Okay, I'm Done With *This* Roller Coaster Ride

Wow, it's been a crazy the last few weeks: Literally and figuratively. My oldest came home on leave and was here for almost the whole month of January. It was good and bad. She has bi-polar, too, and she had a manic episode that pretty much rocked our little world. We all survived, fortunately, and she's working hard on getting the help she needs. The Navy seems to make it hard to get help, but once she's back in the states I think she'll be okay. She's a good girl, and she's determined to do what needs to be done. I'm very proud of her for that.

Oh, and in the midst of all this, while her boyfriend Mike was here too, they took a drive to Redding and got a pitbull puppy that will live with us until they get permanent housing in San Diego. After Suzannah gets back from Japan and Mike finishes school in Missouri. Yeah, in other words, we got a pitbull puppy. I'm counting the days til March 1, when the first day of puppy obedience school starts at the local dog training place.

So we have that going on, and then our van gets repossessed. Yes, that's right folks: We can't pay all our bills. We struggled and scraped and really worked to keep it all together, but we finally just couldn't do it anymore. It's a fact a lot of people have faced, so after the initial shock, I thought I had it all together.

But between my increasingly hostile daughter and the stress of money, my depression just got worse and worse until I was suicidal. And so I was hospitalized.

A lot of people can't really understand the dynamic of mental illness. One girl I was in with had a husband who told her to pull herself out of it, to just think positive, that if she wanted to be better she would be better. Until she slit her wrist. Now I think he sees it a little differently.

Trust me, if we could think positive thoughts and be better, we would be thinking hearts and flowers all day long. Not one of all the people I was in with wanted to be there, but we all wanted to be better. We all wanted our pain to go away. Unfortunately, too many times we get bogged down with the negatives thoughts and feelings and we can't reach the solutions by ourselves. We need help getting that solution. Sometimes it's as simple as a trusted friend listening to us; sometimes it's the hospital. But all of us are fighting a very real brain problem, like MS is a real brain problem, or rheumatoid arthritis is a real joint problem. You can't pull, wish, or think yourself out of it.

Time does help, though, and I had the time at the hospital and then with a trusted friend, for whom I am eternally grateful. So back home and back to my routine, and first thing is my younger daughter, J, gets sick, then the older boy, B, gets sick, and now baby C is sick. Yay, I have three sick kids! This I know I can handle, though. Easy, cause everyone sleeps a lot so it's quiet. And I can write.

And the pitbull is actually doing pretty good. She's very smart, which is good for her, cause I think at this point I'd feel no guilt letting her live in the garage (I have no car to go in there, anyway).