Depressed and Overwhelmed

I’ve had a really bad couple of weeks but I think I’m on the upswing now. Depression was sucking the life out of me and everything, I mean everything, was overwhelming me.

Monday was my first class of a 4 week series on diabetes education. I kept tearing up through the entire class. When the instructor asked each of us for one word to describe how we felt about our diabetes, I teared up and said, “Overwhelming”. I tried not to let her see the tears in my eyes and turned my head downward as quickly as I said it.

Tuesday I stopped by Lucy’s house for our weekly meeting. We started these weekly meetings to discuss our business but most of them time we discuss much more. I LOVE Lucy! She is my rock! I have to admit, I was not pleasant on Tuesday and I verbally vomited all over her. I can’t even remember what we started talking about but I started to get overwhelmed and angry. During our conversations she asked me if I felt I got my identity from blogging to which I completely disagreed. Then at some point she said it felt as if I was angry at God to which I vehemently disagreed. I know where my identity lies and I can say with complete honesty that I am not angry with God for any reason.

Then I realized where I was placing my identity the past couple of weeks and broke down. I am overwhelmed with medical issues, constant pain, and the biggest one…finances. I feel like such a failure because I am almost 50 years old and I still don’t have a grasp on my finances. I make just enough to get by but at this point in life I feel like I shouldn’t just be getting by. I want to be self supporting without ever having to borrow money. I want to buy things for my family and friends and even myself, without having to worry about what bill I won’t get to pay if I do. I don’t want to keep robbing Peter to pay Paul, and then having to rob Paul the next time to pay Peter. I don’t see an end in sight so the only thing I can do is to do what I can. So with everything else overwhelming me, I bully myself and beat myself up over this one issue in my life. I have let it temporarily define who I feel I am. A failure. A disappointment. Stupid and careless. On and on.

Lucy said a friend of ours has had me on her heart and would like to meet with me. She is a mighty prayer warrior and woman of God. She is very insightful and counsels with women who are struggling in whatever area of their life. I refused. I cried almost the entire time I was with Lucy.

Lucy’s son showed up and I decided it was time to go. He said he had blocked me in and needed to move his car and Lucy said, “That’s ok she has a couple of minutes.” I said, “No I don’t!” because I knew what was coming. I asked her son to hurry up and move his car as Lucy kept asking me to just give her one minute with her in the room. I kept saying no and turned to her son and said, “N. Move your f’ing car!”

I gave in and followed Lucy to the room for her “one minute” and I was as pissed as I could be. I can’t even tell you why. When she closed the door she said, “I just want to pray with you” to which I about bit her head off with, “I KNOW!” Poor, sweet, kind, loving Lucy.

Yep, total backslide into my codependency. I don’t want you to know how I’m feeling. I don’t want you to see me cry. I don’t want people to think I’m struggling…in any area. I don’t want you to pray for me. I don’t want to tell you my problems. Yep, I got this. I can handle it all on my own.

Wednesday my daughter and I took my granddaughter to a park and met with her kindergarten teacher. He is also a photographer and agreed to take some pictures of my granddaughter for a book cover I am trying to create. The pictures are amazing. During the session, I was starting to get unreasonably hot and nauseous. When we were all done and it was time to walk back to the cars, I was feeling so hot, dizzy and nauseous that I had to sit down. I felt like I was going to pass out. This is the 3rd time, in the past 7 months, that this king of episode has happened. Mr. H. went and got his car and drove around the park to pick us up and drive us back to ours. I was a bit embarrassed. I called my doctor’s office the next day to let him know what happened…again. More blood work on Monday. Ugh.

Well, now we get to Friday. I had my first appointment with the nurse practitioner at the endocrinologist’s office. The results from this visit were positive and I left feeling pretty good. For now, I no longer have to take insulin as she is changing up my diabetes meds. She also noticed that I was diagnosed with an enlarged heart back in 2006 that no one ever discussed with me. I told her that I saw the diagnosis on my records a few months ago and sent a message to my doctor but he never responded. I don’t like my doctor at all. She is going to look into it further for me and see if they can send me to the cardiologist. I have been to the ER several times over the years for chest pains and palpitations only to be told that I’m fine. Can you say…frustrating!? And lastly, the dreaded card handed to me with the number for Behavioral Health. UGH.

Anyway, that was my week, other than spending the rest of it in my room, hiding from everyone and pretty much life itself. I’m feeling better today and hope I’m on the upswing. We’ll see.