Barely hanging on

Depression is an ugly disease. Directly or indirectly, it's responsible for the deaths of my mom, my dad, and my paternal grandmother. That's a lot of family history for anyone to deal with, and I've been careful to watch for signs of it in myself.

Last fall, I came very close to suicide. A large part of it was situational, but part of it was physical, too. My doctor ran some blood tests and discovered that I was severely anemic. The anemia is part of the reason that I stopped exercising, which led to a lowered immunity and a deep sense of exhaustion that I blamed on simply being a temporarily single mom (Sweetie was deployed at the time). My doctor and therapist both told me that my depression was almost inevitable with all of the things going against me at the time.

My doctor warned me that depression is cyclic, and that I should be careful not to stop taking the anti-depressants too soon. She was right. Yesterday afternoon, the feelings of hopelessness returned in full force, and while I was able to push those dark thoughts aside for a little while (by working on crocheted baby afghans for the littlest girls), they came back full force when I woke up in the middle of the night. I stared at the ceiling, wondering why I was fighting so hard to stay alive when everything about my life seemed so awful. I was tired of living, tired of the stress, tired of everything.

Then I heard footsteps. My two-year-old daughter was carefully shuffling into my bedroom. Little Starbuck climbed in bed and cuddled really close to me. For the rest of the night, she stayed glued to my side. Every time I tried to move away, she moved with me. With her snuggling against me, I finally went back to sleep.

My children need me to hang on. The older ones can (and do) get by without me, but the little ones still need me. As tempting as it may be to let go of this life, I can't leave my children.

I need to make some changes in my life. I haven't yet decided what those changes should be, but I know that I have to do something to derail this depression and get me back to where I want to be. I want to be happy. I want to be successful. I want to see my children, and my grandchildren, grow up. I want to spend time with my husband. I want to finish all of the quilts I've started.

I want to live.