Another thing I'm left with: pretentiousness

I just said to myself semi-out loud "no, no, no, no, no" because I can feel myself getting depressed. But still somewhat manic at the same time, which I think is a first for me. Lucky me! My mind is racing all over but I feel this sadness creeping in. Can I blame this on the weather? Okay.

We have snow(!) on the ground here and it's 28 degrees out. I wanted earlier to go out and get breakfast or something but I just can't deal with horrible bitter cold yet. Or ever, but especially when it's not even Halloween yet. Plus it's so sunny out and I don't want cold brightness. I want a nice melancholy fall day with temperatures in the 50s.

I keep looking out the window and feeling disconcerted. I want weather that either lifts my spirits or matches them. This just seems like taunting mockery.

Writing is calming me down but I was in a near-panic earlier because I had one of my occasional moments of stark clarity where I realized that none of the things I want would change how I feel and though I may convince myself that wanting and not having them is why I feel the way I do, really this is just how I am. And if I had them I'd ruin them/drive them away by being myself, etc. etc. etc.

I should take a shower and leave the house. Even the terrible cold would be good because then I could feel happy and relieved about coming home again. But when I start seriously saying, okay, let's do this then, my mind just shuts that down--"No. Bad idea. Don't want to. Keep sitting here doing nothing."

I hate this feeling of wanting something and realizing there isn't anything I really want. So I'm just left with this vague lonely emptiness and longing.

I think the official name for it is "life"

What if I never know what I want? Or to be more accurate, what if I always stop wanting things once I have them?

I always think I'm lonely and want a relationship and companionship, so why once I've attracted someone's attention and spent time with them (and, yes, sometimes, slept with them) do I suddenly have no interest in anything other than staying home alone in my pajamas watching t.v. (which is, you know, the lamentable lonely life that drives me to seek out men to be bored by in the first place)?

I also always assume I want to go back to school, get a degree, and do the elusive "something" with my life. So why now that I've committed to applying to Bennington am I kinda hoping I don't get in and my life stays the same?

Mostly obviously this is just me resisting change--my life was incredibly turbulent for years and years so order and habit have come to mean a lot to me. But buried in there also is a different fear: the fear that I'll never really be happy, at least not for long. Part of me worries that I'll keep trying new things and being disappointed by them, so maybe it's better to keep everything the same so I can just have the one, drawn-out disappointment.

Placeholder title for a placeholder post

I know it's been forever since I've updated, that's partly me being lazy/not having anything to say, and partly because my computer keeps randomly dying for days then working again so what internet time I do have is mostly spent catching up. I'll try to get something written soon.

I guess I should have added some footnotes

I'm sure I must have read something by David Foster Wallace at some point, but I really can't remember. I haven't read either of the novels or the short story collections, although of course I've meant to for years. Did he have something in Shiny Adidas Track Suits and the Death of Camp? If so then I read it, whatever it was. Anyway, that's not the point.

What I was making my way slowly around to saying is that even though this isn't someone who was a cherished author of mine, I was still shocked and saddened to learn he'd killed himself. And that was mostly from a personal, self-centered point of view. Because here was someone who was very respected in their chosen field (a field I have occasional aspirations toward being a part of), who was married, who had a steady job...but it wasn't enough. It got to him until he couldn't take it anymore, and he hanged himself.

I delude myself sometimes into thinking that if I was more successful in some indefinable way then it would go away. Well, maybe I'd still get depressed, but it would be less frequent, and I'd certainly never think about killing myself again. That's silly and illogical and magical-ish thinking, but it's just one of those things I tell myself sometimes. Maybe because it gives me a goal--achieve this in life, and it'll go away. I guess it helps me believe that there's a way to cure it (recurring theme), when really mental illness is like an addiction--you can be recovering, but you're never recovered. That's the truth I'm having to face again after hearing about Wallace's suicide: it will never, ever, ever completely go away, and even the most seemingly successful people can be pulled under all the way. And if they can, so could I.

Maybe not "funny ha-ha"

What's funny is now that I have people's attention I kind of want to just slink away and disappear. And also, how after all this time I still try to figure out why I feel like this, as though there's a logical explanation.

Would saying "this is not for attention" make it seem more or less like this is for attention?

This post brought to you by Nighthawks and Pittsfield's lack of a Denny's

There is a part of me that wants to live in a big city not in spite of the fact that I'd be surrounded by people who are strangers to me, but because of it. Something about that specific alienation is appealing to me, in some sort of bizarrely romanticized way. I guess logically I know it would be horrible but part of me likes the idea of being a tiny cog in a huge machine, of being a small fish. Maybe because it would depersonalize me, maybe part of me thinks that would take me away from my problems. Obviously it wouldn't--how is being dehumanized the answer? But I like the idea of being a small part of something much bigger than myself.

I guess I don't so much want to be in a city as I want to be in a specific mythology of The City.

Clearly I'm not taking a vacation from crazy

I'm on vacation this week and I spent a couple of days at my grandparents'. At one point when I was trying to fall asleep I experienced a strange feeling I've had before, best described as "dissociative homesickness." A brief but intense feeling of loneliness that comes out of nowhere, and happens when I'm away from home. Dissociative because I feel outside of myself when it happens--I'm always analyzing it as I'm experiencing it. I feel so profoundly alone, and as though there's someone I deeply miss. And then I run through all the people I might possibly miss, and it's none of them. But it's such a specific feeling, missing someone, and that's definitely what this feeling is. It's almost like deja vu, it has that sort of eeriness about it. I don't know if it's connected in any way to being bipolar or if it's unrelated; it happens rarely but I can remember it happening back into my childhood. It's just very strange, like an extremely condensed depressive episode or something. I mean it's over in a minute, but it leaves me struggling to figure out for a long time afterwards.

Compulsive posting is my other big issue

This is when mania is bad and I wish I could stop it: when my mind won't shut up and slow down and leave me alone. And it's my fault in a big way, because I drank an iced coffee and ate chocolate with espresso chips in it when I knew I wanted to do things today, and it's already hard enough to sleep at this time with the weird schedule I work. I'm already rambling and making no sense because my mind is throwing a million thoughts at me and I want to sort them out and get them all down but there are so many threads going at once, and I can only write one thought at a time.

I tried to sleep for about two hours but that wasn't happening. Part of that is unavoidable--I work overnight two nights a week and second shift three other nights, so I don't naturally sleep when other people do. But god I could at least get some rest if my mind would stop racing. And if I turned the computer back off and lay down again, of course. Although maybe not; it's light out now and traffic is starting and birds are singing so I don't know if I'd get substantial rest. I have to work 3-11 tonight and I'll be dying at some point. I'll want to lie down before then, but sometimes getting a little sleep is worse than getting none.

I'm like a parody of myself with the tangents right now, I mean as bad as the parenthetical asides normally are, I've had to self-edit so many times because I keep going down so many different roads. If this ends up being even semi-coherent, it'll be a miracle. There were actual things I wanted to say, but I keep losing track of them.

But, okay, something this made me realize that is worth examining: Mania sometimes contributes heavily to my procrastination/inaction. This is something of a revelation to me and it might seem like a cop-out or an excuse, but it's the truth. I put things off a lot because I get so worked up and excited and have so many ideas, but I think about how I can't possibly do all of them, but my mind keeps telling me to do all of them, so I end up paralyzed. Probably part of the reason I start so many things and finish so few. I realized this as I was thinking of all the things I could do with this energy that won't leave me alone right now, and felt so overwhelmed by all the things I need to do.


Alright, I just took a break for five minutes and have mostly managed to calm myself down, but I can still feel the mania trying to take over again. I wish I could describe it, it's almost a physical feeling. I can't explain it though, and I don't even know if it's something other people who've gone through this understand, or if it's just my own personal experience. It feels kind of like fighting a tic or a spasm or something, just this compulsion. Or, although the emotions are different, like trying not to cry. Still not completely what I mean. I have to constantly tell myself that even though it feels like it, finally putting all of this into the exact right words won't make this magically go away. But I really want to believe that that, or anything, is the key. I want to believe that there's a cure.

I'm a robot sometimes, deal with it

Just writing this here as a reminder to myself of something else I want to think more about, and hopefully write about in the future:

How I can be so emotional sometimes, and then other times be so completely shut off and disconnected, and how sometimes it seems like my mind switches off when it's overloaded by too much emotion.

Even if I never end up writing more about this, I encourage anyone with any thoughts on/experiences with this to comment; really, I encourage comments on anything I write. I love hearing about other people's experiences with depression and seeing how they compare to mine. And even if you don't have these issues, I'm always interested in hearing what others have to say about what I write. (But of course I don't want or expect people to comment just for the sake of commenting.)

I worry about worrying about worrying

Does having pre-existing mental illnesses make someone more vulnerable to others? I wonder about this occasionally. Specifically I worry about becoming delusional, being completely at the whims of tricks my mind plays on me. And then of course the next thought is, "What if that's happened already?" I suppose this is something many people wonder, if even just fleetingly, at some point in their lives--the question of whether their perceptions and experiences of the world are true or somehow imagined. Knowing that my mind already has a tendency to distort the truth, though, I probably give it more thought than others do.

And then sometimes I even take it a step forward and start worrying that my concerns about this possibility will overwhelm me, that I'll spend my life constantly worrying about getting worse (only eight entries and this is already a recurring theme of this blog, because it's a recurring theme in my mind). Is it wrong to worry about this, though? I want to be vigilant and proactive in my own mental health, and I think sometimes that means assessing myself to make sure I'm not getting worse. I just can't let myself be consumed by my fears and worries.

Self-evaluation is tricky, and I think I'll be using this blog to help me with it. It's hard to look at myself and say, "Am I doing alright? How is my mood? Have I been more depressed than usual lately?" If I'm manic or profoundly depressed, then obviously that's easy to figure out. What's harder is tracking my moods over time; so many times I'll realize that I've been somewhat depressed for awhile only when I'm starting to feel better. This is wonderful on one hand (the whole world starts seeming so much more beautiful) and terrible on the other (realizing how unhealthy my thoughts and mood have been for the past few days/weeks/months). So, I hope having this space to put everything going through my mind on this subject into words helps me recognize patterns in my mood, and that recognizing bad patterns helps me figure out how to break them (or at least make them easier).

Something this has reminded me of that I should write about at some point: the subtlety of depression, and how I can be minorly depressed for stretches of time and not realize it til I'm coming out of it. It's like waking up.

I would also like to be able to decide to be rich

Sometimes it feels like I'm somehow choosing to be depressed, like if I just set my mind to it I could be happy and normal. But instead I have to be difficult. I mean it would be so much easier to not feel lost and alone and empty, and I know there's no actual reason for me to feel that way, so I should be able to just stop. Just snap out of it.

There is a whole subset of the self-help movement devoted to this idea, and it makes me alternately angry and disappointed in myself. Mostly angry; I only beat myself up about it when I feel this way. Then I tell myself that I could be better, could just get over it already, if I really wanted to, and since I've chosen not to, well, that's on me. Thoughts like that are poisonous, and luckily I don't have them often. But I was at CVS and saw some book about choosing to be happy or something when I was already in a not-so-great mood, and here we are.

It's not that I don't think there are things I can do to help process these moods and make them a little easier; I'm doing that right now by writing about it. But there is an underlying message to a lot of books and programs that if people with depression just decided to be happy, well, problem solved. The people who come up with ideas like that have no idea what they're talking about and are no better than Tom Cruise saying vitamins will fix everything. I'm lucky enough that I don't get depressed too often anymore (though I've written a lot about it here already, this is the first time I've actually been depressed while writing), and when I do, it's generally not major--I'm not suicidal, it doesn't impair my ability to do my job, it doesn't last for weeks on end. But there are people out there who are much worse off then I am, who are as bad as I was during my major episode/breakdown five years ago, and it's on their behalf that I get angry. Because believe me, if we could choose to have different brain chemistry, to not be broken and miserable inside, we would. And selling this completely unfeasible idea to people so vulnerable is no better than selling snake oil to a cancer patient.

See, this is why I need a boyfriend

I was just reminded of the exception to the rule that I don't have panic attacks at home. That exception would be having a wasp in my apartment. What reminded me of this? Oh, just coming home from work and finding a HUGE SCARY WASP buzzing around by one of my windows. Oh my god wasps. Fuck you, nature, and your evil buzzing monsters.

I'm, um, kind of really scared of wasps and bees and all things of that nature. And this really has nothing to do with what I normally write about here, but seriously, I am really scared of wasps. But! For the first time ever in my life I was actually able to bring myself to get close enough to kill one! (I hope...after I had smashed it with a heavy book and its presumably lifeless evil corpse had fallen to the floor, I thought I heard some buzzing. It fell in a place where I can't see it and therefore confirm my victory.) This happened a few minutes ago and I'm still shaking. It's just my hands now but it was full-on right after I killed it, especially because it just kind of stayed there perched on the blanket (I have a fleece blanket over one of my bedroom windows to keep out the sun) for a minute and then suddenly fell, causing me to jump and let out an especially girly gasp of sheer, all-consuming terror. I'm not even scared of bugs usually; ants creep me out but I can deal with them as long as there aren't a bunch, and spiders don't really bother me. But oh wasps, oh they can just die right off. Allegedly they serve a purpose but the only one I can see is scaring me shitless and making me want to flee my home in abject horror.

So yes, this is not really mental illness-related, but it's always nice to come home after a night of work and be confronted by a mostly irrational fear and subsequently panic.

Good thing I never get lonely or anything

It's getting closer to the time of year that I hate. Here it is 20 after 8 and it's already as dark as it's going to get for the night. I never get used to this, though I've lived in the Northeast my entire life; in my mind, if there's not a little sunlight left at 9 p.m., something's wrong.

And it's getting colder, too, although this hasn't been a very warm summer to begin with. It won't be long before it's December and 20 degrees out and I'm locked up here in my tower for months. I lean toward being a recluse most of the time even in the nicest weather, and in winter I become a complete shut-in. Which isn't good for me--all I do is sit here and stew in my own thoughts, or watch t.v. and have no thoughts. But when it's nice out, and I actually leave the house, my mood is almost always improved, even if it's just to walk up the street to get some food and come back. It just takes such an abnormal mental effort (compared to other people) for me to leave the house. Because, see, I'm crazy, if I hadn't mentioned that yet.

I'm not agoraphobic, but I border on it sometimes. I have panic disorder, and I don't have panic attacks safe at home by myself. It's out there, exposed, around other people, that I do. So in my mind, home=good and leaving the house=bad. Even though logically I know that most of the time getting out into the world makes me feel better. But there are still those times when I'm out in public and feel like everyone's watching me, judging me, mocking me, and I make a beeline for home. And then the next time I contemplate going out I think, what if I have a panic attack? And so the whole cycle continues. I know that all this does is allow panic to control my life, and that giving into it and structuring my life around it will not possibly lead to any good. This is how agoraphobics are made. And that's why I hate winter--it's hard enough for me to force myself to interact with the world, I don't need snow and ice and relentless cold adding an actually logical reason to never leave my apartment.

Hilarious irony: I was thinking about walking a few blocks to a restaurant that closes soon to pick up some food, but I stayed here and wrote this instead.

No, just kidding, I'm awesome

Depression makes me neurotic because it makes my mind tell me lies about myself. I become consumed by thoughts of my failings and weaknesses, which become magnified in my mind to the point that I can't see anything else. I berate myself internally for it, for not being able to see past myself and all the problems in my head and just live my life. I start to obsess that I am driving people away; I ascribe meanings to their actions (and inaction) that all revolve around me. If I have to be a narcissist, couldn't I be one of the ones who loves themselves?

Even now--when I'm not even depressed--I'm asking myself, why do I have to do this? Why drag everyone down? Can't I be like other people, writing about cool fun things?

Well, I do this because this is what I do. I wring my hands and search my mind and see all the bad, only the bad. But, at least now I'm trying to sort it all out and put it in words.

And sometimes I want to eat food that's bad for me!

I know I shouldn’t, but I crave mania sometimes. Well, hypomania, I guess; I’ve never had a full-scale manic episode (I’m more cyclothymic or bipolar 2 than just bipolar, although you wouldn’t know it by some of my depressive episodes). I don’t go on spending sprees, I don’t gamble, I don’t have sleazy anonymous sex. I just feel so much better. When I get manic, I feel like I can do anything. It’s often useful for getting things done–cleaning, writing, creating awesome mix tapes. It’s like drinking lots of strong coffee, minus the jitters and having to pee all the time, and plus amazingly high confidence and self-esteem. Oh mania. I’d bottle you and sell you if I could.

Of course, there’s a downside. Of course there’s a downside. The downside is that whenever I get manic, I will at some later point be depressed, and the level of depression is proportionate to the level of mania: the more manic I get now, the more depressed I’ll be later. It’s an exercise in self-control, and I guess I’m lucky that I can control it at all. It’s hard, because I’m always tempted to give in to the mania and just feel good and be productive, but I’m usually able to calm myself down. I take deep breaths, I clear my mind, I go to bed. And I wonder why mental instability is the only thing that makes me feel fully confident and alive.

I also could have quoted Virginia Woolf's suicide note

“How did I know that someday — at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere — the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn’t descend again?”
–Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

This thought has obsessed me lately. I’ve never been free of manic depression or anxiety, but it hasn’t been too bad for the past few years. It’s been manageable. But I had a breakdown once, and what if it happens again? It doesn’t help, of course, that my point of reference here is Sylvia Plath. As soon as the thought struck me, though, I thought of that line. It captures the fear that’s always been at the back of my mind and is lately moving to the front: What if I go crazy again? And where will I be if I do? (I originally typed “when I do.” I guess my subconscious thinks this is gonna happen.)

One of the worst aspects of depression, for me, is how illogical it is. Every time I’m depressed I think the same thing: if I know why I feel this way, why doesn’t that make it go away? Similarly I now think: if I know enough to be wary of a breakdown, shouldn’t that keep it from happening? But I know it doesn’t work that way, so all I can do is watch and wait. It’s like walking down a city street at night wondering if someone’s going to jump out of a dark alley and mug me.

No, it’s not, it worse than that. It’s like being trapped inside myself, held hostage by my own mind. All this time wondering and worrying that I’m going to have a breakdown again and I’m starting to think I’d rather just have the damn breakdown and get it over with already.

"People here [in Congress] often think of depression as being sad; no matter what I tell other legislators, they don't know. They don't understand how it is emptiness, how it is a vast nothing."
--U.S. Representative Lynn N. Rivers; quoted in The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression by Andrew Solomon

I'm using this space to write exclusively about my depression and anxiety. I have an online journal somewhere else where, when I ever bother to update, I write about any random thing that crosses my mind. That occasionally includes posts about my mental health issues, but it sometimes seems jarring there, the stark contrast between my regular normal posts and my crazy posts. I also feel awkward sometimes showing my crazy side to the people who read what I write there; here, I'm focusing entirely on the crazy stuff right off the bat and that somehow makes it easier for me.

A note for people who know me (and, I guess, new people who become inexplicably attached to me): I'm guessing everything I write here will be the kind of thing that normally elicits an "Are you okay?" Let's just go ahead and assume that yes, I am okay. I just have a lot going on in my mind sometimes.