** Update: Since I wrote this journal entry I have stopped going to work completely as I found it too hard to focus on myself and getting better while also trying to force myself to work a 9-5 job where other people depended on me. How could I be there for others when I couldn't even depend on myself? I decided I needed some time to just figure out me. I also feel like my medication is starting to work a little better. It's taken a long time to truly start altering my brain chemistry, but I can say that within the past month or so I have noticed a bit of a difference. Remember, I started my medication in March and it wasn't until July that I really felt a significant change. That's five months! So medication isn't a quick fix option, this process takes time. I'm still by no means feeling fixed or better, but it is very encouraging to recognize some progress, no matter how small.
RAW Emotion
"I really don't feel very much like myself anymore. I look like me, but that's really the only thing about myself that I recognize. Some days are better than others. Some days I know that the real me is hiding just beneath the surface, other days I feel like I'll never see her again. It's hard to look at myself in the mirror every day and to not really know who the person is staring back at me. It's upsetting. I act different than I used to, my mind thinks in a way that feels so foreign to me, everything I used to identify myself with, my education, my career choice, are gone; vanished, replaced by what, I do not know. Everything I used to enjoy feels distant; out of reach.
It's hard to tell whether I'm getting better. I suppose I am. I don't cry or break down as much as I used to, I can spend a night alone without panicking, I've been able to force myself out of bed in the morning and go to work more often than not - those are all good signs. But I'm not really sure that the medication is working. It certainly didn't last time Although I'm on a different type of medication this time, it seems to be the same story. I feel like it worked a bit at the beginning, my brain got a nice spike of serotonin and then it stabilized me a little, just enough that I was no longer going crazy, and then it plateaued, leaving me here, in limbo, stuck.
Stuck. Not getting worse but also not getting any better, just staying the same. This 'sameness' is starting to agitate me, it's hard to push myself each day when I don't notice any improvements. I will never give up on myself, if there's one thing I am, it's determined. But the longer I stay in this one place, without seeing a meaningful change, the harder it is to conjure up the motivation I need to push myself forward. Why keep working so hard and get nothing in return? But I will, because I know otherwise I'll be swallowed up in a vicious circle - every time I miss work, every time I don't do something I had my heart set on, it'll make me feel worse and just continue to bring me down.
Going to work seems to be the thing that stresses me out the most. I don't know why. I honestly enjoy my job, it's the type of work I've always dreamed of doing - working in an office, researching, writing reports - the old me would think I hit the jackpot, that I was given the opportunity of a life-time, and yet the new me isn't quite content. Again, I feel stuck in limbo, confused between the life I always wanted, which is the life I have now, and the life I now keep dreaming of. I'm not sure which path to take, which life I want more, I'm at a crossroads and I think that's really contributing to my depression. I always wanted the office lifestyle - the 9-5, the suits and briefcases, the desk, the business meetings, that was so appealing to me. Now, after living in England and travelling around Europe (especially Portugal) I'm confused. I want a more laid back lifestyle, more relaxing, I want to be in control.
Matt asked me why Portugal was so special and as I told him, it's just because the people there live such a carefree way of life. It was a turning point for me, it was there that I realized that I needed to take life less seriously. It was there that I realized that there is so much more to life than all these daily hassles and work and stress. Life is an adventure, it is my adventure, mine to create, mine to live the way I want. Just because I have grown up in an uptight, serious society does not mean I have to continue to live my life that way. North American society has created these rules, these boundaries that we are to live within, these expectations that we are to live by. Everything is focused around who gets the best grades, who has the best career, who makes the most money. That's how I used to identify myself as well. But life doesn't have to be that serious, it can be so much simpler. I don't want to live within these confines that someone else created for me, that someone else decided was the way that we should all live. I want to be in control of my own life, to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, without having to answer to anybody. Other societies have adopted this more relaxed version of life and the people just seem so less stressed, so much happier. I want to live a life that makes me happy.
This life I'm living now seems lonely, hallow. I feel like I'm living the same thing from day to day. In fact, I don't really feel like I'm 'living' at all. It is all so mundane, I'm just doing what I need to get by. I feel alone. I have no one to share this life with. I have my family, I have Matt, but they can't be my everything. I love my independence until I realize how constricting it is, how much I'm missing out on since that's really all I have. It's hard though, for me to carry on friendships. The friends I did have treated me so badly in the past. I was bullied, I was walked all over, I was used. How can I trust that that won't happen again? I lost touch with so many people because I focused 100% of my time on school work, I had no personal life. Or I felt too depressed to do anything so I never saw my friends and they eventually just faded away. Then there's the few friends I thought I could trust with my secret, that I have depression, only to find out that some of them didn't want to be friends with someone who was 'broken'. I had to watch them walk away, ignorant to what I was really going through. I had to watch, helpless, as this illness defined the limits of my life..."
You have the strength of ten angels :) you will find your way hun I promise.
ReplyDelete