Change of plans.

The last few weeks have been a neurological nightmare. In the digging-through-and-revisiting of my past to start writing all of it, I’ve been inundated with a melange of Crazy, sending me into fits of depression and maniacal behaviors (all outdated impulse-habits of mine, of course. Nothing new and special to deal with; just old stuff I’ve been trying to leave behind/slough off for forever) and dreams filled with antagonist probes and AAAUUGHDAMMITALTOGETHER.

There was dysfunction. There were moments of genuine Crazy. There were impulse behaviors and then there was predictable regret. There was a blow-up. There was a meltdown. There was bad.
There was Crazy.

Which is funny, ’cause I’d made the assumption I was… y’know… good. Not still-volatile-and-easily-triggered-into-insanity.

I found myself drawn to a Caroline Myss book I’ve had on my shelf since 2002, when it was assigned to me in a religion class my sophomore year (the only class that whole semester that I finished.)

Myss talks about healing and why people don’t; I read about her thoughts on “Woundology” and how, even though we like to say we’re “healing”, we actually just hang on to the process of “healing” and use that as a definitive part of our identities and maybe even a way of feeling some sort of clout over others that we can manipulate for sympathy or attention. She went on to state that that’s not really “healing” because “healing” means you get past the wound, but if you’re still in the “process of healing”, then you’re still paying attention to the wound and letting it run your life, even if your original intent was to get over it. She didn’t say it, but she alluded to the fact that this sort of thinking is pretty gross. And I found myself agreeing. In not these exact words, she basically said, “Y’all need to get over this noise altogether ’cause you’re not becoming any more enlightened by hanging on to ‘recovery’; it’s taking up all your energy and prohibiting your growth and forward-movement.”
I totally agreed.

So I’m doing that.

Because that seems more imperative in general if I’m going to have any sort of selfless and/or progressive existence… which is, incidentally, the goal here.

Long-ago abandoned synaptic avenues have revitalized themselves behind my back, now coursing neurons through them with ease as though I’d never spent a day in therapy and, worse, causing me to gradually resort to emotion-based impulses I’d considered long extinct.

This has been going on for a number of months, in retrospect.

The benefit, however, of having wildly vibrant subconscious activity is that my conscious mind is at last enjoying the relaxing reprieve of silence.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

I’m going to say up front that I hate writing this even more than you hate reading it. I’m just as exhausted and weary of this whole motif as you probably are. I’ll also warn you that this is probably the worst one I’ve written yet, simply out of fear and my desire to put it into text.

And the other thing I hate about all of this is that I am, arguably, the single most blessed human being I know:
~ On Saturday, I will celebrate 3 whole years of marriage with a man who is strong and dedicated and honest and compassionate and full of love and good at cuddling and who is fearless and inventive and intelligently hilarious and really, genuinely loves making me happy
~ I have a 3.5 year old bundle of blonde love who runs around my house and encourages me to play dress up and to sing and to read to her and who demands to let her make me feel better when I am sick.
~ I have a family who has sat through a LOT of bullshit from me and still celebrates my victories.
~ I have more important, loyal, creative, loving friends than any person should. (Most of whom not only give a shit about me, but always ALWAYS come to my rescue in my seemingly endless bouts of The Crazy.)
~ I live in and love North Carolina
~ I have every physical necessity I crave, in addition to every physical desire I want.

All of these are reasons that cause my unexpected bouts of depression seem to compound in my psyche; because there is absolutely no reason for them. Thanks for 10-ish years of therapy, I dealt with and exorcised all the emotion-attacking triggers and, have since, been living a life that perpetuates happy healthiness! (No more toxic relationships/friendships! No more drinking to get hammered by myself! More asserting myself when I don’t want to be in a crappy situation! No more tolerating bullshit I don’t have to! Hooray!)

However, this doesn’t change the [nauseatingly overstated] fact that I still deal with the “chemical-side” of depression every so often, for no real reason. (In fact, I usually get it in the spring.)

These symptoms include:
~Throbbing in the head/ears
~Loss of balance
~ Inability to drive safely (which I learned today as I made a wide turn and nailed my mailbox.)
~Aching limbs and muscles
~Inability to focus on anything long enough to accomplish simple tasks. (Kinda like being stoned and being unable to get up off the couch because the beeper on the microwave has been buzzing for 3 minutes and you barely notice.)
~Losing track of time. (Kinda like being stoned and looking at the clock, seeing that it says “3:00″ then looking back a minute later and it saying “4:30″.)
~Inability to form sentences because your brain won’t put words together. (This is why I prefer to write; sure, it takes a lot of editing because of my misspellings and nonsensical phrases, but at least the finished product is better than trying to talk to me.)
~ Inability to physically focus on anything, as the colors in my periphery blur and I seem to become encased in a solitary little universe. (I don’t call it “The Crazy” for nothin’, folks.)
~The inability to dress myself, sometimes. (That was one of the lowest points, admittedly. Thanks again to my fearless, loving, patient husband.)
~ Finding myself subconsciously acting on scary/insane impulses that I haven’t in over a decadel. (for example: In 11th grade, I was at a party where every single one of my friends was being flirted with and I was being ignored. Suddenly, I looked down and realized I’d driven my car keys deep into my forearm without noticing. That wasn’t the first instance of that, but is the only I can remember.)
~Pain in the presence of sunlight.

However, in the last three-ish days, I’ve had a sudden Crash between Chemical and the Emotional depression - the latter of which I have not experienced in over 5 years. There was no recent trigger. There is no tangible reason. Everything in my immediate life is going better than it has in a long time, actually (which is saying a lot because I’ve been pretty damned happy since early in 2007.)

I am just simply and suddenly crippled by the physical symptoms and those long-forgotten emotions in which I do not just feel but deeply believe/know that:
~ I am useless, untalented, unintelligent and not at all significant.
~ I am wasting space and energy by being here and continuing to put the people I love through the burden of listening to this completely self-serving “disease”.
~ I am mundane in general, but I won’t shut up about it.
~ I am pretentious and don’t have the balls to find nor live my own identity.
~ … and maybe this identity is too boring to seek out in the first place.
~ I am insignificant in a day-to-day sense as well as a career or social sense.
~ I am selfish (but try to overcompensate by giving to charities and volunteering for causes)
~ I am self-centered and don’t listen enough
~ I am rarely as important to certain people as they are to me.
~ I am lazy
~ There is nothing important coming out of my mouth or through my actions.
~ I am spoiled
~ I have no global perspective at all
~ I somehow graduated college as a complete idiot in my field.
~ I am taxing to my friends.
~ I talk too much because I’m afraid I have nothing to talk about.

All of these things are the emotional staples I’ve had since… forever, I guess. And now they’re back and attacking me along with the chemical fucker while I’m down. I forgot what this felt like; I haven’t had this since the spring of 2006, when my life was significantly different. I thought changing my life to something completely different and better would fix it, but now I’ve Crashed again and I don’t know how to get out of it or where to start. But one thing I do know for sure is that I’m scared in exactly the same way I was before: at least that hasn’t changed.

WARNING: THIS IS MORE ABOUT MENTAL ILLNESS AND ITS INHERENT FUCKWITHERY. IT IS ALSO ME WHINING. NEITHER OF THESE THINGS ARE NOVEL EXCEPT THIS ENTRY PERTAINS TO PHYSICAL REACTIONS TO THE FORMER.

Last Thursday, I wrote a poem on a little slip of paper beside my bed. It went like this:
——————
Today
I lay
In bed
All day

And twitched
And twitched
And twitched.
—————–
Now, if written as the first two lines of a stanza, it’s very Emily Dickinsononian, so, um, I guess I could be proud of that? But what I think is the most appreciate-able of this personal achievement in literature is that it was literally the only thing I was capable of doing outside of the bare essentials from that day until yesterday, capping up a week of slow mental deterioration. (Chloe and I had “Pajama Day” a few days last week… she’ll only think it’s weird when she’s in therapy in a couple decades and realizes what it actually was) Thanks to New Drug #4thirty’leb’m, I’ve just endured the single most physically excruciating week of my entire life… And, thus, feel the need to publicly share it, if only for those other people out there who have told me that when I write about the lifestyles of the mentally ill, they appreciate the candor and the relate-ability. Also, I really felt I should document it for myself for future reference.

So lemme get you up to speed as though you’d never read anything I’d written about my breed of The Crazy before: I have chronic (until we find a cure) depression; it tends to kick up in the spring for inexplicable reasons; I have it under control for the most part otherwise. Well, this year during my annual Bout o’ The Crazy, New Doctor #7 (because I’ve moved in the last year) decided to start tinkering with my meds, which has lead to at least two extra months of BAAHHHHSTOPITCRAZY with the added bonus of my very first mania! WOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Aaaanyway, after “Well, let’s try you out on _____ for a couple weeks…’see how you do, umkay?” for four solid months now, I told my doctor to suck it; I’m stripping myself back down to the minimum, (which is the dosage at which I’ve been happily sane for 85% of the time for the last couple years) and I’m not screwing my brain up with any more of his chemical experiments that I’ve told him since their beginnings wouldn’t help anything in the long run. And I told him that if he was going to buck me on that, I’m looking into taking my humble dimes elsewhere anyway.

And this is why.

In the last week-and-change, due to 2.5 mg/daily of the drug Abilify (oh yeah, we’re calling it out by name. After the Vyvanse debacle of 2009, I’m calling anyone out where needed… for um… legal reasons? Igotnothingmumblemumble…), I’ve experienced the following:

~ Insomnia like whoa
~ Lethargy like whoa
~ Aching, gnashing pain in my limbs like fucking WHOA.
~ More-vivid-than-when-I-was-pregnant dreams including the most fucking horrifying nightmares imaginable (no, seriously. These made Kubrick look like PBS.) on the one night I opted out of the drug.
~ The complete inability to find a comfortable position.
~ The complete inability to remain in stasis.
~ 95% of the inability to move without inexplicable, aching, throbbing pain.
~ Increased heartrate.
~ Increased body heat (NOT fun for my husband, who isn’t a fan of keeping the house as chilly as I’d like.)
~ Bloating/Gas/Indigestion. Like whoa.
~ Seeing shit out of the corners of my eyes. (I’d say “hallucinations”, but saying “seeing shit” makes me sound more human and more lucid in that I have the wherewithall to be legitimately freaked out, right? It’s an affectation I’m trying on.)
~ Hearing things; either my brain completely misinterpreting a sound or fabricating sounds entirely… like children playing or bells chiming…
~ Exhaustion along with shaky fidgets.
~ Inability to focus (This entry has taken me three days to write. Not kidding. I’ve edited a lot.)

So, yeah, my last week sucked. I was awake more than any person should be for more than 3 days, I was both unable to sit or lie still and, yet, I was exhausted and in pain every time I moved, and I was legitimately out of my mind outside of the two former factors, so all of it was a cocktail of HOLYCRAPBAD. And I say that it was “the most physically excruciating week of my life” without any intention of hyperbole; at least in the aftermath of my C-section, I was able to sleep and take some pain killers and, in weeks when my body has been exerted and put through the ringer (high school volleyball training weeks/camp, expeditions with collegiate Outdoor Adventures group, etc.) I was able to rest for at least 6 hours a day or site where the pain was, specifically, and nurse it back to health with massage/warm showers/whatever was needed. This last week, my body has ached in ways that aren’t expressible and weren’t cured by the prescription-doses of ibuprofen I kept slamming.

And then, when I stopped taking the drugs because I couldn’t stand the side effects anymore (last Thursday), I had to deal with equally uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms. YEAAAAAAYY!!

I just hated it. And I hated that I hated it. And I hated that I was STILL dealing with psychiatric bullshit 2 months later than I usually do every year. And I hated what it was obviously doing to my family. And I hated that, no matter how much time and therapy I’ve gone through with this mental shit, I was still running into the same crippling physiological horseshit I’ve been dealing with for for-fucking-ever. ::sigh:: But we’ve talked about this before, right? I feel like this is just another redundant entry in the Captain’s Log of my Crazy.

Anyway, after four [expletive unrecognizable in human linguistic patterns and, thus, deleted] months of mood roulette (the ball landing on “Crazy/Bad” more often than not), I woke up yesterday with a feeling of serenity and stable optimism that didn’t quit before I went to bed later that night and, in fact, has continued right up until this very moment. And, I don’t want to get ahead of myself and/or say anything too soon, but it would really really be wonderful if this was The End of the 2011 Psychotics Episode for me. Seriously, I’m ready to turn that corner now and, frankly? I think after this last week I’ve had, it’s owed to me by the Universe at this point. I don’t usually make those sorts of cocky declarations, but I’d kind of reached a breaking point, to be honest, and wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be willing to tolerate writhing around in agony without immediate, intensive medical attention (which, after two experiences with this type of “help”, I’m none too hasty about requesting ever again.) So I’m glad to see the tides turn, even if it’s with such late arrival.

::exhales:: I’ll be turning the “Fasten Seatbelts” signs off momentarily. It feels good to be back at cruising altitudes… and to be of the state of mind that I can get away with terribly overwrought analogies referring to my mental state.

:::exhales again:::

No, Look, You,

I thought I told you we were effing done, CrazyMind. I pwned your usual springtime depression, deflected your counter-attack of mania and said my adieus. So whateverthefuck you’ve got hanging on right now is not fucking cool with me.

I’ve lost 15 lbs. in 2 weeks. My house looks like a meth addict lives here. Every single emotion I feel causes ripples of pain down my body entire body, even to a muscular level (even going out and getting the goddamned mail.) My brain WILL NOT shut the fuck up. About anything. I grasp onto one idea/thought/sentiment and it wears me down until I can’t even breathe anymore (or sleep, for that matter), even if it’s the most banal thought to begin with.

And, oh, how I’ve tried to quell you since you started your usual Mental Tantrum back in March. I’ve tried meditation, I’ve tried hypnosis, I’ve tried breathing, I’ve tried going out for a stroll, I’ve tried warm baths, I’ve tried reading, I’ve tried smoking a hookah while watching “30 Rock” reruns, I’ve tried writing this all out by hand, I’ve tried hammering this out with my spouse and making valiant attempts to change my habits, I’ve tried inhaling Love and exhaling Fear,  I’ve tried waxing/waning moon rituals, (obviously, I’ve tried my medication), I’ve tried cleaning my house, I’ve tried volunteer work, I’ve tried taking days off and enjoying split-second moments of bliss (successfully, I might add, which is maybe the only reason I’m sane enough to write all this) and I feel more and more like my life is being fueled out of unnecessary fright and unwarranted insecurity (which I KNOW is all you, because my life is fucking perfect otherwise, you dickhead) and manipulated with Crazy. I’m keeping it together on the surface but, goddammit, if you don’t shut the hell up and leave me alone, I’m going to take a proverbial baseball bat and mentally smash any semblance of sanity I have left.

Seriously. Go away. Nobody fucking wants you here.

Furiously,

L P-S

Oh, heeeey, Crazy Mind!

Y’know, I was using all that sudden, unexpected mania you’ve been hurling at me recently to fire off an angry missive to you about it late last night until I realized you might actually be really impressed with how innovatively I’ve upcycled your spiteful curveballs. So I thought I’d share, ’cause I’m actually quite proud of my results and you know how I like to talk it out with you when we’ve been at odds. Have a seat.

See, originally, I was admittedly pretty pissed at you for throwing in such an underhanded game-changer this far into our relationship. I thought we had a decent arrangement going; after years of torment, you let me settle into a “normal” life and only drag your crippling depression out once a year just to, I dunno, prove you still can or something. And, sure, I’d acquired enough tools in my belt to handle your inevitable arrivals and just kind of wait them out without getting all self-loath-y and self-destructive, which may have pissed you off a little, but you brought out some new tricks of your own to up your efficiency (like this year when you introduced your new “drooling on myself unconsciously while staring into the middle distance and, thus, taking my self-confidence down a peg or two” app. Quite effective at rattling my sense of sanity. Good work on your part.) so I just thought we’d continue like that for forever. I’d accepted that as a highly probable life path and was cool with working around it so that we could interact without it turning into a downward spiral again. But I guess my implementing active recovery on you these last few years and not bothering to toy with the idea of self-harm ever again must’ve pissed you off something fierce.

And, I gotta hand it to you, springing an abrupt series of mania on me was a damned genius plan on your part. Seriously, not only is it the polar opposite of what I’m well-adjusted to and prepared for but it completely manipulated my strengths and my penchant for ongoing recovery so that my manic episodes were spent obsessing about how to right past wrongs and address old, unanswered questions and other “Step 9″ motives we all know I worry about too much when I’m leveled off. So, not only did I have this crazy super-energy keeping me up all night and this unusual sense of overblown confidence (which, apparently, is a symptom of mania I was not aware of) but I also had you using my good intentions and deeply-rooted beliefs in daily recovery practices as fuel AND justification for my resulting actions. Well played, indeed!

Unfortunately, however, your plan kind of backfired on you, ultimately. Oh, sure, I spent a handful of sleepless nights hammering out massive emails to people in my past to whom I felt deserved an apology (but who, in reality, probably never needed or wanted one or even remembered the original problem) and, with my good intentions squarely before me, I made sure to really delve into the topics at hand on all emotional, personal, psychological and philosophical levels for what I thought would be the benefit of the reader. After these emails came an exchange with an old friend with whom I’d had a brief… fling? (we never really defined it) that ended abruptly and from whom I’d kind of always wanted to know what happened, during which I continued my oversharing, babbling rhetoric. And even after that, there was the completely irrational overreaction to a friend’s response on a debate in freaking Facebook that caused me to panic and send her 7 text messages apologizing for any inadvertent insult I may have delivered while expressing disagreement. Naturally, after each of these instances, I would step back and think, “WHOAWHATTHEFUCKAMIDOING!??!” and feel genuine fear at my inability to stop these impulses that seemed so necessary and imperative while I was implementing them. And then there was the terror of trying to control myself at night by just lying down and trying to breathe while my brain whirred with worry and the desire to get up and remedy things (friendships, messy dishes, touch-up paint jobs… didn’t matter) and my body wouldn’t lie still and I had this constant urge to just start screaming. Oh yeah, your plan was fucking effective; it scared the shit out of me with the idea that there was a new type of Crazy going on and you were somehow evolving along with my recovery, it destroyed my moods during the days when I was delirious from insomnia, it made me mortified when I revisited the crazed messages I’d been sending out, it made me stop trusting myself… you did well.

But, again, it didn’t work. I’d lie and say that I hate to crush your hopes because I know you worked really hard on all this and had a lot of hopes for it but, really, I do like to gloat about crushing your intentions.

See, unfortunately, the people to whom I sent my blathering volumes of hopeful reconciliation turned out to be genuinely chill and understanding and responded with casual appreciation for me having broached the subject. (And NONE of them sounded terrified by my overzealous rambling.) So that part turned out to be nothing but beneficial and did, incidentally, help in my overall recovery. Thanks!

Also, my deteriorating demeanor finally pushed my husband to be honest with me about how my depression has been affecting him and our marriage negatively (a big deal for him) and we sat down and made a game plan for how I could better manage his generosity and kindness without sapping him of energy or neglecting his needs. And that lead to us having one of those big happy talks about why we love each other and what we appreciate in each other as people and how genuinely happy we are to be together. And then we had a freaking amazing two-person bedroom party (seriously, it was in the Top 2 or 3 ever.) And now I’m all motivated to shift my focus and work harder on managing myself in terms of my role as a family member as opposed to just someone with depression. So thanks for that, too!

Oh yeah! And then! When I posted something publicly to vent about how your little week-o-fuckery was making me a walking social disaster, my friends came out of the woodwork to tell me that that’s actually something THEY LIKE in my character (in moderation, of course.) And, during all this, when I went to whine on my blog (to God, specifically) with self-centered pity about how rough I’ve been having it in the spiritual/emotional department (which, by the way, disgusts myself and is kind of painfully redundant when you look at everything I’ve written here over the years) people still came out to send good vibes and wish me well. I know! Craziness, right!?

Ohohoh! And I lost that ten pounds (and change) I’ve been freaking out about since January because I’ve been weirdly not hungry but have been loaded with energy. THANKS A BUNCH!

So, I guess what I’m really, ultimately trying to say here, Crazy Mind of Mine, is FUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCK YOOOOOOOOOOOU.

Gleefully still alive in every possible sense,

L P-S

‘kay…Uh, in recovery, we’re encouraged to keep an “attitude of gratitude” to avoid “stinkin’ thinkin’” (or, in Regular/Sane-People Talk: remind ourselves what we’re thankful for to lift ourselves away from the things that depress us and/or spur us toward our bad habits/addictions.)

So, on that note, I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to be presented with something that has obviously been a trigger for me for a very long time, so that I could finally recognize it as such…

…I mean, I guess.

In Related News:

Dear Universe,
No, really. I really have processed the shit out of my past and dealt with everything enough to be very very happy where I am and have consciously chosen to ignore certain people and aspects of my past that I know can never be resolved any more than they are. I really do not need you to fling things back at me just to make sure I’m cool with them. I am. We both know I’ve mentally beaten these dead horses down to bone particles and then put those under the microscope, just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. We’re good here. Really.

Dear Self:
“Going back” just to prove that you’re different and totally rad now still involves “going back”. Write that down.
————–

RE: The Crazy

So, it’s become evident that this is the time of the year that my Crazy starts acting up. Yeahno, I know how Crazy that is in and of itself, what with this being spring and it being beautiful outside, but, for whatever reason, this is the time of year I get the most insane (in the literal sense) and my conscious mind starts slipping away from me. (I’ve been through the list enough, right? It’s all here in case, you know, you want a refresher.) And I have my years of therapy to back me up and help me deal with it and not let it suck me back into the self-loathing/everything-is-crap brand of Crazy. But, like clockwork, it always comes around when the weather gets warmer and the flowers start to bloom and everybody on the whole continent gets in a better, happier mood. And, at the risk of sounding melodramatic, the fact that I might be the only springtime S.A.D.-sufferer ever would be hilarious in its ridiculousness to me if it wasn’t busy sapping all my serotonin. (Man, I have a morbid sense of humor.)

In other (much happier) The Crazy-Related News:

This spring marks 5 whole years since I last bottomed out and had to seek inpatient assistance. It’s funny; the physical manifestations of the illness feel identical, but the entire scenario is so incredibly different now. I feel like the exact same person who has just watched a cast-replacement and an upgrade happen all around me without me actually doing anything or changing in any way (now I know how Tim Meadows must’ve felt around 1995. bah-ZING!) Of course, common sense tells me that this is impossible, but that tiny voice of my Self is pretty assured that she has no idea what the hell she’s doing; she’s just glad we’re not on the brink of demise like we used to be. And, honestly, I can live with that -happily, even.

So there. That’s two things I’m grateful for.

When I first learned about my upcoming high school reunion a few months ago, I promptly threw up from anxiety.

The worst part is that, until today, I had no idea why. In the months since, this same terror and apprehension has plagued me every time I bring up the “To go or not to go?” debate in my head and I’ve stayed up for many nights wondering what the hell it is exactly that I’m so scared of; there weren’t any bullies that I’m still intimidated by (those were all in jr. high) and it’s not like I was a total loner. In fact, high school was, for the most part, pretty good to me (ESPECIALLY when compared to the more-cruel-than-most-kids-have-it middle school years I’d just endured in another state.) I was friends with genuinely wonderful people,* I had a supportive family (even though, like all adolescents, I got to wade through the my-parents-are-human-with-flaws-so-now-I’m-mad-about-it phase), I was involved with student activities and was social and had handfuls of good memories… All in all, it wasn’t awful. So what it that was keeping me doubled over with abdominal pain every time the idea of reuniting with this group of people sprung to mind?

Only after a few months of contemplation did I finally realize what it is that I’m legitimately, wholeheartedly, fucking terrified of. There’s one person I very desperately never want to reunite with in any circumstance and whom I feel will be unavoidable at a high school reunion: Me.

Look, I know that sounds melodramatic and disgustingly self-centered but here’s the thing: I’ve spent the last decade fighting off and then ditching the person I was back in the late-90’s/early-00’s (In fact, on one occasion, I literally tried to kill her and had to be hospitalized for a littletinybit to learn how to get along with her… but that’s another story that I’ve talked about entirely too much.) I’ve spent years going to therapy to learn to not be anything like her and I’ve given dozens of heartfelt apologies for the awful things she used to say and do to people and how she used to make people feel. (Some have been accepted while others have not. This, also, is something I’ve learned to accept and put behind me.) I’ve obsessively tackled [almost] every fault I can so I’m increasingly less like the person that everyone I was around in high school will remember. (She and I still share a penchant for overindulgence, but I figure that’s not as pressing a personal issue as, say, pathological lying or spewing hatred for no reason or other soul-sucking yuckness.) I’ve worked really, really hard to make myself into someone I like being around (a first for me) and to have as little in common with my former self as I possibly can (on a behavioral level, anyway.) I’ve moved myself far, far away from her nasty mentalities, her cowardly cynicism, her need to tear down those she envied and her unbelievably repellent self-loathing. And the idea that I’d have to spend a weekend revisiting the time I spent with her is enough to make me sick with the guilt and regret I’ve only just managed to get over.

Don’t get me wrong; there are many people from these high school years with whom I have some very happy memories and who have shown me that they don’t remember me as some horrible monster. But, even when I revisit old pictures and remember how my mind/actions were completely fueled by fear and insecurity, it’s too black and embarrassing to deal with. The self-induced chaos in which I conducted my entire adolescent being is just too heavy, too overwhelming for me now. I feel myself being tugged down with the weight of it [in tandem with residual shame] and I’m not sure if being around people who only know/remember that part of me is going to be beneficial at all.

It would be different if I was still struggling out of all of that mental muck, but the truth is that I’ve just gotten to the point where I’m no longer constantly, exhaustively burdened by my past; I’d like to enjoy that peace for just a little longer without having to “test it out.” I don’t hate who I was in those years; I’m just over her and all her bullshit, in essence. She’s taken enough from me and I don’t feel like she deserves any more time or energy. The risk of running into someone who can’t get past the gossipy, superficial a-hole I was to most people and having to try to convince them of a change of character just seems like too much work for me, especially when there are only a handful of people there whom I’d go out of my way to reunite with in the first place. (And those people know who I am now anyway.)

So, I honestly may be staying away from any class reunions in order to avoid running into myself… which is arguably the craziest-sounding thing I’ve ever uttered AS WELL AS the most rational introspection I’ve done in a while.

Thanks a freaking lot, therapy.

*As aforementioned, my one major romantic entanglement from my adolescent years will no longer be discussed - neither on this blog nor in real life - so all of the above assertions are to be read with the general understanding that this relationship is excluded.

NOTE:There are a couple things I’ve promised myself I wouldn’t write about on this blog anymore, including depression/mental illness because I’m just over it and, even though I might be duking it out with my brain’s chemical makeup for forever, I don’t need to dwell on it and rehash it all the time anymore. I’ve done gobs of therapy and heaps of acceptance of the illness and have a grasp on how to tackle it and deal with my bouts and symptoms and I know that sitting around discussing it publicly just perpetuates the idea that it rules my life, which isn’t true at all.

However, because a few readers have expressed appreciation for it, I may continue to mention it from time to time. I’ve found that, even after over a decade of dealing with mental illness, there are so many facets and avenues I’m still uncovering and grappling with that I really haven’t considered as separate subcategories under what seems to be the endlessly massive umbrella of “Depression”. Somehow, it makes me feel better to have acknowledged these to myself and, truthfully, I always feel incredibly comforted when I get the occasional email from a reader saying, “Oh, thank God… Me too.”

ALSO NOTE: I apologize if the language in this is hard to follow. I think the text explains/excuses that a little.
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Up until recently, I’d always thought that there were only two types of depression in the technical, chronic mental-illness/chemical-imbalance category (versus the post-traumatic or “longterm blues” varieties.) There’s the chemically-induced stay-in-bed-all-day-unable-to-focus-on-anything-long-enough-to-make-any-physical-changes-to-your-situation-while-time-escapes-you type of depression that I deal with in giant waves about once annually. And then there’s the I-hate-myself-and-my-life-is-a-black-hole-of-nothingness-and-it-would-make-everyone’s-life-easier-if-I-wasn’t-here type of depression that I haven’t dealt with in a long time thanks to major life changes and years of therapy. (Naturally, I’ll have spells where I’m positive I’m wasting my life and I’m just a worthless person but, really, I think any introspective person is prone to those every now and then and they aren’t unhealthy if I can take something productive away from them.) And, of course, there are instances of depression that are combinations of both of these types, although perhaps involving different ratios of each. (For example, I started out with the chemical type in my preadolescent years, which developed into and later fed into the emotional type for a number of years until I got a handle on the latter and went back to just having the former, with tiny bouts of the latter every so often. Does that even make sense?)

ANYWAY, recently, I’ve been having a type of depression I can vaguely remember having when I was very very young and that might be more frustrating than any other: In the last few weeks (especially last few days) I’ve had this heartrending feeling that “something is wrong” and I can’t seem to shake it. It’s not a feeling of fear so much as a feeling of longing and heartache, where my chest seizes up and I feel like I’m on the brink of tears for absolutely no reason at all. It’s kept me awake until 2 or 3 a.m., just lying awake and shaking, with my mind uncontrollably reeling with memories and instances in hopes to figure out just what exactly it is that I’m so heartbroken over.

Even if I try to sit and meditate and repeat my mantras to myself and have fully realized that there’s no reason for this sadness and pain, it still persists. I begin to hunch over and stay quiet/secluded and I pull my sleeves down over my knuckles, even in 80-degree weather. All I want to do is stare blankly at the television or listen to “Surfer Rosa” on repeat. I fight the urge to self-medicate with mind-hushing wine or a couple Unisom. Sunlight physically hurts and social engagements are exhausting, if not overwhelming. I get angry at people around me for what seem like completely valid reasons at the time and then aren’t thirty minutes later. And I huuurt. It feels like someone is tightly wrapping a fine steel floss around my heart and it hurts to breathe, not unlike the symptoms of teenage heartbreak. Also like a post-breakup adolescent, I’m prone to crying in great, heaving, soul-jarring jags with no forewarning or buildup. (For the record, I’ve never even been this bad when I was um… hormonal.)

Again, usually when there are bouts of emotional depression, there’s something to focus on or some sort of trigger on which to blame the oily cloud of gloom I seem to drag around with me but, this time, there’s nothing, which I think may be somehow worse. At least when I’m all weepy and self-loathy about a personal shortcoming or an existential crisis or whatever may be momentarily plaguing me, I don’t have to waste energy trying to figure out why I’m upset; I can use all my resources to try to drag myself out of the funk and back to a level of regular functionality. My present situation is exhausting on a new level because, not only am I actively fending off the typical symptoms and habits of depression and working to move forward but I’m also unable to stop wondering “Where is this coming from? Is there something legitimately wrong going on in my subconscious? Do I need to go see a hypnotherapist? Maybe I can replay every painful event from my past - again - to see if any of those memories strike a chord with what I’m feeling. Good Lord, has my depression evolved again?”

I’m reminded of a weird joke one of my old pastors told that everyone laughed at but couldn’t pin down why exactly:

A little boy goes to his mother and says, “Mommy, it hurts when I do this.”
His mother responds, “Well, then, don’t do that.”
The little boy then tells her, “But that makes it feel better.”

Sometimes I honestly wish that I would just go ahead and lose my mind completely, so I wouldn’t have to struggle so much to wrangle in my thoughts/feelings. Like I’ve said [repeatedly], I’m really over all this and am ready to move onto something else that defines my immediate reality. One would think that, after so much time and treatment and medication, my mental health would get to a point where low-energy maintenance-only effort would suffice.

Don’t worry; I’m still keeping up hope that it can. This is just a bump-in-the-road of a different color and I’m taking it as a lesson to be wary of mental curveballs.

I won’t get all long-winded about the backstory like I usually do but, in the last week, I’ve really been struggling with a haunting from my past and an unclosed door with a broken-heart situation and how it relates to my current life and what I’m doing that’s wrong in it and all that noise. It’s been really attacking me, actually, and gave me a hell of a depression spell for a few days.

And then I realized that, in order to actually, totally forgive myself, I have to stop giving a shit whether or not anyone else does.

I’m starting to think that basic life principles need to come with footnotes for those of us who don’t automatically realize the implied intricacies.