Dear Mental Illness - you moxy son of a bitch

Dear Depression:

You lie to me.
You belittle me.
You take away the pleasure in even the simplest things.
You fuel anxiety.

Dear Anxiety:

You scare me.
You terrorize me.
You paralyze me.
You trigger depression.

For fun?  What pleasure is there in ripping apart a person's brain, self worth, their heart?

Well, I hate you both.  Loathe and despise even.  You are cowardly assholes in a world that is already difficult enough to navigate without your nagging and pestering.

I'm asking you to please, just run off back to your own little corners.  Take the nightmares, sleepless nights, and constant second guessing with you. They have no place in my beautiful life.

You have no place here.  You are not welcome.  Please listen carefully, I hate you both.

Thank you for your efforts.
Now fuck off.

Happily.
Me.

The 9 Signs I Missed That I Was Depressed

Being depressed doesn't just happen fleetingly and pass you buy when it's finished wreaking it's havoc on your body.  It lingers, lies dormant and lets you function before it strikes again.  It's not the flu.  It's depression.  In cancer terms, it can go into remission, but you'll want to keep tabs on yourself and frequently check in with your head and your heart to see that you're still ok.

When I finally had the episode that kicked my ass out of work for 14 months, I had to get to a point where I could understand this had been brewing for a lot of years.  I mean A LOT of years.  I would say it was at least 17 years in the making.  And so there were a million signs I missed that would have told me to take pause, catch my breath and if I'd even had the right coping mechanisms, to yank them out and use them before things got too far out of hand.

1. Your jokes aren't funny.  That's because they are laced with the anger in your face, and the hurt in your heart.  Even you don't think they're funny, but to claim so allows you to speak truth without getting into further trouble.  When you're trying to joke things off, and no one is on side with the humour of it, well, it's time to check in with your coping mechanisms.
2. You focus on the negative stuff at work, or someone actually has the heart at work to take you aside and talk to you about your approach to certain situations.  Either you're annoying them, or upsetting them, and you're not even trying to do that.  You're just trying to get people to listen, to hear you, you're just trying to do your job.  Whatever the case is, when they pull you aside to have a gentle conversation with you about your approach to your colleagues and the work situation, then it's time to check in.
3. You're unhappy most of the time.  At least there's something to complain about at least once a day, likely 20 or 30 even.  Someone who has complaints is not entirely happy.
4. You're tired and you don't feel like doing anything.  If this is you, and you feel like this say 6 out of 7 days, then, well, it's really time to check in.  The human body and mind is pre-wired to enjoy life and live it.  We're really not meant to hibernate all the time.  And if you're body is telling you to hibernate, it's trying to flee the stress and that means - you're not well.
5. Avoiding friends/family/events.  It is entirely possible to want to go out and do something reckless and fun, at the same time as avoiding it, and finding excuses not to partake.  It's too hard to find a sitter, it costs too much money, I'm tired, sore or just plain weary.  Again, avoidance is the body and mind's way of escaping more trauma.  No animal runs into the bear cave knowingly.
6. Your body is in pain - sometimes localized and sometimes generally achy.  But there is pain or illness, and it's persistent and chronic.  Typical pain management treatments don't even touch it.  There's more to it than that.
7. You're eating more or eating less.  You're not eating the right things because the right things aren't comforting you.  
8. You explode over the small things and walk away from the big ones.
9. Your spouse can see it and is begging for you to see the doctor about your moods.  

Everyone who experiences this has different triggers...but everyone who experiences this has a whole host of reasons why they would.  Some are obvious (like dealing with the grief at the sudden passing of my father at a young age).  And some are not.  Some reasons have even been covered up with a million excuses for why it shouldn't affect us and why it would be silly to hold angry or hurt feelings for them.  But they are always 100% valid and nevertheless contribute to our feeling happy, sad or simply unaffected.

A good friend once told me that "feelings are never right or wrong, they just are."  That quote carried me through a lot of days when I was at my darkest and ever since.  Feelings are an instinct.  They are our body's way of translating our experiences into something we can understand.  The head is affected by our feelings, as much as we often try to rationalize our feelings.  Feelings are how we interpret the world around us.  Acknowledging their presence and giving them credibility allowed me to let go of some of the regret that I was carrying for feeling them.

Shaking God

There are times in everyone's life when we feel abandoned and disillusioned, and well, forsaken.  By everyone including God.

Now I'm not an overly religious person.  I prefer to practice my faith in my own way and on my own time, because I believe that if there truly is a force out there greater than the universe, well, then he or she or it, would simply prefer a more direct and informal relationship with the beings it shepherds over a cult like routine worship that pays lip service to the gospels that are intended to be practiced every day.

With all that said though, there have been a lot of days in the past few weeks where I've wanted to simply shake God for delivering such pain and suffering to me and the people in my life.  If everyone would just live by the golden rule (which by the way isn't exactly religious in any way), then we could all live peacefully, and happily in our own utopia.  It seems completely unreasonable to me, that we've been pitched against each other like pawns in a really lose lose game of chess between good and evil.  The innocent bystanders in those wretched games end up living and suffering with anxiety, depression, scizophrenia, and any other list of ailments as long as my arm, and maybe even then some.

Yesterday, a coworker I've become rather close to over the past year, was telling me that an absolutely horrendous disease that she suffers with, is getting worse.  Both of us working a country away from each other, there was nothing I could do except to read her words (paraphrased but accurate) "I feel foggy.  Just not right.  Heart not pumping enough blood or something.  Chuck's (her husband) not home til tomorrow.  I started getting tremors this weekend, and I guess I never expected them to come on this fast.  I broke my kindle.  I couldn't open the garbage bin.  It all just pissed me off.  I just can't stand the idea of someone having to look after me.  It just kills me that that's what's ahead of me."

She suffers from a disease called Mitochondrial disease.  So rare that only 1 in 4000 people have it.  So devastating that in her case it is attacking her heart, her nervous system and her brain.  She can develop Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and endless numbers of other conditions simply by having this one disease.  And for someone so bright and intelligent, and dedicated and ostentatious to be plagued with something that has no cure while we continue to bark up the cancer tree pouring money at it left and right with no resulting cure all's, it devastates me.  What's worse is that she's killing herself to keep her job, and keep her symptoms under wraps for fear of losing her job and her benefits and the financial ruin that will befall her family if that does happen.  She's fighting tooth and nail to stay alive so that her family isn't burdened by the cost (both emotional and financial) of her long term care.  It makes me appreciate where I live and the health care I receive so much more watching her dig in and fight like Muhammed Ali under a health care system that is so broken and politically disputed.  Knowing that the Republicans would sooner see her die than collect the healthcare she needs in order to protect the "constitutional rights" of insurance companies?

And I realize that there are so many people in the United States suffering from mental illnesses also, who are unable to get the help they need because the cost of medications is skyrocketing above what they can afford to pay with limited benefits.

And it makes me want to shake God, that the idiots have loud voices, and sharp knives, and the smart people have only been given dull, blunt weapons with which to retaliate in this battle.
It makes me want to shake God for praying on the meek and delivering them unbeatable illnesses that drag on for decades.
It makes me want to shake God that he hasn't given me a better opportunity to help these people while not forsaking my family to do it.
It makes me want to shake God that some of us have to choose to live every day, while others choose how to make it harder for us.
It makes me want to shake God, that he has forsaken so many of us, and allowed so many others to flourish.
It just makes me want to shake God.