My Family and Mental Illiness (Part 7): The Garden of Eatin'

Sheldon's note: If you haven't read of this series up to this point yet, you should probably start reading from post 1 on until this post in order to understand the context of this post, and the events occurring in it.

As I have said in previous posts in this series, my dad's mental health was starting to improve, and in the last post, Social Security finally stepped in and helped us in a big way financially. All of this still didn't resolve the issue of his severe depression. He still didn't want to leave his room, no less go outside, nothing interested him at all, he felt like life was pointless. Mostly he was mourning the loss of all things he used to be able to do, work, drive, etc.

The loss of his job was especially hard, he had worked long hours at the company he worked for, and was there 25 years, it was a major part of his life, and no suddenly it's gone, and he had nothing do to take it's place, to give him a sense of having a reason to get up in the morning, which is important for someone with an  obsessive personality.

My mom couldn't figure out what to do, anti-depressants didn't work, they either left him more confused, or would cause drastic mood changes. One day, how she thought of this, I don't know, but she decided she wanted a vegetable garden. So, there we go, mostly by day when I was doing my ACE coursework, he would be out there digging the back yard up to plant a garden. I would join him in the evenings.