Mental Health Day

Today isn’t a good day, but it’s not necessarily a bad day either. It’s a day I’ve decided to treat as a mental health day because I didn’t want to have a panic attack on campus.

So what does that look like? What exactly do I mean?

It means that the illogical thoughts and feelings feel like truth to me.

Yesterday I had a son who just cried and cried and cried after being fed and changed and snuggled- hours of this mind you- not just 20 minutes. The crying agitated my anxiety of “I’m an inadequate mother.”  I didn’t get homework done – which agitated my anxiety of “oh no I’m going to get behind”. Combine that with asking for help so I can make dinner and receiving “ugh, I don’t want to but I’ll do it if you’re going to give me that look”- which agitated my anxiety of “I’m an inadequate wife”.

So what did I do when my son finally calmed down and slept?  I slept too. I was too frustrated and anxious that homework and housework just wasn’t important anymore.

So husband comes home, I’m not tired at all, and I have the chance to finally start on some homework- the anxiety that “I’m lazy and won’t wake up on time” pops up. So I choose to just snuggle with him and sleep instead.

So what happened this morning? I slept in- I don’t even remember turning off my alarms. I still didn’t have any homework done for a class that is kind of important to graduating- that I can’t just retake. I thought of all the things I could e-mail my professor to explain why I missed class today- but they were all lies- somehow just saying “I’m trying to avoid having a panic attack” didn’t sound legitimate either. So I decided that hiding in bed and just missing a whole day of classes was better than trying not to cry or having a panic attack in front of a million judgmental faces or professors.

That’s what it looks like. So I’m sitting at home writing this up instead of being on campus because I need to remember that missing one day of homework is not the end of the world- even though my brain is telling me that it is. But I do need to make sure that I don’t get behind, so I don’t let myself get into this situation again.

It’s these kinds of situations that make life feel overwhelming and like I’ve completely failed as a human being. Dramatic, I know. But I’ve realized that one of my core beliefs is that I am a failure. I’ve had this for years. You say that it’s not true, and I know that because you are not in my head and seeing me the way I see myself. A lot of the successful things I do are to try and combat this core belief. I don’t want to be a failure, but that notion is there and that’s why on the good days I work as hard as I do.

This core belief, my therapist told me, is common among those with depression. It’s not that hard to imagine why. I can tell you that this core belief is sometimes what keeps me from asking for help “cause I’ve failed”, or listening to people telling me how I can improve myself “cause I’ve obviously failed”, or even do a simple task like going to class unprepared “because I’ve already failed.” We with depression already know our failings- it’s something we hardly ever stop thinking about. We apologize for every little thing, we do our escape techniques- like reading, gaming, binge watching television, eating, etc.- all to try and hide from our failures.

That’s why telling someone who is depressed “to just cheer up” doesn’t work. We’ve tried that already, and we have failed. It’s a hard thing to let go when that’s what you base your entire self-image upon. Underneath the smiles, the hopes, the dreams and the “go get ‘em” attitude we sometimes display, we are trying to hide that no matter what we do or say our efforts will never be enough to simply be “adequate”.