Meandering Thoughts of a Psychologist

 I just met with my psychologist this morning, and we continue to piece together the events of my washing machine years. The things I have to say today are about my experience with depression and are not meant to reflect the underlying issues of patients of mine or others who struggle with depression. For me, I think my fear of mental illness has been the worst part both in my early years (when I suffered with an eating disorder) and in this most recent major episode over the last 5 years.               When I started struggling with depression as a teenager, it scared me. When I developed an eating disorder, I was convinced something was wrong with me, and I was not like other healthy people. I had an intense fear of mental illness because my maternal grandmother had schizophrenia and my paternal grandfather had debilitating depression. I saw how mental illness could takeover your life and interfere with literally ...

 Hadleigh said, “I’m like you, mom, because I like to write. The difference is that you write when you’re happy, and I write when I’m sad…” Hadleigh (age 12) wrote the following: The Quilt (about the divorce) and How They Patched It (about reunification) ~ The quilt   By Hadleigh Pileski    I felt sad, upset, betrayed, and more than anything confused. My heart was about to burst out of my chest. My jaw was going to fall off my face. I had nothing to say, and even if I did, I had no way of explaining what a terrible nightmare I was in. At that moment, it was as if I could feel every grain of wood on the bench I was sitting on, or I could recite each name of spice from the floating aroma coming from the kitchen, yet I could still hear the leaves turning at the site of fall. Somehow, with just a few words the world found a key to open a door to put all of its weight  on my shoulders, and I couldn't seem to get it off.     One hour earlier,...

  Today is my divorce-aversary – a full year since Matt and I walked into the courthouse separately and without speaking dissolved our marriage.   To celebrate, we are going to Charlotte this weekend to watch our favorite comedian, Taylor Tomlinson. We can learn a lot from comedians in how they take difficult life challenges and use humor to transform pain. For me, anger has been the most difficult challenge to overcome in divorce, and probably my ego if I’m honest. Matt’s unhealthy coping left me feeling like I was not enough and my thoughts led me to believe that perhaps he found what he was looking for in another woman. This still hurts me deeply when I think of time my children and Matt spent with someone else…but I’ve decided that I must do something to transform this trauma into post-traumatic growth and joy – because quite frankly, life is hard enough without feeling angry all the time. I’ve told Matt that I’m going to take a lesson from our favorite comedian and start ...

 During those washing machine years mentioned in my previous blog, I spoke with my cousin, Clint, so much that he affectionately started calling me "Bob" from the movie What About Bob.  If you aren't familiar with the movie, it's about a psychiatrist and his patient. Throughout the divorce, I guess my behavior reflected that of an annoying therapy client constantly in need of support and encouragement. Anyway, Clint's a bit of a ball buster, and today he read my blog. He sent me a text "Your blog was not the Mandy I have come to know and love." When I called for follow-up feedback, he told me there needed to be a humble summary cleaning up "my side of the street" and offering strength and hope. I think I'll leave something I wrote while at the psychiatric hospital to address his request: "Maybe the failures, struggles of my life serve a larger purpose. I've struggled and worked hard to provide mental healthcare -only to come up sho...

My last blog post was back in 2020. I think that speaks to the impact of COVID and the aftermath of everything else that resulted. Since 2020, it’s felt like I’ve been on the wash cycle and unable to come up for air, but I told my partner (my ex-husband) that I’ll know I am “better” when I start writing again. Maybe it can also give me some clarity about what exactly happened in my life that I’m still struggling to understand. COVID, first off, made us all feel like the world as we knew it was changing and uncertain. Two of my family members died by suicide that year, and I recognized that I was probably entering the hormonal phase of perimenopause. In an effort to find some degree of control in my life, I set out to open a non-profit mental health clinic. My caseload was too extensive for me to handle alone, and I wanted to do more for the county to expand mental health services and prevent other families from experiencing the loss of loved ones due to untreated depression.  For...