The Days I Hate

Struggling with depression, I have bad days and good days. I have horrible days, and I have great days. It's easy to see how I would love the good days and hate the bad days. And I do.

But the days I hate the most are not the bad days.

The days I hate the most are not the days I struggle to keep from crying almost every second. The days I hate the most are not the days when I have to ration my energy from the moment I get out of bed so I can make it to the point where I can go back to bed. The days I hate to most are not the days when I cannot stand to be touched. They are not the days when I can hardly move. They are not the days where everything pisses me off. They are not the days when mindless frustration and rage boils so close to the surface where anything can send me into a screaming frenzy.

No, the days I hate the most start with a smile. The days I hate the most start with confidence and strength and responsibility. The days I hate the most are the ones that last long enough to let me fall.

It always hurts more to fall from a great height than to sit at the bottom of a hole.

The worst days are the days when I can stand up straight for most of the time, but sag before the day is over. The days I hate the most are the days when my pills work, but wear off.

And I know why.

Shakespeare said that 'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, but Shakespeare clearly wasn't depressed. Because having a good day, and then losing it before the day is over just makes the fight feel futile. Having a day when the pills wear off is just a reminder that it's the pills that make everything okay. Having a day when the pills wear off just makes obvious the reason I didn't want the pills to begin with.

I remember being fifteen and talking with a man for half an hour, and then having the man telling me that I'd be better off receiving extra serotonin from an outside source. I've been saying that for over a year, I said to myself. I wasn't a hypochondriac; just a very self-aware fourteen-year-old. So what made this man's opinion, this man who had known me for half an hour, more valid than my own? Why was it that I got help when someone else said I needed it, and not when I did?

I thought for a few minutes about refusing the pills. I sat in silence as I considered what it would mean. It would mean an end to the slight independence I had treasured and nurtured for the past five years. It would mean that the attempt to make myself self-sufficient had failed. It would mean that my effort to help my parents by making one less worry for them had backfired, and now I was an even bigger worry. But most of all, it meant that I didn't have control.

I accepted the pills because maybe the monthly drain on their wallets would make my parents pay a little more attention to me. Maybe this concrete proof positive that their middle child wasn't unaffected by the break in the family would push them towards healing. But no, the pills were accepted as the cure, and the illusion of being okay was accepted in place of actually being okay, because it was easier. And my fragile illusion of control was shattered.

I needed that control. I still need it. In a world where so many things are beyond my control, having control over my body gave me a comforting illusion of safety and security. That's why I can't give up my control. Giving someone else control over my body is the ultimate form of trust for me, and it hurts bitterly when that trust is betrayed.

Daily, I entrust my wellbeing, my brain chemistry, my most essential self, to little blue pills, and every time they fail, that trust is shattered, and I am that much farther from trusting anyone else that completely. But I have to go through the possibility of being betrayed every day, because it's better for the rest of the people in my life if I can never fully trust anyone than if I spend days on end in bed, too lethargic to move.

And people wonder why I don't get close to anyone.

The Care and Keeping of Kitty

This is something that I need everyone who knows me to understand. Not just see. Not just hear. Understand and accept. And I really do mean everyone. Every single person, from my boss to the person to whom I talk in class, from my best friend to a passing acquaintance, this is a thing you need to know, and I really don’t think anyone has gotten it yet.

Having me sit down and watch other people work and then telling me not to worry about it is like sticking an alcoholic in a wine cellar and telling them not to drink.

It will not happen.

If you are desperate for me to be okay with it, you have to say something like this: “I want to do it." “I like doing this sort of thing." You can NOT say: “Don’t trouble yourself." “You’re fine, just stay there." or anything else related to that.

You have to make it, at least in my eyes, about your comfort, not mine. If, in reality, you want what’s best for my physical health and peace of mind, make favors to me about you.

Growing up, I was taught that putting myself in any place other than last is selfish, and that there is nothing worse than being selfish. I was not taught—did not learn—that if I don’t take care of myself, no one will, until I was fifteen, and by then, the habit of putting myself behind everyone else was so ingrained, that I’m still trying to break it, and I still feel guilty as all get out when I put myself ahead of anyone else, even when I know that I need it.

This is why talking about my problems is so hard for me. This is why I can’t call people at three in the morning when I’m crying too hard to sleep, even though I have to work in five hours. This is why I always surrender in conversations when others interrupt me. This is why I always volunteer for the shit jobs, why I always pick up the extra shifts, no matter how tired I am, no matter how much I just want to rest.

I don’t actually think it, but my subconscious whispers to me: “You aren’t as good as they are. You aren’t as important. Let them sleep. Let them talk. Let them rest. You don’t matter." I try to fight back, I try to speak up and speak out and make myself heard, but I have been conditioned my whole life to think this way, and it’s only been a year since I left the constant presence of people who still (despite knowing what it does to me) force this bullshit down my throat.

So, in the end, friends of mine, what I’m saying is that I need you to take care of me sometimes. I’m trying hard to kick this thing in the teeth, but I really do need your help, and it’s so fucking hard to ask for it because, get this, it makes me feel guilty and selfish. ("You should be able to do this yourself. You’re not strong enough. Why should you expect them to help you when they have their own problems?")

Most of all, though, I need your reassurance. The occasional, unwarranted “I love you," or “You’re adorable," no matter what my mood is like before or after, never goes unnoticed or unappreciated, and it makes all the difference the next time I must fight my demons.

These Scars Are Different

On my eighteenth birthday, almost a year ago now, I got my very first tattoo. My mother wasn't happy about it, but she didn't have to be; I was an adult by then, and I used my own money.

I had actually requested that it be a Christmas present the previous December--not the actual tattoo, I'd still pay for it, but the parental permission required to get a tattoo before I was an adult. Obviously, my parents said no, and, actually, the fact that they did kind of hurt.

What Friends Are For

If you’ve read my entire blog, you should know what happened last year.  I wrote about it in my YASaves post.  For those of you who don’t remember, just got here, and/or are too lazy to go and read that, let me explain.

…No, that will take too long.  Let me sum up:

Depression runs in my family.  It’s a genetic thing.  In addition to the unfortunately high risk for depression that I was born with, when I was ten, something traumatic happened (I’m not going to get into that just now; it deserves a post of its own.).  Not a year later, I was tossed into the maelstrom that is sixth grade with no prior experience dealing with my so-called peers, and that was hellish.  Things got better through junior high, and, when I started high school, I thought things were going to be okay.  They weren’t.  Through fuckwittery, bullshit, lying, and way too much estrogen for anyone’s good, I was deeply wounded and lost almost all my friends.  More than a year later, my mom finally managed to wrestle her head out of her ass and I was hospitalized for self-injury.

I’m proud to say that in I have been safe for one year, three months, and twenty-three days.  Life is still hard, and things still hurt, yet I’ve not once slipped on the long road to recovery.

Today, though, I almost did.

Tomorrow, it will have been one year since Elisabeth Sladen left us forever.  This morning, my Psych teacher played a very sad documentary called Boy, Interrupted, the true story of a boy with bipolar disorder who committed suicide at fifteen.  My mom has been cracking down hard on me.  I don’t know whether or not I’m going to get a job up at my college over the summer, and it’s starting to stress me out.

All these elements combined to make a really shitty day.

I got the frightening, sickening empty feeling that has a long history of leading to doing things I later regret.  It is an emptiness so fierce and intense that it aches.  It physically hurts, and it is one of the few pains that I cannot bear.

As I left my school’s library, where I spend my study halls, to go to my last class of the day, I was in the worst state I had been in for months.  I walked along the hallway, and met a very close friend of mine, as always happens.  Like usual, he gave me a hug—the kid has to be the most physically affectionate guy I’ve ever met.  I meet him on the opposite end of the school from my class, and I have to wade through freshmen to get to where I need to go, so I normally keep that particular hallway encounter relatively short.  Today, I let myself cling.  My friend realized something was wrong, so he set his books down and embraced me fully.

Just a moment of his affection, the reminder of his love for me, was enough to make the emptiness inside me go away.  Letting my friend hold me up, just for one moment, gave me the strength to get keep going.  I made it through the school day.  I worked on the set for my school’s play.  I walked home.  I’m still safe.

There are some times when I look at my friends, with all their idiocy and problems and the necessity for me to be the adult, even when I’m the youngest, and I wonder why I bother.  I wonder how much easier it would be if I didn’t have to deal with their hangovers and family troubles and school absences and dropping grades and the knowledge that I can fix at least some of these things and the worry about the ones I can’t fix.  Then I have days like today, when I’m feeling broken and lost, and all it takes is a hug from a friend to feel better.

Maybe they can’t help me as much as I can help them, but the help they can give is damn important.

And that’s what friends are for.