I have been on this long cycle of just bottling up. Like shaking up a bottle of soda... I feel like I am about to open it and explode. I am afraid to open it as it means saying out loud what I have been feeling in my heart and have been trying to just deal with somehow hoping things would either just go away or somehow just get better or change themselves. Only saying enough to get by.
My depression has truly taken over and even on medication I have seemed to somehow let the depression win. It makes me feel like a complete idiot (for lack of better term) that I fundraiser and speak about raising awareness for suicide prevention all the while in the back of my mind I am struggling myself with this exact thing. I'm a hypocrite. There are days that I simply cannot get out of bed. I can't even force myself to do so. I run through my mind and think of the people that mean something to me. The people whom I would want to leave a letter to if things got bad enough. There are a few. There could be a generic one for most, but certain individuals deserve more because of their impact on my life. A month ago I had to write and sign a one page sentence for my therapist that stated I would not harm myself without talking or contacting her first. I realize it was probably a liability thing as it was a joint session that my depression was really bad and I didn't have much to say. She asked if I thought I should be admitted and I said no. So instead I had to write and sign. Things are at that point again and I have scared myself so I called and have a solo appt tomorrow. Odd thing is we have a joint appt tonight but I don't think my other half knows how hurt and depressed I feel. I think she has blinders on. I guess I don't blame her, perhaps I am just a burden. So much more to say, but have to go to the appt. maybe I'll try to keep typing just to get things off my own chest. It is one of those times that it is hard to comprehend why I stay.
No matter how hard I try at life it just isn't good enough. Something needs to happen. And you sit and seriously consider giving up...
My favorite Broadway musical has always been 'RENT'. The top song from RENT is called Seasons of Love in where it talks about, well... rather than try to explain, I will just let you read the lyrics:
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes / Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear / Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes / How do you measure, measure a year? In daylights, in sunsets / In midnights, in cups of coffee / In inches, in miles / In laughter, in strife In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes / How do you measure a year in the life How about love? / How about love? / How about love? / Measure in love / Seasons of love / Seasons of love Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes / Five hundred twenty-five thousand Journeys to plan / Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes / How do you measure the life / Of a woman or a man? In truths that she learned / Or in times that he cried / In bridges he burned / Or the way that she died It's time now to sing out / Tho' the story never ends / Let's celebrate / Remember a year in the life of friends Remember the love / Remember the love / Remember the love / Measure in love / Measure, measure your life in love Seasons of love / Seasons of love So, how is a year measured? 525,600 minutes. Numbers have always been extremely powerful to me... perhaps that is why I decided on an Accounting major! I find numbers symbolic in many different ways. Either in the way they were meant to be because of their history, like the number 18 in Hebrew means "chai" which translates to "life" so in Jewish tradition when you are giving a gift, you give in multiples of 18. In addition, I use numbers as a way of marking milestones. It has been 2,2121,120 minutes / 1,473 days / 4 years and 12 days, since the last time I took drugs for a non needed reason. I state it that way because while I know that this can't count as my Narcotics Anonymous number of clean days/years in my heart I know that is the day I started to get clean, September 1, 2012. However, due to a car accident and concussion, I did take narcotics and therefore my real numbers are 1,160,640 minutes / 806 days / 2 years and 75 days since my last use on June 30, 2014. There has been much change, many miles, much laughter and strife, much love as well as much sadness in the last 4 years since I decided to change my life. Life has been a roller coaster ride. Friends have come and gone in that time. Some have remain constant. I have tried to grow as a person, feeling as though many times I have failed, but alas, I have probably just perhaps tried to be me and someone else didn't like it and so I tried to change, tried to accept someone else's definition of me. To some degree I still do that. I shall make it my goal that the next 4 years I find myself and create myself and be myself... and most of all, try to love myself. The words I could never put together into a complete thought I have just heard by listening to an Audible book… the book is by author, Jenny Lawson, whom battles depression and anxiety and also narrates the book as she wanted it to be her voice that was reading her story. While no one persons depression or anxiety is the same, she certainly touched on some very key points that are so very relavant that I must type the first one that hit me in an effort to try to help myself put words to what “I feel” but can never express…
“When cancer suffers fight, recover, and go into remission we laud their bravery. We wear ribbons to celebrate their fight. We call them survivors. Because they are. When depression sufferers fight, recover, and go into remission we seldom even know, simply because so many suffer in the dark… ashamed to admit to something they see as a personal weakness… afraid that people will worry, and more afraid that they won’t. We find ourselves unable to do anything but cling to the couch and force ourselves to breathe. When you come out of the grips of a depression there is an incredible relief, but not one you feel allowed to celebrate. Instead, the feeling of victory is replaced with anxiety that it will happen again, and with shame and vulnerability when you see how your illness affected your family, your work, everything left untouched while you struggled to survive. We come back to life thinner, paler, weaker… but as survivors. Survivors who don’t get pats on the back from coworkers who congratulate them on making it. Survivors who wake to more work than before because their friends and family are exhausted from helping them fight a battle they may not even understand. I hope to one day see a sea of people all wearing silver ribbons as a sign that they understand the secret battle, and as a celebration of the victories made each day as we individually pull ourselves up out of our foxholes to see our scars heal, and to remember what the sun looks like. I hope one day to be better, and I’m pretty sure I will be. I hope one day I live in a world where the personal fight for mental stability is viewed with pride and public cheers instead of shame. I hope it for you too. But until then, it starts slowly.” There is much more within this book that has allowed me to realize there are 'words' for what I feel inside. As I continue to listen (and now read the hard copy I ordered) I will share additionally in an effort to have a place to go back to on the days that I feel like I don't understand why I am the way I am, or the days I am at my darkest. |