Choices is so honored to host Kathie Giorgio and her new book Don’t Let Me Keep You. Kathie, a very accomplished author, brings us her story about motherhood and her thoughts that children should follow their own paths. A very different approach from the way would-be feminists live their lives. Kathie has also written an essay for us on how to combat depression. We are so pleased to share it with you.
Here’s Kathie and her essay about how to combat depression:
Depression: Putting One Foot in Front of the Other
By Kathie Giorgio
As writers, we’re often told that we need to avoid the cliché, which sometimes makes me feel like a cliché myself! Movies, television shows, and literature often present writers as being depressed and anxious. At least in my case, this is true. I’m a writer, and I’ve also dealt with chronic depression for as long as I can remember. I honestly don’t recall a time that I wasn’t depressed, though certainly, as a child, I wasn’t aware of that word. I just knew I felt sad.
I was born in 1960, so it’s been a long time dealing with this. My parents were of the ilk that didn’t believe in mental health issues, so even when my teachers began to gently suggest that therapy might be good for me, my parents just rolled their eyes and said they didn’t buy into that “psychological mumbo jumbo”. They also said I was only “looking for attention,” as if looking for attention (i.e. looking for help) was a bad thing for someone who was in such pain to do. Consequently, I was in 20s before I reached out for help, while on the grounds of my university campus. That kicked off a lifetime of going to therapy, feeling better, dropping out, feeling worse, and going back.
So that’s the first step in dealing with depression: getting help. Help comes in many different forms, and you get to decide what works best for you (more on what “working best” means in a moment). Help might be talk therapy, or going on medication. It might mean learning meditation. It might mean finding something that you enjoy doing, and that activity can truly run the gamut: exercise, sports, crafts, collecting, art, you name it. Or it could be any combination of these, plus others I haven’t mentioned.
For me, writing has always been part of the mix. I write primarily fiction, and as a fiction writer, I get to delve into characters’ minds and experiences, which completely removes me from my own. The majority of my work is redemptive, meaning I put my characters through hell, but they always come out the other side. Then I figure if I can find a way to write their way out of their hard times, I can work myself out of whatever I’m going through too.
So in terms of what “working best” means – experiment. And think outside of the box. The phrase, “You do you,” is very appropriate here.
The next step is bigger: stick with it. Stick with it, even if something that was working suddenly doesn’t. Depression is like a sad roller coaster. It rises and falls. There are days I’m barely aware of it…it’s an undertow. And there are other days when it’s the entire deep blue sea and I’m lying at the bottom. Oddly enough, I am most likely to stop doing what was working for me when it’s working so well, I feel great. So it’s important to keep at it, to maintain what works, until you’re absolutely certain it’s just never going to be helpful again. Then look for something new. As hard as it is to feel motivated, keep looking.
And then there’s what might be the hardest step of all. Sometimes, you just have to accept that your depression isn’t going to be “cured”. It’s a part of you, and you need to learn to live with it, side by side, like your shadow.
I’m 64 years old, and that’s a step I’ve had to take recently. I’ve been working at “curing” depression since I was in my early 20’s. It hasn’t happened. And so I’ve needed to quit looking for that magic pill, magic potion, magic rabbit out of a hat that will somehow miraculously change my life. Instead, I’ve decided to focus on the miracle that I’m still here. I’ve fought so hard to remain here. As long as I’m here, it’s a battle I’m winning.
I could tell you to look at each day as a blessing. I could tell you to keep a gratitude journal. But I won’t. Because I know some days just don’t feel like blessings. There are days that the only way I could express gratitude would be to lie. And I don’t lie. If I’m going to accept that this depression is a part of me, then I have to be authentic about it. I just can’t act like it isn’t there.
In 2017, I had a horrible year. I was physically assaulted, my daughter was bullied so badly, we had to move her to a new school, my husband lost his job twice, and I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Soon after the assault, I began to write a blog that I called Today’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News. It wasn’t a gratitude journal. Instead, it was just writing down one moment every day that I smiled. Not a moment that I felt grateful, not a moment that I felt euphoric, not even a moment that I felt thrilled to be alive…but a moment that I simply felt myself voluntarily smile. I originally did this publicly on Facebook because I knew if I did it only on my own, in secret, in a journal, I’d quit after a couple days.
The posts were wildly liked, and so I moved it to my website, officially calling it a blog. I vowed to do it every day for a year, not knowing that the rest of it, my daughter’s bullying, my husband’s jobs, and my cancer, were all going to happen.
But I did it anyway. I didn’t quit. And it forced me, every single day for a year, to find one Moment, mostly tiny, that I caught myself smiling. At the end of the year, my readers asked if it could be a book, and then my publisher asked if it could be a book, and so it was. In 2018, Today’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News; A Year Of Spontaneous Essays became a book. And my blog became This Week’s Moment of Happiness Despite The News.
So now, it’s become a big part of my dealing with my depression. It’s that thing that I do that works for me. I look for that Moment, instead of focusing on the dark. Not that the dark doesn’t happen – it does, regularly, particularly this year, 2024. My husband of 25 years was struck and run over by a passenger van in January, leading to his death in June, after five months of trauma and struggle. Continuing to work the blog, even in this worst of times, is a part of the coming to accept that depression won’t be cured. It will just be accepted and managed. Each day isn’t about expecting that my “Moment” will become a 24-hour 7-days-a-week thing. It’s a moment. I look for it, feel it, and then move on, anticipating the next one.
- Keep. Going.
So get help, and accept that whatever you choose to do for help may be a lifetime decision, not a “just until I’m cured”. Then stick with it. If it stops working, or if it works so well, you feel like you don’t need it anymore, stick with it anyway. And then accept that depression might just be a part of your make-up, and so you need to learn to live with it, the same way we need to learn to live with politics on television, exercise, eating right when we really want chocolate, or bad service in our favorite restaurant. It’s just something to live with, not something that will ruin our lives. Because there is always that Moment. Just one is all you need.
Catch yourself smiling.
Link to my blog: https://www.kathiegiorgio.org/blog/
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Book Summary
Motherhood is a symphony, from the first movement, through crescendo after crescendo, to the finale.
Hildy Halverson, a genius in math and science, is pushed by her parents to step into a male-dominated field and change the world for women. But Hildy, enamored of the scientific force of the human body, and her own body’s ability to create and sustain life, decides to go against contemporary expectations. She marries young and raises a houseful of kids.
Hildy wants her children to choose their own life paths. As each child is born, she tells them, “You can be whatever you want to be, and whatever you want to be will be great.” Despite her efforts to not influence her children, Hildy does so, often in unexpected ways. Each child is introduced in that first private moment between Hildy and her new baby. This is followed by a chapter revealing that child’s life, years later. Woven throughout is an underlying grief over the death of the sixth baby soon after birth. That grief is more pervasive than any of them expect.
In this ambitious novel, the struggles and joys, fatigue and exhilaration of motherhood, are captured in the full panorama of family life. Hildy lovingly raises her children, then lets them go, finding herself along the way.
Publisher: Black Rose Publishing (October 3, 2024)
Print length: 230 pages
Purchase a copy of Don’t Let Me Keep You on:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Let-Me-Keep-You/dp/1685134882
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dont-let-me-keep-you-kathie-giorgio/1145428066
Black Rose Publishing: https://www.blackrosewriting.com/womens/p/dontletmekeepyou
You can also add this to your GoodReads reading list:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/211567748-don-t-let-me-keep-you
About the Author
Kathie Giorgio is the author of a total of fifteen books: eight novels, two story collections, an essay collection, and four poetry collections. She’s been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in fiction and poetry and awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association, the Silver Pen Award for Literary Excellence, the Pencraft Award for Literary Excellence, and the Eric Hoffer Award In Fiction. Her poem “Light” won runner-up in the 2021 Rosebud Magazine Poetry Prize, and her work has also been incorporated into many visual art and musical events. Kathie is the director and founder of AllWriters’ Workplace & Workshop LLC, an international creative writing studio.
She lives with her husband, mystery writer Michael Giorgio, and their daughter Olivia, in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Three of her adult children, Christopher, Andy, and Olivia, live close by, along with her solo granddaughter, Maya Mae. One adult child has wandered off to Louisiana and lives among the mathematicians and alligators.
You can follow the author at:
Website: http://www.kathiegiorgio.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kathiegiorgioauthor/
X/Twitter: @KathieGiorgio
Instagram: @kathiegio1
Reviews
Don’t Let Me Keep You is a lyrical meditation on motherhood seven times over, gestating, unfurling with rhythmic, poignant prose. Over decades we see each of the Halversons through the eyes of the others, bringing into sharp focus how differently each member can experience the same family. The way children protect their mothers, the way mothers remain children themselves, and what a mess we can still make of things despite our best intentions. That we can choose to love each other regardless of who we turn out to be, no matter what. –Maggie Ginsberg, author of Still True
Don’t Let Me Keep You follows a math prodigy’s unconventional and slightly obsessive journey through motherhood. Giorgio’s dynamic characters and complex emotional bonds turn this family saga into a propulsive page turner wherein motherhood as a career is an empowering choice. At once gritty, heartbreaking, and hopeful, Don’t Let Me Keep You shows the fallibility of the human condition through the haunting eyes of a mother’s love as she struggles with the age-old question, Am I a good mother? –Marisa Rae Dondlinger, author of Open and Come And Get Me
The thing I love about Kathie Giorgio’s books are the surprises. Her books are not like anyone’s. They are fresh, unique, and wonderful. Don’t Let Me Keep You is all that and more. This is a story about motherhood, childhood and family. Belonging, expectations, and the enduring power of love. Of course, because this is Kathie’s novel, there is poetry, and vignettes. A cast of characters worth knowing. And many opportunities to reflect on our lives as parents and children. I highly recommend Don’t Let Me Keep You. –Karen E. Osborne, Author of True Grace and Reckonings
With delightful finesse, author Kathie Giorgio weaves a flawless web of family love that weathers plenty of storms, but still comes out shimmering. –Mary Ann Noe, author of Water the Color of Slate
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