If You Had Three Wishes

The season of winter is turning the corner into it's finishing stages where I live, and I can tell you it is none too soon for this lady who suffers from seasonal depression. The days are getting a bit longer, and the sun is out in contrast to a few weeks ago when it was dark gray skies for days on end.

As I talked about in a recent entry, sometimes depression can be a useful signal that lets us know when we need to do something different. It can serve as a warning signal to us that things are not working, and our needs are not getting met. As much as I hate to admit it, I am still about as depressed as I was when I wrote that entry almost 4 months ago. That is astounding to me. If I didn't have a blog that detailed this I would not believe it. It has not seemed like 4 months. I think that is kinda how we get caught in a lot of patterns, though. We kinda get used to it, and for me this down feeling had kinda become my new norm. So, I got used to feeling blue, and sometimes the blue feeling delved down into despair. Other times, it zoomed up to good days. Which good days happen with depression. That's what makes it sometimes so hard to detect, because we might have a day, or even 3 of great days. Days that feel like we used to when we don't feel down. Days that we feel full of life, and energy, and those days are the ones where we doubt the depression existed at all. We think that maybe those days are the real days, and the others are a false experience, or at the least days where our weak will won. They kinda feel like maybe if I extended more effort, then every day could be a good day, and then the dark cloud returns, and I am not sure of anything.

Today is a good day so far, Yesterday was not. Yesterday I got to thinking of the old entry I wrote, and decided to really focus on my life, and what I would change if I could. I am sure that the dreary state of the weather has been a major culprit in my down days, but I also feel that there are things that I could change in my life that might make things better. So I posed the following question to myself:

If I had 3 wishes to apply to my life right now to change it for the better what would they be?

At first I thought this would be easy. Any wish. It doesn't have to be logical, or practical, or make sense. Just pick 3 things that would make my life better. It wasn't easy. I thought, and I thought. Finally, this morning I came up with 3. Here they are:

1. To have supportive family nearby. This one that I could have probably cited as a huge contributor to my depression. There is nothing worse than being disowned by your parents, and then the rest of the family pretty much following suit, because it's just less awkward to avoid you rather than deal with the unsaid conflict.(My mother refuses to talk to anyone that still talks to me.) There isn't a day that goes by that I don't have at least one panicky thought about my husband dying, because if he does I know for a fact that I am on my own. My family wants nothing to do with me, and wouldn't even come to my side if there was a genuine emergency. His family is not much better.

The more I thought about the wishes I realized that all 3 would be pretty much covered if we had family that could go to doctor appointments with me, and help run errands. If someone else stepped in to take my oldest two kids to fun things like museums, and out to lunch. If they could watch my kids, so I could have a moment to breathe, or go to dinner. To have people to turn to when you need help, or to talk that would understand autism.

2. More Money. Who doesn't wish for more money? If I had more some of my worries would go away, and I could probably buy the help I need where family can't be there. Of course, one doesn't just get money. I don't know how I'd obtain this extra cash, but I'm supposed to think of 3 wishes no matter how out in left field they may be.

3. Program for Beans. And, finally.... the last wish. I would love a program for Beans to go to that centered around the values that I hold, and conducted by people that I trust to treat him well. In other words, a fun, person centered approach that was NOT about compliance, but about growing at his pace on days he felt able to attend. No pressure. Just lots of positive activities. That would be awesome.

So, that is what I'd wish for if I had the power to obtain anything in my wildest dreams. I think it is a good starting place for me to think about what is missing in my life, and fix what I can, and deal with what I can't. I'm not sure what I can come up with, but I am sure that there are solutions if I keep looking. That is one thing that I am still confident about. there are solutions to every problem if we look hard enough, and are willing to explore alternative ways of thinking, and doing things.

If you had 3 wishes what would they be?