One Day at a Time

Counting the number of issues I have is a futile exercise. Why waste time when I know that the answer is a long list. The only way I redeem myself is by acknowledging the fact that I know I have issues. I have even written about my many issues in the past. Thanks to a lack of readership on my blog and of my journal, I have kept my issues quiet. It's good when only you and your mind know about these things. Sometimes, issues are to be dealt with in private. That way, no one gets to contribute "advise" on how to deal with the issue.

2014–2015 had been particularly challenging years. I saw a noticeable dip in my happiness metre. I was frowning more often, was stressing a lot, sprouted a few gray hair, and had been generally disillusioned with life. I guess one of the reasons was shifting jobs and adjusting to new places and management styles. Three years in my first job were quite comfortable. But barely 5 months into my third job I felt trapped. Thankfully, though, it was not just me who felt that way; all of my colleagues felt it too and quit the place one by one.

But it was not just the job taking its tool. I was fatigued, sick, and unwilling to participate in social events. It was scary, and when I feel these emotions now, I get scared again. At first, I wasn't sure of what was wrong with me. I thought that a lack of exercise was making me lethargic and gain a lot of weight. That is half the truth. The other half is the lack of mental well-being, unfortunately. That is something I still fight every day to maintain.

Though my really dark days are far behind, every time I get a hint of any darkness, I spiral downwards pretty hard. I form a cocoon around me and retreat into myself. Thankfully, it takes a lot of bad mojo to get me into a funk now. Every day, I am able to maintain my optimal measure of happiness and even spread it to friends who really need it. So, when darkness approaches me, you can bet alarm bells start ringing from miles and miles away.

Today felt like a particularly bad day. I got a lot of bad stuff thrown my way by people who "meant well" but ended up ripping my life apart. Of course, it all started with my gender and my single woman status; quickly moved on to my career choice; my financial status; what I was doing wrong; and then ultimately, what I should be doing to make my parents and others happy. Sure! My happiness does not matter in any of these matters.

It's easy to tell someone to ignore verbal abuse, hurtful criticism, bad feedback, and snide comments. The hard part is to throw it out of your head once it registers there. Gosh, I wish I was drunk when I was subjected to all that talk; I would have really loved to not remember any of it. The only solution to get over this hurt is to gradually forget about it - give it a month or two, occupy your mind with other things, and avoid the people who hurt you for a year or so. That's the best I have come up with so far. What do you think? Does it work for you too?

Thing is, when I am thinking about all this hurtful commentary on my life, I get physically sick because that is how criticism works on me. My brain gets all mopey and all my body wants to do is curl up and die. It is so difficult to get through a day with this funk going on - the struggle between your brain and your body when you try to think happy thoughts and get by. And this is why darkness is scary. Dark thoughts are always around the corner, lurking to grab me again and ruin my day. Even after promising myself that I wouldn't let them harm me, I don't know if I can keep up to it. Trudging through life one day at a time is a hard task that only people who've been through what I have gone through will understand. Or maybe everyone understands. They are just fooling innocents like me by thinking of happy thoughts and faking joy. At least they're succeeding.

What Sort of a Person Are You?

I think I am a nice person. Most of the times. And yet when I think about the way I behave with people around me, I doubt myself. How nice am I? Is holding the door open for someone considered nice? Yes. Is letting an old person get on a bus before you nice? Yes. Is apologising to someone after you step on their toes nice? Yes. Where then am I going wrong?

Thing is, I might be more than a bit sarcastic. In my attempt to be funny, I may come across as rude sometimes. That's OK, comedians are sometimes nasty. That's where we get all our good material from. All the pain and suffering we endured as children, and then adults, has to be projected onto someone in our present--loved ones included.

There is a reason for the pain and suffering and the internalisation of it all. How do you express to people your true feelings when all they expect of you is to make a joke of it? They expect that you will know how to make light of a serious situation. Sometimes they are also angry when you do that. They know that they should not expect anything apart from jokes of you. That is your job, after all.

Internalising anger, pain, hurt, emotions, and true feelings is bad. Look at me, I tried to eat my way out of depression. Six months and many awful looks in the mirror later, I am still in the same spot. I am fatter than ever and I do not how to stop myself. Once upon a time, I starved myself for 2 months and I was only happy when that ordeal ended. It involved a guy and the moment I came to know that he was not interested in me, my stomach sang with joy! It meant that it would see food again. My colon wasn't too happy about the junk I piled onto it for the coming weeks, but it helped me ease the pain I felt emotionally.

I am still eating. I do not tell my friends what I truly feel. I listen to them talk about their problems and I can never bring up the courage to talk about what I am going through. Somehow, when I hear them talk, I feel like my problems are nothing compared to theirs. Depression really isn't such a big deal compared to job stress, or husband troubles, or weight loss issues, or getting over an ex. Right?

I know that I am my own top priority but when I am busy stuffing this body, who is watching me? Sure, friends, family and colleagues say that I should do something about my fat. But what do I do? I cannot starve myself even though I eat normal portions. I do not feel comfortable exercising because I cannot come to terms with why I am doing this to myself and why I want it to stop. 

Every time I go out, I cannot stop but feel pitiful of the fact that I have no one to tell how my day went. People who ask me that question are content with an OK. They would not like me to elaborate. Anyways, what would I say? "I feel like my soul is being crushed into a million pieces each day and I do not have a clue how to repair it?" Yes, I see how that conversation would go. Awkward silence all the time.

So I make attempts to write everything down but even that doesn't fully help with the depression. The sadness lingers like the smell of garbage. It rots and rots your soul until you feel so helpless that you give up and find the smell fascinating. By then, you end up smelling like sadness. Who wants to hang out with sadness? Clearly no one who is sane. Not even myself. Depression hurts and it adds to the pain which already put you in a depressing phase. How do you turn your life around? There seems to be no rock-bottom like in the movies. The spiral just keeps going down endlessly. How does one make it stop?

Well, I internalised my anger and I make fun of people. I tell people everything is just fine and I ask them to tell me their problems. I act and act and act and never stop. I'm bad. I'm terrible. This is the worst thing. Feeling bad about myself and still not being able to help my situation? What could be worse? Being in Sudan, most definitely. See, I never stop. Depression is lesser than hunger and civil war, evidently! What a moron I am for thinking otherwise!

Depression Sucks at the Soul

I was not clinically diagnosed as depressed but you know that there are symptoms. As a formerly sane individual, the patterns of my behaviour took a complete dive. It was not because I had changed as a person. I was still the same, goofy person. It was what I was projecting and internalising. That was the most dangerous part.

When you are in that state of mind, your gender doesn't matter. Your mannerisms and behaviours are more or less the same. Drinking, eating, laziness, dissatisfaction, aloofness.... I could go on but it makes me sad. It is not as if everything has completely become alright suddenly. It's screwed and very badly screwed.

And everything in the world is seeming to be alright. That's ok, people should really try hard at that. Facades are so important. Trust me, I know. It saved me from telling people how screwed I was.

Internalising my anger, disappointment, sadness and hurt was something I was a natural at. I would pluck at my cuticles and rip off the sensitive skin. I still do that. Once the skin is all out, you can't eat with your hands. The spices in the food hurt. Even salt does. The pink, exposed flesh hurts physically. Yet, when I am having an idle moment, I press at it and relive the pain. Just checking that I'm still human.

Pain is really bad. It hurts physically as well. The mental agony of my experiences are not easy to put into words. Where would I even start? People have mostly been good to me. So how do I tell them that there is something wrong? My facade of being a happy person and a sane individual is going to be diminished. What will happen after that?

Sometimes I think that my future is going to like those bleak, apocalyptic zombie movies. No, I won't be the lone survivor fighting off zombies and trying to save stranded humans. The scenes that I remember are always the lonely walks through the deserted city. That is my mind. There is a lot of clutter but all of it is important. Those desolate buildings give my messed up mind its character. How can I bring those walls down? Each window pane is a memory that looks down on me with pity. What am I doing in this town? I should be somewhere where life exists, where existence is not always at risk. A place which values human life and where there are people to help protect you.

That's in my fantasies. A part of what keeps me going are those questions my memories ask me. Is that a good thing? Probably not. I dream too much. I read too much. I see too much. How does one stop doing all of these and still be sane?