I’ve been away for a while. Mostly trying to get parts of my life together, but also I’ve been working through things. After the post on death (which succeeded the death of my boyfriend’s childhood friend who passed too young), I lost my great aunt and I also was dealing with more issues of my ongoing trauma counseling.
It’s been hard to focus on many things at once. In waves, my interests change from one to another: crochet to calligraphy to cake decorating and back to crochet. Sometimes I’ll throw in some painting and video games when I’m feeling particularly froggy, but much like my mood episodes, my coping hobbies come and go like the tides.
So then why am I writing now? Because I have something to say, I guess. I got a new job, in photography (for which I got a degree), and finally got out of the soul-sucking retail job I had. I am truly honest when I say that the only thing that kept me there was the discount as I held out for a better opportunity. When I finally got it, things have started to fall into place. I get to work with the cutest kids every day while doing what I love. I also get to afford moving in with my boyfriend of 4+ years, something we’ve talked about for a while but couldn’t follow through with due to my lack of funds. As we start the next chapter of our lives together, and while I am in the most stable-feeling plateau of my ever-changing roller coaster life, I still feel the tides of depression.
Why is that?
As complex as the whole answer is, I can simply put it this way: depression is not just situational. The first time I heard the words “what do you have to be sad about?” coming from a family member’s mouth, I felt ashamed of considering myself as having a mental illness. Why should I, when I have a healthy family, friends, and a paid-for education with no major childhood dysfunctions to warp me into a psychotic mess? Because mental illness is more than being haunted by war or damaged by a hard life. It’s a chemical imbalance in the brain that you don’t get control over. It could be genetic, or it could be a mutation of the insanely randomness of biology.
Either way, after some therapy and growing up, I learned that it’s not something I should try to hide or be ashamed of. If other people couldn’t at least see me for all that I was, then they didn’t need to know me. Some have come to change their minds, others stay ignorant. Despite the awesome advances I’m going through in my life right now, I still have my low points, I still struggle with the possibility that my irrational brain will try to convince me to self-harm, and I still have to take my daily dose of “crazy pills,” as my boyfriend jokingly calls them, to keep some part of my chemistry stable. Even if it doesn’t fix everything, it’s one less thing I have to worry about.
I’m still my derpy, creative, over-thinking, extremely empathetic, deeply loving self, who is working to become the spiritual pagan I want to be, and underneath I have issues I don’t go into depth about unless I trust that you won’t judge or belittle me. I’m still me, and my issues and “illness” are a part of me. So I’m working to try to help remove the stigma from the negative connotation people feel when they think of people with depression, anxiety, or any other mental illness.
And even if this doesn’t reach a kajillion views or shares, because I don’t expect it to, if I can pass on the message or even spark a seed of hope to help one person, then I accomplished something. I know what it’s like to be thankful for the little victories, like getting up in the morning, or looking people in the eye when I talk to them–even if I just want to look anywhere else.
So do me a favor, and yourself, and think of three things (no matter how seemingly insignificant it may sound to anyone else) that make you thankful for the coming day or even just the breath in your lungs, and just try to appreciate those small victories. Because to us they’re way bigger than that. And I appreciate them too.
Breathe & ground.
Finding Stability: Grounding Amidst the Chaos 