Category: 2025

What is Depression?

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I hate depression so much. Its presence in my life has become part of me. The eyes through which I see life. Looking back, I can remember my first episode of depression after high school. I got no help.  My parents encouraged me to pull myself up by my bootstraps, and I did that. I got on with the life they prescribed for me. Until I’m in sunny California, going to college, getting over dating a baseball player, and I had another episode. This time, my friend called my parents. A medical doctor diagnosed Anemia.

It gets harder to recover as time goes on, and though a dark cloud followed me around from time to time throughout my 20s, I didn’t really suffer again until my thirties. Postpartum, maybe, though no one talked about it. I’ve written a lot about those years elsewhere in this blog. The drinking didn’t help. I’d say that was a symptom of the illness, an attempt to make it all disappear. Not my life but my feelings about it.

Suffice it to say, I have been trying to recover from Depression for most of the rest of my adult life.

I’ve learned with this illness, that circumstances don’t matter, and though medication keeps me “stable” (not wanting to kill myself), it does not make me happy. I flatline in an average place, with few highs and fewer low, lows.

And now my life is beautiful. My family is stable. I do not have to work. Isn’t the American dream to retire and be financially comfortable? I need nothing. I don’t even have migraines anymore the whole reason for retiring. I think I should be overjoyed, pursuing my passions, reading endlessly, traveling, and volunteering. And yet I have never been so low.

I can’t raise my arms up to carry laundry, so I find myself sitting a lot. Though I can turn off my brain and wander through a thrift store, I don’t need anything. I buy books. I can’t read more than a few pages. I’ve started reading half a dozen in the last day or two. I want knowledge. Crave it. Love it. But it just sits on my skin, I can’t absorb it. I help my kids learn to drive and talk through difficult decisions, yet later, I can’t move for hours at a time. I take too much melatonin to sleep and wake up exhausted. I am frozen in time, and my life is wasting away. It feels catastrophic, and it is, sometimes.

“Depression is a disorder of mood, so mysteriously painful and elusive in the way it becomes known to self-to the mediating intellect-as to verge close to being beyond description.” William Styron, Darkness Visible:A Memoir of Madness.

The danger of depression is ignoring it. But I don’t want to make a fuss.

I’ve Just Had Therapy

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I’ve just had therapy, or as I like to say, got my head shrunk, and let me say I’m not fixed. Ha ha, no. I’ve been stumbling my way through years and years of sessions, and though I work very hard to not be a drunk, or depressed, or enraged, or disappointed with everything, I have concluded that something is broken inside me.

My therapist, bless her, is cool, edgy, cerebral, and life-affirming, and clearly admires and likes me. That’s crazy considering she knows me better than anyone in the world. I’d say her starting basis is how amazing I am, and a hope that I would believe it. I sometimes ask myself, do I pretend to be someone I’m not with her? No way. I am my most comfortable, true, articulate self.

So, WTF is wrong with me? I know why I’m messed up.  My blog is a testament to my broken childhood. My broken heart. I can’t figure out how to heal.

After Covid, I started watching a local Black led church online. I was drawn to attend in person. So eventually we did after about a year. What I wasn’t expecting was my own tears. I found week after week, at some point in the service, this person who couldn’t cry started weeping, and couldn’t stop. I tried. The more I tried, the more i became a snot-nosed, blubbering fool. Embarrassed, I frequently ran out to the lobby because I wanted to be in control.

And I am afraid. I can say that now. I don’t understand, and I’m afraid. Eventually, we left the church. Lots of reasons. We’re not Pentecostal, but for me, it was mainly fear.

I don’t cry. Tom cries at movies and shows, writing songs, normal, sad stuff, but I’m usually unmoved. I feel dead inside when I see someone crying. The last movie I remember crying at was The Killing Fields. I’ve always been broken in there, and antidepressants make it worse; like pouring cement in the desert.

It really is a conundrum.

I Hope Humanity Pays

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When my baby sister was murdered by her husband, my brother-in-law, the earth shook underneath me. I have not been able to stand upright since.

When I see people who have migrated from Palestine, I see a familiar grief, I recognize their loss, I recognize injustice. I don’t equate them, only see a similarity in our ashes.

I have only lost one beautiful sister, and I can’t go on. In Gaza and the West Bank, many have lost generations of family, homesteads, and the future.

People don’t return when they are murdered and we are expected to move on.

I hope not. I hope humanity pays. I hope the punishment is great.

Things I’ve Learned About Myself Along the Way

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More and more, probably because of the lull that I had in writing, hardly anyone is reading what I write.

Ironically I stopped writing around 2015 at a time when life was falling apart — our business partner imbezzled, we were bankrupt, our family was in shambles, my mom was diagnosed with dementia and I was her medical POA, and I went back to work, in the company, to help Tom.

My kids were of the age where it mattered what I said about them. I didn’t want to be the writer that regretted telling my kids stories. I couldn’t yet write about the business. Stuff with my mom was complicated. And I was busy!

I gave up my career at a local non-profit to (more closely) raise our kids. But truthfully, mainly, we were just trying to save money on daycare with three kids in diapers and one in middle school. The American dream. Although my “staying at home” was a good choice that I’m glad we made because I can see now how that time was important both to my kids and to the person that I was becoming. I was a workaholic before I quit. And long after. Those were hard years.

It was hard to be at home. This was before social media dominated people’s days.  Before cell phones were attached to us. From 2001 to 2015, I was lonely, hurting, a recovering alcoholic, a workaholic, depressed, anxious and bored.

As I have written copiously about I suffered from depression, and my husband suffered from my depression. This morning he was sharing a song with me, there’s many he’s written, about my depression from his perspective. It’s so sad. I’ve hurt him. The lyrics are beautiful. (See below.)

So I’m comfortable with a small readership, hello reader. I still don’t know what I’m writing for but I have learned a few things about myself in the last decade.

One, I have copious courage and it’s built into my DNA and I don’t fear the opinions of others. I’m more afraid of the idea of sounding stupid or ignorant than of expressing myself. I love expressing myself. Not verbally persay. I’ve gotten more introverted and anxious since retirement. I loathe it, and shall have to overcome it.

Two, I’m an empath. My heart breaks for people. Injustice hurts me, physically sometimes.  I haven’t learned how to control it or protect myself from it yet.

Three I’m generous. I’ll give away the shirt on my back if it would help. I’ll give my last $20 in my wallet. I’ll give generously to a charity as I’m moved. Not frivolously, but carefully. Not when asked directly, that makes me uncomfortable, but as people talk about the needs around me I give.

Four, I love learning. That’s saving me in my “migraine retirement.” Everything I read or listen to leads to further learning. A million more authors, topics, places, and histories. It’s endless. I have a disorganized library at home. I love saving used books the older the better.

Five, I see. The world. People. Hearts. Pain. God.  Bad. This trait has a through line to 1-4. Sometimes that includes my photography or travel. But lately, it has stalled as I’ve been working on my migraines and trying not to despair of ever traveling again. I have a dog, my husband’s dog, who is old but still with us, very anxious without one of us. Tom’s waiting till Comet dies to travel. So I read and collect travel novels. Would love suggestions for the first place to travel to. Or I may go alone.

Six, I can be wise.

I observe well, I am unafraid to express myself, I read, and I may have things to say. We’ll see.

P.S. About my accident, my face is healing with very little scarring. I’m fortunate there.  Now I’m afraid to go for a walk. It’s annoying.

IN THE MEANTIME BY TOM HANSON

In the mean time I am waiting
Through the winter without you
On this thin ice I am skating
Am I falling through?

In the desert I am crawling
In the mean time without you
Is this penance, is it stalling?
Don’t be cruel, don’t be cruel
I miss you

In the mean time I am fading
Won’t you tell me what to do?
A single word persuading
And I’ll wade through
A world of blue
And the waning moon

I know who you are
Yes I know what you are
And I know you won’t go too far
In the mean time

Now in your mean time I’ll be waiting
In these long days without you
Pray your rainclouds will be breaking
‘Cause I miss you
You know I do
I need you

My Face is Disfigured & Fascinating

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My chin is blue

And green. and black, and purple.

The pattern of my fall starting

Underneath a scab. I’m lucky not to have bitten

Straight through my bottom lip.

It’s hot to the touch today, the third day, and

Scabbed, the bruise is deep.

My bottom lip is swollen, I speak oddly

Still to my ear.

And I’m fascinated by it all

Because my life is boring.

In a moment of dull routine on Saturday and in the tediousness of health maintenance, I took a walk—and now I feel old. I tripped.

My face bears the marks of a swollen lip, and bruises of purple, surrounded by pale freckles. There is something almost otherworldly about my chin.

I was assaulted by the ground, with the cement hitting my face and my chin taking most of the damage. So much blood!

I am disfigured but healing more quickly than I imagined. No broken bones or chipped teeth, and my nose is fine, surprisingly. No concussion.

What stings the most at the moment is my pride. For toddlers walking is an achievement, a rite of passage that symbolizes growing independence and confidence.

I must not lose balance and independence. Life comes full circle.

I Took A Hard Fall– Quite Literally.

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Snow globe collection.
Before my fall, I gathered up some of the decorations on the kitchen table.
The forlorn tree.
I tripped.

I tripped while walking two nights ago. I have to go tomorrow for a tetanus booster.

Honestly, if there was ever a reminder of human frailty, it is a lack of balance. Today, I hit bottom. I’m sad. My face is mincemeat. My shoulder aches.  My chin aches. The inside of my lip is the worst. I’m lucky I didn’t bite it through. I’m lucky I didn’t break my nose. I’m fortunate I didn’t snap teeth.

I was bundled up for the freezing temperature, dearly regretting my follow-through on a resolve to get more exercise. I was watching a man walking backward down the street and marveling at his temerity. The next thing I recall is slow-motion falling. I felt my face hit the cement. Of course, I looked up to see if he noticed. Tried to stand. Felt dizzy and disorientated. Touched my chin.  That hurt. I turned around after picking up my headphones and glasses, which both flew off. My phone was in my hand. My other hand was covered in blood. I looked down and blood was dripping down my coat. Rivulets of purplish red on black. Drip, drip, drip. What the hell? Long story short, called home for a ride because of all the blood. Enough to draw a lot of attention, and I felt embarrassed.

Two days later, I look a mess. My chin is warm to the touch, scabbing, and it hurts. I am in pain all over, feel exhausted, and can’t take down the Christmas decorations. No one offers to help. This depresses me more than I’d like.

I feel like women all over the world wonder if Christmas would even happen if they didn’t exist. It certainly wouldn’t be celebrated the same way. I’m tired and want to let go of many things. I desire fewer possessions and no longer want the pressure of continuing traditions and family legacies. I’m ready for the next generation to decide what’s important to them and take a journey into my painting.

I regret ending on such a down note, but I’m hurting. Until next time.

A beautiful painting that evokes memories of home, whether from the past or the future.

A Hope Manifesto? Hope Or Love Without Faith, Is it Possible?

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Can we have hope without faith? I have always believed not.  Both are spiritual concepts to me, but love, which comes in that package has been romanticized and turned into a hallmarked,  trivial, and humanized idea, so why not hope?

When my faith lost its order, structure, and community, hope went with it. Where it went I don’t know. I feel like they are near, but I can’t grasp them. Perhaps they are still with me just languishing from a lack of being fed like monsters or a pet?

I’m really at a loss. It feels like there’s no room inside me for faith and hope when I’m so full of anger and despair, some resentments, lots of melancholy, and bits of sloth. Retirement does not suit me. My internal garden has run wild.

Rather, I should pray for intelligent holiness, as Flannery O’Connor penned. Does longing for count as prayer?

To describe my broken faith is difficult for me, raised as I was a missionary kid. I can tell you that no one has asked about my faith in all these years since Holly’s murder. I need to talk about it but everyone is silent.

Everyone has their presumptions.

My faith has always been a shaking, spindle-legged thing, mainly because I couldn’t sever the connection to my human father from God the father. To know me is to know that.

When Holly was murdered I shattered into pieces like her mirror punctured by the bullets that pierced through her. And when I pulled myself back together faith was missing in the puzzle of my soul. Just gone. Inaccessible.

I never made a conscious decision. It simply wasn’t there anymore. And faith and hope being so closely associated for me meant I couldn’t find hope.

Perhaps they are nearby waiting for me to turn on the light. For now all I have to hold on to is love.

But with only love, I despair of the world. With my love I see the suffering around us all, the devastated, the hungry, the freezing, the fearful, all this is loud for me. Love gives me empathy and compassion, but without faith and hope, I have no strength to help, and the world continues full of misery.

What can we make of this? The Christian understanding of hope is rooted in faith in God through Jesus Christ, representing a confident assurance that God is faithful. In contrast, Nietzsche believed that hope is detrimental, as it prolongs the “torments of man.” I can relate to this perspective—love and hope that lack faith can be painful.

I don’t know maybe these are just words, stupid and ignorant words.

Because for faith, I do believe one needs the Holy Spirit and I’ve never been able to conjure her. That’s the truth.

Hope is the worst. Unattached to faith and love.

Prompt: #theisolationjournals to write a manifesto of hope. What would you like to make come alive and why?

On Writing Now, On Childhood Then

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It would be comforting to write in a place with other writers. Much like the kitchen in the show Shrinking, where the Shrinks haphazardly gather with no purpose, no appointment. It’s unstructured time to top off coffee or fill a water bottle. Ask how are you and sit for a minute or stand.

In my life, the only persons who ask me how I am are my therapist every few weeks and my psychiatrist today. I haven’t seen her in 11 months!

My writing room is slightly musty from old books stacked on shelves and the floor. The light, dusty, dances with the fabric of my Palestinian flag hung on the window along with the shadows. The breeze flows in from four inches of open window, winter or summer. Fresh air on my skin makes me feel alive, and I have a problem of not feeling alive.  I also love to sweat in the humid air of a Wisconsin summer. But then I worry about my books.  I checked my hygrometer today worrying about the books being too dry in winter.

Candles have burned in this room. Incense too. The sweet tobacco scent, must books, trinkets from antiquing with my kids, artifacts from Papua New Guinea what little I have, feel familiar. It is home to me.

As a child, home wasn’t a place– it was my parents. Though I was born in Lae, at six, we moved to Ukarumpa, then out to the bush, to create a missionary home.  At seven my parents moved us to California. In 6th grade, we landed in Texas, not on a ranch with cowboys and horses, much to my extreme disappointment. Rather, a ranch-style house in the burbs of Duncanville. Middle and high school are spent there playing the bass clarinet and marching in the band.

They frequently traveled together my parents. Friends took care of us.  I remember the strange family friend, a man who wore a togalike skirt around our house, much to our dismay. Probably something cultural from Australia, but quite shocking for four girls living in Texas ranging in age from elementary to high school. We made sure to quickly inform our mom what a weirdo their friend was in our opinion.

For my mom, I think, traveling with my father was better for her than staying home with us four girls. He was on his best behavior at work. And dealing with Dad when he arrived back weeks later, tired, cranky, critical, and correcting every decision she made while he was gone, well, that was hard on all of us.

I don’t remember talking to my parents as a child. Only when forced. Those conversing were multiplied in difficulty because he wanted a certain respect and responses that suited him. Sometimes I just didn’t want to say what he wanted to hear. But typically, it was easier to concede whatever it was.

I think parents need to interrogate their kids only in the sense that we’re amazed by their brains and awestruck at their creativity. Tell me more! What are you thinking about these days? I love talking to my kids.

I always felt my parents were annoyed they had children. Especially when I displeased my father. That was a surefire way to get the wrong kind of attention; I started to do poorly in school; I was bored. But I read all the time and have a quizzical mind.  Just not in school. There I languished.

More to come.

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Do You Believe in Magic? I Do Not.

I don’t see magic in the world. I can, at times, acknowledge its beauty, which is where my photography comes from: a place of awe– at the faces of my children, a massive tree, long shadows, or speckled sunlight on anything.

I do believe, have always believed, in compromise. Since I was a young child I learned to be silent. I learned it was easier to have no opinion than to be punished for having one. Punishment may not be a beating (spanking is such an innocuous word don’t you think?) usually it was stern, mean words or public shame, or heart-stopping fear.

The only way to keep the peace was to kill your spirit before he had the chance. And peace was always my goal when facing my dad’s rage.

How can something be both expected–“He always raged” and unexpected? “We never knew when he would.”

This combination of predictability and unpredictability was nauseating for me.

And so I lived with a chronic stomachache and fear. It bore a hole right through me. Now I have a hernia. So I take medication to keep the bile from choking me still.

It’s so funny; he is still choking me though he’s been gone 20 years. Perhaps the migraines are his legacy too. Stress causes them, so says my neurologist. We’ve had our share of that.

Compromise lingers inside me; it formed me from a young child and made me who I am.

I find I am unopinionated in everyday life.

I feel unable to know me.

Disassociating helps. Then I’m less aware of the vast emptiness inside. Drinking helped in that way, but I’ve been sober now for so long that I rarely think of it as an option. It’s not but I toy with the idea in my mind. I’ve never slipped.

A person who doesn’t know themselves does not know anything.

That’s what 2025 will be for me. Discovery. My therapist of a decade will say “It’s about fucking time.” I’ve never actually heard her curse, but in my head, she does.

Sounds so silly but here goes:

What do I like? Who am I? What do I want with the rest of my days?

What other questions would you ask?

And Happy New Year! Am I happy? Not really. Why do we want everyone to be happy?

There’s another question: What would bring me happiness?

What questions are you asking yourself in the new year that could help me?