Between the emotion And the response falls the Shadow - Life With Mental Illness

Everyone has their own story of what it is like to live with mental illness.  I won't pretend to speak for anyone else...not only would it be disingenuous of me, it would be insulting to everyone whose experiences are different than mine.

Here's an example.  Here's my example.  Here's me.

I'm Julie, and I have Major Depressive disorder, Generalised and Social Anxiety Disorder, and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

I have 3 excellent days in a row.  One of them features me locking myself out of my car with the engine running...in the cold, but I don't care because I've just spent the afternoon with a dear friend from high school, my makeup was on point, and I felt really good about myself.  This is followed by a Monday where work sucked, but when I got home, a box was waiting for me with something to help me with one of the most visible things that causes me dysphoria.  So I try one on, nearly cry, and proceed to take a billion photos and share some, which leads to dozens of people complimenting me for seeing the real me finally.  I'm happy, beside myself, and yet I'm able to sleep very well.

Tuesday continues the good feelings, and my therapy session is excellent.  At the end, I even talk about how certain things from the past don't upset me as much anymore...and I notice the catch in my voice.  I'm sure she did too, but didn't say anything.  I go home, proceed to royally piss off my mum (she had perfect reason to be pissed at me), and make it through the night.  As I go to bed, I feel the signs coming on, but hope a good night's sleep will stop it.

Wednesday was a no go.  I knew as I was leaving for work how hard the day would be, and but for the grace of someone it was slow.  For the first time since I was prescribed it, I ended up having to take my Emergency Ativan (a bottle I carry with me with 6 MG of Ativan, depending on the strength of the panic or mood attack).  And I was still crying through it.  I made it through the day, got home, and curled up in bed.  I have very little recollection of yesterday, other than the fact that I posted stuff I thought was supportive of a friend without thinking about the fact that it wasn't really necessary in this case, which set me spiraling all over again, caused me to snap decide to delete all my posts on the thread so I didn't look like a thoughtless bitch, and at that point I was done with the world.  Took my trazodone and waited for sleep to carry me off, hoping it'd be dreamless.

Every day I wake up I have to figure out how I am so I know how my day will go.

Every day I have to carefully consider my words and my tone.  My tone mostly because I either speak without one to make sure only my words are heard, or because it's so quiet no one can be sure what I'm saying.  Sometimes it's better that way.

Every day I have to figure out how much social interaction I'll be able to handle...and often I find that it's less than I imagine.  And so I disappear, which makes people think I'm mad at them when really, I just can't handle people.

Every day I have to remind myself to accept compliments, because I don't.

Every day I have to remind myself that just because someone disagrees with me, that doesn't mean they are mad at me, or hate me, or are removing me from their lives.

Every day I have to remind myself that my friends like me for me, but because they feel obligated to or are friends out of pity.

I don't curl up in a little ball.

I don't rock back and forth.

I don't cut myself.

I don't have urges to self harm.

I do have urges to disappear so I can't bother or hurt anyone anymore.

I do worry that people will get tired of me and slowly divest themselves of me.

I have a massive amount of fears, some reasonable, some less than.

This is me.  This is what my friends and family have to deal with.  These are the things that, when I oversleep in the morning, cause my mum to come check on me to see if I'm OK...or if it's overly quiet in my room, if I'm not having problems.  This is what causes me to be afraid to talk to people I've known for years or more out of fear I'll say the wrong thing.

I fight this every day.

Even on the good days.

Especially on the good days.

If I'm not smiling, don't walk up to me and tell me I'll look better if I just smiled.  If I could smile I would...and really, telling me that will either cause me to start crying or punch you in the nose...or both.

Don't tell me other people have it harder.  And if I do decide to tell you what I have going on, please don't turn around and say 'Well, my sister in law just fell down a flight of stairs and broke her leg, and now...'  It's not that I don't care.  But I don't know your sister in law, you don't have her permission to tell stories about her, and this isn't a competition.  You may think my depression or PTSD isn't bad because you've seen me laughing...I think it's hell on earth.

Please...just be there for me.  If I'm non-verbal, remind me you're there.  Don't push.  Just be there...believe me, even in my darkest shadows, hearing someone calling out that they're there for me and looking for me means more than you can possibly ever know.