Fighting back on the Hard Days

One good days I forget how hard I have to fight in moments like this.  I forget that living a normal life and managing all the stresses is hard for everyone but especially for people with mood disorders.

Readjusting my routine to working full time has been amazing at moments and terrifying at others.

My business is thriving but inside I feel like I'm dying at this moment.  I don't know how I'll ever learn to manage feeling so overwhelmed with constant demands from customers and to take care of my mental health at the same time.

I find myself up late, drinking red bull, chewing nicorette, just trying to get through emails and design projects. I know this isn't going to work forever, but I keep pushing.

Tonight, it all started crashing down on me.  A simple request to do some gardening early in the morning, triggered a wave of feeling hopelessness and despair.  I watched in horror as my mind started spiralling towards depression, remembering acutely the other episodes and hearing an overwhelming voice tell me it had me and I was going to drown.

I think another part of me held my hand, and silently fought back.  It reminded me I can't trust this awful voice and sometimes, as scary as it might be, I can't trust my own thinking at all.

Its like an awful raincloud, and sometimes its gonna fuck you up, and scare the shit out of you, but as long as you don't feed it, it will pass.  I have to remind myself that this is my reaction to stress, that an unhealthy neural circuitry wants me to spiral into a place of "safety." 

I did a few things differently, which was awkward but felt good.  I reached out to my roommate and let her support me.  Even scarier, I reached out to a guy I just started dating, that seems quite genuine, and tried to have a normal conversation, instead of isolating in my pain.  He definitely didn't think that me starting work at 830 was a big deal, and he kinda normalized the situation, but I definitely didn't want to explain to him how much agony being put under pressure was doing to me, because my reactions are at least 10 times as intense as most peoples.  Afterwards I just texted him and said, I was having an off night, and his kind response meant a lot to me.

I think its to easy to assume that just because other people don't understand what we're going through that they don't care about us.  I'm glad I'm finally letting other people see me when I'm feeling clumsy and sad and unable to cope.  Because honestly, theres nothing worse than feeling alone when that monster strikes.  Just knowing people care makes a huge difference.

I also think people with mood disorders that push past the boundaries of what their safety zone is need to give ourselves more credit.  We need to appreciate ourselves for how hard we fight to do what other people take for granted, but when we live up to our potential it's kind of amazing.