#i’ve had a bunch of Mindless Or Mostly Mindless Work Tasks lately

[the-graceless-delaney-grace]

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how less than a year ago, I essentially had a nervous breakdown after a 72 hour high and what might have been a partial flashback to the night my mom died. I didn’t get better after that period. I just kept feeling paranoid and anxious all the time, like I was disconnected from the world. I kept reading too much about symptoms of depersonalization and derealization, which didn’t help things. I was scared of medication, mostly because everyone talks about how bad it is to go on and off it. I was scared of trying different kinds because Lexapro gave me such terrible intrusive thoughts that I couldn’t do anything but lie on my couch and watch mindless, light-hearted TV, otherwise my mind would have room to fall apart. I was calling crisis hotlines several times a week just to talk to someone because I didn’t want to bother loved ones. I couldn’t go outside because the sky didn’t look right and everything felt two-dimensional and fake. I would panic suddenly over the knowledge that I can’t see my face without a mirror. I couldn’t handle silence and had to have some sort of stimulation to distract me constantly. I developed a Xanax dependency and had to go cold turkey when I had awful physical symptoms that worried my best friends. I spent my birthday screaming and crying because I couldn’t explain why everything felt so wrong and hadn’t felt right since July. I started twice weekly EMDR. I started Paxil, a medication that apparently my grandmother’s been on since my mom died. My therapist told me that, if she’d known the extent of my damage going into our sessions, she likely wouldn’t have taken me on as a client, but she wants to keep seeing me because she thinks we’re doing good work. I’m journaling again. I’m thinking of multiple good things a day. I’m less inclined to extremes when something bad happens. I have boundaries. I’m okay crying when I write things.

Nearly four years ago, I was so uncertain of my future and scared about not knowing what to do with my life that I would have daily considerations of killing myself and how I would romanticize going about it because I couldn’t see where my life could go. Three years before that, I felt so alone, isolated, and introspective that I couldn’t talk to people about my feelings. I felt like I’d been abandoned when really all that happened was that people were growing and exploring where I was too afraid to move. My therapist’s comment about my damage reminded me of so many people that have worried about me for so long, longer than this past year. My parents who said they felt things weren’t right for months before my breakdown, months before that high. My friends who would text or call me because they saw a concerning post or bring up that I wasn’t talking very much or was acting like “a pretend Delaney” and wanted to know if I was okay. I’ve always been someone that felt things so extremely, even before my mom died, but I romanticized that trait so deeply that I felt like it was some deep poetic bullshit that I got so painfully sad about things so often or worried about shit to the point of self-isolating.

I’m at a point in my life again where shit is uncertain, but I’m not so scared. For the first time, I’m basically broke, but I’m not falling apart in fear. I’m navigating, planning, worrying in a normal way. I’m applying for jobs and feeling an average degree of bummed whenever I’m rejected. I had a day where I didn’t win a bunch of writing contests I applied to, cried for an hour, and then went on with my tasks. I don’t know where I will be in a year. Sometimes I’m scared that it’ll get to summer and things will feel like they did last year. But most days, I’m able to step outside, look at the sky, and feel indifferent. I can ground myself. I tell people I love them without it feeling like I’ll never get to say it again. I’m a normal amount of sad about graduating. But if anything, not as much as others. Because I feel like I’ll be okay growing and exploring life while still staying connected to the people I care about.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’m damaged. And about how I’m okay.

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

wandavision……….…….. is kinda good