Let me just start by saying I was not a touchy-feely, self-help-book kind of girl. I was more of a You-want-a-piece-of-me? kind of gal. Comes with the profession – journalism – and the more time you spend in a newsroom, the more refined your sass. So, when I came out of my last major depression and my therapist suggested I do some “Inner Child” work I rolled my eyes, thanked God for our  confidentiality agreement. No one would find out about my “Inner Child.”

It seemed really silly at first. REALLY silly. I drew pictures, wrote letters with my left hand from my “Inner Child,” went through boxes of old picture and visualized my “Inner Child.” I have very few memories of my childhood. But after a couple of months of working with my “Inner Child” weird stuff started happening. Memories struck like lightening – totally out of the blue. I could suddenly recall the tile and and door knob at the swimming pool. I could see myself as a 6-year-old with long pig-tails, ridiculously short bangs and my favorite red check dress with the black velvet ribbon around the waist. My sister helped me remember the library with the creepy stuffed bald eagle.

Four years ago when I was diagnosed with depression and then bipolar disorder, the clouds parted and my life finally made sense. I did a timeline of my life with my therapist and bingo, there it was — my alcoholism, depression and mania had been singing in perfect harmony as I plowed through the chaos that I had called my life.

The amazing thing is how far back we were able to trace the illnesses. I started swimming competitively when I was 7. I swam hard and fast. I liked the way it made me feel. My coach and parents and teammates cheered me on. Swimming made me feel part of something — and I finally fit in with the other kids. At 14-years-old, I had had enough of swimming back and forth, staring at a black line on the bottom of the pool. I slid into a teenage wasteland and the endorphins stopped working.

I want the dreams to stop. They are not nightmares. They are bad dreams. Years of therapy have given me an explanation, but no solution. It seems to come down to this: I cannot control my subconscious, which really sucks.

I have these kinds of dreams over and over, year after year.

• I say something that seems innocuous but apparently it is terribly offensive and I get yelled at.
• I am on a ski slope, skiing by myself, trying to hook up with my friends. By the time I get to the bottom of the hill the snow has melted and I am trying to ski on mud. I still can’t find my friends.
• I find myself in a predicament and I jump up into the air, hands over my head like Super Man. I do a few butterfly kicks (I swam butterfly as a kid) and I am off, away from my problem, looking down at it. I fly around, people see me, I go about my business and I am so happy I can fly. Then I fly too high and realize I never learned how to land. I am terrified.
• The classic last-day-of-the-semester dream, I am getting A’s in all my classes, then realize I haven’t gone to a single class or done a single assignment for one class. I can’t find the professor or the lecture hall or even the day and time of the class.
• Sometimes I have nightmares. I wake up trying to scream but all I can muster is some guttural moan and I wake up.

You can read a lot into these dreams. They are kind of no-brainers. I just want them to stop. I have had only two happy dreams that I can remember. One involved me, George Clooney, and the privacy of a tent. In the other I was Lance Armstrong’s girlfriend and he wanted my opinion of his training regimen. Exciting, huh?

I have made so much progress in the last three years of therapy, medication tinkering and sobriety. My life is good, stable and consistent. I can trust myself and my feelings. But I can’t seem to do a damn thing …

“Okay” is not a feeling.

“Fine” is not a feeling.

“Alright” is not a feeling.

“So-so” is not a feeling.

“Just peachy” is not a feeling.

“With my hands” is not a feeling.

These are the responses I give when someone asks “How ya feeling?” I have designed my life to avoid feelings. I hate feelings. They scare me. In my family we did not “do” feelings. When I came out of my last depression I learned that I needed to start “feeling my feelings.”

“Oh, great!,” I thought. “Psycho-babble. And how much am I paying you an hour to tell me this?”

Problem was, I could only name three feelings: happy, sad, mad. That was my life. You were either happy, sad or mad. I began going to a group and we started every session with a go round, announcing – in one word – how we were feeling. I had to get a list of feelings to learn the others besides my three. I had to really think about it when we started to go-round. “How am I feeling? Hmmmm?”

Of course I lost the list but I learned a lot of them. Nowadays I feel them all: Scared; anxious; embarrassed; silly; brave; cocky; lonely; overwhelmed; timid; uncertain; aggressive; confident; humble; and a bunch more. Who woulda thought there could be so many feelings?

What I have learned about feelings is that they are very valuable. I still don’t like them, but I appreciate their worth. When I have identified my feeling, I ask myself “Why?” Very often it has little to do with what is happening NOW but what happened THEN.

Unfelt feelings do not hibernate. They marinate. When something happens NOW that triggers an unfelt feeling from THEN, all hell can break lose. If I let that happen I risk a depression or a manic tirade. That’s what has been going on with me for the last week.

My therapist explained to me that when you have worked for a company for nearly half your life – 24 years – and you really love your job and the company – you begin to look at the company as a parent – taking care …

Yesterday was my anniversary. I am not married and I was not celebrating another year of sobriety.

April 27 is the anniversary of my last clinical depression. It was one of the worst days of my life. That was three years ago – April 27, 2006. I got up sometime between 4 and 5 am. I hadn’t slept much. I walked the dog to the park, sat on a picnic table and cried. I just wanted some relief. I slogged down to my gym, got on a stationery bike and rode until I foamed the mouth. Nothing. No endorphins. 

I got dressed and went to work. I walked in and felt that I was not in my body. I sat at my desk with my back to the newsroom. I was weary. I could not stitch my thoughts together. I was barely eating or sleeping and smothered by anxiety and desperation. I walked out.

I went home and sent a text to my boss. I couldn’t talk to her. I didn’t know what to say. I called a friend who has depression. She told me I must see a doctor immediately – or go to a hospital emergency room. I found a nurse practitioner who specializes in working with addicts and alcoholics. She saw me that afternoon – probably saving me from relapse. She started me on antidepressants and a mild anti-psychotic to help me sleep. 

After six weeks of hell and progress measured in little baby steps I returned to work. I gradually slid back into a new life – A.D. – After Depression. Nothing is the same. I can go weeks now – actually months – on terra firma. No crashes. No blasts offs. It is so amazing. I am still in awe of how stable my life is today – even when things around me fall apart. This is what it must feel like to have a healthy brain. 

I used to wonder how long this would last. I don’t anymore. This is my new life. If I get sick again I will know what to expect and what to do. There is a floor beneath me …