Hi everyone! I know, I’ve been MIA for a very long time. Let me just say I was out here trying to make a super fun return post, something exciting. But mentally I am struggling. So this post isn’t really going to be about any one thing, really just a post for me to word vomit some of my feelings (because I’m pretty sure I’d scare all my friends with the way I’m feeling right now) So, let me give you a quick update.
I turned 25 in March. Had a pretty juicy mental break down, because why not right? Everyone loves a good ✨ quarter life crisis ✨And I decided I needed to do something with my life. I needed to find a purpose. So I decided I’m going back to nursing school. I haven’t been accepted into any programs, but I’m working my little booty off trying to get there. For as long as I can remember I have wanted to help people, to support people on their worst days, to make an impact. And since I currently have not been accepted into a nursing program, but I want to do something I feel is important one of my best friend’s kind of, in a way, lead me to take a phlebotomy course (he told me to go for it when I asked his opinion so I hit pay, shout out to you my sweet Angel goat) and I’m now a certified phlebotomist in the state of Texas, YAY. Not currently working as a phlebotomist unfortunately, but things could change. However, once the dust settled and I was no longer crazy busy with school, depression set in.
I am in a pretty bad mental headspace right now. Like I have zero idea what I’m doing with my life and kind of feel like I have nothing going for me. I don’t know why I’m feeling like this since you know, depression is out here ruining lives, but I’m so down. I’m doing all these things trying to better my life and I feel like I’m only going backwards. It hit me like a truck, one day I’m out here happy as all get out. The next I can’t even get off my couch to shower because I don’t feel like there is a point. And the worst part, even though I know I have people who care, I can’t reach out to anyone and express these feelings. I feel like my problems don’t need to be someone else’s. I don’t want to scare people away with these thoughts of just feeling, being lost. I try to be this happy, bubbly person because the world needs more of that. But I know people can see through it. My sadness comes out in rage. My irritability comes out as isolation. So I don’t reach out, only making the loneliness worse.
When I say I’m lonely, I’m not talking like just feeling mildly lonely. I mean so lonely that I truly believe there wouldn’t be a single person on this planet who would care if I was gone. And I know this is not correct, I know I have friends and family who would be devastated. I know I have people who are there for me and have my back no matter what I need. But I also feel like I have no one because my depression is a slow form of torture that drains every ounce of joy from my life. It genuinely makes me feel like there isn’t any one person in this world who would be completely devastated if I was gone. I know this is a false narrative created by my bad mental state, which makes it worse because I know it’s completely irrational. My depression is isolation and my anxiety is the door standing between me and anyone I care about. Deb (depressions name) isolates me from everyone. She’s like a bad abusive relationship. And Ann (my anxiety) is voice telling me that Deb is the only person who will love me and accept me. It’s truly like a mentally abusive relationship. And I sometimes think my past trauma is the reason my depression is like this, I think the traumas I endured as a kid created these version of my mental illnesses.
Quick commercial break. I don’t have DID, I just had a therapist who had me name my illnesses to separate them from myself to make it easier to identify when they showed up instead of assuming it’s my own thoughts. Back to the regularly scheduled program.
Deb destroys every shred of self confidence I have and wears me down so much that I literally isolate. I do nothing. I ignore people. And while I know this is all due to the chemical imbalance inside my noggin, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s very real to me. Ann isn’t much better, she keeps the door closed and locked so even if the answer was on the other side, Ann guards my escape from Deb. It takes someone literally breaking in when it gets this bad for me to get out of it. I know a lot of it is my fault, well not my fault per say, but the fault of my brain and trauma. I have walls up, I’m dealing with trauma from my childhood every day. So I know, I know that I am part of the problem. It’s just hard. It’s hard to admit and recognize what you’re doing. It’s hard to say that this isn’t real, because it feels so real. It feels like I’m suffocating. Like the air I breath is just a constant stream of negative statements about me, but I can’t escape them because I need that air to survive. Deb tells me constantly how people just tolerate me. She tells me that the people who I care for the most, are the ones behind the scene not thinking about me for a second. It all just leads to this never ending cycle of someone breaking down that door, and then leaving only so deb and Ann can once again take their places and destroy every shred of confidence I have.
Opening up to people and trying to explain the way I’m feeling is hard, it’s probably the hardest thing I battle on a daily basis. I feel like people get scared and don’t want to deal with these deep thoughts and emotions I’m having, like they aren’t really interested and wouldn’t be bothered if I was no longer around. The best way I can explain it is I feel like an after thought friend. Like I’m someone people come too when all their other options are exhausted. You can talk to anyone who knows me, they call me a hermit. Deb just wears me down. She wears down every shred of my being. I’ve been over here for days trying to find a creative outlet, trying to find something I can do that I’m passionate about. Trying to find something that lets me express the way I’m feeling but in a beautiful way. Art, music, writing. All these things are creative outlets to feel what other people are feeling. But that no matter what I do, it doesn’t feel this hole of just lonely. It doesn’t feel this hole that I mean nothing to no one. But I guess trying is something right? I write songs, I try to think of creative new outlets (fashion, makeup, nails). I try, and I know that’s a big step. But I still feel this weight of suffocation and isolation.
It’s not all bad either. I put myself out there and I try to make genuine connections, but I’m so afraid of being hurt, of being abandoned that when I feel myself attaching to people I back away. Even people I’ve known for years. There is one person in my life whom I love more than any human being I’ve ever met, and even this person I feel like I can not talk about these deep feelings with. Even though he’s known me for years, we’ve been through so much together, and he’s ALWAYS had my back no matter what life throws my way, I feel like he’d get scared at the awful thoughts in my brain. Even though I know he won’t, (love you if you’re reading this). He understands me in a way no one else really does. But Deb and Ann sit by that door and tell me he’s going to run if I talk to him about this. And as my longest friendship, losing him would devastate my soul. So I try to keep things surface, which isn’t good either. This is something I do with everyone. Anytime I try to get deep, I stop myself.
The really sad thing is, I’m like this with all good things in my life too. It’s not just personal connections. I am so afraid of failure and rejection that instead of going full out on anything, I quit before I even really try. I tell myself I enjoy being alone, I enjoy just existing, I enjoy being an ordinary person. And that’s totally fine, ordinary is still amazing. But that’s so far from the truth of who I am. I want to make an impact. I want to have a solid purpose in this world. I want to do amazing things, I wanna save lives. But here I am at 3 am on a Friday night and all I can think about is I’m alone.
Childhood trauma has this way of sticking with you forever. It’s like the person who abused you is always over your shoulder. They are always there making everything you do about them. The worst part is when you have a tattoo matching them, a tattoo that truly is so special to you, but matches the person who broke your entire spirit.
I guess I’m just sad. I mean obviously it’s more than sad, this is a legit mental illness that does kill people. But I’m lost. I’m not sure what path I’m on. I feel alone. But a weird sense of alone. It’s so hard to explain something so complex without feeling like I’m dramatic. Which I am for the record but I think it’s a defense thing.
I don’t know, I guess there was no real purpose for this post. More just a little diary for me to explain the things going through my mind. We can’t all be perfect all the time. I’m struggling, I’m mentally just done. But I saw a tiktok and this lady said, “just try one more time”, so I’m just going to try. One more time.
Psych of Reba 