[This actually happened yesterday, but YIFU doesn’t have the same ring to it.]
Sometimes I blog to document the What Was I Thinking? aspect of things I do, because somehow every step seems to make sense on its own at the time, but this question always arises later. So let’s try to reconstruct the reasoning that led to this mess of a day.
Right, so my last post two months ago, about everything being too hard. Including logging into my blog, it seems. My sleep schedule is all hecked up. I doubled my meds oh, 3 or 4 weeks ago, without asking anyone because I figure all the doctors are pretty busy now, and I only went up from 10mg/day (trial dose) to 20mg (normal dose), so it wasn’t an extreme change. I feel… I feel okay, but I still act depressed, you know, sleeping ’til 2pm, not showering, subsisting on cereal and coffee. Napping even though I slept for 10 hours the previous night (well, “night”: from dawn until 2pm, anyway), and able to accomplish One Thing per day. Starting complex projects and never finishing anything. So yeah, my general behavior hasn’t changed much in two months.
Someone else’s has, though.
Nothing happened. There is nothing objective that makes today different from yesterday, but this morning when I woke up the air was too heavy. It kept me in bed for three extra hours, and then I trudged through my day trying to follow routines, with occasional stare-into-nothing breaks. I ate something. I unpacked three boxes, but I didn’t know where to put a lot of the things, so they’re sitting on the stairs awaiting a decision. I have a bunch of things I need to mail, but first some of them have to be printed and my printer is … not printing very well but the diagnostic thingy says it’s fine. So it took me until four pm to trudge down to the copy shop, but I did! With my little USB stick to print stuff out, and I bought the necessary envelopes and I’d written down the addresses but I forgot two of the things that have to be mailed and one has to be signed and scanned before I mail it (the printer’s scanner still works) so basically all I managed today was two half-tasks. Now I have to save up enough energy to make Thing Two go to driving school, because I don’t trust him to do it if I don’t force him.
Everything is too hard.
And this is the thing I just can’t seem to explain to Normals, or even depressed people who have gotten help: things that are as easy and automatic as breathing to you are insurmountable to me. Get a therapist? I can’t even get out of bed. I can’t face talking to strangers, even on the phone, so howbout I call a whole string of strangers and listen to them reject me? That’s what it was like in Heidelberg; here in rural Bavaria there is ONE therapist per willage – not a good fit for you? Too fuckin’ bad! I’m sure there are loads of therapists in Munich to call and be rejected by. And then one won’t reject me and I will win! The opportunity to have to drive to Munich every week, which, see above re getting out of bed.
See? Everything. Too hard.
But first: today is the 26th anniversary of the day Husbutt and I met. I have had a surprisingly good day, considering. I hope this energy persists.
Anyway, as promised: a tale of a cat.
For some reason, Thing Two and I decided we needed more cats. Well, for the reason that this house is huge with many delightful hidey-holes and a big field nearby, so basically kitty heaven. Anyway, I went to the shelter website and saw this little face: Continue reading
So this is my life right now: I spend the week in Heidelberg, working late and either staying in an AirBnB and by 9pm I’m dying of the bored but it’s too early to go to bed, or staying with friends and then by 9pm I’ve been people-ing for twelve hours kill me now. And then on weekends I’m in this giant house full of boxes and dust and there’s so much to do and organize and unpack and I can’t even keep up with the dishes oh look it’s Monday again time to go back to Heidelberg! So that’s a little stressful. Continue reading
Yeah, sorry, I kinda forgot about this here blog thing. Christmas happened – not much of a Christmas, I roasted a turkey all by myself for the very first time and it was a dry chewy disaster resting on a bed of carbonized carrots and potatoes. The boys and I played board games. No tree. A few presents. No major drama, so let’s call it a win.
And now it’s January. I no longer have the room in the shared house in Heidelberg, so I spend weekends in the Willage and Tuesday through Friday – well, last week in an AirBnB, this week at a friend’s house in a suburb inconveniently far from work but whatever. There are buses. I got the brakes fixed on my bike. I can’t make or keep resolutions because I don’t have anything on which to build routines, but that’s temporary. I’m keeping my expectations of myself pretty low for now.
But I’m still here. That’s enough, for January.
We’re talking about the story I tell myself to explain the things that happen in my life. About how my mom left me when I was three and my dad was a mean drunk whose affection was arbitrary and conditional and I dropped out of college 6 times before finishing my B.A. and I get fired a lot and don’t get hired a lot and how it’s all led up to a story that I’m not worth keeping.
And she says if I keep telling myself that story then there’s no point in therapy and I need to tie all these events together with a different story and she can think of a million other explanations (thus implying that surely I can come up with one), and then I feel like I’m in a guessing game and I get annoyed. I hate guessing games. The worst thing about being a kid was grown-ups were always asking me questions that they already knew the answers to.
Another part of my story is that my husband and this woman did a terrible thing to me, but everybody is so quick to forgive them that I start to think maybe it wasn’t so terrible. If they’re basically good people who did the right thing, then where does that leave me? Did I deserve this, because it takes two to wreck a marriage and all that?
And it’s wrong to say they stole my future because it wasn’t my future, nothing is promised, I supported his career of my own free will and he doesn’t owe me anything. And if I cling to this narrative that I’ve been done wrong then I’m trapped in a victim mentality and not taking responsibility for my emotions and I’ll never be able to move on. To move on I have to accept and believe that my understanding of everything thus far has been wrong, but if that’s true then how can I trust my own judgement? And if I can’t trust my own judgement how can I make any decisions? And then I’m paralyzed and I can’t move forward. And I’ve just never been great at improv or brainstorming or just thinking up stuff so I’m trying to come up with a new story but the task is just too abstract; I don’t know where to start since there’s nothing tangible I can do.
So yeah. I’m flunking therapy. God I fucking hate December.
So yeah, in December I only have one job, so I am going to Dorfen every weekend. This time I took Thing1 with me. He is living with his father and the new girlfriend now, while he figures out what to do with his life. Thing2 is already at the house, so the three of us got to spend some time together, that was nice. I guess.
I’ve been on an eBay binge for awhile, gathering used furniture for the house. So now the front entry is done – already had the shoe shelf and a hatrack, now there is also a coat rack and a bench to sit on while you put on your shoes. I still need to get a buncha little mirrors, but it already looks like a real room – in contrast to the other rooms, which feature stacks of boxes, a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling, and/or pieces of furniture waiting to be assembled. But the first part of the house you see is done, and that’s something.
December is a bad month for depression. It has always been really rough for me, and in past years I’ve gone hard on the manufactured cheer of the Christmas season just to keep myself from going under. Organizing presents for everyone from everyone because nobody else would take responsibility, and filling the house with sparkle and light despite my husband and sons’ sneering cynicism was almost more work than it was worth, but I did it anyway. But this year it’s all I can do to hold on. Just gonna grit my teeth and get through this.
Thing1 said on the drive that he noticed his father had been unhappier over the last two years. I didn’t notice that at all. I mean I knew we had problems and I had a plan for addressing them and I know I waited too long, but also, I didn’t even realize that it had recently gotten visibly worse. I’ve always been sorta clueless about that sort of thing (if you went to high school with me you are now doing a spit-take and saying, “SORTA!?”), so it’s maybe not surprising that I missed it, but maybe if I had noticed, I could have done something about it. Or at least had some warning, so I could brace myself. Then maybe I wouldn’t still be shaking my head in disbelief after nearly eight freaking months.
So yeah. Dark thoughts. Grit teeth. Hold on.
Ooops, I sort of forgot about the blog for a bit, sorry. It’s been a really bad week, lots of tears leading to a migraine, feeling confused and frustrated and hopeless. It’s affecting my work, which is bad because I’m still on probation and I really wanted to make a better impression at this job than I am currently making. On the other hand, the job is in Heidelberg and working here will certainly complicate my move to Bavaria, which is already much more complicated than necessary because hi, it’s me doing it and unnecessary complication is totally my superpower. Still, losing this job will probably not improve my self-esteem.
Friends seem surprised that I’m still sad, which makes me feel dumb, so I’m trying not to talk about it. But I’m still really sad. Not dewy melancholy staring through a rainy window like in the movies sad, but ugly-crying and wishing I’d died before any of this could happen sad. Other things are happening which I can’t talk about because of other people’s privacy, but it’s all got me feeling quite hopeless. I’m not a lot of fun to be around lately.
Huaugh. Maybe it’s a good thing that I forgot about the blog for a bit. #DebbieDowner
… because every time I whipped out my camera, they stopped doing whatever it was that was so darn cute. But they were so darn cute! There were three big dumb floppy girl-dogs and we had just the best day! My internet connection wasn’t fab so I did a lot of reading while they snoozled, and that probably did me some good too. I rode the high from the big-dumb-dog-day until oh, probably yesterday. Today I came back down to earth a bit and kind of remembered that I’m sad.
But also very busy! But is that just a way to distract myself from the sad? But it’s good to distract yourself in the early stages because you’re too wounded to look directly at the pain, you’ll spiral. But it’s bad to distract yourself for too long because the grief is gonna sneak up and getcha at some point when you’re least expecting it! Aw hell, I don’t know.
And then in the middle of all this Mr. Husband texted me a buncha fightin’ words and I decided to wait a few days before responding because I was mad-mad but I didn’t want to escalate, and then today he had to tell me about some tax thing and he was calmer and less of a dickbag and so now I have all this anger and nowhere to put it. I can’t really go into detail because of other people’s privacy but it’s been a bit of a roller coaster. But just a small one, the kind you see at the fair that’s run by a dude in a ladybug costume, you don’t even have to be this tall to ride. I guess that’s an improvement.
Still singing All At Once by Whitney Houston, though. Yeah he’s a moron, but he was my moron.
alala 