Coping 101

The word of the week for me is COPING. In fact it's back to basics Copying with Depression 101, if you will. Last night, I melted down in epic style, complete with crying and screaming. As I laid they in my bed thinking how I wished I could just disappear, I realized that I have gotten comfortable in my depression.

That sounds crazy, right?

How can anyone find that state of mind comfortable? Depression for me has become like an ex lover. I know it is not a health place to be, but there is something familiar and comfortable about it. But anyone who has lived with depression knows, that once it has a foothold in your life, it will begin to creep into all aspects of your life. You begin looking at the world through the lens of hopelessness and unhappiness. It is so sly, that I often don't see that I am wearing "depression glasses", until I am down so low that it begins to affect me physically, or in a very obvious way. IE-last night's melt down.

So, as I laid there feeling like I could NOT do this any more, I realized that I needed to fight back. That I had gotten lazy in combating this trick that my brain plays on me that makes me think everything is horrible.

Dealing with depression is truly a fight, and I had been going to counseling and taking my medications, but I was not fighting much.

I began to make a list in my mind of all the things I have done to cope in the past: writing, art, meditation, exercise, counting my blessings, reading, listening to good music, talking to or visiting friends.

I started a new art project yesterday, at the urging of a friend, I began reintroducing myself the The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, I am blogging today, I have counseling this week, and I am going to plan a walk this week.

I am also going to spend time this week counting my gratitude, and focusing on the things in my life that make me happy. I am pulling out ALL the coping skills I have used in the past, but became passive about continuing to use.It is time to dust off the boxing gloves and begin to empower myself again.

The idea of dealing with these awful feelings for the rest of my life can overwhelm me, and the idea that it is something in my brain, and not something I can change, can make me feel helpless. The truth is, I can not change my diagnosis, but I can treat the symptoms, just like you can with every other medical condition. You can keep it from taking over your life, and you can find happiness mixed in with the cloudy days.

Lately, I have just not had the words to describe how I feel. I guess that is why I have not been blogging as much. I feel like the wind has been knocked out of me. Like a shell of myself. Some  days I feel completely wiped out. Too emotionally, physically, and mentally tired to even figure out how I feel, let alone express those feelings. I have no ability to focus, remember, process the events around me. My thoughts are all incomplete.

Other times, I know exactly how I feel and what I want, but the words will not come. I hear them in my head, but they stick in my throat as it tightens around them. I want so badly to shout them out. I want to wield them like daggers, but instead I swallow hard and keep them inside. It is exhausting and I feel the need for constant distraction from my thoughts.

Outwardly, I continually hold back. I am kind to the customer in my store who is being rude to me. I am nonconfrontational to family members who have a VERY different idea of what is best for me. I talk nervously through the awkward silence between my mother and I when she is clearly unhappy with me without telling me what or why she is upset. I wait patiently for the seamstress who has been over booked, only to find out that it is "against company policy" to make my dress as short as I would like. I say nothing when my ex husband offers me $20 toward our daughters school tuition down payment. Each time, the responses in my head become more and more condescending, but they are never uttered out loud.

 Friends who have been loving and supportive, I begin to keep secrets from because I just don't have the energy to explain why I am so depressed. I feel isolated, sad, angry, and tired. My whole body hurts. Headaches and migraines are beginning to become a daily occurrence. All noise seems to cut right through me. My skin seems to be crawling, and I can not sit still for long. I feel it eating away at me. I feel myself avoiding people. Choosing to talk only to a small group of people who I feel completely and totally at ease with.
 
 Even good events and feelings I find myself hiding. I dread each day. I don't want to deal with customers, coworkers, my family, anyone, really.

Meanwhile, life continues, like it or not. There are still a ton of things to get done at my job, a new job to prepare for, a child to care for, pets to take care of, and futures to plan. So I continue in silence. The to do list, the money, the anger, the exhaustion, the pain, the happiness, the excitement, all mixed together. I feel like the cluttered junk closet in an otherwise spotless house. Sure come in, make yourself at home, just don't open THIS door and it will all be fine.

While sometimes my depression sneaks up from behind, and grabs hold of me with a cold, hard grip, other times I can see it coming long before it is full blown. Like a dark storm looming on the horizon, each cool breeze blowing it closer.

My last few weeks have been good, not in a mood sense, but in the sense that things are slowly turning around for me. I got a job, not just any job, but a job I am really excited about and that I think I will be really good at. My daughter and I chose a new pet. It's a bunny named Easter. She is friendly, funny, and low maintenance (at least compared to, say... a puppy). I took a week long vacation. Just me and one of my closest friends spending lots of time catching up, eating yummy food, having some drinks, and having all the conversations we have been saving up for each other. I had a parent teacher conference, and my child is doing really well in school, her whole class is ahead of where her teacher has ever been, in part because she had no snow days this year, but that's ok I can pretend. All of these things should make me happy, and truly they do. Yet...clouds. I see the joy in the moments around me and I feel almost robbed by my disorder, because I can not always rejoice in them.

Last week, the dark clouds broke and the rain started to pour down. I spent one full night just sobbing, literally sobbing ,and wanting to just give up and hide under my blankets for awhile. I am "high functioning" clinically depressed, meaning it has been years since I was so far down that I could not get out of bed, or go to work, but weeks of going through the motions, walking around like a shell of a person while trying to figure out how to pay all my bills, trying to make a Easter memories, perfect birthdays, impress perspective bosses, smiling through uncomfortable, or flat out crappy, moments at work. I end up taking on so much for other people, more than what they would ever ask of me, and yet no one can help lessen the weight of my own moods and worries. It sometimes feels unfair, and it all caught up with me at once. I suddenly felt tired, tired of trying, tired of not being good enough, tired of fighting so hard to change the path I am on, tired of pretending that I am alright all the time, but most of all tired of day to day ups and downs of living with an anxiety and mood disorder. Why am I so damn tired all the time? Emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausted ALL. THE. TIME!!! Some days it feels like such a heavy weight to carry around, and I wish it could be lifted off for just a little while and I could have a break. I don't expect life to be easy, and I believe everyone has their cross to bare. I just want a time where I DON'T have to be strong, I DON'T have to struggle, I DON'T have to put "my best foot forward".

There was a time, when I struggled with the idea of being labeled as metally ill. I believed it was situational, or some how temporary. Now, now, I struggle with how permanent it is. I try to wrap my head around the idea that it is "ok" to feel this way, or that this is something that I will have to deal with for the rest of my life. I try to make sense of how I can not stop the moods, or the dark clouds and rain from coming, even when I see them on the horizon. All I can do is seek shelter, hunker down, and remind myself that I will survive the storm.