This Is (Actually) Why I Can't Have Nice Things

Caveat: there is a 100% chance I am writing this from a place of depression.

I didn't go to practice again tonite. It's the off season, and I don't have to go, but I should. Healthy-me knows that I like roller derby, and that roller derby makes me feel good, even when it's hard, and so, I should go.

Healthy-me is not home right now.

Needs-otters-me is in that place where practice is far, so I should stay home. Practice is independent study, and I don't do well on my own, so I should stay home. It's mostly been A team skaters showing up, and I am not A team, so I should stay home. Roller derby is for people who are capable of doing good things, for people who want things more than I do, who are better than I am, and so, clearly, I should stay home, because trying is hard and failing is easy and why leave the house when I can be the architect of my own disappointment from right here in this spot?

Thank you to ThePhotoForum user Overread for taking a bunch of really incredible pictures of really sad looking otters.

And, hey, since I stayed home, thus satisfying my terrible proof of only good people go to practice, I did not go to practice, I am not a good person, how about I just spend the rest of the night self-flagellating? That seems like a good idea, right? Of course it does.

I have a tendency (it's not a tendency, tendency implies that it only happens sometimes, this is a course of thought that I have roughly 100% of always) to believe that I am not worthy of good things. "Good things" is a catch-all term, but it often includes things like a base level of happiness, proper nutrition, and access to healthcare/medication. Without even looking at what wider circles of that clearly flawed logic include, it causes me to exist in cycles where I deny myself access to things that I should not be denying myself - my anxiety meds, decent meals, anything one could deem a "luxury" - in an effort to satisfy the part of my lizard brain that is more concerned with being right than being healthy. (My lizard brain is a jackass.) (I almost said dick, but I am making a concerned effort to remove gendered insults from my lexicon. Note to self, keep working on that.)

Which brings me to the point of why I opened my computer - I don't want to keep satisfying my lizard brain. Because it is a jackass. I want to figure out how to keep myself in check, to hold myself outside of that base instinct that I do not deserve nice things (kind things, healthy things, things that make my life more tolerable), and to not fall in to its clutches. I want to take my anxiety meds, even if I don't feel like I need them, because they don't just stop my anxiety after it ramps up, they are useful in preventing those feels in the first place. I want to go to practice, even if it's hard and I suck and I'm still afraid that I won't make Brawlers again, because I like roller derby. And because two shitty hours on the track are still better than two shitty hours sitting at home feeling shitty about myself. Because I understand that while the act of denial is in itself a trigger for the pleasure center, it is a terrible one, and there have got to be better ways of indulging those synapses.

I made a Facebook post vaguely about this last week, in an effort to hold myself accountable and not do the thing I just did all over again (skip practice and feel shitty about it.) Will writing a blog post about it help? Probably not. But writing out why I do these things to myself at least sucks a little bit of how terrible I feel about myself out of my insides, and that's helpful. Sort of. Take your meds, Marissa.

Betsy's a Liar Liarpants.

Sometimes I wonder if I should give my anxiety a really stupid, cutesy, humanizing nickname, like "Betsy," or something. Just so you can see how easy it really is for it to show up in my daily interactions.

Like, why I'm home with Fringe on a Friday night, instead of a) at services, b) at my friend's aerial dance performance, c) at a laser show, or d) roller skating.

Last week, I went to a haunt with a friend. We grabbed burgers afterwards, and had a very normal friend-talk about his living situation, which was stressing him out.

Fast forward to, y'know, now:

Friend: Hey, I just wanted to thank you for last week. It was really helpful, and you're the best.
Me: You're welcome. I'm glad it helped. {I feel ok about myself for half a second and then}
Betsy: He's LYING. LIAR LIAR LYING. You shouldn't talk to him again. You don't have any business helping him, what the fuck do you know? You don't have roommates. All your roommates were drug addicts, and now you live by yourself. Just stay home and shut up. You're useless.
Me: ...Bwuh?

And then, y'know, you can't have a fight with Betsy, because then you really start to feel like you're crazy.

No silver lining to this one, folks. Sometimes, you just stay home with Betsy and Joshua Jackson, because you're afraid that if Betsy got out into the real world, things would be even worse.

World Suicide Prevention Day: How To Care for Your Stiricide

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day (Suicide Awareness Day, if you're the internet), and as all my social media feeds flood with helpful-but-frustratingly-generic tips for how you can help someone who is depressed, I can't help but think: who is this actually helping? And how is this helping them?

Because the thing is, unless you're up close and personal with someone, it can be pretty hard to tell the difference between "kinda sad" and "sitting in a bathtub wondering what else you can use that razor blade for." It can be hard to know when you need to reach out - and even harder to know what form that reaching should take.

For me, if I'm functioning through my depression, no one else will notice it. Because for as much as I hurt, I don't want to be a burden on anyone else in my life.

The LAST thing I ever want when I'm at the bottom of my own personal pit, is for anyone to tell me "It'll be ok." "You're strong, you'll get through this." Or my favourite, eternally, from my mother, "Did you take your meds today?" I have been through this before. I don't need you to offer me platitudes or patronize me. I don't need suggestions based in cool rationality, or reassurances that are foreign to the point of impossible. (I live with depression. It will never be "ok." It will, sometimes, be somewhere between slightly and significantly less shitty. But it will never be "ok.")

When I'm sinking to the bottom, the last thing I want is platitudes, or unattainable hope, or obvious yet impossible advice. All I want is a single thing to momentarily distract me from the bottomless abyss that I'm still trying to find the end of. Not a life changing epiphany or a new raison d'être. Not a phone number to call that will require an enormous amount of emotional energy that I do not currently possess. All I want is a fucking lifeline*. A tiny thing that I can momentarily glom on to - that will, with any luck, lead to another tiny thing, and then another tiny thing. (Eventually, all these very tiny things will gradually lead me out of the waters.) 

Do you want to actually help your maybe possibly too depressed to function friend? Take a deep, scary look at who your friend is and how they function on the regular. Prepare yourself for possible and likely inevitable rejection. Don't get offended when that happens. Try not to offer them help in a form that they wouldn't appreciate when they're at "normal" - they'll appreciate it even less when they're in the hole.

But if you want specifics, I'm not sure if I can give them to you. Every person is different, and everyone has their own lifelines. If that friend is me, though, here's a short list of what you can do:

- Send me pictures of otters.

Ohhai there.

In fact, you should do this whether or not you think I'm in the hole. Spontaneous otters are code for "I'm thinking about you. I like you. I hope you're well."

But seriously, "Otter Day" is my public access code for "things are no good, ship has been abandoned." It is both a cue to send me a lifeline (pictures of otters are just one), as well as a heads up that things are, well, not ok. Saying "I am not ok, I need help" - literally, in those words (which seem to be the only words that people think have any validity when talking about these things) - never stops being terrifying and next to impossible. So I have code words.

Otter Day.

That's what that means.

- Invite me out to take a walk.

Somewhere safe, nearby, and normal. Somewhere inside my comfort zone.

Not a hike, not to go dancing, not to have coffee. I can't handle extended human interaction, I'm ashamed to show my face in public. I can't handle a challenge. But I can put on some pants and walk around the block with someone I trust. Though the pants part may take some cajoling.

- Show up, uninvited, bearing food that I will eat.

I may be able to shove a Wheat Thin in my mouth,
but I will not be able to make myself an actual meal.

When I'm in my hole, I lose my appetite. I'm too tired too cook, then I'm too sad to cook, then I'm too disappointed in myself to even try. If you haven't seen me in a few days and suspect that I may be sinking, feed me. Probably protein.

But what if you have a friend that isn't me? The only thing I can tell you is, be their friend. Don't assume that the things that work for you to get out a minor funk (or for me to get out of a major one) will necessarily work for them.

Don't treat them like they're an idiot, or like you know how to fix this better than they do. (I can't tell you how many times I've had people suggest that I exercise/take a bath/watch a fun movie/get laid. Just because something is the right answer for you doesn't make it a universal truth. Also, if it's that obvious, your depressed friend has probably already thought of it. 'Cause they're smart, right? Isn't that why you're friends?) Think about who they are, and how they are, and do what you can do to be good to them, in a way that they would appreciate.

Keep trying. Be the best lifeline you can be.

*Of course, if this is the first time, or if it just feels like the first time, they've been down this road, be supportive. Let them know that there are options for them. And help them find out what those options are. Odds are, they don't know what their health plan will cover, or who to call to find out, or even how to set up an appointment with a therapist. If depression comes with a side of anxiety and phone-phobia the way it does for me, they may not even be able to make those calls. If you want to come to the table with advice or options, makes sure you know as much as possible, and have taken as much of the legwork out of things as you can. YMMV, of course, but information and preparedness is always my favourite.

5 Good Things (That Mask the Smell of Rotting Fish): Keeping Perspective While Drowning in Depression

Being depressed sucks. It's no fun to write about, and it's even less fun to live.

I've spent the last week viewing the world from, as my dad calls it, "under the waves." Everything is kind've grey and murky down here, and smells a little bit like rotted fish.

The tint and the smell (and the general feeling that everything I have, ever, or will do is a colossal disappointment, both to myself and the world) makes it hard to see the bright spots.

But there are bright spots.

So, taking a page from Gala Darling and her treatise on Radical Self Love, I'm going to try to keep perspective, and to make a list of 5 good things that happen to me on these days.

Here's yesterday's list:
1. Got stuck at a train crossing.
2. Talked to an old friend from the record company.
3. Dangled my feet in a pool.
4. Went out for frozen yogurt with friends.
5. Helped welcome a friend's new nephew to the world with inappropriate Justin Bieber pictures.
BONUS GOOD THING:
Had a formal reading of The Hunger Games Cookbook in the aisle of the supermarket. Featured such instructions as "Take 1 tree rat. Divide into pieces."

I'm not sure if these things make up for the rest of my miserable, rotting-fishy day, but it's probably good for me to try and keep perspective. Not all my days are spent under the waves. Eventually, I'll break the surf. I always do.

Thanks, Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Coming Clean or, We Call This Burying the Lede.

I've been rolling this around in my mouth for days, now, and I still don't know how to say it.

I've typed more than a handful of versions out, and none of them seem right. The thing is, I'm leaping in to NaBloWriMo, and I honestly don't know how I'm going to manage a month's worth of entries without coming clean about this to the blog.

And I tried do a "short" version of it, but it just turned into a long version anyway, so if you're interested, read on. And if you're not... I dunno. Skim. Maybe there'll be important bullet points along the way.

When I started this blog, I had every intention of chronicling my story of quitting grad school and moving on with my universe, through the lens of depression (which every therapist I've ever been to has agreed has some sort of hold on me), general anxiety (only the more recent therapists have agreed that this might be a thing), and social anxiety (subset of general, painfully obvious to everyone around me.)

It has been, and is, harder than I thought it would be, mostly because it's difficult for me to write about how hard things are, or to wrap things up in a tidy bow at the end of posts. The thing is, depression sucks. Anxiety sucks. They're not "oh I had a bad day so I took a bubble bath and now I'm better" posts, they're "I'm too incapacitated by sadness to take the 10 steps from my bed to my bathroom to fill up the bathtub" posts. They don't end on high notes, or with solutions. And I've been scared to post, publicly, about how I'm "really" doing.

The other part was that aside from a few moments of abject depressive hysteria, very few of the things I was writing felt true. And since I couldn't figure out why, I just... didn't write.

Switching gears: A few years ago, a friend of mind who did happen to see those depressed-hysterical thought-spews recommended a book to me. I glanced at the author's website, but never really followed up on it. It had a hokey title, and sounded like a self-help book. Neither of these things have any sort of appeal to me.

But funny enough, something about it must have grabbed me, because every few months, I'd go back to the website, and wonder if there might be something to all of it.

Last month, I was low. Lower than I've been in a really long time. Hysterical, phone-a-friend, serious thoughts of self-harm low. (It's hard to say any of this out loud, in public. My gut instinct is to cover it all up with platitudes and denial - "I'm ok now." "I'm fine." "Don't worry about me"'s. I don't want anyone to swoop in and try to save me, but at the same time, I desperately want to stop hiding the sheer fact that yes, sometimes there are these things, and they're bad things, and they're terrible, and they're hard, but they're TRUE. I'm not comfortable hiding my depression anymore.) After a late night at a friend's place, freaking out her boyfriend with my crying, I did one of the hardest things I've ever done as an adult: I walked into a bookstore, and headed for the self-help section.

The best part of this was discovering that the book I was looking for was not, in fact, shelved in the self-help section. It was in Psychology, which, ironically enough, made/makes me feel less crazy about the whole thing.

I picked up a copy of the book that my friend had recommended to me years ago, and started reading the introduction. And there, at 7pm, in this independent bookstore in the heart of downtown, I started crying. It would've been sobbing, probably, if I hadn't learned how to cry silently years and years ago.

3 pages in, and already the author had identified behaviors and patterns that I could barely explain to myself, let alone verbalize to other people. Things that I had been thinking about and living with and knowing for as long as I can remember being able to, y'know, think.

These things in my head, about my head... they weren't just symptoms of the depression, of the anxiety. They're a whole separate thing. And it's not bad, it's not scary, it's not yet another disorder to lump on top of the others, it is, at its heart, just a different way of interpreting sensory data, and a difference in how data is processed and acted upon. Not bad. Not scary. Just different.

I identify as what Elaine Aron calls a Highly Sensitive Person. If you're interested, you can poke around on her website. The link she includes to the basic assessment test is super telling, and likely does a better job of explaining what being an HSP is and feels like than what I could do in my own words. (For the record: Aron suggests that if you score a 14 or higher on the self test, you are probably Highly Sensitive. I scored 23.)

Reading her books have been a strange journey of self discovery for me. I'm not learning anything new, per se, but it's wonderful and scary and freeing to not only have a name for what goes on in my head, but to know that there are other people out there. And to know that I'm not broken.

So there. That's that. I'm an HSP. I'm not sure how that information is going to manifest itself in this blog, but I felt that it was important information to share. Maybe it'll give you a better perspective on how I live my life, make the decisions I make, think the things I think. Maybe saying it out loud, in the blog, will let me be more open and honest with my process - both how I'm progressing, and how I'm getting there. Right now, I'm really not sure.

But being open about feels real, feels true. Feels like a Thing I Need To Do in order to keep moving forward with things.

So.

Now you know.