It's hitting me.  It's hitting me really hard and I'm not used to it.  I'm not used to being so emotionally vulnerable.  I hate this, I hate this so much.  I just want to go back to feeling normal.  I just want to feel normal again.

Today was so bad.  It's already been so bad since I came to work.  I broke down twice at work today, literally sobbing.  My co workers were trying to console me, but to no avail.  I keep telling myself that it'll get better, but it's just not.  It's like being at the bottom of this hole and there is no way to escape.  One minute I'm fine, the next I just feel like crying my eyes out until I can't cry anymore.  I'm trying to pray, but I can't pray.  This is soooo incredibly hard on me, so incredibly hard.  How did I get like this?  It's not my fault, I know it's not.  But it feels like it.  My medication isn't helping.  Nothing is working.  Here I go, almost in tears again.  I can't concentrate at work, I can't concentrate on anything. 

This is horrible.  It is the most horrible feeling ever.  But I need to try.  I need to focus, I need to concentrate.  I need to get back to work.

I have been thinking a lot lately with my recent depression and come up with the following:

1). I am not getting married for a LOOOOOOONNNNGGGGG time.  I'm happy about that, too.

2). My depression has a lot to do with Zan and we both know it.  Not because he has been bad to me, he's been great.  But I think that his getting kicked out of school has a lot to do with it.  I was really hoping that it wouldn't happen, that he would be down here for 8 months.  Didn't happen.  And it was disappointing.  I thought he had learned the hard way by being on academic probation but he didn't.  I told him that I felt that I was stuck in a cycle, that I'm afraid all of this is just going to continue.  He stated that he knows he put me like this, but that he's learned the hard way, once again, but that he's learned for real and it won't happen again.  I told him that if it does, he's going to put me in a really hard place, where I'm going to have to make the decision that I can't be with him anymore because I can't be with a person who is like that.  He knows it.  Everytime I think about him getting kicked out, it makes me sad and I get depressed.  I need to get over it, but it may take a little bit.  This whole thing has just really thrown me off.  Not to mention that it happened right after I did my back to back removals and was already stressed out to begin with.  December was not a very good month, minus the last week, when I was at home.  I think I've finally figured it out.

3). Those are very recent revelations.  Now I'm  procrastinating at work and I need to stop this entry.

So, the latest "news"

I have discovered that I am, in fact, depressed.  I came to this only after trying to rationalize how I've been feeling the past 2-3 weeks, with bouts of it occasionally in the past.  I thought about Zander, maybe that was the reason I wasn't feeling so good about things, but that wasn't it, because I felt the same way no matter what I thought about.  I couldn't pick one thing that was making me unhappy (still can't).  I don't have an appetite, I force myself to eat because I know that I have to.  I don't want to do the things that used to make me happy.  I went to play tennis with Zander (usually something I love) and I got no joy out of it, I just stood there.  I didn't want to be touched, I was irritable (still am), I sleep a lot, I've lost a lot of weight.  Plus, I'm pre-disposed to it- dad's side of the family.  And you know what?  There's nothing wrong with it.  There is nothing wrong with me, there is nothing I've done to be this way.  But I want everyone to know that depression is real, it's serious, and it needs to be addressed right away.  In fact, I have to go in for anti-depressants tomorrow.  Am I embarassed?  Absolutely not.

Do I feel like one of my clients?  Maybe.  For so long I think I may have just tried to ignore it, to cover it up, and I was doing good.  The funny thing is that I don't have anything to be depressed about, everything is going my way right now, everything is good, which made me feel like I had to rationalize why I was feeling the way that I did/do.   I have told so many of my clients who suffer from it that it isn't something to be embarassed about it, that they need to take care of themselves so that their children see it and if it happens to them, can say, "hey, mom did it, I should do the same thing.  She showed me that it was important to take care of herself."  The bottom line is that I need to take my own advice.  I'm not ashamed of it and the point is that I can't take care of other people and help other people (which is pretty much my job) if I can't take care of myself.

I'm going home!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope I make it there before Christmas Day.  That'd be nice. 

Oh, and I'm planning on spending the night in Chicago just cause it's Chicago.....in the middle of winter.....at the airport.  Fabulous.

But I'm going home!!!!

That's the most important thing!

So incredibly stressed that I about can't even take it.  I am NEVER going to do back to back removals EVER again.  I hope I survive until Christmas.  But until then, the following needs completed:

2 10 day court hearings

4 homestudies that I need to do by MYSELF and I don't even get flipping paid for it.  Not happy

Visit the rest of my clients, that equals about umm, let's see, 7-8?

ICWA

Find this dang dad

day care

set up visits

deal with the attorney's of all parties involved, that makes, umm, about 6 attorneys.  Yeah, 6 attorneys

Review information so I am prepared for court on both cases.

Conduct background checks.

That's not even close to all of it.

Oh yeah, Service Plan assessments

and SOOOO much more.

I'd MUCH rather be studying for finals.