On Surviving Well

I’m a survivor. I’ve wallowed through the deepest pits of depression, trudged through snarls of overwhelming anxiety, and I’m still here. Sometimes I’m very proud of that. Sometimes I think how cool it would be to transform the self-mutilating scars on my arm into an artistic tattoo representing my emergence through the fires of hell. Maybe it would be centered around a semi-colon, now an ever-present symbol in the mental health community. In a sentence, it means it’s not over. And in life, it represents a person’s story that isn’t finished yet. It’s worn with pride in a similar way that someone might wear a colored ribbon to show they’ve beat cancer or some other disease.


Lately, I’m not feeling it. I’m not happy to be a survivor, because I feel like that’s all I am doing. I’m barely holding on each day. It is exhausting and leaves no room for anything else in my life. Three months ago, I went on the second medical leave I’ve taken from a job that was burning me out in its toxic environment. No sooner had I returned from my leave, I was offered a new job. I guess I still maintained the silly hope that a job better suited to my personality and interests was the missing piece of the puzzle in my life. And for a while, I felt like that was true. Like the delirious joy that comes with the beginnings of a new relationship, I thought that this was it, I’ve finally reached my destination.


Now that the newness has worn off, I’m back where I started. I’m still me, but in a new location. I still cry at work sometimes, and I am desperately convincing myself to pull it together almost every moment. I keep telling myself, I just need to get through one more day; just one more day, and it will be the weekend. Then I’ll say, I just need to make it until lunchtime; just a couple more hours, and then it will be okay. There is this constant conversation going on inside my mind that not a soul around me is aware of. It is beyond exhausting. I’ll sometimes come home after work at 6:20pm (If the bus is on time) and collapse into bed for a nap. It’s a less than ideal time for a nap, but the idea of lasting another three hours of wakefulness seems an impossible feat.


Five days a week I am practically dead in the evenings. When the weekend hits, I feel an immense pressure to take advantage of it to its fullest extent. I have these two days to bring myself back to baseline so I can try to do it all over again the following week and remain standing. If I do too much, I’ll feel overwhelmed. If I do too little, I’ll feel like I’ve squandered my limited time. Once Sunday comes, I’ll inevitably lament the weekend that is already slipping from my hands, terrified at the insurmountable treacherous terrain scowling back at me yet again. Here we go, another week of just surviving.


Where is the pride in this existence? It’s as if “life” is inherently superior to death. That by living, I am somehow better off. Well the jury is still out, because I’m not entirely convinced that life is the best option out there. Merely surviving is no cure. And maybe that sounds morbid to you. It is morbid. I think about death. Sometimes I think about not wanting to live but at the same time, not wanting to die. I can think of two distinct days in the past week that I honestly wasn’t sure I could make it. It’s scary and sudden. Sometimes it’s gone as quickly and fiercely as it came. Sometimes the very next day is one of the best days I’ve had in weeks. It makes no sense. I feel like I have no control and have no idea what cards I will be dealt the next day. My mind is a Magic 8 Ball: “Will today be a good day?” Shake, shake, shake. “Don’t count on it.” Bummer.


What is it like to never not want to live? It’s most of you out there that like to live all the time that baffle me. How did everyone else get the good juju and I missed the boat? Through my writing, my ultimate hope- when I’m not feeling like a pile of shit- is to help others and offer inspiration and hope. Well, you know what? I don’t have any of that for you right now. If you read through this and are feeling similarly, then at least you know you are not alone. But answers? I have none of those for you right now. I am surviving, but I don’t just want to survive. I want to survive well. And after countless therapies, medications, yoga, aromatherapy, medications, and who knows what else, I’m still not “cured.” Maybe I never will be.