Depression: A poem

Normally I try to shy away from harsh language, but this is the most literal translation I can give regarding my feelings right now.

Fuck you depression.

Fuck you for making me sit here like a goddamn leper, shunning myself from my family and the only time I should be happy during the day.

Fuck you for making me paranoid and unwilling to take any modicum of risk out of delusional fear.

Fuck you for always telling me how horrible I am, even in the middle of trying to better myself.

Fuck you for making me feel so alone in the world, and like everyone is staring and pointing and laughing at me for being such a fucking loser.

Fuck you for ruining perfectly good nights because I can’t control my feelings.

Fuck you for never letting go no matter how hard I try.

Fuck you for trying to destroy the good things I have, and then making me feel shittier for being such a horrible wife/mother/friend.

Fuck you for always having the last laugh, on or off medication.

Fuck you for filling me with doubt and fear and hate.

Fuck you for making me never see the positive, only the negative, always the negative.

Fuck you for being sneaky enough to let me appear normal.

Fuck you for constantly reminding me I’m not.

Fuck you for keeping me lazy and fat and stupid and ugly and unmotivated and jealous and angry.

Fuck you for blaming everything on me, always on me.

Fuck you for making an impossible situation harder.

Fuck you for never letting me think things are going to get better or go right, ever.

Fuck you for robbing me of the words I want to use but can’t think of, because it hurts too much to think.

Fuck you for confusing this with actual grief and never knowing if I’m progressing or regressing.

Fuck you for allowing me to ponder all the different ways there are to kill myself.

Fuck you for making me too chicken shit to try.

Fuck you for all the shit you do to me, to my family.

Fuck you.

Just breathe - easier said than done.

Today it's hitting me full force.  I don't breathe so much as sigh, and that's only after realizing I've been holding my breath in anxiety.

Matt didn't sign up for this.  He deserves a wife who doesn't battle inner demons on a daily basis and someone who can actually be a wife to him.Parker deserves a mom who doesn't second guess everything she does and panic when he's not around because she's worried something awful will happen. 

I feel like everyone has pretty much deserted me.  It's that awkward "how ya doin" and that, on their end, is supposed to be enough.  I'm drowning and suffocating and screaming in a crowd and a "how you holding up?" is supposed to suffice.  It'll have to, because, again, no one wants to talk about "it".

My head is so crowded.  Crowded with negative thoughts, to the point where I have nothing but.

I'm so damn scared of everything, I end up talking myself out of even applying for jobs before I get rejected because I know I will.  I have no confidence. Zero. Zip.  None in myself.  I only screw up.  I only ruin everything.  I wouldn't hire me.  I don't look right, talk right, act right.  I'm never the perfect fit for the job, and if on the rare occasion I am, someone else is ALWAYS better.  I'm never going to catch a break.  I've been doing the same shit for almost 10 years now, to the point where I'm not "qualified" to do anything else.

I can't see the good things in life and I can't see anything getting better.  I feel so trapped in my head and my stupid fat ugly body.The only message the universe is conveying lately is that I'm an awful person and I don't deserve good things - this world owes me nothing and reminds me every day of just how obvious that is.

A friend wants me to go to a convention and my first thoughts are "there's going to be so many people staring at me, judging me, thinking I'm a loser, I'm going to freak out".  This is in my head no matter where I go.  Is everyone really looking at me?  No, likely not.  But my head keeps telling me they are.  And judging and staring and hating me for being so awful, such an ugly horrible person.

I want to hide and never come back.  I want to disappear and never have to look anyone in the face again because I'm so ashamed and guilt-ridden and depressed.  I'm tired of putting on a show - I'm tired of trying only to continually fail.  I'm tired of being last and left out and shoved aside and not even missed.

I put everything I had into having Coraline and she's gone.  I have nothing, and I can't escape from this pattern of thinking.

Closer to Far Away

I am now closer to the anniversary of Coraline's birth and death than to the actual date itself.  That is something that keeps cropping up and stabbing me in the gut at random times.

I remember telling Matt I didn't want the days to pass, because it just felt like I was moving further away from her.  It still does.  Every 24 hours and she fades a little, becomes more of a memory than reality, and it kills me inside.

At lunch with a friend when the subject came up.  He said he couldn't imagine going through anything like this, nor what the most difficult aspect might be.  For me, now, its getting other people to acknowledge and accept her as a real person, not "that thing that happened" or " that situation".  Was her stillbirth a traumatic "situation" for me and for Matt?  Of course, but Coraline was not.  She was perfect, and I hate that her birthday is the same as the day she died and that no one else was able to hold her and appreciate how beautiful she was and that I'm stuck in this ruined body with this tormented mind and shattered heart.

I really could give a flying Canadian goose fart about the "royal baby" and the hype surrounding it.  I'm glad whenever I hear of a happy, successful delivery, for any woman regardless of social status, but I don't want it shoved in my face repeatedly.  That just helps drive the nail in, the one that says "I didn't deserve to bring my baby girl home - they all got their healthy babies, but mine couldn't stay."

Sometimes I consider leaving.  Just driving in my car, working under the table - leaving everyone and everything I've ever loved behind, because I can't cope and their support isn't enough to sustain me.  I just want to run, but my problems will still be there wherever I land, I know.  I guess I'm doing the same thing, in a way.  I seek out new jobs, new opportunities, new schools to fill the gap.  Cut my hair to dull the nerves.  Shed weight and wear nice clothes and makeup so even though I feel dead inside, on the outside I can be pretty and non-suspicious and people won't ask why I look like someone died.  Rinse, repeat.

Sometimes the depression hits me full force and I can't breathe.  I've been trying to just let myself feel the emotions, flow with them wherever they take me.  Work through them instead of trying to shove them aside or compartmentalize them - okay, I feel this way right now, there must be a reason so I'm going to go with it.  My feelings aren't wrong, just painful.

Wreck-It Ralph

Wreck-It Ralph is very bittersweet for me.  It was the last movie we saw in the theater before learning we lost Coraline.  We took Parker to see it, and on the way out discussed our plans - next year, we'd dress Matt up as Ralph and Coraline as a mini-Vanellope, complete with candy in her hair.  Parker could be Fix-It Felix. And I'd take the pictures and document the adorable and we'd raise her on video games and science and nerdy things and we'd be the perfect complete geek family.

That will never happen.  I can't even look at that movie without wanting to cry.  It's weird the things that will trigger emotions.  I cry more watching Up, but Wreck-It Ralph is on the "do not touch" list - I probably will never watch it again.  It's the representation of all the plans and hopes I had, and how none of them are going to come true. 

I have to tune out the news when I hear about the latest celebutard having their "perfect precious bundle of joy".  It's making me a bitter person - I don't want to be, but I can't help feeling envious of their perfect lives with their perfect living children and their full complete happiness and their effortless success.  I'm stuck in my pathetic job making my low-range hourly rate, struggling every minute of every day, but I'm supposed to be happy for the privileged rich and famous expanding their genepool.  Eff that noise.

I feel like someone has grabbed the tendons to my heart that stretch through my clavicle to my shoulders - they pull and tug and play pinball with my fragile beating muscle, also cutting off my ability to inhale.  There's a tug of war going on everyday inside my chest and most days I'm losing. 

*Sigh*.  Putting on my "I'm happy, you're happy, we're happy, everyone is hap-hap-happy" face to show the world again.  Wish me luck.

When does it end?

The frustration of feeling one way and constantly putting on the opposite face.  "I'm fine." "We're doing great, thanks."  "No, we don't need anything."  "I'm happy again."

Lies.  So many daily lies I tell and show people because I'm too damn ashamed/embarrassed to admit that I'm a beaten, broken shell of a person.  Smiling on the outside while inside I'm thinking "I wonder if the ceiling fan will support my weight?"  Watching my husband try to keep a happy face while I know he's so tired, so very very tired, of having the be "the strong one" all the time.

I told him the other day I'm just biding my time, running out the clock, waiting for my turn to be over.  I don't feel like this is living.  This is just floating and existing, but not living.  I go through the motions, I blend in with all the other productive and busy little ants, but I'm not here anymore.

Means of escape or distraction don't work.  They may for a little while, but eventually I'm right back to this.  And since life keeps finding new ways to shit on me while I'm down, it gets really really difficult to force myself back up.