As has been previously established, I am the worst blogger ever. Especially in these last couple weeks when my life has quite literally exploded, I would think the blog would have been a good release and way to get my thoughts out. I have continued journaling, though, and I highly recommend it to people out there who are struggling with Depression and/or Anxiety. When I was younger, I tried to journal all the time, but constantly failed, however, just as recently as this summer, I got really into it because I realized that there is no “right” way to journal. It’s for you and only you. Over this summer from hell, I have found that journaling has been one of the only ways to stay sane.
But onwards and upwards. This aforementioned worst summer of my life is coming off one of the most difficult and challenging years of my life, as well. Things have been happening all too quickly for me to process and even though some are good, I do find myself unhappy and struggling a little – it almost feels as if I’m sinking and my head is just barely above water. I’ve had all of the breaks this summer except the good kind of break…
Breakdown: Everyone kind of knew that the events of this summer plus my consistent struggles with depression was eventually going to lead to a major breakdown – we just didn’t know when it would happen or what would trigger it. Well, my birthday apparently triggered it and what was supposed to be a great day turned into a disaster pretty quickly. I’m not going to lie, having that breakdown felt kind of good – like it needed to all come out. I was able to just scream and cry until all of it that had built up over the summer was coming out. I also kind of mourned for myself – a lot of people without depression don’t realize that depression is something people have to deal with and handle for the rest of their lives. I’m not in a place where I can accept that this will be a lifelong struggle so I was mourning the chance at a normal happy life without the extra work that it’s going to take me. The breakdown prompted the breakthrough because as I’ve mentioned in the past, my parents are good people, they just weren’t the right parents for me. I did not trust my father to know about this journey because he has trouble accepting and trying to understand things that he does not personally have experience with. Anyway, after the breakdown on my birthday, my mother told my father everything. That was the last straw for me and I snapped in the most dramatic and permanent way I could think of…
Breakthrough: When it became apparent that I wasn’t able to trust my mother and the feeling of her choosing my father over me AGAIN was too strong, I made the immediate decision to cut them off. In my anger and furiousness, I made a snap decision that no one (almost including me) thought I would actually commit to. My parents have been having some relationship problems lately that have affected me more than they know – namely that they blame me for them. However, my mother has been so desperate to save her relationship with my father that she has kind of pushed all her other familial relationships to the side. It’s unbelievably hurtful to have the one person in your house that you (are forced to) trust constantly choose someone who’s treating her like crap. However, according to them, I’m abusive, so I have no idea what’s black and what’s white anymore. The breakthrough was that I needed my own place and I needed it ASAP. My parents went to Europe for a week at the end of August and I promised my mother (more like threatened) that I wouldn’t be there when she got back. I know I’ve discussed my commitment issues that are associated with my depression before, so committing to an apartment and moving and the whole operation that goes into that all in a week was pretty huge for me. I did it so fast that I didn’t have time to overthink it or second guess it and now that I’ve committed, I’m starting to see that maybe it’s not so scary. I’m not jumping into a marriage or anything, but this was a really good thing in that it helped me make some slow progress on my commitment issues.
Breakups: This “break” is a little tougher since I kind of broke-up with my parents. For someone who likes to take things one at a time and process before I can do something else, this all happened super fast. I broke-up with them so quickly that it was a shock to everyone’s system and I’m just now processing the consequences/benefits/feelings that are coming from such a monumental break. Committing to that has been ore difficult than committing to the apartment and I’ve been trying very hard to keep my depression in check with all of these feelings that are coming through. Further, I’ve fallen off the face of the planet this summer and really cut a lot of people out. It was a dark dark summer where depression really hit me and I wasn’t able to move – it was worse this summer than it had ever been in my life. I finally let my anger towards a lot of the people in my life out instead of suppressing it, which I had done for years thinking it was normal. In doing all of that, I ended up cutting some friends out of my life and breaking up with them, as well. Some breakups aren’t permanent, but it was important for me to recognize these feelings and deal with them instead of pushing them back down. One last kind of breakup is with the boy I fell for this summer. We finally slept together (and we all know that boys and relationships and sex are all topics that my depression affects the most) and then he kind of peaced out, which really broke my heart. I consider this a breakup of sorts, but it’s not 100% bad (maybe 99.9%) because it led to my breakthrough…
Breakthrough: With the move, I wasn’t able to really process those feelings but now that I have, I’ve found that I want him in my life and I don’t want to lose him so now I’m back on the train of trying to just have him in my life. These feelings are really scary and processing them has been very tough. On one hand, I’m angry that I fell this hard for him (without really realizing it) and on the other hand, he’s been one of the bright spots of this summer and I don’t want to lose one of the only things that has brought a semblance of happiness to my life this summer. I was reading an old journal entry and found the new motto I was living by for all of fifteen seconds before my life imploded, “Fuck everyone and fuck everything.” I realize that I had strayed away from the true message of the motto, which is putting myself first and going after what I want – even if the result can be destructive. Isn’t it better to try and fail than to not try at all and regret the what ifs in life? This has led to the breakthrough of putting myself first for once and going after what I want with all the velocity I had been hiding from what I want and scared of getting what I want because I didn’t know how my mood was going to be or I didn’t know the outcome beforehand. This is why I’ve been back on the boy train, because I want it and I want to go after something I want – especially something that I feel like I might be able to get…
All in all, depression really took over my summer, however, I can sense that I’m really trying and succeeding at getting better because even with all the shitty and horrible things that have happened to me this summer, I’m choosing to look at the few positives it brought (like my breakthrough and my new apartment) and hope that in the near future, I’ll be able to feel better and go after what I want with less overthinking and more zeal and less fear and more confidence. Why am I so afraid of looking like a fool and having all this shame? That’s not going to get me anywhere and on this push of growth, I want to get every last inch out of it.
Depression Diaries 