Looking in the Mirror and seeing someone else
Not myself: Depression
I'm a rut, slope, downfall, whatever you want to call it. Anyway I have been in one since October. (I think I masked it in November with my two NaNoWriMo writing projects.)
The end of September my grandparents (on my father's side) had their 50th anniversary party. Tom and I did so many errands to get ready for the party. I ripped my dress, and had to sow it in my father's van while going to the party.
Let me back it up, my father always made me very insecure of his side of the family. I honestly believe he really pushed over his own insecurities to me. Anyway, we always had to have Sunday's best on to see my grandparents even if we were just going to play outside anyway. It's not like I was going to wear dirty clothes, but it was as if we were always trying to make an impression on them. It was like my father was trying to be at the same level of his own father.
Anyway Tom and I had to do many errands to look nice for this party. My father did nothing but complain. He said Tom's slacks were too short, first of all they were 300 pair of slack that he had to borrow from his friend. It just pisses me off, because they weren't really short. And then my father put down my dress. (Then he tried to push one of my ex-stepmother's dresses that was the size I wish I was. Looking back that was a kick in the balls, if I had them. It's like saying “Here have her baby, since you can't have one of your own.” OUCH!)
I had dyed my hair bright red that summer, (same color I have now), anyway it had faded and there were pink streaks in my ash blond roots. I didn't have the resources or time to redye my hair before the party. I really didn't notice it until I had brushed my hair that day. I actually like the pink streaks, it was like I was a party-girl and a with the blond still trying to be me. . . it was my own look.
I felt like crap just going there. However the biggest comment that floored me.
“Hi. Becky. How are you? I hate your hair!” My grandmother stated as both of my grandparents avoiding me all day like I was the plague. I wasn't in any of their pictures. However my aunt and her kids are greater than gold and perfect little angels. (My siblings will never compare to them, ever! Even though I was the first.) The thing was I called my aunt three times that day. If I knew how awful that was going to be, I would have not gone or at least called a ride home.
Then at the end of the party, my grandfather only words to me were yelling at me. I was talking to the DJ with my younger brother and he yelled at us because of a time issue. I didn't know that we had to be out by a certain time. I never felt more rejected in my life; it wasn't a rejection, because I got scolded for money; it was the fact that the first and only words from my grandfather were words of rushed annoyance. Is that what I am to him an irksome thing he sees on holidays? Am I all I am to grandmother is something she can use to put her daughter up higher?
For years, I had this idea in which I would write positive stories about those who have made me who I am. I have my love of computers from my grandfather who worked at IBM for over 20 years. One of my personal goals was to bake like my grandmother; I also believe she was the one I got my love of paintings and art from. However after this experience it just really hard to pull the positive out. So I guess this idea I want to will sit on the back burner, until I feel positive again.
There is still more with this story. . . later that weekend, Tom and I were at a friend's house trying to watch football and forget the bitterness of the stinging party. My father called me up chewing me out, because his mother, my grandmother had chewed him out about allowing me to have hair like that. Then he pressured me about his wedding. (I was honestly questioning: I believe he was rushing into things and I don't think that they knew each other enough. Anyway I was and still am horrified of my father, I just believe that the monster that I saw as a kid, will come out as a kid. I witnessed a lot of violence as a child which he caused and it's only time that he will become that again. I am afraid I am becoming that, but that is another story.)
He wanted me to assure him that I was going to redye my hair a normal for his wedding in which he wanted me to be a part. I didn't want to wear a dress. I hate dresses. If I was thinner in the upper arms, had flatter stomach, and had better toned hips and ass, then I would wear damn dresses all of the freakin' time. I look fat and flabby in dresses. I hate dressing up, and going out where 90% of the people are rude and stuck up to me.
What I wanted to say was no, I will dye my damn hair any color I want to. If I want a damn rainbow on my head, I will have it! I am 30 years, I have the right to express myself. It can be worst, I could have countless piercings and a full body of tattoos. I express myself with my hair; physically it is one of my best qualities.
I also wanted to say that he was rushing too fast into this wedding and that he can't even live with himself over year before having to find the next person to fill the empty space he thinks he has. (It is the fear of being alone.) If he is too afraid to face himself, then why would he put someone else in that position to do the same thing. He is a perfectionist and is almost impossible to with. I hope she is stubborn enough to keep her way.
I am freaking out that she has my complete name. I just hope he doesn't call out names in bed, because that would really freak me out. I also feel in away that with her having my name that she is replacing me. (I know it sounds weird, but I'm down to Beck, know any more with my name it would be “B” and then “Hey you.” It's one thing if you are just too lazy to say Becky, but I just don't feel like I have my own identity anymore.) I tried to drop it, thinking that I am over dramatizing it, but my head just will not let me do that.
Anyway weeks went by and then my father and Becky decided that they had to stop to see if I fit the dress, which of course I didn't and I couldn't stand the jacket. I like tank top idea, but the coat had to go. Tom's apartment wasn't clean as I wasn't expecting them over. I just felt like my father was judging us on a dirty apartment during a surprise visit. I will admit I do clean for company, and normally, I am use to a bit of clutter. (When it comes to all of my writing items, even with clutter, I know where each thing is.)
I just felt like during that visit he looked at me like he was better than me. I just felt like he wanted to say that he taught me better on keeping the place clean. I felt like he wanted to say, “You are just like your mother.” Can't I just be myself? He eyes basically asked in an attitude” Damn, do you really live like this?” He made me feel like I wasn't clean enough. It was like dealing with my grandparents all over again. I think that is really the moment when I first notice my depression.
After that I tried my damnedest to avoid all calls and messages from him, because when he did slip through all it was calls of work, guilt trips or lectures. He was moving his house, because he couldn't afford the mortgage after my bitter cheating ex-stepmother had gotten the courts to make my father pay her alimony. (Again that is another story.)
Most of November, it was easy to avoid him, because I was working NaNoWriMo: I was writing two different projects at 50,000 words each. I did accomplished my goals. However I didn't get to finish one of the two novels. I helped Tom with one of his novels and once that I noticed that he finished before I did. I think he was right that it was one of the triggers of my depression, because the last week of November it was extremely hard to push myself to work like I had weeks before. My mind didn't want to work or focus since the end of November. It was hard to finish my projects, but I manage to get to my goals even if I was dragging.
December, However, was hard. There were days I didn't get off the couch. I didn't answer the phone. TV was just a blur of color. Music didn't help me. I feel bad as there were some days that Tom had peanut-butter and jelly, because I was too depressed than to get up and make him something hot. I would sleep either 10-14 hours in a row or I would sleep for 5 hours up a few hours and then sleep for another 5 hours.
I tried getting out and shopping, but it didn't help. I was mentally fried and I couldn't get any clear thoughts out. I liked being over my mom's house better than the apartment, because at least I knew someone was cooking and cleaning. (Rich people would go a spa and get counseling over something like this. I normally get Winter Blues, but they usually are not until late February when I have been locked in the apartment too long. However this was far worst than any case of Winter Blues I have ever gotten. I felt I was losing myself. There have been good and bad day more bad lately than good.)
I tried dying my hair, making it funky color, bright red as Tom loves it and I was hoping that it would perk me up. However it didn't perk me up at all. I was just a depressed person with bright red hair.
Between December 14 and 28 was the worst of all it. I didn’t remember much of that week, but do know I didn't go to the wedding.
Tom got me to get out on Christmas and visit his family as he didn't want to go alone. However I think I would have had a better time if I was sleeping on the cold couch. Everyone was at everyone's throats over giving out our opinions on facebook. It's facebook, get the fuck over it!
To make things worst, I was depressed that my immune system was shot and I got sick. I had a horrible viral head cold, kidney infection and pain issues with my right ankle. I had to go to the hospital where I felt 4 out of 5 doctors and nurses felt I was melodramatic. I couldn't put pressure on my damn ankle and then they found a kidney infection. Those are more bills that I cannot pay, damn it!
It was about two weeks later, my ankle was doing better, but my cold was still holding on. Tom wanted B.O.L.T.s for dinner which were BLTs with onion. It was a starting out as a good day: Tom had gotten several loads of laundry done, we had most of the living room cleaned up, and I even had the dishes started without feeling like I had to force myself. I got dressed. I went to sign myself out of the apartment and there was a new woman working the front desk. Most new girls will watch you sign, but they just shrug their shoulders and go back to their own business. However this girl (who was pregnant like that wasn't karma pushing my buttons) decided to get into my face about the rules: How he couldn't have any overnight visitors which makes no sense. (He's a grown man, a building system shouldn't tell anyone who can stay over and for how long. . . there has to be some kind of rights of his that they are breaking.)
She said she was just going to brush it off, but I was already worked up. I had no voice as it was. I didn't want to get Tom into trouble, because this hormonal woman wanted to be all high and mighty. I had gotten three compliments on my hair at the store, but I was so worked up that couldn't enjoy them. Normally, I would hold my tears, but this depression has made me not act or think like myself so I cried in the store.
She harassed Tom the next day when he was asking about package (which we never got by the way.) Anyway she made him feel like crap as she didn't brush it off, but she then started to tell him that he was only allowed to have visitors between 8am and 5pm. This is really shit. I am friends with one of the people that work at the front desk on the weekends and she said that is not one of the rules. After Tom got harassed from her, he doesn't want to go back. He doesn't feel like he or any of his guests are welcome in what he was supposed to be considered his home. I was also there, not just because I was his girlfriend, but that building is not meeting his disabled needs. The lights are not bright enough, and he needs someone there to help him cook and clean for him.
So we stayed over my mom's house for while. I have no concept of time and my mind as much of it is a tangled ball, will not stop. I haven't had decent sleep since I got harassed over a week ago.
Then Sunday my father called under a restricted number and believing it was a friend of mine, I answered it. He gave me a guilt trip. Then he told me missed me at the wedding. Whatever.
I tried to explain my depression and he just threw this place that doesn't help anyone. They either give you drugs that make you more unbalanced or they talk for three days and then say your instantly cured as you end up back there just months later. I want to fix my problem, not just mask it.
If he wasn't snapping or giving me a guilt trip then there were moments of silence. That is not my father, he usually never shuts up. I just felt like he didn't care so why should I? I did not go to the wedding, because I didn't care. In fact, I would have liked to see my young brothers dance. I could barely get off the couch and it seemed not to phase him.
He kept trying to push his house. If he drops his house, he'll have no debt and he claimed he wanted no debt. He asked if we wanted the house. (I wouldn't mind the house, but I do NOT want what is with it, which his control over everything. I would rather have Tom and I struggle to get our own house than to have his house with his control.)
I miss my brothers. However I feel that it's going to be sometime before I see them.
What I don't miss is my father saying that he isn't going talk bad about people, but as long as he use a bible verse he thinks he could put them down. (I am not siding with my ex-stepmother, but there has to be somethings that my father did to push her to cheat.) I am not better than he is, but he is not better than me.
My depression/ rut feels like. . .
- my ideas are a twisted, jumbled ball of yarn that even the cat will not play with.
- My muses knew I wasn't right, that they left so fast that they left their clothes.
- The office and meeting rooms in my head are completely trashed as if someone was trying to steal something.
- My office and meeting rooms look like a circus went through it and only left many piles of crap.
- I feel like I am a deflated balloon that is taped up so much that it sinks in a muddy puddle.
- My brain have problems trying to comprehend how to finish the damn dishes.
- Music doesn't allow me to feel good anymore. It just sounds like cold sounds blending together. I sing, but I don't truly feel the song. I am just living the emotions.
- Sex feels like work, especially to get an orgasm. It drains me in the end.
- Everyone drains me in the end.
- Most of my dreams have even been stressful.
- I cry really easy. Photo make me cry, especially of babies or cats. If I hear one more person is pregnant I am going to scream.
- It takes days to myself into a shower. I feel blah even when I am clean.
- Smells get to me even more.
- People get on my nerves even faster. I cannot stand when people say or do stupid things.
- My hair is greasy and in knots and I just don't care. (Normally my hair is my best physical quality.)
- my body aches even more.
- My immune system is working in over time.
- I get paranoid faster. (I have had chest pains and headaches.)
- I either sleep too little or too much.