Not published yet copyright2018 lacrecia hillis
Depression typed into Google Search is described as feelings of severe despondency and dejection. Then of course, many other links pop up to medically claimed websites and psychologists who have researched the “state of depression.” These medical professionals have listened to and monitored with tests what depression does to the body and mind. With those findings, they tell the world what to look for and what to do when you’re depressed. How do I know this? Because I’m the one doing the Google searches and clicking on the links to these sites.
I am medically diagnosed “depressed.” I know it’s sad. Being depressed is sad, right? Sometimes I have to ask myself that question on top of many others that I have. The questions I have are more about my diagnosis and what I do about it. The more I visit psychi- atrists and therapy sessions, the more I realize no one can really give me any answers. The thing is I’m not always sad. So am I depressed? Sometimes I want to get out of bed and look forward to the day ahead, so am I still depressed? Or am I now bipolar?
Let me go back and start this from the beginning. My jour- ney with depression began about when I was twenty-eight or twen- ty-nine, maybe. I had been working at a very good-paying job for many years. Man, I got raises every year and bonuses. I have three children. Two girls and a boy. My life with men wasn’t great, hence the three kids with three different dads, but hey, my kids never went without. So the three different fathers never got to me.
Oh, when people hear about the three different dads, their faces look so sour and pinched. Ha! But that’s their problem; never mine.
I wasn’t ashamed of making them nor having them, and damned not ashamed to take care of them, so no sleep lost there.
My kids are loved. They know how precious they are and how much they mean to me. They come before all. No ifs or buts about that. Just a fact. My motivation. My will to do better and be better and give more and to get more comes because of them. When they smile, I smile. When they cry, I’m pissed; because who made them cry? They are my babies, cubs, offspring, whatever you want to call it, and I’m a beast when it comes to anything in regards to them.
Whew, got me worked up. Talking about my babies does it every time.
So back to this great job. I started to feel worn down. Every day seemed harder than the last to come to work. To talk to customers. I started to think maybe it’s because I’ve been in one position too long. That can make you bored and antsy, right? So I apply for other posi- tions—no luck there. Not that I didn’t have the experience, but just didn’t have what that department was looking for. No biggie. So I try to stick it out where I’m at. I’ve done other things around the job that I feel proud of, so let me just push it and get through.
Oh, and let me add my physical health in this too, because all of that seems to be a factor in depression, right? Again, questions I have. Well, I’m considered obese. Definitely hitting that BMI around or over 39, maybe, give or take. I was diagnosed with intracranial hypertension (IH) when I was twenty-nine as well. Short and sweet: it’s when the brain and spinal fluid is too high, causing the body to act as if you have an actual tumor. It’s like a doctor saying, “You have a tumor. Psych! You don’t—but you have the symptoms of one.”
Oh, and no cure. Lots of medicine you can take for it, but none really take it away—just regulate it or not. Surgeries are fifty-fifty chance of working and giving IH patients relief. So, yeah, not a chronic illness you want to have. Females who are usually overweight get it, but some males do too. First thing out of doctor’s mouth on how to beat the illness: got to lose that weight. Not how or what to do, just lose the weight and maybe you will get some relief or be cured.
Thanks for the advice, what else you got. That’s usually what my nodding of the head indicates and my solemn okay means during that visit. Because after a lot of research of my own people who are nowhere near the obesity scale and have the chronic illness and yet have no relief; but hey, whatever. I don’t have a PhD. They’re not wrong anyway, I should lose weight. Yep, I should. Sometimes I hype myself up in my head, and when it’s go time to exercise or diet, blah. It’s like they say you just have to want to lose it really bad and do it. Man, I can say it all day, but doing it? Well, it’s like moving my legs in sinking sand.
So back to when I was diagnosed. You thought my health diag- nosis would have done me in, but nope, not yet. It was when my apartment building caught on fire. Long day of mentally pushing myself to stay at work. Kids and boyfriend in the car, and we are heading home on the highway. I get a call that my apartment build- ing caught on fire and to head to the office to meet with Red Cross.
I think at the end of that phone call is when the dam holding my mind together cracked. No tears just a little panic. Filled my boyfriend in and headed to the apartment. After gathering what we could out a smoke-filled apartment, we headed to the hotel. Kids asked a lot of questions. I answered best I could. Red Cross only paid for a night in hotel then apartment paid for another. Didn’t really have any other place to go; family didn’t really have room.
Red Cross and many people whose apartment was affected by this fire was a godsend. Food and clothes were given to help out. My main concern now was finding another apartment to move into. Luckily, I got my deposit back and funds from charity at work to helped me to both pay for more days in different hotels and find a place. Kids never missed a day of school, and I made sure they had clean clothes. Things were bad, but I was grateful for what we had.
I took time off of work to find a new apartment. My boyfriend didn’t. I went to apartments every day and applied. My boyfriend didn’t. During this time, he kind of checked out mentally and phys- ically on me. Things that he did during this time hit me hard men- tally. I couldn’t take time to be miserable just yet though, so I let him be and kept me and the kids moving. I eventually found a place
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after four days of staying in the hotels. We had nothing but a bag of clothes when we moved in, but we had a roof over our head again. Our roof and our home.
That’s always has been important to me. My kids having a place they can call home. If I don’t mention this enough, my kids come before any and everything. So I’m feeling a little better now mentally. Just knowing I can go back to work and not have to worry about a place to live.
Months go by and that dam leaks just a little every day. Not enough to make me stop getting out of bed and going to work though. Then me and my boyfriend work it out. After months of giving him my ass to kiss and some words that feel like nails when you chew on them, I loosen up a little towards him.
He isn’t free and clear because he helped to crack that dam. That, I can’t seem to ever forgive or forget. Does that make me a bad person? I mean I sincerely accepted his apology and wanted to move forward, but the damage is done. You can’t take that back. So the days go on, and I try to forgive and forget. I play my role right. I throw it up in his face every now and then because, hey, I’m human. As time goes on, I bring it up less, and he is less defensive. Things seem like there on the up and up right? Nah, that’s just the surface.
You know when you look at a person see them smile you think they’re okay but on the inside they’re not. Well, that was me. I smiled, but I was miserable. Now don’t get me wrong, I had good days when I was truly happy. The bad days were really bad. I was in pain, and I couldn’t take the medicine I needed because it was too strong for me to take at work. That, on top of other things, made me depressed.
