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chrmdnbeautiful · 4 years

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Depression... maybe TMI?

With what’s going on in our world right now, I have been seeing a lot of posts about mental illnesses. I know so many people that are affected by some mental illness and I know even more that have no idea what it’s like to be locked in with our demons.

My depression may not look like someone else’s. It might be hard for you to believe that I even suffer from it or anxiety. Believe me, you wouldn’t be the first. Depression affects everyone differently. For some, depression is no big deal, a mood... they might feel down in the dumps because of something that happened, but the feeling usually fades with time. For others it’s an illness that they have to deal with day in and day out, kind of like a persistent cough that may never go away. You can manage it, but not always be cured of it.

Some days it feels like I’m drowning. Like I’m in the middle of the Pacific trying with all my might to make it to the shore. I’m physically a strong swimmer, but sometimes, emotionally, I’m just too tired to keep swimming and I fall beneath the surface. Fighting yourself every day is utterly exhausting. My worst enemy is not some mean girl from high school who tried to ruin my life, it’s me, myself, and I. Logically, I know that devil on my shoulder, that looks and sounds just like me, is just a big, fat liar. But damn if she isn’t a convincing bitch!

There are people in my life that have a hard time believing that I’ve been fighting this illness since I was ten years old. You’re so happy all the time. Kids that age don’t even know what depression is. Ten year olds have no reason to feel hopeless, like they’re better off dead. All I can say is, tell that to any child who has suffered from trauma. There are probably a lot more than you even realize. I’ll give you that I didn’t understand what I was feeling back then, but I was sure as hell feeling it. There are people in my life that choose to look no further than the smile I plaster on my face because I don’t want to feel like a burden and they don’t want to believe I have demons inside me that I can’t defeat. Other people see what’s going on and what to help but don’t know how. I appreciate these people but sometimes they end up making things worse.

Members of my own family choose to ignore the very serious illness I have been fighting for over twenty years, the very same one that has led to three, let me say that again for the people in the back, THREE suicide attempts. They would rather believe that I’m being dramatic, seeking attention rather than have a serious illness.

People try to help when they say things like it will get better or you’ll be alright. I know all of that, but in those moments when the darkness surrounds me, tries to suffocate me, I don’t feel like I will ever make it out. I will not just get over the trauma that I suffered, I will always carry that around like a scar on my heart. It’s going to take a lot of work before I can live my life without the black cloud of my abuse hanging over my head. Something I have only recently started to do willingly. Therapy only works if you want it to, I fought it for so long. The third attempt at taking my life scared me enough to seek help on my own for the first time in my life. It’s helping, but it’s not taking the pain away. I can’t make it go away, no matter how much I may want to. People just don’t seem to understand that sometimes though, I just want to scream it in their faces, but I choose not because I know they are only trying to help. I just wish they realized I can’t just snap my fingers and make my pain and anxiety disappear. That would be a cool trick if I could though, right?

My mom put me in therapy when I was twelve years old because she knew there was more to the never ending rivers of tears and constant tantrums, the separation anxiety, and the unusual social distancing. She knew that I needed more help than she could give me dealing with the big feelings left behind by the abuse I suffered for so long. She was the only one that understood that I was dealing with a weight heavier than anything I’d ever tried to carry on my own, that if we weren’t careful that weight could crush me.

My mom died when I was sixteen though, taking the one person that could see through the smiles and into my dying insides. Since then, no one has been able to help me the same way, no one can get inside the haze of self hatred to help me. My brothers, there are six of them, won’t even acknowledge there is a serious problem. I’ve been on my own in the world and in the darkness since I was sixteen. Sure, there have been people that wanted to help, but no one ever sticks around long enough to get past my walls and my trust issues, it just becomes too much of a chore. And I can’t say that I really blame them. I get tired of the shit in my head too.

People leaving is something I have grown used to. People always leave. Even my abuser chose to leave, not because he got caught or because he suddenly grew a conscience, but because he found someone else to abuse. In his words, someone better than me. I’m almost ashamed that part of me was happy that he stopped hurting me, that he found another little girl to fill my spot. Not that I wanted her to hurt, but I just wanted to stop hurting. Then there is that other part, the part I’m most ashamed of, I was sad and hurt that he chose someone else. It was like I wasn’t good enough because his attention went somewhere else. How screwed up is that?! It has become a trend in my life too, I know I deserve better than the backstabbing friends, the emotionally and sometimes physically abusive men, the lying and cheating bastards who trick me. But what if that’s all I can ever get?

My husband, who I have been with for the last ten years (married nine), doesn’t even know the extent of my deep, dark hole because I have learned my lesson in the past, if he knew too much he would leave too. My brothers choose not to know what’s going on, but even if I did tell them, they would get the lite version. I do not want to be a burden, especially to those I love.

My mom was the glue that held our family together. She was the reason we had relationships with our grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Since she passed, I’ve rarely talked to the extended members of my family. None of them know just how screwed up I am and I am never going to tell them. The stigma of mental illness is like a glaring sign in front of me, don’t tell them because they will look at you differently. There was a lot of drama surrounding my mom’s death too, which didn’t help the fragile state of our relationships. My brothers (the two oldest were hers, the rest belong to my dad) and I talk but it’s never about anything important. Well, except the one time I had to have surgery because I felt they needed to know in case I didn’t wake up. We never go too deep. It’s more like hey, how ya doing? We miss you. How are the kids? The husband? Okay, talk to you in a few months. The few times I have broached the subject with any one of my brothers about my therapy sessions, it’s always why are you going to therapy? You don’t need therapy. Life is not that hard. Our family (both sides of it, my mom’s and my dad’s) doesn’t believe in going to a stranger to fix our problems. Must be that machismo thing. Filipinos and Mexicans both suffer from it. After that though, the conversation gets too uncomfortable. They don’t want to hear the dirty details of my trauma, and I don’t really like telling them about it anyway. First, it’s embarrassing as hell and second, I’m worried about what they might think.

That’s not so much the depression but the anxiety. I worry about everything all the time. I’m worried if I’m doing something wrong. I’m worried if I’m going to say the wrong thing. I’m worried if someone is going to take something I say or do the wrong way and hate me forever. I’m worried if I’ll be about to say the right thing. I’m worried if today is the day that I wake to find that my husband has left because he decided I am too messed up to deal with. I’m worried that my children will see beyond the happy facade I try to put up mostly for their benefit. I’m worried that everyone will see me for the fraud I am, I’m not good enough but I have gotten good at faking it. What happens when Dorothy looks behind the curtain to realize the wizard is just a man? What happens when they figure out that I’ve been lying to them for the last twenty years? I do everything for him, even the simplest tasks seem to fall on my shoulders. I give everything I can to being a good mom, and I feel like I fall short every day. Every time I raise my voice to my thirteen year old daughter who has been my rock since she was born, every time I snap at my ten year old son who has ADHD, I prove that I was not cut out for this mom thing. My kids are missing out on the childhood they deserve, the kind of childhood their peers have because I can’t function like other parents. My anxiety in large groups, hell my anxiety outside of my bed, my safe zone, keeps me from taking them to do fun things or even going to the park. It’s hard to enjoy an outing when I always feel like someone is out to get me, when it’s really my mind trying to beat me down. I try to be a good friend, but my family gets most of me, I have little patience and I’m irritable so much of the time, it doesn’t take much to set me off. I try to be a good sister but there is a lot of resentment there and even more worry about how they are going to react to something I say. I don’t know if they want to talk to me, I don’t know if they only do to appease some familial obligations. I don’t know that they even like me most of the time. I know they love me, we’re family, we share blood, of course they love me. But if we didn’t share DNA would they even talk to me?

Depression and anxiety are very real. They may not look all that bad because those who suffer from them are Emmy-worthy actors. Most days, I’m smiling and look happy, laughing my butt off so much that I’ve been nicknamed Giggles at work, I constantly have people commenting on how often I smile. So much so, they notice when I don’t. On the inside though, I’m exhausted and just want to give up. To be perfectly honest, if it weren’t for my daughter I would have been dead at eighteen. She saved my life. My kids are my everything, they are the only reason I get out of bed every day to fight a new fight with my demons. They are the only reason I go to work every day. They are the only reason I eat dinner every night, because I need to feed them. They are the only reason I get in the shower every night before bed, because I need to set a good example for them. The are the only reason I force myself to act like a functioning human being. Because let’s be serious, that’s all it really is, I’m acting. Day in and day out, I pretend that I wasn’t abused for so much of my childhood, I pretend that the pain of losing the one person I could count on in the world isn’t killing me every day, I pretend that the people who have given up on me didn’t chip away at what was left of my mangled heart, I pretend that I’m happy and that my mind doesn’t constantly wonder if those around me would be better off if I was dead.

My therapists and psychiatrists always look at me funny when I say that. Well, I don’t know how your children could be better off without you in this world. That devil I mentioned earlier? She is damn good at justifying just about anything. I’m screwing them up, I’m not a good mom anyway, they’d be better off with someone else raising them. Now, I do have an angel to match that devil sitting on the opposite shoulder, but she looks and sounds a lot like my mom instead of me. She is much quieter and only speaks up when the devil seems to be winning. Which I have to say hasn’t happened as much as it used to since my babies came into this world. The angel tells me that I have to fight for my kids’ sake, til the bloody fucking end if necessary. I can’t leave them with the memory of my suicide. As shitty a mom as I am, I am still their mother and they love me. If I kill myself, I would hurt them and I refuse to do that if I can help it.

My depression maybe not look like yours, or his, or even hers, but it is a very real thing. I can’t just blink or wiggle my nose and make it all disappear. I’m not just being dramatic or seeking attention. I’m tired of pretending that I’m not broken on the inside because the people around me are uncomfortable with it. I’m sorry but just imagine what it’s like to live in my head for a moment. On the outside, I’m cool, calm even and inside, I’m wondering if I’m good enough, if the person I’m talking to is waiting for me to shut the hell up so they can walk away. I’m wondering if they’re laughing at me, storing up details to retell to others later. I’m wondering if I’m going to look down on my funeral and see them there grieving for me. I wonder all the time if I’m going to die alone because I’m not enough for the people who are supposed to love me. I’m wondering if I should just go kill myself and save the people I love the burden of dealing with me. I carry these thoughts and feelings of inadequacy with me every moment of every day. The devil on my shoulder tells me every day, multiple times a day that I won’t be missed and she is so convincing that I believe her. But then the angel is there to remind me of the babies I brought into this world and how much they still need their mama.

It’s a constant battle in my head, for every demon I slay there are three more to replace it. Constant noise and racing thoughts in my head that I can’t always control. I’m pretty good at keeping that control, but every now and then my grip slips and the proof of this illness is there for everyone to see. Oh, you’re just having a bad day, right? Except, it’s so much more than that. It’s one of those hard days where I’m not strong enough to beat the demons back. It’s like I have a bunch of marbles under a cup, I can keep them in line while I have the cup and everything is good, I can pretend that I’m normal, I can smile and laugh like I’ve never had a problem in my life. But sometimes my demons are stronger than me, they knock the cup from my hands and my marbles go in every direction and I have to figure out how to corral them back under the cup before I completely lose my shit. Sometimes, I’m just so tired of fighting my demons and I was to give in, I want to let them rip me to shreds. Sometimes, I crave the peace I would get from death. Maybe, just maybe, if I’m dead I will finally be able to breathe, to rest.

I’m sorry this was so much. I’m sorry that I shared more than any of you probably wanted to know about me. But if you know someone with depression, reach out to them. Especially at times like these, they may do a good job of hiding it, but I’ll bet their struggling. You don’t have to fix them, just let them know that they’re not alone in this big, scary place. I don’t need anyone to fix me, I don’t need anyone to fight my demons for me, but it’d be nice to have someone to hold my hand through the darkness. Imagine being on a roller coaster and the scariest part of the ride takes you through a dark tunnel. I just need someone to hold my hand through the tunnel. I just want someone there to let me know I’m not alone. Because no matter how many people suffer from the same condition, no matter how many people tell you that they’re there for you if you need them, it doesn’t feel like it. Don’t talk about it, be about it. Don’t just say you’ll be there for someone, show up. Hold their hand, let them cry on your shoulder, feed them junk food, talk about silly things just to get their minds off it, take them for an adventure even if they don’t want to go. Just be there.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. <3