#depression;

I made this blog a while ago and never wrote in it. I do things like that, have issues committing to things. I’ll diet this way, I’ll write on this, I’ll do better in life, etc. I don’t know why I just don’t do the things I want to do. It’s easy to blame my parents--they never encouraged me to do anything-- it’s easy to blame my depression, anxiety, etc.

Honesty, it makes me feel like the biggest piece of crap. 

I wanted my first post on here to be something hopeful. Instead, I find myself turning to it in order to cope.

I’m lonely. I have 3 cats, a loving boyfriend, a family, a few close friends, but I find myself unable to burden them with my feelings. What if they end up hating me? It’s happened before, fyi. I’ve shared my feelings with people and they either dismiss me, claim I’m telling them things to make people feel sorry for me, lying . . . the list goes on.

I’m kind of hormonal at the moment so my sadness is double the normal amount. My current sadness is due to physical ineptitude. My miscarriages. 

I find myself unable to hope that I will have children. Every time I’m hopeful, my period comes like clockwork. Most people would be happy to have such normal and consistent menstrals. Sometimes, I am. Sometimes I just feel so hopeless.

I don’t think of my miscarriages often. It is by no means because I don’t care--it is so I don’t dwell, so I don’t become so bad I can’t function or focus. 

I hate the fact that I can’t be selfish and talk about myself, my issues and problems. I will cover them up, smile, and try to go on with life. I force myself to because there is nothing else for me to do otherwise. I find myself cheering up the people around me, instead of talking about myself.

Hell, half the time I feel like the issues of people around me are due to me. That is a dizzying, hateful feeling. 

This feeling of aloneness is absolute agony. You know the text hotline you can talk to? 741-741 (or whatever it is)? Well, I’ve talked to them twice. The first time was fine, although I didn’t have a lot of time to talk. The second time, however, I was starting to explain the reason for my depression (relationship issues on top of about a thousand other things) and the counselor told me that the hotline is not a relationship hotline. So, yeah, I’m a piece of crap and shouldn’t burden anyone else with my problems.

Part of me feels vindicated on being a piece of crap. A small part is angry at them for dismissing me. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I was suicidal at the time. The horrifying depression I was feeling was bad enough.

Let me tell you, it takes a lot of courage for me to reach out and tell anyone anything. 

Even now, I feel like a whiney little bitch. I don’t deserve to even post this. I don’t deserve to try to reach out for a way to make myself happy. I’m a worthless, disappointing piece of crap. 

Logically I know that’s probably not true. I don’t do bad things, I don’t smoke, or drink, or do drugs. I don’t whore around or beat my boyfriend or animals. I am a pretty boring person. But there’s the depression monster that lurks right around my shoulder. It reaches through me and grasps my heart. It makes me feel inert, frozen in depression.

I live with someone who doesn’t really believe in depression. My boyfriend is supporting, truly. He just doesn’t understand how someone can be depressed at nothing. You know how it is, right? There might not be anything in particular that makes you depressed but you just feel it? He doesn’t believe in it.

There are times where I can almost agree with him, because most of the time the things I am depressed at are a build-up of things that I don’t think or overthink about. 

I’m really good at bottling things up. I learned through the hard way during my childhood.

Sometimes, I get really frustrated at myself. Sometimes people in my life have issues with me. They will tell me each and every unpleasant characteristic or “sin” they have against me. During these times, I’m unable to respond. I can’t tell them that I act one way as a result of something they say or do. I can’t tell them that I act another way because of this issue or that. Instead, I take their criticism. Each one makes a score on my heart that I am unable to forget. 

The words “worthless piece of shit” are there in my parent’s voice. The words “lazy,” “useless,” and “uncaring,” are there written in my boyfriend’s voice. There are others, and not all of the words were necessarily said--maybe just heavily implied at some point.

Or maybe I just perceived it as such. 

Either way, unfortunately, the damage is done. I won’t ever forget and I will then--consciously or unconsciously--continue to make myself ‘better,’ to try to erase the words that have burned into me. I don’t realize it half the time and find myself more and more exhausted as I stretch myself thinner and thinner. 

Now, for some good.

One of my proudest achievements in life was getting over suicidal thoughts. 

The situation: my second boyfriend, who had professed quite often to love me, and me him, had cheated on me with another man. He had told me that night (I had suspected something might happen, as the other man was staying the night to “hang out”) that he had chosen me. Then I found out about the cheating.

I was devastated. I had learned from my mother that I should always try suicide as a way out (I will explain about her at some point, but she is actually still alive, despite multiple attempts), and I was going to do it. Then, all the sudden, I stopped. I thought, “This is stupid and selfish.” I put the knife down and walked away from it. 

My best achievement at that point in my life. I’m not saying that sometimes when my depression hits that I don’t think about dying, but I know I’m never serious about it. And I have to say I bounce back quickly.

Now, about 8 years later, I have figured a few things out in life. There might be a couple of cliches in this list, but hearing them versus figuring them out on your own makes a big difference.

1) You cannot be happy in a relationship until you can figure out how to be happy when you are by yourself.

2) Life is too short for regrets. Forgive, yes, and move on. That doesn’t mean you necessarily have to forget, but there is nothing that can be done about things that have already happened.

3) Find someone in life that makes you feel like a human being. I have two long-time friends in my life that always make me feel like a piece of crap. A lot of the time I give myself to them but they only take and never give back. Recently, I’ve had a few people enter my life that make me feel so much better. So much happier. And I appreciate them more than I could tell. 

4) It is okay to block people from your life that don’t make you feel like a human being. My oldest brother has never been a huge presence in my life, but I still love him. Recently, he posted on Facebook something that I found to be hurtful.I Unfollowed him-- not Unfriended him-- and I feel so much more peaceful.

5) You don’t owe anyone else anything. I recently learned that I don’t *have* to answer phone call, texts, messages, etc. I CAN ignore people. I don’t have to appease them (Although, admittedly, I am still working on this). 

There are so many more things I can write-- and hopefully, will-- but I’m honestly starting to run out of steam. 

Goodnight, all. 

Gets back home from a 20 hour drive. Hibernates for 2 days at a friends house because my own is a disaster zone of question marks. Gets two $50 parking tickets because welcome back to California. Remember parking laws on every street? We sure do! Also, the universe asked us to throw in some cramps and the beginnings of a cold. Have fun packing the entire house in two days, getting it all into storage, and hitting the road once more possibly next week to pay for existing in a civilized society. Remember being homeless? Yeah, its like that but you’re getting paid. Can’t complain. People have it worse. Someone else always has it worse.

I know I know. Depression drags me into lethargy. Anxiety escalates me into insomnia. I am alive and human and I am allowed to feel, to breathe, to vent, to live. I find myself drawing. This is not the time to draw but gods is it easier when I am overly depressed and stressed by something that is not connected to my art for once. Its like the tangled limbs darkness have scuttled and writhed to another part of my brain, leaving my creative side free.

Never mind that my house owes more than we can pay. In some cases more than some of us are willing to work for. We’re dividing over it. We’re dividing over many things. Its hard to care about it other than passing fits of anger when you know one of the problems is also host to illogical problem solving and unwillingness to participate in moving forward. She could be goddess of chaos if she just embraced her nature instead of trying to swaddle it in normality. I don’t have the energy to help. I barely have the energy to protect myself from the inevitable explosion.