Posted on by Chasing Worms

No Answers for Depression

Have you ever found yourself depressed because someone you care about is depressed and you don’t know what to do for them?

Depression is a funny thing.  (funny as in weird).  It also affects the people around the one who is depressed.  In my case, the person I care about, who is depressed, would not admit they are depressed, and so they don’t want any help, but can’t seem to pull themselves out of it. 

Their doctor won’t talk to you because of “doctor/patient confidentiality” and will act insulted when you ask them about it. Some people have mental health issues, not just depression. It doesn’t matter. Within the mental health community, the outcome is still the same….nothing. Nope, you have to wait until something drastic happens, before hospitals or doctors will do anything. I literally know of someone who went to an emergency room while having a mental health crises because they felt like they were going to hurt themself. The hospital turned them away!

Depression not only causes problems for the person depressed but also the family members trying to help them. 

If the person depressed is over 18 years of age, you can forget about helping them; doctors won’t listen to you, emergency personnel won’t listen to you, nobody will!  And so you feel helpless.  You get to sit and watch the person you love, go through mental anguish they are feeling and you can’t help them because they don’t share it.

Why does the medical industry make it so hard to get someone help?  Instead they turn their back on you, and the person needing help.  Parents or spouses don’t seem to have any ability to get their loved ones the help they need.  They might as well be a three-headed monster, because that’s the way physicians look at parents.

Running into these brick walls make you realize how broken the system is, and how little you can do.  That is enough to make you feel depressed.  Those suffering with depression are pretty much going it alone, unless they are the ones to seek help, and most of the time they don’t.  Ugh, it just gives me a gut ache thinking about it.

I have no answers to include in this writing.  I’m just venting.  I think two years of lockdowns, insanity and tragic events have had their toll on a lot of people.  I’m surprised more people aren’t going through depression.

For anyone depressed or in any state of mental health crises, please reach out to someone you trust for help. If you can’t do that, please call the Suicide and Crises Hotline by simply dialing 988. God Bless everyone going through this and dealing with it. It’s not easy.

Posted on by Chasing Worms

Don’t Give Up On Your Children

Parenting teenagers is hard. I know because I parented two of them. They were the hardest moments of my life, and at times I never thought I would get through it. I was a single mom, which also made it tough. I didn’t have a spouse for support. I thought as my kids got older, I wouldn’t have to manage them so much, or have to provide so much supervision. As it turns out, teenagers need MORE supervision and management than younger children do.

When you stop to think about it, teenagers are trying to figure out who they want to be, and are looking for role models. Role models any more are movie stars, sports figures and pretty much any public figure that’s making headlines. Not all of them are good role models, in fact most aren’t. But from a kid’s perspective, who doesn’t want to be “cool” and popular? It doesn’t matter how warped your personality is as long as you get attention, even if it’s bad attention. This is supported by all the “reality TV” shows that have infected every television network. I can’t believe the crap they show on television any more. But I can’t get distracted right now.

How does a parent compete with all that!!? How do you try to instill good manners, self-esteem and self respect in your children when everything around them teaches them just the opposite? There is really only one way….spend more one on one time with your children. No, this does nothing to help with your already “jam packed schedule,” but it will be the best investment in the long run. Kids get lost in all the other things so readily available through media outlets. This includes, social media outlets, which are the worst. If they aren’t “distracted” with time spent with you, they will be distracted by social media and what it has to offer.

Time spent doesn’t have to be endless hours; it can be an evening where everyone sits down at the dinner table and talks about their day.  Clean house with them while listening to your favorite music and make it fun.  Take an hour or two for a board game or cards. Have your teenagers help you cook dinner. They will learn how to cook and you will be “together.” All these things don’t put your entire evening “out of joint,” but just the interaction with your kids will create a bond and self-respect they can’t get anywhere else.

Limit the amount of time your kids spend on electronics. This includes tablets, phones and games. After spending an entire day at school with their friends do they really need to keep up with them all night too? That should be family time. And for goodness sake, don’t let them take the phone to bed with them. All electronics should be “checked in” to one spot that is controlled by mom and dad, not to be touched again until the next day.

I am thankful electronics weren’t an issue when my kids were growing up. Television was bad enough. But when we finished evening dishes, we would all snuggle up on the couch and watch a movie together. It wasn’t rocket science, but those moments brought us closer together and we still talk about those movies today.  Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t always this easy!

There are going to be times when your beautiful child is going to transform into a teenage, holy terror with grotesque sputum coming from their mouths. You will look at them in disbelief, wondering who’s child that is. Remember a few things, they are operating on emotions caused by hormones, that their brains are bathing in all day long. They don’t understand it any more than you do, and they are angry, upset and irrational. They are exposed to peer pressure we can’t even imagine, and social media images of how they should look and act. Really what they need and want, is a parent who can help calm it all down and put everything into perspective for them. They won’t tell you this, because it just wouldn’t look cool to their friends, but it gives them a great excuse to say, “mom or dad is making me.” Yes, you get to be the “bad cop” for your kids.

Your kids will call you names and yell at you, maybe even tell you how much they hate you, and they will lie to you, but most importantly, don’t give up on them. Remember, they are just kids. Their minds are still those of kids. They don’t understand what’s happening with them either. You are the most important person in their life when they become teenagers. (Pre-teens too). They need to feel like you are a “safe place” they can come to and talk things over with, when shit hits the fan, and trust me, there will be times when it does.

Don’t give up on your child. It will be the longest lasting reward you ever have. This is a time where the relationship with your child will grow stronger or fall apart. If you give up on your child, they will give up on you. The anger and distance will just get stronger and further apart. Don’t expect your children to tell you what a great parent you are; they are just children. Those realizations will come later in life when they have their own families.  During the teenage years, you will feel so unappreciated and like you are a complete failure.  You’re not.

DON’T give up on your children. They need you and you are the parent, the adult, the person who is supposed to offer support and guidance through this time of life. You will be the biggest influence on their self respect and self-esteem. Make the time you spend with them, quality time. I don’t ever consider myself to be the greatest parent, but then I don’t know anyone who is. Life doesn’t come with a manual; it’s just important to try and give it everything you have.

Don’t give up on your children, and it’s ok to admit when you make mistakes. It’s important that they also see you as human. Human’s make mistakes. Learn from them and move on. It’s the same thing you teach them. Don’t let their mistakes become an anchor they can’t shake off. Help them learn from their mistakes and move on.

Be a parent. Don’t give up on your children.

Posted on by Chasing Worms

A Life Set Aside

I watched a film tonight about a man who moved back home to take care of his father who had Alzheimers. The son was so upset at his dad because he forgot some of the most basic things, like putting on his pants before going outside, brushing his teeth or combing his hair. I watched as he screamed at his dad, held him down and berated him for his stupidity.

All this brought back memories of friends who went through the same frustrations trying to manage a parent in different stages of Alzheimers. I remember thinking, how sad they would feel so resentful of their parent for getting ill.

Those same grown-up kids were once the child, and I’m sure it was very disrupting for their parents as well. Have they thought about that? When it gets hard feeding their parents, changing their clothes, and watching over them, those children throw up their hands and put the parent in a nursing home to let someone else manage the responsibilities. Sometimes it is the best thing, but not always, and in a lot of situations the kids never come back to visit once they have “unloaded” the parent.

I read somewhere that the average lifespan of someone once they go into a nursing home is 1.5 years. In other words, they  just wait to die. That tugs at my heart. I worked in a nursing home when I was young. The work was hard but the rewards were great. The elderly people I took care of, would love to tell me stories of their life.   A couple of ladies crocheted ribbons for my hair and loved playing cards. Mostly, they all just loved having company and being able to interact with other people.

I thought of my own aunt who had been placed in a nursing home by her husband, and he also checked himself in, because he didn’t want to be without her. He just found it difficult to take care of her on his own since she had suffered a stroke. They still got to be together every day. The kids never came to visit. I lived so far away, that I could only see them every 5-6 months. One day, just little more than a year after being in the nursing home, her husband died of a heart attack. No one expected that. My aunt out lived her husband by one year and every time I would visit, she cried.  The time was spent comforting her.   She was lonely and missed him terribly, she wanted to go “home” to be be with him.  Even though I did very little talking on those visits, she got so much from me just being there.  Usually by the time I had to leave, she was smiling and laughing again.

I don’t know where I’m going with this but I hope I would not do that to my mother. She can be stubborn, and luckily she is still healthy as a horse, but the only thing she wants, is for her children to respect her decisions she makes for herself, and to not treat her like a little kid. That’s a pretty simple request.

What would it have been like, had our parents thrown up their hands when we were babies, or toddlers and given us to someone else, because they were tired of dirty diapers, midnight feedings, crying and everything else that little ones demand? How many times do you suppose they were tired and felt their life would never be the same? How many times do you suppose one or both of them cried because they felt like they reached their breaking point? Even if they reached the end of their “rope” they never gave up, and they continued to love you and care for you because they wanted you to have the best life they could imagine for you.

I know taking care of an elderly parent is hard. I went through that with a sick parent. It’s very hard. The thing that helped me get through the tough days was when I tried to put myself in their shoes, and wonder how my attitude would be if I were in pain every day, or if I went through days wondering why I couldn’t remember anything from one moment to the next. How terrifying that would be. I can’t imagine adding more stress on to a parent because my impatience and selfishness couldn’t take it any more.

I can only hope that as I get older, I pray that those I love, will have the patience and love to help me cope, and to not give up on me.

Posted on by Chasing Worms

Finding Forgiveness

This morning as I sat outside with a cup of coffee I thought about the people I love, and the struggles they find themselves in. Not that everyone doesn’t have struggles at times, but I’m talking about the struggles that keep people from being able to move forward with their life and be happy.

One little thing can help them move forward, and that is forgiveness. That little word carries more power than an army; it has a deeper, long-lasting affect on people than going hungry. It is the not forgiving that freezes our mind, continues to create fear, and fuels the anger burning inside.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean to forget, but most people can’t understand that. For every person I’ve heard say, “I’ll never forgive him/her” I think about the emotional chains they have just bound around their self. Not forgiving binds us to the person that hurt us. Forgiveness releases us from that person or persons, and allows us to move forward in our life and be happy. The bad memories don’t hold power any more, and very quickly the mind is able to focus on everything beautiful in life. Those bad experiences become a distant dream. You can still learn from those experiences without allowing yourself to drown in it. Choose the things you need to know to protect yourself in the future and understand that you never have control over someone else and their behavior. You only have control over your own actions and words.

I thought about those two people I love and still hear the anger in their voice when they call; the hurt and anxiety over something that happened more than 15 years ago is still fresh as if it happened yesterday. I want to help them, but I can’t. I can only continue to love them and offer any encouragement I can, when they ask. Unless they are ready, any help is just brushed aside.

So I sent them a prayer this morning for peace. At some point we all get tired of the anger dragging us down and eventually we become anxious to release those bad memories. The more energy we give to it, the bigger, stronger and long-lasting it will be.

At some point, they will reach their breaking point and the need to let go, and then they will find forgiveness. I hope it’s soon.