bleak.

i stare blank at my MacBook screen and ponder how my "off-beat family blog" has somehow turned into "my spiral down to the deep levels of a major depressive episode and generalized anxiety."

it wasn't meant to be this way.

I was going to post recipes, and finds at local goodwills and thrift stores.

I wanted to share the quirky aspects of my family..

like rae smearing yogurt on the windows, and Zane making the best coffee, but refusing to ever taste it.

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it reminds me that sometimes these things come up randomly, and sometimes they come up due to trauma/other stressors.  but what caused this one? what caused this steep of a drop into depression over such a short period of time.  my ever seeking truth of a brain can't make sense of it. 

I lie in bed at night--worried I passed on all these horrible mental health genes to my daughter.  will she grow up toeing the line of the dark abyss that is depression? will she think that everyone is silently judging her when she walks into a room?

what are the boundaries of nature vs nurture and how can I stop this from happening to her?  my mind crawls looking for answers, but due to the lack of concrete facts--my brain doesn't stop wondering.

I don't know. I don't know what to do.  I feel like an albatross to the family at this point.  I'll pull out Rae's cat piano and play with her for a bit, but the house grows heavy with silence, and I think my inability to be stable is wearing on the boys of the house.  

I can no longer cook dinner because I have no desire for food and when I do eat it becomes this large rock that sits in the bottom of my stomach, causing pain and discomfort.

trin frequently checks on me and shows great worry.  I tell him all my thoughts and explain all my irrational behavior and watch him try to find a way to make it better.  he wants involvement, he seeks out answers to my myriad of issues, but there is nothing.  nothing is concrete in the realm of psychiatry.

I just want to retreat to my bedroom and sleep.

but I have a family, and my daughter smiles, I pick her up and take her to the grocery store and try to go through a couple of hours of being a normal parent. we play and talk and read.

by the end of it I'm exhausted, my bones feel drained and I get hit with a large strike of panic that maybe I am ruining my daughter's childhood.

I know logically she's too young to remember, but what if this never stops? will she be in therapy because of me in 25 years?

my skin grows hot with panic and my heartbeat races.

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this is here. 

this is now.

what has not happened yet, has not happened and may not have that outcome

you can only control the controllable.

you have to realize what you can and can't control

you are here, Audra.

feet on the ground.