I'm doing better...

...but this post probably won't sound that way.

Internet, I'm in therapy/counseling.  And it's helping.  If you feel that mental illness is a faith or personality failing and I should just pray harder or stop feeling sorry for myself, F OFF.  It's none of your business.

After two young people committed suicide in our area, I started to think that maybe it was time to model something more constructive for my kids than just toughing depression out and waiting for it to go away.  And for purely selfish reasons, I wanted to stop thinking dying might be nice.

So my problem stems from two sources:  I have trouble dealing with the hormonal swings that happen around pregnancy and childbirth.  Yeah, even though I've done it so many times.  And family history?  I'll just say that depression occurs in 100 percent of my female blood relatives.

The other source:  Let's see...I have seven kids (one of whom depends on me entirely for nourishment), a full-time job, a crappy cluttered house, a husband that is constantly distracted and busy building a new house, and a fairly busy church job.  None of these are bad things, except for the old house, and we're in the process of fixing that.  But it's a lot to deal with.

So maybe it's no wonder that life is beating me up and stealing my lunch money right now.  I've learned that it's okay to be frustrated with things that I wanted.  I would always beat myself over the head because I chose to get married and have kids, so I deserved every bad feeling I had if I wasn't happy with some aspect of that life. 

It's a little easier now that I don't have to mentally punish myself for being irritated with the kids occasionally, or with Toby.  That doesn't make be a bad mom or a bad wife.  Somehow, giving myself permission to be mad sometimes has made me mad less often...which is a good thing for all of us.

(Image from the awesome "Heal Yourself, Skeletor" site.  It seemed appropriate.)