My little tea shop

I can't say I can pinpoint exactly the time when my life started to go down, but after much treatment, I can more or less guess when all started...

At 12, both my parents lost their jobs and had to take on a shop to try and stay afloat... They could work up to 12h a day, 7 days of the week all year around. That never went better, not until my mother could finally retire 18 years later (my father is older, retired before but kept helping around the shop).

At 14, my older sister left home to college... The home chores fell entirely on me and my headaches started. They hadn't left, 20 years later, to this day.

I would have headaches twice a month, and they lasted no matter what painkillers took. Sleeping was dreadful, every time I went to sleep I would wake up to yet worse headache and that could go up two weeks, with constant pain, worse than that, worse and worse time every time I went sleep, every time I tried to rest it would only make it worse.

Before 15, I was already hurting myself, I haven't stopped 20 years later. It was the pain on other body parts the only thing that could help me cope with those headaches, the only thing that could keep me going. The only thing that keep me going on now, when they come back, when they stay, day after day, week after week, until I can't take it anymore and hurt myself again.

At 16, I ended my country mandatory education with top grades. There were no celebration, no congratulations, not an ounce of happiness about it, just me doing "my duty" as my parents worked to kept us going. I spent that summer searching to no avail for a job, I was a failure that could not bring money to the house.

Two months before my 18 birthday I left home for college with a scholarship. Never called that house 'home' again.

That was the start of my spiraling into depression.

At 23 my depression and now constant headache kept me away from almost everything. Except one, only little thing that barely kept me afloat.

Role-playing games.

And then, on one of those meetings I met my husband.

And my life changed...

I had settled on having headaches for the rest of my life. My father-in-law didn't set for it, and without asking, started paying doctors and experts outside the public health system to search a cure for me.

My husband took over him the very moment he started working.

We moved around the country chasing for better job opportunities given to my husband, never letting go through doctors, searching for answers that kept evading us.

At 28 I landed my first and (for the moment) last stable job at a tech company. I was bullied there but stayed for the money, and before making 6 months my direct boss actively acted against me to fire me and gave my position to a friend (we found proof of this, but the company go broke before we could ever try and sue).

I'll be 34 in six months.

A week ago we were double confirmed of my autistic diagnosis. Suddenly everything fell in place.

My never ending feeling I don't belong anywhere, my inability to make friends, the impossibility of keeping the few ones I managed to get, my helplessness to get a job, my depression-anxiety disorder, my forever headaches two different specialists have labeled as psychosomatic, my very core.

Myself.

I tried all my life to adjust to a world it wasn't meant to me, or at least, the 'me' who tried once and over again to make things as everyone else, the 'me' who didn't understand simple social rules and kept failing in any social interaction, the 'me' who over the years completely dissociate my feelings and couldn't understand when I was overwhelmed, the 'me' who keep going no matter how much my head hurt because I couldn't understand that what was hurting me was precisely keeping up when I wasn't tuned with my feelings, the 'me' who never really learned how to unwind, the 'me' who is in a forever state of anxiety because I don't know how to recognise my feelings nor how to manage them... The 'me' who never understood who it was...

Until now.

My life hasn't actually changed, only my understanding of it.

But 'for the first time in forever' (yes, I love Disney)

It has been a really, really long time since I came here... But again, this safe place, this tiny spot in the immensity of internet were no one reads my posts, were I should feel small and forgotten... Is it bad that I still love it? No matter if I'm writing just for me. No matter how scattered my posts are, or how it is highly probably that no one would never know me here... I still return, no matter how long it takes.

I uninstalled the app, my life has been in constant change, new challenges and new achievements... And here we are again.

When I cannot get myself out of bed. When I'm so mentally tired, and my brain has dropped any hope for living, not even coffee or some super caffeinated soda drinks can make more lucid. I'm just in the fog, in an unreachable place in my mind.

Those are the bad days. But, there are good days too.

My first, real, good day after almost 15 years with undetectable depression, was when, just after started medication, I woke up and didn't feel tired, no foggy mind, no body exhaustion... I even cried, I couldn't remember that sensation anymore.

I've been happy those years; lovely family, had nephews (6) that get me crazy when they are all together, married the love of my life, have wonderful in-laws that make feel so cherished and loved too, husband got good job, no problems of making the ends meet.

Come to live in a quiet and loving town, in-laws super near... Got a dog, a big good boy... I was happy, I was sure of it, but the fog never left me, always crawling in my mind, making my body exhausted and my mind absent...

That's endogenous depression for you.

I'll have to fight it all my life, there is no trigger, no tragic lost of loved one, money problems, family abuse, lack of opportunities... Just, my mind is broken, and I have to live with it. Good news? My life IS really amazing, I don't want to brag too much but, it's true, I didn't experience something so traumatic that made me this way.

It's just I have one loose screw since birth, but that didn't stop me from having and amazing childhood, funny teenager years, go to university, get my degree, met the love of my life... It's just the fog, that never clears. It's having, literally, headaches almost constantly, go to sleep with horrible headache, first thing I notice when I wake up, the headache. They always stayed for two weeks or more, never dissappearing, never going better. No medication working...

And even so, even all this, I was happy.

Turns out, when my depression hit the maximum peak, after an horrible work experience, that we finally discovered the problem. It's been three years already, I've been working non-stop since then, having the support and love of all my family.

My husband is the breadwinner, he accepted me since the start, and now I'm out the work force, just working in myself. New healthy habits, medication readjustment 'till we get the sweet spot, rediscovering the things I loved to do, crying out loud for getting back the sensation of enjoying a hobby...

I don't know who I really am. I've had depression all my life and I actually don't know a lot of things about myself.

"Caminante, son tus huellas el camino y nada más; caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar" - Antonio Machado.

What a beautiful sky & what a crazy week was last week.

Spent four days bedridden with common flu, just when I was ok I went to a pilates class, and got worse, spent weekend resting, as stubborn as I am, Monday I went to pilates again, and flu got worse again.

Didn't mind it, today I'm cleaning the whole house. Tomorrow I may be dead, but what a clean nice house would I have.

P. D. Kids! Eat healthy, take care of yourself and your surroundings and have an apple 🍏 a day 😀

I'm a grumpy old woman finishing my first pilates class, I'm a mess myself... Monday again!

I'm fed up being a wiggle-jelly and I want to improve my health. If I'm fortunate enough to survive next class without having to creep myself home after it, it will be the beginning of my fitness style life.

Let's hope I can get up from bed by Monday or this is going to be difficult...

For now, a good, hot tea cup will do the day.

Well, that's it, here I am...

Don't know why I'm here, but Tumblr has been a confort place since... Forever.

It's been long, long ago since I last roamed here, and now I've returned because I feel the urge to write, to say something, don't know exactly what... I need to be here again.

I think I'm pretty older than the average here, but is not uncomfortable. I remember Tumblr before smartphones, before this very app I'm writing this, when you only had the browser web... Well, I'm old, but gold, as its usually said, no? ☺️

Never interacted on Tumblr before, just hours and hours scrolling... And what bring me here now, what make me write this lines? Well, Tumblr is comfort, so here I am.