It's a bird! It's a plane!
Hi, LJ, it's been awhile.
I've been... all sorts of things. Things are good, things are great, and things are also... really bad. Really, really bad.
Seasonal Affective Disorder messed with my life back in Alaska. Without the sun, my little world crashed and burned every winter like clockwork, screwing over my grades, my health, and my ability to get on with my life. Moving to Texas fixed that. Plenty of sun, plenty of exercise, a good school. For awhile, I was all better.
Except SAD isn't my only form of depression anymore. I'm here, in the sun, and I'm shutting down. Not hibernation, where I sit on the sofa completely happy to stare at the wall all day. I was, well. I was happy. Now? I'm not. I'm not anything. I go out in the world and while I'm on stage, I'm great. I'm bright, I'm social, I'm active, and I'm 100% manufactured from my smiles to my laughs to my flirting. Worst part? I didn't even know it.
Do you have any idea what if feels like to realize, out of the blue, you feel nothing? I don't get angry. I don't get sad. I don't get stressed. I'm always pleasant, I'm always reasonable, and I always do the reasonable and pleasant thing. I've been doing it for years. And it's fake. When I come home, as soon as I step through that door, I'm done. I feed my dogs eventually. That's it. I sit on my sofa, maybe with my computer, and do nothing. Not write, not watch movies, not play video games. I mainly stare and click refresh, even though I'm not waiting for anything. Sometimes, I even chat. I don't do homework, dishes, play with my dogs, or craft.
It started as self-control. I had a temper, I had a mean streak, and boy, did I love using both. I grew up in a house with domestic abuse as a child, so I never hit anyone out of anger, but I did hit people out of fun. When I was angry, I hit walls. I the ability to emotionally dissect someone within moments of meeting them that only grows more devastating as time goes on. I was built to be terrifying, I was good at it, and I loved it.
As most things in my life, change started with my brother. One day, he told me that I had to learn to pick my battles. Sure, I got angry, people backed down, and I won. Problem was, the more I raged to get my way, the less people would listen, he told me. It took me awhile, but the message sunk in eventually. I can't pick a moment where I decided, "I'm not going to get angry, anymore." but somewhere along the line I did. It was about power, respect.
Next was being cruel. I have a list of people from high school you could talk to today and they'd still freeze at my name. I've been called the anti-christ, in all seriousness. I had a boy try to commit suicide because I spoke to him for thirty seconds after he played a friend of mine. A boy changed schools because I was mean to him in acting class. When my mother returned to school, there was a girl in her class who refused to speak to her once she found out I was her daughter.
I don't regret a single one. I could give a list of reasons, but the fact is, in all honesty? I don't give a shit. Each one of them, in their own way, bought a mark. Did they deserve me? Some of them. Don't cry to hard for the boy with the slit wrists, he's the same guy who beat his own grandmother with her cane.
I do regret my mother. When being cruel is easy, it becomes too easy around family, and I love my family. I'm grateful my mother's memory was miserable when I was a teenager, because I said things to her to shut her up so completely, she'd cower and skuttle around me for a month afterwards, until she eventually forgot. She doesn't remember them today. I can't imagine what she'd think if she did. I never wanted to hurt her like that, and I have.
So, like my temper, I stopped. At first, it was gritting my teeth and keeping my mouth shut. Then, it was learning how to roll the anger and viciousness off my shoulders. It was learning to nudge aside the glee from going for the kill, and just settling into the placid patience. With my temper, I wanted the power over others. With cruelty, it was power over myself. Eventually, instead of shifting aside an emotion, I could cut it off, altogether. Anger never sparked. I would be frustrated on occasion, possibly annoyed. Hurt, even, as much a rarity as it was, but even those were cut down to appropriate proportions.
When Andrew died, I took power over grief. I refused to hate him. I refused to hate others. I refused to break down. I refused to be overwhelmed by sadness, or depression, or any other mirade of destructive emotions. Instead, I insisted I would enjoy myself. I turned towards my family and mended their fractured emotional states. I battled my mother's furious despair, I supported my Dad under his sense of pain and failure. I wove myself into stability, strength, and wisdom, and I stayed that way.
I stayed. Putting on the smile, because I would enjoy myself. Casting aside the pain, because I would not bow. I stayed in control, each and every moment.
I was exactly who I wanted to be. I never lost my temper, so I was invulnerable to others. I never used cruelty for my enjoyment, so I was invulnerable to myself. I could push aside pain, and so I was... simply invulnerable. I was strong, I was patient, I was kind, and yet I was still gregarious, I was fearless.
And it's not me.
I haven't felt an honest, unfiltered or force emotion since the blow of my brother's death. I'd defended against it so strongly, I'd destroyed myself.
I'm depressed. I have no motivation. I have no satisfaction. I have no urgency. I have no goals. I have no energy. I have no spirit.
Every bit of it, I did to myself.
And I'm damn well going to undo it.
In recent weeks, I've consciously dug underneath the shields I carry around and let myself feel. Honestly, it's sucked. I've curled up on the wooden floors of my house and cried more times than I can count. I've thrown things. I'm let myself lay on my bed and admit, "I'm unhappy." But as terrible as that's been, I feel more human than I have in years.
I'm depressed and it's ruining my life.
I've had to quit my job because I stopped going without constant supervision. My grades are mediocre at best, because I have to drag myself to do my homework. I certainly never study. My house is so disgustingly unsanitary, my mother drives 2 hours every week or so to come clean so that my collection of flies doesn't turn into cockroaches.
I've had to start listening to what I feel. Not what's reasonable to feel or what I want to feel, but what I actually feel, every angry, petty, broken bit of it, because I have to feel all of that before I can feel happiness again, too.
So, to end, I have a list of things I'm going to do, because I've done everything in my life to be powerful and depression is not more powerful than I am. I want to be stable, strong, and wise? I'm going to have to do it with all of my, not just the bits and pieces I like best.
-Therapist
-Depression-educated Nutritionist
-Aroma therapy
-Redesign my living space
-Continue accountable work-out regime
-Yoga and other reflective meditation programs
I know everyone has opinions on what should be done for depression. I'll be honest, unless you're being immediately supportive, I don't want to hear it. That's rude. Welcome to the party. I have an ego the size of Africa and arrogance to go with it, I'm sarcastic, dry, with an edge of cruel to my humor and a rather unhealthy dose of 'Fuck you'. All of this is going to come out to play, because I have to figure out what I am before I can figure out what to do with it.
So, to the few who grew up with me before I turned 17, allow me to announce:
The Bitch is back.