Vulnerability alert: for the next week or two, I will be modeling the #5for5BrainDump method through writing blog posts in 5 minutes, stream of consciousness style. Sometimes these posts will be…. more transparent and real than I have been recently. I’m so grateful you are here, reading, even after I warned you.
Now, from this moment until I tell you the timer had stopped – was straight from my heart to my fingers. I had no idea what was coming next. Ready? Walk with me as together we focus on —
I was supposed to be writing something else, but I needed to write this instead so here I am and there you are and together, my prayer is we will find something.
I’ve been preparing for Katherine’s arrival: my precious daughter who I sometimes think of as the “normal” one from the Munster’s or The Addams Family. I feel embarrassed at times because she is so good and so not depressed and so… well, I always worry she will be disappointed in me.
This hasn’t been an easy year by any stretch of the imagination and my depression has been getting deeper and wider and it has been a near constant struggle to gain control. I don’t remember her seeing me “this bad” though because I am pretty practiced at hiding my real feelings, many don’t know how bad it has been.
It is only in the recent past I have reached out for help at all, only in the recent past I’ve told people “Hey, I’m struggling.”
This is after last Summer, when I told someone I thought was a dear friend how bad off I was and that person didn’t speak to me again for – I lost track of how long.
See, that’s the thing.
Those of us who struggle with depression and other invisible diseases often times struggle and try so hard to not let it show that this particular action: putting a cloaking device over how we really are takes every ounce of effort we have so other stuff gets neglected.
I can’t remember how many times in the past year I’ve fallen asleep in a collapsed heap at the end of the day with the same clothes on, for example.
The only reason I can even write about this is because I’m starting to feel better. At least I think that’s it. I’ve woken up oddly optimistic for the last few days. I’m going to call it “feeling better” because it feels better even proclaiming it so yes, I’ll proclaim it.
My timer just went off saying my five minutes are up, so I will close with this:
There have been several tragic celebrity suicides lately.
There has been unrest in the country where I live because of people hating one another rather than loving one another.
There have been people forgetting the most important thing we can do is look beyond one another’s circumstances and look into one another’s hearts.
You may have someone who seems perfectly fine and then you hear they actually weren’t just fine.
Take time to have a conversation with someone today that goes beyond the surface. Take an extra moment to hold eye contact. Take an extra moment to remind them you are with them and that they are never a bother to you, ever.
To call you or write you or text you whenever the urge strikes. I know in my darkest days I have sat with my phone in my hand thinking there was not a soul out there who would take my call.
Be the one who will take your friend’s call and show up and help and smile and do what your friend or loved one asks for you to do. If they say they don’t know, give them multiple choices. “Do you want to go out for coffee or a walk or get a pedicure with me?”
We may not all be aiming for “normal” or at least “almost normal” whatever that means. I can guarantee each and all of us is aiming for better than feeling consistently not well.
Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!
To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.
Check out the links below and above in the top margin to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.
