Nope, but you darn well better know where it is!

(Posted by Gayle)

Did I really admit that my depression has been an issue in my marriage out loud in my blog?  This is one of those times, I wonder what I was thinking (or maybe better said – was I even thinking?!)  But I am a believer in follow through – so I’m going for it. I could give you the clinical definition of depression.  I could quote journal articles for you.  I could tell you stories about my clients.  But I won’t. This time it’s all about me.

My dad suffered from depression.  Recently, I’ve come to believe that he actually had bi-polar disorder (manic depression).  I’m surprised it took me so long to see what happened to him as more than just severe depression.  I’ve always described him as larger than life.  That really tells me everything I need to know.  My larger than life dad, died suddenly of a heart attack in 1971.  I was barely 14.  While it had been spotted for years, from that point forward my own depression always lurked.  Sometimes it pounced.  Other times it was at bay.  Always it was a ghost haunting me. Read the rest of this entry »

The great (Luster) depression.

(Posted by Gayle)

Striving for more compulsively can cause you to end up with less. My father was never satisfied.  He did everything big (except save money).  By the time I was in 5th grade his thirst for more was leading to some pretty bad business decisions.  He made a mess of his business (against my mother’s pleas) and was in some very hot water financially.  We moved from our luxurious brownstone apartment into a small two flat on the far south side of Chicago.  I began attending a public school in 6th grade.  We spent 3 years in this neighborhood.

The things I remember about this period of my life are:

• Buying my clothes for school at K-Mart.
• Hoping that if I wore the same dress to school two days in a row the kids might begin to like me.  I had problems at the private school because it was obvious my family was wealthy.  Now that we were “poor”,  I was hopeful that I would fare better with the kids in my class.  I actually wanted them to know were poor.  I had enough clothes to wear a different outfit each day, but being resourceful I hoped repeating ensembles would work in my favor.
• My father laying in bed depressed because of the financial situation.  I never saw him being violent again, but he was filled with self-hatred.  I’ve heard it said that depression is anger turned inward. Read the rest of this entry »