Have you ever felt as if you are standing in a room full of people and it's like you are invisible and insignificant? That's me lately ...

I feel like I am in that room, the one full of happy people. They are chatting, smiling, dancing, dining. Me? I am in the middle, uplifted on a stage. And I'm crying, I'm screaming. But no one looks at me, not one person. No one comes to console me. What's the worst part? I feel as if I know them all personally, and the fact the they either don't notice or outright ignore my pain only multiplies it.

I have so many things going on in my head right now, so many thoughts that I feel guilty about but can't escape. Standing number ONE in my mind is the feeling that I nothing but a doormat. I feel like everyone I know walks all over me and while they do, they rub their feet really good to make sure I get all the sh*t. Pessimistic, I know.

Last week, Ryan was sick. And I loved him, and I babied him. I cooked him food he wouldn't eat, even though he'd asked for it. I brought him drinks that he drank too fast and then threw up. I brought him medicine to bring down the fever and to ease his aches and pains. In the meantime, I cleaned and I cleaned and I cleaned because of Chris being due to stop here on Wednesday. And I spent the entire week struggling to stifle my two-year-old so that Ryan could get his rest.

This week? My turn to be sick. But here's my problem ... I can't lay down and wait for it to go away. I CAN"T CALL IN!

I am still the one being asked, "what's for dinner?" I am still the one cleaning the kitchen after I cook. I'm still the one chasing Joey. But now ... I'm back to being the peacemaker too, and I'm sick of that just by itself without the other issues.

Don't get me wrong, though. I love being mommy, I love being the homemaker. I'm good at it. When I can do it ...

But I just feel this resentment because last week when Ry was sick, all he had to do was puke and sleep. He didn't even have to clean it up ... I did that too. This week, Ryan nudges me awake to get Joey at seven in the morning when she gets up; then he sleeps peacefully while I cough and gag, and all the while, I'm trying to get Joey her breakfast without barfing everywhere. And I can barely hold my eyes open ...

I don't mean to imply that I took care of Ryan last week just because of the payback ... I didn't say it, but I knew there wouldn't be one. But shouldn't there be one? I just feel really overused and under appreciated I keep wanting to run away and baby myself ...

Why not? No one else will.

Some of you who read this may or may not know how I feel about my mom... It's kind of a day to day relationship ... We just have to see what happens. She is holding onto a lot of guilt for not being the mom she should have been when I was growing up. And me? I am still trying let go of a lot of different grudges ... big ones.

It's a come and go relationship we are both trying to mend it, and I still can't honestly say to my mother, "I love you, too." We both know we have to try harder and faster, because her time keeps getting shorter and shorter.

She has been sick since the early nineties, she's on nine or ten different meds every day (some she take twice), and she keep coming up with new ways to be sick. She's finally got a doctor that is trying to figure things out though, so that's progress at least.

She's been throwing up for years and we didn't know why ... we though that it was acid reflux. She is low iron, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart disease, vascular disease, and some other stuff that I don't know much about. She's also a heavy smoker and an all-day coffee drinker.

We've recently found out why she's throwing everything up ... She has a hiatal hernia. What that means is that when her esophagus (sp?) joins her stomach, the sphincter there doesn't close properly. So it allows acid and other stuff into her esophagus and then she barfs everywhere. The doctor says that it is so bad that her stomach is trying to turn itself inside out into her esophagus, and she stands a chance of one day throwing it up. Hmmm. they want to operate and fix it, but she is a very bad candidate for surgery because she gets blood clots a lot. Plus, the surgery isn't guaranteed. They could have to do it again if it comes undone. She told them no.

On the one hand ... Fine it's probably safer that way ... She could very likely die on the operating table, or from complications from the surgery. But then again, if she doesn't do it, she will most certainly die anyway, and likely from this. So I am having that sit on me lately as well.

The blessing in it? We are trying hard to repair our torn relationship, and it is okay enough now that we see each other for a full day every two weeks or so when I take my little one to visit her "ga-ba." It is working ... but slowly. Still, the idea that we are not totally estranged after what we've put each other through is a miracle in itself. So everyone, remember to find the blessing and the lesson in all the hard times ...

Yesterday I sat here typing in the morning, and I felt a little sorry for myself. Ryan was sick all last week and he was out of work, feeling lousy. Now? I feel lousy, and what makes it worse is that things seem to keep falling on me ... Like I'm in a hailstorm.

While I typed yesterday, my cousin (Dana, the one I've been such close friends with since we were kids, I'm only five months older than her) was at work, and planning to work on her son's birthday party when she got home. When she got home, her plans had been drastically changed. A few months ago her little sister Ashley had a little girl and since then she's had severe depression. She's always been a little down, but since the baby it's been bad.

A few weeks ago she ended up living with Dana because she is just breaking down mentally. So yesterday, she had her second suicide attempt ... It seems perking up isn't going to happen for her ... When Dana got home from work she found her sister passing out on the floor ... she had taken 27 sleeping pills. The only good news is that we didn't think she did it this time with the actual plan to DIE. She must've done it for attention, and with my history on the subject my first thought was, "Well if you want to die, don't try to do it when someone is due home in a hour."

It just makes sense to me that if you are going to take pills to get that forever kind of sleep, you'd do it when your roommate left the house for the day, that way you'd be good and gone by the time they got back to find you. Maybe this is a cruel outlook, but I really think that it was more a cry for attention. When you attempt suicide knowing that someone will save you ... it doesn't seem like you've really gotten it right, does it?

I can't help but feel sorry for her and all the things that she must be feeling. She has had a hard life to begin with, harder than it should have been, and then it just got harder as she got older. She used to write, she was a great poet, and it was her release. But then she met guys and drugs, she got into a hard lifestyle and when she met Jerry (her bf and the baby's dad) she tried to clean up and get on track. She's off drugs now, I think, but when she got pregnant she just wasn't ready, and having postpartum doesn't help any.

Anyone out there who is willing to spend a few extra moments in prayer ... please pray for her. She really needs to see GOD, she needs his hands upon her heart ... So thanks for listening, and for those of you out there who feel like Ashley does ...

Don't do this. Don't try to kill yourself, it will not solve problems. It will be you just copping out. Don't give up, that isn't GOD's plan for you. He gave you this life for some purpose. I can tell you right now what that purpose is ... Glorify Him, and His creation. Be happy for what he has given you, and try hard to not see your problems as problems, but as lessons. GOD gives us all lessons to learn that will better prepare us for whatever he has planned for us. Remember that we can only see right now ... GOD alone can see the whole picture. So stick around even when you are so down and out. Don't try to do it your way, so don't try to stop the pain and sadness by cutting off the heartbeat.

Find a way to make the heart beat more actively. Get out of the house and see the sunshine that GOD sent to you. Admire the flowers that He grew for you. Enjoy the day that He made for you. Learn the lessons that He gave to you. Love the blessings in your life, even when they are few. And those are the times to count them - count your blessings when they are few ... it will remind you that they are there. And when you need a friend ... PM me ... I will help you pray, or just give you someone to talk to. That has been what saved me ... finding the one I could always talk to, the one who would always listen. Find your one, and let them help you ... Please.

Lately I have been putting a lot of thought into how I can increase my faith in GOD, how I can make it stronger. It seems that so often, we only go to GOD when he is all that we have left to go to. When everyone is busy, or can't help us, THEN we go to GOD. So I have been struggling to find a way to make GOD first in my life - but not because he should be.

I don't want Ryan to bring me flowers because he feels obligated, I want him to do it because he thinks of me when he sees beautiful blooms that have been sent to please us from GOD. Likewise, I don't think that GOD would like it the same if I make him first just because I know that I should. So I need a greater faith, one in which GOD is first because he just belongs there. I have put a lot of deep thought into this, and last night I had a very strange dream in which I HAD the faith that I wanted ... but I wonder ... was it because I was in trouble?

I remember in my dream that I was calling out to GOD in a moment of fear and need. I told Him that though I had tried on my own to fix the scary situation that I found me in, I knew I needed Him. And He came to me and answered in such a great way that I thought, "That was GOD." That's how I want to always think. I want GOD ingrained in my mind and heart, so that I don't call on others first. I want to call on GOD first, I want to not forget to talk to Him ... to need him.

I am currently reading a blog called, "Listen to me Write," by a woman who calls herself "Notmeg." She is writing at the moment about her dad (not her father) and his suicide - the events leading up to it, and the realizations that took years to occur in the surviving family members ...

We have chatted a little about the subject because it touches me. Here is my latest reply to her ...

You are right about mental health. The mind is truly a twisted place!

When I had my daughter, I didn't want to be pregnant, because my marriage was falling apart, and I was afraid of being on my own for the first time, and with a baby who would need me to keep it together. I told my family, "I always wanted the Gilmore relationship with my daughter, but somehow, there was a guy in mine." I felt like such a failure ... I couldn't even keep my family together, and the guilt nearly ate me alive when I had to finally pack up and take my daughter with me when I finally left my ex-husband. I didn't want her growing up in his lies.

It led to a strong case of post-partum depression, and I can remember times when I actually held a knife or razor to my wrists, crying, knowing that my cousin had a key to my place and that she would find me and rescue my daughter. The only reason I couldn't do it then WAS my daughter.

I knew she'd not remember me, so that wasn't it, I knew she wouldn't find me so that wasn't it. But I left my husband to protect her, and I know that if I die, the authorities will give her to her father, whether or not he's ever been her dad. So I couldn't do it.

I remember other times when I had bought large amounts of over-the-counter stuff, planning to mix them and down them. I knew my cousin came up early every morning so that our kids could play and we could chat. But in the end, I couldn't do that to my cousin. She's had a hard life, and I didn't want her to have to be the one to find me. Plus I was afraid that the one day I actually did it, she wouldn't come up that day, and my Joey would lay in her crib, screaming with hunger, and in a diaper full of her own filth.

In the end, my tendency to protect the ones that I love has saved my life ... several times. I couldn't leave them, no matter how bad I felt. Strange? I always thought that if I had been that bad, I shouldn't have cared, I should've felt that ANYONE could care for them better than me. But although that IS what I thought when I was at my lowest, I kept myself going because I couldn't imagine my daughter lying in her crib alone all day.

What happened with your dad, with his plan for the plumber to find him and the way it didn't work out ... that's why I never did it. Your dad just didn't want to suffer in his own head anymore, but I know he never wanted you to suffer in yours. I suffered in mine, and I couldn't bring myself to do what I wanted, because I didn't want my daughter to waste away from hunger and thirst .. alone because my last plan wouldn't have worked out any better than all the others. My negative attitude at the time saved my life, and it saved my daughter's. I can say now that I am here to make sure she never wonders why her mother would abandon her in such a permanent way.

Thanks for speaking out ... People need to hear it!

 

Just on the chance of someone out there reading this who is contemplating their own demise ...

STOP!!!!!! THAT IS NOT THE ANSWER!!!!!!!!!

 

Suicide will not solve problems. You think that it will, because you won't be there to have to deal with it. But think of your families, your friends ... Do you want their last memory of you to be how badly you hurt them? Do you want to make them think that they weren't good enough to help you?

Seek REAL help ... Find therapy somewhere, but not at the needle's end, not at the bottom of the bottle, not in the medicine cabinet, not with the razor or bullet! Even if you are right in thinking that the world doesn't love you ... I assure you that SOMEONE DOES!

Don't abandon THEM!