today i read

it is the day where we talk about mental health, and i am not sure i want to talk about it, i am having a lot of thoughts about it, and i don't want to engage any of them right this minute. so. other people can talk. this is good, sad, helpful, true (sorry so tiny, click it, click it):

{sarah nicole pricket}

* snp tumblr ask january fifth

that is all.

today i read

 

{sara benincasa for human parts at medium}

* stick around

find the thing that helps you stick around. flowers. trees. when things are okay, the list can be a million times longer, but when things are not okay, a list of one or two... it can be enough. it could be.

recently i added: books. if one option is to not be here, and another option is to quit everything and read books in bed for the rest of forever, forsaking all other things (except, of course, flowers, dogs)... i'm just saying... it is an idea.

today i read

always a source of wisdom: captain awkward.

* how do i reach out to my friends who have depression?

we're on eachothers' team

twice this year i have cried and cried and cried over the death of a celebrity. being empathic to a crippling degree means i get real sad about stuff all the time, and i'm generally pretty okay at being rational while being sad, but these two got through real deep. philip seymour hoffman, robin williams.

i've talked about depression times a million on here, and elsewhere, and i'm tired so tired and would probably just say the same things again, open heart breakable heart, void vs ache, the nothing, and and and, so go back and read if you feel like it. there are also other people saying things too, of course. i am grateful to them.

today, just : there are a lot of spectacular amazing gifted giving smart funny gentle badass beautiful humans on team depression. it makes being in the club a little better to think about them. the ones who talk and do and fight however they can, even if it is just tiny in my livingroom, they make it better to be a person who has been depressed and will pretty much certainly be depressed again at some point. but. oof. it is a hard team to be on. of course. because it is a team that loses a lot, a lot of good ones, best ones. this year has been a bad one for our team. and i am so sad.

today i read

***

{sara corbett for the new york times}

* the weird, scary and ingenious brain of maria bamford

if you didn't already know of maria bamford, well... shame on you and also now you do. i also strongly recommend listening to basically any podcast she ever guests on.

sads chats

bring on the trumpets!

it's let's talk day, the day where we talk about mental illness! (i was proof-reading this, just now, and had written 'metal illness', which is also a real thing, like lead poisoning, but is NOT what we talk about today. get your own day, metal illness! carry on.) i wrote a something about it two years back. and i've written about depression and anxiety on this here blorg many times in many ways, and with much repetition, i'm sure. i could write and write about what all it feels like, the dusty-chalk feels, the endless expanse feels, the even-more-endless expanse where the feels should be but aren't. but i don't feel(s) like it, ha ha, so i'm gonna link to some of my FAVOURITEST THINGS! that have helped me here and there when i have needed the helping.

 {by allie brosh by way of hyperbole and a half}

* depression part two by allie brosh aka hyperbole and a half

this. piece. is. devastating. and so beautiful and so true and so hard. and also so funny and so blunt.
(depression part one/adventures in depression is great too. but when it came out those of us who suffer the depressions all went 'ooohhhh no... thiiiisss is no gooood... oh no this is where it only just begins! you think you are in the depressions, and you think "hooray finally no more feels, at least" but actually you have only just breached the surface, oh no... i'm sorry. there's so much more.')
(if you haven't already read ALL HER STUFF you should, maybe even in book form?! i have her book right next to my bed and when i am THE WORST at bedtime i read some and oh, it is so great.)

* also consider listening to her interview with terry gross for fresh air

it is hard, too. some of it. but so good. terry gross has just the best way of being unassuming while getting so much out of her guests. yes good.

* the insanely brilliant strategy of the SMALL THINGS! by jennifer p at captain awkward

all. the. hoorays. i can't tell you what a difference it has made. the breakdown is: depression makes doing anything at all so fucking hard, and not doing anything at all makes you feel like a more broken, more garbage, more totally-colossally shit person. which, you can imagine, isn't great for getting to an okay place. but small jobs help. tiny to-do lists help. they meet halfway between being easy on yourself cuz you're sick goddamn, and also accomplishing a thing! feeling like a maybe real human being.

* DIY keep your shit together by rosalind robertson aka the DIY couturier

and thank god, because i try hard not to go apeshitbananas when i read those 'secret habits of happy people' that are often boiled down to 'be positive and HAPPY and you will be GREAT!!' which is a) not a secret b) NOT A THING or at least not a thing when things make it so you aren't happy. whether that thing is depression or your house burned down or some other thing that might make it hard to just POSITIVE YOUR WAY THROUGH IT *adorable loving punch in the shoulder* you'll get 'em next time! full disclosure, i was a friggin annoying as hell optimist for a looong time who really did think that in the end i'd just positive it all and wrap it up in a bow, and wow look at me go! and i don't hate all positive thinking or people who use it. i use it sometimes too. but i hate the condescension that often holds hands with the positive. the big smiley face that tilts its head and blinks blankly saying 'well you maybe are doing it wrong, or perhaps you just don't want it? i don't know! i can't imagine why it just won't WORK if you're really WORKING it... ... .. .'

{more hyperbole and a half, duh}

because the moral: depression and anxiety, they are real things in the world that are real and hard and shitty and whatever and if i am not well it is not because i don't want to be. it is not because i'm lazy or pessimistic or dumb or broken. it just is.

lastly! i read the belljar this year, and thank goodness because i sorta felt like i had a great secret-shame in the depressive/fashioning/feminist world for not having read it... and you should think about reading it too, if you haven't. it is not fun, but it is lovely and so much more. the belljar: of course. the belljar and all its foul air.

also. after-lastly... let's dance.

dust in the spotlight

{from my tumblr, but really from here}

 

i want so much to tell you not to die. i know it is a useless and mostly meaningless thing to say. but i'd like to say it all the same.

i am sure you have people who actually know you, who are there, who are telling you not to die. and i know that even those people can barely create a pull, really, when the sinking begins. and i am only a girl on the internet.

i do not understand suicide. but i do understand that my lack of understanding is largely luck. my moods have not got that far in. not yet. hopefully, maybe, they never will. but also one of the many medications i take or will take might maybe tick just so. and that side effect they tell you might maybe happen will happen. i understand that my not understanding is a fragile thing. i am susceptible to that side effect, of course, too. if the nauseous and the fatigue and the headaches and the reflux and the trouble swallowing and the fitful sleeping that leads to foggy, unfocused days... if those, then the others, too, are possible.

so i understand that telling you not to die is not helpful. asking that you not die is unkind. i can feel people wanting to ask me not to die, and i want so much to promise them forever and ever i won't. i want to laugh at the absurdity of the thought because it is, for me, so far, a completely absurd one. hopefully forever and ever.

(and now, in the weeks since i wrote this, you have seemed so good. so safe and so fine. in the way that you may never be entirely fine but you are fine for now fine. and it doesn't seem so pressing that i tell you not to die. but really i don't know a single thing.)

don't you worry about me... i'm a grown up...

jeff and i watched cassavetes' 'a woman under the influence' over two days this week. (it took us two days because i am an old person now and i flipped out a bit when i realized it was after 11pm and we still had 45 minutes left... nay! sleeps!)

i really liked this film. i'm not sure i could say i enjoyed it... there's an awful lot of heart-hurt in it, and i'm not sure exactly how i feel coming out the other end. i read somewhere it was supposed to be a more positive look at mental illness than was prevelant on screen at the time. to me it wasn't so much positive as tragically unresolved. there's a lot of love in the film, sure. but also a wild-ton of dysfunction, and all the characters seem to be rather ill, not just the mother-wife who is the focus. and nothing changes. i was left feeling like if you kept watching, you would see the same cycle of breakdown and buildup and plateau over and over and over. and maybe that's what cassevetes was after...

but it was good. and sometimes even beautiful. maybe.

* oh yeah! also. there is the use of the swan lake theme in a few key scenes, which made me think about 'black swan' and how this - a.w.u.t.i. - was such a better picture of a woman struggling with insanity... interesting. i bet you could write a solid comparative essay. *

be a chatty cathy

today is talk about depression day!!! which i think is so brilliant and so great and i just wanna hug clara hughes for putting her lovely face all over this thang.

i wanted to add my two cents to the conversation. because i agree that it's crazy the degree to which depression and mental health issues are stigmatized. even though i have probably the greatest most fantastically supportive families there is, i struggled with admitting that i was anxious at a completely unhealthy level and depressed for the better part of two years. it is just so hard to take your feelings and put them into the same space you put that giant gash on your foot. but now that i have started approaching my anxiety as a health issue rather than an emotional issue, dealing is just so much more unbelievably easy. i communicate with myself like i would any other physical problem.

my head hurts. why? not enough water? too much reading on a computer screen? too much laughing at videos of kittens? talking to an annoying human? okay! i can figure out how to deal with and treat each of those scenarios.

my heart is racing and i feel like the world might end. why? too much caffeine? not enough sleep? just watched a tv show with a lot of triggering high-anxiety scenes? (i'm looking at you, breaking bad...) okay! i can calm down. i can rationalize.

plus there's that helpful friend, prescription medication. balancing and balancing. not for everyone, i'm sure. but i'm happy with mine. (it took a little more than a month to settle into the meds, and that was an occasionally frustrating time. worth it.)

a friend on facebook recently posted a status about her depressive tendencies, and how she is finally able to understand that she doesn't have a 'problem', she has a chemical imbalance. and how helpful that understanding is day to day. i feel the same way. realizing that a) the way i've been feeling really isn't the way that everyone goes about feeling, and that b) that doesn't mean that i am failing at being a human. no one would think they were failing at being a human if they had a broken rib. (unless they broke that rib doing something stupid... like. ummm. street-luge.)

finally, i just want to say as clearly as i can:
there is a big difference between being sad and being depressed.
there is a big difference between being stressed and having an anxiety disorder.
it took me way too long to realize that, and i wish i had earlier and dealt with my situation sooner rather than believing it would go away when life got a bit better... when life calmed down. and i think, too, that i knew that all along. and maybe by 'us' talking about this a bit more, someone else out there who's in that same situation will get help a bit faster. and that would be great.

meanwhile. if you're feeling a bit low. this might help you cheer up at least for a minute!

and share your story, if you have one. send out questions or concerns. it's all cool, my darling lovely readers!