Wednesday, October 17, 2018

My Depression

Disclaimer: This is not an attack on people who take anti-depressants or anti-anxiety meds, this is my story only.



For the longest time, I couldn't figure out why 9 years old was the year specifically for me for when depression hit me and I wanted to die. For when I started to bleed pain and literally felt like I had nowhere safe to go.

But as I have become an adult and a mother to two daughters, I realize that at 3, my mother and father divorced, and at 9, my older sister decided to start being physically abusive towards me. The bottom kept dropping out for me and suddenly, I had nowhere safe to go.

My grandparents lived in town, but as close as I seemed with my grandmother, it was at arms length. I knew that my job was to not mess up the one place I could go that my sister couldn't attack me at. So as my grandmother taught me how to play the piano by writing the notes in her hymnal, I made sure the quiet pedal was always pushed down so I wouldn't bother her or my grandfather when I practiced. 

At an early age, I learned that I wasn't safe around other people who were supposed to love me unconditionally. 

At an early age, I learned to be quiet and listen more than be heard.

At an early age, I learned that I could only rely on myself.

No wonder I have actually ran from healthy relationships (bolted as fast as I could) and felt like pain was leaking out of my wrists like they were sliced up. 

As a mother, my goal was to make sure that I was loving them unconditionally, and not letting my oldest daughter be physically abusive towards her little sister (boy did her attitude appear when she turned 10-11 though, she is mean sometimes without thought, just reaction). 

I have realized that because I don't trust people, I love to be alone. 

My depression isn't like a cloud over me, it's like a cloud around me that is most often thinner, but sometimes thickens and darkens. Especially in the week before my period. But if I make sure that my sense of self is not clinging to that blanket of darkness, I can sink below it and literally find myself.

This is where Buddhism has helped me more than Wicca, or Witchcraft. Buddhism helped me find my center and helped me to ground, which opened me up to more witchcraft in the end. Being mindful of each step, of trying to release any unhealthy attachments (and the guilt that comes with that). 

If you suffer from depression, don't avoid the original reasons. Seek therapy, turn it around in your head. If the origin occurred when you were a child, be angry, be strong in that anger that something happened to you that should not happen to a child. 

But most of all, be kind and loving to yourself. Hug the echo of that child that still exists and cries inside you. Hug that child and hug yourself. Because until we learn to kindly love ourselves, this world will not improve.

So mote it be.

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