Stuff, and also crap
Actually being generally happy for the first time in my life has helped to give me a better perspective on my depression. I can see it a lot more clearly when I'm not trapped in the middle of it. The first thing I have realized is that my environment is a huge contributor to depression. If it's nighttime, if the light levels are wrong, if I'm stressed out (this one is obvious), if I am listening to the wrong music it can push me over that border. I'm figuring out ways to fix it. I can change the music, I can ask the people I'm close to for the kind of support that I need, I can turn a light on or off or take a break from staring at a book or a computer screen or doing something that is frustrating me. I dislike how much my environment affects me. I have always struggled with this conviction that I need to be entirely self-sufficient and need nothing or no one and not be influenced by what is around me. The truth is that I am completely empathic and am influenced by everything. I didn't even know who I was until recently, because I would just be something slightly different at any given moment. I also do need things, a lot of things in fact, and I'm still trying to stop bullshitting myself into believing that I don't. It's amazing how I just block things automatically, how I fall back into these habits. I have finally found someone who I really feel like myself with and who I can admit to needing without hating myself for it or ultimately having my needs rejected, and obviously this has had a huge effect on things. I feel like I do remember who I am, and I am comfortable with and capable of being that person. I don't always have to be though, I have much better control over how much or how little of myself I reveal depending on the person or the situation. With some people (okay, two) I can now be completely myself. With other people I am more comfortable, but I don't feel the same intense need for them to know all of who I really am. I don't have anything to prove, and if they are disinterested in knowing me better or don't treat me the way I deserve to be treated I can hold back and be okay with that. Basically I can see people better in general. I don't need them all to be just what I need, since I have found just what I need in a person and I can stop endlessly searching for the first time. I always accepted what people were before, but I was always disappointed because it wasn't what I was looking for. This really wasn't a fair way to be. I didn't realize I did this before now.
The other thing I am having to accept about my problems is that I do have problems, and I will have problems. No matter how much better I get they are not just going to disappear. I do NOT fucking like it when one of my various psychoses or issues comes up and I can't get it completely under control. For many very justified reasons, I am very uncomfortable with not having complete control over myself in general. I don't like being close to people and having them see that. I don't like being happy and having it just leave for a while. I am not perfect, clearly, but somehow I can't bring myself to accept that I've worked my ass off throughout my life and made an amazing amount of progress and that I should be proud and supportive of myself for that. Instead I just think about how it could have been better if I'd just tried a little harder. That's what my father would say, and the single biggest impetus for how hard I have worked is the fact that I do not, ever, want to be anything like my father. I will not be. It's hard realizing how much of him is still with me and probably always will be.
I need to stop hating myself, in general. Getting stressed out and angry when I get depressed is just going to make me stressed out and angry on top of everything else. It's also fundamentally dishonest, which is something I strive to avoid being. I'm not a bad person. I'm actually quite a good person. I do have problems and flaws. People have those. I really have accomplished a great deal in my life, and I am continuing to. If I saw someone treating someone as badly and unfairly as I treat myself then I would probably kick their ass. Which was an interesting sentence. And probably a good place to end this, as I really really need to go to sleep. Working until ten sucks now, since I am often asleep before that recently. Well, it doesn't exactly suck, I enjoy the closing shift still and it's not like I fall asleep on the job or anything, it's just that I basically have to go to bed right when I get home and I don't have any time in the evening.
I can think of at least five people right now who I am seriously behind on emailing or calling or postal-mailing. Which sucks. I feel very bad about this and I need to make the time, whether I have it or not, to keep up with my real friends.
All right, now I really am going to sleep.
The other thing I am having to accept about my problems is that I do have problems, and I will have problems. No matter how much better I get they are not just going to disappear. I do NOT fucking like it when one of my various psychoses or issues comes up and I can't get it completely under control. For many very justified reasons, I am very uncomfortable with not having complete control over myself in general. I don't like being close to people and having them see that. I don't like being happy and having it just leave for a while. I am not perfect, clearly, but somehow I can't bring myself to accept that I've worked my ass off throughout my life and made an amazing amount of progress and that I should be proud and supportive of myself for that. Instead I just think about how it could have been better if I'd just tried a little harder. That's what my father would say, and the single biggest impetus for how hard I have worked is the fact that I do not, ever, want to be anything like my father. I will not be. It's hard realizing how much of him is still with me and probably always will be.
I need to stop hating myself, in general. Getting stressed out and angry when I get depressed is just going to make me stressed out and angry on top of everything else. It's also fundamentally dishonest, which is something I strive to avoid being. I'm not a bad person. I'm actually quite a good person. I do have problems and flaws. People have those. I really have accomplished a great deal in my life, and I am continuing to. If I saw someone treating someone as badly and unfairly as I treat myself then I would probably kick their ass. Which was an interesting sentence. And probably a good place to end this, as I really really need to go to sleep. Working until ten sucks now, since I am often asleep before that recently. Well, it doesn't exactly suck, I enjoy the closing shift still and it's not like I fall asleep on the job or anything, it's just that I basically have to go to bed right when I get home and I don't have any time in the evening.
I can think of at least five people right now who I am seriously behind on emailing or calling or postal-mailing. Which sucks. I feel very bad about this and I need to make the time, whether I have it or not, to keep up with my real friends.
All right, now I really am going to sleep.