Tag: depression

antigone

Because brains are DUMB.

Depression
Survivors Guilt

Pandemic survivor guilt makes me feel like an asshole. Just wanting to blog about this makes me feel like an asshole for complaining about feeling like an asshole.

I lie in bed at night and I think about this and I feel like I need to purge it from my brain and when I tell people about it I don’t want to trauma dump on them so I just kind of gloss over the topic while hiding the fact it causes me so much anxiety that I want to crawl out of my skin and run away.

“I feel GUILTY that people are out of work, they’re struggling so much, they’ve lost so much, people are DYING. This pandemic has brought me to the dream point of working from home permanently. I never lost a single hour of pay, as a matter of fact in the last year I’ve been given a raise and a promotion. People in my family have gotten sick, but nobody has died or is suffering any kind of long term complication.”

“But I’m FINE! Everything is FINE! IGNORE ME LETS TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE.”

It’s so hard… no, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to rectify in my brain that I’m just LUCKY. I didn’t do anything extraordinarily amazing or worthy of being in life where I am in life post 2020. I don’t have a degree. I didn’t have to overcome some hardship to get to where I am. I was born into a white middle class family and went to private schools where I fucked off to the point of being expelled. I literally never took school seriously till I was raising another human being who was in school.

I ended up with a great job that I’ve been saying for years could only get better if I didn’t have to drive 2.5 hours per day to get to it. Now I have that forever. I didn’t have to work for it, it was just handed to me. People lost their jobs and all of their income but I got a pay raise and didn’t have to put on a bra for almost an entire year.

This is dumb. It’s so dumb to feel this way. There’s no logical reason to for it. Feeling this way doesn’t solve anything and it doesn’t make me a better person.

Maybe because I’ve been reading so much about race and privilege in an attempt to be a better person, I’m just now realizing the dumb luck of being born white and middle class is why 2020 didn’t suck for me like it did for a lot of people. And even as I type this out I realize the privilege in that feeling like an asshole is the hardest hurdle I face currently.

So I lay in bed at night and feel guilty. Because brains are DUMB. Imposter Syndrome is even more dumb.

The end.

antigone

We are now 348 days into quarantine.

Depression, Ramblings

We are now 348 days into quarantine.

And somehow I’m, like, okay.

I thought at first it was because we gradually went to work from home. We started with 3 days a week at home. Then we went to only going in once a week so we could stagger days. Now only one person from each part of our team comes in once a week so we go about 8 weeks between office visits. It was a weird adjustment but I’m kind of glad we had the slow crossover. It kind of slowly lowered me into the burning building of COVID rather than tossing me in directly after dousing it with gasoline.

When it looked more and more like this was going to be an extended time away from friends, away from coworkers, and away from family, I had a conversation with Ben letting him know that I was worried about my mental health. Not that I was in a bad place THEN, but that I expected a crash to happen.

Anytime.

At some point.

I was going to crash.

Except… I never did. And to be 100% honest, I DO NOT FUCKING GET IT.

Long time followers know that I’ve been very open about my battle with depression. I love that when I’m raw and real about it I get comments and messages saying thank you for putting into words how they are feeling. For normalizing the mental illness. For being an advocate. And I have to tell you, I have felt some significant guilt for NOT doing that. For NOT feeling that way. For NOT being that support for others.

But it just… never happened. Maybe it’s the Lexapro? Maybe it’s that I get to sleep longer every day now that I don’t have an hour commute in the morning and have to put like 5% of the effort into getting ready every day. Maybe it’s the feeling of INCREDIBLE PRIVILEGE to have a stable and steady income through a time when a lot of people are really struggling.

I don’t know what it is but I’m ready to stop second guessing it and start trying to process it. In a private friends Facebook group we sometime ask for a mental health check in. A place to sound off, judgement free, letting it all out. I described being really shocked that I am okay. But also that some nights I can’t fall asleep and lie away wondering when the crash is going to happen. What trigger is going to set it off? What random chemical imbalance is going to suddenly trick me into believing that sleeping all day is the only way to stay alive. I haven’t even TAKEN A NAP in months, let alone a depression nap.

I know how lucky I am right now. I had a long conversation with a friend the other day that is not okay. I was able to listen to her and tell her that I know where she is and that I understand how she feels. And I told her that I know there is nothing I can do to fix it, but I promise you, I understand and you are not alone.

If you are there, if your brain is missing the chemicals you need, please know that I am safe harbor. I GET it. I KNOW where you are. I can’t fix you, I know better than to try, but I can HEAR you. Shit still really sucks right now and I don’t know when it’s going to get better and I also know that even when everything is going perfectly in your life, you can still be There. In that shitty dark place where your brain tells you lies.

I hope you’re all okay. Wear your masks. Wash your hands. Stay the fuck away from people that don’t live with you. And take care of yourself and your mental health in the best ways that work for you.

antigone

Today I was sad.

Uncategorized

I spent all day 10 seconds away from crying.

That sharp lump lingering in my throat, eyes watering but not enough to let tears fall. Deep breath, eyes closed. Hold it. Release. Move forward.

It’s weird to feel heartbreaking sadness when you’re used to Depression Sadness. With Depression Sadness you can’t put your finger on the Why. It just… IS. Your person will ask you why you’re sad and you will answer for the 100th time that you don’t know why you’re sad.

You just are.

This is hard for a lot of people in support positions to hear, especially when your support people are fixers. With Depression Sadness there is no fix. It’s just there one day and then some unpredictable number of minutes or hours or days or months later it’s gone.

POOF.

I think this kind of sadness is better. I feel it and I know why. And I know that crying will help. I’ve felt Depression Sadness enough times to know that familiar calming release of endorphins and the temporary numbness that follows.

But today I wanted to feel it. So I didn’t cry.

Tomorrow will be better. Routine will start back up. I’ll let myself cry if I need to. Life will go on.

I’ll be able to remind myself that Cassidy is with family. She is loved. She is cared about. She is learning. She is back to focusing on her passion. We’ll make plans for the next time we get to be together. We’ll Facetime and she’ll tell me I’m over-dramatic and ridiculous and we’ll laugh.

But this morning she woke up in my house and now she is 187 miles away in her bed probably playing Animal Crossing and I can’t just walk into her room to loudly burp.

So today I was sad.

And that’s okay.