Okay, so I'm not going to lie. I did wake up this morning and immediately log on to see if *anyone* read my very first blog posts. Not surprisingly, no one did. So I'm left writing to - well - that big empty chasm of cyber space. Floating around for all to read, but to small to be discovered. I'm sure that has to be a metaphor for something.
One of the drawbacks of my condition, or perhaps the medication for my condition, is the complete inability to sleep for longer than an hour. Don't get me wrong, I can sleep forever. I just wake up every hour. I am also plagued with INSANE nightmares and at the very least, disturbing dreams, which leave me waking and wondering if it actually happened. Did I hook up with Jim Carrey in a Miami hotel room and then forget about the child I was babysitting who then almost died of an asthma attack? That was actually one of the least traumatic ones... at least it included a bit of intimacy. Jim, if you're out there... Brav-O!
One of these days I'll blog about a nightmare, but (as I told my friend who believes I should keep a "dream diary") - why the fuck would I want to write it down? It sucked enough the first time around!
If there's one thing I lack, it's patience. I just want to be back at work, living the life of a productive human being. Is that too much to ask? Well, apparently it is at this point in time. I can't sleep through the night and I wake up feeling grumpy, depressed, and completely lacking the motivation to, well, live. When I am feeling okay, I run the risk of having a huge panic attack in the middle of, well, anywhere where one does not want to be having an anxiety attack. Grocery store, local park whilst walking the dog, dance lesson, Bar or pub (yikes, those are the worst). You name it. Part of the reason I love the people in my therapeutic group is because they may be the only people out there who understand that walking into Walmart is something I just CAN'T DO. That place is like the universal panic attack trigger. Too. Much. Stimulation.
Ahhh well. Today is one of the few days that I have nothing scheduled - which is toxic for someone living with depression. That's part of the reason I'm writing this. If I wasn't, I would be laying in bed staring at the ceiling and listening to CBC Tempo. Now it's like I'm actually doing something. I have a 'no laptop in bed' rule to assist myself in getting out and at least exploring the world vicariously from my wee apartment.
I guess before I go, I have a little more to say. Some of these posts may seem a little "poor me". Well, they're all certainly self-indulgent. The thing is, no matter how low I feel, no matter how hard it may be for me to imagine ever feeling joy again, I realize that I am one of the lucky, privileged ones out there. And I don't mean in that wanky "I cried because I had no shoes, then I saw a man with no feet" sense. I mean... maybe I do. I live in a country that will help pay my living expenses because I am currently unable to function in a workplace. I live with "mental illness" (Christ, can we come up with a better term? PLEASE?) but there are people out there who live with far worse mental illness, physical illness, and so on. Don't even get me started on the marginalization of certain groups of people in our society. That's another rant from my passionate social worker place. I just want it to be said for the record, that I do not cry because I have no shoes, or because I have to take icky meds to stabilize my mood, or because I can't work right now. Sure, I cry sometimes, but it's because a lot of the time I can't SEE joy, and I kind of remember what it was like to see joy in the world, and I miss that so much. And sometimes it's because I really just want to go out with a few friends and have a drink in a public place, but I'm so scared because I'm afraid that if I have a panic attack, people will think I'm crazy. So I stay in. And yes, I may be wanking on about how much it sucks, but I am also working to *change* all of this. I am going to my group, I'm doing my cognitive behavioural exercises. I'm trying different medications to find the right one.
Why? Because you heard it here first, folks. Mental illness ain't no fucking vacation!
Later, Funseekers,
PS
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