Friday 31 January 2014

The darkness returned

This has been a very rough week for me.  The darkness seems to be back.  At the beginning of the week it was unbearable.  I felt again like I was in the dark foggy place and that nothing could break through the darkness.  It is so scary in that place.

Thankfully things are getting better.  I feel like the darkness has moved about 3 feet out and I can see some cracks of light again.  But, it's still a tough place to be.

What got me here this time?  It seems to be a stacking of a number of things.  Mainly not paying attention to my mental space and how I've been feeling.  This has been coming for awhile, but instead of stopping and paying attention to it, I just pushed through.  This is a pattern for me.  Push through until I can't anymore.

Is there a lesson here?  I think it is to find different ways to make sure I pay attention to what is going on with me.

Monday 27 January 2014

Hiding

Do you ever have those days where all you want to do is stay in bed, pull the covers over your head and pretend the world doesn't exist? Today was one of those days for me. I did a pretty good job of ignoring the world also. I called ij sick to work and didn't leave my house until fairly late this evening.

So, the real question is, why this kind of day? I could just say it's complicated and leave it at that. But that's no ttrue. I could also just day that there is no real reason and leave it at that. But that's not true either.  Those would be the easy answers. The kind of things I used to say to keep people away. I think I've been doing that again a bit lately.  So here goes.

I am tired of being around people.where I still feel like I have to put on the mask every day, where I still feel like I can't authentic, where I feel all the time like I have to watch what I say.  Work has felt particularly difficult of late.

So why do I feel like I need to be careful at work? In a lot of ways it is an automatic reaction for me. Just thinking about it is making me very agitated. I can see that there are a lot of things I was told at a previous work place that I haven't yet sorted out,a lot of things about how incompetent I was, how I couldn't do my job, how I needed to watch what I said and did.

What I haven't internalized is that there were a.l couple of things going on there that were working against me in a big way.  The first is that I was working in a very toxic environment for people who were bullies. The second is that I had undiagnosed depression and anxiety for the whole time I worked there. These two things fed each other leading to some bad situations, which were blamed solely on me. I internalized that it was all my fault all the time. I know this isn't true, but it is hard to let go of the reaction.

Based on my current reactionto work I haven't let a lot of that go. Something to work on.

In the mean time I will try to give the real answer, the one that lets peope in instead of pushing them away.

Bell Let's Talk

Tomorrow is Bell Let's Talk day for Mental Health.  Please check out this link and do what you can to keep the conversation going.  It is so important to people like me to have some sort of normalization in our lives. It is important to be able to talk about what we are going through without worrying about judgement.  The more we all can talk about it, the better off we will all be.

http://letstalk.bell.ca/en/

Tuesday 21 January 2014

Work

The last little while I am finding that I can't leave work at work. I find myself thinking about it all the time. It is an intense time at work right now, but there is still no reasom to be mentally bringing it home.

So why am I? That's a good question that I can't seem to find an answer to. Although as I think about it, I wonder if it is at least partly because I haven't really had a place to debrief from the intensity. I am I'm a different role this time around and it is a very solitary role. Most other times when this same kind of intense time has happened I have been in a role where there was a lot of collaboration. That gave us all a chance to debrief as we were living the same thing.

No one else is sharing the same experience that I am right now and there really aren't a lot of opportunities to talk about it. The experience is not bad, only really intense. It requires a lot of brain power and being "on" for very long stretches of time.

Interesting revelation. I've been saying for a long time now that I don't want to do this role again. I thought it was because it is just not interesting to me. That is certainly a major factor, but now I see that I don't like how solitary it is either. I like the team work and collaboration. I find the benefits of that process outweigh the frustrations for me. The solitary role has fewer frustrations in a lot of ways, but it is not my preferred way of working.

I hope that this new understanding will help me be better able to find ways to leave work at work.

Friday 17 January 2014

Inspiration

After reading a friend's blog this evening I am inspired to write, just for the sake of writing.  Truth is I am exhausted today - one of those stages at work where it takes over my mental and physical energy.  They happen and are short-lived so I shall survive.

Anyhow, my friend was writing about what makes him amazing and it got me to thinking.  One thing about me that is amazing is the courage I have shown myself in the last 3+ years.  You never plan on a depression diagnosis.  You never plan on what seems like copious amounts of therapy.  You never plan on coming to terms with your sexuality at age 37.  I couldn't have foreseen any those things happening, and yet they did.  Facing them and dealing with them was difficult to say the least.  I am so thankful to have found the courage to do so.  Externally my life is pretty much the same as it was 3 years ago, but internally I can't even describe how different it really is.

I hope that I have learned the lesson that things that take courage are worthwhile.  Taking a chance, taking a risk these are the things that are important.  The outcome actually is less important than the action of trying something different, tackling tough stuff head on.  I didn't know I had that kind of courage.

Saturday 4 January 2014

Making things normal


I've been thinking a lot lately about making things normal.  Things that haven't been normal for me, incorporating the lessons I have learned in a way that makes those things the way I do things, instead of feeling so foreign.

Some of this has happened organically with time. I heard on the radio the other day that high energy new, but good, decisions can become low energy habitual decisions over time. This makes sense to me. As I learn things and see different ways of handling life it is slowly getting easier.

Other things are a bit strange still. One of these things is not feeling anxious all the time. It's still completely weird to go about my day without everything throwing me for a loop, feeling so anxious that I can barely cope.

Another thing I am still getting used to is being lesbian. I went to a dance on New Years that was women only. I found myself spending a lot of time lookong around, almost to the poin tof staring. Not because I was riveted or anything, but because I was trying to make what I saw there normal for me. Watching women dance together, grind together and sometimes make me want to say get a room.  We often see straight people make out on tv or movies, lesbians not so much. Making this feel normal for me is going to take some time yet.

So often lately I find myself wondering why I am not upset about certain things, thinking my reactions are not like me. The thing is, I think they might just be exactly like me, just not like me with depression.

Wednesday 1 January 2014

3 Years

Today is my nephews 3rd birthday.  Almost three years ago I wrote the article linked below to describe what was going on for me the day he was born.  Now, three years later, I read that article and barely recognize myself, then or now, I'm not sure.  My life is so different now in so many ways.

Last night I went to a dance to celebrate the new year.  I had a great time.  Part way through the night I found myself thinking that "this is what is must be like to not be dealing with anxiety and depression".  I felt good.  I danced, I didn't worry about what others thought of me.  I let myself go and move to the music.  It was great, and such an unexpected delight for me.


A lot has changed for me since my nephew was born, and for that I am grateful.


Happy 2014.


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/parenting-facts-and-arguments/my-nephews-birth-gave-me-hope/article2040196/