And it all came tumbling down…

The last couple of weeks had been going so good, I wasn’t necessary on top of the world but I wasn’t in the pits of hell either. I was functioning, I was able to get stuff done, I wasn’t dead dog tired, so tired that I dreaded each and every day. That is when it started to hit me, the exhaustion of trying to take on too much at one time. The thoughts that nobody cares about me or what I have to say. The self-doubt that follows me around like a ball and chain. I was working really hard on trying to get rid of those negative thought patterns and I have always taken on way to much at one time. I do it to try and get some feeling, any feeling, that “emotional high” that I crave but rarely see. The emotional feeling that people without Chronic Depression feel every day. Their normal is my emotional high. Getting that feeling gives me such joy until…

It all comes tumbling down.

It doesn’t take much. Not getting enough sleep one night, having a rough day at work, having to deal with conflict anywhere in my life, or just getting too much coming at me from to many people all at one time. I could go on and on, but this time all it took was one small comment from someone I love. It wasn’t even a bad comment, it was just a comment about their worry and their anxiety. Everyone has their own anxieties and worries and I am someone that this person trusts and feel that they can share with me. But this time, for me, it was different. You see, I had found a book about Chronic Depression and reading that book was like putting together the puzzle pieces for me. I had never found anything that explained what I have been going through for the last 20 years fit so well with what I was feeling inside.

So, for once I was sharing; and that sharing let me be vulnerable. I rarely share feelings, even with the people that I love. The true deep feelings that everyone else can share, usually without any problems. When I think something is going to make me vulnerable, I just shut down. This is so bad for me that if I even think that I am going to have to share feelings or be emotionally embarrassed at all, I will just shut down. I avoid all situations where I think I will be put into a situation that would lead me to feel this way. I would rather lock myself in a dark closet then deal with it.

This time though, I opened up because I felt excitement that I had found a piece of the puzzle that made my life so miserable and I had trust, the trust of someone who loves me. Unfortunately, that vulnerability made my brain decided to perceive the message this person said to me as “quit reading, quit trying to get better, quit learning, you are not important, and I don’t want you to change.” I really started to just literally think that maybe life is just better off the way it is, with me being so unhappy with my life. Why? Because the reality of it is, that in my depressed brain, I don’t matter anyway, the only ones who matter are the people that I love.

On this particular day, I had a therapy appointment and until I started talking I had no idea how hurt I was from the conversation with my loved one earlier in the day. Six months into therapy, I had not yet cried in front of my therapist and I barely sat down before the tears started flowing. This made it so much worse, because now I was feeling hurt and angry that I had to be put in an emotionally embarrassing situation. I was so mad at myself!

When I left that therapists office, it was like I was Humpty Dumpty and I had fallen off the wall, I was cracking and starting to break apart. I couldn’t stop crying and so, I didn’t return to work, I drove and drove until I was so tired, I just needed to go home and sleep. God, how I dreaded going home. Would anyone be there? Would I have to try and hide my feelings, yet again? Fake that I was not feeling well so I could just be left in peace to finish breaking apart in my own way. Or, would I have to act angry, like so many times before. This is the easiest way, because then they do stay away.

I am still so exhausted. It has taken so much energy to just write this piece, to not cry and to send it out to the void so that my readers will understand what it is like to suffer from a mental illness. I am trying very hard this time to stay positive. It is so hard!

I just want to quit.

Quit the blog,

quit Facebook,

and quit life.

But I can’t, because there are people that need me, even if I don’t need myself, there are readers out there who maybe, just maybe, will be helped by my writing and because I know that there is a purpose for life, I was put here for a reason. There is a reason for everything I am going through it has just not been shown to me yet.

Now and always,

Becca