It's been a while...

Hehe that title reminds me of that Staind song "it's been a while... since I could, hold my head up high...." reminds me of sitting in my bedroom as a 15 year old singing my heart out wondering if I would ever get out of life what I wanted to. I guess as a 15 year old if I looked on my life now I would have gotten everything I wanted back then. Interesting thought, hehe but that's probably another blog.

So yeah it has been a while since I blogged. Probably because I tend to forget to blog when life is going well. And when I need to vent, it's where I turn. I probably should have been doing more blogging lately. Im sad to say, depression has come to call again. I've been trying to deny it but today I have accepted it. I have been working on weaning off antidepressants for a while now, but in the last week or two the same old feelings have been creeping up on me. Tiredness, feeling hopeless, not good enough, teary, unable to cope with the challenges of a toddler, unmotivated, etc. Also my anxiety has been sky high and I have been having some panic attacks. I have had the revelation, and this is very hard for me to accept, that perhaps while I did get post natal depression, I have probably always had depression and probably always will. It's an illness that probably started a long time ago. I did not have the easiest of adolescent years and my experiences and traumas there combined with an anxious sort of personality have probably led me to where I am now as much as having a baby and the hormonal changes of that did. I have been trying to get off antidepressants because I feel like the person I used to be has been lost and I'm now some other chemically altered person. I don't like the idea that I need to be on pills to function, to be 'ok'. I have a lot of thinking and accepting to do around this. I don't *need* them to live but perhaps I do need them to be happier. Like any other ailment I guess, people take medication to help them with it so they can go about living their lives in an easier way. Taking them helps me to manage my life more easily. Maybe it's just like taking painkillers or whatever. I don't know. I was trying to get off the antidepressants also because they were making me put on weight and I hate that. My doctor has prescribed me a different one that is supposed to not do that. So I am willing to give it a try. She suggested I need to just make the pills part of my life and not worry about trying to get off them. As they were only ever meant to be a temporary thing, this is hard for me to accept. But perhaps it's for the best. All I know is I don't want to feel so low and anxious anymore.

Life aside from this has overall been OK. I have had a big fight with my parents lately over them interfering and trying to control me, which has been tough to work through and I feel like my relationship with them has really changed now and a wedge been put between us, which makes me sad, but we are trying to work it out and it is probably for the best that it happened, as I am further striving toward my own independence away from them and making my own decisions for what's best for me and my own little family, not what they think is best. I have as always been beating myself up about my own insecurities. I look at other people's posts on facebook or whatever and think they have these perfect lives and have it so easy. I know people only put out there what they want you to see, I mean I do that myself, but I still can't seem to stop doing it. I am really hung up lately about the fact that most people I know who were pregnant when I was, are now pregnant again. The idea of having another baby right now terrifies me. I'm so not ready, I couldn't do it, because my first year was so hard and at times, really not enjoyable. I am ok with that decision, I know it's the right one for me, but I can't help but feel upset about it because I feel like there must be something wrong with me, that motherhood was so joyous and wonderful for others that they would want to do it again so quickly whereas the idea of having another so soon is so awful to me. I feel like some weirdo person who just isn't cut out to be a mother, and that makes me sad because I try so hard to be a good mother. I love my boy to bits more than I could ever describe on a blog. I love everything about him even though he frustrates me and makes me mad and upset at times I love that boy more than I will ever love anything. I feel in some ways like nothing could ever compare to the love I have for him.... I think maybe I'll have another child when he is old enough to understand it and enjoy it too. Maybe. We shall see. I think I also need to come to terms with the fact that I did get depression, that it sucked and it was hard and it was unfair, but it happened. It doesn't happen to everyone but it happened to me and instead of getting upset about it and wondering why me and not others, I should just accept it and get on with it. I have depression. That's not all I am though. There's more to me than that- I need to stop defining myself by it and remember what else there is about me.

Looking at going back to work full time which I am sort of excited about as I miss teaching and I think it would be good for me. One thing that's hard though is making the decision to do it but then having to apply for 5 million jobs to try and make it happen. There are so few jobs out there right now and so many people wanting to get them. I feel like I'm in limbo because I've made this big decision but can't see it through yet and I'm always waiting and hoping for the phone to ring but so far it isn't. Very frustrating. Hopefully something will happen soon.

Till then I fill my days taking my boy out to the park or music or playgroup or meeting a friend for coffee and weekends doing things together as a family, and that's quite ok with me.

Hope all are ok out there in the blogging world and I will try to remember to update more often not just when things are bad.