They’re coming back. I can feel it. I know they’re gonna try to take over again. I want to fight them off. But I don’t know that I have what it takes to do that. I’m already in such a low place, and they’ll just drag me even further into the depths of my own personal hell
“There are some days that I just want to give up and cease to exist. I really want to give up. The monsters inside me are clawing at me and begging to get out. They are crawling for my thoughts. I am doing my best to push them away but I think they may have more strength than I do. It almost seems as if they are unaffected by all my attempts to keep them at bay. Nothing I do anymore seems to be enough. I am nearly on the verge of giving up. I cannot take much more of this. It is too much.”
I don’t want to listen to the horrible things they’re telling me. The lies they’re trying to make me believe. But they’re just so overpowering…
· Fat
· Ugly
· Not worth being loved
· Waste of space
· Never accomplish anything
· Never do anything right
· Do nothing but disappoint everyone
· Never be anything but selfish
· Easily forgettable
“Everything I start to get excited about, they immediately being tearing apart at the seams. Analyzing every possible way it could go wrong. All the little details that I did not notice before. What people will say about how I dress or act or what I say. It is all going to fall apart because I do not know how to manage the stresses of reality with the monsters inside of me.”
There’s part of me that can see the brighter side of everything. It’s refreshing to see that part of me that knows this isn’t permanent – it’s gonna get better. It’ll go away.
“They make me cry when they say that no one loves me. They make me want to die when they tell me that everyone would be better off without me. They tell me that I am weak. That I have no self-respect or self-worth. But they do not feel any remorse for the way that they bully me.”
However, on the opposite side, I have my boyfriend who does anything and everything he can to help me. If I’m crying, he’ll pull me into his arms and just hold me there. If I need to get out of my house, he’ll take me somewhere – be it just back to his house or out someplace to do something. He’s amazing supportive of me no matter what. One thing he does – that he started about a month ago – is send me a daily ‘good morning’ text. It makes such a difference. No, they don’t make it so that I have perfect days where the depression demons/monsters don’t bother me. But it does make getting out of bed and starting the day easier.
I also had a friend once tell me this when I was feeling pretty bad about myself: “You’re amazing. You’re strong. You’re fearless. You’re determined. You’re a daughter, sister, mom, friend, girlfriend, and best friend! You have so much going for you”. It really hit home how many people believe in me. I still struggle, but I know now that I’ve got believers/supporters all the way.
When the depression does pull me down, I feel like I’m a completely different person. Totally unrecognizable. I feel numb and disconnected. I get irritated really easy. I snap at people. I’m up half the night with insomnia. I can’t hold a conversation, unless I really try. Taking a shower becomes a ridiculously difficult task.
So much of what I’m able to do, even in the worst of my depression, is because I have someone on the other end of my phone who loves me and believes in be and supports me and wants to see me pull through this and come out stronger. If I didn’t have them, I wouldn’t be as high-functioning as I am.
Each day my feet hit the floor, that’s another battle won. And every successful battle deserves a reward, no matter how small. I think some of my upcoming rewards are gonna be trips to the coffee shop – it seems to be my favorite way to do it. Because it’s something I want, but it also means putting effort into my appearance. I guess it’s a challenging reward.
My next challenge becomes pushing through long days on the local college campus. Those may be tough, but there’s a Starbucks on campus and long gaps between classes. Plenty of time to plow through homework and work on blogging.
If I can make it through everything I’ve been thrown, and still keep pushing on, everyone else out there with a mental illness diagnosis can do the same thing. I know it’s not easy, not by any means, but it is certainly possible.
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