Settling in

I hate making titles to my posts. But I can't post without a title. Balls.

Balls. My friend from high school used to say that and it always makes me laugh.

Anyways. This morning was so good. Then it got bad. And it's funny. Because I thought it was like a cold. It just disappears one day. Not the case! It's not even one day at a time. It's one hour at a time. It's so frustrating. I just want to feel better already. I'm over it. I hate this. I want to breath and dance and enjoy mundane things. 

This is so hard. 

Thank you to my family who is still carrying me through this. To those who love me and are showing up for me. I'm leaning on you and you are strong for me. Thank you.

Settling in

I hate making titles to my posts. But I can't post without a title. Balls.

Balls. My friend from high school used to say that and it always makes me laugh.

Anyways. This morning was so good. Then it got bad. And it's funny. Because I thought it was like a cold. It just disappears one day. Not the case! It's not even one day at a time. It's one hour at a time. It's so frustrating. I just want to feel better already. I'm over it. I hate this. I want to breath and dance and enjoy mundane things. 

This is so hard. 

Thank you to my family who is still carrying me through this. To those who love me and are showing up for me. I'm leaning on you and you are strong for me. Thank you.

I can breath today

Parts of yesterday (before an incident ruined it) and today I've felt more light than I have in weeks. I feel like joy is just right there for me. It's not hidden and buried too deeply for me to be able to touch. 

I think the reason being is a few things. I think my medication is starting to work. And if you've never used antidepressants please don't assume you know how they work. Also I have been going to therapy twice weekly and my session on Friday was very enlightening. It was very very very hard to process. But it gave me hope and some understanding. And I'm so grateful for my therapist who has helped me uncover things that I would have never figured out in a million years. 

If I were to try to sum up what I learned... It would be: I have a voice and my voice is valid and my voice is ok. I need to use my voice instead of stuffing it away in fear of how it will be received. I cannot control how people receive my voice, but that isn't my responsibility, and I cannot guess how they will respond.

My relationships with my family and friends are the number one most important thing to me. I have been trying to create peace for everyone and a lot of times that has meant stifling my voice. I do this with my husband, my in laws, my family, pretty much everyone. What I know as truth is that it doesn't have to be this way, and we can all have loving fulfilling relationships, where I don't have to choke myself out of speaking. 

It's hard for me to imagine how that is possible. But I have hope I will figure it out with help. I should also say no one but me has squashed my voice. At some point I decided things flowed smoother without my opinion and I know now that isn't healthy.

That being said. I'm protecting myself from people who are hurtful to me and my family. And I'm trying to speak my words as they come so I don't bottle them until they come out screaming.

Today I am hopeful. Today I'm thankful that God has given me people in my life who love me so much and have been so helpful in getting me the help I need. Today is going to be a good day. Uriah and I are trying to make friends with our horsey neighbor, but we do not know his name. And I have no idea how you call a horse over to you. So far "here boy!" Isn't working.

Mucking through it.

Today got started much too early. We drove up to Salem at 6:30 and signed some stuff, then went to our new house and looked stuff over. It was clean and empty and ready to be filled with little erg big Moose messes from room to room. It felt like it could be home very easily. But my body felt like it was dying.

I'm so embarrassed that this is so hard for me. People do this all the time. People move, people work through their problems and they manage. I cannot do that right now, and I'm trying to give myself grace, I'm trying, but it's so freaking hard. 

I've been going to therapy twice a week. And I think I get why I've found myself here, but recovering from this seems IMPOSSIBLE. I don't even know what recovery would look like and it's terrifying. It seems like too much work to get there. It seems like it's unattainable. I feel like I would be a different person.

I had a really intense therapy session today. I wasn't expecting it at all. It kind of rocked me and I'm still trying to process what happened. 

Essentially. I've lost my voice. Which sounds crazy, because I am proud of the words I can write. But I've been struggling with speaking lately. Words don't come to my tongue when I need them to. I try to make humor and I can't deliver it. It's rough. I want to be able to talk freely again. I want to be able to talk to people about what's going on. But the words don't come. I can barely make conversation some times. It's embarrassing and excruciating. It makes me want to hide and sleep. I feel trapped in this body that can't feel alive and well. It shouldn't be this hard. 

Anger

The past few days I've been at or in between anger at other people and hating myself. I've always hated being angry. I don't know what to do with anger and I've always thought anger is bad, or selfish so I try to stay away from it.

My therapist pointed out that there is a good reason why we have anger and that it is ok to be angry.

Stop right there. It's ok for me to be angry. See it still sounds strange for me to say that. 

She also told me that depression only sees black or white. And I'm struggling with that as well. Everything feels very wrong or very right and I'm trying to tell myself it isn't that simple. 

I feel very fortunate for all of the people who have reached out to me saying they are thinking about me and that they have been there as well. I feel like the number of people who love me and support me should be the only "cure" I need. Just knowing that so many people love me and love my family should be enough for me. And I feel selfish that every day is still so damn hard. Like I'm not feeling the love enough. Admitting this makes me hate myself and resent myself. I feel like a fraud because there are so many loved ones wanting to help and I have nothing to tell them. I struggle with not wanting to be alone and at the same time having anxiety around my friends and family because I don't know what to do with my face which emotion to display. And how to avoid talking about how I've been. I don't want to lie, but I know most people don't know how to respond to me if I were to be completely honest. 

I'm going back and forth on whether or not to delete my fb for awhile. On one hand it brings me joy to see pictures of everyone and their families and pets. On the other hand there are things that pop up that make me want to throw up. News articles and well intended but extremely awful blogs making me feel worse about my depression because at least I have a baby. It's a gamble.

The battle

Here I am. Sitting on the floor. Trying to scrape up a story about how I got here. But the truth is I don't really know.

I know there is a lot of things occupying my space. A lot of riddles I've been trying to solve. But very suddenly I found myself spun out. I can't cope anymore. I'm hurting because I feel shut off and incapable of doing really anything. I wish I was strong and I wish I could soldier on. I can't though. I don't even know how I used to do it. I'm feeling helpless and I feel like I will be here forever. I don't know how to recover from this.

This is very foreign to me. But it just hurts. I know I'm not the support that I could be right now, to my husband, to my son, my family and my friends. It hurts that I can't talk about things with them because it hurts me to try to force words out.

It is unbearable not being able to express myself. To describe how I'm feeling. To work through challenges. It's crippling. I don't feel like myself. I feel like a fraud in my marriage because I'm not who I am supposed to be right now. I can't get away from the guilt and the feeling of failure no matter how many people tell me otherwise. 

I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.

I hate even writing this because I don't want to burden anyone else with this weight. 

I'll just continue to push through somehow. I don't know what that looks like. But I'll keep trying.

My attempt at writing.

This is really scary for me. I'm going to try to tell you what's going on right now. I'm going to try to write it down. Even though it sucks. If you were to see my thoughts you would see a lot of dead ends. When I try to do something that is even a little tricky I just shut down. I can't think. I couldn't make dinner.

I didn't know where to start. I couldn't do it. I couldn't make my brain move my hands to start doing something. It just shut down and closed up and I froze. Couldn't do it.

I tried to talk to my sister today. I tried to tell her. But I just kept saying I don't know. I would start talking about what was hurting me but then I couldn't. Pause after pause. The words wouldn't even come to my mouth when I needed them to tell someone what I was feeling.

It kinda feels like nothing I guess. My brain won't let me go anywhere. It just shuts down. It can't figure it out so it doesn't try. I guess. 

I tried to call my mom and I tried to read an email. It was painful and I felt like an idiot trying to talk normally. 

I can't express myself. I can't speak well right now. Writing is better. 

I've never felt like this before and it scares the shit out of me. I don't know what to expect, but I want it to stop. And I just keep thinking I'll wake up and be able to feel again and think logically. 

I think this isn't what I expected it to feel like. It's worse than sad. It just sucks and any attempt at handling any situation is a failure. My brain won't let me go there. I don't want to go there because I can't figure it out. Dead ends everywhere. I just want to fix it and write about what's troubling me. But I can't cope. No cope left here.

I'm thankful for all the support from my friends and family. I'm thankful for all the love and cute and funny pictures today. I'm thankful for all the people reaching out sending me messages. 

They make me smile, and I'm appreciative. They were perfect escapes from the dead ends. I feel so blessed that you all love me and want to help. I smiled so much more today because of you. I felt a little closer to happy today because of you. I felt like there is happy out there and you all have it and I'll get it to and it made it feel tangible. Seeing you all love your kids and cats and dogs and have good days. It was good. I know I'll have those good days and feel that peace again. I wish it was easier to get there. I wish there was another way. But you guys made it tangible. I am loved and carried by you all when I can't feel it for myself. So thank you for sharing. I feel horribly exposed knowing you know, but I know you guys can help me better this way. And even though I'm trying to be transparent, I really don't want to talk about it. It makes me very uncomfortable. I am supposed to have an appointment tomorrow. It's supposed to be 90 minutes and I don't think I can make enough words to last that long. I imagine wanting to disappear into the wall so I don't have to talk about it. I really don't want to. I can't deal with what is going on and I'd rather just ignore it and push it further away. 

And by the way "it" all these things i need to deal with. They are nothing. Mundane things that I can't handle. And it makes me angry and very frustrated that I can't handle it. It makes me hate myself.

And when I start to feel like I hate myself I try to turn around and that's where the dead end leaves me. And that's why I know I need help. I know I'm a decent person. I don't enjoy feeling this way. But at the same time I don't want to deal with it. Because I can't. I just can't.

So that's the ugly. I think when I feel better I'll want to have conversations about it. But that's where I'm at.