Mama Always ~ L.A. Brown, Author

 Let's put it right out there...2020 has sucked. Yeah, I said it, and I'm not apologising or taking it back. If there was ever a danger zone for depression, this is it.  I have blogged a lot on depression. As you may know, I suffer from a mild form of it, and my best friend of over 45 years had a severe form of it. Because of that, she took her own life a year ago, and because this is such an insidious affliction, I will make mention of it in my blogs often.  This disorder has taken so much from so many. Look at Robin Williams. The face of comedy, wonderfully funny, and yet it was a mask for the world to see. You see, a lot of us put on that mask so that no one will worry, and we keep wearing it until we can't anymore. That's when things happen. Either we seek help and hope it helps to manage this demon, or we give up. That's what he and my best friend did. It took me a lot of reading, praying, crying and going through my own struggles to realize that it really wasn...

It was a beautiful morning, it really was. The sky, a brilliant blue, I had one dog, Izzy, snuggled up against my back, snoring. Another dog on the floor, blissfully sleeping, and a puppy, who really isn't a puppy anymore, pawing at my blankets, snuffling at my neck, encouraging me to get up because he had to pee. Typical morning. As is my routine, I began my morning thanking God for His protection through the night, His new mercies, and the Lord's Prayer...then I continued with my intercession for the day. Because I do not say 'amen' at the end of the Lord's Prayer, for me, it means that my prayers are ongoing throughout the day. I came to find out last week, that I am not the only one to do that...a man who is a wonderful music minister does so as well. As I continued my morning routine, let the dogs out, fed the cats and fish, and made my coffee, I continued in intercession, praying for a dear friend who is fighting to get well. She was in a horrific car accid...

The trending word since Robin William's passing is: Depression. There, I said it, and you know, I probably can say with some certainty that a good portion of the world population either has it or has dealt with it on some sort of level. Actually, according to the CDC, over 121 million  people worldwide suffer from some form of depression. That's some substantial numbers. Someone once said that the funny people of the world have so many masks that they forget who they are, they get lost in the "funny" because that is what distracts them from the depression. When there is no longer a response to the antics, the jokes or the anecdotes, reality hits. Depression hits with all its got. That is not to say that all funny people have depression. That is to say that this is one example. Depression rears its ugly head in many forms. PTSD. Post-Partum Depression. Bi-Polarism. SAD. Psychotic Depression. Neurons that don't fire properly. A wronged spouse. A child of divorce...

Eeyore is what I have called my down days for quite a while now. You know how he is, always in a gloomy mood, a little black rain cloud following him around. Well, Eeyore came around about Wednesday, really was gloomy on Thursday and is still hanging around, but he's been pretty quiet for the most part. Let's get this straight; I don't like being in the dumps. I hate depression. When I'm in this phase, it usually accompanies a nasty flare-up and I'm so weepy and short tempered that it scares Mouse. Thursday, I had to cry in the shower so I wouldn't alarm her and I was in there for a good hour. The water had gotten cold by then and quite honestly I wasn't finished, but I was better enough to function. I don't know how others function with this part of the fibro, to me its debilitating. I can't function beyond the basics. I'm short tempered, weepy, in short, I'm a mess. The only  way that I got through Thursday without curling up in a corner...

...that fibro fog is responsible for a lot of things that go on with me lately. I walk into a room and not only do I forget what I went in there for, sometimes I'm disoriented enough to wonder, even for a nano-second what room I'm in. That's happened a couple of times. I've also seemed to have forgotten that depression is a constant companion. Sometimes it stays way in the background, but other times, like today, it is sitting in my hip pocket, poking me and letting me know that I've been kind of useless lately. That tends to work on my last nerve and so when Chatty Cathy is released, which most of the time I can tune out except for the necessary phrases and words, I have the ability to go nuclear. That in return brings out the tears, puppy dog eyes and/or the temper of the Mouse who was just being herself. Of course, this works on the depression more by making me feel like a bit of bug spittle. **sigh** I can't turn the bugger off, either. It just sits ther...

With all of the hustle and bustle that we experience during the Holiday Season, it so easy to overlook little things. We are so busy trying to make sure that every stocking is filled, that underneath the tree is bursting with packages; that our menus are set for that Christmas party or the dinner with family that we forget.....a lot. I don't know when the tradition of gift giving started, to be honest, at six o'clock in the morning one would be hard pressed to find me researching anything. However, this was laid on my heart, so with fingers on the keypad, here I go.  Like I said, I do not know right off the top of my head when exchanging gifts on Christmas became a tradition, perhaps it started on that starry night so many many years ago in Bethlehem when the Magi came bearing gifts for the newborn King. How do I know it was a starry night? The Scripture plainly says that the Magi were following a star that appeared in the sky and that they followed it to their destination, B...

Yeah, I know...really dorky, but it is. I'm actually having a "fibro fog" day. The worst part of it is that it didn't hit me that's what it was until just a few minutes ago. I've heard folks talk about it, and I know that I must have experienced it more than once since this has started in earnest, but I guess I just never put two and two together. Today, as my dad was waiting for my mom to return from taking my cousin around the corner, we were having a conversation. All I really remember from the conversation is something about a dog and cars. Most of the time I was having a hard time relating the two in the conversation, so a good portion of what he said was pretty much lost. Normally I would chalk that up to zoning out on him, which I do well I might add, but this wasn't the case. Today started out with aches and pains, but I really didn't think I was going to have memory problems today as well. Another thing that really bothered me is that I co...