Help Stop The Pain

This blog is my personal opinion. I am not being paid to share this from an outside source. Any links within will take you to the page on the internet where you can find the quote and additional information. Think about it for a minute. Depression is growing by leaps about bounds. Are you or is someone you care about suffering from depression? Sometimes, you will never know! According to PsyWeb.com , "Depression is one of the most common mental illnesses. At least 8 percent of adults in the United States experience serious depression at some point during their lives, and estimates range as high as 17 percent. It affects all types of people, regardless of sex, race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic standing." Are we helping to feed our depression? Think about it. How many times are we eating prepared foods and fast foods, that we really don't know what all the ingredients are? I try to cook from scratch for the main reason that I don't know what is inside most of th

I will miss Heather for the rest of my life. My other daughters will miss her for the rest of their lives. We can't do anything to bring her back, but I am sharing my experiences and thoughts with all of you in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, someone else will find a reason to live. A reason to get the help you need to decide to stay in this world. Maybe you have lost your son or daughter by suicide, hopefully these posts will help you get through the pain you will encounter. This blog is my way of keeping Heather with me and I do this in her memory. Heather told us in a note that she thought we may think she was selfish to choose death by suicide. She thought it would be more selfish of us to ask her to live in a world that she didn't want to be in. Look around. More and more people every day are choosing, like Heather, to no longer live in this world. Some are taking their lives by suicide, some are hiding in drugs and risking an overdose. When we lost Heather w

Each day is our opportunity to make our world a little better. How? We make some choices and we work to change our life - one day at a time. For years, I smoked cigarettes. I'm not proud of it, but I did. I tried numerous times to quit - each time, my daughters were nice enough to buy me cigarettes because I was too grouchy. I tried using a prescription. Yeah, that got me so depressed that I had to stop that method also. Years continued to pass and I was still a smoker. After losing Heather, I came to one strong realization that I wish I had shared with Heather. We can make our choices about what our life looks like. I'm really new at this but I thought I would give it a try. I decided back around October of last year that I wasn't going to be a smoker so I stopped. Each time I wanted one, I told myself that I wasn't a smoker and I really didn't want one. I did have one cigarette on the 4th of November, but then I was vaping. Around the middle of November, I

Another birthday without you here on Earth with us. I have to say, I have the 3 best daughters in the world. Yes, Heather, you are included in that. I miss you so much! I don't know how I am going to live with this pain for the rest of my life. I remember when you were born. We were all so excited when you arrived. You were (and are) perfect in every single way. I was so nervous something was going to be wrong but all was better than I could have ever hoped. Granted, I really don't like hospitals, but you were so perfect, we were on our way home hours after you arrived. One of your favorite things to do was to pose. I think this is one of my favorite pictures. It's so funny to watch Carter. He doesn't do it as often as he used to, but he will still pose sometimes like this. He really loves you. We all miss you so much. I know I am supposed to think of happy memories with you, but all those happy memories are also tied into the memories that I have now wi

The nation, no, the world, is in crisis and it is getting out of control. Our brains are so complex, and have so much information packed into them every single day. They are simply amazing but sometimes, things don't work the way they are supposed to and then, well, things can go wrong. Things can go very wrong. WedMD has a pretty good listing of everything that is covered by Mental Health. You can click here to see the various types and what they have to say about them.  Anxiety Disorders, Mood Disorders, Psychotic Disorders, Eating Disorders, Impulse Control and Addiction Disorders, Personality Disorders, Obsession-Compulsive Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders and a few smaller ones too. Just take a minute and read this over and then come back, and I'll give you the rest of my thoughts. Impulse Control and Addiction Disorders. Maybe that's all I need to say? Maybe not. This one area of Mental Health alone is so crippling to so many. Some will read this and s

No one is perfect, but we can all try to be better every single day! Heather didn't want to be in this world and, to be honest, I don't blame her. No, I am not going to join her, but I am going to try to be a better person every day of my life. Do you have problems in your life? Me too! We all do! The question is, how do you deal with your problems? Is it everyone else's fault or is the problem in decisions that we have made. Yes, there are situations where good people get hurt for no apparent reason, but I'm not talking about that. Do you think everyone judges you? Are you judging yourself? Are you trying to make changes and feel like people doubt you? Well, depending on some of the choices you have made in the past, it may take a while for people to believe you. Maybe some of your choices hurt others. However, if you are changing for the better, keep changing. You won't convince people that you have changed by your words. You need to show them the changes b

Every day I wake up and feel the pain again of never seeing Heather again. Heather was such a beautiful person. She did her best to make everyone else happy, but she wasn't happy herself. You can't live life that way. It cost Heather her life and I miss her so much. I wrote to you before about trying to increase your dopamine levels by what we eat and I have to say, it is helping some. It doesn't ease the pain, but it does help me get things done a little easier. I still have no desire to hang out with others. I know I have to work on that. It gets so hard just trying to deal with people. I think where we get together with a bunch of friends is the hardest. Heather was always there with us and now, she isn't. Part of me feels very guilty. I know I should be more social but at the same time, so people really want someone dealing with such depression at a party? I tried on Memorial Day weekend when our neighbors had a BBQ. I basically spent most of the day inside o