Rabbit Hole (January 2017)

I absolutely fell down the rabbit hole after that last post.
A lot happened in the last 6 months. A lot.
While going through chiropractic care after the car accident we were also in the spontaneous process of buying a house!
Which is like one of the most stressful things ever. We had no plans of moving again, but an opportunity presented itself and we simply had to go for it.

Then some family legal stuff. Then holidays. Then I turned 30 which I barely made it through before falling to pieces.

But with so much change on top of anxiety.. I fell apart for a while.

I acted like a crazy person at least a handful of times.

At one point I was certain my marriage wouldnt be able to endure my depression. I can’t go there.

I’m finally seeing a doctor again after years being determined to live with my immune issues and pain. I get answers next week. I’d say maybe antidepressants too but, I’m fine now which leads me to think it’s probably the family bipolar gene. Zippity do dah.

We do not have any home internet(it hasn’t made its way our this far yet haha), so I have tons of time to write, not being distracted by streaming or any other fun stuff lol. But typing hurts my hands. I’m not sure it it is related to medical issues or if I’m out of practice from being unplugged for so long.
 But either way I don’t have a laptop, yet so I can’t connect and share anything anyway.

Maybe that’s part of why things got so bad, I had no platform and neglected the part where I write and self analyze to prevent further damage.
So I’m writing this from my cell phone now because I just have to find a way if it is important enough I suppose.
I could probably blast through all my data writing.

I want to write about my cow neighbors, no really they are cows. And our new rooster Carl. And what life is like without the internet or cable or dish. By the way, netflix still has dvd subscriptions! We have been watching Outlander and I love it!

But for now I’ll just leave this, and say that I fell down the rabbit hole, my anxiety consumed me, and depression tried to destroy everything, but I’ve pulled back out, I didn’t die.
I didn’t die. Sometimes that’s all you can really do, is to choose to live, to keep trying. If everything falls apart and you come out of the wreckage with a beating heart, you’re doing ok.
Not everyone will understand. They don’t have to.
But I didn’t give up in any sense.

The Badges We Wear

I wear this badge, tucked gently inside my pocket where no one can see it. When I reach my hand in, it is there to remind me, always. Sometimes it taunts me and sometimes it encourages me, but lately it is just there.
You see this badge is called depression and I’d been doing so well for so long. Until it started to creep back in this past winter. It is something I learn to live with while everyone else learns to walk around like a broken sidewalk.
There was a pretty significant trigger I suppose and I never pulled back up from its grasp. But it never let go either. So I remained the same, drained and sad, and waiting for the next go round, the next blow to my ever fragile self that was holding on for dear life.
I’m not winning right now.
But the fact is, I’m not sure I ever was.
I don’t think that depression is something that ever leaves you, I think it just hangs out waiting for a new reason to fill you up with sadness and leave you clinging to life as you thought it was. If you’re lucky enough to remember.
I know what it is to be happy and doing well. I know what it is to forget that there was ever a battle at all. I was doing so well for so long, that I stopped waiting for the edges of that miserable badge to catch on my fingernails and rip them back when I reached in my pocket. I forgot that it was there, waiting. I forgot until it was all consuming.
When I’m sad and hopeless it is hard to remember being happy. It is hard to accept happiness and it is nearly impossible to embrace life, it is easier not to. I forget about the things that truly matter and I’d rather just not think at all. Not about the past, or the present, or the future. Because I’m watching someone else’s story on the tv and it is good enough. I go through life doing the bare minimum of everything, everything.
I’ve never had to try so hard to remember the good parts before in my life. And when I’m happy it is easy to forget being so miserable. I forget to guard myself against my depression.
I know what it is to feel so sad and so helpless that I have suicidal thoughts. I know that it is not logical, I know that I have no reason to feel that way. But when the deep dark parts of my mind consume me, that is just the way that it is. I think that people fail to realize that suicide doesn’t feel like a choice to someone considering it. It looks like a legitimate option. It looks good. I think that when you lose all hope and all logical reasoning, it is the only option you have left. Because you don’t remember anything else. But when suicidal thoughts return, it is like they are reaffirmed in their origin somehow because they are familiar.
Life mantras go from logical thinking uplifting words to get through the tough spots, to grasping desperately for reasons your depression is wrong right now. Mantras start feeling like lies you use to manipulate yourself into living. All the while the deep dark thoughts are telling you how much better everyone else would be without you, when you lose the logic to know this isn’t true, you’ve lost the reason to live.
I imagine this is could be incredibly hard to read.
Imagine how it must feel to move that badge from my pocket to my chest where everyone can see.