You know, I used to be ashamed by how often I posted about my depression. I'm sure somewhere deep down I still am ashamed. I'm not sure I'll ever stop wishing that I was born with some other problem.
Let me tell you what depression looks like for me on a daily basis, without taking into consideration the two months every year that I spend in deep, DEEP despair. I'd never realized previously how much time I spend on my phone, or watching TV. When I get home from work I can literally stay on my phone in an endless loop of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Once I'm done with all three, I'll start back over with Facebook, because there is always something new to read. One hand to God, I can stay in the clutches of that loop for an entire day. I can sit on the couch after work and not move until it's time to go to bed. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
Depression for me looks like avoiding meditation at all costs. Trying to lure myself into a meditative state seems very much like trying to dip a cat in a hot bath. My mind clings to the sides of my skull desperately in an attempt to keep from going too deep. I have a Ph. D in running from the present moment. Why? Because I feel like I will drown in it. So I keep skimming on top of the surface of life, never allowing my mind to go too far inwards. I keep busy. I never stop looking at my phone, because if I did, I'd have to sit in the silence that is my house after my husband started working more often and we cancelled cable TV. Silence is a mirror, my friends...always showing you things about yourself that you didn't necessarily want to see.
I can't write more than four words at a time for the novel I have been working on for five years. Why? Because I don't let myself stop and think. And how can you write a novel without some serious stopping and thinking? I flit about like a hummingbird, full of activity, so that I don't sink like a stone.
Sometimes I wonder if it's the sadness I'm trying not to see when I refuse to be still.
I always believed that using my phone was a generational symptom, until I realized how much I dreaded putting it down. I can't even imagine how much of my life I've wasted staring 140 characters from some celebrity. That's time that I could've spent making my life something more in line with what I know the sixteen year old version of me always pictured. I get images of me holding a surfboard, splashing back up onto the beach as the sun sets. I never did learn how to surf. I was too busy LOLing on Facebook. I get images of me drinking coffee in the early morning, hammering out the last few pages of my magnum opus. That hasn't happened yet, either. Then I imagine getting into a car crash tomorrow, and only having just enough time to realize how much I've missed out on. I dwell on that every day.
I guess who wouldn't be unhappy if they dwelled on that every day.
I think I am more in control of my own unhappiness than I let myself believe.
I was watching Penny Dreadful the other day, and heard something that struck something in my heart. I didn't realize it then, but I've come back to the idea so many times now. The central character was visiting a psychotherapist, whose only homework in between sessions was for Vanessa (the central character) to do something that made her happy. I think about that a lot. What a simple idea. Just do something that will make you HAPPY. Those are the only stipulations. I've realized that nothing I do in my life is done with the intent on happiness, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that I don't have much happiness laying around. I make my decisions based solely on what will keep me from being poor in the future. All of my decisions are molded around my fear of not being able to buy what I want. I went to nursing school because I knew I could make decent, stable money doing it. That I'd never be without a job. Luckily for me, nursing also has helped develop my social skills and cultivate a few more human emotions than I had previously. I took that job I'm in currently because it had the word "Supervisor" attached, and I decided that it would be beneficial to have that job title on my resume. I moved to Georgetown, TX because I didn't want to upset my husband by insisting on a move to some far flung state whose politics he doesn't agree with. I didn't want to take him away from his family. I didn't want to fight with him over his homesickness. I didn't want us to eventually hate each other. I have never, EVER, not once, made a decision by making myself still to listen and see how the idea of a thing made me FEEL. What nonsense, right? I pushed myself so hard at the gym, to the point of sickness, because I WANT TO HAVE A NICE BODY FOR OTHER PEOPLE TO LOOK AT. But how did pushing myself so hard make me FEEL? Like shit. The day I slowed down and really focused on how the idea of lifting such heavy weights made me FEEL was the day I started walking my dogs more often for exercise.
It's amazing how such a simple concept can change everything. How something makes me feel actually MATTERS, and all of my decisions based on promoting my happiness will add up to a HAPPIER LIFE. Who. Would've. Thought.
...Obviously not me.
Thursday, June 2, 2016
Monday, April 11, 2016
Lumbering
Depression is strange. I wonder sometimes whether or not depression sprang from nothing at all, or if it is a deep symptom of malcontent. Some sort of warning sign, maybe. As if I was going down the wrong road. I've had a tendency to assume the latter, which can be maddening. It seems that no matter which path I follow, the darkness is waiting to whisper urgently in my ear that I am doing the wrong thing. In response to this "warning sign", I hurriedly re-examine my choices to see where I've made a misstep. The answer is usually the same- my choice of career. Nursing has both opened up my heart and stifled it all at once, in the most profound ways.
It has nurtured my compassion and placed me in situations where I feel as though I've truly made a difference to someone. I remember talking quietly with a man who I was introducing to the unit. He had attempted suicide a number of times. He began talking about his children and how he felt it was necessary to take his own life because he was an addict, and therefore could never be the dad his kids deserved. I remember speaking words of love to him, and encouragement. We both cried. He came back several weeks later with a full blown opiate addiction and another attempt to take his life under his belt. I saw him several times after that, always for the same reason. He was like a fly caught in a web. I hope he made it out.
Nursing has broken my heart in that I've allowed the nursing culture to make me feel alienated and strange. Every time a patient gets a glimpse of my large tattoos, I feel like I have let someone down in the same way that I'll always assume that I let my mother down by being myself. This, of course, is not true. And these feelings have little, if anything, to do with my mother or nursing culture at all. They have more to do with my self doubt and insecurity. I interpret things incorrectly as a result of my insecurities. I know that. Sometimes I attempt to re-calibrate. It's a work in progress.
Sometimes I hate my own tendency to look for every reason to break my heart. I hate that I am Kylo Ren, and not bright, bushy tailed Rey. Yeah, I did just say that. I have friends on Facebook who have wild, curly blonde hair and permanent smiles. They are personal trainers and are always laughing. This, of course, is just another reason why I should delete Facebook forever- the need to seek out and compare. Feeling the need to always find myself lacking. Being a downer all the time does get tiring, though. I'll tell you that. I feel it strain my relationship with my husband, who hardly ever has a bad day. He is the golden retriever to my...cat.
I am usually tiptoeing around the word "hate", but tonight, I feel it. I felt the hatred when my parents were being hilarious after too much champagne, and the laugh I gave was so hollow and fake. Somewhere in my brain I knew my parents truly deserved a sitcom, but it didn't touch my spirit. I felt 1,000 miles away from my own body and heart. So far away that nothing I experienced could ever hope to reach either. Feeling like this is also evident in my writing. All creative phrasing and depth of feeling is gone. It's all I can do to slap my fingers around the keyboard heavily.
It has nurtured my compassion and placed me in situations where I feel as though I've truly made a difference to someone. I remember talking quietly with a man who I was introducing to the unit. He had attempted suicide a number of times. He began talking about his children and how he felt it was necessary to take his own life because he was an addict, and therefore could never be the dad his kids deserved. I remember speaking words of love to him, and encouragement. We both cried. He came back several weeks later with a full blown opiate addiction and another attempt to take his life under his belt. I saw him several times after that, always for the same reason. He was like a fly caught in a web. I hope he made it out.
Nursing has broken my heart in that I've allowed the nursing culture to make me feel alienated and strange. Every time a patient gets a glimpse of my large tattoos, I feel like I have let someone down in the same way that I'll always assume that I let my mother down by being myself. This, of course, is not true. And these feelings have little, if anything, to do with my mother or nursing culture at all. They have more to do with my self doubt and insecurity. I interpret things incorrectly as a result of my insecurities. I know that. Sometimes I attempt to re-calibrate. It's a work in progress.
Sometimes I hate my own tendency to look for every reason to break my heart. I hate that I am Kylo Ren, and not bright, bushy tailed Rey. Yeah, I did just say that. I have friends on Facebook who have wild, curly blonde hair and permanent smiles. They are personal trainers and are always laughing. This, of course, is just another reason why I should delete Facebook forever- the need to seek out and compare. Feeling the need to always find myself lacking. Being a downer all the time does get tiring, though. I'll tell you that. I feel it strain my relationship with my husband, who hardly ever has a bad day. He is the golden retriever to my...cat.
I am usually tiptoeing around the word "hate", but tonight, I feel it. I felt the hatred when my parents were being hilarious after too much champagne, and the laugh I gave was so hollow and fake. Somewhere in my brain I knew my parents truly deserved a sitcom, but it didn't touch my spirit. I felt 1,000 miles away from my own body and heart. So far away that nothing I experienced could ever hope to reach either. Feeling like this is also evident in my writing. All creative phrasing and depth of feeling is gone. It's all I can do to slap my fingers around the keyboard heavily.
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