Mental Health Day (a cross-post)

I am starting to think that what I really need is a mental health blog.  Or to combine all my little blogs into one big blog so I can stop repeating myself from different angles.  Who knows.

A friend of mine committed suicide this weekend.  We weren’t close lately, hadn’t been for a couple years, but once upon a time I lent her all my books about depression and gave her my number and talked to her about my experiences with therapy and brain chemicals that just don’t work right . Through her, I lent her husband the book “How to Help When Someone You Love is Depressed” that I’d gotten for my husband ages ago.  She still had a few books that hadn’t made it back to me.  I guess they never will.  These aren’t the thoughts one generally shares, I know, but somehow they are the ones my brain is holding onto right now, instead of blubbering insanely about how sad it all is and how hard I tried to help her and how I failed to keep up and how I regret it and how I am never ever the person I mean to be when it comes to other people and how I should have kept up with her when she went silent.  Because once I get started with them, the tears start, they don’t stop.

THIS YEAR.  I CAN’T TAKE THIS YEAR.

One of my good friends from junior high died this last year: breast cancer.  My ex-boyfriend from high school was accused of sexual misconduct with a student and I can’t quite bring myself to admit that I really do think it’s something he did, because then I’d have to admit out loud to my family and other people how awful he was (in college I had girls email me out of nowhere and ask me to join their therapy group because ….) and they don’t need to hear that.  Then there was my mom and the hospital last summer. And another ancient friend’s husband died unexpectedly from pneumonia.  Another one’s brother died and I somehow totally missed it and I feel awful about it, but don’t know what to say now.  Another friends son had a terrible car accident months ago and is only now walking.  And then the husband of a girl here in town that was one of those friends-of-a-friend that you always hear about that you feel like you know even though you’ve actually never met them?  The one you’ve heard dozens of stories about?  Yeah.  Her husband died trying to save someone after a car accident. And now this.

I told my spouse that I needed a Self Care day.  He was busy, of course, because we are NEVER not busy these days, and said the wrong thing and that made me cry more.  He apologized and said the right things later but I ….well…  I am broken at this point.  And thanking God or the Universe or Whatever I’m Believing In This Week that I asked the doctor for those anti-depressant, anti-anxiety meds way back in October.  Because I don’t know what or who to believe in these days, but SCIENCE seems like a good thing.  Quantifiable, you know.  I don’t, I just don’t know.  Nobody is available on a Saturday to talk, so I’ve been making due with a bunch of movies (The Decoy Bride I need to own and Wild Targets I’m going to rewatch and A Good Woman I’m in the middle of, but it’s kind of bland so far despite good reviews – I’m thinking I just don’t like Scarlet Johanssen) and a bottle of wine and a box of chicken quesadillas.

Thank you for listening and thinking about me.  I know we don’t see/know each other in person, but you mean the world to me, you really do. *big big hugs*