To Ask for Help

Today I did something I didn’t want to do. I asked for help.

Why is it so hard to ask for help when it comes to mental illness? If I suffered from diabetes, I would seek help. If I had cancer, I would waste no time. Yet suffering from depression seems to be less of a thing for me – for many.

I have fought this quiet demon since I was a teenager. It wasn’t until I after the birth of my first child that I felt compelled enough to see a doctor. And even then, I felt somehow weak, somehow belittled by my own lack of emotional control. Why is that?

I’ve decided that, at least for me, there are a couple reasons.

1. I will appear weak.

Over the past few days I’ve used the word “loser” a lot to describe myself. I’m such a loser, I can’t deal with anything. What a loser I am, all I want to do is sleep. Our society has come a long way in how people with mental illnesses are treated, but there is still a taboo associated with it. I’ve heard people say things like cheer up, it’s not that bad. Or why are you so sad? Look around you, you have so much to be thankful for. And it’s when things like that are said that those of us who suffer from depression, feel the weakest. Those are the words make us think we should just suck it up.

2. I don’t want to be coddled.

Yes, I am in the throes of something dark. No, I do not need you talking to me like I might break. That makes me feel worse. Like I’m a child who needs managing.

Despite the fact that I nearly talked myself out of going on my way to the doctor’s office, I went. My fear of appearing weak, was not as strong as my fear of unravelling even further. I don’t like being like this. I have to remind myself that I didn’t choose this. It simply is what it is.

And the truth that I am beginning to believe is that I am strong because I asked for help.

 

 

 

 

I Must Remember This: A House Is Not A Home

There is a place I know that feels a little too much like home. It’s a house of mine I rent from time to time, but it isn’t home. I’ve visited it so many times that I know it well.

It could easily become my home – if I let it.

But that is something I won’t do.

Each time I visit I struggle to leave; there is a familiarity that is comfortable, like a warm hug. But that hug quickly becomes a smothering embrace, threatening to dissolve me.

I go to this place kicking and screaming, fighting against it, and yet, here I am again.

I don’t like this part of me – the part that visits this place. But the older I get the more I realize that it’s just who I am. I am a person who lives in two separate places at any given time. I am a person who puts on a smile while I am at my home (as much as I can), but who wears no masks at my other house.

The other house is a house of darkness where no masks are needed because there is no one else there to be bothered by my countenance.

The other house is desolate, lonely, and dark. Hardly a place that a person would choose to visit. Instead, it seems to choose me. In some kind of Amityville-esque way, it haunts me and consumes me.

Thankfully I have a home – a real home – filled with those I love who wait for me. I worry that one day they will choose to close the door and leave me stranded in the echoing hallways of my other house, having grown tired of my extended, and frequent vacant-tions.

Here’s what I  hope they see when they look at me.

I see you trying to figure me out and help me and “fix” me. And I am grateful that I mean that much to you, but there is nothing you can do. The darkness is in me, and I am the only one who can fix the broken switch.

And I. Am. Trying. God how I’m trying. This is not a place I want to be. Know that. Above all else, know that.

Being who I am I feel too much. I think too much. I bruise too much.

Sometimes life is just too much, and I feel like I’m suffocating.

That doesn’t mean I want to die.

In fact, it’s just the opposite. I want to live. God how I want to live.

I want to be the free spirit I am. To explore and dream and create and shine.

But there are moments in my life that break me. And these are the moments that send me to my house to be still. To retreat. To repair.

I am here.

Though I may be far away, I am here.

Though I may be there, too. I am here.

Wait for me. I am here.

 

 

The World is Too Much With Me

Even the smallest voices deserve to be heard.

A favorite poem of mine by William Wordsworth begins with this line:

The world is too much with us

And lately I feel that more than ever. For all the good that is in this world, and there is plenty, it seems to me, at least today, that there is much more that is bad. I know in my heart that this is not true, but it’s my heart that is clouding that perspective at the moment. As an empath it’s the extreme emotions that dictate my mood. Today the emotion was despair – despair in the human race.

I went to PetSmart today without realizing that it was pet adoption day. Generally I try to avoid those days because I am unable to adopt all of the pets that are there. And believe me, if I could, I would without hesitation. As is my custom, if I see a dog then I have to pet said dog. Today the Golden Retriever adoption foster families were there with three beautiful dogs. I situated myself on the floor and began to pet Bella. Bella was abandoned in an apartment in the middle of the night when her family moved out. Next was Rosie who was surrendered three days before Christmas because her family no longer wanted her – she is nine years old. Finally, there was Hunter, named so because he was found by a group of hunters in the woods where he had been dumped. He has a birth defect and his nose is malformed and it is believed that is why he was abandoned. All three dogs held these stories in their eyes – abandonment, and sadness. But they were also so full of love and ready to be accepted.

I fought back tears as I imagined the pain and fear that each one had felt at being left by the people they loved. No matter how hard I try, I cannot comprehend what kind of person could do this. There is some human component lacking in one who could treat any living being with such disrespect and lack of compassion. I left heart heavy, but hopeful because of the earth angels who are caring for them now.

Then I came home and read a post on Facebook about a father in Florida who killed his  five year old daughter by throwing her off a bridge. How is this possible? What is happening in the world?

I am so saddened by our world today. This has to stop. This has to change. We are better than this. I don’t even know how to finish this post. But I had to get this out of me.

Please, please be kind to one another – especially those whose voices might be too small to be heard.

Peace.

When You’re an Empath

Mixed media artwork by Chell 2014

When you’re an empath everything you feel is bigger than you. Things like happiness and gratitude swell inside you with an enormity that is difficult to explain. Unfortunately, there are more emotions than those and that is where the problem begins for those of us who are empaths.

As a person, I have known sadness just like everyone else. And yet, the sadness I experience as an empath is so different. The older I get the more I am learning about how I am wired. All the years of my dealing with depression, I see now, are simply a by-product of my empathic tendencies. Not only do I deal with the things in my own life that have caused me pain, but I tend to have a direct line to the suffering of those around me, whether they are physically around or not. I FEEL IT ALL.

Imagine being on boat surrounded by people who are drowning. You throw out float after float to each and every person, only to realize that the floats are connected directly to your boat and the weight of all of those people is pulling you under too. That’s me.

Some days I feel just like that – like I’m drowning under the weight of all the sadness around me – the sadness of the world. I’m not a martyr. I’m not seeking to make everything right for everyone at my own expense. It’s just something that “happens” to me.

I don’t want to feel the pain that my mother is feeling because her dog is dying. I don’t want to feel the pain that her dog is feeling. I don’t want to feel the sadness that my son feels so often because he’s lonely. I don’t want to feel any of it. I want to be compassionate, but I don’t want to feel as heavy as I feel now. It’s too much.

I don’t know how to turn it off, or modify it. I’ve always been empathetic. And I always will be. I guess there are worse things to be, but right now this internal drowning is almost more than I can take.

And when you’re an empath, you feel guilty for wanting it all to go away.

Sadness and Creativity

Each year as Autumn sashays into Savannah I feel an overwhelming sense of joy tinged with an aching that always seems to be heightened this time of year. I have always been melancholic. In fact, it’s one of the things I like most and least about myself depending on the severity. My melancholia has served me well igniting my soul with a darkness that seems to enhance my creativity. Autumn is one of my most creative times.

Some of my sadness carries a very specific weight – the weight of sudden loss. 28 years ago, on the eve of my 19th birthday and the week before his 46th, my dad passed away right in front of me. Nearly three decades later, the pain has settled down into the deepest part of me.

So much more of my sadness is weightless with no real reason to back it up – but believe me, it’s there. I work hard to keep it at bay. There are days where the only way I can deal with it is to sleep.

I know this sadness very well. It’s been tagging along with me for much of my life. Although I can’t pin it down to a particular set of experiences, I know that there are several life moments that have contributed to the pool. Unrequited love. Low self-esteem. Loss. But we’ve all experienced that stuff. What makes me different? What is it about life that just gets to me sometimes?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot – thinking about the kinds of people that longterm sadness (or more clinically, depression) latches on to. And it seems pretty clear to me that those who tend to be creative are the ones who know that deep, dark hole that opens up inside of you and swallows the colors. You know who you are.

But here’s what some people don’t get about me. I kind of like it – the sadness. Before you judge me, let me ‘splain. I don’t like the loss, or the feeling that my breath has been stolen, or the seeing the world in shades of grey. Nope, not one bit. But what I do like is the resurfacing. Because when you have been to that place of never ending blackness, the minute you see that first star, that first pinhole of light, it is, hands down, the most beautiful thing you have ever seen.

And at that moment all I want to do is breathe and be that light. And the thoughts I have are so much more than me – it’s as if I have been given a glimpse of the universe and seen the bigger picture. And with that energy comes an overpowering need to create. I need to write. I need to paint. I need to share the emotions that I’m feeling.

I think that some of my best work has come from deep sadness. And many of my favorite artists and writers were creatively fueled by their sadness – Vincent Van Gogh, Walt Whitman, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton to name a few of my favorites. Not bad company to keep.

So it’s not unlike me to seek out sad movies and songs. I like them. They make me feel alive. Alive and creative. After all, not all sadness has to be depressing. Sir Elton said it himself, “Sad songs say so much”.