I am not in control

It’s been a week, a week since I’ve had even a resemblance of a normal night’s sleep. In the last two days I’ve been unable to leave my house and have missed my psychiatrist appointment, my SITP meetup and my Biology final. I was also forced to drop out of participating in publishing my first peer review paper and a trip to Kobe, Japan for an immunology conference next week.

My anxiety has control over me. I know that it’s because I’m having to change my meds but that fact doesn’t matter right now.

I’m frustrated that I have a brain that makes me yearn for knowledge but stops me from being able to achieve my dreams. Sometimes when I tell people that I’m on disability they look at me funny. Most of the time I forget how bad I can get and I feel guilty for not having a job and supporting myself. Nights like tonight I feel no more able to get out of bed than Stephen Hawking is.

I don’t type this for sympathy, comfort or encouraging words. Instead, I do it so that when a person tells you they have anxiety and you might not quite understand what it’s like, think of me today, lying in bed for the 8th straight day as life literally passes me by.

The fall is all that matters…

One step forward is rewarded by being pushed back two more. I know things aren’t supposed to be easy but why do they seem to always be so hard? I’m tired of red tape. I’m tired of bureaucracy. I’m tired of fair weather friends and I’m tired of being tired.

But I’m not going to fall.

The awesomeness of Stephen Fry

I like the fact that I am reasonably articulate and can be humourous at times but I am also in awe of Stephen Fry. While making me feel like I have nothing to say and can’t say it, he also makes me feel understood, worthwhile and heard.

Doubt even this.

Depression can make us doubt ourselves in everything we do. It becomes easier and easier to allow the negative thoughts, our pathological critics, rule our lives and skew our perspective to what can be a can be a very unhealthy place.

Just like a person given a terminal diagnosis, the possibility of grasping at whatever hope or joy is presented to us becomes easier and easier as time goes by. Along with the hope comes things that are very unhealthy for us. I bet we all have dealt with this to varying degrees throughout our struggles in many forms, such as food, alcohol, drugs, sex, self harm or one of the many others that are there.

A cancer patient may turn, in desperation, to unproven herbal therapies, psychic surgeries, or faith healers as other people try to take advantage of the victims’ state of mind. It would be very easy for us, in our moments of weakness, to grasp at what ever straws are offered by others.

It is imperative that at these times we be the most skeptical of potential cures or aid that we see before us. These are the moments that people and groups will pounce on us. Scientology, Jonestown and the followers of Charles Manson are examples of how easy it is to fall prey to these people. Most dangers are not as insidious as my examples, but that is not a reason to let down our guard.

Lastly, do not take my word for it. Look back on those times when you have been at your weakest and ask yourself how much your decision making skills suffered and how bad your understanding of what was really going on had become. Use this to measure where you are now, before you make decisions that will alter your life or expose you to the influence of other people no matter how much you trust them.

A metaphor for my mind.

This was what my apartment looked like two summers ago.

The first room is the living area. In the back right is the area I slept and spent most of my time. I didn’t go out unless I had to and lived off of delivered food.

The second room was my bedroom. Here, you can see my futon mattress that had been my bed covered in a dust of old, dead skin caused by my untreated psoriasis. Under the window is where the mattress used to be, before I moved it due to the over whelming smell of mold that had begun to form in the carpet under where I slept.

Both rooms were infested with moths, fruit flies, and some other little crawly thing. The smell was unreal.

I thought this was how I deserved to live. I thought there was no reason to care about myself or anyone else. The voices in the back of my mind convinced me that people thought I deserved this. My depression skewed my perception that this became to me what was normal, what I felt comfortable in and what I craved. My physical world had become as unhealthy as my mental state was.