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.
