Depression Lies. Bacon is good.

You ever get that urge to just drive away? I'm sure we all do from time to time. The desire to just get in the car, blast the music, and drive down some random winding road... alone... get lost... and not come back. (Random thought... I miss my Mustang... it was best suited for this type of FAST drive....)
I've been feeling this way a lot lately. Not that I ever actually would run off and never come back. I love my family, my husband, my children, even the smelly-old-man-dawg. They love me. Life is really pretty good, and I should not be feeling this way. But depression... and anxiety... they lie, and whisper, and fester. For about 2 months now I have been trying to get off this Cymbalta. The side affects and the withdrawals from it sent me down this path. I don't want to be on this stuff anymore. I see these ads on TV for Cymbalta touting it as this wonder drug. A pill that will take away your depression, your anxiety, your pain....

It's not. Sure, for the first few months it helped. But I hit a ceiling. The depression returned. The anxiety came back in a big way. And then slowly my brain turned to mush. There's been a myriad of stomach issues, insomnia, and then the opposite, the weight gain, the anger. So I missed a few doses, but it was too late. It's like a freakin narcotic or something. Withdrawals are unreal. More stomach issues, confusion, dizziness, foggy vision, numbing/ tingling in my head and arms.  Cold-turkey is not the way... so now I am 2 months into tapering off, and I am at the halfway point. I guess I'm writing all this because I'm trying to work out if these feelings I have are due to withdrawals, or if this is just going to be the norm for me. The brain fog is lifting, but I have days where I have overwhelming urges to punch walls for no apparent reason. And let's not talk about the skin-picking. It's been really bad. I am thankful it's winter.
It's quite frustrating to feel this way and know that outside of myself and my own self-talk... things are good around me. I've mentioned this before. Happy healthy children, food on the table, I can not find enough words to explain how good Sgt. Dad is to me... etc. Granted Sgt. Dad's unemployment and commitment to the Guard is starting to strain things... but we are still in a better place then so many other folks and I know this and I am thankful for it.
But depression... it lies. It pulls every negative thought to the fore. It skews my physical perception of myself. It takes my emotional weaknesses and magnifies them ten-fold. It could be a chemical imbalance. It could be a deep-seated genetic defect, after all, my grandfather gave up on his own life and let the fumes of his car take him away from those that loved him. It could be the emotional abuse my x heaped on me during our toxic relationship. It doesn't really matter. It's here, and there is no magic pill, and I'm struggling not to hop in the car and drive off. But when my Mini-Man and my Baby-Lady look at me and say- 'Mommy, don't be angry, be happy!' it hurts. I hate that they can see it too. I hate that I feel this way. Every night I think to myself... I can't take it anymore.. I want to run away... I want to get in my car and drive away... but reality hits me... and I feel the love around me.... and know I could never leave this place and these people... mostly I know...
I can't run away from myself.

I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions, and besides it's far past time for making them. But I'm reaching a breaking point in this depression game. Recommendations to exercise, think positive, and eat well are lovely in theory. They are freakin difficult to do though. Besides, I've been down that road, and always come back to the same dark place. So, I'm blogging, and if you're reading, thank you for being a part of my therapy. Writing this out helps me more than you could ever know.

Several posts were written, re-written and deleted over the past weeks, and that's mostly why it's been a while since I've posted anything. I tried to be funny, I tried to be serious, I tried to be both, but in the end they were all deleted... and then I wrote this.

Thank you wonderful bloggy people. I'm gonna attempt to be productive now... unearth the kitchen counters and make lunch. Bacon. I want bacon.
So weird.