careless whispers

I've said it before: it's more than depression; or, if it is "just depression," then it's pretty freaking bad.

July 9th of this year I wanted to die. I thought about it all day. My folks talked me into a boat ride and all I did was think about how nice it would be to drown.

I was on an antidepressant called Wellbutrin, to which I was having a bad reaction, but that was only part of the problem. I'm sick. I'm sick like I-could-die sick. If I manage not to go down the suicide road, I still have to contend with the fat, which will probably make me contend with the diabetes and the heart disease. The Demon Depression makes it very, very hard for me to make, and continue making, changes for the better.

This is serious, and even though it's "all in my head," it's not really all in my head.

And it's out. It's not a secret anymore. The family knows. I have tried to be forthcoming, and I am not ashamed. I am not. Mental Illness is real. I know it's hard to believe--you can't see it, not even on an x-ray, not even if you cut me open and went looking for it. I didn't understand until I experienced it myself.

(Hmm. Incredibly enough, I have digressed. What a shocker!)

Anyway. Family knows. But what if I had chosen not to tell my family? What if I had chosen to keep it to myself, or to discuss it with my friends, even just my friends on myspace? I didn't even go into the meat of it there. I didn't talk about wanting to die, much less wanting to die so much that I almost made it happen! And yet...a family member read it and freaked and called my mom.

What if my mom didn't know? What if I didn't want my mom to know? What if I didn't want to scare her? What if it wasn't that bad?

I mean, she DID know, and I wanted her to know, and she'd already been scared, and it WAS "that bad," but still. Whose place was it to tell her?

It was mine. It was only mine.

I know this family member meant well. I know that, and it touched me. You see, almost all of the time, I don't feel very lovable. I don't feel worthwhile as a person. That's part of my illness. I am surprised when people like me. I am blown away when they like me enough to badger me until I communicate. See, when you have what I have, the phone weighs a million pounds and e-mail is a blank square with a cursor that will not move. Communication is terribly difficult, if not impossible. I finally admitted to myself this summer that I am not strong enough to take care of anybody but myself, and that grip is tenuous. When it's at its worst, I can't deal with the slightest stress. A very popular blogger, who has what I have, has said that she defines this condition as "the complete inability to deal with stress."

When it's at its worst, I am worthless. When it's at its worst, I can't get out of bed. The light is so bright it's like sitting on the surface of the sun. I physically ache. I can't handle anything. I can't stop crying...and if I do manage to stop crying, there's still that goddamn rock on my chest.

My point? I had one. Let me find it.

Though this family member meant well, and it touched me, said family member was wrong to call my mother. It wasn't any of this person's business. I am a grown woman. And how, I ask: HOW could I have been living with my mother and been THAT sick and my mother not notice? How could she not have known?

Then this family member called other family members and upset those family members with more information that it was not his/her place to share and honestly didn't make a bit of difference anyway...except the gossip does make a difference. It hurts--it didn't hurt me, but it hurt some other people who are close to me and made them angry.

Thank you, family member in question, for caring about me, first of all. I do appreciate it. It is problematic, though, when information is not gotten from the source. It gets twisted up. You know that game? Where you whisper something in somebody's ear and that person whispers it to somebody else and so on, and the last person says out loud what the first person supposedly whispered, and it's something entirely different?

It creates strife. It creates bad feelings. It creates things like what happened last year with my dad and my uncle. It destroys relationships.

Though I thank you for caring, even the whispers can hurt. Please, let's be adults. We are all grown up now, all of the grandchildren are well over 21 and all of them but me and Mindy have children of their own. If you have a question or a concern, go to the source. Don't spread it around. Your information may be wrong, or it may not be anybody else's business. At any rate, our family doesn't need any more rips in it.

That is all.