Slipping

I feel it creeping back again.  It hides in the dark corners of my mind and I feel like it is just waiting to spring itself on me.  I am not sleeping well.  I am gaining weight.  I have no interest in leaving my house. Every single day I contemplate calling in sick to work.  A couple of days I have done it. 

This is what relapsing into depression looks like.  I know it.  I have been here enough times to recognize the symptoms.  I am terrified.  I am on medication.  I have been doing pretty well.  Or at least I thought I was doing pretty well.  But looking at my journal entries from the last several months I am seeing that I have not been doing all that great.  I was suffering a lot of the symptoms of depression but my mood was ok so I thought I was in the clear.  Well in the last couple of weeks, my mood has been miserable and I can't seem to just will myself out of it. 

I know I need to see my doctor about adjusting my meds.  It is time to do that again.  I dread it because I fear withdrawal symptoms almost as much as I fear the depression itself.  I have been on so many combinations.  I just don't know what else there is for me to try.  I have been on Cymbalta for almost 10 years.  Maybe its time to give that a switch.  Maybe it's the anti=psychotic he gave me to boost the effects of the Cymbalta.  Maybe I need to get back on the Wellbutrin that I was sure had saved my live when I was hospitalized.  I never should have gone off that.

My boyfriend tries to be understanding but he hates that I just want to sleep all the time.  I don't want to go out on date nights.  I'm too exhausted from not sleeping all night.  I tried Ambien but it did nothing.  My doc has me on another medication that isn't technically for sleep but it helps with sleep.  It helps to a point. But I am still only getting about 5-6 hours a night and that just isn't enough for me.  The worst thing is that when I do have a chance to nap I just lay there unable to sleep even then.  It seems I am constantly fighting a battle with sleep, which used to be one of my favorite old friends. 

I am due back to the doctors in 2 weeks.  I am hoping I can last that long without having a major episode.  I hope that this slide into depression takes its time. I am hoping he can help me. 

Trust your gut?

I have this great new boyfriend.  He's attentive.  He texts me throughout the day and basically spends all his free time with me.  He is practically living at my apartment at this point as he sleeps over every night.  He's cute and has a terrific body.  He's great in bed. I am really falling for him.

I don't think I should be in a relationship. 

Regardless of all that I just said above, I am feeling extremely insecure.  I just have this feeling that I can't trust him.  He has done nothing to give me this impression.  I just don't trust him.  I got nosey and snooped through his tablet (he gets his text messages there as well as on his phone).  I found that he was texting an ex girlfriend.  It was nothing incriminating.  Just basic "how have you been" kind of stuff.  But all I can think is "Why are you staying in touch with her?  Keeping your options open?"  Of course I can't tell him I snooped. So I have to tell him I just have this gut feeling that something isn't right.  He tells me that he has been texting this girl and says he was just wondering how she was doing as the relationship ended badly.  I told him it bothers me.  I told him that I am just feeling a little insecure because I like him so much.  He told me insecurity is not very attractive.

All of this is very confusing to me.  On the one hand I hear "trust your gut.  If you have a feeling something isn't right it probably isn't."  On the other hand, I am kind of a psycho.  I have issues.  I have absolutely no basis for feeling this way.  I don't know if it is my gut or if it is my trust issues.  Either way I am thinking maybe I am not cut out for a relationship right now.

I wish I was still in therapy so I could sort this out with someone.  Someone who would tell me how unhealthy it is that I basically violated his privacy and snooped.  I would be livid if he did something like reading my journal or snooping around my Facebook messages.  In truth he would probably find things he didn't like in both places.  I an not totally innocent.  I was still seeing another guy when we first started talking.  I never told him about that.  But since things have gotten serious I have only had eyes for him. 

Why is love so scary?  Is it supposed to make me this nervous or is this just a sign that after 2 years I still am not ready to be involved with someone? 

I worry that I am going to drive him away with my questions and concerns.  How do I convince him that this is just a passing phase (I sure hope it is) and that I am worth getting through this with?  How do I let him know that I am just terrified because I like him so much?  Is it normal to be this scared?  Do I listen to my "gut" or do I wait for some kind of sign that there is actually something going on? 

I need a shrink.

Feelings and other hazards

I am hooked. 

It started out really slowly.  I was really hesitant to get involved.  It was about 2 months of less than weekly dates at first but now I am seeing him every day.  I have met and hung out with his son and he has met and hung out with my daughter.  We all hung out together.  This feels like a real relationship. 

I don't know that I believe in love.  I have always thought of affection and love songs as sappy and unnecessary.  I always thought love was gross.  But somehow I am softening and I am feeling actual feelings about this guy.  I am terrified.

So far he has been great.  He texts me every morning to say good morning, even when he has just left my house.  He does the same to say goodnight.  He texts me on his lunch break at work.  He texts me on his way home from work. This makes me feel really secure.  I dread the day that he stops doing this.  I just know it is going to happen.  That will mean that he is changing his mind. 

He comes over every day.  Even when he is really busy.  Even when he has his son.  He just brings him along.  He is fixing stuff around my house.  He offered to help my mom out if she needed anything.  He brought me ice cream one night when I had already gotten into my pajamas and I said I wanted some.  He doesn't seem to mind that I am on the curvy side even though he is extremely well built and in great shape.  He likes to see me eat.

I have told him about my depression.  I have told him that I was in the hospital. He knows I take medications.  He is okay with all this.  He still likes me!  I am always afraid that once someone knows that I used to be crazy that they will bolt.  I am really stable now and feel pretty steady.  I want to believe that it is me but I know that without the medications I would be a mess again. I am so hooked on this guy that I worry that if he loses interest that I will be thrown back into insanity.  I have tried to express this to him but how do you tell a guy that you are afraid you will go insane without him? And so soon into the relationship. 

There have been a few things that worry me. The other day I asked him if he really likes me.  He asked if I was asking if he liked me or if it was just sex.  Then he said "don't turn into every other girl".  I feel like I should just know that he likes me considering all that I said above but I want to hear it.  I want to know that I am not just another random girl he is dating. I have told him that I don't want to see anyone else.  He agreed that we are not seeing other people.  That made me happy.

Another thing.  He doesn't get along with his mother all that well.  He really doesn't like her and from what he has shared about his upbringing I don't know that I blame him. My mother always said that the way a guy treats his mother is how he would treat his woman.  This isn't a good sign.  But anyway, he was on the phone with her the other night and I heard him say, "No, I'm not dating anyone".  As you can imagine I was hurt by this.  I asked him about it and he said that it is none of his mother's business.  He said he doesn't need to tell her anything.  I dropped it but I am wondering if I am putting too much into this relationship too soon.  Maybe I need to back off.  I don't know how but I probably should try.

I can honestly say that I haven't felt this way in forever.  This is different than the infatuations I had in my early 20s and it is different than the friendly, easy feelings I had for Lila's dad.  I was never "crazy about him" the way that I feel I am about this guy.  I really have fallen hard.  I don't know if the feelings are mutual.  I have no idea how to bring it up without sounding "like every other girl".  Shit.  I have a feeling this is going to end badly.

An interesting turn of events

So I'm dating someone.

I started talking to him via an online dating sight several months ago.  We chatted for a while, stopped talking and then a few weeks ago he contacted me again.  We met up.  I liked him instantly.  He's tall, muscular and really nice. 

We had a few dates and then the sexting started.  Now, it's been 2 years for me since I've been in anything resembling a relationship so this was exciting for me.  We stayed up late sexting and then I would see him the next day and he would act like a gentleman.  I told him that I wasn't looking to jump into bed right away as sex seems to make me attached and I wanted to know a guy liked me before I put myself out there like that.  He was okay with that.

Last Friday we went out to dinner then back to his place to "watch a movie"  He put the movie in and we watched about the first 5 minutes of it and we started making out. It was thrilling.  He is an amazing kisser.  I forgot how much I like making out when the end result isn't necessarily sex.  We kissed and caressed and did some over the clothes rubbing but I kept my pants on.  I felt like a teenager.  After about 3 hours of that he drove me home.

Saturday night I didn't have my daughter so he came over to my place. I wasn't as well behaved.  We made out for a while.  I wanted him.  I am an adult and I can have sex if I want to so we did.  It was great.  He stayed the night and we made love a couple more times.  I haven't had sex like that since I was about 22.  It was passionate and sensual and satisfying.  I have butterflies even typing this right now.

He came over again last night and we hooked up again.  He had a lot to do yesterday and I was flattered that he made time to come see me.

Here's the thing.  Now that I have had sex with him I am just waiting for him to change his mind about me.  He waited all that time for me to put out and now that I have I am afraid he is going to lose interest.  Part of it is because I really like him.  We talk about things and about ourselves and he makes me feel incredibly sexy.  But the other part of it is my own issues.  I can't believe that anyone would like me.  I'm overweight (he likes curves) and I am socially awkward (he likes staying home). I think that's why I've stayed single for so long.  I don't think anyone would want to be with me long term. 

I am so afraid that this is going to turn into a little fling and he is going to lose interest. And by feeling like that I think I come across as desperate.  I have to summon all my will not to text him all day long.  I was so stand-offish when we first started talking.  I think he likes the chase.  At one point he actually said "you make me work for everything and I love it".  What happens when I try to open up and I show that I actually like him?  Does that ruin his image of me as hard to get? 

Holy shit.  I clearly need to be in therapy.  I can see how insane this all sounds. 

Why I'll likely be single forever

I don't think I believe that I can ever love anyone again.  This is my realization after reading an article yesterday called "It's okay to believe in love again" on the Huffington Post. 

In the article, the author talks about all the ways that she is happy being single and all the excuses she has made to justify not getting back out there but in the end she sees a post on Pinterest that simply says "It's okay to believe in love again" and in that moment she realizes that she does actually believe that she can love again.  Well, see, here's the problem.  I don't.

I don't know that I will ever love like I did in my 20's when the two men who I would call the loves of my life were in the picture.  One I met in my teens and held a flame for for like 15 years and the other I knew in my teens but didn't fall for until I was in my 20's and we had an on again off again thing for many years.  I loved them deeply.  I made them mix tapes and had butterflies when I would think about them.  I would sit by the phone anxiously waiting for them to call and be devastated when I didn't hear from them exactly when I expected to.  I was a crazy person for each of them and it felt good in its own way.  Needless to say, neither of these relationships ended well.

The idea that I could enjoy being single would have terrified 20-something me.  She always had a boyfriend.  She usually had a new one before the last one was gone.  She was terrified of being alone and always had a backup plan should one of the guys she was seeing bail on her.  She needed the constant drama and loved the shit out of a guy until it got too serious and then she was on to the next one.  That is, with the exception of the two guys mentioned earlier.  She never stopped caring about those two even though they did everything not to deserve it.

Then I had my first taste of mature love.  The kind of love where you care more about another person's well being than your own.  This wasn't as exciting as the all-consuming crazy person love but it was deeper still and I knew that I had come really far when I fell for someone who didn't torture me emotionally.  That also didn't end well and I left him because I felt like he deserved better than the shell of a person I was because of my depression.  I regretted it and I tried to take it back but it was too late.  He had moved on. 

That was 2 years ago and I have since attempted online dating, meeting a handful of guys but honestly realizing that I wasn't ultimately really open to developing anything meaningful with any of them even if I was attracted to any one of them, which I wasn't.  I disabled my profiles and have been bored and alone since. 

Since I am not much of a social person I have no idea how I will ever meet someone if not through the online dating route.  I don't go to bars and I don't work at a place that has a lot of people.  My office is basically me and my boss who works out of town for much of the week.  We have 4 sales people and 2 contractors who are in sporadically so I spend much of my week in the office alone.  Just me and the radio to keep me company.  That is why I now have time to write my blog.

I have appealed to friends on Facebook to introduce me to any single guy friends they have.  You would think that someone out of the 500+ Facebook friends I have would have a single 30-40 year old guy to introduce me to but no.  No luck there. 

So I stay single.  Part of me knows that I should use this time to "work on myself" whatever that means.  Perhaps I should go back to therapy and look into taking some evening classes.  Maybe I should join a gym and commit to weekly mani-pedis and monthly haircuts.  But seriously, who has the energy for that?  I sure as hell don't.  When it comes down to it I will usually always choose sitting home and watching TV to doing what feels like so much work. 

I want to just enjoy being single.  But the loneliness...OH the loneliness.  I hate not having anyone to call or text just to tell about my day.  I miss having someone to watch bad addictive television shows with.  I wish I didn't have to sleep alone every night and I especially miss sex.  If only I could find someone to take care of these few things.  But I don't believe I can.

Because I don't think I believe in love anymore.  Turns out that those two guys who I would have died for?  They both turned out to be not so good people.  One of them is in prison and the other one is a junky.  The days of believing we would eventually get back together and live happily ever after when we were ready for that kind of thing are long gone and replaced by a sort of emptiness where they used to be.  But it is an emptiness that has no desire to be filled.  It just sits there.  Empty.

As for my ex who I left, he has moved on.  He is in love and happily dating some skank.  I don't know if they've talked about marriage and I don't care.  I assume it's just a matter of time though.  And when that happens I will wish them happiness.  Because I really loved him and want him to be happy. 

Even if I'm not. 

I fear that if I just accept being alone that I will never be ready to find love.  I fear that this isn't a temporary feeling.  I fear that I really deep down, just don't believe in love anymore.  Or that anyone would love me.  As crazy as I used to be and as difficult as I can be to be around sometimes because of the depression.  I  fear that I will die alone and lonely.  All because I don't believe in love anymore. 

How do I turn this around?

Facebook Friends

I have 557 Facebook friends.  That's not for a page or a cause.  That's on my personal Facebook page.  I am happy to say that I know a lot of those people.  Then there are the people I "know" through blogging or the Lost discussion groups I used to participate in.  My newsfeed provides me with a lot of entertainment, although it is usually filled with the same few dozen people's posts (thanks to Facebook's algorithms).

But regardless of this somewhat alarmingly high number of Facebook friends, it strikes me as really sad that I don't have one person I can call up to go to a movie with or grab a bite to eat.  Most of my "friends" on Facebook are people I went to school with a long time ago and lost touch with and then magically got connected with through the "people you might know" feature.  These are not people that I have stayed friends with.  It would be awkward as hell to randomly call one of them up "just to talk". 

Maybe that is the depression talking.  "Who would want to hang out with you?" it says.  "You're no fun." 

I guess I am just feeling a little lonely lately.  The couple of friends that I have are busy with their families and their lives and it is hard for them to get a few hours away to meet up.  I am ALWAYS the one that initiates contact and that kind of bothers me.  It would be nice to have someone call me up and invite me out once in a while. 

I am tempted to post on Facebook that I have 557 Facebook friends and does anyone want to get together this weekend?  Would that be weird/pathetic?

Online dating and the depressed girl

I have had a couple of online dating profiles for about a year now.  I haven't had much luck. When I first signed up I found quite a few attractive guys and even met a few of them.  We would simply meet for coffee as I figured that was a quick and easy way to meet for a date where you didn't have to sit through a big expensive meal if you didn't like them.  None of them really did much for me so I left it at one date.

Then it sort of fizzled out.  The last several months there have been many attractive guys that I messaged with, a few that I texted with but they seemed content to just converse that way and never pushed to meet.  I admit, neither did I. 

Because while I want to have someone in my life to fight off the loneliness, I just didn't think that any of these guys would amount to much in the relationship department. I enjoyed having someone to chat with but was reluctant to make that next step and ask them to meet. 

I would almost rather sit home and watch TV than get all dressed up and get all ready to meet a guy who most likely I would only meet once and never talk to them again.  I don't know if this is a symptom of my depression or if I just don't want to be dating. 

Its kind of hard to tell the difference.

I know that I am not really depressed.  I don't have that awful hopeless feeling that things are never going to get better.  I feel ok.  My energy level seems ok.  But I have a lot of the symptoms of depression:  I don't sleep well, even with the medications the doc gave me. I have a hard time showering every day.  I kind of avoid it until I start to feel dirty, usually every 2nd of 3rd day.  My appetite has been nonexistent and I actually lost 50 lbs in the last year and a half.  I don't really leave the house for anything other than work and my weekly trip to the grocery store.  I started a new medication that has helped with my appetite and I seem to be in a slightly better mood but the other symptoms persist. 

The thing is that I have never in my life thought that I didn't want to date.  Before Ben I always had a boyfriend (or 2?) and as soon as one was looking like it was a lost cause I would have another one lined up.  I tried desperately not to be alone.  I just don't even recognize this feeling of not really feeling up to meeting someone new.

I worry that this is not just a phase.  That I am permanently depressed and will never get to the point where I want a relationship and I will end up alone and old.  I worry that if I decide to just take some time (a few years?) and stay single for a while that I will miss out on someone great and again, I will end up old and alone. 

Actually finding someone to date will require me to knock off some of my depressed habits. I will need to shower every day.  I will need to get my ass dressed and out of the house to see someone.  Of course, I would hope that meeting someone I like would make me WANT to get out of the house to see them so I wouldn't struggle with this so much but this is sort of a catch-22.  I want to meet someone so that I will feel like getting dressed and going out but I need to get dressed and go out to meet someone. 

I have disabled my dating profiles for now.  I still look at the site and figure that if I see someone worth messaging I will reactivate it.  But the longer I have been on this site the fewer attractive candidates there are to choose from.  And the guys that message me?  Most of them are either in their 50's looking for a younger chick or in their 20s looking for that cougar.  I am not interested in it either way.  I am not looking for a sex thing.  And I am not looking for a sugar daddy.  I just want a guy who is my age who likes low key activities like eating out and going to the movies who also happens to be good looking and employed.  I don't think that is asking for much.

About the breakup.

When did I become so boring? 

I recently started doing those surveys of questions on my other blog as something to post so that I don't have to come up with my own material.  But I fill them out and the answers are so bland.  I used to be a smart ass.  I used to be witty.  What the hell happened to me?

I attribute a lot of this to the breakup-the split 2 years ago from my kid's father.  We had lived together for 8 years and much of those 8 years we were mostly just people who lived together and raised a kid together.  We weren't really in love.  Or at least it didn't feel like it at the time.  The split was mutual.  And it was amicable.  But about a month after I moved out, I found out that he had been seeing someone for a few months and I had a breakdown that almost ended me back in the psych ward.  I don't know why I reacted like that.  But it was bad.  I was not okay.  My doctor changed up the medications I was on and that brought me back from the edge.  But I was changed by that. 

I never doubted him.  I never thought for a minute that he would cheat on me.  I considered him honorable and good and honest.  I had total faith in him.  I was completely blindsided by the idea that he might be seeing someone else during the time that we both knew it was over but before it was completely and totally over.  I wished I had known.  I would have liked to have set up a rebound thing too.  It would have been nice to have someone to talk to and to go to in those last few months when he slept on the couch and I avoided him.  But in my mind we were still technically together.  Not so in his.  In his mind as soon as we talked about splitting it was over.  A done deal.

In that month after I moved out, I was still hopeful.  I spoke with him regularly because we were navigating this split with our daughter and it was important that she know we were still her parents.  I sat down with him for lunch.  We got along.  And I was hopeful that this was just some space that we needed until we each (read: ME) could sort some things out and that we would reconcile and get back together.  It never occurred to me that he had already moved on. 

Finding out that he was seeing someone broke something inside of me.  Yes, I had been cheated on in the past.  I had been lied to and betrayed.  I had been treated truly horribly by some of my ex boyfriends.  But this was something different.  I never trusted them.  I never believed that we would work it out.  I always knew that those guys couldn't truly be trusted.  There were always plenty of red flags for me to ignore.  Not so here.  Ben was a good guy.  We spent 8 years together.  I never doubted his love for me.

And then, just like that, I was face to face with the realization that he perhaps didn't love  me anymore.  And he said that to me.  He was moving on without me.  I didn't get another chance to be better.  He was done waiting for me to get over this depression and he was moving forward with his life without me.

This was a turning point for me.  I looked back at our relationship and all I could see was all that I did wrong.  I saw the way I needed to escape from my life almost daily by taking to bed most afternoons.  I saw the way I avoided doing things with him.  I saw the times I was unfaithful and lied.  Everything was magnified.  Part of this I can blame on this awful depression but the rest was squarely on my own shoulders.  I wasn't a good partner.  I wasn't present most of the time.  I did everything to make him feel like he wasn't valued and in the end I was the one who had to convince him that it was never going to get better.  I did this. 

I am not someone who has regrets.  I lived through my teens and most of my twenties doing all sorts of things that some people would regret.  But I always felt regretting things was a waste of time.  YOLO, right?  But with Ben I have some deep and permanent regrets.  I don't know if I will ever get to a point where I accept what I did and move past it. 

It's been nearly 2 years and Ben and I have a good relationship for Lila's sake.  We are friendly and have no drama.  It really baffles me when I hear about situations (which are most situations) where people split up and can't agree on simple things for the sake of the kids.  There have been some stumbling blocks like when he first started bringing his new girlfriend around Lila but all in all we've gotten past that.  I still don't like the girlfriend though.  I don't know if that will ever change. 

I would say that I am over the split.  I think that it was for the best.  I wasn't the person I wanted to be when I was with him and I don't think I could be.  But regardless of whatever lessons I have learned from this, I am in a much more introspective and self-aware place.  My self esteem sucks.  I am something of a homebody. 

I tried internet dating and at first I met a few guys but none of them seemed like a good match.  I questioned if I was ready to be dating.  A part of me wants desperately to meet someone new but the other part of me-the damaged part of me- says that no one in their right mind would want me right now.  I am not whole.  I do not feel like I am in a place that is conducive to being in a relationship.  I am not depressed exactly.  I don't have that hopeless feeling that I am so familiar with.  The medication seems to help that.  I am just not feeling like me.  I guess I don't even know who I am right now.  And that makes me boring.

I have started blogging again here and at my other blog to try to discover some of who I was and see if she is still there under all this seriousness.  But I re-read my blog posts and they just feel so lifeless.  And I worry that it is a reflection of me right now.  Am I lifeless?  Or did this just seriously knock the wind out of me?  I worry that this bump in the road was more than just a bump and that perhaps it has seriously altered the person that I am. 

I feel like only time will tell.

My Act of Confession

For those of you who don't know, my daughter goes to catholic school.  Although I am not a practicing catholic and neither is her father, we decided to send her there based on the crappy public school district that we lived in when she went to kindergarten.  I went to catholic school and once I was out of there in 9th grade because I went to a public high school, I never looked back.  Until I had my daughter.  When she was a baby, we had her baptized "just in case".  Not that I believe in heaven and hell but because my mother lobbied for her to be baptized so that if something happened to her (God forbid) she would be able to go to heaven.  This was a real concern for my mother so I gave in and we baptized her catholic.

This year Lila is in 2nd grade.  This is the year she makes her first communion.  But before she can make her first communion she has to make her first confession.  In the catholic faith you are not supposed to receive communion with sin on your soul so you have to go to confession before you receive communion.  All these firstd mean that Lila has to go to several weeks of preparation classes on Sundays.  The classes are after mass on Sunday and attendance at mass is mandatory as they pull all the kids aside during the service and give lessons then as well.  I have been taking Lila to church on Sundays.

I don't know how I feel about going to church on Sundays.  I am not sure I believe in any of this anymore.  In fact I know I don't.  When I am in church, I listen intently sort of wishing that I found solace in the idea that Jesus loves me.  I envy those who can pray and take comfort in the idea that God is there for them.  I just don't have that. 

This past Saturday, Lila made her first confession.  The celebration involved her having an adult come with her as she waited to confess her sins and the adult would go and confess after her to show their support.  Since Ben is Lutheran and her godparents live in Florida, I was the adult that went with her.  We carried a candle to represent the light of Lila's soul and after we both confessed we were to light the candle as a symbol of the light burning bright now that her soul had been wiped clean through the sacrament of confession.

I stressed about having to go to confession.  I haven't been in 20 years or more.  Not since junior high school.  So I was not looking forward to the required "Bless me father for I have sinned.  It has been 20 + years since my last confession." I wasn't going to be able to sit there and tell him all the ways I had sinned in the last 20 years and most of all I would have to admit that I didn't think I really believed anymore.  I thought I would be there for an hour holding up the line and people would start to wonder why I was taking so long.

By the time Lila finished her very brief confession (she only had one sin to confess: Sometimes she yells at her mother), I was playing the scenario in my head and dreading the whole thing.  I went and sat down in front of the priest.  Before I was even able to say anything, he began.  "I just have 2 simple questions for you.  Do you admit that you have sinned?" he said.  "Yes," I replied.  "Ok. Are you sorry for the sins that you have committed?" I stopped for a minute.  I have done a lot of things wrong in the eyes of the church.  I lived with Ben for 8 years without being married.  I don't know that I am necessarily sorry for that.  But I wanted to make this simple.  "Yes," I replied.  The priest sat for a moment.  "Then unless you have something specific that you want to talk about we can move forward with the absolution." 

This was the easiest thing I had ever done.  I didn't have to go into 20 some odd years of transgressions that I'm not sure I am sorry for.  He had made it as simple as just admitting it and saying sorry.  He blessed me and told me to go on my way.  He didn't even assign me a penance of prayers to say.  He didn't even make me struggle to remember my Act of Contrition.  Lila and I went and lit her candle and added it to the growing number of candles on a table set up on the altar.  I went back to my seat feeling light.  I felt pretty good actually.

This was something I missed about Catholicism. You go and confess your sins and you are forgiven and it is like a weight is taken off your shoulders.  For the most part I didn't feel guilty about the idea that I offended God.  But I had done some things that hurt other people.  Things I carried around with me for years feeling bad about them not knowing how to make amends.  But today I was told I was forgiven.  Now I just had to forgive myself. 

Part of me began to enjoy the idea of going to church on Sundays.  I like the pageantry of it.  I like the community.  I just wish that I could really believe in something.  I just don't.  In the end I have to admit that going to confession doesn't make amends to others that I may have hurt.  But perhaps I could forgive myself for all the ways I have hurt myself over the years.  The only person I really need to make amends to right now is me.  Perhaps I could be forgiven for not respecting myself or treating myself with kindness.  Perhaps I could be forgiven for the ways I have abused by body and not taken care of my soul. Perhaps I can use this as a starting point to begin to treat myself better. To take care of my own needs.

I don't know that I will make it a regular thing-taking Lila to confession.  But maybe once in a while, when I am feeling like I have just been awful to myself I can go and be told that I am forgiven. Perhaps just hearing those words will give me space to breathe. Now we just need to work on getting Lila a few more sins to confess.

 

Failing my kid

I am failing my kid in a lot of ways because I am constantly, chronically depressed.  No matter what meds I am on or what kinds of therapy I do, the depression clings to me like a wet blanket and does not allow me to be fun or have fun.  It has been months since I have so much as been out for coffee with a friend and I have done nothing but work, eat and sleep for so long that it feels like it is normal.

It seems like so much work to just do the bare necessities of taking care of her.  Getting her up for school in the morning, making her lunch, getting her to get dressed.  A lot of days I feel like just letting her stay home so that I don't have to do it.  So much work.  When I was a kid, I missed a lot of school and now I know that it was because my mother was so overwhelmed with the process of getting me up that she often didn't bother.  Now I know it was her depression that failed me.  I don't want to do this to my kid so I get her out of the house most days. 

But she has never had a friend come over to my house to play.  Again, it just seems like so much work.  I would have to clean the house really good, come up with some activities, plan a snack.  It just feels like too much.  And although I have encouraged my daughter to get some of her classmates' phone numbers she has not done it.  I don't see myself going to the school handbook and calling any of those parents out of the blue.  When I was a kid I called my friends to come over all the time.  My parents never set up play dates. I don't even know if my friends asked their parents permission.  But Lila is not me.  She is having a hard time in school and tells me that she really doesn't have any friends.  She usually hangs out with one boy who she tells me was singled out by one of the mean girls. 

This year she isn't taking part in any after-school activities.  Her school offers so many programs: dance, karate, drama club, sports. But she doesn't want to do any of them this year even though previously she has been involved in at least ONE thing.  And because it feels like so much work, I am not going to go out of my way to get her involved in anything outside of school like Girl Scouts (and have to sell the cookies! No way!).  The one thing that she showed some interest in was chorus but that required a commitment 2 nights a week at 6 pm and there was no way I was going to drive her there across town, and sit in the car for an hour and a half twice a week.  If it is right after school then okay.  I will arrange to have her picked up.  But we do not live close to the school so me going home and coming back later was not really practical.

And in this way I am failing her.  I wish that I felt better so that all these little things didn't seem like such a big deal.  But they do feel like a big deal.  Rather than feeling like I would be doing something wonderful for my daughter it feels like I am doing something so burdensome that I just can't bring myself to do it.  And so my kid suffers from my illness.

One thing that is totally unrelated though:  My daughter is kind of a spaz.  She tries really hard to make people laugh and I suspect that her trying so hard is what makes the other kids at school sort of shy away from her.  I think she can be a little overwhelming when she is trying so hard to be funny.  Today I was writing in my journal and had a thought.  Perhaps her constant trying to make people laugh is because I so desperately need someone to cheer me up.  Maybe this illness that I suffer from is the reason she is so goofy all the time.  Usually her efforts fall flat on me.  I often wish I had a more laid back kid.  But what if she is just trying to lighten what is often a somber mood in our house? 

Then again, it is so easy to believe that we are the cause of all our kids' problems and so hard to believe that we are the root of their successes.