Tag: Mental Health

Enough

There comes a time when things become too much, too overwhelming, too exhausting, too debilitating, too shitty. I call that time, enough. And I’ve certainly had enough of having enough.

When you have so much stress from work you feel like you can’t catch your breath…enough.

When you witness so much pain anything else will send you over the edge…enough.

When your days and nights blend together because you can’t sleep…enough.

When you have so many thoughts in your head that you don’t dare share with anyone…enough.

When you have so much heartbreak you’re breaking from the inside out…enough.

When it becomes appointments after appointments in a vicious cycle…enough.

When the words become too much…enough.

When everyone’s opinion flood your brain constantly…enough.

When you’re told time after time that everything you do is wrong…enough.

When getting out of bed becomes a chore…enough.

When communication becomes pointless…enough.

When things you once found joy in now destroy you…enough.

When push comes to shove and you get your world rocked…enough.

When someone stops fighting to be in your life…enough.

When you try and try and hope for different results…enough.

When the patience runs out…enough.

When every test you take is negative…enough.

When you can’t explain why you cry all the time…enough.

What no one tells you about getting married…loss

I’m not officially married yet…but will be this November. There are so many emotions running through my head it’s hard to keep track. The joy, excitement, love, happiness, growth, and the one that’s been hurting the most is loss.

Loss can mean a lot of things. Loss in realizing both your grandmas won’t be there to watch you marry the love of your life. Loss that you will only have one grandparent in attendance. Loss that a lot of people you care about might not be able to make it. Loss that your childhood is long since over. Loss that you may lose friends along on the way. Loss that things will never be the same.

And when I describe some of the losses it’s not negative – it’s just a change, and change takes some time to get used to. The loss of childhood isn’t a bad thing it’s just a new thing. Loss of friends along the way is bound to happen…people grow apart and it’s normal. Loss that things will never be the same is also not a loss but another change, a change that can be hard to accept sometimes.

I’ve spent 23 odd years with the same people, in the same house, with the same expectations, same rules, same experiences, same everything. And I welcome the change happily…I am marrying the love of my life after all. But the change comes at a cost. I guess what I want to talk about specifically is friends.

I have amazing friends…that I have met at many different points in my life. I have the childhood friends who, high school friends, college friends, work friends, family friends, the list goes on. I don’t want this to come across as a stab at any of them but its a real feeling. Loss.

I don’t expect to lose many/any friends but I know it’ll happen. People drift apart, move away, find new interests, just become less visible in your life. Loss.

Getting married is the second biggest change to bringing a child into this world. We adapt and move on with our life. We find our life partners and grow with them, grow together with them, and act less as a in individual but more as pair.

Loss.

Single, In a Relationship, Marriage – they’re all different times in our life that have different expectations.

They’re all good in their own way with different challenges and experiences.

Loss.

I’ve realized slowly how different it must be for people in my life who aren’t in the same stage as me to understand how I think now, act, things I do, exist.

Loss.

I haven’t lost any friends or memories but it feels different. And that’s to be expected. Different isn’t bad it’s new and it stings sometimes.

I think back to the person I was in high school, in college, now. I’m still the same in the sense but my life experiences have changed me dramatically.

Loss.

Memories don’t leave me and I’m grateful but we can’t live in them, can’t live in the past. We are an ever-changing species. Growth is part of our nature. We grow into ourselves in a physical sense but also in an emotional sense.

My severe anxiety, depression, and panic attacks have changed me in ways I never thought possible. Those that have known me these last 5 or so years I’ve been struggling have seen the change. I’m cautious. hesitant, drained, emotional, and for people that don’t understand that it’s hard to relate.

Loss – I think the biggest is the feeling of being forgotten or left out.

I know that’s not what anyone thinks or intends but it happens. You have friends as single person, as a couple, and as husband and wife. It’s different. It’s life and I get it. I understand it. It hurts. That’s the biggest loss.

It feels like sometimes people move on without you even if that’s not their intention.

Loss – Change – it’s expected. It’ll happen but it doesn’t make it any easier.

what’s wrong? the answer to some of your questions

When I explain to people that I have severe anxiety and depression and panic attacks, the first question I get is…what’s wrong? Asking me that question is like handing someone an empty gun and asking them to fire it. You can’t fire an unloaded gun, and I certainly cannot pinpoint or even give you a cohesive answer on why I feel this way. There is no real explanation for how I feel. I have everything a 22 year old could ask for, the new car, the adorable puppy, the amazing parents and strong support from a family, I’m healthy, I’m not struggling for money, and yet the inner turmoil eats away at me every day.

Sometimes I feel like a ghost floating through each day and night weightlessly and hidden from the world. Other times I feel like I’m the color bearer on the front line of the civil war left without a weapon and yet forced into a battle I can’t win. Sometimes I’m the ring leader of the circus of my emotions trying to force behavior onto an unwilling participant. Despite all of this torture and pain I don’t believe that life is unforgiveable or impossible. I feel that life is incredible and 1000% worth living, but even I can’t explain that to you.

So many people in my life want to help me and offer to just listen to me, and as much as I wish I could take them up on that offer…it’s not something I can easily do. It frustrates people when I tell them how much I appreciate them saying that, but I can’t even begin to explain what its like. I have hurt too many people because of this and it’s not any easier on you as it is on me. It kills me that people want to help me and I have nothing to say to them. They don’t understand why I can’t just tell them what’s bothering me. It doesn’t work like that unfortunately.

Depression is not comparable to a broken heart. Depression is not a broken bone the doctors can set and fix. Depression is not a lovesick puppy waiting for its owner to return home. Depression is not a concussion that you can heal with time. Depression is not an illness that you can take medicine for and in 3-4 days you’re back to normal again. Depression is not a boo-boo your momma can kiss and make it better. Depression is not a scar that will fade away with time. Depression is not the broken heel of a shoe that you can glue back together.

Depression is a disease that millions suffer from. Depression is an illness. Depression is a handicap. Depression is a chemical imbalance in your brain. Depression is a hurt and ache for days, weeks, months, and years. Depression is a scab that never goes away and every time it heals over it gets bumped and bleeds all over again. Depression is worse than a broken heart. Depression is treatable with medicine but not curable. Depression is your own worst nightmare multiplied ten-fold. Depression is a ghost of the past, present, and future.

No matter how many times you tell me that’s going to be okay I still won’t believe you. It’s not that I feel overcoming the pain is impossible it’s just I know what I have to go through to overcome everything. Will I ever fully be rid of this demon? Only time will tell. But I just wanted everyone to know that I am suffering, I will be okay. I appreciate your help and love, but this is something that you will never understand.

I wish it was as easy as telling you to walk a mile in my shoes, but even the walk alone doesn’t compare to an uphill climb in shoes two sizes too small with nails poking up through the soles every time you reach a mountain peak.

I really do wish that I could pinpoint for you my every ailment and provide some solution that would satisfy your desire to help, but asking me to do that is like poking a hive and expecting the bees to leave you alone.

 

a.s 02/06/20

dear brain…shut up

The mind is a scary place. It holds your deepest innermost thoughts, your memories, your emotions, regrets, pain, the key to your beating heart. It controls your entire body and regulates the second most important thing….your heart.

The inner turmoil you feel when your heart starts arguing with your head creates its own world world. They work together to keep your alive but they can kill you slowly from the inside out. Together they’re meant to create a balance in your life but what happens when you have depression is a spinning cycle of cluelessness.

My brain doesn’t function as it should and results in screwing with my heart. My brain decides to send fight or flight signals at the most random moments and sends my body into an inescapable chaos. And you can’t even begin to imagine the heartbreak and heartache it creates.

I’m lucky to have an incredible support system, who reminds me how worthy I am. If I didn’t have that I don’t know if I’d ever reach the surface of sanity. My mind dives me into the depths of the seas of sadness, misery, angst. I’m trying to swim with an anchor cemented to the sea floor, with an oxygen tank a quarter from empty. I’m continually fighting to surface.

My mind is stuck in a tornado of misunderstandings, missed opportunities, missed success. It’s a swirl of clutter with a mass of floating emotions. I try to wrangle them in but they continually become further and further from my grasp. Just as I reach the tornado and it touches down I grasp one thing and a million other things drift off and the tornado picks up and moves on to create more havoc.

When you ask me to explain how I feel, nothing comes to mind. How do you explain to a person the feeling of nothingness & numbness. The feelings of living but watching from behind the panned glass windows. I’m so close to escaping but then the chain tugs harder at my heart and swings me back inwards again.

I have hope and I have good moments. I do love the life I live and the people who I’m blessed to have in it. I continue to fight this uphill battle for the sake of my sanity and the desire to be. I’m not simply existing either, I’m living despite this pain. Despite the mess in my head and the chains around my heart. I’m living because I’m me.

sentiment to the game

volleyball – the game that I have loved all my life, the game that I have pushed myself the hardest in, the game that brought so much happiness, the game that gave me so much happiness, the game that will forever have my whole heart, the game that now only brings me pain, the game that has crushed me, the game that continues to tug at my emotion every time I talk about it

they say when you love something set it free…but that’s crap. how can you just give up something that you care about so much, and just walk away and pretend its nothing. its crap.

Volleyball provided an outlet for me. It gave me something to look forward to every day. When I had any issues I would let it go through my playing, and it helped me to balance out my emotions. But after that door closed the emotions became stuck behind the door for my happiness. My emotions became trapped with no outlet. That’s where all the pain lies within myself. That trapped pain has only progressed further to the depression and anxiety that now consumes me.

For the most part I hold myself together, but its so hard when all of your best friends play, and you’re just engulfed in the sport. Today is when it hit the hardest.

I sat there paralyzed with sadness watching my old teammates play alumni. The gym was filled with the passion for volleyball. I watched them have the time of their lives while I sat alone. Today was like being stuck in an enclosed fish tank sitting in a lively fish pond. The tank is transparent, and you can see through it, but it’s closed and you can’t leave it. The pond bolsters community, happiness, friendship, life, but I’m stuck here forced to watch alone. I can’t leave this tank because it has been cemented shut with emotions of torment and pain. I can’t attempt to shatter the glass between the two because it would put both me and the pond in danger. I can’t call for help because everything around me is moving at a far faster pace. I feel stuck almost in a perpetual hell.

My own perpetual hell.

You know how when they would accuse woman on witchcraft how sometimes they would tie them to chairs and dunk them in rivers, if they floated they were a witch and if they drowned they weren’t. That’s perpetual hell, because either way you’re not escaping it. If for some crazy reason you happened to float/survive you were deemed an official witch only to undergo other forms of torture and the death. If you didn’t float which was what was going to happen then you died on false accusations. Either way you look at it, you didn’t have a choice but to endure it.

I endure it. I have endured it, but at the same time I can’t escape it. Likewise I can’t escape my anxiety or depression. It is who I am. I don’t necessarily let these things define me, but they do take control over me time to time.

Volleyball to me wasn’t just a game. It was a lifestyle for me. When I was told that I wasn’t good enough it not only broke my spirit but broke my heart that day. I was blindsided. It was as if I never had a chance, and it was like I was a mouse being dangled on a thread just high enough that the cat couldn’t reach me, but then I was dropped. Not only dropped, but discarded. It made me feel so worthless. Words don’t describe the pain fully, it’s a hurt that shakes you to your core. It’s a hurt that comes in the middle of the night. It’s a hurt that runs through your bones. It’s a hurt that breaks almost everyone.

The difference between me and them is that it didn’t break me. Instead of falling helplessly into the cats mouth I fought back with every bone, fiber, hair, emotion in my body. My enemy is great, but I am greater.

I have accomplished so much more and have become so much stronger. I motivate myself to better myself. I set goals and I’ve met them. Through this struggle and journey I have realized what I am capable of. I’m always an athlete but this time around I’m stronger than the game.

The game doesn’t define me. I define me.

This time around it’s all about self-empowerment.

loving myself more and more everyday

it’s about time to shatter my fish tank and break down all my emotional strongholds and to start not only living but thriving again.

A.S 4/15/18

Waves

the sadness comes in waves,

waves that threaten to capsize my ship every second.

waves that push and push and push until it breaks through.

the only problem is unlike other storms you can’t see these waves coming.

these waves come at night.

they come when you’re at your lowest, because your ship isn’t prepared.

they come when your guard is down, and you’re comfy with how life is.

Mother Nature isn’t forgiving.

she doesn’t care about you or anyone but herself.

life exists simply around her.

waves constantly sneak up on the weak ships, and break them through the hull.

the sadness that comes in waves, doesn’t get better, it gets worse.

it gets worse when you realize you’re alone.

Bending

The moment before a branch splits,

It bends until it breaks.

The weight of the world weighing,

It down.

You can only tighten a guitar string so far,

It too breaks.

In trying to perfect the melody,

You lose sight of the chorus.

A rubber band,

With endless elasticity?

You pull, and pull,

And snap.

I have no bend.

I snap.

I snap.

And I snap.

Because to me,

Bending doesn’t exist.

Ashley Sweigart 11/19/2017

Can you prescribe people as a medicine?

Apparently my panic attacks have a real name? They are not just things that I make up in my mind. I’m not crazy? Well maybe I am, but what is so wrong with that?

I have been struggling for so long to define everything wrong with me, but in order to do that it would take years. But maybe there is nothing wrong with me. Maybe this is something that just happens to everyone, but then why is it so invisible?

Why do we hide our thoughts, and feelings? No two people are alike, but we can have similar disorders. I for one have at least 3 different ones that have been defined, but where are those people to talk to? Why don’t doctors prescribe people to deal with issues. When I say that I don’t mean therapists or mental health professionals, I mean everyday people who are just as crazy or not crazy as me. Instead of endless supplies of millions of different medicines, why not groups of millions of people that fit into my disorders.

It’s so much easier to talk to everyday people, than professionals that make you feel so insane. I don’t want to be told I’m crazy or to take this or that medicine. I want real people. and I want real feelings.

What’s so wrong with prescribing people, people?