This Not My Idea Of A Good Time

The Happy Switch.

by Lori Dwyer on November 12, 2013 · 4 comments

It’s easier to tell yourself that things were better, in the past. Or will be better, in the future, when some indeterminate quality is met.

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Life is always better in hindsight. Or foresight. Or if you’re looking from the outside, in.

I can look back, now, at life as it was in the TinyTrainTown, and I can tell myself that things were easier, then.  Because I had my family and friends there. Because I wasn’t so stressed about the complexities of life, the things I just can’t seem to do. 

If I let it, my mind will repeat those sentiments, over and over. Despite the fact that I know none of them to be true.

But it’s easier, if I do that. Because if I make it a location thing, a circumstantial thing… then I don’t have to do anything to fix it. 

The Most Amazing Man reminded me a few days ago that happy is not just a switch you turn on. There’s more to it than that. I have all the tools to do this, to deal with my own head. To skew things so I look at them differently.

And I beat myself up because right now I just… can’t. And I don’t know why.  

 

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Back To Black.

by Lori Dwyer on October 30, 2013 · 18 comments

I think the only bonus to being prone to depression is that you can recognise it quickly when it happens. Even if you don’t want to admit it to yourself. Or to your partner. Or to the people who love you, a thousand kilometres away.

I woke up yesterday morning crying. It’s not just a matter of being tired, of waking up to my daughter six or seven times every night. It’s not just being sick, having gastro, and the sinus infections seep into our house like small, unwanted vermin. It’s not just this Melbourne weather, being cold all the time, and never knowing when it will rain. It’s not just being broke and worried about money. It’s not just missing my mum, missing my friends. It’s not just feeling as though I’m never on top of things, like I’m always behind and disorganised.

It’s all of that… and none of it. It’s this black dog that nips at my heels, that eats happiness as though it’s scraps of food thrown out too early.

I have this whole new life, and it’s supposed to be okay. It’s supposed to be easy.

It’s not easy, and I’m not coping. And I hate myself for feeling like this. I hate myself for hating myself, and then I hate myself some more. The meds reach the outer boundary of their effectiveness- they make it so I’m able to feel nothing at all. But not so much that they can conjure up happiness, not so much that they can shed light on this kind of darkness.

I give up on cleaning the house, give up on showering, stop walking the kids to school and choose the easier option of driving them instead. I cant write. I haven’t been laughing at anything much. My sex drive is non-existent. I don’t bother putting on make up, or wearing anything other than jeans and black t-shirts. I have strange dreams. I wander round in a foggy half state, not thinking about anything much– my consciousness is stuck in past tense, events from years ago swirling through my brain with such thickness nothing new gets through. I am a ghost of myself, haunting my New House that doesn’t really feel like mine at all.

I don’t look forward to anything much, right now. Looking forward to things would mean I’d have to feel something, and I’m not sure I’m capable of feeling anything right now.

I have a doctor’s appointment today. They can’t up my medication any higher than what it currently is… but I’m telling myself that, surely, a good shrink is going to help.

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Love Thyself.

by Lori Dwyer on October 24, 2013 · 6 comments

When I was growing up, there was no greater schoolyard sin than that of ‘loving yourself’.

It was used as a taunt. “Errr! You love yourself sooo much!!”.

I think it messed with my head a bit– weren’t you supposed to love yourself, wasn’t that the point? the alternative was to hate yourself. To my ten-year-old self it was a confusing concept.

If I didn’t like myself at all, maybe the bullies would like me. And, really, what right did I have to like myself, if everyone else viewed me as a piece of sh*t?

 

***

Self esteem is a warped and relative concept. I struggle with it, still, even now, at thirty two years old. How do you love yourself, completely, when even liking yourself is a challenge?

 

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