I logged on to check my mail this morning and in the center of my home page was a headline announcing at home treatments for depression. "I’ve been a bit depressed lately" I thought to myself..."I should read that."
Step one was to
"set realistic goals and don’t take on too much responsibility"
Hmmm, I suppose I could whittle laundry down to once a week. And one healthy dinner is better than none so I could bypass all that shopping for fresh produce, all the shaking and sniffing of fresh fruit, and go straight for the Easy Mac.... that should help. A weight was beginning to lift off my shoulders and I read on.
"Avoid drinking alcohol or using illegal drugs during depressed episodes" Wow! I sure am glad that they qualified that because I don’t think I could "do it all" if it weren’t for the illegal drugs. Huh....I wonder if draining all the money from our savings, dodging those nasty collection phone calls from Tony "Bananas" Casella , and all those late sleepless nights in the alley behind the Thrifty buying and using are contributing to my depression?! Nahhhh.
"Get adequate sleep" If you have problems sleeping:
*keep your bedroom dark and free of noise....well it is usually dark until the kids come in and flip the lights on to tell us the score of the baseball game they saw on tv...then it’s dark again until they remember the homework they left at school and how we needed to e-mail their teacher so they wouldn’t get in trouble...then it’s usually dark again for a while until the cat comes in followed by the dog and I have to turn the light on to find the cat and throw them both into the hall, at which time the "mood" is usually gone so then the noise thing is no longer an issue.
"Let your family and friends help you" I have tried this before. I remember the time I asked the kids to take their piles of freshly washed and folded clothes up to their rooms allowing me a leisurely two extra minutes to think about dinner. This is good I thought, getting the kids to help me out. After what seemed like an eternity, my two minutes were up and I headed out to the kitchen to find the kids clothes on the floor at the foot of the stairs covered in cat hair as they hurled the cat from half way up the staircase into the pile, because after all, you wouldn’t want to hurt the cat.
Then there was that time my Mom offered to take the kids for the day to give me a break...allowing me time to re-wash and re-fold the kids clothes and shop for the one healthy dinner I was going to make that week. She made elaborate plans and the kids were so excited and couldn’t stop talking about it. Then without warning the phone rang and before I knew it the kids were in tears...it sounded like "Waaaaaaaa sniff sniff Gramma waaaa and she sniff waaaaaaaa
can’t waaaaaaaa waaaaaaaaaaa so we sniff sniff aren’t WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
which then greatly interfered with my schedule as I had to make several extra trips to the alley behind the Thrifty just to get through the weekend.
"Postpone major life decisions such as divorce" I pondered this one for a while and began to wonder if the whole marriage thing is what causes the depression in the first place. No marriage no husband, no kids, no nagging concerns about their health, no freshly washed clothes covered in cat hair, no hysterical crying episodes, no need for illegal drugs to cope( eliminating the gambling problem altogether) resulting in a perfectly dark and noise free bedroom allowing for a wonderful night’s sleep.
"Be patient and kind to yourself" I guess after 15 years I should quit waiting around for that! Be patient and kind to yourself cuz no one else is gonna be.
"Try to share your feelings, it’s better than being secretive" I don’t know about that...I guess that all depends....I mean I think my feelings about the guy that’s doing the roof down the street are probably better off kept to myself...especially on the sunny hot afternoons. And I am sure that my feelings about "Perky Blonde Mom" at school are not something that would benefit anyone to share....this one is definitely debatable.
Well...I gotta go.....there are a few things I need from the Thrifty.
