#nofilter
We're told social media is too happy, too idealistic, too sterilized from real life. We share triumphs, victories, achievements, celebrate and congratulate, but are we ever honest?
What about when it's hard? When it's too much? When you would do anything to get out the place where you are? Why doesn't that ever show up? Are we too afraid of appearing weak? Vulnerable? Of fishing for compliments? Support? Be brave. Courageous. How many of your virtual friends would you feel comfortable calling up when you're complete wreck, knowing that they'd stop what they're doing and rush to your aide? Two?
Depression is so hard to understand: Its causes, its symptoms, its lingering, its suffocation, its intricate interactions and interconnections with other disorders and mental health states.
Pick yourself up. Start again. Step by step. Just do a little. I want to scream.
The moments where nothing's okay and everything seems wrong and the task ahead is insurmountable. Not seems, is.
Right now I'm frustrated out of my mind. I've tried every avenue I can think of (that could be its own post - the amount of work I've put into different options and ways of moving past is absurd), including going back on medication for ADHD. And it's just. not. working. I'm just stuck. On Tuesday I was super productive and I worked for hours. Yesterday, I sat in the exact same place and did absolutely NOTHING. What changed? How was it different one day to the next? I literally want to stand up and shake myself and scream JUST WRITE. OPEN THE $#%& DOCUMENT AND JUST. WRITE.
I know that if I had that best friend, someone, anyone, stood here doing that exact thing it would just make me shrink even further into this pit of despair. So how do I win? How I get up? All it takes is one click, right? So what's stopping me? That space, that chasm, that vastness is mind-blowing and mind-numbing all in one. Fascinating and frightening. Not somewhere I want to be. Ever. And yet, somehow I do, because it's here that I could tease out reason and function, understanding, comprehension... then maybe I could defeat it easier in the future. I could just say 'pfft' and click.
When someone reaches out to support me, when the lifeline is there, I don't answer the call, I close the chat box. For years, I wailed about being so alone, about not having these people, and now they are here. So why don't I use them when they want only to help? Why do I persist in separation? How does that HELP? Something keeps me from taking that step, holds me back, pins me down, and that's the thing I don't understand.
I want to. But how do you begin taking apart and exploring something nebulous you don't even have a name for? How do you reach into that space and pluck something worth looking at? Science? Mysticism? Philosophy? Does ANY of that, this, even matter if I can't reach my stupid deadline?
We cry. We break. We fall. Then somewhere down the line we use powers and strengths we don't understand and can't name to get past and never talk about it again because it's been beaten, it's been vanquished. Overcome. Don't look back, look forward. Move on. Heal. Forgive and forget.
I don't like that.
Can we stop being perfect models and cookie-cutter images of pure joy, success, and happiness and start being a bit more real? I think that's a good place to start. Today is a down day for me. I'm having a rough go. I'm crying. I'm anxious, I'm worried. I'm stressed. More importantly, I want to SHARE that. I want to be seen: weak, fallible, that I'm not just happy, go-lucky, 24/7. I'm human. And to be human is to err, is it not?
Maybe take a minute and walk out of the department store display and come sit with me for a while on the curb, or in the dirt, and we can be weak and unhappy together. Human. I need a hospital right now, not a hotel. I don't want to hide my problems, I want to heal them. And if in doing so, I can help with yours too, even a fraction; I'd relish the company.
Let us be "willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and [be] willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things" (Mosiah 18:8-9)
What about when it's hard? When it's too much? When you would do anything to get out the place where you are? Why doesn't that ever show up? Are we too afraid of appearing weak? Vulnerable? Of fishing for compliments? Support? Be brave. Courageous. How many of your virtual friends would you feel comfortable calling up when you're complete wreck, knowing that they'd stop what they're doing and rush to your aide? Two?
Depression is so hard to understand: Its causes, its symptoms, its lingering, its suffocation, its intricate interactions and interconnections with other disorders and mental health states.
Pick yourself up. Start again. Step by step. Just do a little. I want to scream.
The moments where nothing's okay and everything seems wrong and the task ahead is insurmountable. Not seems, is.
Right now I'm frustrated out of my mind. I've tried every avenue I can think of (that could be its own post - the amount of work I've put into different options and ways of moving past is absurd), including going back on medication for ADHD. And it's just. not. working. I'm just stuck. On Tuesday I was super productive and I worked for hours. Yesterday, I sat in the exact same place and did absolutely NOTHING. What changed? How was it different one day to the next? I literally want to stand up and shake myself and scream JUST WRITE. OPEN THE $#%& DOCUMENT AND JUST. WRITE.
I know that if I had that best friend, someone, anyone, stood here doing that exact thing it would just make me shrink even further into this pit of despair. So how do I win? How I get up? All it takes is one click, right? So what's stopping me? That space, that chasm, that vastness is mind-blowing and mind-numbing all in one. Fascinating and frightening. Not somewhere I want to be. Ever. And yet, somehow I do, because it's here that I could tease out reason and function, understanding, comprehension... then maybe I could defeat it easier in the future. I could just say 'pfft' and click.
When someone reaches out to support me, when the lifeline is there, I don't answer the call, I close the chat box. For years, I wailed about being so alone, about not having these people, and now they are here. So why don't I use them when they want only to help? Why do I persist in separation? How does that HELP? Something keeps me from taking that step, holds me back, pins me down, and that's the thing I don't understand.
I want to. But how do you begin taking apart and exploring something nebulous you don't even have a name for? How do you reach into that space and pluck something worth looking at? Science? Mysticism? Philosophy? Does ANY of that, this, even matter if I can't reach my stupid deadline?
We cry. We break. We fall. Then somewhere down the line we use powers and strengths we don't understand and can't name to get past and never talk about it again because it's been beaten, it's been vanquished. Overcome. Don't look back, look forward. Move on. Heal. Forgive and forget.
I don't like that.
Can we stop being perfect models and cookie-cutter images of pure joy, success, and happiness and start being a bit more real? I think that's a good place to start. Today is a down day for me. I'm having a rough go. I'm crying. I'm anxious, I'm worried. I'm stressed. More importantly, I want to SHARE that. I want to be seen: weak, fallible, that I'm not just happy, go-lucky, 24/7. I'm human. And to be human is to err, is it not?
Maybe take a minute and walk out of the department store display and come sit with me for a while on the curb, or in the dirt, and we can be weak and unhappy together. Human. I need a hospital right now, not a hotel. I don't want to hide my problems, I want to heal them. And if in doing so, I can help with yours too, even a fraction; I'd relish the company.
Let us be "willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and [be] willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things" (Mosiah 18:8-9)
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