Climbing The Mount Everest of Depression by Laurie Jueneman

Author:Laurie Jueneman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookWhirl Publishing
Published: 2016-09-13T00:00:00+00:00

The negatives that I saw included:

I wasn’t close enough to nursing much of the time.

My family’s continued concern about the possibility that I could lose my benefits.

My increased anxiety.

The feeling of total exhaustion once I got home.

The feeling that I had to put on the front of doing well even though maybe I wasn’t.

The concern about finding a job at the number of hours I could work and still afford it

I missed my volunteer activities.

In October, I stated that I was staying busy. I was back to volunteering and had made a couple trips home to Marshall. I attended a nursing education department reunion and had fun. However, I wrote that it was difficult to feel like I did not remember as much of the past as the other attendees did.

I also attended a Woman’s Cancer program because I thought it would help me better understand the women coming through the Erickson Hair Care Center, where I was volunteering. I wrote in my journal that I found myself thinking rather negatively on the way to the conference because all I had heard about all month was that it was Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I had been experiencing some frustration because it was also Mental Illness Awareness Month and I felt that mental illness received so little attention. But the conference was good. The pop singer Anastacia told her story about being diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of thirty. She stated, “I didn’t call up God and say, “Could I have some toxic tits this month. It just happened.” By the time I left I was in a better mood. Yes, I started to accept that these cancers get a lot more attention and research money than mental illness but none of these women chose their illness any more than I had chosen to have mental illness. It had happened and it had interrupted their lives at a time they didn’t choose and there was always a chance of relapse for them too. I decided much of what I had learned at the conference, I could apply to myself too.

In November I went to the Minnesota National Alliance on Mental Illness state conference. I went home for both the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. I wrote in my journal that I felt lucky Rick’s family included my mother and I every year.

In 2007, I was busy with some of the things that I had been involved in before such as the hospital auxiliary, NAMI, and church activities. I was also on the NAMI board again. Being involved on the NAMI board allowed me the opportunity to work with a lot of different people with a variety of interests in mental illness. A few members were people experiencing mental illness but probably half of them or more were professionals and/or family members. I found it both interesting and a learning experience. I also felt like I was contributing to something positive. In February, NAMI had a party of celebration. I celebrated one year without any hospitalizations.

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