Happy Things

So, I am not always depressed. I do always have depression though. However, it is an unfortunate and painful facet of my overall personality, but it isn’t who I am. Very few people, especially friends know that I have suffered from depression and even less know about my attempted suicide, stint in the rehabilitation facility, or my daily mental struggles. My children come first and in turn their happiness is paramount. They are my greatest joy, my eldest’s birth when I was seventeen changed my path from self destruction to survival. Since then I have fluctuated from progression to regression, but always surmounting the obstacle of my suicidal tendencies. Their presence and the love of my husband strengthens my limited desire to live and seek happiness in other things, which alone would be so easily crushed by my despair.

Yes, my children and my husband are my happy things. The knowledge that my absence would adversely affect not just my young twins, but my grown children as well transports me right back to my attempted suicide and the faces of my parents as they stood over me while my stomach was being pumped. It showed me how selfish it would be for me to end it. This also began my years of private battle and determination to personally control my depression so it wouldn’t affect others. In the beginning, I definitely had some slip ups. Drugs, alcohol, fighting, etc. all became toxic but accessible tools to accomplish this. Then I became pregnant at sixteen and although the relationship, marriage, and eventual divorce was detrimental to my progress mentally, my daughter gave me my reason.