I don't know how long it's been since my last blog post, and since I rarely update here I suppose this could be considered more of an erratic journal than a blog. Every now and then something begs to be written, and this is one of those days.
I believe that I've posted before about my depression. It is, unfortunately, still with me, despite my being on medication and in therapy. I've been receiving treatment for 4 months from my local CMH agency, and while my symptoms have improved somewhat, I'm dealing with a severe and chronic condition. Most of the time it is quite disabling.
What I have is known as "double depression." It is dysthymia, which is a chronic, low mood which is experienced for 2 years or more. (In my case, many, many years.) I also have episodes of major depressive disorder, which is shorter-lived, but with more extreme symptoms. In addition, I also have a fairly major social phobia. Despite the fact that I am in weekly therapy, and I eat Effexor for breakfast, my symptoms continue.
One of the distinguishing traits of people with DD is excessive guilt and hopelessness. These symptoms are at higher levels than people who suffer MDD or dysthymia alone. I guess it's not hard to understand-- if you live each day in a low mood state, with little energy, ambition, and feelings of guilt and sadness, alternating with major depressive breakdowns, it would start to feel pretty hopeless. And believe me, it does.
But one thing I've noticed, especially in the past year or so, is how aware it's made me of my own condition, and of people around me. I wish I could say that in my darkest days I've seen the good in the world shine through, giving me a renewed hope that I'll be okay. That's not the case at all.
What I see are people living their own lives with little, to any, regard of the suffering of others. I have been treated rudely and cruelly in my efforts to sign up for disability. I've been overlooked by my dhs office when they were my only hope at putting food on the table. I have read comments by people I know that blame people receiving food stamps and cash assistance for their own problems. And believe me, nobody beats me up over my ineptitude/inability to function in the world more than I. But how did it get this way?
Although I struggle financially, compared to the rest of the world I know I'm doing pretty well. I have clean water coming from my faucets, healthy food to eat, technology to enjoy, a roof over my head. My children are healthy and I have pets that I love. Despite my mental illness that prevents me from enjoying most things, I'm pretty lucky.
I still give stuff to the local thrift shop instead of selling it, because our local churches use their profits to buy food for people whose food stamps don't stretch as far as mine. I give as much as I can, which sadly isn't much, because I am currently living in poverty.
I see all around me people who are better off, but don't seem to feel better-off-enough. People drive $40,000 cars (the price which I sold my HOUSE for). People buy $100k plus houses. iphones, mall clothes, designer handbags. When I see these things, I don't feel jealousy, or envy. I feel sad.
I think about a mother somewhere, in Africa, or India, or even America, with a hungry child. A mother who walks miles every day to get clean water, who carries it back for her babies. There are mamas out there that watch their children die from hunger. Right now, that very thought has filled my eyes with tears. I hope she doesn't know that somewhere in the world, a woman bought a handbag which cost the same amount of money as saving her child's life. That would be unbearable. That IS unbearable.
Maybe it's my disease, my feelings of hopelessness and guilt, that make me focus on things like this. But that doesn't matter. The fact is, we carry on with our lives as if people aren't suffering out there, and we tell ourselves that we deserve the nice things we buy ourselves because we worked hard, and we earned it.
This is not true. The people who walk miles for water, who live in shacks, who die of treatable diseases, and who lose their kids to hunger deserve it more than we do.
It is my mission that for the remainder of my life I will not buy for myself what I do not need if there is something less expensive that will suffice. I will give everything I can to those in need, and I will never accept that "this is just the way the world is." Those that do are only lying to themselves. They are undeserving of whatever blessings they have received in life if they do not know its cost.
That is all I have to say for today.
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