Day One
So I guess this is a thing? I almost didn’t write this. Just writing this gives me anxiety. Like, knowing someone might actually read these. I don’t want to be judged negatively for putting my vulnerabilities out there in this way. Anyways, I said I would do this, just write about the daily struggles of having social anxiety and depression and trying to overcome it to live normally and be happy and yea. So I guess here we go, for the first real day of actually talking about how things went.
I feel like the most important thing to say right off the bat is, because I said yesterday that I cope by self harming via cutting, I should always start off by saying whether I cut or not. It’s a huge battle. It’s easiest to not cut by just not thinking about it as much as possible. It’s been like what, probably close to two weeks without cutting. Two weeks without cutting is a long time for me. The longer I go without cutting the harder it gets to avoid it, not easier. It was pretty hard to avoid cutting today, but I didn’t cut today. I slept last night with a pillow in my arms, as if I was cuddling someone, because at night the urge to cut is strongest and it can be hard to fall asleep, and cuddling is just.. if there’s a vaccine to depression, it’s cuddling and really long tight hugs that take your breath away. I’ve never had a person to cuddle with, I’ve always either liked or fallen for the wrong girl. 😦
Anyways I didn’t fall asleep last night until like 4am. I forget what I was doing. Just watching youtube videos and retweeting people on twitter. Oh yea, I know this sounds stupid, but I was just like, watching WWE videos, because certain matches or certain speeches on the mic get me all excited and it gets my blood rushing and I do knee slaps whenever I’m super into something. Depression makes life seem really dull and boring, so watching WWE clips gets me out of that for however long the video is. Often I’ll just play the same clip over and over again like five times until I feel like it’s getting not as fun. Like when Big Cass says “There’s only one word to describe you and I’m gonna spell it out for you.. S-A-W-F-T!” I get all into that. Or when New Day says “Because.. New, Day rocks” and then plays the trombone doing their weird dance. Just stupid stuff like that, it gets me all going. When I’m not weighed down by depression and anxiety, when I’m able to be the easy going person I am, I’m like the New Day. Anyways yea.
Also, last night.. ugh this will sound so stupid, but hey this is social anxiety sooooooo yea. Maddi, who is far away and thus I haven’t gotten to see her in two and a half years, she updated her fb profile pic, and as she always does, she looks pretty. She’s said before it’s okay if I comment on her pictures, and like, I wanted to tell her she looks pretty. But it’s like, if I tell her that, I think I’m being too sweet. I don’t know if I want to get into it. Ugh. I will. I’m just sorta naturally sweet, when I’m myself and not overthinking things. Starting late senior year of high school and all through college, I’ve been told by a number of people, girls I’ve liked/fallen for and guys, that I’m too sweet or too nice. I’ve been told there’s like this imaginary line, where you cross over from being simply nice & sweet to being too nice/too sweet. And so now, instead of just being sweet without thinking about it, because it’s just who I’ve always kinda been, I overthink it. Every social interaction, whether in person or online or via text or phone call, every second I’m wondering if I say a certain thing I’m being too nice or too sweet. I don’t know what it is. I’m too nice to guys too apparently? Like, what? It’s not like I tell guys they look handsome or smell great or something. I asked my therapist the other day, is my problem that I’m just kind to EVERYBODY? That’s besides the point. Anyways, back to Maddi’s picture. One second, it’s omg yes of course tell her she looks pretty! Next second it’s, no that’d be too sweet. But oh my gosh Maddi is so pretty and if you weren’t overthinking this you would’ve already posted a comment telling her. But posting that would be too sweet! She wouldn’t like me being that sweet. I’d be crossing that line. The other thing though is like, in my heart, I’ve already posted a million comments on that picture telling Maddi in a million different ways how pretty she is, so even though I haven’t actually posted a comment, I think that I’ve been sweet enough to her that I’ve already crossed that boundary into being too sweet, so I shouldn’t post a comment. But then I realize, well wait, she can’t actually see my thoughts, she doesn’t know how pretty and beautiful I think she is. But I can’t post a comment because well that’s too sweet, so I find a comment one of her girls posted telling her she’s so pretty, and I hit the like button on that comment. It’s… that’s social anxiety for you.
Anyways, so yea. I went to sleep at 4am, cuddled with a pillow. Woke up at 2am. I didn’t go outside until like 8pm. Too many people out. I watched The Young Turks and Secular Talk, liberal talk shows. Distracts my mind, and also I’m very politically engaged, and so I listen to those shows to see what Cenk and Kyle are saying about things. I went on twitter for awhile. Kind of a quiet day on twitter. There’s like 5-10 accounts I just retweet things from everyday but I didn’t really retweet much. I can’t retweet everything. I can see everything in the world in every country with twitter. One day I might retweet stuff going on in Palestine. Next day it’s South Sudan. Sri Lanka. Burma. Chad. Congo. Chile. Mexico. Greece. Central African Republic. Niger. You get the idea. And of course, a big chunk is stuff going on here. My twitter I just really use to spread awareness of human rights abuses around the world, and to help other people struggling with mental illness.
Anyways, I also went on youtube and watched some Jimmy Kimmel videos. There was a recent goofy one where he was pretending to release his emails to the public, as a play on of Hillary’s stupid email scandal, because Jimmy is running to be VP. Things that make me laugh always are a nice distraction. And it’s like, having depression doesn’t mean I’m crying in a bathtub 24/7. I still laugh. I still smile. I also watched some old Vancouver Canucks playoffs videos, because when I watch them, I get the same adrenaline rush I did when I was actually watching those games back then. Just like the WWE videos, the purpose is I get all excited and blood rushing and knee slaps, and I play the videos many times in a row to escape the dullness of depression for a few minutes until I come down from the high. Everyday feels the same with depression, so I try to relive past moments to get brief escapes every day. When I’m home and I go bowling with my boys on Thursday nights, I’m able to get a four hour high, but then I come crashing down hard and am wiped out for a day. Same with going to waterslide park for a whole day, or going to an Oregon Ducks football game in the past. I get a long high, but I crash hard. It’s worth it though. But I don’t have a billion dollars to go to waterslide parks every day to escape depression for hours on end. So I just have to settle for brief highs from watching youtube clips.
Anyways, for normal people this is nothing, but for me the tiniest most normal every day activities become overwhelming, like brushing my teeth or taking a shower or what not. If it wasn’t for depression, I would shave every other day or once every three days. But instead, it ends up being once every one to two weeks. I like having a clean face. And again, the 5-10 minutes it takes to shave, that itself is a distraction from the dullness of depression. But depression does everything to prevent you from doing even the tiny things that give you an escape. With that said, I shaved for the first time in over a week. And then I took a shower. I’m sure everyone says this, but ugh taking warm showers is one of the most comforting things in the world when you have depression. It’s not on the same level as long tight hugs and cuddling, but it is up there. Water in general is just insanely comforting. Washing my hands. Swimming in a pool. Riding down a waterslide. Water feels amazing for some reason. Even when I did the ice bucket challenge a couple years ago, as cold as that was, it felt super comforting. I don’t know how to describe it, but whenever depression is just overwhelming and I’m in a water environment, whether it’s a shower or pool or waterslide or whatever, it just is soothing. I kinda feel normal and happy and not weighed down and yea. Water does something magical I can’t describe it.
So yea, and then at 8pm, when the sun was kind of setting, after I had taken a shower, I went down to Pizza Hut to just write. Not this. I just typed this without having a rough draft on paper. I’d been writing the past several days what a college basketball team coached by myself would look like. My mind goes everywhere, I literally overthink about everything imaginable. Everything just kind of floods my mind until I write it on paper and type and publish it, and one of the dreams you could call it I guess, is me being a college basketball coach. When I have dreams, I don’t try to this is just part of depression and overthinking, my dreams are insanely detailed. When I actually write down my dream, that particular dream goes away and I feel less heavy. And so the past several days I finally decided to write down the dream of me being a college basketball coach, because I’m never actually going to be a college basketball coach and I don’t want to be one, so having that dream is just annoying and I’d like to make it go away so I’ve been writing it down and I finished it tonight at Pizza Hut so now I just have to type it up and publish it. Writing out my dreams is a distraction, as you’d imagine, because I have to focus on that dream in order to get every detail of it written down. I spend every night at the Pizza Hut near my apartment, either writing, watching NBA/NHL Playoffs or watching shows like CSI Miami on their big TV. The people all there know me by now, so they’re like my friends.
I wasn’t able to get exercise today though. I feel like if anyone reads this, I’ve let you down. Every day, I win some battles and I lose some battles, and exercise is a battle I lost. I didn’t have the energy. I’m sorry. I mean, I shouldn’t apologize, because I don’t control whether I have that energy or not each day, but exercise is really important and when I do get it, it feels great and I always want more of it. Depression said no though today. 😦
Anyways, that was today’s struggle. I have to try and get sleep now. Probably will cuddle with a pillow again, and then go through all of this again tomorrow. In two words, it sucks.
adamkendall2 