Not So Functional Depression

I haven’t written here for over a year. I have dozens of half thought out post ideas, maybe even partially written, sitting in Evernote. I just don’t care.

 

I am pretty sure my entire household is functionally depressed or something. Maybe less than functionally. Maybe not really functional at all.

 

In 2003 my sister died. I am pretty sure my world crumbled, but I had other things to do. Other people to take care of. A family to hold together. That said, if a lifetime of journaling, blogging, writing for the sake of writing, has taught me, it’s that Erin was my world in a way I never even realized. But life goes on, and so did we all.

 

Three short years later my mother died. My dad has never really recovered, and none of us really expected him to. I moved myself and my husband and my kids back in permanently to take care of my remaining siblings… of my remaining family. But in the twelve years it’s been I have realized none of us really recovered. We do our thing. We go to work. We run the kids around. We pay our bills. We support each other. But I don’t think any of us are really living. 

 

How do you convince yourself you need to minimize (a mission I have been on for the last three+ years), deep clean, do house repairs, etc… when you really don’t give a fuck as long as there are clean clothes and food? I don’t even care about that floordrobe, it’s clean and folded and who cares if it’s in a drawer? 

 

I have weeks where I’m good. I get shit done. It gets almost there. We might be company ready. And then whatever that motivation is just turns itself off and I’m full of whatever.

 

I have whatever.

 

Michael has been handling 100% of the kids appointments. He makes dinner at least 2-3 times a week. He does laundry. I know he does his fair share and then some. He takes up my slack, because we are a partnership and that’s what partners do. 

 

Part of me wishes I still had the I don’t even know what I wish. I don’t know what would fix that which is broken. My children are nearly grown. Maybe it’s just a midlife crisis no one warned me about? It’s not nearly empty nest syndrome. I am ridiculously excited about what my kids are growing up to do. They have the entire world open to them. And I do too. I just need to remind myself why it’s important to live and not just survive. 

 

For my lovely faithful readers, all my apologies for disappearing for over a year. For putting up the bare minimum (not even) of fluff posts. I let myself get bogged down in medical mysteries (non-diabetic peripheral neuropathy that all we know is it’s non-diabetic…) and doing twice as much work as usual at the dance studio and and and…. and is my life. 

 

When I finally realized that I was spending more and more time in bed, doing nothing, I went to my GP. I gave up trying to fix it by diet and asked for drugs. The first one didn’t do anything. The second one, combined with the first was awesome, but I was overmedicated. The second one alone led me to writing this. Does that mean its working? Who knows. But I do know I can feel my feet, I can feel my legs, I can feel my right armpit. I got up this morning because I wanted to go do something. Ok, I had to go do something, but I wasn’t entirely aggravated by it. I am sure I still fall into functionally depressed. But maybe this is my light at the end of a year long tunnel and maybe I’ll be more functional and less depressed.