Okay, friends. Truth-telling time. Because I, like a woman I like to pretend is my friend, believe that telling the truth heals both me for telling it and you for hearing it. And, like her, I think telling the truth means using the words that I really used, so I apologize if my occasional cursing offends someone. It's the truth.
Last night, like many nights in the past few months, I found myself curled up on my couch, desperately unhappy for no good reason. I didn't want to do any of the things I love to do or see any of the people I love to see, and the fact that I couldn't bring myself to move from my spot on the couch just drove the unhappiness home further. I found myself thinking back over the past couple of years, and thinking about all of the days like that one. Days when I just didn't feel like me, because the me I know wouldn't say or do the things I said and did. Days when I just didn't want to do things that I love to do anymore. Days when I felt totally helpless against the stupid, unreasonable unhappiness that kept bubbling up. Days that had been coming more and more frequently.
Because the human brain has the extraordinary capacity to observe itself, and because I'm training to be a counselor, the observing part of my brain finally looked back at the rest of its sad self and thought, "Heather, I think maybe you're depressed."
I considered this.
I said it out loud. "Jeff, what if I'm depressed?"
"That would make sense."
"Dammit."
And then I wanted to tell that observing part of my brain to shut the hell up because it cheerfully started rattling off things I should do about my depression- things that already help me hold back the darkness, like cleaning and working out and checking things off my to-do list, and things that I keep failing to do because I don't want to make time for them, like seeing a counselor instead of just reading my own counseling books. And the thought of doing all that felt exhausting and made me want all the more to just spend the rest of my life curled up on my couch, with no one expecting anything of me, preferably with an unending bowl of macaroni and cheese in my lap to eat and cry into.
Because the best thinking happens in bed, safe in the darkness and under the covers, I dragged myself there. And I thought, "So what? On days that I don't do the things that help me, I'm sad. That's got to be normal. Everyone feels like that. But then... if that's all it is, then that means that all anyone ever does is spend their life running from the dark." And that supremely cynical thought was also so not me.
So I asked Jeff, "What do you think makes people happy? Not just not-sad, but happy. Content. Good."
And he said the first set of three important things.
"People who love them." Check.
"Something fulfilling to do with their life." Check, check, check.
"Reasonable expectations." Shit.
I had a flashback to my recent site visit at my internship. My supervisor and friend, Chett, said that my growing edge was that I tend to have unreasonably high expectations, both of myself and of others, and that it hits me hard when those expectations aren't met.
"Is that all my problem is?!"
No, I don't think it is. I still really ought to see a counselor. It's not like the past two years of my life- the past any years of my life, for that matter- have been stress-free. When I was in high school I had to have my stomach scoped because I was having terrible, inexplicable stomachaches, and what they saw instead of normal smooth, pink stomach lining were long, red, angry streaks like someone had been literally been clawing the inside of my stomach. The only thing they could come up with was stress, and the only thing I could say was, "But I don't feel stressed!" So either my brain is really bad at recognizing stress, or I've been so perpetually stressed for my whole life that I literally don't know otherwise. Considering both my life and how much my body fails in other ways, either is really possible. The point is, I don't think changing expectations will make everything better for me or for anyone else who's feeling depressed. Sometimes things get messed up and it's not our fault, and we need all the help we can get to make things good again.
Nevertheless, I lay there thinking about what Jeff and Chett had said and I came up with the second set of three important things. Three things that I've thought at different times in my life, but I think have to be held all together for me to really be able to love myself and love everyone else like I and they deserve.
People are good. I have had arguments with friends for the past two years about whether people are really good or not, and I really do think they are. I think that, at their core, people are good. But that by itself doesn't work.
People are broken. This is how I grew up thinking- people are inherently messed up. And while I think that people make mistakes and are truly messed up sometimes, I don't think that's the whole story. We have to start with the fact that we are good, and then acknowledge the undeniable fact that we are also broken. But, no matter what,
People are worth loving. People are beautiful, wonderful, broken messes. I am, and you are, and both of us deserve to be loved neither because of or in spite of that fact. People deserve to be loved because they are people. I think God must hold all three of these together when She looks at us, too.
Painting that and writing this was my therapy this morning. It's not perfect or even very good at all, but I'm making myself keep it this way because I'm not perfect either, and that's the point. So while I don't expect the sad days to go away completely, I hope that looking at that every morning helps me to remember who I am and who you are, and to take it a little easier on both of us. I hope you can do the same.
Last night, like many nights in the past few months, I found myself curled up on my couch, desperately unhappy for no good reason. I didn't want to do any of the things I love to do or see any of the people I love to see, and the fact that I couldn't bring myself to move from my spot on the couch just drove the unhappiness home further. I found myself thinking back over the past couple of years, and thinking about all of the days like that one. Days when I just didn't feel like me, because the me I know wouldn't say or do the things I said and did. Days when I just didn't want to do things that I love to do anymore. Days when I felt totally helpless against the stupid, unreasonable unhappiness that kept bubbling up. Days that had been coming more and more frequently.
Because the human brain has the extraordinary capacity to observe itself, and because I'm training to be a counselor, the observing part of my brain finally looked back at the rest of its sad self and thought, "Heather, I think maybe you're depressed."
I considered this.
I said it out loud. "Jeff, what if I'm depressed?"
"That would make sense."
"Dammit."
And then I wanted to tell that observing part of my brain to shut the hell up because it cheerfully started rattling off things I should do about my depression- things that already help me hold back the darkness, like cleaning and working out and checking things off my to-do list, and things that I keep failing to do because I don't want to make time for them, like seeing a counselor instead of just reading my own counseling books. And the thought of doing all that felt exhausting and made me want all the more to just spend the rest of my life curled up on my couch, with no one expecting anything of me, preferably with an unending bowl of macaroni and cheese in my lap to eat and cry into.
Because the best thinking happens in bed, safe in the darkness and under the covers, I dragged myself there. And I thought, "So what? On days that I don't do the things that help me, I'm sad. That's got to be normal. Everyone feels like that. But then... if that's all it is, then that means that all anyone ever does is spend their life running from the dark." And that supremely cynical thought was also so not me.
So I asked Jeff, "What do you think makes people happy? Not just not-sad, but happy. Content. Good."
And he said the first set of three important things.
"People who love them." Check.
"Something fulfilling to do with their life." Check, check, check.
"Reasonable expectations." Shit.
I had a flashback to my recent site visit at my internship. My supervisor and friend, Chett, said that my growing edge was that I tend to have unreasonably high expectations, both of myself and of others, and that it hits me hard when those expectations aren't met.
"Is that all my problem is?!"
No, I don't think it is. I still really ought to see a counselor. It's not like the past two years of my life- the past any years of my life, for that matter- have been stress-free. When I was in high school I had to have my stomach scoped because I was having terrible, inexplicable stomachaches, and what they saw instead of normal smooth, pink stomach lining were long, red, angry streaks like someone had been literally been clawing the inside of my stomach. The only thing they could come up with was stress, and the only thing I could say was, "But I don't feel stressed!" So either my brain is really bad at recognizing stress, or I've been so perpetually stressed for my whole life that I literally don't know otherwise. Considering both my life and how much my body fails in other ways, either is really possible. The point is, I don't think changing expectations will make everything better for me or for anyone else who's feeling depressed. Sometimes things get messed up and it's not our fault, and we need all the help we can get to make things good again.
Nevertheless, I lay there thinking about what Jeff and Chett had said and I came up with the second set of three important things. Three things that I've thought at different times in my life, but I think have to be held all together for me to really be able to love myself and love everyone else like I and they deserve.
People are good. I have had arguments with friends for the past two years about whether people are really good or not, and I really do think they are. I think that, at their core, people are good. But that by itself doesn't work.
People are broken. This is how I grew up thinking- people are inherently messed up. And while I think that people make mistakes and are truly messed up sometimes, I don't think that's the whole story. We have to start with the fact that we are good, and then acknowledge the undeniable fact that we are also broken. But, no matter what,
People are worth loving. People are beautiful, wonderful, broken messes. I am, and you are, and both of us deserve to be loved neither because of or in spite of that fact. People deserve to be loved because they are people. I think God must hold all three of these together when She looks at us, too.
Painting that and writing this was my therapy this morning. It's not perfect or even very good at all, but I'm making myself keep it this way because I'm not perfect either, and that's the point. So while I don't expect the sad days to go away completely, I hope that looking at that every morning helps me to remember who I am and who you are, and to take it a little easier on both of us. I hope you can do the same.
