When Harry Met Sally
You know the movie When Harry Met Sally with Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan? We watched it the other night. Great movie. Lots of cute scenes (including the famous Meg Ryan fake orgasm scene in the coffee shop).
Anyhow, there's a scene in the movie where Meg Ryan finds out that her ex-boyfriend is getting married, and she's all upset. Harry comes over to console her, and they're sitting there talking, and she's talking about how her life isn't turning out the way it was supposed to, and she says, "And I'm gonna be FORTY!!" and Harry says, "When??" and she says, "Someday."
I'm gonna be forty. In 15 days. The day after Thanksgiving. Black Friday. How appropriate.
Everyone keeps telling me that 40 is the new 30. What a bunch of crap. 40 is not 30. It's a full decade more than 30. So, if you see me or talk to me, please don't try to make me feel better about things by telling me that 40 is the new 30.
Ugh. Maybe if my life was even remotely where it should be for someone my age, I wouldn't feel so bad about it. But I have no family (we're still trying to decide if we even want kids), no successful career (Ottosen Photography is allowing my to work from home, but thanks to the economy, there is no work), no place to call our own (Matt and I still live with his parents. During the summer, when they're up north, we pretend the house is actually ours).
I know there are those eternally positive and optimistic people out there who will say, "Hey, at least you have your health, and a place to live, and food on your table." What. Ever. I am going to be forty, and I live like a college student, and I'm not okay with it, and I feel powerless to stop it.
All of this is taking its toll on me. I have always been a little depressed. I go through periods of mild depression, and then it gets worse, and then it gets better again for awhile, and so it goes. But lately my depression has been really bad. I feel so hopeless. And the hopelessness turns into anger, and that turns into plain old rage. The other night, Matt and I were at the grocery store, and I was walking down the frozen foods aisle, and up on top of the cases were all these huge stuffed animals wearing Christmas hats and Christmas scarves with big grins stitched across their faces, and I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, reach up, take one down and pound on it relentlessly. I hated those stuffed animals, and they hadn't done anything to me. All I knew was that I hated them, and life sucked. I know I was, at that moment, one of those people you see at the store, and you think, "Wow, she looks completely miserable."
I felt completely out of control... I knew the anger was there, I knew it was irrational, and I was absolutely powerless to stop it, to turn it around. Counting to ten doesn't help. Deep breathing doesn't help. Poor Matt gets the brunt of it. He always does. I get angry and I take everything out on him. No matter what he does, it's not good enough. All he wants is for me to be happy. That's what he tells me. But I don't know the last time I felt genuinely happy. He does his best, but when I get in one of my "moods" there's nothing he can do, and it frustrates the hell out of him.
And then, just as quickly as it came on, it's gone, and I feel.... normal again. That's when I start to think I did it again, lost control of my emotions and I acted like a crazy person, and I am overwhelmed with this sense of self-loathing and guilt, and I get depressed. The severity of the depression is directly related to the severity of the anger that I felt. I begin to think that maybe everyone would be better off if I wasn't a part of their lives. I contemplate running away. Sometimes, I think about dying, and although I don't think I'd ever actually do anything that drastic, the thoughts are still there.
The three main people in my life -- the ones I see every day, Matt and his parents -- don't know how to help me, because none of them understand depression. Matt's Dad, especially, just doesn't get it. He's of the mindset that you should just "snap out of it." Matt's kind of the same way. He says he doesn't understand why I let things get to me the way I do. And Matt's mom is insane in her own way, with her OCD and her fear of germs and her anxiety. I only have one friend here in Arizona that I feel even remotely close to, and I would never talk to her about any of this. I don't want to be one of those people who leave you emotionally and mentally drained, so I put on my happy face and I act like life is good, when inside I feel like screaming. My family is all in other states, and of all of them, my sister is really the only one I feel close enough to to talk to about this. I talk to her about it sometimes, but I don't want it to be all we talk about... again, I don't want to be a downer. So I keep it all inside.
I think I could actually benefit from some kind of drug, but the ones I've tried haven't really worked. I started with Effexor, then moved on to Paxil, and then tried Prozac, and then Zoloft. They all just made me tired. Really tired. I'm tired enough without them.
I just don't know what to do. What I want to do is crawl into bed and stay there. But I have weddings photos to edit and deadlines to meet and dogs to take care of and a house that desperately needs cleaning and... life. So sleeping until I'm dead isn't really an option.
Maybe I should look into therapy. Again.
Anyhow, there's a scene in the movie where Meg Ryan finds out that her ex-boyfriend is getting married, and she's all upset. Harry comes over to console her, and they're sitting there talking, and she's talking about how her life isn't turning out the way it was supposed to, and she says, "And I'm gonna be FORTY!!" and Harry says, "When??" and she says, "Someday."
I'm gonna be forty. In 15 days. The day after Thanksgiving. Black Friday. How appropriate.
Everyone keeps telling me that 40 is the new 30. What a bunch of crap. 40 is not 30. It's a full decade more than 30. So, if you see me or talk to me, please don't try to make me feel better about things by telling me that 40 is the new 30.
Ugh. Maybe if my life was even remotely where it should be for someone my age, I wouldn't feel so bad about it. But I have no family (we're still trying to decide if we even want kids), no successful career (Ottosen Photography is allowing my to work from home, but thanks to the economy, there is no work), no place to call our own (Matt and I still live with his parents. During the summer, when they're up north, we pretend the house is actually ours).
I know there are those eternally positive and optimistic people out there who will say, "Hey, at least you have your health, and a place to live, and food on your table." What. Ever. I am going to be forty, and I live like a college student, and I'm not okay with it, and I feel powerless to stop it.
All of this is taking its toll on me. I have always been a little depressed. I go through periods of mild depression, and then it gets worse, and then it gets better again for awhile, and so it goes. But lately my depression has been really bad. I feel so hopeless. And the hopelessness turns into anger, and that turns into plain old rage. The other night, Matt and I were at the grocery store, and I was walking down the frozen foods aisle, and up on top of the cases were all these huge stuffed animals wearing Christmas hats and Christmas scarves with big grins stitched across their faces, and I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, reach up, take one down and pound on it relentlessly. I hated those stuffed animals, and they hadn't done anything to me. All I knew was that I hated them, and life sucked. I know I was, at that moment, one of those people you see at the store, and you think, "Wow, she looks completely miserable."
I felt completely out of control... I knew the anger was there, I knew it was irrational, and I was absolutely powerless to stop it, to turn it around. Counting to ten doesn't help. Deep breathing doesn't help. Poor Matt gets the brunt of it. He always does. I get angry and I take everything out on him. No matter what he does, it's not good enough. All he wants is for me to be happy. That's what he tells me. But I don't know the last time I felt genuinely happy. He does his best, but when I get in one of my "moods" there's nothing he can do, and it frustrates the hell out of him.
And then, just as quickly as it came on, it's gone, and I feel.... normal again. That's when I start to think I did it again, lost control of my emotions and I acted like a crazy person, and I am overwhelmed with this sense of self-loathing and guilt, and I get depressed. The severity of the depression is directly related to the severity of the anger that I felt. I begin to think that maybe everyone would be better off if I wasn't a part of their lives. I contemplate running away. Sometimes, I think about dying, and although I don't think I'd ever actually do anything that drastic, the thoughts are still there.
The three main people in my life -- the ones I see every day, Matt and his parents -- don't know how to help me, because none of them understand depression. Matt's Dad, especially, just doesn't get it. He's of the mindset that you should just "snap out of it." Matt's kind of the same way. He says he doesn't understand why I let things get to me the way I do. And Matt's mom is insane in her own way, with her OCD and her fear of germs and her anxiety. I only have one friend here in Arizona that I feel even remotely close to, and I would never talk to her about any of this. I don't want to be one of those people who leave you emotionally and mentally drained, so I put on my happy face and I act like life is good, when inside I feel like screaming. My family is all in other states, and of all of them, my sister is really the only one I feel close enough to to talk to about this. I talk to her about it sometimes, but I don't want it to be all we talk about... again, I don't want to be a downer. So I keep it all inside.
I think I could actually benefit from some kind of drug, but the ones I've tried haven't really worked. I started with Effexor, then moved on to Paxil, and then tried Prozac, and then Zoloft. They all just made me tired. Really tired. I'm tired enough without them.
I just don't know what to do. What I want to do is crawl into bed and stay there. But I have weddings photos to edit and deadlines to meet and dogs to take care of and a house that desperately needs cleaning and... life. So sleeping until I'm dead isn't really an option.
Maybe I should look into therapy. Again.