Storm Clouds

While sometimes my depression sneaks up from behind and grabs hold of me with a cold, hard grip, sometimes 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 and with my mother. 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.

Pleasing All The People

I have a mood disorder, and an anxiety disorder, and probably some less than health self esteem. I take things in, I dwell on them, I roll them around in my brain over and over. It overwhelms me and often makes me feel sad. I play out worse case scenarios in my head, and worry about what I have done wrong. It's like having a home movie of your worst moment set on repeat in you brain. That feeling of disappointing, or hurting, someone I care about aways lingering just below the surface. It eats at me, even little things, little easily forgivable mistakes. I take to heart, because upsetting people is NOT what I do. I make people happy. That is what I have spent my whole life doing, or at least trying to do. My father once told me "You mother and I want to give you some money for Christmas, but I know how you are, so you have to promise not to turn around and use it to buy Christmas gifts for us." Because that's what I do. I give everything I have to try to make people happy, in turn making myself happy, feeling and loved.

Except, it never seems to work. In the end, I am often sucked dry, out of money, love, and energy. Left sad, and unsatisfied. It is said that "You can not please everyone." So after all is said and done, it often turns out, that I am sad and someone in my life is STILL unhappy. Feeling like all my time and energy has gone to waste.

Funny thing about sadness, if you hold on to it for too long it can easily turn into anger and bitterness. Spilling out of me in mean little tidbits, or on occasion, firey explosions where I spew ugly words all over, at top volume, with no filter or restraint. There is nearly immediate guilt, and embarrassment from this loss of control and inablity to censor myself. Leading me back, full circle to feeling like a bad daughter, girlfriend, friend, sister, employee...you name it.  And so the movie begins to play again, only with a new scene added to the end, but never the happy ending that I am continuously working so hard to create.

One of Those Days...Again

You can tell most people you are having "one of those days", and they will nod sympathetically at you. But anyone who live with a mood disorder, knows this is not a run of the mill, crappy luck, tomorrow will be better kind of a day.  This is a, I had to decide whether to get out of bed kind of a day. The kind of day where you are miserable in your own skin.  The kind of day where you feel the overwhelming urge to cry at any given moment, in public, and somewhat hysterically. The kind of day where you are miserable to be around, and you are ok with that, because it is also the kind of day where most people make you want to kick them (or cry...or both). You don't want to be hugged, even by the people you love. Sometimes even by your own child. You don't want to talk to, or smile at strangers. You don't want to move because it just takes too much freaking energy. The worst part of it all, is that this is one of those kind of days that most people DON'T understand, nor can you explain it. It is not that anything especially bad or upsetting happened. Yeah, everyone has bad days, or bad moods, but this is beyond that. This is misery beyond what most people understand. This is depression. Not depression the mood, but depression the disorder. Which means it maybe truly just be "one of those days" because there was extra stress, or you didn't get enough sleep, or because you've had a hormone shift. OR it could be "one of those days" that settles in and stays for awhile, weeks maybe. The not knowing sometimes makes you even more miserable. Wondering how many of "those days" lie ahead before you begin to feel normal again (whatever that is.) Today was one of those days. God, how I hope tomorrow is a new day.