Lawyer Mama

Recovering From Depression

Thanks for all the emails, my favorite people. I am still alive. I just went back to work.

That's right! I'm back at work and doing fine. I have a feeling I'll be on my Effexor for awhile, but life is looking so much better. I'm just trying not to push myself too much in the next few weeks, so I've been cutting back on the blogging. I haven't read many blogs other than MOMocrats and D.C. Metro Moms in the last few weeks.

Please forgive me but I'm now deprived of my daily afternoon nap and I'm just able to sit on the couch and veg, or maybe mindlessly edit a few photos before I collapse into bed. Once I (and my kids) are back into the usual schedule, I'm sure I'll be back trolling blogs in the evening. Until then, please don't forget me!

I still have dirt to dish about the D.C. Blogger Happy Hour last Friday in Rosslyn. Lots of fun people were there, including a co-worker of Amie's that I won't link because he blogs anonymously and presumably would like to keep it that way. (He's not in the group photo.)



I think Devra won for best quote of the night. It was a toss up between these two:

"What do you want me to put in my mouth?" and
"You must be watching the wrong sort of porn."

Ah, that Devra. I love her to death. And not just because she's the only person on the planet shorter than me.

Of course, I have photos for you!

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www.flickr.com Lawyer Mama's Blogger Happy Hour - March 08 photoset

Clearly, a good time was had by all.

I'm not at all bitter that everyone left by 11pm, forcing me to go back to my hotel and take pictures of my feet. (Don't worry, I left them out of the photo set.) On the plus side, I got to watch that adorable movie, Juno, and raid the mini bar. Of course, it made me cry. (The movie and the mini bar. Who leaves chocolate out of a mini bar?)

Life Is What Happens....

I've been missing for several days because I've been caught up in life.

You see, something has happened. Something almost imperceptible externally, but oh so noticeable to me. The earth has shifted on its axis again. My world has righted itself.

That deep green mucky hole I've been wallowing in has been filling up. For awhile I've felt as if I might be able to grab the top and pull myself out. And now I have.

Don't get me wrong, my living room gorilla hasn't suddenly turned into a cute little monkey I can put in a cage. He's still there. But now he prefers to hang out in the bedroom or the bathroom. Sometimes he even heads out to the garage.

Those are the good days.

I wish I could pinpoint exactly what or when everything changed. I can't. But I can tell you when I first consciously noticed it.

Sitting on a plane with Hollis, shortly after take off from Norfolk on our way to New Orleans, the sun started to rise. The tiny toy world from above the clouds is always amazing, isn't it? But that morning the amber glow of fresh sunlight made everything, even our unnatural silver tube, golden.

I watched Hollis, squirming in his window seat with excitement, wanting to see everything but happy just riding along waiting to discover what would happen next. I realized that I was happy to be there with him, on that journey, even if we never reached our destination.

That's what life is, isn't it?

So in the air at 15,000 feet, with my son and our sun, I realized that I want to give my children more of me. Not more of my physical presence, or even more time reading books, coloring, or rough housing, but more of what is essentially me. The part of me that I so often try to keep closed off from everyone, even those who love me best. The part of me that depression makes so ugly and moribund.

I'm going to try to enjoy my journey even if the destination isn't necessarily clear and the ride isn't as smooth as it could be.

I want to see what happens next.

So I'm going to turn my head to the sun as often as I can and remember that feeling I had at 15,000 feet; the belief for one moment that everything was going to be just fine.

If that doesn't work, I'm going to focus on this:



and this:



and keep breathing, keep living.

It's a start.

The Electric Kool-Aid Effexor Trip

I've made no secret of the fact that I'm on anti-depressants. In fact, I probably tell too many people. Is it awkward when you meet someone at a cocktail party and you say, "Hi, I'm Stephanie. I'm on short term disability for depression and I'm taking Effexor. So nice to meet you. Oh, I think the bathroom is over there...."?

Oops. My bad.

So far the Effexor is working nicely. It's been gradual. It's not like I woke up overnight and started praying at the altar of the optimists and cheerful people, but I'm getting there. And the Effexor has been great. I've heard nightmares about side effects, so I was a bit worried going in. Especially since Lexapro, which is supposedly loved because almost no one experiences any side effects while taking it, did a number on me.

For the 5 or 6 months I was on Lexapro, I walked around like a zombie during the day. I felt drugged. Then I started having hair problems. My hair, oh people of the internets, is one of my best features. It's nice and wavy and a lovely dark blond color with honey highlights. Oh and it's really thick, but not coarse at all. My hair rocks.

When it started falling out I started freaking the F out. It may seem vain but there was no way in H E double hockey sticks that I was going to end up depressed and bald.

Not to mention, the Lexapro wasn't doing a whole lot for me anymore.

In came the Effexor.

Effexor is one of those anti-depressants that you can't just stop taking. You have to gradually build up to your therapeutic dose and then when you stop taking it, you have to step down gradually as well. A good friend of mine who recently weaned off of Effexor had to start and stop about 6 times. Her doctor finally had her doing something really complicated like cutting open the smallest pill dosage they make, mixing the powder in apple juice and drinking 3/4 of it, 1/2 of it, 1/4 of it, etc.... That finally worked. She tried to describe what it was like when she tried to stop taking it, but I, who had just fallen in love with Effexor, wasn't really listening.

Um, Tiff, what was it you were trying to tell me again?

Yesterday was a busy day. We got up, had breakfast, corralled two small people into clothing and jackets, loaded up the car and headed to the Norfolk Botanical Gardens to meet my friend Lauren and her son. The kids played for hours, and wore themselves out nicely. We headed home, did the lunch/nap thing and I blogged and edited photos. Somewhere in there I remembered to take my antibiotic and Flonase for the plague that I've had for a month now, otherwise known as the ear infection, sinus infection, bronchitis trifecta.

Last night I could not sleep at all. Finally at 1:30 am, T came downstairs, shut my laptop and asked me to come to bed. I flipped out on him. I had a little tantrum where I ranted about how he wasn't the boss of me and I just wasn't tired and I wasn't going to just sit in bed and stare at the ceiling. I threw myself down on the couch and pouted like a teenager for about 10 minutes. Then, when enough time had passed that I could pretend going to bed was my idea, I went upstairs.

That should have been my first clue.

Once in bed, I couldn't sleep for more than 30-40 minutes at a time and I had the most bizarre dreams ever. At about 4:30 in the morning, I realized that whenever I closed my eyes, I was seeing brightly colored lights. Not my dark eyelids, but a pattern of colored dots that swirled and turned into candy and spiders and giant polka dots and brightly colored lights and then multiplied on top of each other in undulating waves and then transformed again. Then it started happening while my eyes were open.

It was like watching a Fruitopia commercial on an endless loop in a 360 degree theater with my eyes propped open with toothpicks.*

Just when I was about to wake T and have him taking me to the emergency room for my psychiatric committal, or call the police to see who spiked my Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper, I remembered that I forgot to take my drugs.

Oops.

I woke T up, took my pill, and then tried to explain what was happening to T. He talked me down from my little trip and I was finally able to get a few hours of sleep. When I woke this morning it was better, but when things moved they had little motion trails behind them, like those pictures of you see of subway trains with trails of light behind them. (Don't worry, I didn't drive.) My synapses finally started firing normally at about 12 today.

That was quite a trip and you can be sure that I will not be forgetting my pills again.

I already have a pill box, and T mercilessly makes funny of me for it. But my mommy brain can no longer remember if I've taken my Metformin and my vitamins. Well, the box doesn't work if I never even get it out of the cabinet. In my ditzy defense, this is the first time I've ever completely forgotten my medications. In any event, I've come up with a new system that should be foolproof as long as I go to the bathroom every morning. I don't foresee this being a problem, since I have the world's smallest bladder.

Nonetheless, I think I'll be traveling with an extra bottle of Effexor in my purse from now on. I mean you never know when you're going to be caught in a massive snow storm while you're driving a half mile to the 7-11. I don't want to have to figure out if those mounds of brightly colored candy are real, or just plastic orbs from Holden's ball pit.

* Am I the only one whose cat was transfixed by those commercials?

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I have pictures up on Lawyer Mama Dabbles if you'd like to see something that isn't reminiscent of an acid trip.

While I'm In New Orleans....

Try to forget that I'm having fun in New Orleans. Go over and laugh at my obsessive competitiveness. Leave it to me to combine two neuroses.

Opening the Door, Just a Crack

I feel like I've been dishonest on my blog lately.

You see there's this 250 pound gorilla sitting in the room with us and I've just been ignoring it. I sit on the couch with my mug of tea, blithely chatting with you about my new camera, Brittany Spears, and the Iowa primaries. Then I get up and carefully step over those large gorilla limbs to get to the teapot.

Depression sucks.

There's no other way to say it. Well, hell, we all know there is, but I can't think of a more succinct way to say it.

I've been sinking into a green hole for awhile now. I've hinted about it. I've whined about it. I've even danced around my anniversary date with the great gorilla. But I've never really come out and said it. So let's get it out of the way.

I'm depressed. I'm on a new medication. I'm seeing a therapist. I've taken a leave of absence from work. My job that I love, that I'm really good at, that I can't seem to properly perform in my current state.

So now you know.

Now you know that I'm not perfect. I'm not superhuman. I can't do it all. I can't have it all. Frankly, right now I'm struggling to just hold on to the things that matter the most.

And it's really hard for me to let other people know about this very real, very raw struggle I'm having right now. Some of my co-workers read this blog. Some people I've known since high school read this blog (Hi, B! Hi, C!). My family reads it. But this is my space. My space. And even if it makes other uncomfortable, I'm going to write my truth.

Let's face it. I'm not really worried about others being uncomfortable. I'm more worried about what others will think of me. Because that's what I do. I talk a good game about not being a conformist, yadda, yadda, yadda, but my life is really about as conventional as it gets.

In one of my posts I once wrote,

I do not save lives. I will not cure cancer. I will never fly to the moon.

If I have an Achilles heel, a tender spot in my self worth that can be breached, this is it. The feeling that I am not living a life of meaning. The fear that I won't leave this world a better place. The fear that I chose the path of least resistance.

Gwen wrote a post several months ago that struck a similar cord in me. She wrote about how so many of us grew up thinking we were extraordinary. That we would do amazing things. We would change the world. And, of course, most of us haven't done that, have we? That pretty much sums up my completely unrealistic discontent.

I know that relating my depression to the realization that I'm not as damn special as I've always thought I was is too simplistic. But it is part of the picture.

In becoming a mother, I faced a seismic shift in my personal identity. It happens to all of us. We have no control over it. It just happens. One minute it was all about "me" and the next it was all about "baby." Now it's all about "toddler." Oh, and "toddler." Can't forget the second one.

While this change in identity and expectations is automatic, it doesn't make acceptance of the change any easier. And it's been hard for me to align my internal view of myself with external and instinctive actions.

Don't get me wrong. I do not regret having children. My family is the one thing I can see with perfect clarity. My family is the best of me. But something about this identity shift, something about becoming a mother has changed me.

Before I even contemplated children, my life was fine as it was. My accomplishments weren't ground breaking, but they were mine and I worked hard for the life and education I had. Now, for some reason, being great at my job and working hard and playing hard just isn't enough for me. I want meaning. I want worth. I want something more.

I just wish I knew what that something is.

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Don't feel too sorry for me. I wrote this post more than a week ago but have trying to decide whether to publish it or not. I have bad days, I have good days. At some point the good will outweigh the bad. I know it will.

I do know that tomorrow will be a good day. You see, the DC Metro Moms Blog is having a party and I'm heading up to DC to see some old friends , some friends I somehow missed meeting at BlogHer, and meet some new ones. And if KC hasn't popped yet, maybe she'll be there too!

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I have new photos of the boys up at Lawyer Mama Dabbles.

Better Living Through Pharmaceuticals

"It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily.
"So it is."
"And freezing."
"Is it?"
"Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately."

-- A. A. Milne

OK, folks, brace yourselves. It's time for another Lawyer Mama "woe is me" post. But this time I decided to write about depression on a good day. On a day when I can stand back and look at the Big Monster with a bit more detachment. Hopefully I won't get any anonymous "suicide prevention" pamphlets left in my office by well meaning co-workers or frantic phone calls from family members checking to make sure I haven't driven myself and the boys into the Elizabeth River.*

Life is made up of hard days and good days. I know that. I've also been keenly aware since adolescence, that I seem to have more bad days than most people. But days that most people would consider bad, I just call, well...usual. I'm moody, contemplative, a little bitchy and extremely sarcastic. But that's me and I like it.

I think too much. This is the curse and blessing of being an introvert. Much of what is best in me is never seen by the outside world. Some of the best discussions I've had about life, love, history, politics, and the law have been internal. That's just how I process the world. Internally. But with this internal world comes a necessary detachment from the external world. Striking a balance between the two was difficult for me growing up, but it became easier with time and practice.

Then I had children and my internal world started spilling over into the external. I had all this love and all these thoughts I couldn't keep to myself. Or I would burst from the wonder of it all. I watched my Hollis with all the love in my soul shining right through my eyes. Emotions and thoughts I'd been protecting and bottling up and hoarding for my own private use came spilling right on out. Crawling there, across the floor, for all the world to see.

With this escape of my internal world also came an inability to escape into my internal world. Life became overwhelming in a way it never had before. I couldn't keep my internal world in, and I couldn't keep the external world out.

Life as a new parent is overwhelming for even the most balanced and emotionally healthy of people. I understand that. Everyone needs help coping at times, whether it be through a support system, some time away, or medical intervention. I know that too. But I denied that I had any problems. I denied that my life wasn't perfect. I denied that my life could be anything other than blissfully happy with my new baby and my great job. I don't ever admit that I need help. That's just the way I roll.

Eventually, something happened. I wish I could tell you what. It may be this blog. I started writing about things I normally keep hidden. It may be finally getting to know good friends in my area that I could talk to every day. It may be finally settling into a new routine in a new place with 2 new children. I don't know what it was. But I finally admitted that I needed help. And it took me a little while, but I finally got off my ass and got some help.

I saw a new doctor. After listening to my symptoms and, more importantly, listening to what I thought was wrong with me, she asked, "How do you feel about anti-depressants?" And giving me permission to admit that I wanted the help, she followed up with, "I'm a big believer."

So Lex@pro and I got to know each other. The first week or so, I thought I'd made a huge mistake. The drugs made me feel a bit foggy. Things didn't bother me the way they used to, but they didn't bother me at all. I felt as if I might not be bothered to say "ouch" if someone dropped an anvil on my foot. On the plus side, the kids could scream as much as they wanted and it didn't faze me a bit.

But I wasn't me. The contemplative, moody, complicated part of me that I love (and I like to think those who love me, love) wasn't there. She went to sleep for a few weeks. I worried that she would never be back. That simply wasn't an option for me. After talking to T about it, he also agreed that it shouldn't be an option for me. So we agreed I would give it a month. After that, I would ask my doctor to switch my medication.

She came back.

She's still here. She writes on this blog every now and then. Sometimes she gets nostalgic. Sometimes she thinks too damn much. But she's me. I like her.

I hope you do too.

* Sarcasm, people. I haven't actually had any pamphlets left for me. I have had phone calls and concerned emails. Yes, I appreciate those but I also promise you all, family members, friends, random passers by, regular readers, and total strangers I sent to my blog, that I know when and how to seek professional help. But thanks for your concern. "Mwah!" (That's a kiss in Holden-speak.)

I Just ... Can't.

I've been absent from the Blogosphere lately. I've been absent from a lot of things, including my life.

I'm living in my head and trying to figure out who I am and where I want to go. Who I want to be.

Life seems so overwhelming right now.

I'd like to write about it, to write through it.

But I just can't.

It's not that I don't have the words, I do. I have too many words actually. S0 many thoughts are jumbled in my head right now that I can't sleep.

I'm organizing my life in a futile attempt to organize my head. We'll see if it works, but I promise I'll be back as soon as I can. I mean really be back.

In the meantime, I may just post fluff and pictures of my kids.

Oy. I'm too young to be having a midlife crisis.

Happily Ever After

I'm about to turn 35. Maybe that's why I've been reflecting on my life so much lately. I'm not the only one. It seems that many people ask themselves, "how did I get here?" around the time of birthdays. Particularly after you have children and your old life becomes unrecognizable.

My youngest has been sick and cranky as hell for the last couple of weeks. As a result, I've found myself with more time for quite reflection than I normally have in a chaotic day. When Holden wakes at 1am and wants me to rock him back to sleep, a rare treat for me, I fight the exhaustion and hold my little boy. There is something meditative about rocking my Little H, not quite a toddler, no longer a baby. I smell his clean sweet smell and feel his chest rise and fall. I put my cheek on his soft curls and think about how I got here. To this moment in time, in a room with my two little boys, with more blessings than I could possible have imagined. But with more quiet discontent than I ever expected.

Even though I ask myself how I got here, I know. The path behind is quite clear and completely unremarkable. I got married. I have a career. I have children. I have a castle and a kingdom. My path has been surprising only in its predictability. I should now live happily ever after.

But what happens when you look back along that path and see that what you thought was there really wasn't?  That something you thought was an important part of your life might have been an illusion?

When I was 15 I fell in love for the first time. Well, I thought it was love in the heady, romantic, hormonally driven way that many teenagers do. His name was Mark. He was 17 and about to start his senior year in high school. I was about to start my junior year. We were both swimmers. We were both honor students. He was handsome, I was strangely quiet and moody and therefore fascinating to him.

Mark had had a thing for another of our classmates, Kerry, before he met me.  Kerry was a sweet, but uncomplicated girl.  I don't remember much about her other than she had horribly feathered eighties hair (as we all did) and was very tall and a bit gangly.  (I am short, so this was notable to me.)  Before the Summer of 1988, I hadn't even known Mark existed.  He ran cross country.  I was a cheerleader.  Our lives didn't intersect until he saw me swimming at the pool where he was a lifeguard and decided to meet me.  And then to date me.  We dated for more than 4 years.

I was 20 and he 22 when we broke up. To say that it had ended badly would be a gross understatement. He had cheated on me. I had flirted with cheating on him. He hated how stubborn and argumentative I was. I hated how traditional and boring he was. I didn't want to live a life of the usual. He wanted the white picket fence and a happy family. I didn't know if I wanted children or a predictable life. We were nothing alike.

I used to say that Mark went looking for something and someone easier than me.  Less complicated.  Less argumentative.  Less moody.  Less me.  I liked to think that I was something special.  But the thing is, I don't think that Mark knew I was all of those things.  (Aside from the moody.  That much was obvious.)  I let him inside my head about as much as he let me in his, which is to say, not much at all.

But still, when I think of high school, I can't help but think of Mark. Most of my life in high school was spent with him by my side. My friends were his, his friends were mine. In a way, we grew up together. But in a way, we also prevented each other from growing up. We both feared discovering who we were or leaving the safe path and so we put a lot of effort into what should have been a simple high school romance. But, yes, he was my first love and I was his, I liked to think.

After we broke up, Mark became almost immediately engaged to another girl. The cheatee. They got married shortly after they graduated from college. Later, I met and married my T. I didn't hear much from Mark after that, aside from the occasional email. I knew that he was working on his doctorate in pharmacy and that he had had two hip replacements in his late twenties as a result of degenerative arthritis. Ironically, his wife and I graduated from law school the same year. (So much for hating my argumentative nature.)

A few years ago, I Googled Mark after not hearing from him for awhile. What I found shocked me. After his surgeries, his life took a dark turn.  He got divorced, lost his pharmacy license, and ... other bad things happened.

Even thinking about this now, I'm disturbed. The Mark I knew is not the Mark I found in criminal and civil court records. In hindsight there were warnings. Alcohol abuse of the sort rampant in college, black outs, and some depression. What I thought was an unfortunate result of fraternal excess was apparently a sign of things to come.  At the age of 20, Mark once asked me if I ever stared at the ceiling at night and wondered if this was all there was to life.  That should have been a big red flag.

Upon reflection, I knew Mark about as well as he knew me.

I was incredibly saddened to hear about what had happened in Mark's life.  I wanted him to be happy.  Well, he had cheated on me.  I didn't want him to be super happy, but I didn't want his life destroyed.  I didn't want him to end up in jail, with no future and no family.  I found it hard to believe that the Mark I once knew would be happy without children and a family.  That much I knew for sure.

Over the last few years I've thought about Mark on and off.  I've wondered how he's doing and if he's happier now.  And so, this week, I Googled him again.  I discovered that he remarried in October of 2005.

He married Kerry.

Yes, that Kerry.  The girl he had admired before I came along.  Sweet, uncomplicated, tall and gangly Kerry.  Who was everything I was not.

I found myself inexplicably upset.  Why should Mark marrying our classmate upset me so much?

Because I've always thought of Mark as my first love.  Yes, I know now that it wasn't the love.  It wasn't what I have with T.

My love for T is so much more than 4 years in high school and college.  It's pounding hearts and calm peace, tears, smiles and slammed doors, wedding bands and bills, promotions and miscarriages, ultrasounds and celebrations.  It's all those big swirling emotions and all the little nothings of life.  What I have with T is everything.

But still, Mark was my first love and I was his.  Or so I thought.

Now our history has been rewritten.  I wasn't his first love.  I was his second.  And strangely, after 15 years, that still hurts.

I have my happily ever after, such as it is.  Clearly I was meant to be where I am, who I am, with my beautiful boys and my T.  Mark was a part of what brought me here.  So why should I begrudge him his own happy ending?

I wish I knew why this bothers me so much.

This post is a part of Julie's weekly Hump Day Hmmm.  I have two posts for this week's topic, a journey.  My other is a post I wrote about a more literal journey I took with my family in July.



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If you'd like to read about something fun from my life, go here. I'm just bummed that Not Exactly a Princess and I forgot our cameras.
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I also have a new review up at Lawyer Mama Review.  Are you interested in getting your kids to eat more healthy foods?  Then Deceptively Delicious may be for you.

On Becoming A Lawyer

Thank you all for your comments on my rant post yesterday about breastfeeding. It's nice to know that there are friendly voices out in the crowd straining to be heard.

Today's post is one of Julie's Hump Day Hmmms. She asked us to write about what we do or have done to make a difference. I don't believe that she could have set a more difficult task for me. I'm not sure if this post is what she had in mind, but I certainly discovered a few things about myself while writing it. That alone makes this post worth something to me.

Please be gentle. I bare my soul in all its flawed glory.

When I was in high school I once read that people attracted to the field of psychology are frequently those who are themselves emotionally flawed in some way. Although I can't recall the source, this theory resonated with me. Studying psychology solely for the purpose of self-analysis or to develop an awareness of some flawed familial structure or unhealthy parental dynamic made perfect sense to me at the age of 17.

So, of course, I majored in psychology in college.

I had dreams of saving the world as a brilliant analyst or researcher, or at the very least using my copy of the DSM IV to diagnose the whacked out troubled members of my family. If my family wouldn't cooperate, perhaps I could use my empathy and superior intellect to bring peace to whackadoos troubled souls in the general public. Clearly, I did not have a self-confidence problem. Nor did I know much about the world.

Along the path to my brilliant career, however, I found real people.

In college, I began volunteering for the YWCA's Violence Against Women program. I answered phones for our local hot line for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. The stories were heart breaking. I spent too much time on the phone with each caller. Unable to really help, only to give information, but wanting to just listen, to let each of them find a voice.

Discussing the most private details of people's lives over the phone can be both incredibly intimate and incredibly limiting. There is a distance to it, a removal. At least there was for me. It was as if I was playing the role of calm confidant and informant. When I hung up the phone, it was over for me.

Over time, I took on more responsibility as a volunteer. I began facilitating group sessions for victims of domestic violence and, as I was applying to PhD programs in clinical psychology, I began acting as an emergency room advocate for sexual assault and domestic violence victims.

As you can imagine, most of my calls came in the dead of the night. At 2am I would race to a local emergency room and wait. Wait to speak with the doctor. Wait to speak with the victim who had requested me. Wait to speak to the police. Wait for the rape kit to be completed. Wait for the broken bones to be set, the sister to arrive, the father to call. If there was no sister, no father, no family, I would work the phones until I found a shelter.

The hardest visits were the ones where I wasn't permitted to call a shelter. Where the woman, the young man, the middle aged wife insisted that she or he was going home. Insisted it was an accident. Insisted the police had misunderstood. Insisted that I wasn't needed. While their eyes screamed.

As a mandatory reporter, I was very careful to discuss my obligations to report suspected child abuse before beginning any discussion about domestic violence or sexual assault with a parent. This was part of my training. I understood. The Y did not want its advocates used as a weapon against a victim by an abuser. We wanted the women to understand that we were on their side, but that there was a line they shouldn't cross.

I spoke with many women, a few men, but mostly women, with children. Women who insisted their boyfriend/partner/husband would never harm the children. Had never harmed the children.

And then it happened.

The story on the nightly news. A woman's face I recognized and, after consulting my notes, a name that was unmistakable.

A child in the ICU.

Something in me broke.

I faced an identity crisis. At 22, my whole sense of right and wrong shifted. The sheltered bubble in which I'd floated along for most of my life popped. Everything felt raw and new to me. Sand abraded my feet and gritted in my eyes for the first time.

The path ahead of me was no longer clear and straight. I would not become a psychologist. I could not become a psychologist.

I realized that I could not be an impartial witness to suffering. The distance I felt on the phone and in small conference rooms full of battered women? I couldn't maintain it when dealing face to face with reality. I felt responsible for every woman and man that crossed my path beyond those steely white emergency room doors. And unlike Atlas, I could not bear the weight of the world. If I tried, I would break.

To save myself, to save the humanity I failed to discover until my third decade, I chose an easier path.

I do not save lives. I will not cure cancer. I will never fly to the moon.

If I have an Achilles heel, a tender spot in my self worth that can be breached, this is it. The feeling that I am not living a life of meaning. The fear that I won't leave this world a better place. The fear that I chose the path of least resistance. Perhaps this is my curse in life? Wanting to help, to cure the ills of the world, but unable to shoulder the responsibility or bear the weight on my all too narrow shoulders.

I don't know.

But I do know that in stumbling along this winding path to my current life, among those very real and imperfect people, I found my soul.

So maybe this is not a story about how I make a difference but about how all of us, even those who seem beyond hope themselves, make a difference.

For me, that's enough.