Doing fine

Let it be known: I have actually started a post most weeks this month. I just haven't finished any of them. I think I've just had too much swimming around in my head to make any kind of concise sense out of any of it.

--OMHU--
I'm feeling a lot better. I actually had my first experience of being tired without feeling depressed/emotionally drained in almost four months this week. So that was nice. My therapist helped me deal with some hard feelings and start this empath's endless process of knowing which things I'm feeling and which things I'm taking on from other people. Also it's my spring break so I've had 4 glorious days of only doing things I want to do. With the exception of one meeting that was not fun, but ultimately sort of successful?

As you all may have noticed, I've been posting a lot more trans/queer positive stuff than average the last few weeks.

That's because I got to have my first  real 'Come to Jesus' with a latently homophobic person this week. It was...challenging...enlightening...and it sucked.

This is also why I haven't been posting on this blog the last several weeks. As much as it doesn't seem that way to people I talk to who I know are safe, I'm still pretty gunshy about talking about sexuality in spaces that aren't defined as open or inclusive. Because even in Seattle in 2018, you never know what you're going to get.

Not that I'm a stranger to conversations that aren't inclusive. The ongoing conversations the UMC is still having around inclusion are disasterous at best and actively harmful at worst. My own parents, bless them, haven't quite figured out how to deal. Which means when I nonchalantly mention above homophobia while calling my sister for her birthday, I get a lukewarm 'oh' instead of support.

There lies the other reason I haven't been posting much. I feel like I can't talk about specific situations inwhich I experience homophopia, because I don't want the people who have perpetrated it to feel attacked, or to be attacked by my more open friends and family, but I also hate just sitting with knowing that it happens leaving it to curdle and fester until I explode about it in a manner that proves the homophobes right in their minds.

What's a girl to do? What's a person to do?

When you are trapped within systems that are being directed by people who still say things like 'well when I was growing up...' and 'I find the term queer offensive' and 'It's exhausting to have to think about what to call people all the time' and 'why do we even need to talk about it?' where do you go to find solace? Where is there rest when retreat means letting hateful rhetoric slide, and even if you do have people you can count on, you know you're just going to have to step back out into it sooner or later?

And for those of you that are already gearing up for your counter arguments: I know the world is better than it was. I know that things have changed, and that we can be so much more open about who we are than we used to be, but we are far from done. There are whole heaps of people who don't even understand that they are being homophobic, because they don't see using a slur and whispering the word gay because it makes you uncomfortable as the same thing.

And maybe they aren't, but to a queer person, this one at least, refusal to acknowledge the LGBTQ+ community is just as homophobic as outwardly being disgusted by someone who is queer.

I don't care if it makes you uncomfortable. I don't care if you just 'don't get it'. I don't care if it threatens your masculinity, or your view of family, or marriage, or relationships, or gender norms, or gender as a system, or your love for you child.

Because that's your shit to work through.

You don't get to put that on queer people because you refuse to acknowledge how vastly complicated this world is. You don't get to force someone into your box of understanding because it makes things easier for you. And you sure as hell don't get to yell at us, call us names, erase our existance, threaten us, look down on us, or belittle us because you're confused.

If you are a queer person, stand tall my lovelies. Whatever that means for you, wherever you're at right now. You deserve to be proud of yourself. Because you are fearfully and perfectly made. Whatever you are going through, whatever society, or your family, or your coworkers, or whoever is putting on you, you are stronger. Because you are amazing, and important, and well-loved. Don't take on other people's crap. You alhave enough on your plate.

If you are an ally, help us out. You don't have to fight every battle, but we shouldn't have to either. Be there for your people when they need you. Stand up for them when they're tired, because I promise you, they are tired. And learn. At every opportunity. From every source you can. Your queer friends should not be your only resource for ways to stand up and fight.

Non-allies, if you read this far, you are resilient, because I probably called a lot of things you do everyday homophobic, and you probably don't understand why. To you, I give only this message: I get that you are scared. I get that not understanding the way the world is changing is a scary thing. But I also know that at this point you have two choices. You can hang onto hateful rhetoric with both hands until it's either ripped from them or torn apart, or you can choose to loosen your grip, to take what is an undeniably terrifying step, and try to listen earnestly to what the people you are hurting are saying to you. I get that you think that that death grip you have is keeping you from falling off a cliff, but it's actually keeping you from experiencing a world that has space for everyone, even you, if you're willing to be open to share it with the rest of us.

Sugar, We're Going Down Swinging

Yes, you get Fallout Boy lyrics. Shut up and appreciate them.

--OMHU--
Yeah...I'm not great. I was. I felt amazing. For almost two weeks I felt amazing. I was doing stuff again. Work didn't feel like it was trying to suck my brain out through my nose. I was actively participating in my life. The things my therapist had suggested were legitimately helping. Everything was fine. Everything was good.

And then this weekend happened.

I know I shouldn't make a big thing out of a couple of days of not feeling awesome. I know there could be any number of reasons I was utterly exhausted yesterday. The creeping feeling in my chest is probably just the start of a cold. And the anxiety that has gripped my stomach since yesterday is likely only creeping in because I'm psyching myself out about feeling not as great the last few days.

I know that there was bound to be some level of evening out after I started taking vitamin D and fish oil cause bodies are living things that balance themselves. I know that being sad and being depressed are not the same thing. And that being scared about going back to how I felt a month ago doesn't keep me from going back to it.  In all likelihood it will just make it worse.

I also know that I'm spiraling. Again. And the intrusive thoughts are getting worse. Again. And I'm starting to duck out of commitments, and forget to do things, and feeling like crap at my job. Again.

This is not how this was supposed to work. It was supposed to just get better. I'm supposed to just get better. Writing one hard song, or having one generally positive interaction with my parents, or forgetting one appointment should not send me into places too dark to find my way out of. I'm in counseling to deal with all of this. And it wasn't gonna fix it immediately. But it was supposed to start fixing it.

It's a process. It's a process I'm at the very beginning of. But I've been doing this for so long. And I just wanted the Vitamin D to work. Because the Vitamin D not working means I have to stay like this, or figure out meds. And I so don't want to.

And it's not the meds themselves. It's figuring them out. It's the weeks of trying to decide if how I feel is meds or me. Of trying new ones when the old ones don't work. It's actually getting a doctor, because I don't have one, and trusting that they know what they're doing enough to even prescribe the right thing in the first place. It's having to talk about feelings and my life on repeat. It's knowing that there are going to be days at my job that make it really hard to tell if things are working or not. It's having to do my job while simultaneously trying to keep my brain from self destructing.

And even more than that it's acknowledging that I have very little control over any of this. The meds will work or they won't. I'll start to feel better or I won't. I have no say in how my brain reacts. I have no say in whether or not I need these things. I can't just fix it. I can't just stop being anxious about it. I feel stuck and trapped and I hate it. I hate this.

I hate that it's slow. I hate that it's no linear. I hate that there's no easy answer. I hate not being in control of myself, or my reactions. I hate not knowing if I'm just sad or starting to freak out again. I hate that I can't tell when it's going to happen or what's going to set it off. I hate that I post things like this way  more often than the things I'd like to be posting. I hate feeling like a burden. I hate that I can't fix it.

I hate having depression. I hate having anxiety. I hate panic attacks. I hate not knowing why I feel like shit. I hate that bottling my feelings feels so much safer than sharing them. I hate that I can't trust people, even when they've never given me a reason not to.

I hate that this post is so negative. I hate feeling like I have to make other people feel better when I'm struggling. I hate that hating that feeling feels selfish.

You know what I don't hate? That you all are out there. That today one of my self-appointed church moms gave me a hug and told me everything was going to be okay and that she had me. Cause I'm not really sure I have myself right now. That I can open up about this stuff and know that there are people who will hold me up when I'm not super sure I can anymore.

On the up and up again

So it's been more than a week since my last post, which sucks, because weekly was the goal, but in the meantime a lot has happened so:
--OMHU--
I finally saw my therapist. She is great. And she asked me really thoughtful questions that led me to think about parts of my life in new ways. And she gave me good, doable homework, includng trying natural solutions before looking into meds, which cause me a huge amount of anxiety. So now I'm taking vitamin D3 and fish oil everyday, and I don't know if it's a placibo thing or what, but I legitimately feel better. And I'm taking steps to deal with some of my other stuff, so positives all around.

Which leaves me feeling awesome, and super weird at the same time. I'm back in to many of my old routines, which feels a lot better than lying around feeling like a waste of space, but my routine has a tendency to be incredibly unproductive. And I'm currently trying to write a musical, and being nagged at by a novel that's three years behind where I wanted it to be.

I know that immediately trying to do all the things is also not very productive, because one cannot do all the things, even when highly motivated, without help. I also know that schedules would probably makey life a lot easier. I also also know that schedules and I are not generally on the best of terms.

Deadlines, the bane of my existence, are hard to stick to. And yet I want to eventually publish a book, hopefully several, and I want whatever is in the cards for this assortment of music I've written to happen. And it won't unless I make space in my life for it.

So maybe that's my very belated resolution this year. (For the record, resolutions are stupid unless actually given concrete goals and deadlines that are actually manageable.) I am going to have a reading of my musical. This year. Before I leave for camp this summer. Which might be lofty, and will put me incredibly far out of my comfort zone, but I want this to be a thing. A real thing. That other people get to hear.

Because mental health matters. And it's still something that is either brushed under the rug or dismissed as less important. And we should have good stories that make it okay to talk about. And I'm writing one of those.

Wow that feels weird to say.

Human Again...Sort Of.

--OMHU--

I have rescheduled therapy! And after a really sharp spike in anxiety (I woke up literally everyday this week to my brain telling me to complete tasks that were both inconsequential and didn't actually exist)  that led to a very mild panic attack at work and the inability to determine if the tightness in my lungs is from anxiety or potential illness, talking through options for ways to stop feeling heightened most of the time can't come soon enough.

That said, most of my week was stressful, but not necessarily overwhelming. I laughed with friends and coworkers, I joke with my students, I even managed to go to 3 different social functions this weekend and felt mostly fine. Or at least as fine as I can right now.

And I'm like, kind of happy? Which is a welcome relief from the past few weeks. I know I still need to go through with therapy, and maybe even check out the terrifying world of meds if other coping strategies don't work as well as I need them to. I realize it probably sounds very stigmatizing to say I'm terrified of medication, and I don't ever want to make anyone feel that way, so to clairify:

 I know so many people that medication has helped, and that it is a blessing to a lot of people to be able to feel healthy while dealing with chronic mental health concerns. It's no different than any other drug that allows someone with any kind of physical ailment or condition to live their life fully.  I know that. I know all of those things. And yet I hold onto this bizarre idea that what is good for other people is not okay for me. Ever since I was young, I have felt compassion and love for people who are outside of what some might consider "normal", even been mad at the use of such a term at all, and yet I find myself unable to extend that same love to me.

I was never comfortable in my larger lady skin as a teenager (an issue that I'm still working on if I'm honest), even though I think body positivity is so important and try to encourage others to love the skin their in.

I didn't figure out accept that I was queer until I was 23 because the rhetoric I grew up with was so ingrained in me that I could love other people, but not myself.

I tended not to speak up in groups both because I'm naturally introverted, and because I don't want my words to take up too much space, but would be frustrated if someone else felt like they couldn't share.

 I have spent years not dealing with whatever my personal combination of depression and anxiety is called because I should be able to fix it myself, even though I would never say that to another human.

Because those things aren't the brand of normal that my home town was selling. Their normal was much more...typical. Girls as pretty as me were thin. Gay people were making bad choices. Loud kids who overshared were rude and unruly. Depression was something that happened for a while and then you got over it.

To be fair to the village that raised me, those weren't necessarily exact words, or even the sentiments they were trying to convey, but somehow it's still what I heard. And it stuck. And my anxiety ran with it. And it taught me that if I wanted to be accepted by people I needed to look and act a certain way above and beyond how other people have to act. And heaven help me if I made a mistake or didn't do something perfectly.

It wasn't until the end of college that it occurred to me that my ideas about the world or what people thought about me might not be a) what I thought they were or b) all that important. But being "normal" was a coping mechanism I'd learned too hard for too long to just turn it off.

It takes conscious effort, daily, minute by minute, to not adjust my every action by the social cues I read (and misread) around me. Some of this is just the way humans work. Interactions and exchanges shape the course of a day and reading cues is how we perform pretty much any task that involves another person. But for someone that already struggles to grasp some kinds of nuance in social interaction, and is also highly empathetic, a day full of second guessing whether or not interactions went well or my actions were the best fit for a situation is exhausting. Especially if any perceived failure is then dissected and scrutinized for everything I did badly.

When my depression spiked a few years ago and I was having a lot of trouble with negative self statements and thoughts, one of my good friends bought me an adorable hamster Squishable as a coping strategy. It's a big round fluffy stuffed animal that reminds me of Hamtaro, and it is meant to represent my small and vulnerable self when my negative thoughts get overwhelming. Basically if I thought something about myself that I would feel bad about saying to Dr. Schnitzenfreud, it was probably not something I should say to me either.

This little cuddle muffin of a stuffie had done nothing wrong and is simply trying to live it's best hamster life. I would never call it stupid, or tell it it was bad at it's job, or that it's too broken to function.

So why would I say those things to me? Doesn't my tiny, hamster-like inner self also get to feel the love that I would gladly bestow on a stuffed animal? If I wouldn't say those words to a toy, let alone another person, why in the world would I say them to me? Why is it so easy for me to build others up and so hard to give myself the same grace, care, and dignity?

I have answers for none of those questions except that depression sucks, and I hope if anyone else struggles with similar thoughts or feelings that you reach out to someone you trust to share it with them. Because there's enough shit to deal with in this life without piling it on yourself.

What If

I wasn't sure what I was going to blog about this week because I'm tired of being sad and my week tanked on Wednesday, but today was actually a pretty good day.

--OMHU--

My therapist could not meet this week due to illness. Which on the one hand was good because I lost my insurance card and I was freaking out about how to pay for it (and also going at all) and now I have time for the new one to get here before I go. And on the other hand means I spent most of my week being anxious about something that didn't actually happen, which is unbelievably draining.

So when Thursday night came and went, and procrastination brain reminded me that I had not yet written a blog this week I very nearly gave up my solid month combo bonus for Actually Doing The Thing, but then today rolled around.

In lieu of actual therapy I have been self medicating the best way I know how. Music. This is not news, as I have been dancing around actually showing things to people by just talking about it a bunch for a few weeks now. But last week I played some stuff for a theater friend just to see what they thought, and today I actually recorded a thing and sent it to some people because I was freaking proud of the music I created.

Guys. I was proud of something. That I had done. And happy. These things have happened in conjunction like, twice in the last 3 months. One of the reasons I've been writing as much as I have is because playing keeps the drowning feeling at bay at least for a while. And in some small way, it's actually working. 

And it just goes to show that I have amazing people in my life that despite all the errors I hear when I listen to that recording, the people I shared it with said amazing things about it. Like, truly important and positive feedback that made me feel like this may just be good enough to go somewhere if I stick with it.  And I can't possibly explain how much I need to stick with it right now.

I'm still not okay. Not completely. And a musical that may or may not ever see the light of day outside of my loved ones is in no way suddenly going to fix my brain or make it any easier to deal with the ever present, almost constant stream of anxiety that occasionally decides to run through my brain for months at a time.

But knowing that I have people in my life that care about and support me when things suck makes it so much easier to ride the current. And the more I reach out, the more you people grab on. And I'm just really glad that I've been given the opportunity to know so many really wonderful and compassionate humans.

Starting again

I'm late again. Mostly because this week has sucked and I'm getting super tired of writing about how hard things are.  I promise this blog will get happy and/or theological again soon. For the time being, I still feel like garbage, and it's getting kind of old.

---Obligatory Mental Health Update---

I have scheduled a therapy session! There is now paperwork to deal with, and I have slightly more than a week to figure out what disgruntled-doesn't-give-a-shit Nicki did with my new insurance card, but I haven't actually panicked about it again yet, so that feels positive.

Onto other panic inducing things.

As many of you know, because I word vomit when I am nervous about things, I am currently in the process of writing a musical. It started as a cathartic way to get feelings out by singing, and is now 5 mostly completed songs, 7ish more that still need lyrics or charting, and some scenes and characters that are developing a personality far faster than I thought they would.

I still get super nervous talking about it, because impostor syndrome is the most real, but writing it and getting my feelings out has actually been super helpful in maintaining some semblance of balance while I figure out all of my shit. 

The best part: I actually like the music I'm writing. I don't know if anyone else will, but for the time being it's nice to know that at the very least I'm proud of what I created. At least until the brain gremlins get real loud and take over my inner editor. 

I'm so proud of my music (and myself when I'm not feeling super shy about it for no reason) that I actually shared some of it this weekend. It was fun, despite the fact that I get super nervous playing for people and I forgot my computer so I had to play them from memory, and I actually enjoyed letting someone else hear them. 

There's one though, that I didn't play. It has an easy chord progression and the lyrics are pretty much seared into my brain, so it should have been easy. But it's not. 

As I said, this musical is mostly a way for me to deal with the fact that my brain chemistry spends a larger chunk of time than most people's making me question literally everything about my life. Which means I spend a lot of time writing a lot of angsty/depressing music. 

This is not a problem, I love angsty depressing musicals. Probably because they give me some framework with which to deal with all the things that I haven't dealt with. And if something I write can help other people deal with their stuff too, that much the better. But it also means that I am putting those feelings out there in the world. And some of them are very hard. And they feel very embarrassing. 

I know they shouldn't. I know that kind of stigma is bad, and if anyone came to me with the very same thing I would be nothing but supportive. And I know that I pick my people carefully and that none of them would think less of me or quit being my framily if I shared. And yet knowing and acting on that knowledge are so very different. 

Hopefully there will come a time when I'm not totally terrified to be that open with people. Hopefully there will be a day when I can talk about getting past all this and I won't feel like a failure for thinking about it.  It's just not this day. 

Which is all to say that even though this week has sucked. And even though I feel like trash 90% of the time these days, I do know how loved I am. And for the time being I'm clinging to that really fucking hard. 

So if you are framily (and you all know who you are) thank you for sticking this out with me, for giving space to talk or not talk, for encouraging me when the only victory I make in a day is remembering to feed myself, for checking in in whatever way you can, cause Lord knows none of us actually know how to deal with it. It's hard, and it sucks, and I definitely don't check in all the ways that I should, but I feel way less alone now than I have during previous bouts. 

And that is keeping me floating more than anything else. 

Avoidance,

So part of my goals for 2018/general mental health is to write a blog post a week, typically posting something by Monday or Tuesday. I am late, because for the first half of the week my brain was flying so fast in so many different directions that all three of the posts I tried to start/revise got thrown out as stupid almost immediately.

It didn't help that my depression swung into full flung The World Hates You Stop Talking mode sometime Sunday night, which brings me to:

                                             --Obligatory Mental Health Update--
My brain took a turn down Bad News Street this weekend. Probably a combination of too many things with lots of people followed by too much time left in my own head, and the stress of having to run my classroom solo this week since my head teacher is out of the country on a well deserved vacation. (Please note, we have an amazing team so I'm not actually by myself, but everyone else has a job to do so they can't always support as much as they want to). Not even the promise of getting to go see one of my amazing camp people this weekend could fully stave off the emotional suck, which means I went to a party, work, and a church meeting feeling like shit with a smile on.

Bright side: I got in touch with a counselor this week, so I should be at least talking with someone soon. Which leads ever so nicely into the rest of this post:

I avoid things. Writing blogs. Doing chores. Grading. Conflict. If I don't want to do it, there's a solid chance it won't get done. This is not healthy. I am aware that it is not healthy. But family systems being what they are, I'm almost genetically wired to not engage with something that might 1) make someone else upset, or 2) make me upset.

Which is why I have put off getting in touch with said counselor even though I have had her contact information since I started looking for referrals. A month ago.

And to add fuel to the already maelstrom of fire the Brain Gremlins have been shooting off this week: This is not the first counselor I've had. I've been in therapy before. I found it unbelievably helpful. I legitimately like having someone to talk to who can provide perspective on my life that I might not see. When I shot off a message to her a few days ago asking if she had availability I was relieved.

And yet, as I read her message back to me, asking for some cursory details and a time we could meet, I found myself in a state of upset-ness with which I am far more familiar than I would like to be.

I don't actually know if they qualify as panic attacks, because to be honest I'm not super clear on the criteria, but I'm pretty sure sobbing uncontrollably while trying and failing to maintain some semblance of control over your breathing constitutes an atypical response to emailing a therapist back. Especially when you're not really sure why you're panicking. I was not in danger. Literally nothing was happening, and yet my brain told my body to throw my phone and go fetal until the danger had passed.

It's not a fun experience. But where in the past I would have tried to deal with it (poorly and ineffectively) myself, this time around I actually remembered that I have friends who love me that have told me I can call them if I need a person. So after a two hour phone call with a life long friend, and the support of my amazing roommate, who sat with me while I emailed this lady back, I have successfully started the process of talking to someone about all this.

It's a step that might seem small to some, but given my baggage, and the lengths I generally go to to not have to deal with it, I'm both glad and freaking nervous about starting this new journey.

For the time being. I'm doing my best to actually reach out to my people and let them know how I'm doing honestly. As it turns out, as nerve wracking as that can be, it generally leads to feeling better. Because the people in your life that really love you, love you no matter what.