Those were the socks I put on this morning. I like to think of socks as a secret way to express myself or poke fun of myself. Maybe it was just a foreshadowing of the day I was going to have or a statement about the week I was already having. Either way, one of my biggest fears materialized today: I lost my shit in front of people.
As you can probably tell by now, I'm trying to be open about my journey through mental illness. I'll talk to anyone about it. I get pretty excited when I find other people that are equally mentally unstable. It happens quite a bit at work. People come in looking for a book to cope with anxiety, learn how to deal with a relative that has an addiction, help a child that is OCD, whatever. You name, I've seen it. I don't just sell books, I give away unsolicited psychotherapy. They'll not only walk away with a pile of books on mindfulness, meditation, aromatherapy, DBT or whatever else I hand them, but they'll hear about different therapies I've tried, clinics that I've had good luck with, where family members can find support, and maybe a little hope. "Hey, I get what you're going through. Look at me, I came out on the other side, so you can too." I get really excited when I run into someone like me, and they usually get equally thrilled. It's like this secret club and now there is a new member. We feel empowered to not feel alone.
Just because I am honest about who I am, doesn't mean I like to manifest my emotional side for people to encounter first hand. I am completely terrified of not being able to hold myself together in public. If I feel a meltdown coming on, my instinct is to RUN and HIDE, ASAP. Most of the time I can. Last month, my husband and I showed up to a financial class for the first session. Unfortunately, we also found out we had been given the incorrect start date. We were actually showing up to the 2nd session. Any reasonable human being would probably brush that off and go with the flow. Not me. I immediately felt panic coming on. I felt singled out, embarrassed, and exposed. Everyone else had the correct date. I HAD to go to ALL the sessions. Not one less. It is all or nothing in my head. Tears immediately started to well up. I had to get out, NOW. So I did. I got up and left and never came back. When my husband didn't come out right away to take me back home, I just started walking. I had to get even further away from the situation.
My first bass recital after coming back to it after a 14 year break was a disaster. Or, should I say the recital went great- I just happened not to be there! Solos sound a lot different on your own. Then you add a piano accompaniment and a second bass player, and suddenly things don't go quite right. In my head, "not quite right" is synonymous with "not perfect." I had to be perfect, for an assortment of reasons. First off, I am the grown up. I should be better than all the little middle-schoolers and high-schoolers, simply because I am in my 30's. Who cares that I haven't played in 14 years. That doesn't matter. My head told me that older must equal better. Reason #2: someone else was playing "my" song. That is an immediate recipe for self-judgement. There was only one way that this situation was going to be okay for me: I had to play better than this second person. If I wasn't better than them then A) I would judge myself, and B) other people would judge me, too. Which brings me to reason #3: a room full of musicians is just another source of even more judgement! Reason #4: If I don't play awesome, it will make my teacher look bad. And finally, Reason #5: my mom just happened to be the piano accompanist. Which is totally cool, by the way. My mom is a bitchin' pianist. So not only was I letting myself down, my teacher down, and all the people who had come to see me, but my mom had donated her time and talents, so I couldn't let her down either. After a less than perfect trial run of my solo, I immediately left and fell into a puddle of tears in some vacant hallway where no one could find me. I begged my husband to come pick me up. Again, that sense of panic and immediate need to escape was boiling up inside me. I couldn't get away fast enough and far enough- so again, I walked. (On a side note, I had recently injured my knee with some sort of ligament tear and cartilage crack, so I was a blubbery mess walking with a limp and a knee that felt like a basketball inflated into it.). I basically avoided everyone, including my mom and my teacher and all my guests for days afterward. I was embarrassed and humiliated, and I thought everyone would hate me because I had let them all down. Which is all a bunch of bullshit.
My mind is spent in a general state of rumination almost 24/7. It is exhausting. I judge myself, I think others judge me. I beat myself up when things don't go perfectly. I see the world through black and white lenses. I am a success or I am a failure. I am good or I am bad. I have a long list of myths circling my mind that I believe are true. I believe that if I am not always doing something, then I am useless. My backbone is the consistency of rice paper.
Which brings me back to today: I lost it at work. I can't say that it's the first time it's happened. But the last time it happened, I lost my previous job. Not directly, of course, but it was a step in a series of steps that led to the unemployment line. First, I couldn't hold my shit together for one day. One day turned into two days. Which turned into a hospitalization. Which turned into a medical leave, and another hospitalization, and a longer medical leave, and on and on. Will my next meltdown be the trigger for another hospitalization? Will one negative experience trigger another attempted suicide? I am constantly walking on eggshells, wondering if the slightest step will trigger a landmine in my delicate brain. Will a day come that I won't be able to hold it together long enough to hold a job anymore?
I spent so many years feeling like I had to hide my mental illness, then I am told that we live in a different kind of world now- a world where people can't fire you for having a mental illness, a world where employers WANT to know what you struggle with, so they can help. Just when I started to believe that this new way of thinking was true, my previous employer decided not to make accommodations for my treatment schedule, and fired me. Okay, maybe I still hold a grudge. Maybe part of me thinks it's okay to SAY I am mentally ill, and people will think it's totally courageous, but when you SHOW it, people are totally weirded out and think you are overreacting to the dumbest little thing. And it's true- I do overreact to the dumbest little things.
I am so worried about looking normal to the world, that I over compensate. Not only am I gonna be awesome, but I am gonna be a fucking ball of infinite joy and happiness. I want to do anything and everything any normal person can do, but I'll do it better and more of it. I will handle every situation with wisdom and grace. I'm pretty sure "normal" people can't do all that, so I'm not sure why I think I need to be Super Woman. I can't live up to my own expectations which are generally ridiculously higher than most other people actually have for me, I would guess.
The past month I have been a balloon being slowly, continuously stuffed with more air. I've been adding more to my life little by little. More responsibilities, more demands, more expectations- ultimately trying to build my crumbled life back up to as normal as it can be. My limits have been stretched and ultimately overreached. Packing a bag lunch feels like an impossible task. Finding a clean outfit that fits properly is daunting. Today it just all came to a head. I am out of tears and out of energy. Yet I feel like I am on this train called life that just won't stop even though my body and mind are telling me that it is so incredibly done. I sit here wondering how another day has gone by and how I will be able to possibly get up again tomorrow and do it again. And again. And again. And never stop.
