Not Really

As per my last post, I hit a slump. I'm back now, don't worry! Not going to be posting gloom and doom, but merely food for thought.

Usually when I feeling down, I listen to some pump up feel good music, and try to get myself all jazzed up!! Try to really pump myself up you know. Get inspired by songs about people who just put the bottle down and walk away after drinking for a really long time, or get out of abusive relationships by whatever means necessary. Or listening to songs that just tell you to speak up your mind and you'll feel better, or that just believe and you can keep fighting no matter what.

Well you know what, while these songs are amazing with their stories and morals, they kind of lie. Earlier in the week I was listening to one of these songs (can't remember which one) and the moral was basically if you say what's on your mind, you'll feel better and happy and the world will be sunshine and rainbows.

Meanwhile, holding back tears, my hand wrote, almost of it's own accord, "But it doesn't work like that." This got me thinking back over the years of fighting with mental illness (it's almost been a solid decade now), and it's true. Now, I'm not saying that there aren't some truly amazing people who flick away a cigarette or put a beer down after 50 plus years of addiction and say, "yeah, I'm done with that," and I am by no means an expert on addiction. Actually, the only thing I can say that I've ever been truly addicted to is chocolate, and I'm not quite ready to deal with that yet:P

On a more serious note though, most of us aren't like that. Most of us don't have that "Country Strong" resolve to just say, "I'm going to be this way now, and I will suddenly be happy, and little birds will follow me everywhere." 

I have been trying this approach with my depression and my life in general for as long as I can remember and it just doesn't work. It may give you a temporary mood boost. It may break you out of a funk for the duration of the song. But then there are those truly AWFUL days where they have the opposite effect. 

"Why aren't I like that? Why don't I have that much control of my body and mind to be able to do that?" I remember when I first started to truly feel the tug of my first what I guess I'll call psychotic episode. I listened to every pump up song, and fuck you world song pretty much ever made. I looked at motivational things online (I think this was pre-pinterest) that I could find, and still I felt hollow. I screamed things out to the public online like "I feel free now!!" or "Happiness is a choice I'm making." 

But that's not really how it works. For some people it might, but I think for most of us it doesn't. For most of us, we need real help. I didn't realize it until I wrote that little note on the side of some random scratch paper laying around on my desk, but it really doesn't work like that. I've been doing to myself, telling myself, what I've been rallying against other people telling me for the better part of a decade.

IF YOU JUST TRIED HARDER TO BE HAPPY, YOU CAN BE HAPPY!! JUST SNAP OUT OF IT STUPID!!

Sitting at my desk, trying to work through a particularly tricky insurance claim, this revelation almost brought me to tears and completely blew my mind. This is totally unfair and unacceptable behaviour from anyone, especially myself. ESPECIALLY myself. The roots of stigma against Mental Health run deep enough in the world itself, I don't need them weaving their way into my way of thinking, and dealing, too. 

If you look hard enough on the internet (and by hard enough I mean a quick google search), you will hear amazing stories of people who, like in the songs, just changed their way of thinking, or hardened their resolve, and immediately got better. And if they can do it, why can't weaklings like me? Well, not to put it bluntly, but my depression comes from a chemical imbalance in my brain. Telling a person like me, and there are a lot of us out there, some too terrified to come forward and be judged, to just "think happier" or "snap out of it" would be like telling someone who just broke their arm to "think positive and you'll be fine, you don't need a doctor for that." My favourite comparison, though, is the heart attack analogy.

I recently told someone very close to me why I'm exhausted all the time, and why I pretty much need to go to bed by 9pm every night. Her answer? Those are just excuses. Now, after a truly shitty week, that was almost a tear jerker, but I've learned not to let the uneducated see the true impact of their words on me. But, just for shits and giggles, let's bring in that good old heart attack analogy. When I'm in a psychotic episode (not taking care of myself properly, living on junk food, dragging myself out of bed in the morning, and wanting to do nothing more then to somehow get rid of all the pent up negative feelings I have), when someone tells me, "you're just using mental illness as an excuse", that would be like someone telling someone who is having a heart attack to "just walk it off, you'll be fine."

Just because you can't see it, doesn't make it any less valid of a medical condition. This is something even pop-culture is still not even aware of it seems. Poor Robin Williams was a sad reminder of that. Because truly, the happiest looking people always wear the best masks. Just because I smile, doesn't mean I'm ok. Doesn't mean that I'm on medication that make it so that I can get out of bed in the morning, but also can make me dizzy as hell. Doesn't mean anything.

So, I'm not sure if this was just a rant I needed to get out at some hurt I've felt over the last week (or longer, my Grannie's death is still bothering me more than I know), or an actual blog post with an actual point.

But there is one point I want to make, and if this is the only one that anyone takes away from this, I'll go to bed a little happier tonight.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!!! IF YOU NEED HELP GO GET IT!!!! THE WORLD IS TRULY A BRIGHTER PLACE WITH YOU IN IT, DOING WHAT YOU WERE BORN TO DO!!! DON'T GIVE UP!!! YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!!!!