depression in the time of covid

I know I'm not doing great. Like, when I have to download an app so I can force myself to shower every day (before noon gets me more points but I don't know if I'm making that today) and when I start genuinely considering, 4 months before February (the typical real low spot of my year), that maybe I need to take meds for this round, instead of just whiteknuckling it through, then I'm pretty sure intervention is a real and valid thing. 

I'm just tired of everything. I want to cut loose and sail away, and I don't have a boat so instead I'm thinking about the next best thing. Connections are frustrating to me, it feels like there's sharp bladed focus three steps away but I have tough strong spiderwebs on my arms and legs.

Don't get me wrong, I guess I'm glad they're there.

I was trying to think about phrasing, like, "in the overworked I'm glad they're there" vs "in the code I'm glad they're there" and which one was more true to use, but honestly I think both levels of me are just tired and resentful. I want to be done being this. I feel like I've learned all the lessons I want to. Sure, there's brighter things coming but fuck the idea of getting to them is so exhausting. I want a break from all this fucking pushing for nothing. 

Even when I'm happy I'm tired, and I wonder if maybe that's why my moods can be so volatile, because the big empty sea is just that flat curled up on the bed thinking about how crying would feel to my eyes, and I'm floating about above it, seeing it below, tossing small things overboard, and gaining a brief euphoric bump before the wind changes and I start sinking down again.

I don't know. I'm not gonna kill myself, I think I've been brainwashed enough to pretend that that isn't an option for me, but I'm resentful of that and I'm pissed about it. 

I should talk to my doctor I guess.

Food

I have money issues almost perpetually.  Largely it's because one part-time job should not be relied upon to pay rent, cell phone bill, academic expenses, and still be able to get food.

((I feel like this contributes, in a large way, to people thinking that I am unreliable, or that I am kind of a flake.))

One of my old roommates offered to help me budget better, but I know where all of my money is going. It's just that the amount of money I have just barely covers that things I need to survive.

(I've tried working multiple jobs.  One semester, I had 21 credits and 2 jobs. I also had one shaky, panicked breakdown in the shower, a truly spectacular depressive episode, and an entire semester's worth of anxiety over scheduling. I am a perfectionist, and this means that I put things off until I can do them perfectly.)

Food is a necessary thing that I need to think about more

During one month in that semester, I spent 25 dollars on groceries.  I survived off of ramen and frozen dinners.  It's tough, but doable.

I also never want to do it again.

I have issues with food. My sensory issues with food don't affect me enough to make me stop eating, but I have difficulty remembering to eat.

Sometimes I am just genuinely not hungry.  I have learned a lot about things like "mindful eating", and a lot of that seems to involve paying attention to your body and interpreting that into what is healthy.  Whole wheat bread makes me feel better. So does salad.  And sometimes I am really not hungry.  If I don't have a lot of food, and I'm not hungry, why should I eat?

((waste not want not))

My parents came from the Baby Boomer Generation. Their parents came from the Depression age generation.  Being fat meant that you had enough food in the house, that you weren't starving. Meals were scheduled at breakfast, lunch, dinner, at specific times. My grandmother was a big lady. Big heart, big body, and, we thought, big bones.  When my grandmother died of congestive heart failure, my family found out that she had a petite bone structure.

((i don't want to die))

My life seems crazy and out of control a lot. I need specific numbers on recipes. I need specific dates. I need specific guidelines.  I need my lists and my calendars.  When I was in second grade, I didn't have enough information to supply sufficient nutrition. Now I am in college and I have information and people still tell me I don't know what I know.

((knowledge will give you control))

Sometimes I trace the lines of my bones under skin. Sometimes I trace the edges of scars over it. Sometimes I trace the thin sharp lines of tendons. Sometimes I trace the curve of muscle over bone.  I used to do it with metal, and now I do it with ink and fingertips. I feel that I am made up entirely of lines, and that the places in between the lines are nothing but smoke and air. My lines weigh me down. My lines keep me from blowing away.

((definition is existence))

Today I was able to go shopping for free in an old manager's basement. She "adopts" college students and lets them go grocery shopping in her stock of bought-in-bulk food. When I got there, she had already filled up a bag, and had me fill up another bag and a box with fruit and nuts and soup and instant dinners.  I was worried I didn't say thank you enough. I have a full shelf of food now.

((it's funny how having enough food makes you feel loved, how asking for help doesn't make you feel useless, how eating food when you don't have to worry about the rest of it can fill in the spaces between the lines))

and they let me be their friend

Okay well apparently I can’t focus until I write this

I keep getting the feeling that people are just tolerating me, that one day I will say something wrong or do something wrong and then pam I’m out of their life

This is frustrating

Things that I do wrong:

I get angry at things and people a lot even though I’m getting better at pretending I’m not. Sometimes I have a bad day and I can feel everything tipping and anger balances it out again.  I think I heard that people react to anxiety in different ways and one of those ways is anger, and that’s how I react. 

(sometimes I feel very similar to a lot of the portrayals of bucky in fanfiction, because everything is loud and unpredictable and everyone expects you to know what the rules are, and you know some of them but if you get them wrong then everyone thinks you’re an idiot, and anger can reset that.)

I tell jokes that are rude and offensive, but sometimes the rude and offensive jokes that make me feel bad make the people who don’t like my rude and offensive jokes laugh.

I think I worry too much and too vocally about getting left behind or left out of things, and that makes people not want to include me in things

I went in to get tested for adhd and apparently I don’t have it, I just have a “creative personality” that means that I find it difficult to justify doing things that I don’t want to do. My big thing is novelty. If I have novelty and control, then I have motivation. If I do not, then I am fucked.

So I know I am broken but not in a way that I can fix.

I am bored almost all the time and I know some of this is depression and some of it is anger and some of it is both but the only times I can break through that is with violence – either in paper or skin

Sometimes the things other people do make me angry and then I feel bad for being angry, but I am still angry.  I don’t like it when other people breathe too loud, or break my schedule, or aren’t interested in something that I think they will be interested in.

I can tell when people think I am being an idiot about something, and that makes me angry, which makes them nervous, which makes me angry again.

I don’t like it when other people remember something that I can’t remember because I have a bad memory and if I don’t remember something how can I apologize for it? I used to have friends who would remember things I said that I didn’t remember saying, and I still don’t know if I actually said them or if they just said I did to gain advantage over me

I don’t trust people, I think, is the biggest issue, but I don’t see any way for me to trust people when people are generally untrustworthy.  I can usually trust people to do what I expect them to do, but if someone tells me they will or will not do something, I have to make plans in case they don’t.  What does “trust” mean? How do you do it?

I had a very good day today until I was suddenly having a slightly less good day. I want to leave. I want to move away from here. I feel like I make people uncomfortable here because I am wrong. It makes sense in the story in my head for me to be the anti-hero, and so I don’t know how I portray myself to everyone else.  I am an awkward adult growing out of a broken child and I wish I had the manual.

Things I do right:

Lying

Being manipulative

These are the two things, I think, that you need to be good at in order to hold a conversation and have friends.  “No, I don’t mind.” “It’s ok if you say no.” are pretty good examples of this.  I don’t see much difference between “bad” manipulation and “good” manipulation, because manipulation is getting other people to do what you want. I also don’t see much difference between “bad” lying and “good” lying, because lying means you aren’t telling the truth, and I don’t think anyone wants to hear the whole truth and nothing but the truth except maybe our most idealized version of the justice system.

I am good enough at lying that I do it to myself all the time and sometimes I don’t notice. When I was twelve, I said to myself I know you lie to other people and that’s ok I guess but stop lying to yourself so I did that for a while, and then I started telling the truth on the outside and realized how much I still lied on the inside.

Facial expressions unless I am sad and angry, and I guess I do those right because I am communicating very well that I am sad and/or angry.

Finding connections between people or things. Sometimes if someone is looking for help with something, I am able to find them help with that thing. It makes me feel good.  I like buying people things. It makes me feel good not to be selfish.

Being selfish is like white bread, I think. When you eat it, it reminds you of your childhood, and it is so tasty that you could eat a lot, but when you do, it sits in your stomach and you regret it. Sometimes it is better to pretend you are eating white bread while instead you have wheat bread or a salad, because you feel better about yourself.

I do sometimes think the people around me would be better off without me, but I think that is a white bread thought. It’s okay to think white bread thoughts but still eat salad.  The truth is that there are a few people who were worse off before I was here, and there are a few people who were better off before I was here, and there are a lot of people for who it wouldn’t have mattered either way.

The way I am writing is the way I think when I am sad or off balance or angry sometimes. I didn’t intend to write this way, but it helps me to tell the truth better than if I wrote long flowing sentences.

Once I sat down at a table and the other people at the table said so what’s wrong with you

And I was confused

And they said oh basically all of her friends are screwed up somehow, so what’s wrong with you

And I said I get depressed and then I get depressed for being depressed and then it turns into a big spiral of badness

And even though I sounded like an overdramatic 18 year old (which I was), they said oh, ok and they let me be their friend

Because

This week I’m done with everything.
For a change, it’s not depression.
It’s stress and tiredness and a little bit of grief.
My maternal grandmother died this week, see. When everyone else was drinking and laughing and counting down the seconds to 2013, my mother sat in a room with my grandmother and her family counting her breaths.

In.

Out.

I haven’t had the best of relationships with my mother’s parents. I hadn’t seen them for something like six years. At least. The problem wasn’t most of the common ones, I guess. It isn’t because of my religious views or my political views.

The problem was just because my grandparents are were are old and ill and a little paranoid and worried about losing their daughter, so they lashed out at her husband.
The problem was just that even though my grandparents have so many other relatives, they couldn’t handle losing one.
Which I guess I can understand. My mom and I aren’t always on the best of terms, but she’s an amazing woman, and everything makes me think of her. She sees the best in everyone and worries too much. She loves gardening and drawing. She looks like a movie star – a gracefully aging one. So I can understand how it would be difficult to let someone like that go.

In.

Out.

I’m still working through a lot of this in my head, and I’m still trying to figure out why.
My grandmother died of a brain tumor. She’d been through four years of on and off chemo, and couldn’t do it anymore. So they disconnected the tubes, gave her morphine, and let her rest.
And at the end, my mother arrived in time to sing her to the final sleep. They let her have that. My mom was tired and had been driving all night. She was worried about the reception with my grandparents. She was worried about our family, because we were a state away. But she stayed up all night (my mom who goes to sleep at 8 pm in the middle of movies) and sang to her own mom.

In.

Out.

At the funeral we had speakers. I learned more about my mom’s mom in a few hours than I ever had. I got to meet my mom’s cousins, and my second cousins. I didn’t make an idiot of myself, nor did any of my family. My mom and I had been up the night previous reading through old genealogies and family histories.

My mom tells the stories, you see. She remembers the funny things, the weird things, the touching things. And it felt like the first time I got to know my grandmother was after her death.

In.

Out.

So this week I’m just going to cope. I’m going to sit here and watch Supernatural, and drink. I’m going to go to the movies with my parents. I’m going to pet my dog.
Because it’s the little things that are important, but you can’t get over-cluttered with them. Because there will always be time until the time that there won’t be.
Because.

Depressed-You is an Idiot

I'm going to say first that if you have depression, and you think talking about it will be triggering, then stop. And go here instead.
Or here.  

For the past few years, I've been having issues with depression.
Apathy and insomnia is the worst of it lately, but it's all bad.
I like to say I'm a writer, but I can barely explain what depression feels like, because you read books about it and look at web md's symptom pages (warning, going to web md's symptom checker may cause you to think you have leukemia), and you still can't quite grasp it.

But, okay. Here's my attempt at explaining depression - for me, at any rate.  For those of you who already know, skip down a few paragraphs.  Go ahead.  That's where I'm talking about how I'm dealing with it.  Shoo.

I find it easiest to compare depression to a migraine, because I've had my fair share of them (that's a lie.  The only "fair share" of migraines a person can have is none.  I have had way too many migraines.) and it's easier to explain a migraine (ow, ow, my brain is broken and I can't see) than it is to explain depression (ow, ow, my brain is broken and I can't see because I've been crying for the past week).  For one, it's easier to be funny.  You can be more open about migraines, because we don't have the same stigmas about physical pain than we do about emotional pain.  With depression, I feel like I can't be as funny about it because while I can compare a migraine to evil little gremlins driving spikes into your brain while playing *shudders* country music, I can't say the same thing about depression without sounding, ha ha, crazy.

Depression is like having a migraine for three weeks months years and not having any Excedrin.  Straight up.  Sometimes you're listening to music that you like and the migraine goes away for a few hours, or you're talking with people that you actually like and you forget that your head hurts.  But the one surety for those entire three weeks is that it will come back.  

Depression is like all of those scenes in horror movies where the heroine is bashing away at the villain with the baseball bat screaming "Why won't you die?"  And then the villain stays around for the next 8 terrible sequels.  

The important thing to know about depression is that sometimes it does go away, and sometimes, with help, it stays away.  But in my experience, it comes back.  And sometimes it creeps up on you, so that you don't realize you have depression until you're lying on your friend's couch staring at the wall crying.  And then you can talk about it, because depressed-you isn't the same as you-you, and you-you has the ability to talk about what's wrong.  Depressed-you is a proud idiot with a mental illness.  Don't Listen to her.  

Here's the part where I talk about what I do.  What I've been doing.  Those of you who skipped down, welcome back to the party.  The depression party.  We have black balloons, but our confetti is made out of glitter, which is the prettiest confetti, and we stay up all night because when we go to sleep we have really bad dreams.

What I do is I figure out what triggers me.  And I avoid it.  I tell my closest friends that I have issues and we work on it.  Together.  Community is the thing that helps me the most, honestly.  Lately I've been working on a blog where I talk about the sort of things I avoid talking about here.  It's depression-me's blog.  Even though I'm fairly sure no one reads it, I like thinking that when I'm older, and better, (and famous and popular and rich, because this is my fantasy, dammit) maybe some kid will hear me reference that blog, and look it up, and maybe they'll read it and think, "Dayum.  If this lady is so effed up, and ended up so cool, then... I guess there's hope for me."

That's what helps.  That's what keeps me going.  I don't want to change the world.  Just someone in it.  I make goals for myself.  I want to be at my cousin's graduation.  I want to write a book.  And one day I want to read the last book of the Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss.    And it's going to be awesome.

Meaning

I wrote this a while ago on Facebook for a few friends. I figured I might as well post it up here as well.

Life does have meaning.
I know that sometimes it is hard to see it, and sometimes it is harder still to know that you do, but it does.
There is meaning in the way that branches curve against the sky, in the way that the sunset sometimes lights up the horizon in a last burst of color before dropping down, in the way that sometimes it doesn't. There is meaning in a child's laughter and a grandmother's tears.
There is meaning in the way that a dog will sometimes look up at you with such a look of devotion... and immediately afterward eat your favorite pair of slippers.
There is meaning in the knowledge of friendship and in the possibility of friendship.
Life has meaning.
People might read this and completely get what I mean.
People might read this and not understand it at all.
And you know what? There's meaning in that, as well.
The quest to find meaning in the world is everywhere in history and myth - it's a common human striving.
Some people have to find meaning on their own, and some people have to be shown it, but it is for everyone.
Usually this quest for meaning takes the whole of your lifetime, and too many people are brought low by hopelessness long before they ever find it.
Do not be brought low by hopelessness.
Your life is your own.
Your life is what you make of it.
The human life span is something like seventy years and it is a waste, a waste, in not appreciating that length. Too many people are influenced by the romanticism of suicide, the lure of helplessness and hopelessness, and they splinter those seventy years into fragments.
And I have no sympathy for them.
There is always hope if you are willing to take it.
The possibility for failure lies only in your willingness to quit.

So don't give up.
Find your own meaning in the feeling of a friend's hand in your own, the smell of the air after it rains, the bright colors of the sunsets and sunrises in your life. When it seems as though everyone is trying to shape you into a mold, think about hope and perseverance and the bright future that lays ahead of you if you are willing to make it.
The future is never set in stone, and you are never what others tell you that you are.
You are what you make of yourself.
The responsibilities, the joys and the sorrows, the highs and the lows, the hope and the moments when it seems that all hope is gone, the friends, the lovers, and the mentors wait for you, at a point somewhere up ahead in your life. All you have to do is reach out and take them.