Digging the Depression Hole

I have anniversaries of bad dates. Everybody has them. Some people's are a lot less tragic than mine, some are so much worse. I have three dates that stick out in my mind as bad dates. Today is one of those dates. March 31 is to me a bad date. It's the date four years ago that my life changed forever ! I wouldn't really know it until six months later, but March 31 would be a date that I would look back on often and wonder if I could have done things differently - if I could have somehow changed my destiny.

I started digging the depression hole early this morning when I saw the date pop up on the Today show. My mind instantly started thinking about where my life would be if I hadn't acted the way I did four years ago. I started thinking about how we would have built the house in the country by now. We would have had the money to buy our daughter a car. I would have been off of work on Fridays to stay home with my kids. We would have been planning our summer vacation. On and on and on. It just wouldn't stop. I was digging deeper and deeper and deeper.

I spent the morning digging. Not stopping. Shovel in hand and dirt flying everywhere. I wanted to wallow in my misery. I wanted to feel bad and I wanted people to ask me why I was having such a bad day. I wanted to just stay in bed, under the covers, feeling sorry for myself. That is until a member of a forum asked a question about Xanax and I sent her a private message basically telling her about my prescription drug addiction and how there are other ways to deal with depression and anxiety without popping pills. I referred her to http://www.paxilprogress.org/ and tried to reassure her that anxiety is a normal function and that pills might be a temporary buffer but they are surely not the cure. By giving her advice, I started to feel better.

I started to see that it didn't matter that we couldn't take a family vacation this year (we will take one some other time). It didn't matter that we didn't get to build our dream house in the country (I probably would have hated the country anyway). It didn't matter that we couldn't buy our daughter a new car (she needs to buy her own car in order to appreciate it anyway). What matters is that I made it through. I made it out alive. I made it out stronger !!! Derek made it out with me. We made it out together and we are hear to tell our story and to help others. I picked up my shovel and I tossed that dirt back in that damn hole ! No more digging for me today ! No sir ! Not today !