I will be……

You watch me, standing on the edge of the abyss

not hearing, not listening to the words that you cry

I only hear the voices within me,

criticizing, mocking drawing blades across my soul

making me weep.

I lose myself in blackness and despair

I see no one in the mirror,

Just the shadow of myself.

And I weep, and I rage, but no one does keep.

With fragile thoughts and moonbeam whispers

I claw my way forward to the light

I will not allow the beast to claim me

I will not allow it to beat me out of spite.

Your embrace is welcomed and needed

but I feel your fright; to understand the devil I face,

One must be willing to see beyond the norm

and to writhe with the pain of history past

To subjugate yourself to loathing and misunderstanding.

But I stand before you, proud as I can be

I will not bow, I will not cower.

I will not beat this illness, for its claws are deep within

but I will learn to live with it, and maybe;

soothe it to sleep.

©Jay-lyn Doerksen

March 14/17

Happiness is a step away

Well.  Me. My depression. Feeling, knowing when I have broken through the wall and I am beginning to be better. To be more alive, more in touch, more present. I can pin point the day that it happened. Last Tuesday, March 7th. I woke up and I felt good. Not weepy. Not sad. I am not saying that I bounced out of bed, but I was awake before the alarm went off. In the last little while that has not been the case. I have pushed my sleeping time to the max so I can escape.

But here I was, raring to go. And I went. In a storm. I dare say I may have cursed us when I had happened to mention that we had had three months of bad 10% Tuesdays I hoped that wouldn’t happen this time. And what happened? A blizzard blew in. At times we couldn’t even see the highway from the store. I was trying to send people home, calling people off, and yet I was not stressed. I was not feeling pressured, I felt…..dare I say energized.

Wednesday is an early day for me. I have to be at work for 5:30. Drop T off at the sitter’s for 5:15 a.m. and in I go. But I woke up before the alarm.  I showered. I put on a little bit of make up. And to make it even better, I had made T’s lunch the night before so all I had to do was pack his bag. So who is totally rocking it? I get to work and it goes really really well. Except that the alarm kept going off. Like every 2 minutes. There I am counting the tills and all I can hear is beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep, beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep, but after the 15th time of turning the alarm off I was done. It could squeal as much as it wanted I was ignoring it.

Deep breaths I can do this. And I do. I must have shut that stupid alarm off another approximately 20x Wednesday morning but it was okay. I got my shit done and the day progressed beautifully. But now, now we have the dreaded dental appointment in the afternoon. T requires 4 fillings. So I made appointments one when he was with me and one with his dad. Fair is fair. He mind you has been counting down, excited to get fillings. I don’t understand but hey…..he is 8. We are on our way having an awesome conversation which is sooooooo gonna be another blog and we get there and have to wait.

As an aside I should tell you we brought his stuffie Cayman with us and his blanket from home. They had netflix on the t.v. and his chair massaged him as they did the work. He was a champion. Did not flinch did not cry he was amazing. And they talked him through it. Mom on the other hand did cry.

My week ended with the bf coming out on Friday. And we had several interesting conversations. Like how he knew I was feeling better because my house had been tidied and I had picked up. I was much easier to get along with, not quite so negative. And my eyes blinked very rapidly. My eyes only blink very rapidly when I am trying to process the fact that someone made a comment to me or about me that I cannot even fathom they would say to me. But he did.

We made up. But my story continues. Not to bore you but I am still doing okay. I am feeling good about myself about my writing about my friends and family. I am no longer a raging lunatic. A small sized shrew of a lunatic, but not raging…..laughing at that. My boss and my co-workers have been amazing. My family and friends have stood there waiting for me to come back from the brink. And I am sure they are breathing a desperate sigh of relief. My desire to write and create is returning. I think I will be good. I will never again believe that I will not got through another depressive episode but next time it might be caught quicker and mitigate the damage that I may do.

I am happy. I am satisfied. I am creative. And most of all I am alive.