Today I have the honor of guest posting over at John's place: Daddy Run's A lot, about my perfect children. :) If you haven't been reading John then you are really missing out, so go! Check him out.
Over here, I'm talking about depression and healing.
I've told you before about how I literally lost two plus years to depression. I have huge chunks of my memories just gone. I see pictures and have absolutely no recollection of the event, have no idea what the event even is sometimes. The grief has been overwhelming at times to know that I've missed so much.
But the other day I made the most wonderful discovery: I took a thousand pictures during that time. It's as if part of me knew I wasn't truly connected and was missing things. That someday I'd crave those moments. So I took a bajillion pictures. Even if I don't have the memories in my head, I have them in scrapbooks.
I think taking pictures was my way of participating at that time. Since I had zero energy or want to get up and involved, I become the photographer. Therefore I could sit and snap pictures or just walk around after the kids as they explored the zoo, museums and ordinary daily things. How could I run through the sprinkler with the kids when I had to take pictures? So I remained an observer.
But I have those pictures. I have pictures of everything. That farm trip, the Children's museum, swimming. Silly faces and temper tantrums. I have the memories in concrete form.
This is incredibly healing for me.
And sometimes the pictures bring back the real memories, which an unexpected and beautiful gift.
Just the other day, I sat down to think "dear god, my kids are getting far too big, far too fast, and I spend far too much time away from them." Even when I see them in the morning, I can swear I come back home to taller, more-mature children. Thinking back, I forget just how impossibly small they were at times . . . but, you're right, in the times that there are fogs, pictures sure do help.
ReplyDeleteI mean, there were times that everything in my life combined to turn my life into a fog, where I can barely remember what was going on. When I think back to those times, it's all gray, or (worse) bad. Pictures sure do help remind me that, well, even if my memory says everything was bad, the reality was different.
There is nothing that can help keep the old memories like pictures. I like taking pictures myself, especially family pictures, and since my kids can be gone to school for too long the pictures help me a lot in keeping the memory of them so that I don't miss them so much.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, I took a lot of videos while I was depressed. Maybe it was my way of trying to convince myself "Look! We're having fun!" And now I will sometimes sit and watch those videos over and over soaking in all the details that were lost on me at the time, and feeling so, so grateful to have those memories.
ReplyDeleteThat's so crazy that we both did the same thing. Thank God. I'm glad you have the concrete memories too.
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