In the few short months that I have been in recovery for my major depression and an anxiety disorder, I can see a big difference in my life already. I know that I still have a long way to go, but the process does not seem as daunting as it used to be. At least for the moment.
In the beginning of my recovery process, I used to tell my counselor that I wanted to go back to the person I used to be before the depression. I had that “old me” on a pedestal. It represented everything that I had lost because of the depression, asthma, diabetes and the anxiety. I was convinced that if I got that “old me” back, then I would be healed and my recovery process would be over.
I began to look back at who I used to be. I was a mom who was running children all over the place for hours every afternoon. The mom and wife who always made sure that supper was ready for the family, even with all that running around. I was the mom and wife who cleaned and maintained the whole house, and was always available for the family to come to and talk with. I was the mom who home schooled a child. I was the mom and wife who……..Do you see a theme here? I was everything that the family needed, but I was never anything for myself.
Even then I was unhappy. I would never have acknowledged that I was unhappy and dis-satisfied, but I was. All, I had been looking at was the fact that I could accomplish so much in a day, not the reality of who I was. Who I really was, was woman who had no voice, and no identity of her own. I was not appreciated for who I was, but for the things I could do for others. It is not my family’s fault that they could not appreciate me for who I was. There was no way they could since so much of who I was , revolved around and was wrapped up in doing things for them.
Then suddenly, like a toy who has wound down, I was stuck. Stuck in a life where I could do nothing for anyone, including myself. When I finally, got “unstuck”, the world had moved on, and had passed me by. It was hard to think of my child as a teenager, when I still thought of her as that little girl from three years before. In many ways, I still did not have an identity to call my own. So I grasped onto that “old me” thinking that was my goal.
Once I started feeling better, and could semi-function I started trying to fit into that old mold of me. It did not last for long, my medication quit working and I became overwhelmed with depression very quickly. Looking back again, I started to see a pattern. The pattern I saw was that I always seemed to wrap part or all of me up in what I could do for other people. Most of the time my family, but at times it was other people too. At some point, I would always become frustrated and unhappy, and it always led to a depressed state. Or if for whatever reason the relationships with the other people ended, and I could no longer get at least part of my identity from them, it would leave me at a loss and also sad and depressed.
I began to think about the things I could see about myself when I was looking back. I realized that I was not the “strong” person that I had thought I was. I was someone whose whole world and identity were based on what I could do for others and not based on my own skills and accomplishments. Looking back has made me rethink that goal of being the person I was before the depression got so bad that I “checked” out.
