#but depression has been doing its thang so i’ve been switched off at the wall | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mind-racket · 6 years ago

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Where Do I Begin?

So here we are...New Year’s Eve 2018. Time for resolutions and drinks and cheese and such.

I’m just gonna be up front and say I don’t have much for 2018. Frankly, even though there was not really one standout sucky thing about it that comes to mind right off, collectively, I hold it in pretty low regards.

It had its moments. Even a sucky year has its moments. I still have a job, Becky’s business continued to do well, and most of my friends and loved ones are still with us. We have a roof over our heads, we have food to eat, and the cats seem as happy as cats can be.

Still...somewhere along the way...the wheels sort of came off, and I’m not even sure I was aware of it as it was happening. I don’t want to overstate it...it was not a careening car crash headlong into a chestnut tree. It was more of a continuous attempt to regain control on an icy bridge.

As has been the case for most of my life, my struggle with weight was probably the dominant factor. I knew as the year started that I had let things get a bit out of control, but it seemed that every attempt to get control of it just led to more trouble.

Since getting diagnosed with high blood pressure a few years ago, I’ve been on a schedule with my doctor to go see him once a year for a checkup. See where the numbers are and all that. I knew it was coming this summer, and I knew I needed to get my shit together before going to see him. I really like him, and for some reason, I find myself wanting to impress him with my progress. Still, with that as a driving force to do better, I struggled to change my bad habits.

There were periods where I felt like maybe I was on track again, but it didn’t take long before I got off track and erased any progress I’d made. Of course, none of this was supported by any real numbers. I refused to step on the scales until I felt like I’d made some progress, which meant that by the time I went for my visit, I had ZERO idea what to expect on the scales.

When I saw the actual number, it took me a second to realize just what I’d seen. My brain did not process it right away, and when it did, all I could say was....well...I wasn’t expecting that. My blood pressure reading was also a little elevated above where it had been staying pretty consistently. As I sat waiting for him to come in, I could almost physically feel myself sinking into a bad place.

When he sat down and we started talking, I just burst into tears right there. I literally could not control it. Shame...sadness...guilt...it all rolled itself up into a hideous little storm inside me and came sweeping across me like a spring storm in Kansas. To his credit, he was SO supportive and comforting. He acknowledged the struggle, said it will probably ALWAYS be that way, and told me to just regroup and get going again. He also asked me to check in by phone in about a month and let him know how things were going.

I didn’t.

30 days later, I was not much less of a mess than I’d been for the previous 200 or so. And, as I sit here typing this on December 31, I can’t honestly say that I’ve done much of anything to alter it since that visit. I don’t know that things have gotten worse, but they certainly haven’t gotten any better.

That ends now.

Not because it is New Year’s Eve (well...not ONLY because it is New Year’s Eve) but because it is time to get my shit together. I have actually been blessed with relatively good health despite the way I’ve treated my body for 47 years. It is time I return the favor to this vessel that has carried my bones and innards around all this time and treat it with the respect and care it deserves before it completely rebels and tells me to go fuck myself.

As expected, these types of struggles with the physical self go hand in hand with a pretty mighty mental struggle. Being preoccupied with my weight and then being even more disgusted with my continued lack of action to correct that preoccupation made for pretty lousy odds at having a clear and focused mind.

Add to that the continued worry about job security, the never-ending question in my head about “what I wanna be when I grow up”, the recurring feeling that I’m falling short on my goals, the disappointment with myself for that failing, and before you know it, the hole is dug.

I won’t call it depression...more of a lingering sadness maybe? Whatever it is, it isn’t as easy to shake off as I’d like it to be. It sort of feeds on itself, and before you know it, it is expressing itself through what you wear, how you take care of yourself, how you control your emotions, where your breaking point is...it just seems to consume ever damn thang.

By the end of July, my efforts to write something here every day had ended with a promise to figure out a new approach with my “journaling”. That figuring never happened, and that was the last thing I had written this year before today.

Over the past few weeks, however, I have been working on bringing about some changes. A couple of months ago, I made some changes at work (helped greatly by the guy that took over as my new boss last year) that made me feel a little better about my job...changes that made me feel like it was more than just fixing people’s shit. I mean...it is still mostly just fixing people’s shit...but now it feels...different.

I also started working on getting back in to taking pictures. I picked up a new vintage lens for my camera and started exploring what exactly it is I want to do with my version of photography going forward.

I’ve never really stopped surrounding myself with music. Happy, sad, whatever...music is ALWAYS a part of my life. I need it, always. As I sit here today, there’s a fantastic record spinning beside me. It isn’t a NEW record (well, it is for me...Beck got it for me for Christmas), but it is a record I’ve wanted to write about and share with everyone.

As the year started, I felt like I was making progress towards creating my space to share things like that with everyone, but it seems like as the reality started to grow that I might actually make it happen, the urge to push away from it grew even faster. It wasn’t something I fostered. I didn’t even realize the pushing away was taking place. But it was. It always has.

It is time, too, for that to end.

As a child, I was successful in the classroom. It all just sort of made sense and clicked. With that came the good grades, and with that came the expectations to continue making those grades. I sort of hit a wall my first year of high school and my first real experience at struggling with a subject. Being that it hadn’t really happened before...that feeling of falling short...and I did not exactly handle it well. It was uncomfortable, and I struggled to process it.

I honestly think that I may have been dealing with some form of attention deficit, be it physical or self-made. Either way, it was a doozy. I can remember trying to read books, getting to the bottom of the page, and having to re-read it because my mind had wandered off onto some other topic. I had no idea why it was happening and even less of an idea on how to fix it, so that just added to the mess.

College started in a very similar way. I began at one school, transferred to another, and switched through several majors along the way because I had never really ever answered the question...what do I wanna be when I grow up?

There were plenty of things I LIKED doing, but I didn’t really feel passionate about ANY of them. I was good at several things, but I wasn’t really GREAT at any particular one of them.

I only add these reflections now because I’m working on figuring out just why I continue to roll boulders right to the top of the hill but struggle with pushing them on across the peak. What I’ve sort of settled on (which is no big shocker) is a fear of failure. An INTENSE fear of failure.

The irony of it is that each time I do this, it IS a failure, but it is often a failure that only I have to know about. I typically toil with these things on my own, only asking for opinions and guidance from others every now and then, but I never really ask for buy in from anyone, so there’s nothing built up for them to watch fall apart.

These aren’t concepts that are completely new to me. I’ve known elements of this all before. I’ve thought about one part or another independently, but I don’t think I’ve ever really tried to deep-dive into it or open the doors up to others so that they can see just what a mess I’ve made in here.

You’re welcome. =)

The unfortunate side effect of trying to keep all of this shit from spilling out into my every day life is that I scatter it all around for my wife to navigate through. And while she deals with it all like a champ and offers the perfect advice every single time, she shouldn’t have to deal with my shit every time I let one of those boulders roll back down the hill.

Another fun side effect of all of this is that I tend to wall myself off socially. Instead of visiting with friends and talking to some of the very people who could probably help me sort some of this shit out and help me grow beyond it, when I do see them, I try to always leave them with a perfect snapshot of me just in case I decide to retreat from society for 2 months...a decision which I inevitably will make.

I don’t know right now how much of this I will share, or who I will choose to share it with. My feeling is that I should open it up to a select group of people I feel closest to, not to free me from the guilt of not living up to my expectations of what it means to be a good friend or to make anyone feel sorry for me, but to shine a light on this failure so that I don’t just tuck it away with everything else and never allow anyone else to hold me accountable for it.

I’ll have to think a little on just how open I want to be.

If you’ve made it this far, well...bless your heart. And no, I’m not fixing to jump off a bridge or drive off in the middle of the night in search of myself. I’m just working some things out and inviting you along for the journey.

Again, you’re welcome. =)

And always hanging like the fucking cloud of Mordor over each and every day?

Trump.

Enough said.

So what about 2019? I’ve said it before, and have managed at various times to follow through on it, but this is going to be a year of change. Physically, mentally, socially...changes are coming.

This is going to be a year of doing more of the things I enjoy, and managing those that I dread.

This is going to be a year of looking forward, not dwelling on what is behind.

This is going to be a year of love...of laughter...of light.

I am not positive the road will rise to meet me or the wind will always be at my back, but I will keep turning towards the sun, hoping that it shines warm upon my face.

If that doesn’t work, I’ll probably just drink.

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