Feeling Sad

Today I am having a hard day.  I'm tired and I feel like I haven't really been paying enough attention to my emotions and how I feel.  They eventually take over when I let things go for too long.

I've been thinking a lot about who I am and what I value.  It led me back to a little over 4 years ago.  My job was awful, my anxiety levels were through the roof, I was hardly sleeping, I was so isolated from everyone, I really was in survival mode all the time.  How to get through the day without yelling or crying inappropriately?  How to survive until I could at least go home and be alone?

One day, I was on the way to work and was pretty much at the end of my rope.  I was standing at a street corner and saw a semi coming down the road.  I thought, "I could just step in front of that truck and then I wouldn't have to go to work today.  I wouldn't have to deal anymore."  My next thought was "Oh shit" and the next was " that would kill my mother."  So, I didn't do it.  I sucked it up and went to work anyhow.

When I look back on that moment now, it makes me so sad.  I was so messed up.  I valued myself so little that even at that moment I just kept going.  I had no concept that instead of going to work, I should have gone to the hospital (which wasn't too far away).  I didn't know how to ask for help.  In fact, the thought never even crossed my mind.  It makes sad to think that whoever I  really am was so far gone that all I knew was survival.

Back to today.  I've learned that it's ok to ask for help.  It's ok to say that I have bad days.  It's ok to show that I can't always cope.  It's ok to let other people be strong for me when I can't.  I'm grateful for these learnings.

But, who am I?  That's a different story altogether.  I often find myself thinking about how I am act and comparing it to "then".  It's different, which is good.  But, is it really me?  What is me anyhow?  The person that was so buried by so much stuff is pretty much unburied now, but still pretty flattened out.  I'm not really sure what shape I am.  Or how that looks.  Often I find it hard to live with this ambiguity about myself.  I try hard to remember that I probably had the depression for over 20 years.  A year and a half of healing is a good start, but it makes sense that it would take longer to sort some things out.  But, on days like today, I am impatient.