Yesterday, while scavenging through the archives, I found some more 2002 journal entries; January, April and May 2002 to be exact oh and also the rest of the December 2003 entries. Now the only thing that I am missing are my January 2003 entries. I can’t fully explain how finding those entries was like finding a missing piece to a million piece jigsaw puzzle, the piece that made everything complete… like wow I can actually see the tiger in the field now.

I really need to continue to write more often, even if I don’t share all of my thoughts with you all. Some things shouldn’t be said online. I could make those entries private. And no I don’t mean private where my so-called buddies can access them with a login/password. I mean private where only I can see them. Writing is therapeutic for me and has helped me throughout my healing process. And maybe later down the road I can unleash those thoughts. After mornings like today, I am more compelled to do such. But not just yet…

We know that I’ve been dealing with postpartum depression for five months now. Long time right? One may even argue that the hormonal changes that I went through last year during my pregnancy even contributed to my postpartum depression. Hell, I was probably depressed before the birth of my twins. What is that, prepartum depression? *holds in laugh… Seriously, last year was the most difficult year of my life. 2004 brought out the best and the worst of me.

But something has been different about the last six weeks. Except on days like today, I feel that 2005 is going to be my year. This is going to be the year that Rashaan makes her turn around in life. Since a couple of my therapy sessions in January, I made a decision to handle my depression differently. My counselor gave me a sheet that allows me to log my “depression moments.” One column indicates my mood before the incident, the second column indicates my mood during, the third column is after and I think the other column allows me to describe what the incident was.

When I started logging these incidents I immediately noticed patterns. All of the logged events revolved around my relationship between JT and I. Sometimes the depression moments would occur because of something he said, other times because of something I said and occasionally because of no apparent reason. I often overeact to trivial things that JT say to me. Instead of taking a breath and letting what he says soak in my mind, I will jump to conclusions, get loud, snap on him then start crying. As I noticed these patterns, I realized that a change had to be made… a drastic change. I can’t let depression win this battle.

How did I make this change? Over the past six weeks, I have made an extreme effort to do something else instead of crying. Crying in the corner like a sick little puppy is not going to heal me and get rid of my depression. Instead of crying now, I will go write and… clean… *gasp…. did she say clean? Yes, I said clean… and we know that I hate to clean. I’m willing to wager that I’m probably the worst housekeeper on the block. Nothing to be proud of, but I’m willing to admit it. Anyways, now… after an argument, bad day at work, or those moments of depression that we can’t explain, I will go clean the kitchen, my bathroom, the guest bathroom, (I’m not touching JT’s bathroom), straighten the livingroom, etc. A lot of work still needs to be done throughout the house (right JT?… oh wait nevermind, you don’t have time to read this), but I feel that I have made a great START towards something BETTER. I’m getting two things accomplished at the same time. Healing me… my mind, body and soul and cleaning up our home.

I’ve never been the kind of person that seeks out recognition. I’m about as humble as they come… I even won the QUIET Leadership Award in High School. I don’t seek out glory and praise. I don’t seek a pat on the back. I just did what had to be done. But that was then…

And this is now. In the past six weeks, I’ve made this great leap in my life. I’ve made a leap towards something better and the one person that I need to acknowledge this is not. Let me rephrase the last part of the statement… I FEEL that this person is not acknowledging my great leap in life. I never needed that pat on the back until now.

So on days like today, as I reflect on what has happened up until today… and then I think about what happened this morning, deep down I know that things will get better ONE DAY, but right now… at this very moment in time, I feel myself sinking back into that darkness that scares me.

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