So I feel better now. I did things for myself. I went to an anxiety chat room and talked to someone who had/has the same problems that I do. Then I went to see Horton Hears a Who, which besides being amazing, really helped me believe again. Combined with therapy, I really don't think I'm such a bad person right now, I like myself enough, and I feel hope. It's nice.

One thing that I don't feel so much is connection, especially to Bren and to music and web design. It all makes sense - I was diagnosed with depression, after all, and it tends to make the things you loved seem more irritating, more distant. Web design, I'm in a boring job doing web design, so yes, that makes sense to me. Music, I've put way too much pressure on myself to do. And Bren, well, it's a combination of the two. Seeing the movie, I thought about him - his eyes and smile, his gentle, intense demenor - and saw that yes, I wish for his happiness, love is there. But I see the things that bother me about him, that didn't so much before, and I know something is missing. I want to get it back, on all fronts.

No one can solve this problem but me, I see now. I talk to Bren. When he's not there, I find a friend, if I'm alone, I'm online for HOURS at a time. The only thing that's really seemed to help me is to do things for myself, and to keep myself busy. I'd like to find a good way to do that. I realize that I've had years with all three things, and I certainly don't want to let them all go so quickly, as tempting as it is to again, run away from things. But going home didn't even help. I'd talk to Mom, but I still would feel low. I absolutely need to make my OWN path, and decide things for myself, whatever the outcome.

Labels: personal

I don't think I've ever been this scared. I'm just dying to get home, but I have to get through breakfast first with my grandparents, and I'll do that, and I exercised and took vitamins and all that stuff, and I don't want to go home because I don't know what will happen, what I'll say, but god I want to go home. I thought finally realizing the overwhelming problem here would start the healing process but I don't think it has, I think I feel worse than ever, because all of these doubts and fears and such are symptoms of the larger issue - me, I'm the issue, I don't blame myself but I know it's true, and noone in the end can help me. The world isn't collapsing anymore, but it feels like I'm at the bottom of a pit.

Labels: personal

I feel stunted, I do. I was really tormented in middle school, even some during elementary school. When I got friends in high school it felt like, "I have friends?" and I wanted to hold onto them to dear life, and I was awkward and scared around most other people. College was like high school for me in some ways, I expanded my circle, started learning about what I wanted.

I really am afraid to be myself most of the time, I can see that, I simply can't let go. I don't trust myself, maybe, or I don't like myself, or maybe I'm just a few years behind everyone else. But pretty much all of my friends, and Bren, are young adults, ready to really take on the world in whatever way they are doing, and I feel like I'm really just starting to discover, like I'm a freshman or something. And I'm often really scared of things I simply shouldn't be so scared of. Not all the time. Certainly not. Just often enough that this is happening now.

I have a problem, I need to deal with it, and I know that all of you, my friends, will be there with me, and all seem to love me despite this. I'm afraid of what I might lose in this process, and what I've lost already. But I've admitted it, and that's the first step.

Labels: personal

I'm ok everyone, people have been sending me encouraging messages and I thank them for it. I went home for a couple of days, I just needed to clear my head.

I have depression, I have depression, I have anxiety. I believe that now, though every fiber of my body is saying no, you just don't like writing music anymore, you just don't love Bren anymore, you just don't care anymore. But it's not true, damnit, it just isn't true. I'm a person who gets into everything she does. I have depression. That's it. I miss my old self far too much. I miss not feeling anxious and sad, I certainly miss not feeling love or joy. I want it back. Somehow talking to Mom and to Bren over the phone made it hit home. I'm going to lose everything that was ever important to me if I don't do this. I'll lose Bren, my apartment, my music, everything. I have depression. That's it.

I did my morning stretches this morning, took vitamins, and ate breakfast. I didn't sleep in a bed like I should (I slept on the couch). I'm doing my laundry, well, mom helped me do the wash but I'm going to dry the stuff myself. I know it feels silly but I've never done my own laundry. I was always afraid that I was going to mess it up somehow and all my clothes would get destroyed. Isn't it amazing?

I wasn't always like this, I know. Now I'm just so afraid of losing what I have that...well, I'd run away from it. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense when I put it that way, but I hope you can understand what I mean. I got so scared to lose my feelings for the important things that I simply didn't do them. At least if they were gone, it was my control, I guess. It's really not a good place to be. Even now, I'm very anxious - am I really depressed? Is my laundry going to get ripped to shreds? Does this post mean anything?

I think in the end, you really do have to live for yourself, and show compassion to others. You have to do the things you want in this life. All I ever wanted in friendships, relationships, was equality. I do what I want, and so do they, and we come together in the end to share, reflect. And sometimes, paths can cross, and we can do things together, and simply celebrate life. I had that before, and I want it back. I loved myself enough to let Bren go to RIT and not follow him, to pursue my own interests. I can do this...I can do this.

Labels: personal

Things have not been good this weekend. I don't know if I've ever felt so low, on the verge of losing everything. We almost broke up due to this anxiety and fear I have (I was this close, I tell you). I haven't really left the apartment. I bet a lot of this is due to the medicine I'm taking, throughout this process it hasn't really been this bad.

Lauren came over yesterday and we talked, I cried alot, but I ended up feeling better toward the end of the day when I took a bit of initiative, eating again, picking what to watch on TV, telling Bren to come back from his mom's in a calm voice.

Things simply don't matter the way they did. I think this started awhile ago, when I first started working. The newness of it vanished pretty quickly, and then I really hated it. At some point I felt this with Bren, after I got over the newness of living together, the "so....this is real life, huh?" feeling. Going to Taiwan and Japan was new, 3 weeks of new, new sights and emotions and possibilities, and then I get home, back to the apartment, back to a new job who's newness took longer to wear off, but yes, it's gone. I created Song-A-Week to force myself to write music. Apart from a couple of songs who did indeed matter, most of them were indeed forced. Writing music, as well, certainly doesn't matter the way it used to.

So I'm learning that I can't force myself to feel things right now. I can't force unconditional love, I can't force tenacity. I feel what I feel and I'm not entirely in control of it right now. Work particularly doesn't seem to matter that much, save that I don't lose my job. Bren matters as much as anything matters right now. I suppose this will be a process that will result in making me matter more than anything else. I've lived according to other's expectations, or more accurately, what I think others want from me, and right now, that simply isn't working. I crave assignments, because assigning myself things doesn't seem to matter.

I probably need to rethink my priorities. Having these huge awe-ful moments of "wow" probably don't matter too much. I crave them. But in the end, probably what matters is health, spending time with friends and loved ones, and accepting that each and every day matters, each person, no matter what happens in that day, no matter what they do. I guess that's what depression is, the idea that you yourself, and hence the world around you, aren't important, aren't valid. And getting out of it means just the opposite.

Everyone says I'm this empathetic person. I really hope I'm not that way out of fear. Caring so that people don't leave. I suppose if that were the case though, I do care, because I don't want them to leave. In any case, I'm probably going to go home for a few days, clear my head.

Labels: personal