May. edit.

I should do this more I actually feel the slightest bit better.

May.

Therapy is going interestingly.

I had a very bad bout, managed to white knuckle hold on and not die, lived in the liminal space that is not-quite-depression, but not-quite-normalcy for a few weeks, then a couple of days of honest to god good mood. I don't think I was properly thankful for them.

It's back already and I feel like I barely had any time to recover myself from the last time. I already feel tired, I already am struggling to shower, and brush my teeth, and sleep and get up and eat like a human- and I have, in essence, a personal chef making sure I eat.

I want very, very much to do the things I am supposed to do.
I'm supposed to get moving, because it's good for my brain chemicals; I'm supposed to do my homework because, don't I WANT to pass my classes and graduate nursing school!? I'm supposed to be getting rid of things, de-cluttering, vacuuming, showering, walking, having sex, enjoying being a part of a loving perfect couple, I'm supposed to be taking care of my animals, and dusting and wiping down counters and cleaning the bathroom. I'm supposed to get up and log into work on time and actually do my job. I'm supposed to be happy and be enjoying the bounty that is my life, that I have worked hard to shape.

I'm NOT supposed to be taking naps, being mean to my partner, being nonstop cranky, browsing pinterest, online shopping for things I don't really need with the money I don't have.

In counseling, we talk a lot about reframing things from what you're "supposed to do" which will be met with rebellion, into things you "want" to do because that is more holistically motivating.

I struggle with this, because I have for so long been able to strong-arm function out of a depleted brain and body, such that it is reflexive to say "I need to clean up this dump because I'm an unlovable slob who absolutely must get their shit together and pick up their damn mail from everywhere." instead of "I want to live in a clean house, so I will pick up my papers."

Sometimes it's easy to do things I don't want to do. Sometimes it's a fight. I almost always win though, I can manipulate, cajole, bribe or force myself to do just about anything. The one hard and fast rule-when the thing is accomplished, you do not get to congratulate yourself- because you shouldn't get congratulations for things you are supposed to do.

I think often that I am doing a good job at functioning- I'm staying clean enough, I'm keeping house enough, I'm reading enough of the books and studying enough to slide by so no one comes and picks at the cracks. It is utterly disappointing when this is revealed to not be the case, and my best effort to fly incognito has failed. People start asking if I'm alright, and "I'm fine, of course. I just didn't sleep well."

What I really want now is some time completely left alone. I'm tired of having animals, and I'm tired of having someone breath audibly near me, and I'm tired of another person needing my energy and affection. I am getting hit with drowning floods of self hatred so deep and profound it has made me feel almost bullet proof- my life could explode right now and I don't even think it would register. I'm not even mentally in my body most of the time anyway. I wake up and I walk on because other people expect me to be there when I am needed, on-call like. I have deadlines, due dates, expectations that I am holding, and I cannot put them down and fail. I literally do not know what would happen to me if I put them down.

I see the collateral damage of my depression- I have a sad partner who misses me and I can only imagine wishes I were happier and more engaged or involved in any way in our relationship. I don't want to be touched, or comforted, or talked to. I don't want to laugh, or make love, or go for a walk. I don't want to be seen or gestured to or interacted with. I live with someone who desperately wants to do those things, and wants to help me feel better. I have someone who loves me so much, and often I really wish they wouldn't love me quite so much. It hurts to be letting them down so often and so much when you can only have the worst parts of yourself facing outward.

What I would really like, what I really desperately want, is to be left profoundly alone to break in peace.

Depression and exercise.

Everyone hates quarantine, but you know who LOVES quarantine?

Depression. Depression loves quarantine like a fat kid loves cake. Depression loves quarantine like plants love the sun.

I was doing so well- I was taking my meds every day. I was sleeping 8 hours every night. I was on top of my studies. I was employed. I was paying attention to my diet and trying to be a mindful eater.
I had begun exercising in January and had been keeping it up DESPITE NOT WANTING TO for almost three full months- I mean. This is huge for me, a lifelong couch potato (except that fluke where I joined rowing team in middle school and got jacked at 14, despite hating it the entire time and once fainting while running and being screamed at by a coach with a megaphone). I finally accepted that one of the last honestly untried things to try to beat up my depression was exercise, so I was planning its fair shot. So many people are like "exercise saved my life, and it helps you focus, and after a hard workout you get this euphoria and you feel so proud, like you really pushed yourself." Some of these people include my partner. They include people I admire. They include my gloriously slim classmates. I began Nursing school on campus in January, and immediately-cold turkey-changed my schedule and made a plan to set myself up for success.

I made a schedule: I would leave work and proceed directly to the gym M-T-Th. I would workout for as long as I could stand to be present in the gym space, then I would shower and get changed and go study. I would then go to night class, then go home and fall asleep.

I gathered supplies: I procured things to make my shower experience in a public school gym manageable. Extra hair ties. My sneakers would live at school in my locker. I have shampoo, conditioner, a separate bottle of lotion for my face, deodorant, sunscreen, (all the things I need to feel human after working out) live in my locker because I didn't want to  be carrying tons of things back and forth.

I set expectations: DO this three times a week, do not give up (because that's failing, and disappointing). This is good for your health, your self care, your mental health. DO NOT OVER DO. Do not push yourself so hard that you cry in front of other grown adults as you drag your toddler brain into the gym where it doesn't want to go. Don't pull muscles. Don't self destruct. BUILD!

SO in January, after week two, I implemented the plan. Then, I waited patiently for my results. I pushed and pushed and pushed- carefully, tentatively. I went to classes, I studied, I worked, and always I pushed. Looking back, I didn't push for a very long time- three months hardly seems like a blip in the life, but it felt like ETERNITY. In my mind, I was wishing for a nice stable core, triceps that could help me turn a patient without hurting myself, biceps that could brace a coughing person. You know, career oriented fitness goals. Not to put my back out in my first clinical assignment. 

I had mini mental breakdowns, cajoled, bribed and bullied myself into staying at the gym and not giving up and eating chocolate. I bragged about going to the gym, thinking this would definitely make it so my brain would be too ashamed to skip a workout day. I started to enjoy my showers at the gym (a whole separate nest of adders involving self care and my depression), but I still merely tolerated or abhorrently suffered through my workouts. I found the ergometer, and while not enjoyable, I knew this was an exercise I could do- from my rowing days. Hated it then, still don't love it, but it is the least evil machine in the gym. Like a dog that bites, but usually doesn't bite YOU specifically.

***

Part of me genuinely questions if depression itself is what stops all the glorious ya-ya hippie post workout bullshit from happening to me EVER. Thinking about this lately since I'm locked down in quarantine- I have not always been a potato. I've been in shape in my living memory. I have had a flat stomach, and biceps, I have been able to walk 13 miles without flinching, and I have never once in my life felt "euphoric" or "refreshed" or heaven forbid "energized" at the end of a workout. I do not think I have the chemicals necessary for that. The closest I get is feeling dizzy, woozy, or faint.

When I was 14, I was in shape because to join a team and be the only one NOT in shape, was shameful. There was someone following up on you, other team members would tattle if you shorted a workout. Your coach would be disappointed in you. SHE WOULD YELL AT YOU, while you ran (or in my case, pathetically jogged). Even if you cried. She would start an entire set of calisthenics over because YOUR FEET SHAMEFULLY touched the ground while the other team members perfectly hovered their feet 2 inches off the floor, no matter how much their legs shook. So I suffered, but I had a team, and victoriously, I was in shape. 

With a lot of time to think, I have naturally drawn some conclusions. My lifelong hatred of exercise was not changed in three months, despite my best intentions and my plans for a successful exercise routine. My workouts in the last three months have been and are still driven by a self destructive narrative of me fighting to make myself better, but by using the most abusive, sharp tools available for motivation:

Why sharp tools? I run faster when sharp things are after me, especially when I can't hide first. Ask anyone who's been up against Freddie Kruger. Sharp things man-you will run like the wind. How does this narrative work? It starts out pretty innocuously. You will step forward a lot faster if you know that stepping backward lands you on a spike of desolate self-hatred.

Behold, a guide on chasing yourself with sharp things, to watch yourself run at a school gym:

Before:
pep talk: YOU ARE GOING TO EXERCISE. This is gonna be good for you. Gonna stop you from dying as young. Lots of people enjoy this. Maybe you can get there, if you just don't give up. I mean like. Leggings in public. You could do that maybe, if you were a little more in shape. ALSO because sharp thing- YOU ARE FAT; DON'T EVER FORGET, YOU ARE FAT. Seriously there is no part of you that doesn't jiggle, what on earth have you been eating. So you know- hold onto that for a minute.

During:
1) I pick this exercise/ machine/ video I will follow along with.
2) This hurts and I can't breathe.
3) I hate that other people can see me because-sharp thing- I feel fat and out of control.
4) I have forgotten why I thought I could do this. I hate whoever convinced me to do this (me). 
5) I am humiliated that I cannot do EVEN THREE OF THESE reps. I genuinely don't understand how to simplify this to my ability. I have no ability.   
6) I will just die fat, really that's starting to look like the best viable option. 
7) NOW RALLY. You HAVE to do this, HEART DISEASE, REMEMBER? That small tiny part of you that doesn't actually want you to die? I know it hasn't spoken up in the last hour since you got out of your car, but somewhere in your brain there is a part of you that loves you and is scared you are going to die if you don't make yourself do this. SO DO IT.  Grab your sharp thing: It is statistically unlikely this will actually kill you even if you red-line your heart rate- you're 31. I don't even think you can move fast enough to red-line a 31 year old heart. GET A GRIP. Proceed with said grip for arbitrary amount of time until a rational taskmaster in your brain declares, "ENOUGH, BE FREE" (Is it the voice of God? Is it just you yelling in a funny accent? Who knows).

8) Everything hurts and you can't breathe = Success. Go shower. Sharp thing: You're gross. And very sweaty. And disturbingly red in the face. Not unlike a tomato. Mentally prepare yourself to repeat this experience every two days for the rest of your life. Sharp thing: Absolutely feel free to add anything off the a la carte menu on your way to the shower; That you can feel your heart in your throat and eyes at the same time, that you still aren't meeting recommended daily activity needs, that everything jiggles and is sore. Don't forget- guilt yourself as you enter the locker room that you're SUPPOSED TO FEEL only love for your potato body, and only positive vibes, because you're some sort of warrior...princess...? Like a properly skinny and empowered woman. *side eye*

Maybe my dreams and aspirations of exercise being enjoyed, reaping feelings of success, peace and good will after a workout were just bullshit and what I should really have been focused on was, "This may never feel good but it will keep you feeling SOMETHING."

I didn't give up now that I'm stuck in quarantine, but, I'm also not pulling 3K on an erg either. I'm doing 15 minute pilates videos with a theraband every third or fourth day once the guilt of NOT doing that builds up to intolerable levels. It both feels and looks pretty pathetic, and true to form, I hate it. AND I'm STILL NOT MEETING daily recommended fitness levels. 

Rabbit hole

I began listening to the My Favorite Murder podcast, and it’s amazing and satisfying and very very dark, but also bitingly funny sometimes. Super suitable for the place I’m in right now. My Therp was out of the methylated folate I was taking and it’s  been about a month: I’m definitely feeling it- or something else isn’t right. My brain is screaming out for dark content, so I’m not surprised that I wrapped up in the warm blanket of psychopathic killers, true crime documentaries and weird horrible medical documentaries: thalidomide, look it up.

The down side of listening to true crime murder stories is that you find out a lot of killers have similar issues - head trauma/injury while young, narcissistic personalities, links to smaller crime and family violence or sexual violence and substance abuse etc. REMIND YOU OF ANYONE? Yes, you start to see it everywhere. I’m basically petrified and having nightmares and horrible fantasies that roll through my brain like a movie in the background of everyday life. Not a fun place to be; I feel like it isn’t an issue of “if” so much as an issue of “when” a more serious incident occurs. I may type some of them here as short horror stories, because supposedly when you’re bothered by something it helps to write it out. Write it to right it, or something like that.

I’m out of shape and I feel stressed and vulnerable, incapable of self defense. I feel so scared, but I’ve been unwilling to put it out there straight. I’m supposed to be practicing sitting with my negative emotions and sadness and fear so I don’t need to use humor as an ultimate defense mechanism. My stories about how I’m terrified my friend will die or I have a difficult relationship with myself shouldn’t be told with a gleeful smile. Those things aren’t funny at all and I don’t think they are, but I can’t talk about them without sounding like it’s a hilarious story and making absolute light. The truth is so heavy, I can only point at it on the ground over there and I would never think to pick it up or hold it to me.

Last night I couldn’t sleep, I was thinking about family and friends and fear and it all caught in my throat; I couldn’t sleep, then I couldn’t breathe. I recorded a message to a friend I am worried about. In doing so, I caught a lot of  things I need to keep investigating about myself, because I was half awake I didn’t remember what I said and listened to it just now.

The sleepy recording begins, “It is late and I am tired. But I just wanted to tell you how...disappointed I am that you don’t ...care that people love you, and that you don’t want to take care of yourself.  And that every time you give up it makes me feel like giving up. Like everything I’m trying to do doesn’t matter. I wish I could tell you that your brain lies to you; it tells you that you’re not attractive and no one could ever love you. It tells you that you’re smart, but you’re not smart enough. You’re not brave enough. You’re not driven enough and you can’t do it. And I wish that I could tell you that you’re wrong but mine says the same thing everyday. That I’m not good enough, that everything is my fault. So... I just wanted to tell you that I’m uh...really disappointed . That it really hurts me. It really sucks because people really love you a lot and you don’t seem to care... at all.” I directed this at someone else, but upon listening in the light of day with a clearer head, it’s pretty obviously about the things I’m struggling with. I slept like a damn baby after I recorded this, but still woke up exhausted.

Why can “no one love me” and “I don’t deserve love”, when it is evidenced that many people do indeed love me? Why am I “never good enough”, why am I “not enough” when I have proven time and time again that I am MORE than enough? In fact some people have said that I’m too much *bad joke* .

I’ve been out ahead of the depression for weeks, maybe months without realizing it. Just long enough to lose it around the corner. I forgot the feeling of its sharp claws in my hair as I bolt out of reach, a near miss. It’s tracking me now, gaining on me, it can smell my fear. I’m tired, and I’m scared of what I will be like if it catches me again. To be perfectly over dramatic, in the last two weeks it seems more and more like what will I do WHEN it catches me, because that fucker is definitely coming for me.


This is the part where I shudder and realize it never left; it’s been in the room with me the whole time, right?

June 2018: a stalemate

June of 2018: I'm now 29.

Researching nursing schools. Well, telling people I am researching nursing schools while really avoiding it because I'm a lifelong procrastinator.

I work in accounts payable. It's not a dream job but I like my coworkers.
Same apartment, same boyfriend, same cats. We now feed them better and they have a cat fountain we don't clean enough. I fluctuate between being a great and the worst cat guardian.

The primary arguments in our house are about: family, money, sex, chores, and how annoying our neighbors are. We keep talking about buying a house and getting away from the city noise- but we can walk to so much food to waste our money on. Someday maybe there'll be a dog and kids in the house we'll inevitably buy eventually.

I've been sewing a lot of garments in the last three years, and hubs got me a sewing machine. I'm planning a trip to New Orleans which I am hoping will be...not stressful. All older cousins are married now, so that's...no pressure.

I'm seeing all the mental health professionals and I'm medicated to help treat my anxiety and depression, a.k.a. the source of many a ranty deep dark musing. They make the blog posts a little intriguing, but everyday life a challenge so, trying out something new. Three mental health people have told me to focus on "mindfulness" which I am feeling a strong repulsion to. Mindfulness makes me queasy, which I guess...recognizing that...is mindful. I dunno, it's so circular and dumb and confusing. AND foolproof because apparently mindful people know the secret to happiness *glares into space*.

Working on pursuing bigger things and 'being my own happiness' and other lame things people put on tee shirts; Making some tee shirts as well with fabric paint. My house is a permanent hoarding disaster, half my plants from the last post in 2015 are dead, though the orchids are still alive remarkably.