Mazes and Whirlpools

Living with anxiety and depression. Perhaps those who have never experienced it first or second hand know what its like. You may picture a person sitting in the same clothes for two weeks straight, laying in bed, staring at a phone or into space, with a hollow look in their eyes and are in serious need of a shower and some real food. That’s a very decent description of what it looks like on the outside. Symptoms people can easily see and respond too. But that isn’t depression- that’s how an individual reacts to their depression.

When I say that I have anxiety and depression I am trying to let you see how I interpret the world around me, and why I say or respond to situations. Let’s start with anxiety.

I have social anxiety. For me, that means I have a really hard time processing social cues, and the larger the group the more intimidated and self conscious I feel.  

Example: When in a small group of people I don’t know, I usually babble and chatter. I become extra outgoing. To others I appear to be the extrovert and comfortable in awkward situations. To me, I am babbling to prevent the people in the group from saying anything that might intimidate me, criticize me, or outright tell me I don’t belong. I want people to like me. I want people to think I’m funny. I want people to think well of me. Because my anxiety likes to tell me that I am boring, that I have nothing important to say, that I am a waste of space and everyone else wishes I just disappeared.

When the encounter is all over, I will go home and think about everything I said. I will analyze every single reaction everyone had to everything I said. And no matter how well I acted, I will be convinced that all those people will still think I’m boring, everything I said was unimportant, and probably “will this girl ever shut up?”

But that’s just one scenario. Every day feels like I’m in a maze- but I wasn’t told when I entered the maze if it was a haunted maze like the ones at Halloween or not. So I not only feel lost, I am extremely cautious about every choice I make because I don’t know if that choice will lead me into the face of some hideous monster, or just a dead end. Which makes me hyper vigilant.

I must make sure that I rehearse everything I’m going to say before I call someone I’m not well acquainted with.

If I’m not sure about which entrance we go through at an event, I make my husband go first.

If we go out to eat, I make sure to memorize everything I’m going to say so I don’t have to repeat myself or come across as a difficult customer.

If I feel like something I am doing is annoying, inconvenient, or rude, I have to triple and quadruple check that the person is okay with it.

I apologize for everything- from stating my opinion, to going off on tangents, to little things that only I would notice but bother me nonetheless.

Little things can set off my anxiety- and I am just on edge and it’s hard to relax until I am at home, sitting down and watching a familiar show.

For those with good sleuthing skills, you may have noticed some things that also resemble depression- the negative self talk for one.

My metaphor for depression is called “The Whirlpool of Suck”.  You don’t always realize just how caught up you are at first. But you start to notice that you’re going in a circle- because depression is a self feeding cycle. You find yourself not eating, not sleeping very well, avoiding social situations- which in turn makes you feel physically and emotionally awful. Which then makes you continue not to eat well, sleep well, and being around people just sounds like too much work. See how it works?

So as you withdraw more and more into yourself, that’s when those pesky negative thoughts arise “what am I doing?” “I am a waste of space” “Life just sucks”. Which feeds into the already unpleasant physical symptoms. The more I feel like this, the more it feels like I’m getting dragged underwater and can barely keep afloat.

With the Whirlpool of suck, it is easy to grab a life line and get pulled out of the circular current. Friends drop by and make you eat, take you out, remind you of things you like to do. You find a video of cute animals that brighten your day. Not every day is spent in the whirlpool. Sometimes, you really are just happy and content. And sometimes one negative thought or encounter can pull you quickly into the current and you get close to the center where you feel stuck and about to go under at any second. That’s where the suicidal thoughts arise. That’s where self harm arises. That’s where finding any outlet be it mindlessly playing video games, watching television or drug and alcohol abuse take place. Because it’s that thin barrier between wanting to escape the pain permanently or temporarily. That’s when the depressed individual stares into the abyss and fights with themselves, debating on whether or not to prepare for the inevitable or keep trying to stay alive, even if it destroys them.

I am living with depression and anxiety- sometimes I’m in the maze. Sometimes I’m in the whirlpool. Sometimes the maze leads me into the whirlpool or vice versa. And on some blessed days I am a normal person who can handle what the world throws at me, who easily tells the negative thoughts to go to the hell where they belong, and can smile and truly enjoy each and every happy moment.

Everyone’s battle with mental illness is unique to their own struggles, but the symptoms are the same. 

Every day is not spent in the Whirlpool of Suck or the Maze of Anxiety. That’s why when the people 

you know are having a good day, celebrate it with them. That’s why if the next day they are having a crummy day, give them love and support- because they enjoy being in their maze or whirlpool as much as you enjoy seeing them there.

I don’t know if these metaphors improved your understanding of what life is like living with mental illnesses, but I hope that you can show more compassion to those that struggle. We are doing the best we can even when we look like the very picture of depression or a Norman Rockwell cartoon. We are all human after all, and struggles are what makes life, life.  

The Truth about Baking

Generally, you can tell I am avoiding something when I am baking simply for the sake of baking. Sounds silly I know. But Let me explain. Baking bread weekly (because I like sandwiches and having toast for breakfast), whipping up cakes for birthdays, or making soft pretzels for the holidays, or I want homemade tortilla chips to go with my homemade salsa, or fresh naan bread to go with curry night- those are all normal reasons to be turning up the oven and rolling my hands in dough. It’s the days when out of the blue I am making big complicated recipes like cinnamon rolls, or starting three different types of cookies in the middle of the day that people should be addressing me with “Put down the spoon, and tell me what’s wrong.”

Honestly, I didn’t know that baking was my warning bell, air raid sirens blaring, red flag waving tell that I was avoiding something until my very first semester of college. Every time there was an exam I didn’t feel ready for, a deadline for a paper, or simply just a lot of homework all due at the same time- you’d find me baking banana bars with cinnamon cream cheese frosting, cinnamon rolls, or snickerdoodles (I have a thing for cinnamon). After I realized that I used up all of my studying time to take goodies to all of the neighbors that I liked in the dorm, it hit me that as nice as I was being to others I was avoiding studying.

For the past two weeks, all I’ve wanted to do is bake. Not just bread, not just the occasional brownie because I’m craving it. I mean I’m scouring pinterest for specialty dessert breads, scones, cookies, muffins, cupcakes, pies, cakes- if it goes in the oven it is now on my baking board.

“But Daria,” you are probably asking, “you’re not in school right now, what could you possibly be avoiding?”

Vague and evasive me would first say “the inevitable.” But honest and blunt me will just say “motherhood.”

Now I know that there are plenty of questions that arise with “How can you avoid being a mother? You talk about your toddler and your pregnancy all the time.”

Well, I’ve wanted to write up a piece about the struggles of having depression while pregnant, but every time I started my thoughts weren’t cohesive enough to be anything worth reading. But today I feel a balance with my emotional rational and my logical rational that I think I can put my thoughts into place.

The beginning is when I wanted to end. For the second time I had just gotten out of the Behavioral Health Unit- or as I lovingly call it, the loony bin. I had learned a lot of coping mechanisms and received med changes so that I could step back into my life without wanting to run away from it. I didn’t care that I had missed Christmas with my family. I was just happy to be holding onto my husband and I was filled with hope and determination to face my post-partum depression, social anxiety, and premenstrual dysphoric disorder head on. Instead of getting the opportunity to see myself overcome the monthly mental challenges, I instead got the wonderful news that I was pregnant for the second time.

Calling your mental health doctor who you talked to only a couple weeks ago about putting off having kids and informing him that you’re pregnant is not pleasant. Nor is the excited congratulations from his secretary. That week, when I was informing people who needed to know that I was on medications and figuring out what was safe for me and the tiny little fetus that decided to take up residence, I wanted to scream at people “this is not something to be happy about! What is wrong with you people?” 

Pregnancy, for me, sucks. I hate it. It is my literal Hell. Now true, on average, I haven’t been nearly as aggressive or snide, but I’ve also had more low periods that are hard to get out of. But the dread of another bout of months of sleepless nights, trying to take care of a tiny dictator who will never say thank you (not that my toddler, who can speak, says thank you either) on top of caring for my other tiny dictator and myself- well wouldn’t any sane person want to avoid that? Wouldn’t any sane person want to avoid feeling like a slave to two unforgiving, unrelenting, selfish tyrants? But apparently I’m the crazy one and I should be excited for having two “miracles” in my life.

Now I admit, growing up I wanted kids. But I never wanted to be a stay at home mom. I need social interactions. I need to feel like I am contributing to society and making the world a better place. That’s why I want to teach. Depression and feeling like I can barely take care of myself, let alone keep two tiny humans alive, doesn’t exactly make me feel like I am accomplishing much of anything.

That’s why I’m jealous my husband gets to go to work and do something that has absolutely nothing to do with repeating “We don’t throw hard things,” or “I will give you more once you’ve finished what’s on your tray” all day long. That’s why I’m jealous that even though we’re both parents- he’s the one with the degree. He has all the doors open to him- grad school, job opportunities, etc. While I feel chained to a job I didn’t want, but can’t leave.

To put it simply, to me, everyone is a demigod on their heroic epic journey filled with monsters and triumphs- and I am the cursed titan Sisyphus who gets to roll a giant rock up the hill, only for it to fall back to the base again for all eternity.  

Right now, I’m miserable enough with this pregnancy but I’m not looking forward to having a newborn, so my first instinct is to just avoid thinking about it at all and thus bake until all the flour and sugar is gone. But baking doesn’t remove the baby from my uterus, or whisk away the monotony of caring for a toddler. Baking, though satisfying, sadly, does not do anything more than having something for me to snack on while I sit here and panic and desperately wish to run away and start life somewhere else. A life where I can be free, without kids and without the expectations to just “suck it up” and face the consequences of being a female with efficient reproductive organs.

I’ve been living with the guilt of not having better birth control since I took the pregnancy test. I live with the guilt of bringing my first tiny human into the world only for me and him to be burden because my mind decided that it doesn’t know how to cope anymore. I am ashamed that I don’t have the energy or the will to be the kind of mom I wanted to be and instead am a mom who does the bare minimum because that’s all I can do.

But sadly, I can’t run away. One, I’d stick out because I am still unabashedly pregnant. And two, I know that leaving isn’t the answer, no matter what my emotional logic says. As a wise baboon once said, “yes the past can hurt. But you can either run from it, or learn from it.” I will be completely honest and tell you I have no idea what good I’ve learned from two miserable pregnancies and facing the realities of depression. My first thoughts are all along the lines of “Don’t have kids, ever”, “set aside money for a really great nanny if the first lesson didn’t stick”, and “be prepared for isolation unlike anything you’ve ever experienced.”

I don’t really have a positive note to end on, mostly because I don’t know how this chapter in my story ends. I don’t know if having a baby will switch my hormones and what's wrong will be fixed. I don’t know if I’ll sink lower and have another stay in the loony bin. I don’t know if I’ll find joy or if all of my fears will come true. Whatever happens, I’m still doing my best to avoid it because I still can’t shake this gut instinct to bake every single recipe on my Pinterest board. I guess the one positive is that baking isn't usually a cause of concern for those with mental health issues.