Requesting Hotlines or Helplines

If there is a helpline or hotline in your area to help depressed people or people with mental illness, then please let me know. It would be great if I could put together a directory.

Teacher Salaries

I went to college to become a teacher. It didn't quite work out that way. I worked in corporate American for a number of years, but that didn't work out thanks. I have been trying again to become a teacher. It's not working out this time either.

In Illinois teacher salaries are public record. I depressed myself when I looked up the salaries of my peers who obtained teaching jobs after college graduation and now have tenue. One earns $104,00 a year and the other earns $74,000 a year. I feel like a loser.

Sure, money isn't an indicator of self-worth but it is an indicator on how much you are worth in the marketplace. Right now I'm not worth anything. I am so discouraged and depressed and do not want to live the rest of life in poverty.

Never again do I want to hear my friends complain about how teaching is hard work. I know it is. And they are duly compensated and have job security.

Did I mention life is unfair? It certainly is. And maybe if we internalized that starting in babyhood, we wouldn't be a nation of whiners. Maybe I wouldn't be a whiner. But I am a whiner and hungry and behind on my rent and all that crap. So are a lot of people in America.


I just want to throw rocks through windows and jump up and down and yell and scream and bash things. I want to pay off my debts and not worry about meeting my monthly rent.

You know what. I am no longer going to listen to my teacher friends complain. That's what.

Target Off My Back

This month I have felt like there is a target on my back. I have been in two different car accidents; neither was my fault. My neck and back ache. I'm dealing with three different insurance companies, one repair shop, one rental car agency, and one doctor.

The second crasher and her friends verbally assaulted me and laughed at my injuries. I yelled back at her and her posse and then burst into tears. Since this scene took place at night in the cold, I felt extra woe some and extra lonely.

The crappy news is that I was alone and lonely. The good news is that I was alone and am still managing to take care of myself by going to the doctor, handling the insurance information, and keeping track of the documentation. I was beginning to wonder if I even need other people (friends, partners, family). Sometimes I feel like saying, "To hell with you all."

I am in the trough of depression - blah.

Tomorrow I have two activities planned: one with a group of friends and another with a therapeutic drummer and certified aromatherapist. I'll be in a drumming circle with nice smelling oils in the room.

I am hoping that by doing these activities tomorrow, a wave will lift me out of the trough and onto it's crest where I WILL STAY.

Have a Good Day

May your day be filled with a smile, a hug, an encouraging word, a ray of sunshine, a resolution, a solution, wishing you the best today.

And it wouldn't hurt to smile at someone else.

When I've been really down and out and sad, every once in a while I would smile in the mirror just to see if my mouth was capable of smiling.

Treading Water and CoDA

Another journal entry from September.

It’s been four weeks since J. died.

I’ve been depressed. I’ve been mourning. I’ve been wishing and dreaming. And I’ve been sewing. I’m tired, but am still treading water.

Today I was hit with the pangs of loneliness. How does this happen? Yesterday I was with my writing group and had fun browsing with two members/friends. Then I went to Chris’s read-through, and there were people there.  Of course I knew Chris and another person.

Friday night I went to someone’s CoDA meeting, and it was overwhelming and pressurized at one hand, and on the other hand I wanted to be happy with the happy people there. But when I got home I was irritable. I don’t want to be a 12-stepper person. I don’t want to self-analyze. I just want to have fun, have friends, dance in the street, seek new adventures, laugh, create, and laugh. Sitting around talking about shit isn’t fun. Saturday, woke up feeling better. I cleaned my kitchen floor and paid some bills and looked at my checkbook registers.

I rejected having another problem, and another label.

Went for a walk and sat on two benches. I got sprayed by the sprinkler, and kind of liked it.