Sadness is not the same as clinical depression

I've been sad the last couple of days.  We are moving into town, have sold all the animals, and are wrapping things up out here in the country.  Not that we are moving to a New York City or anything.  Just down the road into a nearby small town.  But still, it is a huge change in lifestyle for us.  I was packing books yesterday and packed up all my books on farming, market gardening, homesteading, and animal husbandry.  I felt sad about the animals I had sold and about the goat I had to put down earlier this year.  Sad that I would not be there to watch my goats kid this Spring.  Sad that I was letting go of this chapter in my life.

But sadness is not the same as clinical depression.  It does not need to be avoided or treated.  I do not need to drink over it or use over it or even to go see my psychiatrist over it.  It's normal to feel sad when life presents you with saddening events.  It's OK.

I felt refreshed tonight at a meeting where a friend of mine celebrated 11 years of continuous clean time.  Life goes on and it is good.  It'll be a blessing to me to move into town and be closer to meetings.  Closer to my friends in recovery.  I'll be able to go out for a cup of tea with my NA sponsor without having to drive for an hour and a half.  We won't have to spend half the day driving kids into town.  And we won't spend half our income on gasoline.

As sad as it is to leave farming, it is the right thing to do.  It is the right time to do it.  I feared the change.  I feared it so much that I used it as an excuse to drink.  A pretty sorry excuse but there you go.  I'm not fearing the change as much now.  I'll find new avenues to channel my energies.  I'll certainly still be able to grow a garden.  Maybe I'll get back into soap making.  Maybe I'll make more sausage.  I'll have to buy pork in bulk rather than butchering my own, but I might have more time for crafts like that.

As much as I miss the goats, it is nice to not have to milk them every single day in sub-zero temperatures.  I've been milking goats and caring for animals every day for years.

Grieving is a part of life.  Things pass, things are lost, things change.  Yes, I am sad.  But I welcome the sadness.  At least I'm not numb.  At least I'm not sitting drunk and alone in a crappy motel room.  As sad as this change is, I still feel incredibly blessed.

Disability

I've talked with a number of people who are disabled either physically or mentally.  Part of a definition of being disabled is that you can't do the things that others are "able" to do.  In my case, I slowly lost the ability to do the things I used to be able to do.  Part of accepting my  mental illness has been accepting that I am not able to do everything I'd like to do.  In some cases, I am not able to do things I used to love to do.

The most obvious example in my life is the end of my career as a teacher. I taught for almost twenty years.  I have a Masters degree in teaching and am still certified to teach.  I loved teaching.  I feel an incredible sense of loss that I am no longer able to teach.  At least not in a public school classroom.  It's really been a number of years since I was really consistently excellent as a classroom teacher.  I continued to try to teach, but I had become less and less able to show up to work on a consistent basis.  I was still a pretty good teacher when I was there, but I was taking more and more medical leaves of absence until it finally became clear that I couldn't do a good job.

I'm sure the sense of loss that I feel is the same for anyone who loses the ability to do something the love to do.  I used to be a great teacher...twenty years ago.  I continued to be a great teacher for quite a few years.  I loved teaching.  I loved working with kids.  Making a difference in their lives.  Helping them learn to read and write the English language.  I loved writing and literature.

Later I became a special education teacher and was great at that too.  I found special education to be an extremely rewarding field.  Helping kids achieve things they never thought they'd succeed at.  Helping kids overcome their own disabilities.  I guess I had an inkling that I would someday become too disabled to continue as a teacher.  I knew I had occasional depressions.  I knew I had an abnormal relationship with alcohol.  But I didn't then know that manic depression and alcoholism would turn on me like a boomerang and cut me to ribbons.  I didn't want my teaching career to end this way.

I'm sure we all have things that we love that we can no longer do.  After all, we all are getting a little bit older every year and can't physically do the things we used to do when were in our twenties.   I have lost so much as a result of bi-polar disorder and alcoholism.  I feel robbed.  I didn't ask to be this way.  It just happened. 

On the other hand, I have been blessed in so many ways by my experiences with mental illness and addiction.  Having learned to live with both conditions and come out the other side, I have a lot of healing experience to share with others.  I don't know if the rumors are true about the creative energies of those with bipolar. (See "Touched With Fire" by Kay Jamison)  But I know that in my case I have experienced times when I felt incredible bursts of creativity.  My life and lifestyle have been marked by times of spontaneity and daring.  Hypomania can be exhilarating, until it turns on me and I inevitably crash and burn.

Would I trade my life for one that was not marred (or blessed) by mental illness and addiction?  Not a chance.  It is a part of who I am.  And I'm pretty happy with who I am.