More Bumps in the Road

Ok people.  So everyone has a day... a week... a month... a year... or maybe even a decade, when the bumps in the road of life feel insurmountable.  Yesterday, I was battling depression.  As an intelligent human being with the ability to have "gone all the way" in my education, and snag a big, "important" job with a six figure income, I chose to move through life wherever and however the wind blew.  I jumped from job to job as I learned about this or that, and until I was diagnosed with MS, I did not think I needed to worry too much about finances.  As long as I could pay my bills now, what was the worry for later?

Then Multiple Sclerosis hit.  Now, we can actually trace my MS symptoms back to 1980, but since my symptoms were not connected at that time to MS, they are still not recognized by medical professionals.

But back to depression.  I cannot work anymore.  I am bringing in only what Social Security Disability Insurance give me, and a little more from Long Term Disability Insurance through my last employer.  It all equals about a third of what I was bringing home when I was working.  

Six years ago, with the economy plummeting, my housemate tried to sell her house while buying land and building a house in which we could both live.  Her old house sold at about half the original value.  The house we now live in is worth less than what we owe after five or six years of paying.

I told you earlier about my medical insurance, now covering my Rebif at 50%, which leaves me with possibly several months without medication, as I cannot afford 50%, or even $50 more per month if I want to eat or put fuel in my car once in a while.  

All of this self pitying has a purpose here.  I have struggled with depression and anxiety all of my life, and I have come up with some coping mechanisms which may help anyone interested in suggestions.  


First, when I cannot face the energy it takes to do anything, and I just want to get away from it, perhaps hide under the covers on my bed, I will read a book.  We're not talking about education here.  We're talking escape.  It just so happens, my most favorite books to read are fictional mysteries.  A good genre to take my mind off of anything!  I don't even go for the more complicated mysteries.  Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys would do it for me.  I am currently reading Carol Higgins Clark books and I am almost completely done with the Mary Higgins Clark books.  Not hard.  Just enough to get me out of my own shell and into someone else's for a while.  I also enjoy James Patterson, Sue Henry, Dick Francis, and several others.  


If I have a little energy, enough to face life as far as getting up and getting some coffee... I may look for ways to bring my mood up a bit.  I can listen to Deepak Chopra's Creating Affluence, which is a quick book on cd that gets me feeling like a part of the whole world, in a good way.  It helps me lift the load off of my shoulders and give it back to the universe (God, or whatever you may believe).  


I also like to look for good quotes.  I used to sit in our local Hallmark for hours, going through card after card, writing down the quotes I liked.  I saved them in a three-ring binder I still have, thirty years later.


Now that everything is all about the internet and smart phones and tablets, I searched last night for quotes to put on my phone.  I read several and fell asleep with one on my mind.  




"Let no feeling of discouragement prey upon you, 
 and in the end you are sure to succeed."  
                                             -- Abraham Lincoln



Wow.  How appropriate for that time.  For many times when we are discouraged because things are not going our way.  We don't have enough time or energy or money or whatever... A bump in the road.  It may seem a mountain; insurmountable at the time, but we all face them.  Bumps in the road.  Once we bring ourselves back into focus, we can all succeed.