So, I was at church with this friend and when it came time to pass the basket. She had left her wallet in the car and didn’t have any money to put in the basket. She leaned over and whispered that she was embarrassed and worried about what people would think. I got all self-righteous and told her she shouldn’t be concerned about what other people think and that God knew her wallet was in the car and that was all that mattered. She could square up with God later.

A week later, I’m at church with the same friend and before the service started I showed her my new shoes – a brand spanking new pair of Ferragamo pumps that I found at Goodwill for $8.99. (I kid you not. $8.99. Clearly, the biggest Goodwill score in the history of Goodwill shopping.) She shook her head.

To prove it I showed her the bottom of the shoe, where the good folks at Goodwill had written the price with a big fat Sharpie on the sole: $8.99. She leaned over and smirked, “You know when you go up for Communion and kneel down everyone in church is going to know you got those shoes at Goodwill.”

A friend with bipolar reminded me last night that work is work. I’m not talking about “work” work – the kind that pays your mortgage. I’m talking about the work of staying mentally healthy. It ain’t easy.

For me, it’s a 24/7 job. Literally. It starts as soon as I get up. I check my mood. If it’s bad, I ask myself “Why?” Usually, there is no reason. Like this morning. There is nothing really wrong in my life right now. The checks aren’t bouncing. The air conditioning works and I’ve been having some pretty good hair days. So, the feeling I have this morning is not a fact. It feels real and I respect it, but it isn’t real. It’s my brain playing tricks on me.

Breakfast. It only took me 50 years to figure out that caffeine jacks my mania. The last thing I need when I’m manic is a stimulant. D’uh. So, I quit caffeine. I suppose for some people it’s okay to have a cup of coffee or a Diet Coke. But I am also a recovered alcoholic and there is no such thing as A cup of coffee or A Diet Coke just like I could never drink A Long Island Ice Tea.

As for food, I went gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free and Twizzler-free after my last depression. It took a few years to cut that stuff out of my diet, especially the Twizzlers. I did some research and realized that these things probably weren’t helping my depression.

The bad dreams are back.  I don’t know why. I had a perfectly wonderful day. I am visiting my daughter – who just happens to live by an outstanding outlet mall – and we are power shopping. Everything fits, looks good and the prices are so low I have to ask the clerk if there has been a mistake. She says, “No and it’s another 40 percent off of that.”

What more could a mother and daughter ask for?

So, why are the dreams back? Why am I waking up in a sweat with the anvil of anxiety on my chest? I have been healthy and feeling good for months. Why did I just dream that I fell into another deep depression and my bosses were going to fire me? The bosses who, during my last depression, were so understanding and kind.  The anxiety engulfs me.

Ever had one of those moments where you realize you are not as enlightened as you thought you were?

I had one Sunday morning, reading a front page story in The New York Times, Need Therapy? A good man is hard to find. Seems the number  of male therapists is  dwindling. Only 10 percent of the members of the American Counseling Association are men, down from 30 percent in 1982. “Some college psychology programs cannot even attract male applicants, much less students,” according to the article.

“The result, many therapists argue, is that the profession is at risk of losing its appeal for a large group of sufferers – most of them men – who would like to receive therapy but prefer to start with a male therapist.”

The bitchy little feminist in me says, “na-na-na-na-boo-boo. Now you know what it’s like for us to go to male gynecologists!” But in this battle, that kind of thinking is fatal. Of the four people I have known who committed suicide in the last five years, all were men.

One of my girlfriends called last night and left a message. I played it this morning. Her boyfriend killed himself. He was such a great guy. Probably one of the kindest, gentlest men I had ever known and equally manly – a commercial fisherman.

He was only in his 40s but his rheumatoid arthritis had gotten really bad over the last few years. He had an ankle replacement and picked up one of those horrible infections in the hospital that nearly killed him.

He was in constant pain. Unrelenting pain – non-stop fuel for depression. He didn’t bring it up unless you asked but you would see it in his face and the tightness of the muscles in his back and shoulders. He couldn’t work. He couldn’t do any of the activities he loved to do. My girlfriend, a saint, became the sole provider. It was hard on her. It was hard on him. Throughout it all there was the physical pain. He hated taking the pain medication but without it, the pain was too much.

I won’t go into the details but he was thoughtful to the end, leaving a note and doing “it” far from their home.

I went to a pot luck dinner on Saturday night at my gym. We all brought a dish from a nutritional program called the Paleo Diet. I had heard about the Paleo Diet but didn’t really know much about it. We listened to a short presentation and I concluded that it basically consists of eating only foods that were available to cave men: meat, veggies, fruits and nuts. No bread. No dairy. No cappuccino. No beer or wine. However, Tequila is okay. (Hard to imagine cave men sitting around a camp fire doing shots).

What does any of this have to do with depression? Lots. The discussion turned to insulin, cortisol, blood-sugar levels and the glycemic index. I will skip the science by the goal is to keep your blood sugar levels stable. Rapid spikes and drops in blood sugar levels CAN AFFECT YOUR BEHAVIOR. When I get really hungry, my blood sugar gets too low and I get tired and irritable (aka “bitchy”) When I eat a lot of carbs and sugar, it gets too high and I get kind of intense (aka Charlie Sheenish).

I try to eat low glycemic foods – grapefruit, strawberries, raw carrots -  to stabilize my blood sugar which will help control my moods and behavior. Simply put, if I am careful about what I put in my mouth, I’m less likely to regret what comes out of my mouth.

All my mom and I wanted was to see each other happy. I’m not sure either of us got what we wanted.

As a kid, I remember my mom being sad, anxious, worried or tired. There was no question that she loved us kids to death. We were her world and she scrimped and saved and did without  so we would have a better life than she had growing up in a family with five kids and an alcoholic father who kicked her out of the house when she decided to go to college because “women didn’t need a college eduction.”

She graduated, became a teacher and then went on to earn her master’s degree. But she wasn’t happy. I tried to make her happy with good grades, lot of blue ribbons and medals in swimming and working – babysitting, cleaning locker rooms and life-guarding. Still she seemed so stressed out, overworked and worried.

She missed most of my swim meets but when she did come she sat the in the stands, grading her students’ papers. She canned applesauce, cherries, pickles, tomatoes and made jellies and jams. She made our clothes when we were little, darned socks and ironed all of my father’s shirts. She shoveled snow, planted a garden every spring and mixed powered milk with regular milk to save money. She was not happy.

I ran into a woman at the grocery store on Sunday who has depression, among some other disorders. I have not seen her in quite awhile and she did not look well. In the months since we had last spoken she still had not been able to find the money or get a scholarship to a treatment center. She lives with her cats and is supported by her family. She does not believe she can get better without going to a treatment center.

What she and others need to understand is that most of us will never go to a treatment center. Only a very small, primarily elite fraction of people with mental illnesses can afford treatment. While I credit shows like Intervention, Celebrity Rehab and Hoarders for educating the public about the immense difficulties of recovery, I fear  they have created the belief that going to a treatment center is the only way to get well.

Five years ago today was the last time the lights went out. That was the day I hit the bottom of my black hole. April 25, 2006. I had been falling for awhile but that day I went into a free fall.

I got up that morning and went to a spin class at the gym. I needed something to make me feel better. Since I had gotten clean and sober six years earlier, I could no longer self medicate with a bottle of chardonnay or a joint. Instead, I used endorphins.

I got on my bike at 6 am. I pedaled hard. My lips flapped  like a racehorse exhaling hard. Sweat dripped from my nose and foam formed  in the corners of my mouth. Nothing. Faster. Harder. Faster. Harder. Nothing. No endorphins. My legs wobbled when I got off the bike. No endorphins. No rush. No nothing.

I went home, showered, changed and got ready for work. I walked through the lobby of the newspaper where I work and felt completely disconnected from my body. It was like I was watching myself. I sat at my desk and that’s when the lights went out. I don’t remember if I was crying but I left. Game over. Sayanara. Lights out.

Among my many dubious talents is my breathtaking ability to screw up a relationship.  Few girlfriends/fiances/wives have my innate sense of bad timing, poor taste and raging co-dependency. Seriously. Give me a medal or something.

I have married and divorced twice. The good news is that I got a daughter out of one of the marriages and I handled both my divorces pro se, saving me and my exes thousands and thousands of dollars – although I don’t think they looked at it that way.

It’s not that I don’t like commitment or falling into the toilet because someone left the seat up. I just don’t know how to do relationships.  I could blame my co-dependent mother, alcoholic father, bipolar or alcoholism. Might as well blame the nuns and my camp counselors, too. When I’m done with all the blaming I am left with this undisputed fact: I suck at relationships.

Perhaps my picker is broken or there is some freaky magnetic force emanating from incompatible men. I am especially attracted to alcoholics and addicts. You could do a line-up with a dozen guys and without any of them uttering a word, I can pick out the alcoholic/addict among the bunch. He is the only guy I am attracted to. I have no interest in the others no matter now much money or good looks they have. It’s weird.

I don’t know if it is because “likes” attract: I am an alcoholic and subliminally I want to be around alcohol so I pick an alcoholic. But I have no doubt that alcoholism, sprinkled with a healthy dose of depression, are not attractive characteristics in a woman. Throw in some wrinkles and gray hair and you’ve got a real peach!