Andrea Wilson Woods' Blog

Note: I haven’t written a personal blog post* in over sixty days so I feel out of practice. Hopefully, I won’t disappoint you.

I am always on a quest for everlasting peace. I believe if I can find peace then the rock of pain that sits on my heart will disappear. Perhaps peace would pose as an angel, fly in with her white-feathered wings, and lift the pain away. Or maybe peace would be a bad-ass biker, ride in on his Harley, and drive right through the pain. There might be a way for peace to drop a bomb and blow up the pain until it becomes only miniscule pieces of dust in my blood stream. I don’t know because I don’t know what peace looks like.

However, I am getting ahead of myself. First I must explain the rock. It appeared when my sister Adrienne died on October 9, 2001. Even though the rock weighs me down, I barely notice the dull ache anymore. It’s amazing how much we humans can tolerate. How much pain we can tolerate. Sometimes, I’ll feel a sharp stab in my chest and I imagine it’s the rock shifting the way tectonic plates do. Occasionally, the rock feels lighter as if my heart is pushing it up, demanding that it roll on to another organ. Give me a break says my heart I’ve been carrying this burden for years. [insert sitcom laugh track]

The lighter feelings occur when I confuse moments of happiness with peace, which I seek everywhere. In things, in my pets, in people, even places. Oh I know a new dress won’t bring me peace, but for a few seconds when I look in the mirror, I feel good, sometimes beautiful, which is progress. When I hug my English Mastiff Winston so tight he might break (except a 110-pound woman cannot break a 175-pound dog), I feel joy. He loves me no matter what, and you can’t say that about people. Ahh … people. Boy do I seek peace in them. It’s unfair because if you give me a little happiness even for a few hours, I will mistake it for peace and not realize it. And when this inequitable transaction occurs, I will want it to happen again. And again. I will want your company the way addicts want their drugs. Their high is my peace.

Clothes, animals, friends, family—they will never bring me peace. It’s too big of a task. It’s too much to ask. I envy religious people because their faith seems to give them peace. But prayer does nothing for me so I figure god doesn’t have much to offer me either. If god exists, he’s in the people category, and I’m asking too much of him. Or her.

The only time I find the kind of peace I’m looking for—that everlasting peace that sets my heart free is when I am at the ocean. It sounds corny especially considering I’m not a “beach girl.” I’m an okay swimmer who gets seasick on ferries. I don’t own a pair of flip-flops; hell, I don’t even like flip-flops. Therefore, it’s a mystery why the ocean calms me from the inside out. Maybe it’s the sound of crashing waves beating the shore. Maybe it’s the scent of salt in the air. Maybe it’s the feeling of sand between my toes. Maybe it’s the sight of seagulls and perhaps pelicans if I’m lucky (they’re my favorite bird) flying over the horizon.

Whenever I am at a beach, I inevitably walk along the water, pick up random shells, and lose myself in my thoughts. If I go with others, I often stray away forgetting that I’m with them. Something magical happens when I am listening, smelling, touching, and seeing the ocean. The water washes right through me and takes the rock of pain with it. I don’t hurt when I’m at the ocean, which is why I insisted on spending my birthday last year at Huntington Beach. I wanted to have a good day. A happy day. A peaceful day. And I did.

The neverending search is over. I found my everlasting peace. Now all I need is my house by the sea. In Gold Beach.

AWW — XoXo

*I currently write the president’s blog for my employer TGIC Importers. Read From Alex’s Desk.

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10. You watch Lifetime movies.

9. You like Lifetime movies.

8. You watch Lifetime movies even when you don’t like them.

7. You record Lifetime movies.

6. You watch enough Lifetime movies to know that the ones on the Lifetime Movie Network (LMN) are always better than the ones on the regular Lifetime channel.

5. You get genuinely upset when your cable provider has a dispute with LMN, which seems to happen every six months.

4. You know what Pick-a-Flick Fridays are.

3. You IMDB the actors in a Lifetime movie because they look familiar only to discover they have been in other Lifetime movies that you have already seen.

2. You watch two LMN movies in a row and don’t realize you have already seen both of the films until the end of the second one, yet you don’t care that you have wasted four hours of your time on a Friday night.

1. You lie down, watch four Lifetime films back-to-back, and after eight hours you cannot recall the plot of any of the movies. Oh—and you forget to eat. Or you eat an entire bag of chips. Or a pint of ice cream. Or both.

AWW — XoXo

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Most Americans spent this weekend celebrating Thanksgiving, which means eating turkey, watching football, and visiting family members whom you rarely see. However, I look at Thanksgiving as the 20-mile marker in a marathon. My muscles throb and my joints ache, but I am in the home stretch toward the end of that terrible time between summer and winter. You see, fall is my least favorite season.

One factor is that my sister Adrienne died on October 9, 2001, but even before I lost her to cancer, I often found myself depressed after my birthday (i.e., August 15) until around December 30.* The leaves may change colors, but the days shorten, the weather chills, and the holidays begin. When I walked into Michaels last week, I saw the Christmas decorations and heard The Nutcracker piping through their speakers. Seriously? We haven’t even passed Turkey Day yet.

Given my hostile reaction and less than festive spirit, I examined what bothers me about the non-stop holidays throughout this season:

• I like dressing up in costumes, but Halloween was Adrienne’s favorite holiday. Enough said.
• I love pumpkin pie and stuffing, but Thanksgiving holds no sentiment for me. I also hate to cook.
• I like decorating a tree and receiving gifts, but Christmas began losing its magic when my mother told me that I needed to wrap my own presents. I was ten years old.

I’ve thought about the many autumns over the past 25 years, and my mood has always dipped significantly with some exceptions. The fall of 1990 was one of the happiest times of my life because I had just moved to Los Angeles to begin my first year at USC. The fall of 2006 I married and started graduate school within a two-week period—a joyful yet stressful time.

I find it interesting that my “happier” autumns relate to school, and I am an excellent student. As a teacher, however, I dreaded returning to the classroom. I didn’t want to become “Miss Wilson” again—the mean lady with two primary rules: work and respect. The stern woman with the loud voice who had to repeat herself a minimum of three times hoping that the students listened at least once, or their parents might blame me for not giving specific instructions. I only taught to be on Adrienne’s schedule; I never expected to be good at it. Even though I like kids, being a constant disciplinarian exhausted me.

I also don’t like fall because as a child I never wanted the summers to end. I loved staying out late playing under the streetlight in our cul-de-sac. I loved swimming at the local pool and at Kerr Lake. I loved my birthday even though friends often missed my parties because they were on vacation. I liked playing baseball with the boys, basking in the sunshine, selling lemonade, and living for another day of adventure. Summer meant freedom. Why would anyone want it to end?

I wondered if I had Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). I know someone who moved from Connecticut to Los Angeles because he was diagnosed with SAD at a young age. He needs sunshine more than he needs seasons. I may be sad, but I don’t believe that I suffer from SAD because I can tolerate winter under certain conditions.

• I don’t mind dealing with low temperatures in Mammoth because I like to ski—the only purpose for snow.
• I found my dream house during the coldest, wettest, nastiest weather in Gold Beach, Oregon, and it hasn’t deterred me from wanting to live there one day.
• My husband and I went on our honeymoon in Australia during the end of fall. I wore my black wool peacoat everywhere, and the chilly air and cloudy skies didn’t bother me except when the rain ruined our photos.

Besides the above anecdotal criteria, I don’t have many SAD symptoms including oversleeping and overeating. In fact, I can’t sleep right now without medication and I continue to lose weight despite forcing myself to eat. It’s simple: I don’t have SAD, but I feel sad because this time of year sucks. I am counting the days until New Year’s Eve.

AWW — XoXo

*I realize that technically autumn begins with the autumnal equinox and ends with the winter solstice, but I define my “Funky Fall Blues” by my own dates. As my ex used to say about Adrienne and me, “They play by their own rules.”

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Ever since I heard the expression “Depression is anger turned inward” I have wondered what actually causes depression because that statement seems not only simplistic to me, but it also does not apply to my situation. Finally, I asked my very experienced psychiatrist what he thought, and he listed three major causes of depression: Loss, Genes, and Anger.*

Loss
Look around you and think about how much you could lose and how you would feel if you did. You could lose your loved ones (e.g., death, divorce), your money, your house, your job, your self-esteem, your dreams, etc. You could lose your material items. My grandparents’ house burned to the ground when I was a child, and they lost almost everything—except their photo scrapbooks. When I touched the albums’ charred edges, I understood why my grandfather grabbed them at the last minute despite the smoke that must have been choking his lungs. In that moment, I fell in love with photography because even if you lose a loved one, the camera captures their images and preserves your memories. If our home suddenly went up in flames, I would save the three P’s—people, pets, and pictures—in that order.

Genes
Unfortunately, we have no control over our genes, and our genetic makeup can determine our predisposition to mental illnesses such as depression; schizophrenia; and bipolar, personality and anxiety disorders (to name a few). Sometimes, I feel like I could throw a dart at the DSM-IV, hit a diagnosis, and name someone in my mother’s family. However, many people never develop any mental issues despite their DNA. In some cases though, people who appear to have perfect lives (e.g., no losses) may still develop a mental disorder due to a chemical imbalance in their brains. I am not saying people are not responsible for their behavior, but understanding the cause is crucial to treating the problem especially since our society often self-medicates in order to feel better. (Hope you’re listening, Miss Lohan!)

Anger

Ahh … anger … the cause of depression that I don’t fully comprehend. Sure, I feel angry sometimes, but I don’t walk around hating myself. I may not be perfect, but neither is anyone else. I don’t always make the best decisions. I am often too blunt (you wouldn’t believe how much I really restrain myself), but overall, I possess a good heart. If I care about you, I love you with such depth that if I tried to explain it, I fear my emotion would scare you. However, that pendulum of intense passion swings both directions. Don’t piss me off because I don’t get mad at myself. I focus my anger on the person who upsets me so I didn’t get the whole “Depression is anger turned inward” concept until I witnessed it a few weeks ago.

In a support group that I occasionally attend, a man whom I’ll call Richard has to be the most self-loathing individual I have ever met in my entire life. On an intellectual level, Richard understands his depression, that anger causes it, and the source of his anger. However, he still believes the cure to his self-hatred is the right woman’s love. Now I’m sure his numerous therapists and psychiatrists have explained to him that no one will love him until he loves himself. Richard has attended support groups and self-help meetings for years. By all appearances, he participates in his “recovery.” Although he did give one female shrink an ultimatum that if she didn’t love him, he would leave her. Guess what happened?

I have only met Richard twice; yet, I know more about his personal life than I should because Richard dominates the group. He twists every topic back to his desperate search for love. When I offered that people often meet someone when they are not looking, but there is nothing wrong with trying, he made a snarky comment about me being married. After gritting my teeth and chewing my lip at the last meeting, I realized I had to find another group. If I ever see Richard again and hear him whine about how a woman will fix him, I know the devil in me will say, “Go jump off a bridge already, will ya? I hear no one survives the Golden Gate. I’ll even drive you there.” Terrible, I know, but at least I direct my anger toward the person who deserves it.

I cannot empathize with Richard, but I should sympathize with him. However, my inability to do so reminds me of the many people who don’t understand the cause of my depression. I cannot count how many times I’ve heard “Get over it” or I’ve seen those unspoken words reflected in someone’s eyes when I cry over my sister Adrienne. Nine years? Seems like yesterday to me, asshole.

I won’t return to that particular support group. I mean, who needs chipped teeth and chapped lips? But seriously, I don’t want to be one of those people who says something horrible to Richard. I wonder though, if I angered him, if he could stop being mad at himself—if only for a moment.

AWW — XoXo

P.S. The photo of the house on fire is not my grandparents’ home, but it closely resembles it.

*These causes of depression are my psychiatrist’s experience, and he listed them in this order of common occurrence: Loss, Anger, and Genes. After some research, I discovered that physical factors (e.g., hormonal changes) can also cause depression. For more information, visit Web MD Depression and the Mayo Clinic.

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