Brain Drain

It's been almost 2 years since I've been off medication, so I know I can do it, but the thing is it's not getting easier, it's getting harder. I don't want to be on medication, but I don't know how much longer I can survive like this. It's hard, every second of my day is hard. I don't know how to not be in my head so much. Being in my head is destructive; my brain, or at least a part of it, is a very dangerous & powerful enemy. It's not fun having to fight your own brain every single day. It's so exhausting. I don't know what to do, and I don't know how much more I can take. But I'll keep on taking it because I don't know what else to do.

Joe vs the Volcano Was a Highly Underrated Movie

I think one of the worst parts of depression is realizing when you're experiencing it. I've recently realized that when I'm feeling depressed, I search my brain for hours and hours trying to find a cause. I guess it's worse when you can't find a cause. If it was PMS, I could tell myself "Don't worry you'll be fine in a couple of days," or if something had happened to make me sad I could pinpoint it and say "That's the cause, that's why." For some reason having a reason to be sad is easier to take. Maybe it's because if I admit I'm experiencing a bout of depression, I have to face the fact that I do not know when it will end. If there's no specific reason for it, there are no guidelines. If there are no guidelines...I'm in freefall. I already struggle with the belief that I have nothing to ground me, that everything around me is in a constant state of chaos, that things could crumble at any moment; add to that the reality that a bout of depression has no concrete structure and it's panic time.

I realized this on the bus to work this morning. It was scary admitting to myself "You know what, there's nothing going on, this is simple depression, this is chemical," but in a way it was a relief because I think it's the first time I've actually stopped myself from searching for a reason and just accepted it for what it is. I always fight it, and I always end up so exhausted. I don't think people realize how much of a physical impact depression (and anxiety, especially anxiety) has on a person. Not fighting it, accepting that I'm entering a period of depression feels like I'm willingly throwing myself into a volcano. This is sort of new territory for me. At the very least there's a possibility that I'll learn something new, which is always a good thing.

I'll Probably Piss You Off, Too

I don't know how I always manage to offend, but I do. I don't know what I do wrong or why I can't communicate with other people, but somehow I always end up pissing people off. I know I am not perfect; I am human, I have plenty of faults. But I'm a nice person, I'm a caring person; I just don't have it in me to be nasty or rude or mean or deliberately try to piss people off. But it happens all the time, I piss people off all the time, and no matter what the other person's role is in the conflict, there is only one common denominator: me. It's obviously something to do with me. I cannot communicate with people, I feel like I do not belong in society, and I DO NOT KNOW WHY. No one else seems to have this problem, everyone else seems to be able to joke around and have fun and hang out in groups and just have a good time. I don't know why I can't. All I know is every time this happens it just reaffirms something I've long believed: I am not meant to be with other people, I am meant to be alone. I'm certainly not meant to be in a relationship with someone; if I have this much difficulty with friendships can you imagine how I'd be with a significant other?! It's not meant to be, I'm meant to be alone, I will never be married or have a long term relationship, it's just not in the cards. Every time I try to reach out, try to have fun, try to "be normal", it backfires, and I end up with fewer friends than I had going in. I am an incredibly lonely and sad person, and for whatever reason I'm meant to stay that way.

Does anyone else have this much trouble cultivating and maintaining friendships or any kind of human contact? Is it just me? Because with almost 7 billion people in the world it seems impossible that it's just me but it's an awfully isolating life I lead, and I see other people functioning normally all the time, so it feels like it must just be me.

I must be a horrible person to piss people off so much. And I'm not in denial - I really do not know what it is about me that turns people off. It can't be the odd joking smart ass comment; if that was the case I could totally chalk it up to people just being way too damn sensitive and humourless. I really don't know what it is. I kind of wish I did so I could work on it, but I'm way too chicken to ask someone. Besides, how do you have THAT conversation?! "So I notice people tend to dislike me...any ideas?"

Sad, lonely, and a strong belief that I'm a terrible person. What a wonderful way to live.

The Blame Game

Late last year I participated in a 12 week anxiety group therapy program. One thing we learned was something called core beliefs. It's probably self explanatory, but basically a core belief is a thought, idea or deep seated belief about yourself that has guided you your whole life; most likely you're not even aware of it. I certainly wasn't.We weren't asked to do this until the group was drawing to a close, because we were suppose to go through the notes we'd accumulated in our worksheets and find our core beliefs from that. We didn't know it but much of what we'd been learning all those weeks was in preparation for this; I guess it was sort of a group therapy final exam. I came up with two core beliefs, but the main one, the most powerful one, was this: I am to blame for everything. It took me a while to discover it, but when I did, it just came at me like a fucking sledgehammer to the head: I AM TO BLAME FOR EVERYTHING. And I realized I'd felt that way since childhood. Anytime someone in my family argued, any time someone was upset, any time a friend was acting strangely or was quieter than normal, it was somehow my fault, it was my responsibility, somehow I caused it, even if it had nothing to do with me. Just weeks before having this revelation I'd been in the back seat of my mother's car while she and my brother argued in the front about...I don't even remember what, and even though I wasn't really involved, hadn't even really been involved in whatever discussion lead to the argument in the first place, in my mind it became "I did something wrong, oh my god I am such a horrible person, I caused this, I'm making them fight." Nevermind that it had nothing to do with me, nevermind that both my brother and mother have crazy short fuses and blowup first, ask questions later. Nevermind that they fight all the time, nevermind that 9 times out of 10 the argument is over and forgotten just as quickly as it started. Nevermind all that; it was my fault. So once it was just me & my mom in the car, I started to bawl. She couldn't understand why I was so upset, why I was blaming myself; I told her because I had to. I had to punish myself, I had to blame myself, it was my fault, I had to feel bad, I needed to be punished, I am a horrible person, I need to take the blame for it. I didn't even really know what I was saying, nor why I was saying it, until a few weeks later when I was working on my core beliefs homework.

As I say it was one hell of a powerful realization.

What I would like to do now is end this post with "And everything's been fine ever since. What a relief!" But that's not what happened. Even though I'm aware of this core belief and how much it affects my life, and even though I fight it every day, it's pretty damn hard to change something that's been with you your entire life. I work on it, I work on it constantly. But just today I realized I still have a long way to go. Because this morning I had another revelation: I am constantly ready for a fight. Let me put it another way: I'm constantly ready to defend myself. I've only recently realized how bad it's become. Another thing we learned in group therapy is that people who have an anxiety disorder often cannot stand up for themselves. I always thought I was just a wuss, and that might be part of it, but I used to be able to stand up for myself; I was never a "I take no shit!" kind of person, but I could at least stand up for myself when push came to shove. In recent years however that's proved pretty much impossible. If you've believed your whole life that everything bad that happens is your own fault, you probably don't have much confidence in yourself, and you don't trust your own opinions, you don't trust your feelings. I am constantly wondering "Is it justified to feel this way?" and the answer I usually come up with is "no". So even if someone does something bad to me, even if someone is rude to me, I will not only not stand up for myself, but I'll decide "Well, it was probably my fault anyway," and I'll trace the events back until I can pinpoint exactly where I went wrong. So what I've started doing is preparing comebacks, preparing exactly what I would say if someone said or did this or that to me. And I start acting it out in my head, and I play out my part as well as the other person's part. And I end up extremely anxious, extremely angry, and tired, AND NOTHING HAS EVEN HAPPENED.

Here's an example. I was on the subway this morning, on my way to work, when a women edged very close to me and seemed to be trying to get to the door ahead of me and the two people in front of us both. I started to prepare what I would say if she decided to push ahead of us; I had an argument with this woman in my head, I played both parts, I tried to think of every possible thing she could say, and I tried to come up with each and every possible rebuttal. My stop came, I got out, nothing happened. Then on the bus I started thinking about something that happened at work last week; this woman I work with hit me on the back of my head with a stuffed toy shark (don't ask.) I started to think about what I would do if she does it again. I started to argue with her in my mind head, and ended up very angry, even though nothing had actually happened. At that point it hit me: why would I have to try and defend myself for being hit on the head?! She was the asshole in this situation, why would I have to defend myself?! That's when I realized that I spend much of my day preparing for a fight; whether it's with co-workers, friends, strangers, I am constantly having arguments in my head and preparing myself for conflict. And I realized I'm doing this because I have no confidence in my opinions or feelings, because I think everything is my fault, so I'm constantly trying to arm myself with verbal ammunition in case of a conflict because I don't trust that I'll have the right response if something does happen.

That was yet another pretty powerful revelation, but you know what happened minutes afterward? I saw a co-worker on the bus who always gets off a few stops ahead of me and crosses the street; I like to ride the bus around the loop and get off right in front of the building. Well, this particular co-worker is a bit of a condescending know-it-all, so I started preparing a defense for myself if she were to ever comment about why I stay on the bus those extra couple of stops. Just minutes after realizing I construct non-existent fights in my head I WAS DOING IT AGAIN. It wasn't even 10:00 in the morning and I was already exhausted from being so angry over things that had never happened. That's one reason why anxiety is such a tricky disease. I sort of picture it like a fly in a spider web; the fly can pull away from the web and stretch and stretch and stretch, but he's always snapped back into it. That's how my brain seems to work; I can fight it all I want, but it's too powerful, it keeps snapping me back to lifelong habits, it keeps snapping me back to what it knows.

You know what the worst part is? Even if these confrontations actually came to fruition, I'd never say anything anyway, I'm too afraid. I spend hours and hours each and every day preparing comebacks that I will never use. Fear and anger: these two emotions dominate my life. I'm not even entirely sure what I'm so afraid of. I know part of it is that I hate confrontation, and I hate awkwardness. So even if I'm the one who's been wronged I'll do anything to smooth things over, to prevent things from being awkward, more often than not at my own expense. Then the anger really gets out of control and self loathing boils and boils and there's no outlet.

I would like to be able to end this post by saying "I've learned, really learned, and really believe, that not everything is my fault. I've realized that my opinions and my feelings are just as valid as anyone else's, and I will stand up for myself from now on." But that just isn't true. I still have a lot of work to do, and that's all I really can do, because I don't think I'll ever fully get there. I'm not being negative; despite everything I'm actually an optimist at heart. I'm just being realistic. It's a shame that I have to fight my own brain, it's a shame we can't co-exist peacefully, but we can't. So the fight continues.

An Introduction (That Doesn't Really Introduce Anything)

I'm not really looking to be a fantastic writer; in writing this blog I'm not trying to hone my craft or become some sort of writing sensation. I've been out of practice for a long time, and I'm more than a little rusty. What I want to do is just write, without any concern for how it sounds, without trying to craft the perfect sentence (in fact you'll be subjected to more than a few run-on sentences and rambling, seemingly incoherent thoughts.) What I want to do is write about how I lost the ability to write, and about my life with depression and anxiety. These things, as you will find out, are not mutually exclusive; in fact, one is the direct result of the other. And as sad as I am that taking medication for 6 years for my chemical imbalance robbed me of my ability to write, I'm also aware that my chemical imbalance is something that is a part of me, that I will have to live with for the rest of my life, so I better learn to deal with it. You know what else used to be a part of me, just as much as any mental disorders I may have? Writing. Perhaps they can co-exist? Perhaps it doesn't have to be an either/or?

I have a lot to say, but I'll try and let it out slowly, bit by bit, because as eager as I am to start writing again I find the whole thing overwhelming (as I do most things in life.) Maybe one day I can be the writer I once was. Or even better, maybe I can get somewhere new. Maybe I'll learn even more about my disease by sharing this so publicly. Maybe I'm capable of so much more than I ever thought I was. I really do feel like 6 years of medication has done permanent damage to my brain, but maybe it's minimal, maybe I can fight back, maybe I can find something in myself again. Maybe I won't ever be the writer I once was, but I'm happy that I'm going to try.