Leslie’s Walk For Suicide Prevention

One thing you may not know about me is that my high school years I battled depression to the point of just not wanting to be here anymore. I had a good life going I suppose. I mean I had friends that loved me and helped me more than my own mother did. Maybe that was the problem. We lived in a stressful home, my mother and father were always fighting and never home at night usually. My mother was working nights mostly and my father battles an alcohol problem and spent most nights either out in the garage unattached from what was going on in the house or away at a friends house until around the time my mother’d get home. It was hard being the oldest child trying to corral two kids who knew they didn’t have to listen to me and not only make sure they didn’t get hurt, but do their homework and chores at the same time. Of course they knew their word was golden against mine so no matter if I got my stuff done, I was still in trouble instead of them. That made for things between us to be strained and honestly we just started getting along and enjoying each other in the last 3 years. My mother found out Sophomore year I was cutting myself. Her only loose ended threat was “Do it again and I’m tell your Grandparents and they’ll make you talk to someone!” My paternal grandparents and maternal grandmother have always been my weakness and she proved right there in that moment who my parents were …. and she wasn’t it. Sadly all I wanted was something that was never going to happen … her to be my mother. I’m still struggling daily with my depression but I had some amazing friends pull me from my darkest part of my life and I am forever grateful to have them. I know not everyone is lucky to be able to be pulled out of this and succeed in taking their own lives. This is where my amazing  friend Leslie comes into the conversation.

Leslie is a wonderful mother of 2 beautiful children and in September she is walking in AFSP’S Central Iowa Walk to benefit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in honor of her grandfather. When I asked Leslie about her Grandfather and why she’s doing this her answer was beautiful and you can just tell how much her grandfather meant to her:

Grandpa was a very kind and loving person. His friends and family meant the world to him. Even after losing my grandma to cancer, he always had his handsome smile on his face, never showing inside he was in pain. No one will ever know what he was thinking the night he took his life, but my theory is, with him getting older, he didn’t want to burden anyone more than he felt already had. I wish he would have just talked to someone.

Please help me raise awareness about suicide so no one has to feel the pain my family has felt. Bring it out of the darkness, make it something we talk loudly about, not something that is hush hush

So if you can make any donation please visit Leslie’s team page and make a donation. As you know any amount will help to make sure no one feels they need to hide talking about such a disease. We need to shout it   from the top of our lungs, because otherwise how can someone suffering feel like talking to someone when it’s always been in the dark?

Sad Day … Sad Post

Warning this post talks about death, suicide, and may be a bit all over the place as I’m writing this as it flows from my thoughts.

I had a rough night of no sleep last night and didn’t get to bed until 5:45 this morning. I laid in bed for about an hour or two just not being able to sleep. It’s been come a battle I’ve realized I just can’t win on my own. I want to sleep I just can’t. Jeff doesn’t understand it and calls me a bad mother mostly because I get up with O despite what time I go to bed, he gets breakfast and tv on and then I lay in bed to catch a few more zzz’s. I don’t really fall into a full deep sleep and any noise sets me off. But I do feel guilty about it. O’s always been an independent child. He knows his limits and KNOWS what he can’t do or go, we don’t have anything dangerous in our ‘room’ and so I don’t know maybe I am a bad mother for this. I’m trying to change it and there are some nights I don’t go to sleep until nap time. It really upsets me and I don’t know. I’ve tried sleep meds but they don’t help and I hate having to take them anyhow.

So I didn’t get up until about 2:00 this afternoon since Jeff let me sleep in and I get on to find out about Karissa (Prissy Green) and I was literally shook to the core. I’ve heard of people I knew of online and such passing on in the internet world and such and as cold as it sounds didn’t feel that affected. Yet when I read this about Karissa I was just in shock. I was numb. I didn’t really know her all that well but she impacted my life in a way I didn’t realize until I found out she had committed suicide this weekend. I was in tears, and I know to some this sounds weird but it was just wow. I’m still in a state of shock and heartache for not only her family but the friends’ lives she touched.  I remember having quite a few fun conversations on twitter and I always loved reading her blog. I’m still in a state of …. wow.

No matter what anyone says, an online friend is just as important as a real life friend. Those online friends can turn into real life friends in a second by a phone call, or an event that you both are going to, or even a scheduled meet up of some kind. Also,  this really hit home for me. I’ve been battling depression since I was a freshman in high school. I had a hard time transitioning from middle school to high school and felt really out of place. I’ve never had a great self esteem and this didn’t help any. I don’t remember why I started it or when really, I know it was a few months in my freshman year that I starting to cut myself. It was like a release and the pain was gone, even if for just that moment. At home I was starting to realize how things were with my mother and me and it didn’t sit well. When I was 3 my sperm donor decided he didn’t want to play daddy and left without any words or anything. So I always felt like my mom was all I had even though I have an amazing (step)father that has shown me what a real man is like. So when I realized that for some reason my mother just doesn’t like me very much or want to spend as much time with me as she does my sister (half siblings) or let me do the things teenage girls should do (like hang out with friends) it really hurt. It felt like I didn’t have anyone left (yes the teen years is all about being over dramatic but in this case I wasn’t). I remember being in my room and breaking a small pocket mirror just to have something to use to let the pain out.

My friends at school tried to help, they’d yell at me and cry with me when they seen what I was doing. I knew it was wrong and it hurt them, that only made it worse. I felt like it didn’t matter if I was here or not, that no one would care and I’d be better off gone. I remember the one time my mother found out. She yelled at me and said that if I did it again she was taking me to a psychologist. That ended the conversation and nothing more was ever said or dealt with and I still cut. It wasn’t until Senior year when I started getting serious with Jeff and found out we were pregnant that I realized I hadn’t had the urge to cut in months, that I was able to process my emotions a bit better now that I had this new purpose. I fully believe in my heart that I was blessed with O at 19 because God knew I needed him. 5 years later and he’s my life, he’s all I got and if anything happened to him I don’t how I could seriously go on.

I’ve been diagnosed with Depression and Anxiety attacks. A lot f this deal with the stress that I face. Jeff and I are always on a rocky road. We’ve been that way since we got married. I cheated on him a month before our 1 yr anniversary and told him I wanted a divorce ON our anniversary. He’s been caught talking to other females online and on the phone. We’ve been married 5 years and separated 4 times. I’ve dealt with emotional abuse, even if he doesn’t want to see it that way it really is and I’m starting to realize that. I’ve realized over the last few months that staying here is slowly destroying me, and I don’t know if that makes him happy. It’s easy to say I need to leave, and I do. I know this but I can’t. I have no job, I need an internet connection to finish school and I have no driver’s license … yes I know I’m 24 years old with no license and a 5 year old son. I need to take a course again and I can’t do that until we get our tax return back. There are good days but then of course those days turn bad instantly. Jeff has mood swings worse than anyone I know.

But then I have them too. I know I have done my share of bad things and I’m no saint in this relationship either. Yet it’s like I told my dad, we both have done stuff the other can’t forgive us for. He says he forgives me for cheating but I know he hasn’t. I am not really asking him to but if he says he has forgiven me then he needs to follow through. He says he does that’s why he jokes about it but every time he’s pissed at me it’s thrown out in some racial slur. For me the one time I’ve needed him most in the 6 years we’ve been together was my grandma passing away. That week I was a mess emotionally, mentally, and physically. Yet all he could do was be a jerk about it and complain that it was morbid to be by her bedside ‘waiting’ for her to die. I know everyone has different views on death but at that moment it should’ve been about ME NEEDING HIM and not his views on death. I’ve blogged about this before so no need to rehash it.

So I guess what I’m saying is NO one’s life is perfect, we all have dark days and skeleton’s in our closets. Being depressed has taught me a GOOD trick of hiding that I’m feeling depressed so no one asks me questions, so I hope that family and friends do not beat themselves up over Karissa’s death because the signs may not have been as clear as we would like them to be. Also, love your family and make sure they know. Even if they roll their eyes and say you’re being clingy just do it. Don’t put off a family visit for 2 weeks, or a phone call for another day because we might not get another day or 2 weeks. Do these things now so if the time comes you don’t have the guilt of not doing those things eating you alive. Trust me that is not how you want things to be.

If you want to learn the skills that allow you to help others that are going through tough times, check out doctoral programs in counseling.

4 whole months…

Wow, it’s hard to believe that four months ago my entire world was flipped upside down. It’s even harder to believe that in 2 short months it’ll be the half way point to the first year. it’s so hard to even think about, yet at the same time it’s all i can think about. I thought I was doing so good with it, but it’s still so hard. It has taken me to a dark place where I haven’t been in a long long time….a place I’m trying so hard to dig my way out of but with everything else falling apart around me, it just isn’t happening.

I knew the day that she would leave this earth that my family as I knew it would fall apart, but i didn’t think it would be like this. I remember that night as if it was last night. I remember my mom and uncle getting in a HUGE blow out, trying to figure out what is going on and process everything else on top of the fact that my grandma would be passing that night. It was a tough spot for me to be in because they are all three important people in my life…yet I knew if i lost one, i’d slowly lose the other. Grandma was the glue that held it all in place. She was the one i could come to and she knew how to help me with what ever situation it was, or how to handle my mother.

I haven’t talked to my uncle since after the funeral. It’s sad because he lives not that far away but i just can’t bring myself to pick up the phone and call them….or anyone. I can’t call my grandma’s house because i know that if i do, i’ll have a mind slip and ask my grandpa to talk to my grandma. I know it’s not fair to my grandpa to isolate him like that but I try to call him but i get the number half dialed and spazz out and hang up…..same with my uncle.

then there is my mom……where to start with that, I’ve just given up on her and me. it’ll never be as close as my sister and hers relationship is and i just need to accept that and move on…..I’ll be a lot happier….it’s just getting that process going that is a pain.

Well i’m balling my eyes out and can’t see the screen and O’s asking if i’m alright so I guess it’s time to end this…blah.