Tag: Death

Dear World,

I feel like I’m in the lowest of lows these past few months, if not a year. 

It has been over a year since I wrote.

We have all had a tough year.  Add depression to the mix, and the last 15 months have been a living nightmare. 

It started in March 2020.  My mom passed away suddenly.  I have not even, to this very day, truly mourned the loss of her because of everything else going on in my life.  I cannot even write about her death.  I know it would open a floodgate of tears and sadness that I know I would not be able to handle mentally.  So, I’ve been silent. I am suffering in silence. I’ve been trying, with great effort, to keep my mind off it.

I decided to have my kitchen renovated last summer.  Unfortunately, I hired the wrong company and got scammed of over $18,000.  Because of this, I wrote on every social media site about this company.  I wrote lengthy letters to the BBB, Florida Attorney General, and Department of Business and Professional Regulations.  I took hundreds of pictures of the horrible mess of a kitchen, so I had proof.  I attached these pictures, painstakingly, to every one of my complaints.  I attached the hundreds of text messages written between the owner of the renovation company and me.  This ordeal has sucked up hundreds of hours of my time.  I hated myself for being sucked into this woman’s scam.  I have only myself to blame and feel like a complete idiot.  To date, almost one year later, the case is still ongoing.

It cost me another $13,000 to fix the shoddy job done on my kitchen. 

I have had some bitter family disputes (mostly with my brother) regarding my mother’s estate.  My brother has been quite heartless since he married his wife over four decades ago.  She has him wrapped around her finger, and he bows down to her and no one else.  Sadly, over the years, our relationship has gotten to the point of no love lost.  This was before my mother passed.  Now?  I can’t bear thinking of him.  He has let me down.  In the last few years of my mother’s life, he let her down many times.  She was the kind of person never to mention the let-downs to him, but to others, we heard.

And then there is my son.  A 27 ½-year-old man-boy is all I have left.  Our relationship is horrible, and it is killing me over the last few months.

I decided to write today because yesterday I was totally depressed.  So depressed, I posted it on Facebook: “Depression Sucks!” is all I wrote.  I don’t have many friends on Facebook, but I must admit, I’m totally shocked only five or six responded.  No family.  No Close friends.  Former co-workers really stepped up – that surprised me.  I couldn’t leave the post to just “depression sucks” I replied to one person about the difference between sadness/grief and depression. (She lost her husband and mother recently).  She is THE only person who asked what she could do. She’s 1500 miles away!  Unfortunately, there is nothing she can do being so far away.  If she lived near me, I would have asked for a visit, a hug.  I haven’t seen her in more than 20 years, so lucky for her; she didn’t have to help.  But the very idea that she asked that question when NO ONE else ever, ever does means the World to me.  The World.

She asked me if my son could help.  And therein lies my biggest trigger for deep depressive episodes:  my son. 

It tears me apart that I even have to write that.  To write that I cannot depend on my son for support.  To write that he can be the biggest trigger for falling into a deep depression. 

He’s a smart man who could make a significant contribution to society and me if he just wasn’t so single-minded. Instead, basketball and working out are all he is focused on. 

He has lived through all my ups and downs in life.  For the majority of his life, I have managed to keep my depression hidden from him.  The last ten years, not so much.  I knew he was grown up enough to understand my feelings, so I felt a bit of a relief to be myself. But, of course, I didn’t do so overnight.  But as life kept hitting me with some punches over the last twelve years, I really started to deteriorate mentally.

My boy can be a very sweet, loving, compassionate human.  He has always “felt” for the underdogs in school, etc.  This is what has surprised me the most about him.  I have not seen any compassion or empathy from him personally.  I have tried over the years to convince him to educate himself on depression.  Yes, for my sake, but also for anyone he should meet up with in the future who has depression.  He has not shown any understanding of the symptoms or their physical and emotional effects on me.

At first, I thought he was just in a “me, me stage,” but come to find out, he has shown great compassion to my aunt (his godmother) during her plight with cancer diagnoses and treatment.  He makes It a point to visit her quite often.  Bearing small gifts and a smile.  He never smiles when he is around me.  He never bears small gifts that show he was possibly thinking of me and what I am going through daily, weekly, yearly!!  I have never received compassion or empathy from him.

Whenever I think about this lack of behavior, I blame myself.  I feel like I didn’t teach him about compassion or empathy, love, and what a smile can do.  Please and thank you are rare from him (to me).  The more I think about him, the more depressed I become.  I dream about him a lot lately because of this.  My mind just spins around about this when I am awake.  These last few months, I have tried just to sleep this feeling off, but it’s not working.  I am sleeping more – close to 20 hours a day, but nothing is wearing off.  I sure love to sleep.

I know love is unconditional, especially between mother and child.  I will never not love him, but I am so disappointed in his behavior towards me. I’ve pointed it out many times. I’ve written, talked, texted, emailed.  Nothing gets through.

He never apologizes for the things he says or does or does not do that is hurtful or just plain wrong.  He is totally disrespectful to me.  He embarrasses me in public, humiliates me in front of others and when we are alone.  He thinks he is always right.  He thinks his memory serves him correctly.  Everything is contradicted in conversations between us.  He never even looks me in the eye anymore.  His face is looking down on his phone – even on Mother’s Day this year, I have never seen him look at the phone so much.  He had it on his knee!  I have never seen that from him.  I never say anything about the phone.  But that really depressed me.  He was not focused on Mother’s Day but on whatever his phone may bleep.  Out of nowhere, he just says some piece of news (some horse that was drugged for a race, etc.).  It seems to me he just does not want to be with me.  That I am not interesting.  That there is something better for him to pay attention to. It’s heartbreaking.  It breaks my heart into millions of pieces.

I could write thousands and thousands of words about my relationship with my son (or rather non-relationship). But, just writing these few words, I’ve been crying the entire time. It’s exhausting – crying is exhausting.

Dear Basketball and Kobe

Part 2

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In my last entry, I wrote about basketball, Kobe Bryant, and memories of my son playing basketball.  Nothing in the entry referenced the connection to my depression.  This entry explains my heartache and anxiety associated with the sport.

When I realized the seriousness of Elliott, my son, wanting to play professionally, my biggest fear was that it wouldn’t happen.  At 5’11, 180 lbs (all muscle), he was up for some pretty stiff competition.  Although he is fast on his feet, driven with the Mamba Mentality of Kobe Bryant and extremely dedicated, I worried that his height and also the fact that he did not make the high school or university basketball team would be the most significant obstacles on or lacking on his resume.

Elliott trained so hard, on and off the court, to make basketball a career.  His entire life has revolved around the game.  Yet, I knew he was at a bit of a disadvantage because of his height.  Height can significantly influence success in sports.  According to the Complete Idiots Guide to Basketball (Walt Frazier and Alex Sachare, 1998), all players are often thought to have an advantage because their shots have less distance to travel to the basket, they start closer to the rebound, and their ability to reach higher in the air yields a better chance of blocking shorter players.

The average height of an NBA player is 6’7”.  There is an 8-inch difference between this average and Elliott’s height.  I became obsessed with height when Elliott began investing a lot of time, money, and energy into fulfilling his dream after college.  I knew that mentally nothing was going to get in the way of Elliott’s success. Although there is nothing that I can do about his height, the only thing that was in my power was to give him 100% of my support.  My son never mentions anything about his height.  I have never heard him complain about it.  Never.  For me, it is a whole different scenario.  In my head, lack of height is what I know will prevent him from moving forward.  That really hurts my heart.  I want him to succeed as badly as he does.

Although he is fine with where he is currently, there is nothing that would make his life more complete than playing overseas (or in the U.S.) professionally. As mentioned in my previous blog, Elliott is on a semi-pro team in Flordia, and had the opportunity to compete in China and has had a few leads since China.  I want more for him.  I want bigger and better for him (no pun intended).

There is nothing worse than someone with depression worrying about their child’s success in something they are so passionate about.  It keeps me up at night. It makes me cry, each day, that he is not where he wants to be.  And I can’t do a thing about it!

On to something else that has hurt my heart is Kobe Bryant’s death.  I will never forget where I was when I heard about it.  When I first read the breaking news, I thought it was a joke.  I really thought TMZ was pulling a fast one.  Over the next few hours, I realized it there was nothing more real.

I have never cried about the death of someone I don’t personally know.  Celebrities have passed, and I felt terrible.  I may play their music or watch their movies a few times, but none has sent me into such a depression.  I saw all the mourners pouring onto the Staples Center, LA, and around the world, but I felt they didn’t admire him as much as I did.  I don’t even think my son felt as horrible as I did.  It put me into such a state of depression. I took time off from work.  I couldn’t stop watching specials and interviews regarding Kobe Bryant’s legacy on and off the court.  I bought every magazine with Kobe on the cover.  I’ve saved them all.  I cannot explain the severity of the mental anguish I went through.

It was just three days after Kobe’s death, that my son showed me that he understood what pain I may be going through.  He never helps me with the depression side of things.  Anxiety attacks, when he is around, he helps me get through, but I have never felt his compassion, empathy, or understanding of my diagnosis.  On this particular day, Elliott sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers.  They were all purple and yellow.  He got me, finally! I don’t know why this is the only time in his life that he showed sympathy for my depression.  It has bothered me every day since he was made aware of my depression, that he refuses to acknowledge or help me through my depression.  He has no idea what that small gesture of sending flowers did for me.  It helped me through an extremely difficult time.  If I could feel that support from him more often, I think depression would be more bearable.

He has been aware of my diagnoses for at least twenty years and in those twenty years, I have been gifted his support once.  It is this one gesture that made me realize, even more, how much I would appreciate his support.  Granted, children are not supposed to take care of their Mom/Dad, but I know how much of a difference it made when I supported my Mom in her depressive episodes.  Through my setting this example, one would think he would do the same.  I have never asked him for help during a depressive crisis.  I shouldn’t have to.  I have asked him to educate himself on depression, but it seems he hasn’t.  That hurts my heart.  The flowers, although long gone, are my only source of his comfort as far as this disease is concerned.  Sad.  Am I expecting too much?

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Why?  This question further made my depression worse.  Why was I reacting to Kobe’s death in such a way?  Why did I feel such a strong connection to him?  My life in the following months became hazed over in purple and yellow.

The unnecessary tragedy.  The loss of Kobe’s beautiful daughter.  The beautiful love story between Vanessa (his wife) and their children.  His dedication to helping others in need.  Although Kobe retired years earlier, basketball lost a legend.  The world lost a man who cared about the plight of others and made a difference in many people’s lives.

As I write this, more than six months after the passing of Kobe, his daughter, Gianna, and the other seven lives taken too soon, I cry.

This brings me to my final thought about basketball, Kobe, and my son.  I have terrible anxiety over flying and driving.  When my son told me about winning the U.S. tournament and would be competing in the China Jump 10 competition, my second thought is “He has to travel.  Travel internationally!”  I fretted over that prospect until the day he returned home – well over four months.  I experienced four months of non-stop anxiety.

And then Kobe dies, less than six months later, dying a mere 26 minutes after take-off!

My take away:  I want everything (and more) my son, Elliott, wants.   I always need him to be safe.  I idolized Kobe Bryant and didn’t even realize it until his death.  Sympathetic gestures go a long way.  I need emotional support from the one that matters most, my son.

God bless Elliott and Kobe, my basketball heroes.