depression

The first step is admitting you have a problem…

/ Cassie / Leave a comment

“Selfish persons are incapable of loving other, but they are not capable of loving themselves either.” ~Erich Fromm

I’ve never considered myself s a selfish person.  Actually, to be honest, I tended to be more of a “woe is me” or “nothing good ever happens to me” type of person.  So many things have been happening recently that were really making me feel sorry for myself.  I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get what I wanted and everyone couldn’t cater to me just this once because I never seem to get what I want.  It took me a while (until today in fact) for me to realize that this really stems from the fact that I am selfish and want everything my way.  And, in reality, get mad and pissed off and downright spiteful when I don’t. I get it, I’m a slow learner.  But at the moment that this realization hit me, tears began streaming down my face.  I never wanted to be seen as selfish and looking back and analyzing my actions over the past few weeks/months, I couldn’t believe how terrible a person I was to people I truly care about.

Maybe I’ve been selfish my whole life.  I don’t know.  I think it stems mostly from not ever really being able to think about myself growing up because there was always someone else I needed to be taking care of.  Looking back though, especially recently, I have been selfish in past and current relationship and hurt people I really care just because I took my own feelings and desires into account before theirs.  I know that there is no consolation I can give that would make it better.  For that, I am truly sorry.

I haven’t been fair, and within that, I haven’t been kind.  In fact, I’ve been down right mean sometimes.  I couldn’t understand why people just couldn’t give me what I wanted and why we couldn’t just want the same thing.  I haven’t been generous, mostly with honesty and my emotions.  I’ve let people down because what I wanted and what they wanted were two separate things, or maybe, they were the same things but just unattainable at the time.

With my actions and my attitude lately, I’ve made it so easy for people to walk away, and then I sit there and blame them and hate them for doing just that.  It’s not fair that I expected everyone to be OK with doing what I wanted and what I needed and not expecting anyone to get hurt.  In fact, by trying to ensure that I didn’t get hurt, I hurt others which, in the end, wound up hurting me far more than I ever could have imagined.

I wish I could take it all back, but I can’t.  I wish I could go back in time; days, weeks, months, years down the road and change one minuscule detail so that everyone could be on a happier track…but I can’t.  The only things I can hope for is to learn from my mistakes and hope that I can avoid hurting anyone else to the best of my ability.

Of course, I’m talking about everyone, no one, and a select few all at the same time.  Chance are, though, I’m talking to you.  And I’m so sorry I wasn’t a better person…the person you deserve.

On a wave of mutilation…

/ Cassie / Leave a comment

“Listen, smile, agree.  And then do whatever the fuck you were gonna do anyway.” ~Robert Downey Jr.

Last night (or even yesterday in general) was the first day, in quite a while, that I didn’t spend a significant amount of time in tears.  I attribute a lot of this to my friend Sara, who saw what I needed, acted on it and wouldn’t take no for an answer.  It’s hard to find friends like that; the ones who show up without being asked, the ones who are there for everything (even the bad stuff), who have seen you at your worst and are still there in the morning, who tell you what you need to hear even if it isn’t what you want to hear.

After a much needed (and clarifying) night out, I woke up serene and without the familiar pit of despair in my stomach that has been there over the summer.  I was able to breathe.  I was actually ready to face the day.  Now, don’t interpret this as me thinking that all my problems and challenges have disappeared because of a glass of wine, a slice of cheesecake, and a night out with a friend.  I’m not that naive.  All of my issues are still there, but today is the first day in a long time I feel like I might actually be able to face them.

I spent my morning wandering around my empty house.  The kids were with the grandparents, the husband was at class and it was the first time I had truly been alone in a while.  I’m the type of person who likes to be alone, though not necessarily feel alone. As I walked around my completely unorganized and cluttered house, I was thinking about how much I had hoped to accomplish this summer, but never really got around to it for one reason or another.  As usual, I wished there was some way to turn back time, to do it all over and not make the same mistakes again.

Then I though, what a waste of time, sitting around wishing I had used my time more effectively or wishing I had more time.  How often do we all do that; sitting around spending so much time focusing on the past that we are actually forgetting to live right now?  Throughout my life I have spent so much time focusing on things that have happened: wishing I hadn’t spent so much time focusing on people who didn’t share my same feelings, wishing I had started something differently or ended something differently, wishing I hadn’t concentrated on one thing over another. I know I can’t be the only one.

The light at the end of the tunnel is that no matter how much time I have wasted, I still have time left.  And I realize how lucky I am that I can say that. So, instead of constantly dwelling on the things from the past that I would change if I could, it’s time to move forward and put that energy into what I want out of the present and the future.

I have no idea what that is right now, but at least I have a little time to figure it out.

Fall down seven times; get up eight

/ Cassie / Leave a comment

“So I put my faith in something unknown, I’m living on such sweet nothing. But I’m tired of hope with nothing to hold, I’m living on such sweet nothing ~Calvin Harris

I’ve been thinking a lot about happiness lately. More specifically, the things that make us happy and how people come to feel this way. C.S. Lewis once said “Don’t let your happiness depend on something you may lose.” I saw the above quote this morning that really resonated with me. How often do we base our happiness on the actions of others, or moments in time?

Without going into detailed specifics, I’ve had a tough summer, and honestly, I have no one to blame for it but myself. It all started with my dad dying and slowly snowballing out of control from there, to the point that I didn’t even know who I was anymore. And really, I know it started even before that. I saw the warning signs did nothing to stop the avalanche. I was unhappy, moody, sullen and depressed. And when I wasn’t feeling those things, I wasn’t feeling anything at all.

I needed something. I was feeling antsy and itchy. I felt like something was missing that I couldn’t put my finger on. I felt like my skin was too tight and something within me was trying to break free. What it all comes down to was the need to feel alive, or rather the need to feel something other than what I was feeling. I felt like I had been going through the motions for so long thinking that maybe I was happy, when I realized that I was simply complacent. When my dad died, something inside of me changed. It wasn’t that I was devastated or heartbroken, because I wasn’t.

A first I felt relieved that all his suffering was over. And then I began to worry…about myself. My dad spent most of his life depressed and angry which caused him to alienate every single person in his life. Most days, he was downright mean. And I could really see myself heading down the same path and it scared me.

I needed to shake things up and feel something just to prove I was nothing like him. I needed to be reckless and downright irresponsible. And I was. I put my needs for “aliveness” ahead of the the needs of so many people around me. I felt conflicted but I also felt alive…knowing I should change the situation, but also unable to do it at the same time.

I now realize that a lot of it had to do with me looking outside of myself for some form of happiness and thought certain situations were going to make me happier. And they did…and they didn’t. I spent most of my summer in complete turmoil, wrestling with feelings I thought I had, with feelings I actually had, with feelings I was supposed to be having, all while trying to wear the mask of normalcy around my children and friends.

And then just as quickly and spontaneously as the “aliveness” started, it was over. I have let myself think and analyze for a week. Its almost as if I was grieving. I don’t know, though, what exactly I was grieving for. Was it for what I lost, or was is simply because I now knew I was going to go back to feeling nothing in my daily life?

I still haven’t figured it out, but what I do knows that it’s time to take a breath and move on and start figuring out how to be again. And maybe if I can figure out how to simply exist without all this sadness and anger, I can also figure out how to be happy.

I have to try, I have to try, I have to try. My life depends on it.