Bronchitis with Bronchial Spasms=Depression

I've thought better of posting something pretty depressing on FB and decided to move it here, instead.
From Second Firsts:
"By the time I discovered the portal to a new world, I’d learned that when you experience a devastating loss from a death, a break up, a job loss or a divorce, what you are left with afterward is a life beyond a regular life. It is beyond a day-to-day experience.

The day I accepted how different I had become because of my grief and realized I was no longer the person I used to be—and that I could never go back—a doorway opened. I stepped through it into a new life that had the potential to surpass my most ambitious dreams.

I was no longer someone who lived her life just like everyone else. I was no longer thinking in the same way as my friends, my family, and my co-workers.

I was no longer talking, acting, and feeling the same.

So I stopped trying to fit the life I had left behind.
And I found that my pain lessened.

My new self was no longer trying to match my old surroundings.

Trying to remake the old life was what had hurt me the most.

At first it was hard to make the transition to being a new me, as I had to practice laughing again and had to face my fears head-on by taking risks again.

Above all else, I had to learn how to trust again.

That was the feeling that took me the longest to recover. But once I did, it took me the furthest."

Christina Rasmussen
from my new book Second Firsts: Live, Laugh and Love Again (Hay House, 2013)

ORDER HERE and learn to live again: http://www.amazon.com/Second-Firsts-Live-Laugh-Again/dp/1401940838

My response:

I am still re-learning how to trust--it is hard. My relationship with my husband was not a healthy one--it was semi-abusive, I never knew which way was up, what he expected or wanted from me. Recently I was in another relationship that echoed some of those themes--yes, this man was different, the abuse was only verbal/emotional instead of including sexual and physical--but I felt stuck the same way, stuck by love. I finally stood up for myself and wouldn't take him back after he broke up with me the third time. My sister is proud of me, says that action shows that I have grown, that it took me that long (6-8 months) to break out of old habits. I think she believes I won't do it again--I wish I believed that, but I still think that, if I were in the same situation, I'd do it all over again. How do you know when you can trust yourself again?

And, men, why do you repeat things you know kill us inside, things we almost broke up with you for? Why do you say things that tell us that you don't want us to talk to you any more, and then never apologize? Why do I let you hurt me like that time and again? I wish I loved you less and me more, maybe just me more. Hope is a blessing and a curse. As time goes by, more of my dreams slip through my fingers--how long until I give up on them and you? Even if I did get married today, how big of a family could we have before it would kill me? For as long as I can remember, I've always wanted a big family--now, I wonder if I'll ever get to be a mother at all. Aide says this is short-sighted of me--but the eternities just aren't the same. I don't know that I will feel the same, I don't know who I will be, I can't imagine myself there at all.

This is where I am right now. I have been sick for 4 weeks, and my voice is back to normal as of today. Monday (06/30/14) Aide said I was a "pile of disease" and Nate (friend from work) said I sounded terrible. Rose said I sounded fine. (Thank you, Rose!) Since I came down with this, I have seen Shaun once (for his b-day dinner that I planned before he said we'd just be friends), my visiting teachers once, some of the RS presidency once, Aide and kids once, my home teachers (new HT Ben Mucha and old HT Jason Brown) once, Meghan once (because she left for NYC at the end of June), Emma once (to return a book and pick up more from the series), Nora once, and Fea once. In that order. Looking at it now, it seems like a lot. It didn't feel like it. It felt like I was a pariah and couldn't touch anyone and wore a mask to go talk to Judy, etc, at work so I wouldn't get anyone else sick. I felt very much alone. My home teachers came over to give me a blessing--I was told I'm having these trials so I will gain understanding and strength. I'm feeling quite rebellious about that. What am I not understanding? And maybe I don't want to be strong--I'd just rather stop existing. Yes, let's pretend that would be possible. What would I need to do to earn that reward? You can see I really was not doing well by any definition of the word. I'm hoping to pull myself up out of that pit soon, hopefully before my birthday, because it would be a shame if I still wasn't fit for company by then. I think I'll start a puzzle tonight--isn't that why I put my coffee table downstairs in the first place?


Love and Laughs Always,

Liska