Super Mom
I read this on a journal I frequent a couple of months ago:
“She prides herself on being “supermom” because on a daily basis she cleans, cooks, takes care of her kid, runs errands for other peoples, makes it to doctor appointments, cleans some more. Welcome to everyones real life? This isn’t anything to write home about.“
That made me think about what I’ve done today. I cleaned off one shelf in my bedroom. I cleaned out the window box. I vacuumed a little on the hard wood floor. I cleaned the rat cage, and watered plants. I washed the dishes and fixed lunch. I tore down some spider webs and rearranged the house plants in the window box. Right now, I’m emotionally exhausted and I can’t fathom doing much more today. It’s called depression, and it’s more than “feeling sad”. Depression takes a lot out of a person. Depression makes even the simplest tasks, such as washing a load of dishes in the dishwasher, a major accomplishment. Depression makes you want to stay in bed all day and then make you feel worthless at the end of the day when you haven’t done anything. Depression makes you feel like you’re not a benefit to society, even when you bring home 90s on your midterms or ace a class.
After reading the complaints that journaler posted about that other woman, I’m wondering if the other woman doesn’t have depression herself or something similar.
Depression isn’t just something you get over. I’ve been on anti-depressants for nearly nine years, and I’m nowhere near getting well. I may be one of those people who has depression all her life.
Many people don’t get my depression. I am financially secure. I can accomplish almost anything. I have accomplished a lot in my twenty-nine years on this planet. I have over come many hardships. I have a good attitude. I smile most of the time. But deep down, I am sad and unmotivated, and people just don’t understand that. I can’t count how many times I’ve been told that if someone else just had my money, or life, or friends, they’d never be depressed. I really think that is not depression. The grass is just greener on my side of the fence because I shit on it so much. Shit makes grass grow green and healthy. After a while, anyway. Most people who have never been depressed do not understand anyone’s depression. I was actually told by an online acquaintance to “stop being so sad!” the day after my dog of ten years died. Again, the depression magnified my grief, but that person had never been close to an animal, so she never really understood how one could be so attached to a dog that they would cry over it when it died.
Depression isn’t simple. I can’t explain it all in a blog or journal. I live it. It affects me in ways I wish it didn’t. I’m sure there’s someone out there reading this, thinking that I am a pussy or that the few things I did get done today mean nothing because they have done far more. If that’s how you want to be, fine. Be that way. Have everyone hate you. :-} As for me? I’m just me. For now, I like me. So there.
Comments RSS Both comments and pings are currently closed.
4 Responses to “Super Mom”
Hostess
★
☆
comatised.com
on Google+
Countdown To Halloween!
NaNoWriMo
Click, Drop & Roll
Plurk
Visuals
depression comes into one’s life. u just have to learn to cope with it
yeah well all those years I was dieing inside nobody had a clue as long as I got everything done and everybody taken care of (except me) and kept a smile on my face. I couldn’t think of a real good, efficient, sure-fire way to commit suicide. Unless you’ve been through it you just don’t know and should therefore not judge and keep thy mouth shut. Some things that helped me: escaped from the critical, negative mate, kids growing up made life a little easier. Nutrition was important: get off the dam sugar and synthetic chemicals, take vitamin D and EFA’s and lots of minerals and green stuff. I guess what helped most of all was listening to hypnosis CDs for oh everything…self-esteem, depression,motivation,health on and on I listened to them for over a year almost every night guess I had to re-program some good stuff in and all the shit out. I really am not depressed now, but not exuberantly happy yet (someday?) cause I really don’t know what it feels like to be happy. Got to experience it more and get used to it! Take care.
You can’t expect other people to understand your depression. They never will.
Depression is a very private thing. I’ve been depressed for most of my life and I’ve never been able to adequately explain it to others. Over the years, I’ve learned to respect my depression. It’s mine and mine alone. It shapes my world, but it doesn’t have to limit it.
I don’t like meds. My Mom was a manic/depressive long before it became fashionable to call her condition bipolar. She took everything from Prozac to Thorazine, with a little electro shock therapy thrown in for good measure. The pills were what eventually killed her. Over time, the side effects of the meds overpower the benefits and you realize that you’ve been slowly poisoning yourself. By then it’s usually too late.
It seems so much easier to just accept the fact that not all of us are meant to be happy. None of us were never promised happiness at birth. In truth, you can function perfectly well without it. I think a lot of depression comes from wanting things you think that others around you seem to have in abundance. It’s hard to understand that these things you want so badly aren’t always what they seem. All those friends of yours who seem so much happier than you are…I’ve got news for you…a lot of them are faking it.
When you learn to just accept things as they are and stop wanting what seems so much better all around you, life suddenly gets a lot easier. I don’t think I’ll ever be exuberantly happy. It’s just not in my nature. Nobody’s going to stop me from chugging along though. Nobody should stop you either.
A lot of those “real life” errands are very time consuming. The fact that the mom the person described takes care of those things means that she is making everyone else’s lives easier. Maybe it’s “nothing to write home about,” but it’s sure important.