Depression

So I guess this post is not so much about memories. It should probably be on a different blog, but there are memories involved, so it sorta fits here. 

First off I want to warn you that this is probably not going to be like great for some people, it might even be triggering, which I do not want, I just feel the need to share, so yeah, don't read if it might damage you, That would do no one any good.

I guess I feel the need to write this because I am getting depressed again, which is weird, because for a long time it seemed to have gone away, or at least to have not been to bad, but these last few years have been hell, quite literally hell, lots of ups, but way more downs, really really bad downs.  I should probably also preface this with the fact that I am manic depressive, so up and downs are pretty normal for me, but up until a couple years ago I had been mostly enjoying the ups, the downs were few and far between and not very long lasting, it was nice, then last years it reversed, and I have been struggling ever since...

Since this is about memories, I will head back, the first time I can actively remember being depressed was my freshman year of high school. I did not understand what was happening, I just tried really hard to hide it because I did not want to upset my mom, she had enough going on with my dad, I did not need to add to it.  Only a couple of people ever caught it, Joe, he was able to see right through me, and Steven who I let in, I needed someone to talk to, then he betrayed me, not really, but it I was what it felt like at the time, he talked to a counselor who then talked to me which was exactly what he should have done, not his fault it didn't help matters, only made them worse because the I felt as though I had no one to turn to.  I was just so sad, and I felt as though no one got me, which was mostly true back then, I have always been a strikingly unique individual and at that age I did not know how to turn it down, now to fit in as necessary, so it made things hard. Anyways, I just wanted to die, not by my own hand, but if the world had collapsed in on me, I would not have actively tried to save myself.  That is a hard thing to admit, but it is the truth...

Before high school I think I was showing warning signs maybe? Let's just say I wrote very morbid poetry lots of stuff about death, but I had also just lost like half of my close family in a two or three year time frame, so I think most people blamed it on that. 

Yeah so by the end of my freshman year, the guy I totally crushed on for years, Steven, had betrayed me, and I was actively hoping for a meteor to crash into me, and I started to cut, I was never very obvious about it, I cut the bottom of my feet, it took them forever to heal, and walking on them reminded me everyday that I could still feel, even if all I felt at that time was pain both inside and out.  I sent a lot of time trying to find God during this time as well, needless to say that never really helped.  Then one day, it went away, and I was back to my normal happy go lucky self, a little more happy probably then was preferred by most people, but that was normal, right?

This cycle went on all through high school, and really I am still not sure of anyone ever noticed how extreme it was, hell, I didn't even notice it really. I opened up about it to very few people, and never all of it. Like NO ONE knew I cut. Eventually I stopped cutting, but that was after I found drugs. I spent a couple of years smoking as much pot as I could get my hands on, so no not really any heavy drugs, I only ever did pot, and once, just once I tried acid, it was graduation night for the class of 2000, and it was pretty fantastic, but it wasn't my thing. I wanted to be numb, and pot did that for me, it was blissfully awesome how numb I was about everything during that time.  It caused me to do some stupid things, hurt people who I cared about, but I didn't really care enough back then to get that. It also screwed my memory a bit, I went from having an awesome photographic memory, to having only a sorta awesome one. Which I could explain in more detail but I won't. Lol, what it did do was allow me to forget, about feeling, about life, I just sorta floated through that time and it was awesome in its own way.

Then one day my best friend and the love of my life said that enough was enou and we made a pact, he would quit smoking cigarettes if I would quit smoking pot, so I did, and then soon after I got pregnant, and that sealed it for me, no more drugs, not even the low key ones, I would not do that to my kid. It might have been better of I did though...

After my son was born, my depression came back, not post partem either, just my own brand of hell.  It would come and go, the manic times were great, I could go and do so much with him, it was a blast, but it could not last, eventually the sadness would hit, and I just wanted, no needed to be left alone, and how do you explain that to a little kid, especially when I went from having endless patience one day to none the next and I didn't even know how to explain it to myself. It effected him, the way I would shut down, now could it not, one day he went from being this amazing kid to this mopey sad thing, to a person I no longer recognized, and the sad part is that it seemed like one day to me but it wasn't, it was happening over months and I was so lost in myself that I didn't even notice it until it was too late, I ruined my son, well not exactly, I still have the most awesome kid ever, it's just that he isn't what he was, even now, years later I killed something in him, I made him grow up faster than he should off all because of depression. That is something I will live with for the rest of my life, and it is something I have worked hard to try and fix, and while I know it is not really fixable, I also think that he is somewhere in the middle now, I will never know what he was going to be, but I am so proud of what and who he is. I also have tried exceptionally hard to not let a similar thing happen to my youngest son, and so far I have manged that nicely, I will always regret though that my oldest lost something in him because of me and my issues.

Back to the story, my depression got worse after my husband left to go overseas and I did some drastic things, things I am notyet ready to talk about to find myself again, I had been so lost, and while I will always be thankful to my mom for stepping in a taking care of my son when I couldn't properly, for helping me to see what I had missed, I also wish that she had been able to see me as the flawed human I am and not whatever image it is that she has in her mind. I also really love my Mil, but she made it so much harder than it needed to be, I know that she was trying to help, at least I think she was, but just pointing out people's faults is not necessarily the best thing for them. Needless to say there was a time where I was really fucked up, in a lot of ways, but it got through it and am a better person for all of those things that happened then.  I learned to accept myself and my flaws and my issues, and I learned how to work with them and not succumb to them.  And most importantly I learned how to talk about them to the people I care most about, because then I can be honest and not try and hide it to protect them, it works better now.

After my youngest son was born I rode the most amazing high, my husband and I manged to work our issues which is again a story for another day, and I ran mostly manic, with only a day or two of depression every couple of months... Then sometime last year, I want to say Mayish, a really bad down spell hit me, I seriously was depressed for months, I did not want to do anything, I just wanted to be left alone. I worked though it, I had obligations, but it took everything in me to do that, and some times I snapped, everyone does. It didn't fully fade until January of this year, yes there were good days in there, normal days, and days where I could not sit still because there was so much in me trying to get out, but mostly it was dark. I hated it, but if got through it, but now, months later I can feel that darkness descending on me again, and I really don't want to fall. I enjoy the manic, it lets me do everything that I have to, endless supplies of energy is awesome, sometimes the spontaneousness is not so great, but my husband is good at keeping me grounded for the most part at least. But he is helpless in the darkness, I loose myself in my mind for days at a time just functioning on autopilot but never really being all there and it sucks so much energy from not only me but from those around me, that it really just sucks.

And I feel it coming back, but this has helped some, so maybe I can hold it at bay a while longer.  Anyways, thanks for reading, I hope that I did not bring you down, I just really felt the need to share...

Goodnight

Concerts

So I have not been to that many concerts in life, three that I attended, and two that I got to see from afar.

The first one was Lillithfair in Phx, it was for one of my friends birthdays, and it was July, we were 14, it was brutal, like 110 degrees outside for most of it, and we had like no money for anything, even water.  But we still had a blast, we got to see Sarah Mcgloughlin, Natalie Merchant, and a whole lot of other people, though seeing as it was an outdoor concert, even the performers were having a hard time, I remember one of them actually had to stop in the middle of a song for water at one point and another almost passed out from the heat.  It went from I want to say 4pm till around 9pm.  And the only reason we survived was because the people next to us shared there water, they also shared the smoke from whatever drugs they were smoking, which gave us a bitching headache, but for the water it was worth it.  Also there were no adults with us, just us two, which was freeing and terrifying at the same time, there were well over 1000 people there, so insane! We left the concert about 30 minutes early to head to the meeting point which was like 1/2 a mile away, and ended up waiting there for like an hour because her dap ad got to the gate 15 minutes early to head us off, which obviously didn't work. So we missed out on all the freebies they were handing out, but in the end it was still an awesome experience and a fun concert.

The next two concerts would be the ones I got to see from afar, I live really close to an Army base, and every summer they do a concert series that runs thru, when I was in high school with all the stuff going on with my dad we could not afford to go, but they were help at the air field, so we would park close by and listen to the music, it was fun, we heard Aerosmith and Jeff Foxworthy and friends, just hangin out dancing around, but with out the loud and the crowds, so it worked. 

The next concert I went to was actually the last day of Country Thunder in Florence, we got to hear so many great bands. Plus some local one, the only band I remember for sure is Trick Pony, though I am pretty sure we also caught Trace Adkins. I more remember the experience, it was hot, but not insane hot like it would have been a few months more into summer, and there were some awesome vendors hanging around I got the best cowboy hat that year, it had roses burned onto it.  I went with my buddy Rich because my hubby did not want to go, he is not a country music fan, and because Rich is one of our best friends, so he is someone that I can do anything with! We had a blast and it is definitely something that is on my to do again list!

The last concert that I got tong onto was just this past May, it was A Great Big World, in Tucson and it was by far my favorite of all of them, there were not a ton of people, so it was quite intimate, it was in one of the coolest historic theaters in the area, the Rialto, and I am just in love with their music. They are most definitely one of my fave bands right now.  It was the perfect loudness and they also brought along a friend of theirs from New York, Greg Holden, and he was fantastic as well, his music really spoke to me. The concert was a birthday present from my hubby, so he had to come, and while they are not his fave band, he appreciates them and also had a decent time if not a great time. There was this guy thoug that was loud and annoying about Say Something,though now we lau because he so made a fool out of his dumb self, yelling the way he was about "his jam." Seriously though,was like the best concert ever! If you have never seen them in person you need to, because they are great on the radio and CDs and such, but they are freaking mind blowing live!!!

Anyways. The reason I decided to write about concerts tonight is because I am trying to figure out how to get to a concert festival in September, there are 4 people/bands I would love to see live, not counting a bunch of great ones that I would not sell my soul for, so here's hoping I will be able to add an addendum to this post at a later date! I guess that's it for now, have a great and musical weekend!

Daddy

So my dad died a long time ago now, after what was a very long drawn out illness.  He had dementia caused by his exposure to Agent Orange while he was stationed in Vietnam. It started out small, he would forget things lying around, his keys, or his wallet, he would forget where he was going while driving, things that you can look the other way about.  This was when I was in fourth, forth grade, so I was quite young, but old enough to realize that something was not right. My mom made him go to the doctors and get checked out, he passed with flying colors like there was any way he wouldn't at that point. He had an IQ of 186, at this point it had probably dropped 10-15 points, he was still a genius. When I was in sixth grade he quit his job, said he was bored with it, he went to work instead as a night stalker at KMart, something he just could not seem to grasp, that was when we realized how much he had lost.  We took him up to Tucson to go and visit a neurologist the same neurologist who had a removed a brain tumor back when I was 2-3 years old, a tumor they never figured out I might add. They ran tests and there was nothing there. By the time I hit 7th grade my dad could no longer hold a job, but he was still getting his Army retirement, and my mom was working at a restaurant, he was going back and fourth to the VA frequently, but we were still keeping him at home. Then over a couple of weeks everything just got worse, he told us he was going to bed, the next thing we know he was driving around in his car, then he didn't come back for over an hour, my mom went to look for him and found him parked around the corner from our house, he had gotten lost while looking for the bedroom. Another morning we had to take one of the animals to the vet, when we came home we walked right into a gun, he was back in Vietnam in his head, luckily he recognized us as his, part if his unit I guess. My mom flipped, confiscated the gun, then had to wait until a friend came over to unload it, she did not know how to do so, something that was soon remedied. At this point my mom was still working I stayed at home with my dad and would call the neighbor if something happened, she would come and help us figure it out, but soon I had to call more often than not, so my mom started to take us all to work with her, her boss was sympathetic, but it wa still something that could not be done over an extended period of time. By the time I finished 7th grade my dad was in a nursing home. 

Now lets backtrack a little bit, first of my dad was a pretty big man, I already told you how amazingly smart he was, but he had also just done so much in his life.  He spoke 6 languages fluently, and another 2-3 marginally well, maybe not conversationally, but well enough to be understood and to understand in turn. He spent 6 years stationed in German and another 6 stationed in Japan, while there he was a Sumo wrestler. The Army wanted him for his mind, they were not to picky on his build. When he met and decided to marry my mom he decided it was also time to get out of the Army, he did not beleive that the military and family mixed. He got out with something like 27 years under his belt, bought the house I still live in today and settled down, soon though they were told that my mom was not going to be able to have children, she has some sort of issue with her uterus, I was their little miracle baby, 3 years after they got married and 2 after they were told kids were not going to happen, as you may imagine I was pretty spoiled. My dad's nickname for me was Sprout. And I was for sure his princess, he had wanted a boy, but was really quite happy with me because I am one hell of a tomboy! There is not a tree on our property that I have not climbed, and I used to go from tree to roof and play up there all of the time when I was younger. Every year during spring break my dad and I would go to the Sonoran Desert Museum, and sometimes we would also go to Colassal Caves, sometimes my mom would come, sometimes she wouldn't, it was our thing. We also always ate at Whataburger that day, it was his favorite fast food restaurant and he was known to randomly drive the 11/2 hours necessary to get to the closest one from our house when he craved them. One time my mom got jury duty for someone like a month, she was gone forever it felt like, but it was awesome because we ate out every night at one of two restaurants, both Oriental, it was super yummy...

Now back to some of the harder stuff again, my dad spent the rest of his life in nursing homes after he went. First he started off with one here in town, but they were just not equipped to deal with him, even though he was in a locked ward, he kept breaking the door codes, which of course was something that he had done in the Army. So he was moved to Tucson, into the VA, where he stayed for a couple of years. He shifted between wards, at first we were allowed to take him out and go to the cafe or to the courtyard, which was nice for me because even in 8th grade I was pretty active and being stuck inside for numerous hours a day did not sit well with me, even with my love of reading I preferred to do so outside, plus it was never easy to spend a lot of time with someone who did not remember you.  One of my most painful and yet relieving memories of him is this one time, I don't remember where my mom was, but he was telling be about his daughter, she was 2, and he really missed her, but he hoped that she would grow into a beauty like me, and someone who was kind enough to sit and listen to strangers go on about things they cared about.  It was bittersweet, it hurt so much, but it was nice to know I was in there somewhere, because at that point he hadn't mentioned or remembered me and my mom for quite a few months at that point, and also because because as weird as it seems there was approval there, if he wanted his daughter to grow up and be like how I was, that meant if he was who he was supposed to be he would have approved of me, he would have liked me.

Obviously growing up not without a father, but taking care of and watching your father just disappear, was not an easy thing to do. I was always a bit strange anyways, hard not to be with how I was raised, my dad always told me to be myself, not to change for anyone, and that I could do anything, absolutely anything I put my mind to. And of course I was raised to respect my elders to an extreme point with my aunt and grandmothers. So it was always such and extreme and yet interesting duality. When out with the family I was wonderfully behaved, and I got to experience so much because of it, at home I ruled and I knew it. In school it was really difficult to find my place, I had to listen to the teacher, they were the ones in charge, I had to not compromise myself with the other kids which of course did mot make me popular, I was the teachers pet, and I did not bend really well, and most importantly I was bored out of my mind. By the time I was in 5th grade my dad had taught me how to do Algebra and Statistics, I was helping one of my uncles study to become a doctor, and my teachers disliked the way I wrote because I used words they did mot understand. I was reading well beyond my school level, and during the Stanford 9's I tested post high school level I. Every subject but English, I was running a 9th grade level there. School pretty much sucked. So my dad came up with a plan, he found a school for me in Atlanta, I would graduate high school somewhere between ages 14 and 16, and then we would travel Germany until I hit 18 and the I would come home for college, U of A of course.  Obviously that did not happen, middle school was hell, high school was not as bad, I finally found people who got me, people who were not willing to change any more than I was. It was great, but I was still bored so I stopped going to class, and I started getting depressed, I started cutting, not obviously, but frequently, the bottom of my feet, I could feel it so long there, then I fell into drugs, and daddy just got worst, he stopped being able to get out of bed, no more talking, he was gone. I lost myself for a while, I stopped visiting him, it was just too much. I graduated high school, even with my less than stellar attendance record I still graduated in the top 25% of my class! I wonder what would happen if I had tried, if I had cared, I didn't really care about anything for a long time, then I met Michael, we became friends and fell in love, we had a baby, at 18, and I managed to get one picture of him with my dad, who died in May of that year. It was a relieve, he would never have wanted to live like that, nor would he have wanted to put us through all that he did. But it also sucked, I mean my dad was gone that was hard and I sort of just kept moving. I did not participate with the family at the funeral or wake, I just played cards in the back of the room with my hubby, I really did not want anyone's pity or their memories, I just wanted it all to be over.

All of this though, everything that happened help  to shape me into who I am, which I am good with, I like me, and I like where I am in life. Do I wish that I would have cared more, or that the trip to Germany would have happened, heck yeah, but then I would not have met my husband, I would not have the two most amazing kids ever, and I cannot imagine my life without them. I have the most amazing step father, he helped to make me who I am as much as my father did, I am truly blessed and after all that I have been through I know how lucky I am, so I know not to take advantage of it.