Vulnerable

I’m not sleeping again. Tonight I will try the couch to see if it makes a difference. My body hurts, my feet especially, and I feel like I’m starting the slow spiral into “mild” depression, if there is such a thing. There are days when I’m UP! YAY! LET’S GET SHIT DONE! and then there are days where I would be happy alone in my house, under a blanket with the cats, flipping channels, reading books, crying uncontrollably and wallowing in self-pity.

Everyone needs those days now and then – personal days off from work when no one else is at home and a constant state of PJs is allowed, even expected. But the crying and self-pity is not expected on those days. I can’t pinpoint the reason I would pity myself, for I’ve had social events galore, kindnesses from friends and the hope that the summer won’t suck too terribly bad.

Why, then, the self-pity? Why the crying? Why can’t I sleep, even with Ambien? Why aren’t my drugs working as they should? I still have mountains of fear about ridiculous things; oddly enough, none of these fears are of having a panic attack. The drugs, at least, numb that rising tide and gently push it back where it belongs. But what of the others?

I had a party for some work friends a few weekends ago and it was the first time most of them had been to our house. I was completely obsessed with it all going perfectly. Will they like my food? Is my house clean enough? Will they look down on us for the way we live (i.e. it’s not designer perfect in there, TRUST ME)? A few years ago my therapist chastised me, over and over, for my perfectionist tendencies. They only apply in certain cases though: entertaining, teaching, grades, work. I’ve yet to find the root for it, not that it would do any good. I haven’t made any progress there, Therapist, sorry.

I believe I need my college girlfriends. I need them to hug me – in person – and tell me that they, too, remember the good times when we didn’t worry so much. I need those familiar faces that are touchstones for me. I know this is completely selfish but I don’t care. If drugs aren’t working and the desire to emerge from the cave under my comforter isn’t there, I’m certain there is but one solution: their love.

This is all in my imagination, of course. I’m imagining that someone else’s happiness will just seep out of their arms and into mine. The reality is that none of that is true.

Mental illness has no quick solution, no magic potion. It lives in fear and detests change. It rolls its eyes at attempts to push it around the corner and forget about it. Mental illness is vicious and feeds on the vulnerable.

And I, at this point, am vulnerable.