Petty Musings of a Self-Depressive

The last couple of weeks I've been all kinds of stressed out. The kind of stressed out I did most of the summer when things were bad between me and my nearest friend, when I was working for her for six days a week without being paid, on top of doing eight solid hours of school on my one day off, and money was tight, off time was never in advance enough to plan vacations, and one of my best friends was leaving the country but I could not go to see her. Life was hellish in many ways this last summer, and I started manifesting that physically. My stomach hurt almost constantly like it did for months in highschool when my very best friend abruptly declared she didn't care if I lived or died. Several times a day my heart would suddenly begin racing and adrenaline would shoot through my body as if someone had just jumped out and yelled "Boo!" in my face. My throat clenched up, my posture went back to being hunched, and I started clenching my teeth.

At first, I didn't know what was going on. I told myself and everyone else that I was fine, that I didn't know why I was feeling these silly things. It wasn't until near the (was it the end of the summer? I can't remember now, really. Time is such a blur), that I figured it out, that I started to melt down on everyone and I realized that I had burnt out, utterly and completely burnt out. That I was carrying around such a huge load of anger and resentment against those I interacted with on a daily basis that I wasn't sure whether I wanted to jump off a cliff or push someone else more. I felt so beaten and abused and exhausted on every level that I imagined I almost wasn't fit for human company; something of my black outlook would surely rub off on those I loved and wanted to be close to, and how was that fair? I think this summer I actually taught myself how to really lie, with face and tone and eye contact. That doesn't do you a heck of a lot of good around empaths who know you though. Still, I tried in order to protect everyone around me from the radioactive emotions filling my up, and that, of course, made it worse.

But the good thing that came of it was that I learned joy and love and peace given undemandingly can heal such wounds, at least if the wounded is willing to be healed. A little over a week in Boone was not really enough, I wish I had had more time, but it helped. God it helped. And the rest period later, when I didn't have to work, when I had time alone to get on top of my life, and it looked like we would have money and all I had to worry about was school...that helped too. I remembered that my creativity springs from a busy joy, that anger (an emotion I have never been very good with and have had way too much experience with lately) only pinches off the flow.

And for the last two weeks I have been carrying anger in my belly. I have been hunching up, clenching my jaw, crying at random with my heart racing. PMS? Very possible. But we are low on money, and my preferences and joys don't really seem to be coming first, and what I really want is to be left alone, alone, alone with a good novel for days and days on end. Every time I start to feel a little better, something happens, some little word is said or body movement made, and I am ready to scream again, to curse and break things, to say the unforgiveable and drag my own fingernails over my flesh.

What is wrong with me? Is there something wrong with me? Do I simply fail to cope appropriately with an emotional event that happens to everyone? Is this what drives others to drink, to smoke, to do drugs or seek physical pain as a refuge? Am I so weak that I cannot deal with an emotion any normal, functioning adult would shrug at? Is this merely a reaction to having bills and no money, to having best friends angry with one another, to having a messy house and no energy to clean....? Or is it a chemical imbalance, a mild form of the depression that has plagued the women of my family for generations? Mild form? Is it mild? Am I manic depressive? I was a good girl today. I took my vitamin B, with the iron tablet to help it absorb. I took three of them. I made myself fix a piece of chicken and eat it. I don't want to eat, don't want to go through the mechanics of preparing food and putting the food in my mouth, the process of chewing and swallowing and digesting and cleaning up afterwards. There is no underlying worry about weight, or dislike of the food we have, or anything of the sort. I simply do not want to put food in my stomach, though I know that I am hungry, that my brain is fuzzy and my limbs feel heavy from lack of nutrients, that possibly this intense feeling of rage and depression is related to my not eating.

What is wrong with me? Why am I doing this to myself? Surely I am the one doing this to myself, despite the fact that I have been using all my energetic tools to lift the fog, that I attempt to act bright and cheerful, that I go through the dreary mechanics of feeding my body when I would rather do anything but. What truth am I hiding, what thing am I blaming on myself to protect other people? What things am I blaming other people for to protect myself? Why, why, WHY am I so unstable? Why can't I just hold down the job, the schooling, the marriage, the housekeeping like rest of the world does without going bananas?

I know what I need to do, really. I need to cut back babysitting from two nights to one night a week. I need to get out of the house more, not worry about that extra dollar and linger blissfully in my tea shop for hours on end. I need to guard my free time. I need to go back to Boone and absorb the feeling of being a free woman, an independent, competent individual laughing with others of the same. I need the hugs and the laughter of those I am not so close to.

Perhaps I am merely an emotional coward. Perhaps I cannot handle the stage between blood family and loving but distant friends. I am a social hermit, I want to see and be seen by other people, but only on my own terms. I can be there when a friend is going through crisis, be the supportive one, but only on occasion. When the emotional field becomes too rough I want to leave, to hide away in my one room cabin on my tiny island three hundred yards from shore. I do not do unreasoning conflict well, especially not from those I think should treat me the most gently, with the most understanding. I do not, do not, do not do that well. Give me close friends and family that I talk to maybe once a week, that I see every two weeks or more. I heard a saying once, that guests are like fish, they are wonderful when fresh, but after three days they begin to stink. But I really need to spend a week or more in Boone.

The major lure? That I could be one of the bright, independent, competent girls in that lovely apartment. That I could work on that horse farm, learning quickly and earning my pay with my own sweat. That I could write in the quiet peace of the window seats, be the house elf that makes their lives easier and earns my keep and receive the laughter, the love and support and gentle teasing that I crave more than anything else in the world. And from there, move on to be even more independent, perhaps in my own little apartment one day, on a bus route or with a scooter....

But none of that would last. I would be come too close to them. There would be fighting, there always is eventually, over some petty annoyance. I would not always want to be the house elf. I would become a common fixture instead of a treasured visitor, all of my best would come to be expected as theirs would even as we all relaxed and let some of the warts show. And it is silly of me to dream of being alone an unfettered, completely independent. Unless my eyes heal completely I will never really have that, or at least not feel as if I have that. And if they were healed, then I would have that no matter what my living arrangements.

I feel trapped again. Trapped, trapped, trapped in the web of life, by the expectations and needs of those around me. Tied down by my stupid, uneducated, self-inflicted helplessness and dependence on others. And the sad thing is that probably most people feel like that to one degree or another, tied down and trapped by their circumstances, by the need to make money, the need to make others happy, the need to simply coexist with other creatures in an approximation of peace and mutual respect. I want to cry out that I do not care, I do not care about any of the stupid rules, the responsibilities. But these are surely the sentiments of a child, a mere adolescent, and I am supposed to be an adult. Work is the responsibility traded for the freedom of self-guidance. I am in a bed of my own making, with no real intention of leaving it. But I would like to get up periodically and shake the dust of the daily grind from the sheets, wash the sweat of labor and tears of contention away and walk out into the sun.

Hang in there. You're going to Boone soon, to see those bright lovely faces that have their own cares but are more precious because they are unfamiliar. Hang in there, the moon face will pass, the time of the month will be over soon. Hang in there, your emotions will level, your energy will increase, the money will come in.... Hang in there, the contending individuals will work it out, or not, but you do not need to be ground to dust in the middle.

Write, work, love, learn, that's all anyone's really asking of you. All else is self-delusion.