MyBlueFunk

I rarely talk about the real me when I’m out in public but today I was sharing a little something about my childhood with someone I know.  It was a fairly light-hearted conversation for such a heavy subject but at one point she chuckled and said something like, “Wow – how’d you end up so normal?”

HA!

Yeah, normal. That’s me.

But hey, maybe I am normal. Maybe it’s perfectly normal to appear normal in public and yet be a chaotic mess in private. What do I know?  I really only know my own experiences.

I have been reading several blogs lately with similar subject matter to mine. I had a few that I’d bookmarked from a year ago when I was here. It was surprising to me how many of them no longer existed.  It made me wonder what had happened.

Had they found blogging about such difficult internal struggles more damaging than helpful?  Did they have a positive rebound and no longer needed to journal about all the minutia of their lives?

I dunno.

I do know that people with no or minimal struggles in their lives have no idea what it takes for people like me, or me, to just get through one freaking day.

It’s a huge struggle and there’s an enormous amount of stress.

I used to think I was a total failure because I struggled – but now I see it the other way around. I’m strong because I can handle the struggle – even if I handle it badly.

I’m still here.

That’s taken some strength.

I attempted suicide once and came extremely close a second time.  I used to think I wasn’t successful in my attempts but that’s fucking ass backwards because I was successful in surviving.

It just highlights how fucked-up much of my thinking was … is.

I mean I’m so willing to give others support but never myself.  No – me I leave twisting in my turmoil.

Anyway, I’m on holidays until next week. Not holidays in the sense that I’m going to some exotic locale – no just that I don’t have to go to work.

My goal is to do something nice for me. In the past that meant sleeping on the couch watching TV because that’s my favourite thing to do.  Also the most damaging in the long run.

So I’m changing how I look at it.

Also, I can’t handle the anxiety of constantly wondering if someone is going to drop by.

I had someone knocking on my door a few weeks ago and I was so terrified I became ill.

The person was at the wrong apartment but my reaction was way over the top.  Well, in the sense that it doesn’t have to be this way if I’d make some simple changes.

But who’s kidding who – there’s no such thing as a “simple” change.

I can’t take the stress I’m putting on myself anymore. It’s too much. I’m reaching a burn-out stage and I can feel what little control I have slipping away.

I’ve been here before. Several times, in fact. It’s rarely turned out well and often it just propels me downward. Way downward.

I’m recognizing this now. I see that I’m here again and that I have a choice to slip down again or battle back and maintain.  Then after maintaining I can move upwards.

I’ll never be Susie-homemaker but at least I can do myself a favour and be a bit more “normal”.