Perspective: Mondays and Everything After

Most people hate Mondays. For most people, Mondays signify the beginning of a long work week before they get to have some rest, relaxation or fun again the following weekend. I remember when this used to be true for me. I have had my fair share of Manic Mondays. I've had Mondays that were so manic that I couldn't help but make sure that popular Bangles tune got played at least once. I still do have Manic Mondays sometimes. Today would be a prime example. However, my Mondays now signify the beginning of a week in which the care for my parents falls largely upon someone else's shoulders. I hate weekends because the care of my parents falls largely upon my own shoulders. I don't get to have rest, relaxation or fun hardly ever, but especially not on weekends.

When I was younger, I hated Thursdays. Why Thursday? Well, I attended a Catholic school from Kindergarten to second grade and every Thursday, this school's cafeteria would serve what I referred to as slop. They called it Texas something or other, but I don't think Texas would want any such affiliation with this crap. They served this ground beef concoction with canned green beans (which I also hate) and corn bread. The corn bread was the only thing worth eating. For this reason, I hated Thursdays for three years.

So, it's all about perspective when it comes to what days of the week to hate. Your Friday or Saturday might be someone else's Monday. For still others, there's no such thing as a Monday in their work week. Retail workers know all too well that they might very well have a Monday off, but then have to work weekends and even holidays. So, every Monday has the potential to feel like a Friday and every Friday has the potential to feel like a Monday. It's a day. This day, like Groundhog Day, is bound to repeat itself forever and ever and may even over the course of your lifetime change from one day to the next.

The Most Exhausting Role: Pretending I’m OK

Twenty-seven years ago, I was diagnosed with Massive Depressive Disorder. I honestly think that title sounds a bit severe, but essentially it translates to me being either baseline in mood or severely depressed. I can be happy at times, even sometimes downright giddy, but those moments are rare. Approximately 18 years ago, I was diagnosed with mild to moderate anxiety, though I think my anxiety probably started long before that and was caused by a whole series of events and conditions that would require their own book. These diagnoses manifest in a variety of ways including the obvious sadness, as well as anger, agitation, aggressive behavior and/or speech, sarcasm, being snarky, etc. So, acting “normal” or pretending as though everything is OK is difficult and exhausting.

Last night I lost yet another friend, this time to Leukemia. It had only been 5 days since I lost my Aunt Inez and the world lost Chester Bennington. I could accept my Aunt Inez dying because of her age and her health problems, but I was having a hard time with Chester’s decision to end his life and now I have to mourn the loss of a friend, except that I’m not really allowed to mourn. My parents still need me to take care of them part of the time and run errands for them. I still have appointments I have to go to and work that I need to complete. No one wants to be around someone who is depressed, angry, moody or crying, even if there is a reason for such behavior. I really just want to stay in bed all day and cry and sleep, but I can’t. So, I leave the house and try to be normal. I wipe tears away when people aren’t looking and blow my nose. Having allergies makes the nose blowing look normal and my sunglasses hide everything else if I’m outside. Inside, I can either close my eyes or hold them open without blinking and that will stop the tears. It will also make me very tired. Pretending to be OK is exhausting.

I am not OK. I lost three people in one week. Taking care of my elderly parents is hard and getting harder by the day. I have doubts about everything under the sun just about: my parenting, my children, my ability to do anything, my music… I could go on all day. I am sad. I am tired. Pretending to be OK is making me even more tired. I have pretended to be blind, fat (before I was actually anywhere near overweight), a computer, a robot, mentally retarded (Charlie from Flowers for Algernon), a Mad Hatter, a crazy person, a drunk person, etc., but pretending to be OK when you’re depressed or anxious is the most challenging and exhausting role and it’s a Broadway production that never, ever ends. For me, it has been running for over 20 years.

I am doubtful that too many people will actually even read this blog entry, if anyone. If you are reading it and you made it this far, thank you. I have only one more thing to say: pretending to be OK is difficult and exhausting, so please be more patient with your friends and family who are doing their best to do so.

Something I’ll Always Carry in My Depression Baggage

This past Thursday was a really shitty day for me. I started off the day having to run a whole bunch of errands, many of which were for my parents. While running the first errand, I found out that my Aunt Inez had passed away. While this is sad, it really did not come as a surprise. She is elderly and in poor health and was honestly just waiting for this day. I am glad that she is finally at peace.

While running the second errand, I found out that Chester Bennington had taken his own life. My previous blog entry was about how that impacted me. I will merely say here, in short, that it still impacts me three days later. I feel roughly the same level of sadness and loss as I did when Kurt Cobain took his own life. I still remember where I was when I found out, and I remember the kindness my physics teacher, Craig MacDougall showed when he realized this was the cause for my melancholy. Some people like to dismiss these sorts of things and invalidate the feelings that the fans of these artists have, but for some of these people, these artists are the only ones with whom they can relate. It is quite possible that their families, their friends, their spouses dismiss and invalidate their own depression, anxiety or demons. Stop doing this to your family and friends. They need to have something akin to the following to carry along with their baggage, whatever form that baggage may be.

A few months ago, I had an evening caretaker for my parents, whom I have been responsible for the care of for the past two years. I have a separate blog about what it is like to care for them. In short, they are a full-time, round-the-clock job. My mother used to frequently get up in the middle of the night and wander around, sometimes falling in the process, and I would have to get up and put her back to bed. She also likes to get up very early in the morning. As a result, I have not had a decent night’s rest in nearly two years and despite the fact that she is now confined to a hospital bed that she can’t get out of, I still have not yet re-learned how to sleep through the night. These facts are only partially relevant to the story I’m telling here though.

I told this caretaker that I would be laying down taking a nap while she was here. For some reason, she claims that she thought I said I was going to run some errands and then come back and sleep. When the time came for her to be off duty, she left and locked herself out, thinking all the while that I was not in the house and never once having checked. She called my brother from the car and told him that she was parked in front of the house, but she had locked herself out. How could she possibly help my parents from outside of the house? My brother called me and received no answer. He then called my right hand man, who also texted and called and received no answer. My right hand man in turn called my cousin, who also texted and called me and received no response. One of her texts made me crack up laughing. She said something to the effect of: “Are you dead? You better not be dead and didn’t tell me.” When I went to sleep, it was daytime, probably around 5 or 6 p.m. I generally do not do well at trying to go to sleep when it’s daytime because I’m sensitive to light. I was tired though; extremely tired. I woke up about 4 hours later or so and it was dark. I had no idea what time it was or how long I had been out, but when I looked at my phone, I saw that it had been blown up with several text messages and phone calls from my brother, his wife, my right hand man and my cousin. Everyone except my cousin, who has no means of transportation, had shown up, only to discover that I was passed out asleep in my bed. In retrospect, I think this situation is pretty funny and that the caretaker should learn to listen better. I also feel the genuine concern that my family and friends have for me. I am doubtful that my brother or his wife would miss me much if I went the way of Kurt Cobain or Chester Bennington, but I do know that I have a few cousins who would be grief stricken and downright pissed if I were dead and didn’t tell them. We all need to feel loved and appreciated. Those who suffer with depression and anxiety really need to feel loved and appreciated. They need to be reminded often that you love them and that you are glad they are around. You need to give them this extra piece of baggage to carry around with them. They are going to have moments of hopelessness and utter despair. Sometimes these feelings will be tied to what is going around them, which is often the case with me since I am stuck taking care of my parents most of the time. Sometimes these feelings are tied to the loss of someone they looked up to. Sometimes they just simply are not having a good day. When these days come, and they will come, hopefully they will have an anecdote like the one I just shared to carry around with them and remind them that they are loved.

Chester Bennington

I know everyone always says that this band, this person, this song, etc. helped me through some tough times, but that is very much true for Linkin Park and Chester Bennington. I first began listening to Linkin Park around the early 2000’s when my two oldest children were just little girls. I was in a bad marriage and frequently fought with depression, which my husband at the time merely ignored and invalidated. To some degree, he was the cause of it, though it was something I had struggled with since I was young. Linkin Park’s music really resonated with me and the struggles that Chester had with depression, family and marriage problems were very relatable. He was my second favorite member of Linkin Park. I am really sad to see him lose his battle with depression and the demons he faced. Music has lost yet another talented artist and gentle spirit. Rest in peace Chester.

One Hundred Years - No Progress

“The St. Louis Republic for July 3 (1917) ran the headline ‘100 Slain, 500 Hurt in Race Riot. 6 E. St. Louis Blocks Burned by Mob to Wipe Out Blacks.’ The police and National Guard, rather than attempt to stop the violence, joined in.” (Miles, Barry. Call Me Burroughs; A Life).

“The violence plaguing Chicago made international headlines after a violent and bloody fourth of July Weekend – 102 Shot, 14 Fatally, in Chicago over July 4 Holiday Weekend…” (ABC 7 News, July 5, 2017).

One hundred years later, not much has changed. We have elected a racist, male chauvinistic, morally reprehensible authoritarian to office who has made a mockery of the presidency and legitimized an already present culture of racism and intolerance, bringing it once again out from under the umbrella of political correctness to the forefront of our consciousness. The oppression and abuse of women and persons of color is not only acceptable all over the United States, it is often even encouraged or ignored by officials who are supposed to be protecting the rights and safety people in America. Every day, I hear stories of hate crimes against women, persons of color and members of the LGBTQ community; and these are just the instances we hear of. Many women do not report crimes committed against them, particularly sexual assault, because rather than being treated like the victim that they are, they are treated like the criminal. They are interrogated at length and made to feel as though they are at fault for what happened to them. The rights of a man always take priority over the rights of women. In states such as North Carolina, the man has the right to finish even if the woman has revoked consent. The general climate of the world is that what a man wants is far more important than what a woman wants. Persons of color and members of the LGBTQ community face the same fate. They often do not report crimes against them because they are afraid of deportation (in the case of immigrants), afraid of being treated as the criminal instead of as the victim, afraid of additional abuse at the hands of the authorities who are supposed to be protecting them, etc. The Trump Administration is bit by bit stripping women, non-white persons, LGBTQ persons and the poor of their rights, their dignity and their access to healthcare. Local authorities, particularly the police, are often guilty of joining in on this social injustice. Daily, I hear of people, usually black, who are abused and even killed by police officers. Many of these victims of police brutality are unarmed. A recent example that really sticks out in my head is a young Asian man who was just one day away from graduating from high school and was killed by police officers who thought he had a knife. He had a pen.

One hundred years later, following this excerpt chronicled in this biography of William S. Burroughs, we are still dealing with this stupidity. We have not progressed. If anything, we have regressed.

Just nine years before I was born, it was illegal for my parents to be together. Technically, it would have been illegal for me to be born. Nine years! Forty years later, I still see rampant racism and stupidity. I see people cross streets or move farther away from people because they’re not white. I am frequently seen out in public with a Mexican and though he and I are the same race (except that I’m half white and look white), we get stared at a lot. People will even turn around in their seats just to stare at us. Occasionally people even say stupid shit to us. For example, someone I used to work with said to me “you should stick with your own race and age group”. One hundred years after the beginning quote, this is still a thing. When are we going to, as a nation, grow up?