Tag: depression

Musings

Opening Another Door

Carrie Villarreal

About 15 years ago, I decided I should die. I was failing at everything: relationships, school, health, finances, and happiness. Somedays, I would swing high enough I could see a way out, but that zenith never lasted long enough for me to memorize the path out of the darkness. So in one of those valleys when the shadows deepened into an oozing gloom, I decided I should just get it over with and die, save myself and the world a lot of trouble. But try as I might, I failed at dying, too.

Talking about that time in my life is still difficult and isn’t something many people who know me know about. (Though, I guess now it’s out there in the public domain. So there’s that.) I don’t talk about it because most people are looking for something “happy”, especially when they’re scrolling through the internet in a time of crisis. People look for hope, and I don’t blame anyone for that. I do the same. It’s a coping mechanism. However, I think, now more than ever, we need to destigmatize talking about mental and social-emotional health because there are only so many things that corgi videos and chocolate will fix.

Writing is my wellspring of hope. I wrote yesterday about putting on a brave face even though there are some Grand Canyon like cracks beginning to show under the strain of pandemic. However, today was not a great day, and I started the day with anxiety medication for breakfast after my husband showed me eBay posts where people are auctioning a 4 pack of toilet paper and the bids are pushing it above $200. I. Just. Couldn’t. Deal. So down the hatch went a couple of pills. I have absolutely no shame in admitting that.

The day kind of spiraled out of control after that as my husband introduced new guidelines on mail handling, using separate hand towels, and washing produce with soapy hot water. I am ashamed to admit I lost it with him. I started to feel like I was an unwanted contagion in my own home. I snapped and snarled and huffed and sighed. I cut him with words because I was in an emotional free fall.

I don’t do well with sudden change. Never have. I like things orderly and in control — a rhyme and a reason for everything. I will notice the smallest item misplaced or missing in a room, and I will be uncomfortable until it’s righted or returned. (I know this hints at some major underlying issues for which I am compensating, but that is another blog post.) You can imagine, then, how I am handling the constant capriciousness of the last two weeks, and how I will respond to the inevitable inconstancy of the coming days and weeks (and months). 

I get COVID-19. It’s a virus. It’s predictable. It’s logical. It’s constant. Its sole function is to infect and replicate.

What I don’t get are people. They’re erratic. They’re illogical. They’re volatile. They have no sole function, no true purpose, and they often undermine their own well-being. It’s frightening.

In keeping with my stance that communication helps all things, I explained this — that it’s the scarcity of resources and the reactions of humans, not contracting coronavirus, that terrifies me — to my husband tonight while apologizing for the way I treated him today. In talking with him, I realized that he is dealing with his own fears and that it’s not his fault that our fears, and therefore priorities, are different. I explained to him that I am not afraid of dying, but what I am afraid of is sinking into the tar pit of depression that poisons all the vibrant life around me — that I am afraid that my relationship with him will succumb to human panic and perish as everything did almost 15 years ago.

I don’t know why I didn’t die all those years ago, and I guess it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. What I want you to take away from all this is not for you to reach out to me about how I’m doing. I have my good days and my bad days, but I have a support system that is looking out for me. Not to mention, I have 26 letters that can construct all manner of constant comforts. What I want you to take away is the lesson of turning to your support system and asking them “What do you need to feel safe right now?”. Because chances are, they are probably not doing so well, and we need to let them know it’s okay to not be okay and to talk through whatever comes.

Featured image Nathan Wright on Unsplash.

Musings, Unbound

15 Things: A List in Opposition

Carrie Villarreal

1. I make lists of things I want to accomplish that go unchecked.

2. Thoughts about what I’ve done which I can’t seem to forgive myself for keep me up at night, and thoughts about what I should do to make myself into someone better haunt my days.

3. I track everything I put in my body and everything I sweat out of my pores, but this never equates to a body size I feel comfortable in.

4. I start “self-care” regimens, but they quickly devolve into self-loathing.

5. I want to be unique, to be special, but I find I’m not even a one-in-four kind of person.

6. I’m told that no one’s journey is the same and that my struggles are valid, but more and more it seems like people say those things as a general platitude, a way to make themselves feel better when they don’t really care to listen to the struggle of others.

7. I write poetry that exposes my optimistically raw hopefulness, but I never share it with anyone because I just can’t bear how the pessimistic views of the world will tear my optimism to shreds.

8. In regard to #7, I also can’t bear for someone to call me a hypocrite when I do share a struggle. Even though having hope and struggling emotionally and mentally are not mutually exclusive, it seems the world sees them as binary opposites.

9. I want to write, but I’m afraid of what will come out on the page.

10. When I do conquer that fear and write, I want to share it, but I can’t stop comparing myself to others and wishing I had even one ounce of others’ talents. (See #5)

11. I know I shouldn’t read the comments section, but I just can’t help myself. I always hope to find some redemption for humanity, but it seems to be slipping further and further away. And still… I hope. (See #7)

12. People tell me how smart I am, but all I feel are the inadequacies of shit decisions I’ve made in my life.

13. I want to be a part of a “sisterhood” so badly that I will give everything to the detriment of my own happiness to female friendships, and when those friendships inevitably fall apart, I always blame myself.

14. My mother was one of my only anchors to being able to feel connected to the world around me, and I’ve felt so alone these past 4 years even though I am far from lonely.

15. I don’t know who you are, but I love you anyways.

Feature Image: Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

Poetry, Unbound

Checkmate

Carrie Villarreal

I want to write
and tell you what happened,
to put the truth out there that
you know who I am
even though you might hear differently,
but the words are splinters of glass
nicking me on their way out,
blurring what I really mean to say.

Refrains of “why is this happening to me” echo
in each calculated interaction
I have with the world,
but there is no real rhyme to these things.
They just happen.
This should give me some modicum of comfort,
but it doesn’t.

“I deserve this” joins the chorus,
and this pitiful acknowledgement
of mistakes made
adds to the swirling amalgamation
of doubt, self loathing,
and words too hard to write.
I don’t deserve this though.
No one does.
But there is no one I can tell this to
that cares enough to hear it.

There is a torment of not knowing.
Not knowing what to do.
Not knowing how to feel.
Not knowing what the future holds.
Not knowing if these words will be my last.
Not knowing if I will overcome any of this
(even though people tell me I will).

The worst pain is that of having an apology
but not knowing who to give it to.
Perhaps I should give it to myself,
to the world,
to you:

I am sorry for not being who I needed to be.

In response to Daily Prompt: Struggle
Featured Image: Pixabay – “Chess” by Felix Mittermeier (CCO Public Domain)
Musings, Unbound

Shipwrecked

Carrie Villarreal
These words were actually written a month ago. Not a lot has changed, but at least I’m writing again.

Each day I do in exercise in self-loathing.  I turn on the shower as hot as I can stand it.  I disrobe and step into the billowing steam.  The water flushes my skin scarlet with anger, humiliation, confusion, and remorse.  I lay my head against the tiles and I close my eyes.  As a literature teacher, I know water is supposed to be a symbolic cleansing.  As a human being, I know this is just a figure of speech.  There is nothing that can expunge shame.

It’s been a long time since I did this – poured myself out onto a page and shared out for the world to see.  These past few months have seen irrevocable change, and things are much darker than they ever have been.  It’s as if the light optimism of my youth reeked like the dead and was buried in secret haste.  Only something foul clawed its way out.

Once upon a time I knew who I was or at least had solidly clung to its semblance has to have that perception.  I am still amazed at how that concept is so fluid and temporary, how the winds of fortune or misfortune can shift the sail of the H.M.S. Identity.

I don’t expect understanding.  I don’t expect sentiment and encouragement.  I don’t expect any words I put down to make any sense to anyone let alone myself.  Without a rudder, I am aimless, and these words I’m stringing together do not provide the relief I so desperately seek.

In response to Daily Prompt: Bury
Featured Image: Pixabay – “Shipwreck” by tpsdave (CC0 Public Domain)
Musings, Poetry, Unbound

Antiseptic

Carrie Villarreal

This new antiseptic aesthetic
has erased the trappings
of what it means to be human,
slandering the gamut
of emotions and experiences
which define our very existence.

I thought I knew what I wanted to write about when my fingers flew over the keys and the words above poured forth.  Sitting here, now 15 minutes later, there are no other words bubbling up.  Truthfully, it wouldn’t matter if the words that came next moved the mountainous foundations of the hardest hearts.  They would be empty because I am deflated.

This is how I feel – antiseptic.  Stripped bare of all the fierceness of my human frailty.  That in a society that spends its good names in service of some “money knows best” dais of superiority, there is no room left to feel anything else.  It just hurts too damn much.  The words, at least for today, are in short supply.

In response to Daily Prompt: Aesthetic
Featured Image: Pixabay – “Depression” by Unsplash (CC0 Public Domain)
Poetry, Unbound

Vanishing Point

Carrie Villarreal

There is a vanishing point well off in the distance
that signifies the end of the world as we know it.
The fallibility of the human eye cannot see beyond it,
but as sure as we know the Earth is round,
we know there must be something there reaching out to us.

Vanishing points don’t just exist on the horizon.
They exist in the human soul.
What lies beyond this precipice of our humanity?
Could it be we are each born with a black hole at our center
ever consuming the light within us?

But vanishing points don’t just diminish the light
as it tends towards evening twilight and darkness.
They also herald the coming sunrise,
meeting it head on and erupting the sky into
sprays of warm golds and brilliant blues.

This is the moment where there is either
life or death, love or loss, light or darkness.
This is the moment where we meet –
The vanishing point between
who I was,
who I am,
who I want to be.

In response to Daily Prompt: Vanish
Featured Image: Pixabay – “Horizon” by diego_torres (CC0 Public Domain)