I guess it’s not working

I have had depression (diagnosed) for the last two years but, it only got diagnosed because I started seeing a professional. There is a pretty good chance I have had depression for far longer.

That whole “not grieving” and the “I can do this myself” stuff is finally cathching up in the worse was possible.

As far as I know, I have been hiding my emotions well.

Apparently I looked like something was wrong on Tuesday.

My friend/clinical coordinator noticed something was wrong. She pulled me aside and asked me how I was really feeling and was I ok.

I was NOT ok but I am sure you figured that out by now.

We talked for an hour about my depression and how bad I have been feeling. It upset/hurt her that I had been holding so much in and felt like I had no one to talk to. It wasn’t that I had no one to talk to, I just feel like I would be a burden on people. I also have it hard wired in me to just do it all myself. I don’t want people worrying about me, I feel like people have enough on their plates and my mental health would just add one more thing.

My depression is now considered “severe” and I have to now do “intensive outpatient treatment”. I carry a tremendous amount of guilt with me that I can’t seem to let go of. I feel like I don’t deserve happiness. I don’t know how to ask for help. I feel like I am failing at life. I feel empty and alone. I’ve had several days where I woke up asking “why am I still here?” or my mind is telling me “If I were gone no one would really notice.” and “Is it worth it?”.

I am in a really bad place and I have been for a while. I know how to put on a happy face and put my emotions away. My CC was apparently having none of this and asked me to tell the truth to my therapist. She also told the other CC (who also happens to be one of my mom’s close friends) to have her have a talk with me. I’ve known this woman for years, even before I started working in that department. We talked the next day and she made me realize how bad I have gotten and made me make an emergency apointment with my therapist. I didn’t want to but I did a I was told. Turns out I really needed that session because I started telling him the truth about how I really feel. That emergency appointment is what led to the “intensive outpatient treatment” decision.

So now here I sit after finally telling my parents. I’ve cried a lot today. I’ve also talked about a lot today, especially about the guilt I carry over my mom’s death when I was 16. I feel…weird after talking so much about my feelings today. It makes me feel awkward that they know their child is crazy. I’m not sure if I will ever get used to talking about how I truly feel to someone.

Not sure about this place I am in right now,

The “risk manager”

Apparently I have a personality trait that my therapist has named the “risk manager”. My risk manager is supposed to help me make decisions that are good for me. After the trauma that destroyed me, my risk manager took a different route. She became attached to negativity. Let me explain.

Go back about 21 years earlier. I’m 16 years old and for 2 years I have been watching my mom battle cervical cancer. I held onto hope. I kept making sure I kept positive thoughts in my mind. I just knew she was going to beat this. My positive thoughts and hope was going to empower her to make it through that ordeal. I had been praying and I just knew this was all going to work. I just had to remain positive.

She died at home with me being the only other person there. I bathed her after she lost control of her bowels. I heard her dying breaths. I watched her struggle to breathe. I was there when they pronounced her dead. I was 16 years old.

All that positivity failed me. My risk manager kicked in. She never wanted me to feel the pain and disappointment ever again. My risk manager decided the best way to protect me was to stop me from getting my hopes up too high. If there was a situation involving others, if it involved me trying to advance myself, if it involved love, little Ms. Risky decided we were going to prepare for the worst. If I prepared for the worst then I am not disappointed when the worst happens. If things actual did succeed well hey, nice surprise.

That is how I have lived my life for the last 21 years of my life. My risk manager is pretty much in over-protective overdrive at all times. She’s kept me from applying for positions. She’s kept me from being willing to step up for projects at work. She has kept me from applying for my Clin III. She has even been able to get me to put my Master’s degree on hold.

It is time for me to “update” my risk manager “software”, as my therapist says. It’s time I let her know we can calm the negativity down. It’s ok for us to anticipate a good outcome. I can actually look forward to things. I am at a point where I can handle disappointment, it won’t crush me as it did teenage me. I no longer need to hold on to the “fear of pain” that I have carried with me. I don’t need to fear everything.

I can’t lie anymore

I can’t lie anymore and tell myself I’m okay after another loss of one of my own. We are being shot down like animals and no justice is being served. It hurts. It hurts to the deepest depths of my soul. I am burned out. I am cried out. I am tired.

I can’t unhear George’s “I can’t breathe”, or for that matter, Eric Garner’s. I can still picture Treyvon Martin in his hoodie. Sandra Bland looking deceased in her police photo… All of that is held within me, within black people.

How can the very people that show up every Sunday in church justify the slaughter of people for the color of their skin? We were created by God as well in case people have forgotten.

People think the protests are wrong. They think the riots come from a need to violent. No. We are tired. We want justice. We want to be heard. We want change. We are tired of the tears and the pain. This has gone on long enough!

THE WORLD IS TIRED!

There is no room for hate based on the color of skin, religion, or sexuality! We are done with this! We are tired of it and that is why the world is screaming.

It’s about time you listen.

Seclusion

I have been in self-imposed seclusion.

I don’t really want to go out. I don’t really feel like talking to people. I just want to be alone.

I am not in a depressive state. I am still going to therapy and in a good place mentally. I just don’t want to be bothered. I am starting to feel drained in large crowds. I don’t want to participate in useless conversation. I just want to be alone, relax, and play Final Fantasy until I am tired.

Is that odd? Am I slowly becoming an introvert? Should I be concerned? I can tell you now, I’m not. I am enjoying my own company. Maybe it’s temporary and this is just me recharging myself. Who knows…

 

It’s getting better

Since therapy my anxiety and depression are getting better.

I’m not having anxiety attacks at night as often as I used to.

They still happen. I’ll feel the heart racing, rapid breathing, and the panic starts to set in. I start wondering what’s wrong, who’s hurt, what didn’t I do, what’s about to happen? However, I’ve started being able to talk myself through them. I can get myself to slow my breathing, I try to get myself to realize nothing is wrong. More times than not, it works. Of course it doesn’t work every time, anxiety is a petty bitch with a particular knack for getting in my head. At least I can say I know how to fight back.

I am learning how to express my emotions without being overcome by them. I can think of my mom, cry because of his much I miss her, and smile because of how much she meant to me. Joy and pain are not mutually exclusive. I can feel them both. I’m slowly starting to grieve. I’m letting myself feel the pain and loss slowly but surely. 20 years of refusing to grieve is long enough.

I’m improving. I can finally say I have been feeling genuinely happy some days. Actual happiness. I haven’t felt that in a long time. It feels good. I’m sleeping better as well. I still don’t sleep all the way through the night, but I am sleeping longer. Instead of 2-3 hours of sleep, I’m getting 4-5 hours. That’s a lot for me.

I can finally say it’s getting better. Finally, it’s getting better.

Off

Does anyone else feel… off?

Not bad, not sad, not angry, just off. I just feel like I am not quite right. I’m not depressed, in fact, I have been feeling a lot better since I started going to therapy. I just feel like I am off-kilter or something. I feel weird. I kind of just feel, blah.

Mercury isn’t still in retrograde (right?). The moon isn’t full anymore. Are the planets lining up or something? What’s going on?

I wonder if maybe the universe is trying to set me up for something. I’m hoping it’s something good because I legit don’t need anything bad popping up in my life. I’ve had enough of that…

 

Two decades

Two decades. 20 years.

This year marks the 20th year without my mother… The center of my whole being.

I tried to ignore it. I tried to continue to push the pain out of my head and heart. I tried to continue to not feel anything.

I finally broke.

I hit a deep, dark mental state.

Depression. Suicidal thoughts. I have been ready to give up for a long time. I tried to be positive. I tried to find happiness in life. I found emptiness.

With a lot of encouragement I finally sought help. I’m in therapy now. I’m being forced to confront all the things I’ve been running away from.

It hard.

I can’t explain how much pain I am in. I can’t explain the loss I feel. I don’t know how to put the hurt I feel into words. I somehow made myself believe if I grieved then I’m admitting she’s gone. If I admit she’s gone then it’s real, as if seeing her name on a grave marker isn’t real enough.

It’s deep. It hits in the very depth of my soul.

And that’s okay.

I have to allow myself to hurt. I have to allow myself to grieve. I have to allow myself to feel all the emotions that come with losing someone you love so dearly.

My therapist told me that the pain is nothing to be ashamed of. The pain is a reflection of just how much I loved her. I’m allowed to feel the pain of her loss AND the joy of having her in my life. Joy and pain are not mutually exclusive.

I never thought of it that way. Either I was supposed to hurt or I was supposed to be happy. In my mind I wasn’t allowed to feel joy and pain together. So I just didn’t feel at all.

I don’t want to live like that anymore. I can’t.

So I’m making an effort to heal. I’m trying to reconnect with my sisters and actually have a relationship with them again. I’m going to see my aunt again, I distanced myself from her because she looks so much like my my mother. I need to let myself have a family again. I need to feel their love and hers. I need to allow myself to feel love, period.

It’s time to move forward. 20 years is long enough…

First steps

I took my first steps towards a healthier mental state.

I am seeing a therapist.

Again.

This time, however, I am approaching things differently. I am actually going to stick with the sessions until I am really in a better place. My prior attempt at therapy saw me quit once we tried to address the big issue, the fact that I never grieved for my mom. Almost 20 years later, I have never really grieved. I shut all my emotions away into a box and tried to move on.

That box is now overflowing with poison.

I have been in a really bad place for a long time… A LONG TIME. I know how to look like I am happy. I know how to wear the biggest and brightest smile. I can listen intently to others and help them through their roughest times. I don’t talk to anyone about how I am feeling inside. I don’t take care of me. It’s beginning to show. There are cracks in the facade I have spent so long perfecting.  I hurt.

So here I am, seeing a therapist for the second time in my life. Within the first session, he picked up on the one thing I continuously hide, I am afraid of being vulnerable. The fear of vulnerability is what has kept me from feeling the pain I needed to feel so I could start to truly move on.

I am afraid of my own tears. I am afraid of being weak. I am afraid of my emotions. I feel like if I grieve I have to really accept that she is gone. It makes it real.  20 years later, I still don’t want it to be real.

I still carry a lot of guilt related to her death. I somehow hold myself responsible. I still feel like I should have done something more.

I was 16. It was cancers fault. Yet, I still continue to take the blame.

For my first “assignment”, I had to write a letter to my mom telling her all the things I feel like I haven’t been able to say.

THAT WAS ROUGH!

It hurt. It hurt horribly. I put it off for as long as I could. I was afraid I wouldn’t know what to say. However, once the pen started moving, I filled up four pages front and back. I finally let it out. I cried. I sobbed as I was writing. It was a deep, retching pain. I could barely see through the tears.

I felt so weak.

I know it needed to be done. I have to open Pandora’s box. I have to start pulling out all of these emotions and deal with them one by one. I can’t grow like this.

I read the letter to my therapist. He listened and picked up on all the guilt I am feeling. We talked about it. I now have another assignment. I have to write a letter from her telling me the things I believe she would want me to know.

Here come the tears again.

Closed off

I am closing myself off to the world. I can feel it. I find myself staying in my room for the entire day, into the evenings. I have been finding it hard to keep my mind on my school work. I go to work, I come home, I eat, I go to bed. I smile all day but when I am alone I am somewhat numb. While I am not overtly sad, I am nowhere near as happy as I used to be.

Depression is a funny thing. It can be contained but it never really goes away. I am normally incontrol of my mood but lately itseems like I am sliding backwards. At least I have reached a point where I can recognize the change in myself. That is actually an improvement for me. At one point in my life I would slide head first into depression and stay there until someone would grow concerned about me and finally bring it to my attention.

I think it is time for me to go back to therapy. I need to speak to a licensed therapist. There are things I can deal with on my own and things that are a bit beyond my control.

It’s time to seek a professional.

You good?

Has anyone checked on you? If not, I’m checking in you. Yeah, you.

You good?

How are you feeling, really? Are you stressed? Do you feel alone? Still “in the closet” with no one to confide in? Is anxiety getting the best of you? Feel like you’re failing? Do you need to talk about it? Do you have someone to talk to? If not, I’m listening.

Really.

I’m listening.

No judgement. I’ve done too much in my life to judge ANYONE. You can talk to me. My comments are open. If you want privacy, email me at barelysanenurse@gmail.com.

I know what it’s like to hold it all in. I know what it’s like to feel… Weird. I know what it’s like to be suicidal. I know what it’s like to be depressed. I know what anxiety feels like.

I’ve been there. You don’t watch your mom die at 16 and come out unscathed.

I’ve been a hot ass mess. I’m still a hot mess but at least I’m in control of my emotions. That’s a win, right?

You aren’t alone out here. I care. I don’t have to know you to care. You’re another human being. I believe in love.

You don’t have to do this all alone… Unless you want to, I can respect that.