I want to preface this blog by saying that I know this probably isn't the right forum for this, but I've been in a really dark place the past month or so - and I'm at a loss of what to do with it. It got bad last night and I am scared I need to get some of this out of me. So I am coming to the place that has made sense of a lot of bad days for me in the past and hoping that maybe pouring some of this out of my head and my heart will make some room to start healing.
I have suffered from depression my whole life. I'm pretty sure my whole life. I have no cognoscente memory of it, but I am sure my first thought coming out of the womb was unbearable disappointment that I was a baby. I was 13 years old when I wrote my first suicide note and was sent to speak to a consular. I was sent to an outpatient program at a mental heath facility when I was 19 and here we are again at 27 at the cusp of a pretty significant melt-down.
It started about 3 weeks ago, on a Tuesday, when my alarm went off for work. Unfortunately that morning my blankets decided to weigh about a million pounds and I couldn't move. The idea of getting up was daunting, showering seemed incredibly difficult, putting food in my mouth and chewing was not an option, so I came to terms pretty quickly with the fact that going to work was just downright impossible. Why this Tuesday, you ask? I have no idea. I have no idea what triggers my depression, or why some days it feels like there is an anvil sitting on my chest and I can't catch my breath when I am lying still. I haven't been able to figure it out in 27 years, so I don't have an answer for you now.
So I would miss a day of work, shake it off and go back the next day. But I didn't. In fact day two was even harder because day one made me realize how much better lying in bed and not being a person was that I wanted to do that as long as possible. The only reason I went back to work the following day after that is because I had been lying to my boyfriend about going into work and my guilt was starting to overpower my lack of desire to be a person.
This is the craziest part. I am in the happiest relationship of my life. It's stable, and I am supported and loved to no end. There is nothing I can't tell my boyfriend, and nothing I can do outside of harming myself or someone else that he wouldn't try with all his heart to understand. I have moments of stupid, over-the-top joy in the midst of this haze I've been living in. When we cook together. When we cuddle on the couch and laugh for hours. I think people believe that being depressed and not having any joy are mutually exclusive. And they aren't. I am very happy and loved, and love loving him. But it doesn't make the pain in my chest stop all the time. Just some of the time.
I managed to carry myself through last week trying to be more positive and having my boyfriend in my corner as I had come clean to him about everything from the week prior. He encouraged me to set daily goals for myself, and we made sure my appointment with the psychiatrist was close enough to get me by until I can reevaluate how I am going to work on being more chemically balanced. But every day was still a challenge. Sometimes just for a little while, sometimes for the whole day. There were many days of crying in the bathroom at work, for no apparent reason, but I would always go back to my desk and continue trying.
Yesterday was Tuesday again. Maybe I'm just not good with Tuesdays? I got through most of work just fine. At the very tail end of the day I ended up having what started off as a very on the surface discussion of work issues with a manager of mine which ended in me in full-blown tears trying to explain that I'm just not happy. And I don't know why or how to fix it. That got heavy fast, sorry boss.
I got home and cleaned, did the dishes, took out the trash and once my boyfriend got home I started cooking dinner. While I was watching the pot of water boil I started fixating on how stupid it was to break down to my boss. How unprofessional that was. And then I started thinking about my mom's car problems, and how I have no money to help her. And how I shouldn't worry about helping her because that's what my dad is supposed to do. And then I got mad that my dad wasn't here to help her. Or me. And then I thought about a 1200 water bill. And how now I was going to walk into the living room with these ravioli and be really sad. And how many days my boyfriend has had to deal with me being sad.
I got about half a bite of ravioli in my mouth before I started sobbing. Where do you even start in trying to explain to someone how and why you are crying into ravioli? We talked a while, and I just started to feel more and more guilty that my depression was becoming someone else's problem. So I was spiraling down and fast regardless of what my boyfriend could possibly had said to try and make it better. All of a sudden I had a thought I've never had before. It scared the shit out of me and it played over and over again in my head. I just kept thinking 'I have to go to the hospital'. I didn't want to kill myself. I wasn't ill. I don't know what I thought a hospital would of done for me except maybe create an excuse to not have to function in society for a while. Because I seem to be failing at it pretty fucking miserably these days.
I didn't go to the hospital. And I don't feel the need to go to the hospital anymore. At least not right now. And I don't know if I will again or if that was just some odd reaction to a new peak of depression for me. I'm up now. I showered. I am going to type a few more words on here, dry my hair and go to work. And then we'll see how the next few hours go I guess. I need to get back into therapy. Therapy costs money and that doesn't grow on trees - but I'm going to find a way to do it. And in the interim I'll just come back here when things don't make sense and write it down.
I want to live. I want to be happy and I want each day to not be a struggle. Right now I am just trying to find something to convince myself there is a light at the end of a tunnel I have been staring down for most of my life. And I will. I know I will. And I know I'm not alone. And I know depression is a thing. And I am no different than anyone else that wakes up and doesn't want to be a person for a while. So I'll keep trying. I promise I am trying.
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