Nothing to See Here…

Please don’t read too much into the use of the Virginia Slims slogan, there.  After all, if I had fallen off the no-smoking wagon, would I be telling YOU about it or just surreptitiously sneaking one here and there when nobody was looking?  Uh-huh, exactly.

I was reading back over some old posts here on my blog.  From a time - that whiny time back over a year ago.  If you’re sitting there thinking “You’re always whiny.” well, shut up.  Leave me to my delusions.

They say hindsight is 20/20 and goodness, it’s good to have a little 20/20 vision in my life, ya know?  Lord knows my actual peepers will never enjoy 20/20 again.  I’m 43 and half blind.  But my hindsight is working just fine, thank you very much.  Crystal clarity.

I was depressed.

I rallied against that when I was in the thick of it, but in retrospect, now that I’m feeling pretty good again, it’s clear that I was in a really bad slump.  I don’t know if it was situational or chemical or what.  Heck, it could have been lingering postpartum depression left behind even after my baby grew well out of infancy and into toddlerhood.  I don’t really know. 

Here is what I do know:  I hated my job, I wasn’t getting along well with my husband, I was severely fatigued 23 hours a day, I was crying at the drop of a hat, and I couldn’t claw my way out of the wretched situation.

How stupid does a person need to be not to recognize that as depression?  But in the midst of it, it all felt so darn justified.  I felt righteous in my marital woes - it wasn’t me, it was Bill’s expectations that were the problem.  My job complaints were valid.  The sleep deprivation was vestigial from having those babies and a big deficit of sleep.  See?  It was all easy to explain.

What I lost during that period was my ability to cope.  I wasn’t coping well at all with any of it, and I was angry and argumentative about all of it.  I hated my job and there were times I wanted to walk out on my marriage.  I was a mess.

How could I have not recognized it?  Looking back, the current me wants to smack the me of 2006.

So I spent several months on Wellbutrin and in counseling and working on things and here I am.  I’ve come a long way, baby….

Do you want to know where I am?  Well, do you?

My marriage is back in solid shape.  We stopped fighting, we’re now making more love and no war.  We’re laughing.  We’re going out together and spending time.  I no longer feel like these periods of happiness are the calm before the proverbial storm.  I feel like we’ve moved off of that cycle and are on solid ground again.

I’m no longer so darn tired all the time.  I actually stay up and read at night.  Gosh, I missed reading during that period when all I could do was lay down my head and fall asleep.  My lack of fatigue has improved my marriage life because it means our sex life is back on track, too.

I stopped hating my job some time back; I don’t remember exactly when.  In fact, somewhere along the line, I fell in love with it.  I love my boss and have from the beginning (and the bad news? he’s leaving the company.  waaaaaaah.  more whining.)  Even aside from my boss (and his blasted abandonment), I’m so plugged in to my work these days, I can’t even tell you.  I’m putting in the hours and the energy and the dedication and the passion. 

Back when I was in a negative spiral that was taking me to the depths of despair, I wondered how to turn that around and make it a positive upward spiral.  I didn’t notice it happening, but somewhere along the line I got my wish!  I feel as if I’m on a positive upward spiral!  I’m not sure what the catalyst was; most likely it was a combination of things.  But somehow I got here and I never, ever want to go back there again.

I don’t know what the point of this post is.  I suppose that I just wanted to declare victory.  Maybe I wanted to thank you all for listening when you did, for commenting (where is the comment love these days? huh? does a girl have to threaten to shut down her blog to get it these days??? heehee).  It could well serve as a public service announcement about depression.

Now, I want each of you reading to comment below.  Tell me one good thing about your life right now.   If you don’t comment, I’ll hurt a kitten!  I’m not even kidding - this is serious.  My upward spiral demands some comment love to sustain it!! 

Now go comment - I command you!

ps: Hello and welcome to the people from my new company who are Googling my name and finding their way here!  I hope you find me to be the same person here (only with more f-bombs) as I am at work.  I welcome you to my readership.  Put your feet up - say HI.