Confessions . . .

This post is very difficult for me. You see, I want to "appear" to be a happy-go-lucky girl who loves life and has creativity flowing from her finger tips. I want my blog to be an inspiring place for other women to spend a little time. But, to be honest, I suffer from major depressive disorder. I struggle with depression every single day. I have tried medication after medication for nearly 20 years, but my body violently rejects it. So I am left to deal with my depression without the aid of medication and most of the time I just feel down-right defeated.

There. I said it. I don't want my blog to be depressing and whiny and negative. But I also want to be me. Sometimes I feel that I am my depression. That depression is all that I am. But I'm not! I'm so much more than my depression.

I'm a girl that is full of creativity and so many wonderful, fun, and inspiring ideas! I'm a girl that loves her children more than life itself. I'm a girl who loves nature and animals and hot cups of tea and candlelight and funny movies and TV shows. I'm a girl who has a passion for reading and writing and learning about the creative process and getting a peek into the lives and processes of other creative women.

I'm a girl who longs to be a writer and an artist and have a thriving online business that enables me to work from home and make an abundant living to provide my family with a beautiful home and to be able to pay my bills on time without a worry and to sometimes take vacations and do fun things without worrying about the cost and without having to always put it on the dream list, but just being able to do it.

I'm a girl who longs to be happy; to experience happiness as an everyday part of my life.

I look at other people who are so happy and content and to me it is a mystery as to how they are so happy. How do they do it? How are they able to be happy? Why can't I be happy like that?

Yes, I have had my fair share of trauma in my life. But so have other women. And so many other women have overcome those traumas and have really made something of themselves and their lives and have somehow learned to be happy in spite of everything they have gone through.

I feel stuck. I feel trapped like a caged lion, pacing back and forth, trying to figure out how the hell to get out from behind the iron bars that keeps her held captive.

But I won't give up. I have been trying for years to "fight depression." My previous therapist told me I need to get mad at my depression and do the exact opposite of what it is telling me. If it tells me to go lie down under the covers and sleep, I need to get out of bed. If it tells me that I suck as an artist and why should I even bother, I need to get out that canvas and paint.

I've been told and have tried many things, yet they just don't do the trick. In my reading on building an online business, I have read time and again that if something doesn't work try another way.

I've thought a lot lately about happiness. I know this may seem obvious, but yesterday I was thinking about happiness again and the mystery that it is to me and I realized that happiness is the opposite of depression. I have also been thinking about contentment and realized that happiness brings contentment.

I have focused so much on depression and have read about it and written in my private journal about it, but now I see that maybe the way out of depression for me is to focus on happiness instead of depression. I think I ought to take the word 'depression' out of my vocabulary.

I am no longer seeking to overcome my depression. From now on I am seeking happiness.

Ta ta for now,

Kim