I wish I had spoken up in class yesterday – to reassure everyone that depression, indeed, doesn't make sense. But I couldn't find the words and I was afraid. I don't usually talk about my problems, having been misunderstood and taken advantage of in the past. And I was distressed to find that my fears are not entirely unfounded.
Yesterday in one of my classes… I became painfully aware that a lot of people – a LOT of people – still don't understand depression. I can understand, since those with depression often don't understand it themselves. But it was disheartening to realize so many people don't get how deceiving and complicated the mind can be. (Even outside of mental illness, I might add.) Depression is not as simple as getting hung up on a reality. It's often accompanied by unrealistic expectations, disappointments, and impressions, including that nobody cares – and yet rejecting help out of fear and who knows what else. I'll only speak for myself and for me, it's a complete sense of hopelessness that can be triggered, unforeseen, by something almost insignificant. –And snowballs past the point of reason.
I wish I had spoken up in class yesterday – to reassure everyone that depression, indeed, doesn't make sense. But I couldn't find the words and I was afraid. I don't usually talk about my problems, having been misunderstood and taken advantage of in the past. And I was distressed to find that my fears are not entirely unfounded.
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When I look back, a lot happened in my life two years ago. It was a rough time, but two years ago today was the day that life turned around and took a fresh, new direction. I make it a point to not post much on Facebook anymore (so I'm posting here), and I try to keep myself from getting personal or mushy, but the time that I've been here at Franciscan has been . . . . Every time I think back over the past few years, it just blows me away – I can't wrap my head around all the amazing adventures I've had. I made a variety of friends, and I cherish every person, especially those I don't have to put up with anymore ;P Now, I'm a chronic loner, but two years ago today, I gave my anxiety a sedative and offered somebody a permanent spot in my life. He promised always to be there. Three months ago to the day, he asked me to marry him. May 30th, we'll fulfill that promise. And we'll go on fulfilling it until death do us part. I did not grow up in a world where Jews were rounded up and gassed in chambers simply for being Jewish. I did not grow up in a world where European white people kidnapped Africans from their homes to work as slaves in civilized Christian society. I was not alive when black skin counted as "three fifths of all other persons." But I am living in a country fraught with racism. I'm living in a world, in fact, where everyone fears their neighbor, locks their doors, hides behind avatars.
When I think about talking about my life, it's just too overwhelming. I'm stuck between grasping for a child-like attitude of life and maturely accepting the greyness of life.
Hey, do you use grey or gray? The more I look at them, the more they both look weird. How do you become a Sir James Matthew Barrie, feeling sore about life and yet finding the magic everywhere? One way I find the magic in life is to listen to Enya Radio on Pandora as I read or get ready in the morning or, really, while doing anything. It's like having a soundtrack for the epic-ness of your life. But when you are struggling with life's trials, how do you feel the spark of a quest to be defeated? I am the ultimate optimist.
I have so little hope of a conscientious person finding peace in this life that my life has infinite potential to surprise me, and I cling to that. Every day I wake up, I don't yet know until I know whether I've slept in, what the weather is like, whether my hair is untamable, whether my clothes will match and fit well, whether I'll be able to find what I need on time, whether I'll have time for breakfast, whether I'll get deathly ill at the last minute and will still get points docked from my participation grade because I didn't email my professor before class. And that's just the first two or so hours of my 16 hour day. Just this past Thursday, I tried to post from my phone – but I see, now, that it was unsuccessful. Just this past Thursday, also, I moved out of my apartment. Summer's over, and for better or for worse, I'm leaving my apartment located near campus and I'm moving into the apartments on campus. Heaven only knows what awaits me there. But it's not air conditioning, that's for sure. But before I can move on campus, I piled my things in my boyfriend's living room, behind the couch, and the two of us drove home to Massachusetts. I'm not thrilled to be home again. I'm glad to see my little sister/roommate, but I'm not close to my family, and as my family grows up and evolves, I find that my relationship with my mother does not improve but actually gets worse.
Fortunately, my boyfriend is very supportive and very patient and very loving, and I can talk to him about all that's going on inside of me. So, for crafting, I'd like to share a pattern that I'm knitting for my boyfriend to go with the scarf I finally finished for him not too long ago. I fervently hope that it doesn't take nearly as long to knit this beanie. I'm knitting from a pattern I found on "Pretty Quirky Pants" and then I found the pattern on Ravelry – I have an account on Ravelry now! Follow me! I have been having a rough week. . . . I don't know if it's depression or just moodiness - I don't know if there's a difference. But I have not been able to cope with even the littlest things. And last night I kept waking up for no apparent reason, which makes me think maybe it is depression, or at least stress. But maybe someone was setting off fireworks nearby reeeeeally slowly, trying to interrupt my sleep without me noticing.
But I know I'm overtired, so I figure, you know what, it doesn't really matter what's going on with me. There are plenty of reasons. I just have to try to get better. I tried listening to upbeat, happy music - do you know how hard it is to find truly happy music? Even a lot of the music that sounds happy has a depressing message. But it sort of helped. This morning, as I got ready for the day, I listened to music again, but I tried to listen to it quietly so as to not disturb my sleeping roommates. Knowing that there are certain mental patterns that lead me into depression, I've also resolved on avoiding those patterns. It's hard. But if I start putting myself down, I'll tear it to shreds - as though I had put it on a sticky note and pinned it to my mental reminder board, I'll rip it off and put it through the shredder. If nothing else, the metaphor is helping. And since my depressive moods are often caused or worsened by my reluctance to verbally care about anything, if I start to feel that way, I'll just straight up tell my boyfriend that I'm too tired to think. And if, which I often do, I feel as though no one cares and no one will listen to me, I'll just say, "Hey, I need you to listen." Now, the hardest part will be actually talking at that point. Because the fact that I don't have the mental energy to form feelings into sentences is kind of a setback. What do you do when you're in a funk? Alright, if you got through that pity party, I now have an announcement. I don't know that too many people are actually reading my blog anymore - so be it. I'll do my research and find new blogs to read (which I need to do anyway) and I'll reach out to new bloggers. But I'm afraid I need to leave Google's blogging behind. Google just doesn't care about its bloggers, and that's okay. Apparently that's not their strong suit, but I need something more. I need to be able to do more. Heck, I could probably do more on my own in Dreamweaver and then upload it to a server somewhere - but I don't really want to. I want a platform that has the capacity to do what I need it to do without a lot of work for myself. Weebly.com is still fairly young, as far as I can tell, and it's not perfect, but it has so much more capacity than Blogger and, I think, Wordpress - although Wordpress is enough for the blog I keep up for my family. But if I'm going with a more professional, modern, up-to-date and relevant look, I gotta leave both behind for this blog. Weebly can't do everything I want, but it comes pretty close. The worst part is the fact that I can't upload this blog to that one, which is a major problem. About 500 hundred posts and over 4 years later, I don't want to leave all this behind and start fresh. I've spent a lot of time getting those views and creating this content. So I'm going to be manually transferring posts over - one. by. one. by. one. by. . . you get the point. My priority is to move Movie Reviews over there to match up with all of the links I already have posted on the "Movie Reviews" page. So my plan is to move from Blogger to here at http://magicinkanddreams.weebly.com, and I hope those last stragglers who still read my blog, will come with me as I build a new home, start a new life, begin with new hope. . . .Alright, I won't be dramatic about this. The website is still in designing phases, and I'm not moving just yet, but that really is the link and it is published, so feel free to go check it out and tell me what you think. (Also, comments won't move over here. . . . sad face.) |
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Me!I'm a twenty-one-year-old, I love farming, and I have a passion and a need to write. Archives
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1. Script 2. Theatrics/Drama etc. 3. Music 4. Characters 5. Theme 6. Storyline 7. Morals 8. Acting 9. Satisfaction (worth two points) My Rating Levels A = all T = teenager M = adult D = adult discretion (Look for these in my reviews) |