depression

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People may have a lot of things.
You may even look at them and think, ‘Oh, they have so many things I don’t. They have so many things I wish I had. I would be so much happier if I had the things they have.’
And by ‘things’, I mean all things. Like family, friends, money, careers, houses and homes, hobbies, plans, places to be and people to talk to. All the things.
But the problem is that no matter how many things people have, it doesn’t mean that they have the one thing they need to keep living.

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After taking a nice quiet 40-minute walk home in icy wind without a scarf, also getting lost a couple of times, I feel I won’t even need corona to get myself a nice two-week vacation being sick at home.

When it comes to doctors and therapists… I can’t help to feel like I’m screaming into a void. I’m constantly trying to send an SOS. Tell people that something is wrong. That walking around with daily headaches, chronic exhaustion, thinking ‘I’m so fucking tired…’ from morning to evening every single day without exception, feeling like my consciousness is slipping away multiple times during any day, having to force myself to move because I keep freezing in space, getting lost in time, forgetting what day it is, and especially what day of the week it is really not right… And yet not a single medical professional I’ve met has taken it seriously enough to actually look for WHY, instead of trying out a collection of medications, and then shrugging me off when I tell them none of those work.

Then, I face a situation where, having a very stressful and anxiety-filled week, I can’t even rely on any tranquillisers because I’m too groggy and scatterbrained as I it is, and I’m too afraid to add any chemicals (or not so chemicals) in the mix that can make me feel even less ‘present’ in the reality.

Instead of tranquillisers, today I have to rely on food, therapeutic activity of copying books by hand, and first seasons of Great British Bake Off.

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i.
I ordered a new couch.
(Which I wasn’t really planning to do right now, I only wanted to look around to see the selection, because my current couch, even though looks fine, has begin to hurt my back, but then I sat down on one particular couch in a store…and decided that that’s the kind of comfort I have to have at the end of every day…)
And now I have unreasonable emotions towards having to say goodbye to my old couch.
Apparently, it’s been my only friend since I moved here after graduating, it’s seen me through a lot of hell, and I’ll miss it.

ii.
One of the things about myself that bothers me the most, is my inability to talk about or praise something I actually like, other than saying something among the lines of ‘This good. I like. Try it.’, but then going on and on about something I don’t like and explaining why exactly I think it’s bad in much detail. I don’t think it’s a good quality to have.

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The ever-growing number of wrong steps and panicked lunges in inappropriate directions can hardly come as any kind of surprise when the ground is constantly crumbling beneath your feet, biting on your heels.

And there’s nothing else.

No stop, no rest, no safe haven, no place to step back and breathe before taking a step.

Year, after year, after year.

And the point comes when making mistakes and wrongs is not the worst thing anymore, it’s not being able to stop caring about making them that is the absolute worst.

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I sometimes manage to stay away from television, news, and real world in general so well that when I catch a glimpse of it by chance I suddenly find out that parts of country are being washed away with level 4 (out of 5) evacuation alerts, a number of very prominent and very famous tv figures got in organised crime-related trouble (which in this country means a big reconstruction on the tv scene because they will need to replace big tv shows that were in the same spots for many years and people who everyone was used to seeing all the time), and that some of my favourite (and very talented) musicians were arrested.

Feels like this world is never going to convince that there might be a merit in not living like an ostrich.

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I’ve never really figured out this ‘living in the now’ thing.

For the first 25 years of my life I lived in the future. I’ve hoped, and imagined, and ‘rode through’ the parts I couldn’t quite handle until I could reach the next stop.

Now, I mostly leave in the past. The hopes have left, so did the strength look for new steps and beginnings to jump to. Instead came the flashes of suddenly being transferred into some location I walked many years before, and very likely won’t ever have a chance to set my foot in ever again. I can smell things, I can taste things, I can see myself standing in the places that are probably long gone from the face of this Earth and I wish they weren’t. I have hardly any memories of things that happened, of things said and done, but I can walk the places I haven’t seen for almost 20 years with startling clarity.

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My first reaction to having a breakdown in public is to pretend that I’m not having a breakdown and buy a hamburger take-out. Though usually cheeseburger. With pickles if I can help it.

Though since I can’t really eat lately, this time the hamburger is spending the night in the fridge. Crisscut fries and all.

Thinking about how many meals it will take me to eat it and will it survive long enough to be still edible when I can get to it is better than thinking about the fact that I have no support system at all and my breakdowns are getting worse.

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A year ago, I looked at my 10-15 book TBR pile and thought it was a lot.

(a year ago my head was in a place where I couldn’t really read anything but fluffy fanfiction on 2-3 specific fandoms by thousands)

As of this moment my TBR pile has reached at least 84 (I run out of space on the top of my shelf where I was storing them 20 books ago) … with more expected in the mail.

I need to cancel my book boxes…because as of now, the book selections they send end up all the way on the bottom of the list of things I want to read at the moment, and there’s really no sense in ordering them if this is the case.

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Ever been so deep in your head you stepped into a huge puddle of vomit on the floor and stood around there for a while?

In my defense, it was in the middle of convenience store in Japan where you’re not supposed to expect mess. (This is going to sound bad, but figures it had to happen in the immigration office.)

But I did stand around in it for a bit while choosing drinks and only noticed because my feet started to slip around.

I have a feeling this day will go into the ‘those embarrassing things I did I wish I could forget but remember better than my name’ memory bank.

At least I didn’t fall in it.

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I don’t need my therapist to tell me (I can tell it her myself) that I’ve been reading so many silly, and not so silly, fantasy romance-ish books, which I would previously consider kind of uncharacteristic, because I use them to fight my deepening depression and anxiety on the very chemical level.

It also would be why I get so uncontrollably angry and disappointed when a book that I desperately needed to pull me up, has so much angst (because apparently too many people believe angst is fashionable, cool, and deep) it actually managed to bring me down.

Which is not really fair to the books I read, because having angst doesn’t make books bad objectively, but right now in my eyes, it kind of does.

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Approximately 24 hours of my life:

My breasts hurt for a week before I’m about to go on a vacation for a few days, because my PMS is trying to wait exactly for the day I’m planning to be walking around in the nature for most of the day. It reaches the point where it hurts so much I actually spend a whole night dreaming about walking around with bust three times heavier and bigger than it is, which is not as fun as it sounds because it’s also full of pain.

I sigh, say ‘Okay’, and pack half of my small suitcase with sanitary products.

I want to buy some coffee and lunch before getting on the shinkansen, to start my vacation by reading one of my favorite books while seeping on some delicious coffee and listening to writing music.

But the morning crowd pushes me into the station entrance that has no coffee shops, and to reach the only Starbucks (which wouldn’t be my choice for coffee anyway, but it’s the only choice I have) on the station I need to go down to the platform, and then go back up on the other side. I walk the whole length of the platform, trying to find upwards escalator or elevator. No such luck.

I sigh, say ‘Okay’, and drag my suitcase up the the stairs. It’s not too heavy, but my wrist is injured and I have to spend next 20 minutes to try to get it to turn again without feeling like I’m about to throw up every time I move it in a wrong way.

As I’ve finally reached the city, left my suitcase with the hotel staff, and walk the quiet streets that hardly change, I think I should be finally free for next 48 hours.

After a minor incident where I had to pit my bladder against two elderly ladies who were buying great many things and couldn’t let me get to the cashier in my favorite paper shop (it might have been my fault for forgetting to find a toilet in the hotel lobby and holding it in for hours), I finally reach my favorite cafe with soups and banana-hojicha smoothies. Just as I’m trying to get my nerve knots to uncoil, I get a message from work that something has happened, and the co-worker who was supposed to cover in my absence is not there. It’s not voiced out loud, but I’m sure they’d want me to re-schedule my vacation if I was still in Tokyo.

I sigh, say ‘Okay’ and try to pretend like this piece of news is not going to spoil my mood. Or that I won’t start hating myself for feeling someone else’s misfortune is part of a conspiracy against me.

I make it back to the hotel. Try to not feel my disappointment prematurely when they tell me my room is on the 4th floor, because I’ve been thinking about looking out over the city during the sunset the whole time on my walk back. When I check my room my hear sinks. My window faces a solid wall 50 cm away.

I sigh, say ‘Okay’, and think that’s what you get for booking an untried new hotel last minute instead of my favorite place which was unfortunately fully booked. Now, at least, it makes sense why this was so cheap. I can’t bring myself to go ask for a new room.

After getting settled a little, and frowning at the hand towel that looks and smells clean, but feels strangely sticky after I wipe my hands (like they didn’t wash the detergent out completely), I try to unpack. I enter my code in the lock on my suitcase, and it doesn’t open. I look it over, making sure it’s mine, then try every combination I’ve been known to have on this kind of lock. There’re not many of those. I look in my bag in case I still have the ’emergency’ key, which I don’t. I don’t know if it just broke or someone tried unlocking it and got it stuck.

I sigh, say ‘Okay’, and settle down trying every combination possible on the dial for the next hour. When that doesn’t work, I take the ice tongs from the ice bucket and wrench the pull tubs out from the sliders and then from the lock. I get my suitcase open, but I doubt I’ll be able to use the lock ever again. I’m resourceful, because asking strangers for help is always the very last resort. I also kind of didn’t want people thinking I was asking them to open someone else’s suitcase.

I’ve been dreaming about sleeping while breathing in the clear air of this town for more than a year. Not only am I robbed of that, because I can’t open the window in this room, I can hardly sleep all night because the bathroom keeps making these noises like it’s a space ship. Something thuds very loudly at least once every hour, almost making me jump, something seethes, something gurgles, and I wake up every time. I wake up for good at 4 am.

I sigh, say ‘Okay’, and think that at least hardly getting any sleep is nothing new to me these days and I won’t get as hysterical as I would be previously when deprived from my 7-9 hours of sleep on vacation.

I bought my breakfast in a convenience store the day before. I have a salad I need to mix and a soup, and in the morning I realize there were no utensils in the bag. Which you have to be really really unlucky to have happen to you in Japan. They can forget to ask you if you need them and put some inside anyway, but to just forget to put anything… I can’t say this ever happened to me before.

I sigh, say ‘Okay’ and settle to have only a yogurt drink and a piece of cake I have to eat with my hands for breakfast.

I don’t want to list any more.

Believe it or not, this kind of ‘pattern’ has been my life for months. Many of them. Sometimes worse, sometimes better. It’s not really bad enough to feel like being kicked constantly, but it’s that sort of minor annoyance like trying to walk and have something constantly grab at your hair and clothing and stagger you back. Or constantly hear universe say ‘haha, f*ck you!’ in your year. Or trying to take a deep breath and smile just to have your face slapped for your efforts, every time.

I’m just so…fluffing tired.

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Every time I post something on flickr and take a few moments to go through the recent photos of people I follow there, it’s like they scream at me, my mind screams at me, that I’m trapped and wasting my life on things I don’t need to be wasting it on.

But, contrary to the popular belief, I’m not trapped because I’m too stubborn and cant take myself out any time I would decide to do it. What traps me are immigration laws and my condition that makes me a care-needed individual every time I set my foot outside.

Doesn’t hurt any less though.