When I originally started writing this post, it was just a basic update. As I was writing, it evolved a bit and will now serve a dual purpose.
While this is still an update, I also wanted to share a bit about my Depression because it helps to remind or make people aware that Christmas can be hard for like me with Depression.
Last night the boys spent the night with Lizze's parents. Lizze and I used that time to take care of a few outstanding Christmas related things.
It's been a little while since I had some time off and I've been struggling with Depression a bit more than usual lately. When you're depressed, exhaustion is absolutely not your friend. For me personally, exhaustion makes it harder to fight my thoughts and that quickly gets overwhelming.
Lizze and I made sure that when we were done hitting the stores we had to hit, we set time aside for a cheap date night. It's important that we take time to focus on our marriage and our friendship because it's very easy to put our relationship on the back burner.
Autism Parenting is incredibly rewarding but the challenges that can be associated with raising Autistic kids can also be significant and demanding. Combine this with everything else I deal with on a daily basis and it can be seriously impactful on me, especially if I don't take care of myself along the way. It's easy to forget about the importance of selfcare and that's not good.
Lizze and I picked up some takeout and ended up watching the new movie *Bird Box *on Netflix. I highly recommend it, especially if you were a fan of *A Quiet Place. *☺
If you follow me on Twitter (and you should ) you would also know that Lizze and I ended up getting sucked into watching *John Wick *and *John Wick 2* as well.
It was a nice to have a bit of time off and we're very grateful for that.
We're going to spend today getting the house in order, so we can just relax on Christmas Eve and not have to worry about too much. We also told the kids that if they get their rooms cleaned up, they would receive a bonus present.
Lizze and I are going to help the kids to get things caught up because I know it can be overwhelming for them to do that on their own.
I really, really want this to be a good Christmas for our kids. I feel good about everything we've been able to do (frankly against the odds) and to feel good when I'm struggling with Depression, is a positive thing. So much of me feels like a failure at times, it's hard to maintain a positive outlook on anything. ☺
