If you have read about my first Battle with the Dragon then you know the Dragon is Depression and Satan himself. He will grab you when you are least expecting it and are the most vulnerable. He grabbed me and wrapped me in his cloak then took me down to the Hell of Depression before I could even ask for God's help. One minute I was hurt and angry and the next I was caught up in the web of deceit and destruction being heaped upon me by Satan.
I went through this for a couple of years, not sleeping, only moving through my days by rote. I still suffer from depression now and then and like PTSD, it just keeps popping up.
This next Dragon came into my life again a week or two after losing my mother to a quick-acting form of Dementia. She was fine, then she wasn't, then she died. She sailed through what should have been several years worth of signs and symptoms, and the disease itself in a matter of a few months, instead. We did not know until the last few weeks, even what the problem was.
Anyway, when she died, I just couldn't wrap my mind around it because it just did not make sense. I accepted her death, however, as a matter of living life, but I did not think I would fall into the clutches of Depression, again. I was wrong, but losing my mother is not the only reason I'm back in Depression. I know why I'm here and I know what to do about it, but I don't have the ambition to do it.
I have caught myself not wanting to leave the house; not wanting to clean, cook meals, walk to the barn or work in the yard. I just want to sit on my porch and read or think or just look out across my backyard and be. I cry over the simplest things and get angry at the drop of a hat. I am not happy and cannot get my political interests or any interests, going again.
So what am I doing to regain my sanity and pull back out of this hole? I pray, of course, I accepted a coffee date with a good friend, and I made a beauty shop appointment. That doesn't sound like a lot but I used to go every week to the beauty shop. When my mom got sick, I canceled my appointments to be able to stay with her.
Every time I have gone to town to eat or shop, I have not worn makeup or fixed my hair and people probably think I look like an old hag. I didn't quit caring; I just didn't want to go to the trouble to do it. It takes too much energy.
This will be a process that I have to get through and the hardest part is convincing myself that I am worth it. As egotistical as that sounds, we really have to take care of ourselves first, in order to be able to take care of others. It's like when you are on a rescue, you have to make sure you are safe before anyone else, or you cannot save them.
I know, too, that this was triggered by the death and not caused by it and I know how to handle that. I just had to remind myself of what I learned from my previous Dragon. So while I go through the grieving process of losing my mom, my job, the cause of the appearance of the first Dragon, and coping with day to day life pretty much by myself, I know I will be whole again, and whatever normal is for me. It may just take a while.
As my youngest granddaughter would say as she is getting up from a fall, "I'm okay!"