During the last few years there is a special someone who had the ability to make me smile no matter how much my depression and anxiety were affecting me.  That person was my little, four year old niece.  She was the one person in my family that I felt had no expectations of me, and just accepted me as I was, good days and bad.  Most of the time she thinks I am pretty funny, but likes to tell me all the time how silly I am.

I was very fortunate when my niece was born.  After her mother had to go back to work, my brother and sister-in-law trusted me enough to babysit her during the day sometimes.  It has always meant so much to me that I had the opportunity to play such an important role in her life when she was so young.  I will always appreciate my brother and sister-in-law for allowing me to do that. 

My niece calls me MeMe.  My family calls me Missy and when she was younger she could not say it properly and it came out MeMe.  I thought it was a great aunt name and asked if they would let her keep calling me that so I could be the aunt with the cool nickname. 

Over time my brother and sister-in-law moved to another house a bit further away and my health started to decline a bit so I could not babysit anymore.  Plus with the depression and anxiety, I could not really get out like I used to.  However, I had opportunities to let her come to my house and spend the  night, or hang out with her a bit.  I loved those times.  She was so much fun to play with.

One time I was bringing her to my house, she saw some cows in the cow pastures around us.  There were a few brown cows.  I told her the brown cows made chocolate milk, and the black and white cows made white milk.  To this day she still talks about brown cows making chocolate milk.  She has such a great sense of humor for a four year old. A few of months ago we had gathered at my grandmothers to cook out and spend some time together.  My mother had bought some bubble guns.  With no prompting from me, she would fill her gun up with the bubble mixture and go shoot her father with the bubbles and then she would always tell him “MeMe told me to do it!” 

She was a life saver when my family had gathered at a restaurant.  Between the depression and my anxiety, being in a crowded restaurant was a nightmare.  I could hardly stand it.  I had brought my niece some toys and a package of punch balls and some bubbles, she really wanted to play with them.  So every so often she would ask me to take her outside on the front porch of the restaurant. Once we got out there, she and I would punch each other with the punch balls (she always declared herself the winner), or we would blow bubbles, or we would just sit there and talk about Disney Princesses.  She and I both like Cinderella the best.  The thing is she accepted me on whatever level I could give her at the moment and if I was quiet for a bit she would play by herself, she made no stressing demands on me.  I know a few adults who could learn a thing or two from her. 

A couple of weeks ago we went to my brother and sister-in-law’s house to hang out, and have pizza.  My niece was just great!  When she saw us pull into the driveway she came running out to welcome us.  She showed me a few of her wrestling moves, and in a discussion that involved me trying to convince her that she should share a stuffed animal with me I learned that she could not because “they were all her favorites”  By the time the pizza arrived she was dressed in a Tinkerbell outfit, carrying two wands, trying to impress me with the “power” that was in her wands.  Again, there was a sharing discussion between me and her about the wands and she let me know that I could not handle the “power” her wands contained and then promptly turned me into a pepperoni pizza.  Then told me that because I was a pizza I could not talk. 

When I was released from her pepperoni pizza spell, I let her know about my mind powers, which I could use to turn her into a frog.  Then I turned her into a frog.  We went back and forth turning each other into frogs and pizza over and over again.  Her wand was waving all over the place, my mind was working very hard with all those frog spells.  We had a lot of fun! 

Once again, that cute little kid brought me out of my own depression and anxiety better than anyone else could do and had me concentrating on other things and had me laughing.  One of the things I am going to do when I have a bad day or days again, is remember “My mind power can turn you into a frog” and think about the good times I have had with my niece.  What a little blessing she is!

When I was looking for topic ideas for today’s blog, I came across a song, sung by Blaine Larsen, that was about suicide.  This part of the song really caught my attention.

“How do you get that lonely, how do you hurt that bad
To make you make the call, that havin’ no life at all
Is better than the life that you had
How do you feel so empty, you want to let it all go
How do you get that lonely… and nobody know”

Those lyrics get right to the heart of what my family was thinking and asking when I tried to commit suicide.  They get right to the heart of what I think as well.  How did I get that lonely and full of pain and no one really knew?  Were they not paying attention?  Or was I that good at hiding things?  Or did they just pretend not to see?  Or did it just never cross anyone’s mind that I would attempt suicide?

My personal opinion is that there is not just one answer.  I kept all my pain and suffering inside of me.  I did not know how to ask for help.  I did not know how to tell anyone that I was obsessed with my own death and was so full of pain.  I always felt that if someone had just asked me I would have told them everything.  I even tried to get people to ask me.  When I would go to a new doctor and I would fill out those forms they give new patients, there is always the question “Do you feel depressed?”  I always answered yes, and not one doctor ever asked me about it.  I think that they do not really read those papers, even though you are told how important they are. 

In some ways it was so very easy for me to hide what was going on.  Since I have other illnesses, it was easy to blame the fact that I had spent all day in bed on not feeling well.  Or to use the excuse of, “I do not feel good” to stay home when the rest of the family went somewhere.  It even came in handy when I had no choice but to go somewhere, I could use it to leave early.  The more I used my illnesses to isolate myself, the more sad and lonely I became. 

My husband knew better than anyone that something was really wrong with me.  He saw me everyday, he saw my in-ability to cope with normal, everyday tasks.  He saw me start crying for no reason, or saw my face after I had been crying for no reason.  He withstood the brunt of my anger for months.  I think though, it just never crossed his mind that I would try suicide.  I remember him telling me, after I tried, before I told anyone the truth about what happened, that the nurses in ICU told him that I had tried to commit suicide.  He said that he did not believe them and told them I was “too intelligent” to do something like that.  

Why didn’t I tell the love of my life that I was hurting so much?  Why didn’t I go to him and ask him to help me?  Even now I am still not really sure.  Embarrassment, maybe? Not wanting to worry him?  Lacking the ability to explain it to him, since I did not really understand it either?  I think that is close to why I did not, but not a complete answer yet.

Why didn’t I go to another family member and let them know what was going on?  That is a painful question and one that is fairly easy to answer.  I did not trust them.  Those lonely, sad, depressed feelings and thoughts are some heavy stuff.  I just did not feel  I could share those with people whose motives and/or actions I could not completely trust.  To be quite frank about it, I believe the poor state of my relationship with some of those other family members contributed to my feelings of loneliness, sadness and abandonment.

As I became more and more focused on suicide being my only choice, I realized I could not tell anyone anything.  If I did, they would have found a way to stop me.  By that point I was determined in my course of action.  I did not want anyone to get in the way of that. 

I was surrounded by people who loved me and I still felt an unbearable loneliness, and sadness.  I carried it alone, for months, years even.  I get sad now when I think about how heavy that burden was and how I felt like I could not share it with anyone. 

Things are different now.  My husband is very good about asking how I am doing.  How I am feeling.  I learned that there are some family members that I can trust with anything.  I learned that there are family members I can trust with nothing.  Now I know who I can go to when the thoughts in my head start pointing toward a dark direction.  I know now that I do not have to carry such a heavy burden alone every again.