Yup, Still Depressed [pt II]

Just in case anyone was wondering.

I have been doing really well recently. My intensive therapy gave me so many needed skills for improving my resilience, coping ability, and all-around mental health. I’ve been high on life lately. Confident. Trusting in my relationships.

And, I have depression. That means my brain is wired to think and react to triggers in very specific ways. These habits of thought have an impact on my emotions and behavior in ways I can’t predict, and often for reasons I don’t fully understand at first.

That’s where I am right now. A minor series of events that happened throughout the course of last week chipped away at my self esteem. First, my mood started to slide down hill. And then all of my old depressive behaviors started to creep back out of the shadows of my symptoms.

I think it’s the behavior part of depression that people understand the least.

My life looks completely different when I’m depressed. All of the sudden, any ability to behave like an adult disappears. I become flaky, unreliable. I ghost. I don’t clean the house, ever. I nap a lot. I spend a lot of my time laying down. I definitely can’t feed myself.

But the behavior people seem to understand the least – the behavior I have the most difficult time admitting to – is engaging in self-harm.

I have engaged in self-harm since I was a child. For most of my life I would hit myself in the head and face in moments of extremely low self esteem. I would also dig my fingernails into my palms, or opposite biceps, until they broke skin. In my 20s, I progressed to cutting myself.

This is very difficult for me to admit. Frankly, I’m embarrassed. Our socio-cultural understanding of self-harming behavior, or non-suicidal self injury (NSSI), is extremely narrow. When most people think about self-harm, they likely picture a melodramatic teenage girl. This isn’t altogether inaccurate as self-harming behavior most often takes place when someone is a teen or young adult.

That being said, the stereotypes and myths we carry about self-harm can increase the feelings of shame and guilt for people who engage in it. For instance, there is no reliable data showing a gender bias in self-harmers as toxic masculinity makes it less likely for those who identify as cis males to admit to engaging in NSSI. Furthermore, although females are more likely to cut themselves, males more commonly choose different methods for self-harming. Being a member of the LGBTQ+ community can make someone more likely to engage in self-harm – 47% of bisexual females have engaged in self-harm at some point. A lot of people grow out of engaging in NSSI. But, like acne, a lot of people don’t.

On the contrary, self-harm can actually become addicting. Just like any coping mechanism, our brains like to form habits for reacting to specific triggers. Habits allow the brain work less hard throughout the day. This becomes a problem when the habitual behavior is toxic and dangerous to the person engaging in it.

Self-harm helps us cope in the first place because of the endorphins released from the brain as it reacts to the pain. These endorphins create a short, but intense, feeling of euphoria that helps humans cope with pain. They are the same endorphins that the brain releases while engaging in physical activity, and can also help people cope with emotional pain (which is why mental health professionals generally advise their patients to exercise). In this way, engaging in self-harm is similar to using alcohol and drugs as a coping mechanism for emotional distress.

The brain forms habits through engaging in a “habit loop.” First there is a trigger (an emotion I can’t cope with), in reaction, there is a behavior (cutting myself), followed by a reward (intense euphoria).

Not only does this euphoria feel better than crushing depression, it is likely the only thing I have even felt in days by the time I’ve been pushed to self-harm. And this is why it becomes addicting. Because, like any high, those endorphins don’t stay in my system forever. And, as they ebb away, I am left with shame and guilt in their wake.

I’ve engaged in self-harm since I was a child. This is not something I’m proud of. Honestly, this is one of my deepest, darkest, secrets (that I’m now putting on the internet). I’m embarrassed that, at 28 years old, I still engage in self-harm.

But, there’s nothing I can do about it at this point. Radical acceptance right? And this is part of my story, even if I don’t like it.

And, obviously I’m trying to stop. But, that’s the thing about addiction; just like depression, it’s for life.

And that brings me back to my present: my self esteem is in the gutter. My exercises for coping with that fact aren’t working as well as I want them to. Need them to.

And I know that cutting myself will fix it. Cutting myself will give me the energy to unload the dishwasher, do yoga, play with the dog.

I’m obviously not going to cut myself. Literally every fiber of my being has been working at full capacity for days to make sure I don’t do it. I’m way too stubborn, afraid of failure, and exhausted to give into the temptation now.

Also, I’m having withdrawals that are testing every fiber of my will. My body hurts. All over. As if I have the flu. Since Saturday I’ve had an on-and-off migraine that has made me sensitive to light and sound. I have a persistent anxiety stomach ache. I’ve had three panic attacks in three days. I have been able to think of almost nothing else (which may be why I just had to research the topic to death and write this post about it).

Yes, I am still ok. I am taking care of myself and my husband is supporting me through this. I’m seeing my therapist tomorrow. I’m proud of myself for doing my best. I’m accepting that doing my best is good enough.

I also have to be present in this struggle, this pain. Because it is my truth.

This is what recovery looks like.

This is what recovery feels like.

It isn’t pretty and it hurts like hell.

Yup, Still Depressed

I want to unzip my skin from my body and hang it out to dry.

This skin is no longer serving me.

It has seen too much. Weathered too much. Been used too much.

I need a break from my skin, let someone else walk around in it for a little while.

My mind would be so free without the burden of this skin.

Imagine the me that could exist without the scars I carry around,

without the fingerprints of my abusers,

or the stains of my mistakes.

Today, this skin is a prison.

My Coworkers Found Out that I Love Celine Dion Last Night, and I’m Not Even Embarrassed

How long has it been since you’ve danced?

Full on

Every limb engaged

Breathless

Dancing?

I don’t mean the kind of dancing we are told we need to do in order to attract a mate.

I mean the kind of dancing we did when we were toddlers. And the familiar song from our favorite Disney movie came on in the car on the way home from daycare.

I mean the dancing where you are nothing

but yourself

and the beat

and off-key repetition of the lyrics.

and every ounce of

your energy

your spirit

your self

is fully invested in this kinesthetic expression of the sheer euphoria achieved by being fully, totally, and inescapably present.

At what age do we stop dancing?

Not competitive, structured, dancing.

With methods, and rules, and schools, and choreography.

The kind of dancing where you move based

on instinct

on emotion

on vibe

Your limbs writhing on

(or off)

rhythm

each with a life of its own

performing movements

and making shapes

never before seen by humans.

Let’s make a promise to each other.

Let’s dance more.

And think less.

How to Isolate Like a Pro: A guide to letting your anxiety ruin your relationships

1. Meet someone you’re really into. Become friends with them. Maybe even start to love them. Let that feeling fill you up. Feel loved. Feel confident. Feel the excitement of a reciprocated connection. Reach out to them when you think about them. Create inside jokes. Spend time with them whenever possible.

2. Start over analyzing everything they do and say. Personalize it. Every space of time you don’t talk, let it make you think it’s your fault. You obviously have done something wrong by this point. People don’t like clingy people. Stop acting like you’re obsessed with them, it’s obviously chasing them away.

3. Prepare yourself for inevitable rejection by pulling away. Talk yourself out of messaging them every single time. Be aloof. Mysterious. Put the genie back into the bottle. Tell yourself you imagined the connection in the first place. You’re stupid. You’re naive. I can’t believe you thought they cared about you anyway. It’s better to just pull away now so you don’t get your hopes up.

4. Try to read their mind. Where did you go wrong? What do they want from you? Maybe you can change yourself somehow to get them to like you again?

5. Finally talk to them again. Maybe you messaged them, maybe they hit you up. They’re trying to figure out what’s wrong. Oh you’ve just been busy? Oh ok, they thought they may have done something wrong. Let’s hang out I miss you too.

6. Repeat.

And in the Middle of the Chaos, a Love Story [pt II]

I love my husband. I think the feeling that I am the most excited about right now is how much I love my husband. I don’t think he gets enough credit for holding me together. So I’m gonna tell the whole world the extent to which he deserves some credit.

My husband and I met in college. Right around my sophomore, his junior year we were really starting to develop actual real feelings for each other (beyond the “let’s get drunk and try to get laid” attitude inherent in American university life).

That fall I also got raped.

And I didn’t tell him.

But I went crazy.

I capital H, Hate when we call women crazy. And I can’t find a more accurate adjective for what I was.

I entered into a period of severe mental and emotional instability that impacted my relationships with everyone in my life. I reflect on this and I wonder why no one in my life told me about myself back then. Were they that scared of me? Or was I as good at hiding my inner chaos as I thought I was?

But during it all, there was my friend. So caring. So stable. So funny. So sexy. So god damn laid back. So absolutely in love with me.

So naturally my friend turned into my boyfriend. And then my live-in boyfriend. And I was still unstable. But I had the grounding force of my boyfriend containing my chaos within its shores.

And I continued to function. Regardless of the chaos.

And then we got engaged. And we took a nice long time to plan what was still the most fun wedding I’ve ever been to or heard of in my life.

And then I became a wife. And a wife is something different. A wife has weight to it. A wife has a standard to live up to in the role model of both her own, and his own mothers. And the standard is very high among these women.

Let me be clear, this being held to a standard? It wasn’t something my mother, nor my mother in law, ever held me to. This came from my brain and my brain only. And it was due to my feeling of just being “different” *cough*queer* that stressed me out. My mother and mother in law were both good mothers. And their style of mothering were both traditional in the sense of being caretakers and child rearers in the home.

This would not be my style of motherhood. In fact, I don’t actually want to be a mother. I feel that way for a lot of reasons, but one of them is the fact that I do not have a caretaker personality. And my mother figures both had stellar caretaker personalities.

I cannot cook. My ADHD makes it difficult for me to stay clean. My husband annoys me when he’s sick (sorry babe).

No, I want to engage in a deeply emotional and/or reasoned discussion. I want to connect on interests and vibes and creative sparks. I want to help you grow emotionally and spiritually. I am such a fucking Pisces.

But I’m no good at helping anyone – like not even myself – maintain physical well-being.

So my inability to reach this standard I saw before me started eating me alive. And my anxiety started peaking like never before. And I entered my blue period. This was a period of depression of which I had no idea the magnitude until I was able to look back in hindsight.

Then between 2015, the year we got married, and October 29, 2019, the day I almost committed suicide, my trauma got triggered. Over and over again.

At first it was a few small triggers. Being alone with a strange male on an elevator. At a gas station. Dropping off donations at Goodwill.

Then a rapist got elected president.

Then Harvey Weinstein and Larry Nassar and Brock Turner and #metoo.

And then Brett Kavanaugh.

And then I watched a boy choke a girl in my classroom.

Then a girl got raped in my school.

Then I got assaulted at a Halloween event in Detroit.

Then I almost committed suicide.

And then I took a leave from work, did the best and most intense therapy I’d ever done, increased my dosage of medication, started to love myself again.

And the whole time?

My husband was there. Working on our communication. Working on his own mental health so he could better support me. Developing himself through education and starting a business. Having respect. Being an ally. An ally to me. To women in general. To anyone over whom he has any privilege. To plants. To animals. To the earth.

He helped me develop my understanding of my own sexuality. And didn’t feel challenged by it a single god. damned. second.

He broke himself out of the binary. Became willing to accept the depth of human beings on many grey levels so utterly terrifying for a Taurus.

He pulled us together after a terrible year and turned into the support system for his whole family.

He dug down literal roots into the soil of his own creation, and made the sexiest vegetable garden possible, that was able to feed our family for months.

He has big dick energy in literal droves (with his nose piercing, and painted nails + personal trainer physique, manly beard, and canine teeth that are just a tad wolffish).

He is the ultimate caretaker. The ultimate support system. The ultimately perfectly designed partner to me on this wild ride of a decade we’ve spent together.

I know you will say you don’t need it. But CREDIT babe. Take every single drop of credit I can ring out of my poor mangled heart.

Stay grateful for your support system.

And in the Middle of the Chaos, a Love Story [pt I]

I started work again on Monday. And just like that, it feels like I never left. It was a good week, an uneventful week. Even with that being so, my feet are swollen and sore, my knees are killing me from being on my feet all day. I’m exhausted, I’m breaking out, and I’m realizing how difficult it is to take care of yourself when you are a teacher. Most of all though, I hate what it’s done to my relationships.

I’m the kind of person that will do what it takes to do my job well. Unfortunately, teaching is the kind of job with an infinite to-do list. If you’re like me, and you have to be perfect, there will be an unending list of demands to keep you busy and distant from everyone in your life but your students.

My initial concept for this blog post was a detailed assessment of the aspects of being a teacher that makes this the reality. But I quickly got bored. As shocking as the details are (or should be) to everyone else, they are the mundane reality of my day to day. Instead, I ended up daydreaming about my husband.

You see, on Sunday before I went back to work, my husband admitted to me he had anxiety over me going back to work. He was anxious because he felt like he was losing me. Since I would be going back to work. And he had gotten used to having me around.

I have to admit, this crushed me. And it’s all my fault. I started reflecting on my and my husbands relationship, and really realizing how much my mental health and my job has had an impact on it.

I realized how much I had put my husband through.

I realized how badly I needed to make changes, so my work life could no longer suck the life force out of my physical, mental, and relational health.

So on that note, I will be following up tomorrow with a poetic narration of my own reflections in this vein that ended up in a love story of epic proportions.

And as it goes for everything else, I’m kind of starting to lean into this theme of freeing myself from the mold of how I thought my life should go. So who knows…

Force of Nature

Look into my eyes.

Is there fire there? Do you see how the spark has returned?

I let my spark go out. It got put out.

Years ago.

When the kindling that once resided at my core was dampened by the dark void that swallowed it as I looked deeply into my own eyes reflected in a mirror over a dirty bathroom sink during one of the worst moments of my life.

But it’s back, I can feel it.

It started at the base of my pelvis. And caught. Traveling up my spinal column, flooding my senses with a sense of assuredness. Gusto. Moxie.

And others can see it too.

“You have that spark in your eye.”
“I love when you give me that fiery stare.”

“You look beautiful, full of energy.”

Look into my eyes.

Is there fire there?

Strength

A redwood.

Tall.

Steady.

Thousands of years old.

With stabilizing roots stretching down, extending their plump, life-gathering tendrils towards the molten core of

Me.

You.

Everything.

A volcano.

Fierce.

Willful.

The force of which cannot be stopped. Cannot be tempered by any man.

It bursts forth with the power of an exploding star.

And then, as its grit settles softly into the nooks and crannies of existence, it whispers:

“You are strong.”

Darkness

I was halfway through writing a post about why the capitalist consumerism of Christmas bums me out when I stopped mid-sentence and burst out laughing. Oh my god I thought, I am so morbid.

I immediately thought about a conversation I recently had with my sister.

I am a writer. I have been a writer since I started crafting my own letters and narrating my own stories to picture books in kindergarten. That being said, I’ve never shared my writing with anyone. I have a bachelor’s in history. I’ve written history. I’m getting a masters in curriculum and instruction; I’ve written curriculum. But my personal writing, the contents of my brain, and my heart, and my soul; I’ve never shared that.

And now I am. With this blog. This is my first taste of uncensored sharing of the deepest part of my brain, and my heart, and my soul. And it scares me. And I know people are reading it. Not that many people, but still, people. But I am getting zero feedback. Not negative, not positive, just none.

Well, that’s not completely fair, nor true I guess. There have been a few who have reached out and thanked me, told me they’re proud of me, and told me to keep it up. I appreciate that feedback so much! Knowing I have support at all has been key to keeping me going.

But I’ve not gotten any specific feedback. No critiques, no comments about how certain things made people feel, or how they may have been changed because of what they read, or how they connected to something I said. And that makes me hella anxious.

I don’t know how people are actually reacting to my writing.

When I voiced my concerns to my sister, her answer was so simple I had to mull it over for a few days before I was able to accept it as true. Basically, she said there is nothing wrong with my writing. It is honest, it is unflinching, it is dark. And people have a difficult time processing through the kind of feelings this writing makes them feel.

I knew she was right. It made sense. My darkness has been present my entire life. I remember my mom freaked out when I was in preschool because I said my favorite color was black and she thought I was depressed (I don’t really remember if I was yet, but hey).

The reality is, I’ve always been drawn to thinking really deeply, realistically, and morbidly about things. I’ve always been drawn to dark colors, late-night discussions, cemeteries, and the quiet solitude of large bodies of water at night. My curiosity is ignited by decaying buildings, bones, skulls, fungus. I relish the intellectual challenge of true crime, against the background of the crimes themselves.

It probably isn’t a coincidence that I’m also terrified of most of the things I just named.

I have no idea where that morbidity comes from. Maybe it is just my depression manifesting in my personality. Maybe I am just a pessimist. Either way, I’ve slowly come to realize how my darkness can make others uncomfortable. My sister is right, darkness scares people. Darkness brings up feelings people usually try to avoid. Sure, I have set my own darkness free and am glorying in the freedom I feel because of it. But a lot of people are perfectly happy suppressing their darkness and keeping it positive.

I guess it makes sense the masses wouldn’t want to consistently have to confront something they fear so much.

I realize that, just because I’m ready to talk about this stuff, that doesn’t mean everyone is.

I guess I hope that one day, we will progress as a people to regard the darkness with less fear. For, why should darkness be so scary? Why are we so terrified of the unknown? Why do we literarily apply the color black to evil things, “the dark side?”

In the meantime, dear readers, I realize the emotional rollercoaster I’ve taken you on. I thank those of you who have returned to more than one of my posts. I will work on sharing more of my triumphant feelings associated with my mental health journey to lighten the tone a little (at least more so than I am now). And I promise I won’t ruin your holiday with a rant about my critical analysis of the Christmas season.

All I ask in return is that you allow yourself to spend more time with your darkness. Ride the wave of that uncomfortable feeling, let it all out, and see where it takes you. Allow yourself some time to really process through an intense emotion, and see what you find out about yourself in the process.

Love & Happiness to you all.

Taking Up Space

I have diminished myself to the point of feeling invisible because of a very strong voice in my head. This is the voice of The Patriarchy, and I have spent a lifetime letting it erase me. Another way to think about The Patriarchy, or rather a manifestation of it, is heteronormativity. In short, heteronormativity is the idea that a two-person, financially stable, monogamous, child-rearing relationship is the right kind of relationship. It is what everyone should strive for.

I want to be clear that there are many more layers of The Patriarchy than just heteronormativity. However, when I say “The Patriarchy” here, I am referring to heteronormativity because the word heteronormativity is so unknown I still get the red squiggle underline when I type it out. Therefore, I failed in finding a word to refer to “heteronormativity” that is as easy to read and recognize as “The Patriarchy.” I realize it is an imperfect use of the term as it doesn’t refer to every layer of The Patriarchy. The Patriarchy in itself is many-headed and complex, unable to be sufficiently conquered in one blog post. I encourage you to continue to seek out and read about diverse perspectives on The Patriarchy, dominant culture, and colonialism. If you’re interested start here, here, and here. I am one limited perspective, but I am not the only valid perspective.

My family, my community, my culture growing up was so entrenched in The Patriarchy, I have spent my 28 years of life trying to suppress, hide, and destroy all the parts of myself The Patriarchy wouldn’t approve of. But I’ve found, no matter how much education and experience I have, no matter how many awards and honors I receive, I still felt vile, dirty. I felt unworthy of love because it all came only if I suppressed everything within me that made me, me. Let me illustrate my point with some examples:

My Voice

I am a lifelong learner. I challenge everything. I question everything. I always want to discuss everyone’s perspective, I want to learn as much as I can behind someone’s motives. This quality has placed me at the receiving end of a great deal of displeasure throughout my life.

With The Patriarchy inevitably comes gender roles. I received indirect, but specific, messaging around gender roles growing up. Men are supposed to be strong, angry, protective. They make the money, make the decisions, run the country. Women, on the other hand, are meek, fragile, and agreeable. They rear the children, maintain the home, sooth the man’s ego when he returns at the end of a hard day of running the world. I’m not alone in receiving this messaging. I grew up in the 90s. The television and movies I watched as a child presented this model relationship to me over and over again.

My personality has never gelled well with these gender roles. I am independent. I am challenging. As a result, my formative years contained a lot of training to shut down that part of me. I was often told to “stop talking.” I was called difficult, antagonistic. I was told to mind my business, shut my mouth. Stop being so loud, so argumentative. I was called a know-it-all and a bitch. Over time, in order to avoid this push-back, I just stopped using my voice. I stopped raising my hand in class, stopped asking questions, stopped trying to enter discussions. By the time I hit high school, I spent most of my day in silence. My voice disappeared and, my self esteem was so low, I wished my body could disappear too. I didn’t make many friends unless they were willing to engage with me and push passed my training. I didn’t get my voice back until well into college, but always knew where to toe the line and back down when the aggressive reactions to my voice started again.

My Body

The gender roles enforced by The Patriarchy taught me to hand over the keys to my body to the men that have come in and out of my life. I learned from an early age that my goal was to find a man willing to take care of me, start a family, and settle down. Men on the other hand, they need to spread their seed. Sow their oats. They would only commit when they found “THE woman,” who would be interesting enough to do so with (watch Friends all the way through and you’ll see exactly what I mean).

Indirectly, this messaging, coupled with my already low self esteem, caused my brain to equate male attention with self worth. From puberty onward I manufactured my outward appearance and disposition to be attractive to men. I made their interests my interests. I complimented them and said what I knew they wanted to hear. I never said no. I let myself be used. I engaged in flirting and texting and casual sex because I thought it gave me purpose, was a marker of my success as a woman. And then, eventually, when I tried to say no to a boy with whom I had been flirting, who was practically a stranger, I was raped. Violently.

Ironically, my rape resulted in increased promiscuity. It taught me that everyone and everything was right all along. In my head, me saying “no” was the result of my attack so I pushed my voice and my sense of self even further down. I erased myself and allowed my body to be used by whomever wanted to, however they wanted. My body became public property. It became an empty shell.

My Sexuality

I am bisexual (Surprise! And sorry to all my family members and friends who follow my blog, whom I was incapable of telling in a more personal and appropriate way). The thing is, bisexuality doesn’t fit into The Patriarchy. The Patriarchy is dedicated to the gender binary. Men are men, women are women, men and women are attracted to each other and stable monogamy is their goal. Growing up, I heard over and over again that bisexuality isn’t real. That the people engaging in it are just confused, looking for attention, or going through a phase. This is a phenomenon called bi erasure, and it is real.

Bi erasure worked its way so deeply into my subconscious I even remember saying things like “No one is bi. Boys who say they are bi are really just gay. It is more natural for women to experiment with other women, but that doesn’t mean they’re not straight.” Looking back, not only does this make me cringe, it makes sense. I was trying desperately not to make myself even more of an “other” than I already felt I was because of my voice. I was desperate to justify my crushes on Jessica Rabbit, Britney Spears, and three of the girls I went to high school with. I wanted to erase my sexuality so I could only engage in the kind of heterosexual relationship The Patriarchy would approve of.

The suppression of my sexuality resulted in a lot of self loathing. I was embarrassed, I felt gross, I felt like I didn’t fit in. I married a man, a man whom I love very much, before I ever allowed myself to admit that I’m bisexual. And this blog post is the first time I’m telling many people in my life because I am still scared of the potential push back I may get from all the same voices in society who started striking when I was young.

My Mind

All of this training from The Patriarchy resulted in various rules and limits I put on myself in order to reach success in the eyes of The Patriarchy. I got tattoos as a way to get the control over my body back, but only in places that could easily be covered by clothes so I would still appear worthy of respect. In undergrad, I learned how to produce writing based on what my professors wanted, rather than what I thought. I got a career in teaching, to appear noble, respectable, and stable. I pushed myself to excellence, held ridiculously high expectations for myself, strove for perfection. All so not a single teacher, boss, or coworker would have anything to complain about in my job performance. I married a man, bought a house, my credit score is over 800.

In short, I did everything The Patriarchy wanted me to do. All the while, denying everything that would make me feel fulfilled, genuine, alive, interested, connected, happy. I erased all of my passions so I could focus on teaching. I never had a hobby. I became a workaholic. I never said no to a single thing my job demanded of me. I punished myself every time I slipped up, or let my attention waver. The only thoughts I reserved for myself were criticisms. Functionally, I was successful from the point of view of The Patriarchy. I was also fucking miserable.

So, after 28 years of suppressing everything that made me feel alive, I wanted to die.

But I don’t want to die. I want to live. As myself. I want to be free. I want to explore and experiment. I want to connect intellectually, creatively, and spiritually with people who also don’t fit into The Patriarchy, or at least don’t need me to. I want ownership over what makes me feel successful. I want ownership over what gives me worth. I don’t want to be invisible anymore.

Tag: depression