Beyond Blue: August 2009 Archives

On Mindful Monday, my readers and I practice the art of pausing, TRYING to be still, or considering, ever so briefly, the big picture. We're hoping this soul time will provide enough peace of mind to get us through the week!

I'm about to confess something that I know will be judged by some as negative or morbid or dangerously passive, but I think a few of you may understand it and might even find it refreshing to hear.

My two main goals in life are 1) to stay out of the psych ward and 2) to die of natural causes ... that is, to resist the desire as strong as it is at times, to end my life prematurely.

Those are my two goals.

They don't include anything about finding happiness, even as I'm intrigued by all the happiness studies. They don't involve my family (other than being the best mom and wife I can be) or my career (aside from not plagiarizing) or any of the things that define me here on the planet Earth. All I want is to get to the end ... naturally ... and be somewhat satisfied with how I did: that I tried to help others not truncate their lives, as well, so that they might live out some of God's plans for them.

I guess my goal for life is the same as the one for my triathlon that I ran two years ago: to simply finish.

I realize to many that sounds as though I've resigned.

Trust me, I haven't.

I work at my recovery as hard as anyone I know. From the moment my eyes open in the morning to the last second of consciousness before I fall asleep, I am working tirelessly toward sanity and serenity. With every breath I take, every job I do, and every meal I eat, I am trying to move my body and mind toward good health. And absolutely nothing I do in my day is done without regard to my recovery program. It is my number-one priority, as I know that if I don't invest all of my energy into it, I could very easily land in that place where I think that ending my life makes perfect sense.

Mark Twain once wrote that, "Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination."

I'm not sure I would go that far. I do have many happy moments. But I've given up on trying to buy happiness like it's a sundress on sale at a boutique. I think that some of the happiness exercises by experts like Gretchen Rubin can go a long way in helping us to maintain sanity. And maintaining sanity is really all I'm after. To stay out of the hospital and the coffin for as long as possible.

I'm not ashamed of this anymore. Because I know many people feel the same way. It has nothing to do with not trying hard enough or turning our backs on enlightenment. The mystics and saints ... the most spiritual minds in history ... came to the same conclusions. Perhaps St. Augustine said it best when he wrote, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

I'm restless.

* Click here to subscribe to Beyond Blue! And click here to follow Therese on Twitter. And click here to join Group Beyond Blue, a depression support group. Now stop clicking.

My friend, Fr. Joe, has an interesting perspective on heaven. On his post, "When it Comes to Heaven, it's Good to have an Insurance Policy," he writes:

I get the weirdest remarks from people sometimes.

A man said to me the other day, "You Catholics are morbid with your idea of death, and life after death." 

I asked him, "What's morbid about it?" 

He said, "Because you make it a fixed part of your life and your philosophy." 

"That's not morbid, it's a reality," I told him. "It's like a life insurance policy, which pays dividends when you're alive and pays in full when you die." 

"How do you figure that?" 

"It's simple. The thought of meeting God helps to keep us honest and caring and living an honorable life. When we die, we cash in on the insurance policy that's all paid up. So, when we meet God, we get a warm welcome home, with all our family and love ones. For people who choose not to believe that, what do they have? Nothing. If there's no God, then you're just an animal, maybe a classier species, but still nothing more, and when you die there's just an empty hole. To me that's morbid."

Read Fr. Joe's other posts by clicking here.

* Click here to subscribe to Beyond Blue! And click here to follow Therese on Twitter. And click here to join Group Beyond Blue, a depression support group. Now stop clicking.

I am very honored and flattered to be included in fellow blogger John McManamy's picks of top mental health blogs. He's chosen some of my favorites, as well, like Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project and Katherine Stone's Postpartum Progress. Thanks so much, John, for this smart compilation! But you forgot you!

To get to John's post, click here.

Here are a few of his picks.

* ADHD Roller Coaster. Gina Pera puts a song in my heart every time she butts heads with antipsychiatry nutjobs and the idiots who legitimize them. Sample this attack on Bill Maher and a panel of dunces:

"They're entitled to their own opinions, as they say, but not to their own facts. And when their deluded opinions target my friends with ADHD -- on the airwaves, in print, or on the Internet -- it leaves me at once angry and heartsick at their cold-hearted, mingy-minded meanness, never mind ignorance. ..."

Gina's focus is ADHD, and her blog is by far the best on the topic, but it is as a passionate advocate of reason that she truly shines. The opposite of antipsychiatry is not pro-psychiatry. It is pro-consumer, pro-patient, pro-family member. Pro-wisdom, pro-empathy, pro-science, pro-intelligence. No question about it - Gina is our leading spokesperson.

* About.com - Bipolar. Kimberly Read and Marcia Purse are the equivalent of those NFL quarterbacks who neither rack up statistics nor personal glory - all they do is win football games. Kimberly and Marcia were blogging way back before the neologism, blog, was coined. Unlike virtually every blogger out there, this veteran tag team neither draws attention to themselves nor dazzles readers with seductive prose - and that is their strength.

Instead, for more than a decade, in their own quietly reliable fashion, Kimberly and Marcia have served up reports of new research, new insights, and new developments - information that facilitates us in making intelligent choices without the distortions of overweening egos.

* Prozac Monologues. So far, I have singled out established authors, all of them very well-known in their respective fields. Willa Goodfellow's Prozac Monologues, which got started up in April, is my tribute to a new kid on the block. Don't be put off by her latest offering, which is highly complimentary of my work - that was how we met. Then I read her other pieces, and was floored by the homework she turned in.

Let's put it this way: Until I encountered Prozac Monologues, I thought I was the only one who had ever mentioned, anterior cingulate, in a blog. It can be very lonely blogging on topics ignored by everyone else, and suddenly I'm not alone. (The anterior cingulate modulates emotions in the brain.)

Promising bloggers have an unfortunate tendency to burn out, so I urge all of you to drop a comment on her blog site offering encouragement. To Willa: It's very easy for bloggers to get discouraged, particularly when dealing with depression. But clearly we need you. Stick with it ...

To get to John's post, click here.

* Click here to subscribe to Beyond Blue! And click here to follow Therese on Twitter. And click here to join Group Beyond Blue, a depression support group. Now stop clicking.

Beyond Blue veterans will recognize this video ... one of my first attempts at talking to my computer as if it could hear me, in which I read some of the letters in my self-esteem file. For newbies, here is the effect that such a file can make in your life.

To view my YouTube video, click here.

* Click here to subscribe to Beyond Blue! And click here to follow Therese on Twitter. And click here to join Group Beyond Blue, a depression support group. Now stop clicking.