I’ve been having a rough couple of weeks. It’s unusual for me to feel depressed at this time of the year. Most of the time the depression sets in around fall into winter. It’s usually brought on by the lack of sun light, less activity, and my dislike of cold weather and the deadness of winter. I think the medical term is seasonal affective disorder. I was always able to work my way through it by spending time outside in the light, keeping active, or just plastering a smile on my face and toughing it out.

I became clinically depressed in my mid thirties. My teenage daughter was rebelling, my then husband was pressuring me to send her to her father. I had sold my housekeeping business to one of my employees. I was working with my then husband growing our home improvement business and he was starting to treat me poorly. X stopped paying me, ridiculed me in front of our employees, and dictated what I was and wasn’t allowed to do at home (like pick up the mail from the box). My house was like a war zone.

I quit working with X and got a job at the local health food store, but X still insisted I do bookkeeping for his business. I would cry uncontrollably for no good reason. When I went to the family doctor for a yearly checkup and did my crying trick, when he asked how I was, he put me on Prozac and told me the depression would pass. For several years I took those pills. I called them happy pills but when I really think about it I wasn’t happy, I just didn’t give a shit. "You want to get the mail, Asshole, go right ahead, I don’t give a shit. Don’t like what I made for dinner? Then pick something up on your way home, or drag your ass into the kitchen and cook, because I don’t give a shit."

I had my little health food store job, which I loved. I was handling life just fine. I was even advancing at work. Then X tells me he really needs me to work for him. I’m not falling for it. I’m content where I am. He works on me for a year. He apologizes for being an ashore. He tells me I can dictate the terms of my return, write my own paycheck. His back can’t take it. The doctor wants to do another surgery, spinal fusion, if he doesn’t slow down.

What kind of a person turns their back on someone they profess to love? We aren’t going to look at whose back was turned first. Which is what I would have seen if I wasn’t feeling guilty because of the manipulation. Nothing like a little distance and hindsight. So I quit the job I loved, and went back to work for the idiot. What the hell, I had my pills. I could face anything and he was actually nice to me again.

I don’t remember how long after that I got cocky and picked up the mail. Now why would I be getting a credit card statement on credit cards that I haven’t been using for years? I threw them in an envelope and buried them in the back of my underwear drawer. Ten thousand dollars!!! That’s why.

They didn’t make a pill that masked the anger I unleashed on him. He couldn’t even manipulate his way out of it. He started trying to turn it into something I did but that prescription bottle I threw at his head shut him up. Then I made the rules. I canceled and cut up the credit cards. I made him promise that he would "fix" the mess he created or my next stop was to a lawyer. I made him work hard, and I watched, because I didn’t think I would ever trust him again. A couple more years past and he was keeping his end of the bargain, so I let my guard down.

Then we came upon our favorite restaurant for sale while on vacation. We went home and X’s doctor was really pushing for more back surgery or a change of careers. We kicked the restaurant idea around, called the Realtor, dropped a package off at the accountant’s office and figured the worst that could happen was they would say no. Well the accountant said go, the bank said yes, and so did our family investors.

It sounds simple, but the process took nine months, two banks, and three months between when we sold our house and when we could move into our new investment. Somewhere in that three months of being homeless, I suspected X was secretly drinking. He swore he wasn’t. We already had a signed contract and backing out would have ruined us. One month into our new 10 year commitment he was making comments about dumping the place (at a wildly unrealistic inflated profit). It was also one month before my 40th birthday and I had my first panic attack.

I had borrowed a quarter of a million dollars and I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t function. I would become overwhelmed when it wasn’t busy. I’d hide at the house while I had a panic attack. I lost 20 pounds in a matter of weeks. The new doctor diagnosed me with depression and anxiety with panic disorder and put me on Valium until the Paxil would kick in. Sometimes when the Paxil didn’t put me to sleep I’d have some Ambien to help me. The next year I was functioning and thinking, "it’s only 9 years, I can do this. I’m doing good at this."

After that year, X started drinking. Or maybe he already was, and we were just noticing it. His back wasn’t any better, and he was mixing the pain medication with the alcohol. Everything was falling apart. I started going to al-anon. He would go to the AA meetings down the hall. While I was sleeping he would go into the restaurant and help himself to the liquor cabinet. Things got worse. I took off one winter never intending to go back until the divorce lawyer told me to go take control of my assets. So I went back, and things got bad enough that I went to court and got a protection order. The Sheriff removed him from the property. I ended up going back to court when he called me a couple days later. A few days in jail and he stayed away.

I had to run the business by myself and I was doing just fine, but the damage had been done. I was behind on all the bills. I was 40 miles from the nearest town without a car. I put the place up for sale. My mother was driving the 200 miles every couple of weeks to help me run my errands. Since it was winter, she would take me home with her to paint her condo and subsidize my existence in the hope that the summer season would bring me enough business to catch up. My mother-in-law died that spring and I couldn’t go to her funeral. I met Honey on the Internet and we became fast friends. My brother loaned me his old pick up so my mom could travel to the west coast for her ailing mother’s birthday. I was hanging on by the skin of my teeth. I cried myself to sleep at night. I wasn’t happy, but I was surviving.

Labor Day was the official end of the season and I didn’t make enough to catch up let alone make it through the winter. There was an interested buyer but would they be able to close the deal before the bank foreclosed? The thought of struggling to keep the electricity and gas on that winter weighed heavily on my mind. Then my mom called from Grandma’s bedside. Grandma was dying, my mom was distraught. I was able to keep it together until I hung up the phone and then I lost it.

I was back to non stop crying, I couldn’t sleep or eat, I was having panic attacks every couple of hours. I called the doctor’s emergency number that night and she told me to come to the office the next morning. She took one look at me and told me she was afraid I was going to have a heart attack. The doctor sent me to the Psychiatric Center where they admitted me for the weekend. The psychiatrist wasn’t going to be in until Monday, so in the mean time they kept me busy. It was very structured, and several times a day a nurse would come in and ask me if I ever had thoughts of killing myself. I didn’t and while I was there I didn’t have panic attacks. I still cried a lot but I was feeling better.

I finally got to see the doctor on Monday. He looked over the charts and nurses reports, then he asked why I didn’t have panic attacks at the hospital. When I thought about it, I noticed how much better I felt at my mom’s house, or when I was shopping for supplies in town. I was fine when I wasn’t in that place. He asked what would happen if I stayed at the house/restaurant or if I went to my Mom’s or Honey’s place? And I thought. It didn’t matter where I went. The property was either going to sell or be foreclosed whether I was there or not. (Insert lit light bulb here) He told me I suffered from garden variety depression. Then he told me to go live somewhere and do something that made me happy, he had real sick people to try to cure.

I went home, closed up the restaurant, packed some clothes and my cat, and moved to Johnstown. I threw my cigarettes and Paxil out the window on the way (figuratively, I don’t litter or leave drugs around for people or animals to get into). I handled the sale of the restaurant over the phone and through the mail. I settled in, got a piddly little job, and I lived happily ever after. Well, for the most part. I still get those seasonal blues, but I work through them. Now this past week I’m on the verge of a panic attack. I’m anxious about my piddly job. I’m trying to work through this but I’m really having a hard time.

The corporate management has been heaping more and more responsibilities on my position without any idea of the time involved in carrying them out. Our store is allotted four "buyers" to take care of twelve merchandise departments. When one of our "team" decided to find employment elsewhere, management decided that the three of us who were left could take over his duties in addition to our own. Ok, I’m a team player. I can roll with the changes. I’m going to give it a shot.

Day one, I’m behind, no problem I’ll catch up tomorrow. Day two, I’m falling farther behind. I’m feeling anxious/stressed. I come home, vent to Honey, and have a couple of beers hoping it will help me sleep. Day three, still behind. I’m snapping at co-workers who ask me to do anything not already on my growing list. Day four, I unload on my immediate supervisor who, sensing my frustration, actually takes my complaints seriously and addresses them with the store manager. I feel slightly less stressed until the store manager hits me with the new transfer procedures that are going to take hours to complete. I’m ready to walk out. I have never walked off any job no matter how much I hated it. I’ve always given my notice and worked it out. This is the first time I’ve actually considered burning a bridge.

I’m telling myself it’s just a low paying job, there are others. It’s not worth getting stressed out over. I’m telling myself when the end of the week comes and we are all behind they’ll have to figure something’s wrong. I’m telling myself to get a grip. Am I not listening? I feel overwhelmed. Stressed. Anxious. I haven’t been on medication for almost 3 years and I don’t want to go back to that. What am I missing????