Category: mental health

mental health

Loving Me

by Kim2 Comments on Loving Me

“It’s hard to pour into you”

I’ve been turning this statement over and over in my head since Monday. Monday was the day that I’ve had possibly the most honest and eye-opening conversation with a dear friend that I’ve ever had. Talking to someone who I think was finally able to understand a portion of my thoughts was a revelation. Thinking through all that we talked about, however, has been the only thing I’ve really been able to concentrate on all week. Being told that I make it very difficult for people to put energy into isn’t something that surprises me because I feel like some part of me has always been aware of that issue, but actually hearing it was something I wasn’t expecting.

There’s a line from The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky that (in my opinion) is far over-quoted and over-used, but it’s so very relevant to this topic: “We accept the love we think we deserve.” I’m not sure when I first started to feel this way, but constantly feeling broken and a burden to the people around you directly affects the way you accept love from other people. I can’t even begin to count the amount of times I’ve told people in the past few months how messed up I am, how much I’m in the way, and how many times I’ve apologized for wanting to talk or spend time with them.

In reality, it’s bizarre. Even verbalizing these thoughts to a couple of my closest friends this week has left me in tears both time. It’s crazy to think that at some point, something in my mind snapped from thinking “you’re worthy of spending time with” to “people spend time with you not because they want to, but because they pity you.” I think it’s something that’s been right below the surface for at least a decade, if not longer. Thinking about school trips where I would just retreat into myself because I couldn’t stand the thoughts that I wasn’t funny or interesting, or even always being the one to end a relationship because it was better to be the one ending it than the one being rejected…I’ve been spending the past several weeks trying to nail down how those thoughts got in my head to begin with.

I could get into the whole spiel of how I think a lot of it is cultural, how we are constantly bombarded with thoughts of never measuring up to the impossibly high standards society sets for us, but that would take me down a whole different path for today’s post. I could point out the fact that I’ve had so many friends continuously cancel plans with me in the past few months that it makes me wonder what I’m doing wrong and why they don’t seem to want to spend time with me, but that just sounds like wallowing in self pity.

I do know that ever since I’ve been back in Texas, I’ve felt like an outsider, an observer, and not like somebody who’s in the midst of things. All of the people I spend time with have all known each other far longer than I have, and while getting to know them is relatively easy for me, feeling like any of them actually get me is far more difficult. I think it all goes back to the beginning of today’s rambling: the fact that we only let people love us as much as we think we deserve, so when we don’t feel like we deserve much of anything, life suddenly becomes very lacking in deep human connection.

While there isn’t an automatic fix for any of this, I think finally having some of these things pointed out to me verbally is a good first step. So for those of you who might be reading this and know me, be patient. I know I’m probably not the easiest person to connect with, but I desperately want that. So be patient. Be there. That’s the only thing I can think of right now.

Milk Grotto, Bethlehem, West Bank - March 2014
Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, West Bank – March 2014

listening to: Glen Hansard

mental health

Brain Bruises

by Kim2 Comments on Brain Bruises

“It’s important that we share our experiences with other people. Your story will heal you and your story will heal somebody else. When you tell your story, you free yourself and give other people permission to acknowledge their own story.” -Iyanla Vanzant

I went camping this weekend. Actually, if I’m honest, it was more of a blend between camping and glamping. We had a cabin, running water, and electricity, but we still cooked everything over an open flame in the fire pit outside. The details of the trip aren’t really relevant to this post or the thoughts in my head right now though, so I’ll just move on.

I went on this trip with three friends I went to high school with. We were all in choir together, but with them being a grade below me, they knew each other far better than I did. About halfway through the second day, one of them asked me a bit hesitantly if I had been married, or if she had just imagined it. Admittedly, it is a bit of a touchy subject, but I really don’t mind sharing it with people because of the simple reason that I feel a bit of relief and a sense of calmness after getting it off my chest yet again.

This is why I write what I write, and this is why I share so much of my personal struggles: it’s always felt healing to me. I think our culture has become such a culture of secrecy and false exteriors. It has become so important to create the illusion of “everything is perfectly okay”, but the consequences of living that way are incredibly detrimental to our health. So I write about divorce. I write about insecurities. I write about depression.

Lately, I’ve been caught in the midst of another depressive period. It shows itself in the lack of energy to do much of anything, in the feeling of utter exhaustion, in the inability to feel emotions even a fraction as brightly as last year, and in the annoyance and irritability of the people who tell me to just “cheer up”. The difference is that I’m able to recognize the symptoms this time around. The last time it was this bad, I felt completely lost and like I was drowning without any way to be saved.

There’s this quote I love about depression by Jeffery Eugenides that says, “Depression is like a bruise that never goes away. A bruise in your mind. You just got to be careful not to touch where it hurts. It’s always there, though.” Yes, last year I was doing better. I was the healthiest I had been in close to a decade. But the thing about depression is that once you’ve truly been held captive by it, it’s so easy to be recaptured. Sometimes there’s almost a relief to not feeling emotions as strongly anymore. It sounds twisted, but there’s some sort of comfort in the familiar nothingness. However, the comfort is coupled by a terror that this time, you might not get back out of the hole, that you might not get to be healthy and feel anything anymore.

The reason I write this is because practicing a life of openness and honesty, a life of true vulnerability, means sharing the struggles along with the triumphs. After writing about my struggle with depression over two years ago for the first time, I was able to really see and experience that I wasn’t nearly as alone as I felt. Depression is such an alienating experience, but writing about it helps take the edge off.

So this is who I am: I’ve had high moments, moments where I still feel joy and excitement, but the empty nothingness is very present in my day to day life, and the road to recovery will be one that I’ll be trudging through for a very long time to come. I’ll continue writing about it, because sometimes that’s the only thing I can do.

Bluebonnets at Black Rock Lake Park, Texas - April 2015
Bluebonnets at Black Rock Lake Park, Texas – April 2015

listening to: Phosphorescent

mental health, Relationships

A Villain

by Kim1 Comment on A Villain

Several months ago, I wrote about being asked about moving on. While I still agree with all of my statements in that post, I don’t think that it’s necessarily about me moving on. I think with some current events lately, it’s clear that I haven’t actually moved on.

The end of a serious relationship is always difficult. The end of a marriage is even more so, especially when it doesn’t end amicably. There’s a lot of pain that one endures; a type of pain that sticks with you, no matter how much you try to rid yourself of all of the baggage.

It shows itself in feeling completely alone with your thoughts. It shows itself in the inability to really connect with another person. It shows itself in being completely disinterested in any type of relationship. It shows itself in feelings like you are simply too much trouble for anther person to have to deal with.

I know I’ve written about my inability to connect and the trust issues I have. I don’t want to be seen as beating a dead horse. But I’ve been encountering this major downfall in a newer way recently. In high school, I saw myself as completely undesirable. In college, I probably settled a few times more than I should have for guys that weren’t all that great. I don’t know what’s changed since then. I’m still incredibly awkward, not the perfect picture of beauty, and I don’t have much going for me. I live with my parents, I’m carless, and I’m waiting tables. But somehow, I’m attracting people. It’s a completely foreign concept to me, one that’s taken me aback and left me confused about what to do.

I’m still in the “I’m never getting remarried” phase. Actually, I’m still in the jaded phase of feeling like relationships are mostly a waste of time and emotional energy. I’ve got several friends that I love with everything in me, but sometimes I just don’t have the strength to be around them and their significant others. It’s not that I’m unhappy or jealous. I suppose it mostly just reminds me of what I thought I had five years ago before everything started to really fall apart.

In the writing course that I’m still wading through, one of the prompts involved fictionalizing and vilifying my own traits to make myself the villain in a story…turning it into a sort of shadow self. I blazed through over three pages of writing, and my shadow self was all about one thing: emotional destruction. An excerpt:

“She was carefree. Carefree in the way that she handled hearts. She wanted to be loved- more than anything, she wanted to believe that she could be loved- but she didn’t trust anyone to fully love her for her, so she hid her qualities until she was a shadow of a person.

She was a wild thing. She was a person who had trained herself to ignore any possible pain she might be causing anyone because otherwise, she’d never do anything for herself. So she turned off her ability to connect with others, especially in a romantic setting. She came in like a whirlwind through men’s lives and demolished everything in her wake.

She was an all or nothing type of girl. And when it came to fight or flight tendencies, she ran every time. Part of her realized that with the running, she just wanted someone who would want to actively chase after her. She knew that when people learned her true character to the fullest extent, they would no longer want anything to do with her. So she kept parts of herself hidden from the world.”

It’s funny. Part of me wishes I could find someone that I can truly be myself around, a person who could love me despite all of my flaws, a person who I could trust with anything. But there’s this other part of me that wants to run any time anybody shows any sort of interest in me. I’m a person who was completely broken, and even though I’m putting myself back together, the cracks will always be visible. I don’t want anybody to have to deal with all of those cracks.

Neptunbrunnen (The Neptune Fountain), Berlin, Germany - May 2014
Neptunbrunnen (The Neptune Fountain), Berlin, Germany – May 2014

listening to: Letts, Awolnation, Purity Ring

mental health

It Takes Time

by Kim9 Comments on It Takes Time

I had a panic attack earlier this week.

It’s been almost a year and a half since my last serious moment. It came out of nowhere. I was hugged far too tightly by someone who was not welcome to touch me, and I panicked. It started off as something I thought I could work through….shaking hands, a slight shortness of breath. It didn’t slow down. It didn’t get better. It got worse. Shaking hands turned to full body paralyzation. Shortness of breath turned into the inability to see or breathe or speak in coherent words. I lost track of time. It was terrifying.

I was in a public place. I was at my job. I was in possibly one of the worst places to totally shut down because I’ve kept most of my history separate from my work environment. I was lucky enough to have one friend there who I’ve known for over a decade who knows all of my past and was able to drive me home and make sure I had moved past the worst of it, but it was impossible for most of my colleagues to know why I was just leaving work in the middle of a shift.

That’s the thing about having ptsd. That’s a factor that I’ve dismissed since it’s been so long since my last crippling episode. It can come back at any time. Triggers can’t be controlled. You can try to avoid situations where thoughts and feelings come rushing back, but that isn’t a hundred percent guarantee that you’re the person before the event or events that caused your trauma.

I think one of the worst parts to me is how embarrassed I feel. There’s a sense of shame and humiliation that comes with completely shutting down in front of a bunch of people that you’ve only known for a few months. It shouldn’t be that way, but unfortunately most people don’t understand the feeling that every molecule of oxygen is being squeezed from your lungs, that you have to clench your fists so tightly that nails cut skin just to keep your mind somewhat in the present. That became clear to me when I was told that I “just have to get over my past and move on”.

Some traumas are impossible to get over. There’s healing that will happen and the fear or hurt may subside, but it doesn’t just magically go away. You can’t just snap your fingers and become instantly mentally or emotionally healthy again. It doesn’t work like that. I wish it did. I wish there was an instant fix to make all of the bad feelings disappear. But it does not work like that, and unless you’ve dealt with trauma in your life, it’s virtually impossible to understand that fact. It’s a slow process and there are setbacks, as I’ve recently experienced, but the healing does come. Days get brighter and breaths come easier. It’s just important to remember that it takes time.

Alaska - August 2014
Alaska – August 2014
mental health

A Bit Too Exhausted

by Kim3 Comments on A Bit Too Exhausted

I’ve been relatively quiet lately.

There’s something that happens to me when I spend a lot of time out with friends. I become mentally exhausted and really just too worn out to get any sort of outside work done. The past few weeks has been all about hanging out with friends, working, and even a weekend trip to Austin.

The thing is, no matter how social I seem to the outside, I’m an introvert at heart. I’m a person who needs quiet time to reflect on emotions, actions, choices…and I haven’t had any of that lately. Often times, I don’t even realize that I’ve missed out on that quiet recharging time until I get so restless and anxious that I feel irritated by everything going on around me.

Now it’s time for a simple confession: I haven’t written in almost two weeks. I haven’t even tried.

I know I shouldn’t have any excuses. For someone who wants to be a published author, I really should be more dedicated to writing and put everything else lower on my priority list. But sleep has been taking over. Depression has been trying to fight its way back into my life. Thoughts of future responsibilities have me wanting to run away and forget that I owe anybody anything.

If you don’t know me in person, I’ve found myself in a bit of a unique situation. I’ve written about my adoption multiple times, but what I haven’t really hit on is that my parents are older. Older than even some of my friends’ grandparents. While they are right now still in relatively good health (which I jokingly tell them they owe me for), the truth is that I don’t feel like I’ve gone through enough life stages to have parents who might need me to stick around for a more permanent style of care. I have so many things I want to do with my life, but I can’t justify many of them if anything were to happen to my mom or dad. There’s no way I can live halfway across the world and expect them to be perfectly content with some stranger giving them the full-time care they might need in 10 years.

There’s one thought that keeps running through my head: right now, being a grown up is the most undesirable and hardest thing I can think of. I want to be free. I want to run off and make all sorts of decisions just for selfish reasons. i suppose that’s the key though. The key to maturity is realizing how difficult growing up and taking on responsibilities can be, but fighting through it anyway and making the best of hard situations. It means putting others before yourself and maybe giving up a few of your own desires along the way.

Getting back to my original thoughts now. I’m finally getting some actual alone time in a few days that will last for over a week, and that thought is the golden thread in my life at the moment. I’ll have a house to myself, actual quiet with no distractions bustling around downstairs. I’ll finally get to do what I’ve been dreaming of for months: turning off the internet and my phone and just writing. Writing in whatever room of the house I choose, writing at whatever time of day I desire, writing for hours without being reminded that I need to eat something or sleep. I’m taking one entire day completely to myself. That kind of recharge is exactly what I need to function.

I’ve rambled a bit off topic, but it’s late and I’m experiencing one of those word-vomit moments, the kind of moment where you’re finally writing again and all of your thoughts just pour out of your mind and through your fingertips. I suppose that I just needed to get these thoughts out. There’s something oddly therapeutic about blogging for me. Journaling is still probably my favorite form of writing, but blogging gives my brain the opportunity to think that there’s somebody out there reading all of this nonsense and knowing exactly how I feel. So if that’s you, thank you. Even if you never comment, but just have read any line of anything I’ve ever written, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Austin, Texas - February 2015
Austin, Texas – February 2015

listening to: Father John Misty