victimofmybrain - Tumblr blog

[victimofmybrain]

A song that so many with depression and anxiety can relate to. I may be unwell but there is a side of me that is fun, motivated, and full of life. I hope it makes an appearance again soon. 8.14.2023

[victimofmybrain]

Hopes and Dreams

I lay here on my couch unable to move, with a hundred things on my to-do list, a hundred places I want to visit, a thousand hopes and dreams. I am not lazy but paralyzed with depression and anxiety. My mind wants to get up and go but my body won't cooperate. I have no energy to move. I am trapped. I am trapped in my mind, in a body that has no energy, in a house that causes me anxiety. I wonder how much longer I can go on like this. I pray to make it through the day, through the week, the month, the year. My goal is to make it until I am 54 years old. 11 more years. I feel like then my son will be old enough to live the rest of his life without me. Not that he won't miss me, but I will be done raising him. That is my goal. To stick around long enough to raise my son. 8.8.2023

[victimofmybrain]

My husband and I celebrated 15 years of marriage in April and will celebrate 17 years of being a couple this coming November. But how long will it last? This song has been playing in my head for the last few days. Just over and over and over. I keep thinking to myself that it's probably exactly how my husband feels about me. That I am a lost cause. My "somebody new" is my depression. Even though it has been a part of my life for almost 40 years, it has really taken a hold of me lately. Living with me is hell. I don't even want to live with myself. How can he want to? How much can I expect him to fight for me to get better? There has to be a point that a person reaches where they realize the other person will never be better, will never be whole, will never be the person they fell in love with. It's a lost cause. I am a lost cause.

7.21.2023

[victimofmybrain]

A small amount of time can make a big impact

How much is somebody’s life worth to you? How much of your own time would you sacrifice to help another human being in need? Not money, but time? We see it often, “If you are struggling, reach out and ask for help.” Whenever somebody takes their own life, without fail, all the people in their life always say, “They could have come to me for help.” We may even be asked by friends and/or family how they can help. But what happens when we do ask for help? Are people actually willing to help us in the way we need? In addition to the OCD, there are quite a few things in life that cause me added anxiety. One of them, photos taken of my son, may seem silly to most people. But for me, it causes me extra anxiety. I always ask to be sent/texted any photos of him taken by others. With today’s technology, it should be a pretty simple thing to do. I will obsess over them, which leads to depression, if they aren’t sent to me. I know, seems silly to most people, but to me it’s important. I have a huge fear of forgetting memories of my son growing up and I also have a fear of my son forgetting memories of his childhood. Not to mention, I think if you take a picture of my child, sending it to me is just the proper thing to do. I have recently asked three people that have taken photos of my son to send them to me. I even provided the dates that they took the photos so they can easily look for them on their phone or in their photo storage. I explained to them that this was a big source of anxiety and depression for me, and it would really help me feel better if they would send them to me. For two of the people, it may take 30 minutes of their time to do, at most. The other one will take longer. Yet all three of the told me they are too busy and don’t have the time. So even though they know it’s causing me anxiety and depression, they can’t be bothered with the task. I am not worth the 30 minutes of their time. I just want people to think about how much of their own time would they give to help a friend or family member, or even a complete stranger, who is obviously struggling? They may even have suicidal ideations. It could mean the difference between life and death for them. It’s not easy for me to ask for help because I hate seeming like a bother or a pain. But to be told I am not worth 30 minutes of their time hurts and my depression deepens. I get we are all busy, but have we all become so busy that we can no longer make time to help others? 7.19.2023

[victimofmybrain]

Just a song that always makes me want to sing and dance and makes me think of a perfect summer day. It's small things like this that help me survive. 6.30.2023

[victimofmybrain]

A beautiful song that captures how one can look fine but their reality is very different. 6.28.2023

[victimofmybrain]

I feel like I am drowning. Drowning in my thoughts, my anxiety, my obsessions, my compulsions, my depression, my housework, my list of things to do. My daily goal is to survive the day. I use to be extremely productive, now I can barely do the minimum, which causes me to feel guilty. Every weekend my husband tries to get me to do an “extra” thing like go through my son’s old clothes or organize something. I refuse to let him do these things on his own because I don’t want hi to get rid of stuff I want to keep or I am afraid of the “dirtiness” of the chore. Lots of things are “dirty” in my mind. I explain to him that I can’t even get through what needs to be done and that expecting “extras” is not feasible right now. It usually ends in me getting upset. I often want to run away. Not from the people in my life, but from my brain. Like, just run off, leaving my thoughts behind but bringing along my husband, son, and parents. I also really want to leave our current house behind. It is a big source of my anxiety. The way it is laid out creates my OCD to go into overdrive. I will explain what contributes to my anxiety and OCD. But I am no longer even able to pack to go on vacation because in my mind, there is no acceptable place in my house for me to lay dirty suitcases down so I can pack them. Not that we can really go far - I can’t fly and I will only travel about 3 hours by car - but at least 3 hours away is better than being stuck 24/7, 365 days/year, in a house that causes me such horrible anxiety. I feel trapped - a prisoner of my mind and in turn, my house. My family is trapped because of me. Every summer that goes by I think how it’s another chance lost for us to travel, for my son to make childhood memories. It breaks my heart.

Here are the 3 things I fantasize about doing:

Have a custom designed house built in Italy and moving there permanently. Somewhere where I can have an organic garden and some animals but also walk into town and shop at the farmer’s market. Or even just having a house there to vacation at.

Have a custom designed house built not too far from where we live now. Somewhere with enough land that I can have an organic garden, a large patio with outdoor cooking and fridge, a salt water pool, a small separate building with a full bathroom and room for my husband’s office, and of course some goats, sheep, chickens, and rabbits. But it must have public sewer and water because septic tanks are gross and I use too much water cleaning and doing laundry to rely on a well.

Sell our current home, rent office space to store our stuff (I skeeve storage facilities), buy an RV, and travel the country for a year or so before having a custom home built as stated above.

I use to just sleep a lot but now even sleeping doesn’t help me escape. I either lay there not being able to fall asleep because all the things that cause my anxiety just keep replaying in my mind or I fall asleep but have bad dreams. I often wake up and feel like my insides are shaking or trembling. Nausea and headaches are almost an everyday occurrence for me. I know you are probably thinking that I should get help, but that’s the thing, I have gotten help. Ever since pregnancy, my body does not respond to any type of treatment - medications (including off-label meds), herbs, vitamins, marijuana, acupuncture, cognitive behavioral therapy, theta burst TMS, or ketamine infusions. I have also tried meditating and exposure response prevention therapy but I can’t calm my mind enough or handle the anxiety to be successful. I am looking into growing my own mushrooms to micro-dose psilocybin. And if that doesn’t work, I just may run away. 6.28.2023

[victimofmybrain]

Overthinking Not Allowed

Have you ever wanted to say something - directly to a person or via text or post it on social media - you thought it out and perhaps even typed it all out, only to not say it, not send it, or not post it? I do that often. My goal is to not do that here. I have a friend who has been telling me I should start a blog. I honestly don’t know why she thinks I should. I am not that interesting of a person. But I finally decided I would, if only for me. So I have a place to put those thoughts and things I want to say into words and to actually click that post button. I don’t know if anybody will ever read them, and I am okay with that. I just want to get them out of my head. I will probably share songs quite often too. Songs that I relate to, songs that bring me back to a certain time in my life, songs that make me happy and energized. Music was a huge part of my life growing up. I still have all my cassette tapes and CDs because I don’t want to part with the memories - not that I have a cassette player or CD player. I can listen to a song from the 1980′s, 1990s, and early 2000s and tell you when it came out (within a year either way) because I just look into my box marked “music” in my head and recall what I was doing in life at that point. I also have a box marked “useless music knowledge” in my head. I always say I missed my calling as a deejay. I think I would have made an awesome deejay. A little about me. I was born in 1980, the sixth of seven children. I have been struggling with OCD and anxiety since the age of 4, depression since the age of 12. I have experienced some traumatic things in my life but I try not to let any of it make me jaded. I am a people person, a giver, and extremely emotional. I am married with a son whom I homeschool. He also has anxiety and OCD. So that is what this blog will be - my thoughts that I want to share and say but stop myself short from doing so otherwise. No overthinking, no worrying about what others may think, no fear. Just type and click post. 6.21.2023