Category: AKF

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I’m Tired

I don’t remember the last time when I spoke the words “I’m tired,” and that was all I meant. Whether it was to someone or to myself. I’m tired has replaced I’m okay, I’m all right, I’m fine which often was retorted with, “Are you sure?” Sometimes followed with unsolicited advice which honestly was never much help in climbing out of that headspace. I’m just tired has replaced I’m exhausted. It’s replaced I’m sad, I’m depressed, I feel broken. It’s replaced I feel hopeless. I’m not sure at what point I am tired became so much more in those two words. It creeps in the darkness of the night stealing sleep or causing nothing but sleep. It has no shame on a warm sunny day and still keeps coming at you with clenched fists. Frankly, most times talking about how I feel traps me there and I want to escape it and I have therapists for that sort of thing anyway.

I suppose I may not just be tired and after so many years like this it feels as if this is who I am now. It’s not all days but it’s closer to that being true than not. Sometimes saying I’m tired, is to not burden those you care about with something you can’t help feeling. And after so much time has passed and those feelings are still there the compassion dissipates from the ones you need it from the most. It is not intentional to hurt but the truth is, sometimes it does.

Maybe I don’t have anything positive to say and I am a jaded, cynical pessimist. And life experiences and jacked chemicals in my brain created the monster I feel I am now. So no, I won’t complain about my day, the physical pain I’m in I try to ignore and fight through or for the mental warfare inside of my head just to be told to chin up or buck up or to play the one up game with people I’m not trying to compete with, especially a game where every one is the loser. To be asked how I am and for the response to my reply to feel like nothing more than a brush off, an obligation to ask but no substance behind it. And yes, I already know that someone else has it worse than me but I still have to live this life in this body, in this mind.

I miss truly enjoying things, things I used to or even new experiences or even something so simple as chasing after dreams. To be trapped in survival mode only because the chemistry in my brain is faulty. Some days, not all days, I go through the motions only to get to the next day and only to do it all over again like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day or Sammy in the “Mystery Spot” episode of Supernatural. But I haven’t given up yet and that should count for something shouldn’t it?

So yes, I’m tired.

 

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Cinderella isn’t Dressed in Yellow, She’s Dressed in Black and She’s Depressed

© RussTurnerphotography
Cinderella isn’t dressed in yellow. She’s dressed in black. And she’s depressed, in pain, ill and exhausted but still getting the damn job done. She’s on mood stabilizers that don’t help nearly as much now that she quit smoking cigarettes. She doesn’t live with step relatives but blood and her dad isn’t dead but he’s not there. Her time doesn’t belong to her and if she attempts to steal any of it she is punished for being selfish. When she asks for help there’s always a price to be paid. Prince Charming brings her home (back to the house) at midnight when she can get a sitter. She sleeps a lot or not at all. She forgets to eat. She’s dying and she doesn’t even care anymore. All they think is, how selfish what about me?

© Andrea DiGiglio
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This is what depression looks like

This is what depression looks like:

© Andrea DiGiglio
© Drea DiGiglio
This is what depression feels like (to me anyway.)
It’s more than the really bad days of not being able to get out of bed. The idea of getting out of bed is exhausting. Not showering for days on end and not giving a rat’s ass about it. Not eating for days or perhaps the opposite and shoveling food mindlessly and probably guilt tripping yourself for it every step of the way. Its not just the days where you cannot muster the strength to get out of bed. It’s the days where you feel like that but you do get out of bed, too.
If you have kids, you still have to get them ready for school and take them to their appointments. Sure, maybe your in sweats instead of actual clothes but who cares. You clearly don’t. If you work, you work. You don’t socialize, you don’t count the minutes. You just work and you’re not entirely sure if you’re grateful it’s over because you hate working but now what the fuck are you going do with your time? Every activity takes effort. Every activity. The world looks as if it is tinted in a lower temperature color. Food doesn’t taste as good. You drink, whether it’s to be numb or shut the noise in your head up or just to feel, settled. Or perhaps some other alternative to cope.
Your body and you argue. You’re sore for no reason or just tired all of the time. Or both.
At first you say how you feel. Then you feel like a burden. Maybe you are. Maybe you aren’t. You take care of everyone except yourself because all you are trying to do at this point is survive. This is usually the point when people bring up the things you do (or don’t do) because you’re depressed, because you seem to always be depressed and yes you’re already aware of them. When people bring them up a feeling erupts, a cross between; feeling guilty and angry. Guilty for your behavior or lack there of and that they noticed and want you to know they noticed. Anger because you now feel as if your feelings are no longer valid and only their feelings are and why not just do it instead of making me feel bad about it because obviously on this day I am struggling?
People who love you try to understand and maybe they really do. But let’s be honest it’s annoying when a family member isn’t contributing or is grumpy, sad or angry all of the time.
So you stop saying how you feel. It’s too hard to continuously repeat yourself and it’s not going away, it just keeps coming back. So you smile. You laugh. You try to, fake it till you make it.
Then people like us see these smiling photos stream across social media. Smiling, happy. All the while suffering. Enduring. Fighting. They don’t know they aren’t alone.

So, apparently. This is what depression looks like. We put makeup on so we can feel normal, look normal and maybe to fake it. Maybe it’s so the people in our lives will stop asking if we are okay because no, we are not okay. Maybe we don’t wan’t the shame and guilt of feeling how we feel. Maybe we are just too damn depressed to have another conversation about it. Today I am not okay and that is okay. Just maybe, tomorrow I will be and that smile might be real. If it’s not? I suppose you might not really be able to tell because we live in a world where those who carry the burden of a mental illness feel like a burden. It’s not just the words people say it’s their actions time and time again. Actions which do not say, “I understand you are suffering.” Rather say, “When will this end this time so the ‘real you’ will be back” (For them.) The longer someones struggle is with their disorder, the longer they suffer. The less patient I find people to be. It’s a sad world I find us to be in. Where those who always have the kindest of hearts are often the most broken.

Much love to you all, be kind to one another. Keep fighting through the darkness and know you are worth fighting for, your life is worth fighting for. The good days are worth it. Don’t give up.

XO
-Andrea