I just can’t with self-improvement suggestions right now
Thank goodness for therapy. Honestly. For the privilege and gift of therapy. For the clarity it’s brought me. For the permission it’s given me.
If it weren’t for therapy, I wouldn’t be able to put words to experiences I’ve had. Mostly recently, to be able to speak to my trauma and disassociation. I wouldn’t be able to contextualize the anxiety and depression that’s been dominating my days. To understand my detachment to the world around me, my inability to care about much of anything.
If it weren’t for my therapist, I would spend my days denying, avoiding, and annoyed at my moods. Frustrated that I couldn’t just be normal/okay/better.
It’s been a week and the world still feels flat, lackluster.. the people around me cause me irritation or are simply an inconvenience.
I’ve become someone I don’t like embodying or looking at in the mirror. I struggle to care about much of anything, especially myself.
So when I open my Clubhouse app and encounter people talking about their morning ritual, it only takes a minute before I turn it off.
When the guy I’m dating talks to me about his workout routine, I begin planning my exit from the conversation.
When a friend calls out my caffeine intake or tells me about the importance of winding down at night, my defensiveness is activated.
I’m tired. All the time. I sleep 9 hours a night and wake up tired. I work out and am met with exhaustion. I struggle to feel the value in giving a fuck.
I try to work and my brain goes blank.
I engage with friends and family, and it’s like I’m half there.
I just don’t care. And it’s not a choice. At least it doesn’t feel like one. It’s simply how I am right now: unmotivated, disinterested, apathetic.
I know mental health is impacted by tangible habits, like adhering to a routine, having good sleep hygiene, eating well, staying active, minimizing screen time, engaging with others. But look, I’m depressed. Well, honestly, I feel something tangential to depression. I feel nothing. Other than disinterest, annoyance, and occasionally disgust.
I’m struggling to exist in the world. So I’m not too receptive to all the ways in which I could do better. Surviving feels like more than enough right now.
And I get that I’m probably far from enjoyable to be around. I struggle to smile. Sometimes I mirror back the friendliness others offer me. But I can’t seem to do much else.
And look, I’ve been on the other side of this — engaging with the person who seems to insist on being down and depressed. I’ve been the one offering suggestions or advice. I get that I must be frustrating and unpleasant company. But knowledge alone does not change this. And I can’t spend my days beating myself up for feeling like shit. Or giving myself a hard time for failing to be my best self.
I’m living somewhere between always being on the verge of crying and feeling nothing at all (aka disassociation). It’s a place that’s oddly comforting in that it’s rather emotionless — I’m not experiencing the rollercoaster of emotions typical to me. I am merely existing.
Somehow I meet deadlines. Somehow I continue to maintain some level of normalcy. But I wonder when people will get tired of me. When this will all break. When I’ll return to something that resembles myself.
My therapist tells me about 3 different forms of trauma therapy. I struggle to even care about that. But if I want to feel better, to get past this, I recognize its necessity. So I keep that in the back of my mind.
Until then, I’m here. Showing up as I am. Trying my best without in anyway trying to be my best. Because what I am right now has to be enough. It has to be enough.
