The Traveling Red Dress

So. After quite a few months of absence, I am back to blogging.
Maybe. Hopefully.
The past three months have been my winter months and I'm truly hoping that spring as finally sprung.
You see, last week I had the darkest night of the year after reading all about Jenny's Traveling Red Dress. I was somewhat familiar with the original story of The Traveling Red Dress, being a reader of Jenny's for a while, but seeing the update on the dress really hit a nerve for me.
I realized that for the past three months I have been wrapped in a cocoon of depression that I find myself in every winter. I attempted to head it off at the pass this year by going to see a counselor on base in November, but we didn't really hit it off and after a few sessions, I just stopped going. I realized that I had been preventing myself from feeling anything at all these past few months. That I have basically been walking around like a zombie. And after realizing that, I sort of felt the pain of three month's depression all at once.
Living with seasonal affective disorder is a real bitch, especially because I know it's coming every year but there seems to be nothing to be done for it.
And all winter, I lie to myself and tell myself that I am perfectly fine as I systematically shut people out of my life and basically shut down.
Doing this in my first trimester of pregnancy this year simply gave me an excuse.
I chalked up the extra sleeping hours to fatigue from the pregnancy. I blamed my complete inability to function on the constant nausea, which, don't get me wrong, totally sucked. But even when I was feeling okay - I still sat and did nothing. Nothing at all.
Last week I woke up, reading all of the posts on The Traveling Red Dress facebook page. There were people out there struggling just as I was. There were thousands of women willing to share their stories, to not let depression beat them down and make them feel absolutely useless. There were people willing to help these women out of that battle. Photographers offering free sessions, people offering their gently used red dresses or even buying red ball gowns for these women to wear.
It is a beautiful thing and I realized that I. Am. Not. Alone.
No matter how much my depression likes to tell me that I am.

So, that's all I need to remember.
And I'm back.
I've got a new assignment for myself.
I'm 15 weeks pregnant today and this month I am going to get the little Punkin Head's room ready for Smalls.
More on that challenge later. For now,
I'm signing out.