Tag Archives: depression

Hello again

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It has been a long while since I last blogged here. I suppose I should update my about page with the changes, and I will but…for now. I just need a place to rage against the universe again.

I am doing much better generally, but paradoxically, this means that when I am hit with a depressive episode like I am now, it hits harder. I am a mom now, I don’t have the luxury of time to heal. As if we ever really heal from the bastard that is a mental illness anyway. Life is busy and there are so many things that are pulling at me. I don’t know which I can pull down. It all feels so heavy, just like the Linkin Park song, and well, it’s not exactly reassuring to be strongly identifying with lyrics of someone who lost their battle with depression.

But still, I will fight. I will continue. I will not give up. I will try to communicate that when I ask for a cup of tea, I am saying: I am vulnerable, I don’t feel safe. Please give me some reassurance that I am worthy of my place in the world. I know it is a lot to ask of a cup of tea, but those are the messages that tea carries for me. The promise of safety. A link to the world…a connection to say “Hang on”. Don’t give up.

I know that this will pass. But here and now, it sucks!

 

Hanging on

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Right now, I am battling. I don’t know why, or even if there is a reason for this battle at all. And I feel like a pathetic whinger for putting this out there. For not pulling my socks up and carrying on. But right now I cannot just carry on. My urge to self harm has always been limited. I binge occassionally, and I don’t eat that healthily. Once upon a time I used to pinch myself but when I realized it was self-harming I stopped. But for the past couple of days I have had the urge to hurt myself.

Partly, I think I have had this urge as a way to feel real, to take my mind off the shadowy thoughts running through the back of my mind. To silence the voices that tell me that I am worthless, stupid and pathetic.

I know I am not…but knowing and feeling are not the same.

In Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman, there is a scene where Richard is in a railway station and is fighting for his sanity, fighting to not hurt himself, and right now I take a great deal of solace in that. In finding the courage to just hang onto the bead in my pocket moment by moment and just not give up. Even if it means that I don’t have the energy to do anything else.

I hope that my loved ones will understand and forgive me this weakness, the fact that this week I have not been able to keep my promises that this week all I have been able to do is hang on and make sure I don’t give up on me and hope. That I just put one foot in front of the other as exhausting as it is.

Darkness

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At the moment the only thing that is allowing me to have some semblance of normality, of sanity is keeping everything tightly wound. So tightly wound that it is unhealthy. Cracks are beginning to show…I’m irritable. I’m scared. I’m scared of the darkness inside my head. The liar inside telling me that I’m worhtless and that everyone else things that I’m stupid. That I’m incapable of loving being loved.

The darkness it creeps up on you. You have no real idea that it’s tide has turned until suddenly out of the blue it looms over you. Cold, dark, miserable. Engulfing you and silencing you.

I know there is light out there somewhere and I know that I need to let myself feel numb. Because for me when I’m depressed I don’t really feel down…I feel numb. Using the word feel is incorrect because it implies that there is far more sensation than there actually is.

Today’s depression is probably more hormonal and stress induced than anything else. But just because I know why it’s here doesn’t make it go away.

I’m not okay…but I will be

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My depression is a dark secret. Very few people in real life no about it. Even less of them know how bad it is. And the effort of hiding it is becoming exhausting. An unexpected visit at the weekend exhausted me.

I get consumed with feelings of self-loathing. Angry at myself for being so pathetic. Their is a tiny voice inside my head that speaks out and tells me that I’m being irrational, but it is drowned out.

I think one of the things that makes it worse is that I feel like I don’t have any right to be depressed. That I’m a liar and a fake and that I should just happy the fuck up.  I should be grateful for what I do have. I should be out in the world riding rainbows. But at the moment it is just too much effort.

Perhaps I am just exhausted, tired out of pretending to be okay. Because right now I am not okay. I will be one day. But today is not that day. And it’s alright for me to cry a little bit.

I know I need to get help, the thing is I suck at asking for it. I don’t know if it is a hangover of being an abused kid or if it is just stubbornness, of wanting to exist in a reality where I don’t need help. Where I am completely independent. But that would be just another form of delusion.

So for now I’ll just get it off my chest, I’m not okay…but I will be.

Depression is a miserable lying bastard.

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Depression is a miserable lying bastard. When you are in its throes, every perceived slight is used to further the argument that you are a worthless waste of oxygen and the world is better off without you.

The logical part of your brain, and the person who you are, knows that this is bullshit.

But, in the throes of a depressive episode when you get knocked back by a trivial illness it becomes a big deal…proof that you are nothing, have done nothing…are worthless.

At times like these there are two important thing to remember is that it gets better and that depression is a fucking miserable liar. And misery loves company.

Happy I-Suck-Less-Than-Yesterday-Day

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Last year Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess, invented a tongue in cheek holiday: “I suck less than yesterday day“.

And so while unfortunately I can’t watch the youtube video in the post (thanks for nothing SME) I can consider the wisdom of sucking less than yesterday.

We all have shitty days sometimes, and sometimes I think it becomes too easy to fall into the habit of allowing shitty days to overwhelm us. To stop seeing the good and wallow in the bad.

And then we tend to have days where we become all shitty and selfish and focus on all the crap that has ever happened to us.

So I think rather today I am going to find some little ways where I will suck less than yesterday today. And tomorrow I can suck less than today…and slowly climb out of this hole.

Progress

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I looked back at my  first post today and I was amazed to see how far away from that I am at the moment. It makes me happy to see.

I also had a conversation about the healing from my childhood (and some adulthood) abuse…where the point was raised that it was around a quarter century of abuse, healing it will take some time.

But I think the point is…I am healing…I am getting better…and I am doing the soul work that I need to do to heal. It means that I am taking time to be introspective and stop and think…where I am not necessarily keeping busy and that is perfectly okay.

It’s amazing to see how in two months I have grown…I am leaving this part of the darkness behind me and it feels pretty damn good.

Thank you aka I am not alone

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Today I am having a slightly bad day. I just feel off balance.

I meditated and I felt better for a few minutes but now I am feeling down again. The irony is that Riaan picked up on this before I did…perhaps I just did not sleep as well as I would have liked.

I know I had some disturbing dreams and they were interrupted which also throws me a bit off balance…but anyhow.I am just having a slightly bad day. I don’t know if part of it is a hangover from re-experiencing the painful memory that I wrote about yesterday.

I do know that I am getting better at recognizing when I am having a bad day and taking steps to cope with them. After I finish writing I am going to have a lovely cup of tea and then I will either tackle some tasks on the to-do list or work-out or read.

And in half an hour I will re-evaluate my plan for the next thirty minutes. I am proud of this accomplishment of gaining the knowledge and insight that is allowing me to do more than just scrape through. And I am grateful for your support…yes YOUR! support…having someone that is reaching out to me in this pain and despair.

If there is one thing that I am most grateful for in the last 36 days (yes, it has been 36 days since I have started this blog and I have not missed a single day) it is experiencing the kindness and support of the community – of truly not being alone. Thank you.

Breaking the mould

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I wonder at the moment whether this is just a calm period…an eye in the storm. I am almost scared to relax and breathe and pay attention to this moment, because what if I draw too much attention to it and it slips away.

I think a great deal of what is going on with me now has to do with acceptance. Accepting that I cannot control other people’s behavior and conduct, especially when it has become habitual.

And I have released myself from the burden of saying this is how it should be…I mean, who really knows how it should be. Instead I am simply saying this is what it is.

What it is is while I have family issues and a number of my mothers unresolved issues are being role played out on me … I do not have to play the game. I can compassionately let go. I do not need to be defined by someone else, nor by my hurt.

I am who I am, but I can choose what I want to do with my life, and from there I can go and get it. There is nothing standing in my way.

For far too long I have held myself accountable to shoulds and other people’s moulds. As I have previously pointed out, people are not things, and therefore we do not belong in moulds.

I think one of the biggest aids in dealing with this depressive episode has been mental…choosing not to wallow. Choosing to move forward. One of the best things about this choice is I can keep living it.