Hill of Red Beans

I had a beautiful young girl stop by to see me last night. How fortunate I have been to have relationships with young girls, even though my children are all boys. I cherish the tenderness of girls. By no means are my boys not tender though. They are extremely tender, however society teaches the male gender that it is not as "socially acceptable" to show their feelings. I think this is the biggest bunch of hog wash, but who am I to change society?! Fact is, I know the tenderness of my boys, and they know it, and we show it to each other in the proper times, and it is BEA-utiful.



My friend who came by, brought me a cheerful little gift, and words of love and encouragement. I shared with her the changes that I will be making within my position in my business, as well as the changes in my med's AGAIN!..

This discussion of medication opened up the door to how she had been feeling lately. She confided that it was difficult for her to get herself to get in the shower at times, much less to school. And the tears began...hers, mine, it did not matter, we got it!!!

I've been there, she's been there, chances are she will be there again and I will too. This is called depression, and IT HURTS. There is no pain killer for it and no one "gets it," unless they have lived it..really lived it. I am not talking about situational depression, I am talking about the kind where you can't get yourself to feel any joy at all, and the type that you can't explain why..it just sits on you like an ugly black dog.

Her mother has depression and is on an anti-depressant and I asked her if she was. She said that she was not because she could not bring herself to doing that. I got the impression that she felt that she thought she was weak, if she could not get "over this" or that she was still too young to resort to anti-depressants. Yes, she is young and she has been through some really tough things in her young life.

In as loving of a way as I possibly could, I tried to explain a few things that I have come to know, by way of study and purely personal experience and observing a lot of people. Our brains are very complicated; we know a whole lot more today than we did 5 years ago and especially 20 years ago. There are feel good chemicals in our brain called serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, if these chemicals get out of balance (depleted=depression) (abundance=mania) then you just feel unhappy, lousy, like not getting out of bed, the degrees vary, if there is too much of the chemical the opposite happens which creates a bipolar effect. Depression is among the most treatable of psychiatric illnesseses. Depression affects 10% of Americans today and 4% with bipolar disorder. Between 80 percent and 90 percent of people with depression respond positively to treatment, and almost all patients gain some relief from their symptoms. But first, depression has to be recognized.

Situational events may bring on bouts of depression, and medication may be the way to put the chemistry back in balance. Some fear they will never be able to go off medication once they start. Why is there such fear about these anti-depressants and not about other drugs? Why such bias? And my argument is, if it improves your life, and those around you, what's the problem, it's a little pill! Have we fallen again for the sensationalism of the media about mental illness? Who fell over the cookoo's nest? YOU, if you fall for that crap! It is just our brain and it is sick, help it, don't be ashamed, it's not your fault.

Here is what I AM saying: anti-depressants and medication ARE NOT for everyone., Yes I know about the book Prozac Nation, media, media, media. Tom Cruise saying that he doesn't believe in anti-depressants, whatev Tom, like anybody cares what you say anymore? Statistics, statistics, statistics, they don't mean a hill of beans if it does not work for you. If you knew how many med's I have been on you'd cry with me too. Addiction, yep, detox, yep, sick, yep, AWFUL, YEP! BTW: I tried the ala NATARALE route too right after detox, that catapulted my very worst bout of mania!

Find what works FOR YOU. Put that HILL of BEANs where it counts... on you. You might have to put your pride aside, not might, you will, if you're honest. Forget about what everyone else is saying all around you, and get quiet enough to figure it out with YOURSELF, and you may want to call on that Big Man in the Sky...on a personal note He's worked miracles for me, many times.