If You're Happy and You Know It...

I just analyzed a facebook comment response for 20 minutes.

I contemplated sending someone a link to this blog because it's easier than trying to explain why I am the way I am.

I often feel like I need to explain myself.

I can't remember the last name of my first boyfriend. I can't even remember if it was Jeff or Tim that was first. They both dumped me so who cares?

I think my black and white profile picture is pretentious.

I just did one of those DNA test things and I feel like a scientist. And like I've eaten a bag of cotton balls. They want a lot of spit.

When songs from my teenage years become commercial jingles I am old.

My hand hurts. So does my neck. My stomach. My eyes are strained too. I'm broken, weighed down from pounds of depression and brownies.

I'm angry. I nearly hit a bicyclist today. He was riding through the crosswalk against a green light and if I hadn't been paying attention, I would have hit him. I laid on the horn instead and then roared through the light he almost made me miss.

I am completely lost. I don't know what to do and I lack the confidence to act on my own.

I miss my cat more than I ever thought I could. I'm regretful for letting her out, while trying to be gentle with myself and acknowledge that she was very happy as an indoor/outdoor kitty and anything less would have made her miserable.

I fear paranoia will come back. I want to trust that I am loved. I want to believe it and not need to hear it to feel assured.

I want to be happy again with what I have instead of irritated for not having more.

I have to admit to myself that I'm not ok and goddammit that's hard to do. It's even harder to admit it and not do anything about it. Harder still to realize you're not doing anything about it because you literally can't.

"I feel _______."

"Why?"

"I don't know. "

"But what is it that's making you anxious?"

"I don't feel anxious."

"Are you sad? Angry?"

"Yes. Sometimes."

"Ok, but why?"

"I don't know. This is just how it works for me."

I hate this. I hate that I am constantly worried that one day it's just going to be too much and he'll leave, stop loving me, throw his hands up. I hate that he has to see me this way, live with me, hear me and see me cry. I hate that he looks at me and doesn't know what to say so he says nothing. I hate that I know nothing he says can help.

I was sad last week-crying nearly all the time. This week I'm angry. I can't keep up with my own emotions. I have no motivation and yet, I feel stagnant.

I've been counseled to try to embrace these feelings when they come up but why? I don't want to accept them, hold them close to me. I want them gone.

I know the steps to practice self care but I don't want to take them. To do so would mean accepting (again) that there's something wrong with me. That I'm not ok.

It's not weakness, but it's crippling. Studies may show otherwise, but depression feels self inflicted. It feels like if I could just reason with myself that I would be fine. I try faking it til I make it by putting a smile on my face when I don't want to. I raise the tone of my voice so it sounds like I'm happy when I'm not and I tell people I'm crying because of some hormonal reason instead of not being able to do anything else. It's exhausting.

I'm tired from all of these things, the nightmares, the insomnia.

But most of all, for doing nothing.