenting with Depression

 

For those days when things are just a little bit fuzzy...

For those of you who come here for the quirky quips, the offbeat quibbles, the general perkiness of it all…come back tomorrow. I promise, there’ll be more then. In light of recent events, however, I wanted to take today, pull back the curtain and talk about something that really matters. Something I, and thousands, if not millions, of moms all around the world, struggle with every day. 

Parenting with depression.

 Nobody Knows

It doesn’t seem to matter how much publicity depression gets, how much people claim to understand it or who says it doesn’t bother them. At the end of the day, most depression sufferers have something in common.

They don’t want to admit that they have a problem.

Many of the people who read this will be surprised that anyone would use the words “me” and “depression” in the same sentence. Most days, they’d be right. Perky and happy and upbeat and looking at the bright side of life are mottos I try and live by.

Those are the days I’m winning. Those are the days I can look depression in the face and say, “Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah! I’m taking my life back!” Sometimes, however, I’m not the winner. That’s when things start to get sticky.

What Happens After?

There are many things in life that can cause depression to flare up. The doctor diagnosed it as seasonal, and to an extent he’s right. Winter’s definitely harder for me. I find myself struggling to keep a smile on my face when I’m spending day after day inside these four walls in the middle of winter gray…which is why my living room is currently painted like something straight out of Seuss!

Snow isn’t the big killer for me, however. Stress is. The minute I start to feel overwhelmed I just shut down, starting a cascade of fail that leaves me buried under missed deadlines, late bills, short tempers…and lost time with my kids.

On the days depression wins, I’m not a great mom. I’m not even a particularly good mom. As a matter of fact, if my kids get fed and get to school on time I consider it a job well done. Depression is one of those things that just swallows you whole. You don’t want to play. You don’t want to go places. The chitter chatter and constant bickering of little voices that would normally go in one ear and out the other drives you absolutely…fricking…insane.

I’m sure it’s different for other moms. For me, if I can’t deal with life, I certainly can’t do a bang-up job parenting my kids. We get by. They watch a lot of cartoons. Go into raptures because I lift the limits on their video games just to get us through the day. 

But those days aren’t fair to them, because I know what they really want, what they NEED, is me. There. Connected. Giving them 100% of my undivided attention.

Happy Drugs?

The first thing most people ask me when I tell them I suffer from seasonal and stress-induced depression is whether or not I take anti-depressants. That’s a hard question for me. I have, for limited periods of time, taken baby doses of anti-depressant drugs. They help-some. The side effects inspire me to take them as little as I can possibly get away with.

I’m hoping one day to find a good solution. In the meantime, I have to keep parenting as best I can and hope one day my kids will look back and say, “It was enough.” I have to TRY and keep my stress levels down (yeah, I laughed at that one too) so I can keep my head in the game.

Depression Isn’t a Stigma

…but very few parents are going to step up to the plate and admit that they have a problem. If you find yourself struggling, reach out. If you don’t want to talk to your spouse, talk to your doctor. If you don’t want to talk to your friends, find a good therapist. (Most of them are covered by insurance.)

Most importantly, if you find that depression is making it hard to function, if you find yourself struggling just to get out of bed and missing deadlines and due dates like there was no tomorrow, ask for help. You’re worth it.

The Sandy Hook Shootings and Our Schoolkids

It seems like the past week has been filled with so much, so fast, that I’m having a hard time sitting down today to blog. My mind is reeling. So I’m going to just talk about it all, all at once, and hope somewhere in there it all makes sense! 

Let’s start with Sandy Hook, since that’s what’s on everyone’s minds this morning. I’m sure you’ve already heard the story. A troubled young man stole his mother’s guns, killed her, then went to the school where she’d worked. At last count, 20 elementary students between the ages of 5 and 10 were dead. Parents and siblings throughout the county were mourning children who had barely had time to live. Teachers, the principal and a school psychologist lost their lives, and I still haven’t heard what happened to the heroic janitor credited with giving teachers the heads-up to stay in their rooms and out of the shooter’s way.

I haven’t sat down to discuss this incident with my kids yet. I want to. I need to. But I haven’t figured out how to say it. Here, in the bucolic town we call home, this kind of event is as foreign to them as a visit to an alien planet. But it’s not. We lived in VA when the horrible shootings at Virginia Tech happened-my brother-in-law and his wife were both students there at the time. I was across the street when the sniper shot a woman in the parking lot of a Michael’s in Fredericksburg, VA, and we’d been at the Ponderosa he hit by Richmond just a few nights before.

Random violence isn’t something you get used to, and I pray we never do. I’m not sure how to explain it to my kids without terrifying them. I can only hope that they learn to be careful, to be aware, to understand that there’s risk but they shouldn’t let it run their lives.

There was an interesting post this morning on my Facebook feed talking about letting some of our war veterans step in and act as armed security guards at schools across the nation. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that. I love the idea of giving our soldiers jobs when they come home-with some additional training in dealing with kids, I think they’d be marvelous. And it would free up our LEOs for jobs elsewhere.

On the other hand, it makes me sad to think that it might be necessary. One of the biggest reasons we left the city and moved to a small town was so the kids could go to a good, safe school, with quality academics and no metal detectors coming in the doors. We had a “school cop” when I was in high school. He kept the brawls in the hallways to a minimum, took the time to take an interest in the kids at lunch, and did a hundred other things none of us delinquent teens knew anything about.

I do remember, very well, him giving me a hard time for being tardy when I stopped in to pick up some paperwork after graduation. (I graduated a semester early.) It was hilarious.

My point is, a single, good-natured officer roaming the hallways is very different from a gun toting, metal detector using guard. Because that’s what it would be. A guard. Protecting an area that needs to be protected, even though it shouldn’t. And…yeah. I got my kids out of the city just to get away from situations like this one, but I guess there really is no escaping it anywhere. So we may as well make the best of it, hug our children tight, and pray for those families who live in areas with so much violence that they take this kind of thing for granted.  

Kindergartners for President!!

I bet she'd support my movement to elect a 

 

cat for president....

There are no words to describe how happy I am that this election is over. Not because President Obama is starting his second term and, I hope, gearing up to make good on the potential we saw in his last four years, although I did vote for the man. No, today marks a bigger day for me. 

The end of the party-clashing nastiness that has dominated my Facebook page, news headlines, Twitter stream and much, much more for the past 12 months.

I went on an unfriending spree this morning in the wake of party-clashing rhetoric on my page. I’m tired of it. The election is OVER. We need to work TOGETHER for the next four years if we want to do better than we have the last four years.

For four  years, all I’ve seen in our government is party politics, stonewalling, stalling (to the point that our government was on the verge of shutting down) and an unwillingness to compromise. We have financial geniuses in office right now. So why is our budget off? Don’t tell me it’s because of our president. One man does not an economy make. Many people are responsible for the mess we’re in, and many people need to grow the (bleep) up, step up to the plate and fix it. 

In honor of that, I propose we send all of our politicians back to Kindergarten. And I’d like to send the venom-spewing, propaganda spouting, hateful party members that have made this election the nightmare that it’s been right along with them. Why? Because if we’re going to have a prayer of pulling our economy, our government and our way of life into tomorrow while still in one piece, they need to learn to:

·          

•       Treat others with respect
• ·         Stay out of the mud
• ·         Focus on the task at hand
• ·         Let bygones be bygones
• ·         Clean up after themselves
• ·         Compromise
• ·         Pool their resources to get the job done
• ·         Show consideration for the opinions and choices of others
• ·         Move beyond their differences to achieve a common goal

And, most importantly…

If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all!!!!!!

Surviving Election Year (and Still Having a Babysitter!)

I try and turn a blind eye to the smear campaigns rolling around during election year. I don’t support them. I don’t support the people hosting them. I SERIOUSLY don’t support the candidates that endorse them.

Sometimes, however, you’ll come across a smear campaign so widely propagated that you have to say something about it. Because not only does it make you look unfavorably on the candidate and their campaign managers, it makes you lose all respect for the person posting. 

Yep, I said posting. Because for me, that breaking point was seeing post after post of smear campaign propaganda posted on Facebook by someone I like. Someone I’ve known a very long time. Someone I used to have a great deal of respect for. And someone I will never again be comfortable leaving in charge of my children.

As a parent, I encourage my kids to express their views. I also encourage them to use their manners, think before they speak, show respect for their elders and authority figures, stick to the facts and not try and win an argument by throwing their opponent under the bus.And I expect the adults I entrust with the responsibility of their care to do the same.

“But it’s just a Facebook post!” Your Facebook page is a representation of your personal brand. What you put on your page, you are personally endorsing. Being an azzhat on Facebook makes you an azzhat in real life. Not only because you’re repeating it, but because by repeating it you’re stating that this is both right and a reflection of your personal beliefs.

THINK before you speak. Be careful what you post. And for the love of God, can election year be over already?

Can Open House Cause PTSD?

Tonight’s feature event was Open House, take two, in which elementary school parents turned out in droves to meet the teacher(s). It was absolutely amazing, the difference between Open House for the Middle Schoolers and Open House for their younger siblings. If there was a square foot of space that didn’t have a person in it tonight, I didn’t see it. 

Ironically, we found all the peace and quiet we could handle down the middle school hallway. Go figure.

I think my hubby said it best. By the time the kids start middle school, parents are like, “You have 8 teachers. Forget this. I’ll be a bad parent, I’m fine with that.” In elementary school, it’s all about the discovery of where your little one is spending their day. What projects they’re working on. Who their friends are.

Where you can sign up to bring in cupcakes for the class Halloween party. (Cough, Cough.)

Two parent-teacher conferences, ten classroom tours and $50 in book fair finds later (don’t get me started), I got to take the kids to their first soccer game, where the screaming and pounding of dozens of fans in the bleachers was welcome relief for my buzzing head.

No, I’m not being melodramatic. As nice as it always is to get to walk around, visit with friends and peek at the kids’ projects, I left Open House this year feeling like I got hit by a truck. Not to mention feeling more than a little bit of sympathy for those parents who DON’T make it in for parent-teacher conferences, parties and special events.

I barely got to do more than say hi and bye to the kids’ teachers tonight. I get that Open House isn’t exactly where you plan to have a heart to heart with your kids’ instructors, but it would have been nice to get a LITTLE more information in there!

Anyway. Long story short, it was a crazy night. It didn’t help that my six year old was bouncing off the walls, I’m sure. They’re all upstairs enjoying the night before their four day weekend. I have one more day to work before my weekend rolls around, and I’ll be able to enjoy a little peace and quiet!

Well. Except for Homecoming and Fall Foliage and bonfires and Hotel Transylvania, of course…