Button

The book I was reading on The Grieving Brain said that the most predictive factor for prolonged grief is whether the grieving person was depressed prior to the bereavement. I don’t know, sometimes I feel like I’ve been depressed all my life. I’ve almost always had some downer shit going on with me. My neurologist says this is very common with people with left temporal lobe epilepsy and why he recommends anti-depressants. I remember when I was about 7 asking my mother what was wrong with Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. Why he always seemed so sad and gloomy. She told me he was depressed. I felt like I finally had a label for how I felt. I wasn’t always depressed as a kid, but I remember some very bad years, especially 3rd grade and 5th grade, when I essentially had no friends and felt unable to cope with basic stuff, including hygiene.

My parents finally sent me to a therapist when I was in 8th grade, and it was helpful. I dropped out at the end of the school year because I didn’t want to have to get up early to go the sessions or leave camp activities. This sounds like a typical move on my part. I don’t know why I didn’t go back. I should have.

I asked my Mom why my parents didn’t send me to therapy earlier, when I was having so many problems during elementary school, both socially and academically. She said she had gotten advice not to “stir things up” for me prior to adolescence. I don’t know what this really means.

I like this old picture of me I’m posting today. It’s my third grade picture and I’m wearing my hair in braids, like Sarah did a lot. For some reason, I hated having my picture taken in elementary school and I tried to get out of picture day. My Dad gave me a button to wear to ease my anxiety, so I’m wearing a “War is Not Healthy For Children and Other Living Things” button.