CF Happens

Many of you don’t struggle with mental health issues like depression and anxiety. I have clinical depression, situational depression, seasonal depression (aka winter blues) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). I’m laying it all out there. Haha. My depression is managed with antidepressants and my anxiety is managed with anti anxiety meds as needed. I also see my counselor every 2-3 weeks. I absolutely LOVE my counselor. I’ve been seeing her for 5 years now. I’m very thankful for her.

As you can imagine being a person with an incurable genetic disease like CF, one might develop or have depression. Not to mention, if depression and anxiety are in your family history…talk about a double whammy!

There have been some pretty dark times, like when my mom passed away. I didn’t know if I was could make it to the other side at that time. Thankfully in did. A lot of times I don’t know how I do it, I just do it.

Anyway, the reason I bring this topic of depression up in this post is that my depression has not been playing nice lately.

I’ve been really missing my mom A LOT. This coming January 19th will be 10 years since her passing. It doesn’t seem possible that it’s been that long already. I have felt every one of the 3,527 days it’s been so far without her.

Yesterday, I was at my aunts house to watch the Chiefs game with family. It hit me harder than I thought it was going to without my grandpa there. This is the first time we’ve been home to visit since he passed way 7 months ago. He would have been there ready to watch!

I wasn’t able to travel home for his funeral services because I had just had my back surgery 3 weeks prior. I’m sure there’s multiple layers as to why it hit me hard. He and I were really close.

Next up on the depressing train…my health this year has sucked big time. My lungs have been their normal asshole selfs BUT with a dash of extra assholery in the mix.

I’ve been more worn out and tired than I usually am in general this past calendar year. It takes a lot out of me when I’m having a hard time breathing. Then when I get out of breath it takes me longer to recover which is so frustrating. When it’s your every day life, you just want a freaking break! You just want to breathe “normal” for once.

So for everyone that thinks that I’m always positive and happy go lucky. Guess what…THAT’S NOT THE CASE! This is a prime example of that.

The saying, “fake it until you make it,” is well known in my house and life. After 45 years of feeling like crap physically and dealing with depression, I’ve learned to “set it aside” to do what I need to get done, to include peopling. So you would most likely not notice that I’m feeling “off,” because I’m so used to just doing what I have to do.

I don’t want to miss out on life’s experiences and making memories, therefore I keep on keeping on as best I can.

Anywho, this is me being real and wearing my heart on my sleeve. I wish there was a quick fix but guess what, there’s not. No, I can’t just “snap out of it.” Boy do I wish I could “snap out of it” but that’s not how depression works.

If you don’t deal with depression, anxiety or other mental health issues, it most likely doesn’t make sense. That’s ok if that’s the case. Just be sensitive to those of us that do deal with these things. If we could not have any of them, we would be quick to offload it!

Until next time…