Fear and Self Loathing in a Relationship

"It is not hard to live through a day if you can live through a moment."  -- Andre Dubus

What happens when it seems like you can't live through that moment? When your world is crashing down all around you. Most of us keep going but a few give up or check out. Although I've had my times of checking our, I'm very skilled at getting through those moments. Sometimes I fight my way to a better place and other times I just ride the wave. Yet there are the times I get so confused I get mentally dizzy from all the spinning and swirling. There are even times when I do not know why I'm dizzy and my world seems to be falling apart. I can't figure whether I should fight or ride it out. That is to say whether I have cause to feel sad and mad and I should do something about it or I have no or very little reason to be feeling that way and I just need to cry it out, eat some icecream and go to bed early.

Tonight is one of those times I can't make head nor tail of what is going on in my troubled mind.  I've found that part of healing myself is finding the wounds and tending to them.  Yet my mind seems to be so overrun with these feelings of abandonment and failure that I can't see the forest for the trees. (I'm really clichey tonight...oh well). Do I have real cause? I know that my feelings are rooted in the behavior and words of my boyfriend and my own failures these past two months and especially this past week. I can sense that there is something profound but is there also something I need to talk over with my man or is this something I need to work out myself? For a moment all my thoughts and feelings weighed down on me so much that I felt like giving up, yet only for a moment. I prefer my low points to be brief. I've had them last for days but lately they've been not as deep and not as long. I count all the blessings I can. Yet I stray...

I feel like if I talk with him and share my concerns that we might clear at least some of the fog from my mind. Isn't that one of the the problems I'm having with him, not communicating enough. But I hesitate. At first because my mind is too clouded and then because he seems troubled. I don't want to heap my issues on top of his. So at least I know one thing, that the distance that keeps growing between us is eating at me and probably us as well. Relationships are hard. Mine is entangled with my mentally f'd upness and him being an involved father of 3, working 40+ hours a week and taking night classes. We are both frustrated with our lives and with each other but if we can make it through this then we can make it through just about anything.

Two years ago I decided to leave my then boyfriend and move far away so I could get out on my own and facilitate my healing. I met my current boyfriend and it changed my plans considerably. He made everything go upside down in good and bad ways. Sometimes I feel like this is bad timing in my life but as a believer that things happen for a reason I have faith that being with him is the life lesson I need right now. Don't get me wrong if the relationship was not good I'd leave and I have before. I'm not one of those girls that throws their whole life and identity into another person. It's just that I can tell that there is something special about what I have with my current boyfriend. I think there is a very good chance that he is my life mate. It's been awhile since I had that feeling and this time it's even more grounded in my life experiences than the times before. Thanks for helping me untangle my mind a bit, my imaginary readers. My man doesn't need to share my burden tonight but I'll have that talk with him later, right now I just need to get some sleep.

Fear and a Life Well Organized

Too busy to write?  That should never be an excuse. Yet why do I use it all the time.  Priorities are a hard thing for me to handle. In general I'm a very organized person when it comes to my physical space (although sometimes it takes me a bit to organize a new space) but I am horrible at organizing my personal life and my time.  Taking the time to sit down and write things out is an accomplishment in and of itself. Even if I do get this far the follow through seems to be the main problem. I know that I have to gain/regain good habits, much like what I do with my physical organization. So why haven't I just dug in and got to it? 

Well I have a bit that is. The tangle I keep encountering is the whole laid back versus anal retentive approach to life. Both in extremes are not productive in life and can contribute to depression and other mental issues. Like all things in life finding balance in this area is the important thing. Unfortunately I'm not that great at balance. I'm good at extremes. Excessively talkative or withdrawn. I'll eat hardly anything or 'clean out the cupboard'. I have been learning balance yet when it comes to the basic approach to life I get stuck. This one area is such a huge part of my life and the only reason it vexes me is fear.

Fear is something that all of us that have mental problems know quite well. Even if I'm doing alright will X pop back up? Will they understand what X does to me? Will X get in the way of a job or relationship?  Fear prevents us from getting out and doing the things that we need to make up feel better. This is especially true of those of us with depression. In fact fear is what rules our lives and prevents us from taking the steps to better mental hygiene. What do I have to fear with this approach to life stuff though? As I said before I tend to do things in extremes. From past experiences I have learned to not trust myself.  We depressed people have trust issues. Fear and a lack of trust go hand in hand. It may be just a few things or almost everything but we fear because we can't trust and we can't trust because we fear. This is just another cycle within the large one of a depressed person's life. My goal the next few months is to work out how to break a lot of these cycles and to start to find balance in how I approach life in general. Every day I will journal, even if just a paragraph.