First off: Its interesting to see that I'm typing this from my new wireless keyboard and my ipad. So glad to not have to carry around my broken computer in order to write some stuff down. My computer being broken has made writing and blogging much less fun.
Current music: Zwan - Mary Star Of The Sea <3 p="">Current mood: Depressed.
I've been living the past month in a perpetual state of "I'm about to start bawling but keep pushing it down." Its not fun and its not pretty. Instead of going away its starting to numb me out more and more. I came to terms with this the other night when my boyfriend asked me what I wanted to do (because he wants me to pick something that will make me happy) and I couldn't give an answer. Now I will say that I am generally very easy going and don't mind doing much of anything, usually happy to do what HE wants to do, but thats not the issue here. The issue is that I couldn't come up with an answer because there isn't anything that will make me feel happy. I feel numb, so its hard to say, "I want to watch Dexter" or "I want to go for a walk" or whatever other thing I may normally enjoy doing because those things don't bring me joy right in this moment. Depression is painfully annoying that way.
I came to terms with my depression last year after talking to a friend about it. I've suffered from small bouts of depression my whole life, usually coming to surface due to being unhappy about a common thing (weight, work, etc). They all stem from a common tree though - the dislike I have of myself. When my depression rears its ugly head I usually hate myself for a little bit but am able to pull myself out of it. This feels a little different. Its more intense. Its more life sucking. I want it to go away, therefore I must face it and perhaps writing about this will help.
The annoying thing about depression is when people don't understand. Allie from Hyperbole and a Half said it best in her most recent blog (please look her up if you haven't, she is fucking hilarious). So as I was saying, its annoying when people don't understand. I'm not CHOOSING to feel sad. I'm not waking up every morning WANTING to feel like shit. Its just something that happens. I try to do things that will "cheer me up" but the thing with depression is you start to not care as much about those things, and eventually there aren't things that make you really happy. I'm fighting to not get to that point. I'm still in the numb state where most things don't appeal to me, but once I force myself to do them I do still derive some happiness from them. People cant cheer me up or make me better. The thing with feeling depressed is that I need to make it better on my own.
Here's the part that gets sticky - its hard to write honestly about this because I don't want people feeling like they don't bring me joy or don't improve the quality of my life. They CAN and they DO. More than they probably know, especially given the fact that I do fall down into a depressed pit every now and then. When your friend is depressed its easy to take their unhappiness personally. I've been there. I've had depressed friends (before coming to terms with my own depression) where I've felt like maybe they didn't like me, or didn't like spending time with me. But now that I've grown up a little and faced this ugly depression, I realize that maybe spending time with me was a thing that was keeping their feet on the ground. I often feel that about my friends. If it wasn't for them I know I'd feel a lot worse. Because of my depression I try to be better for friends that have felt what I feel, or may feel a similiar feeling from time to time.
I don't worry that I will be devoured by my depression the way my father has and the way my mother tried to. Suicide isn't a thing that interests me. I WANT to live, even if I am living with a person I hate most (myself). Life IS beautiful, even if its stressful and even if at times it just brings me way down. I still stop to smell the flowers from time to time. I catch frogs. I stand on my deck, eyes closed, and just breathe. I still cry, a lot (at least a few times a week) but I know even that will get better. Plus theres nothing wrong with crying. Its cleansing I suppose and hell, its better than bottling it all up. I still have a lot of really wonderful moments, days, weeks, months despite my depression. People still make me feel incredible and happy. I'm just trying to explain that there's always this little dark thing hovering there that sometimes makes me sad despite all of the wonderful I have.
I've had people ask me what it is that is making me depressed. To be honest, sometimes its nothing. Sometimes my life is going great and my mind decides to go in the shitter. There are moments where I feel I'm at war with my own head, like it wants to be miserable even in times of joy. Its fucked up like that. I also feel safe writing that because I know for damn sure there are others that have felt the same way. But anyhow, I suppose the three things making me most depressed right now are: 1. My hair, 2. My job, 3. My weight.
My hair is an ongoing mystery. I recently took out a bunch of old pictures so I could see when this problem started. At first I thought it all started when my ex and I were going to divorce (2011). However, I realize my hair had started to thin the few years before that. It went slowly though, not like the loss I experienced in 2011 and have continued to experience. At first it was a very very gradual thinning. In 2011 I started losing handfuls of hair from all over my head. That extreme loss slowed, but has never stopped. I still lose small handfuls in the shower. I still have a pillow case covered in my hair most mornings. I can run my hand through my hair and lose a dozen hairs (at the root, not from breakage). Lately one side seems to be losing more than the other (my right side is crazy thin compared to my left). I still don't know why this is happening. I need to go see my new doctor and talk about this (but of course don't have the extra $40 laying around). He's run bloodwork and its always normal. My last thought was maybe it was my birth control (after looking it up online I read many women experienced hair loss on my birth control, so maybe?)
I can still hear my dad say " a woman's hair is her crowning glory" and it makes me laugh. It always did. And as I lose more of my hair it makes me wonder what my crowning glory is going to be once I'm bald. Hair is such a huge piece of who a person is. Hairstyles can be a big part of a person. While this all sounds a little vain and a like I'm too concerned about whats on the surface of a person, just sit and think about it a little. When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Your hair is part of you even on a "bad hair day". Its part of who you are, part of your look as a person. Every day I look in the mirror and I feel like I'm mourning the loss of something. I try really hard to not focus on it, and instead focus on who I am as a person. I know I'm kind and caring, creative, friendly, etc. I know my good qualities as well as I know my bad. But I don't know how to love myself this way. I don't know how to look in the mirror and overlook the thinning hair and the ever showing scalp. Even going for a haircut these days ALWAYS prompts the hairdresser to comment on how thin my hair is. It's been the same for the past two years. "Wow your hair is SO THIN!" or "Are you doing chemo?" or "how is your thyroid?" They always want to tell me what I'm doing wrong in their eyes or what tests to have my doctor do. Its the same story. I know they are trying to help, but for once I'd like to just go get my haircut without them reminding me of something I cant ignore no matter how much I try. Really though, my hair has become so thin that no matter how I cut it it looks like shit. It cant "hold a style" because there isn't enough hair to make into anything. (As I write this I pause and touch my hair. It makes me tear up, not gonna lie. I wish I knew what the fuck was happening to me.)
There are days I just want to shave my head but I know that it wont help how I feel about myself. If anything I will feel worse than I already do. Say goodbye to the very last dregs of my self esteem.
2. Work. Its just too much to write about. However, on a side note I have began to research going back to school and what I'd like to do. Stay tuned for that at a later date. I'm looking into potentially teaching art therapy or something involving teaching/creativity.
3. Weight: Its the yo yo game. Because of my hair (and the incessant research I do about it) I decided not to do the lemonade cleanse. I worry it will make more of my hair fall out due to "Crash dieting". *sigh* So I'm back to square one, which is figuring out what to do about my weight. I need to cut out the crap and stop my emotional eating. Its not helping me anymore anyway. It just perpetuates the vicious cycle that I'm in.
While I feel like I haven't said all I wanted to say, I do feel a small sense of relief. I got some stuff off of my chest thats been sitting in there for a while. I can breathe a little better.
Xo
