I fell into a funk last week. The darkness grabbed me and pulled me down, quick. I'm still tumbling, grasping, fumbling, trying to break the fall.
I keep telling myself maybe this time I won't fall as far or as deeply. Maybe this is just a shallow trench depression. Maybe it's not an abyss.
But it's really hard to tell. The whole not knowing thing is terrifying and frustrating. My mind is acting like an obsessive little hamster on a wheel: how deep is this hole? how long will it last? how did it happen? Repeat.
Frankly, I don't even want to write about this. I feel ashamed. Embarrassed. Do you know how much I wish I didn't have this "problem"?
But I'm forcing myself to be humble, to sit here and write anyway.
Warning: my emotional protective covering has been stripped raw. My sensitive nature lies bare, exposed. I feel uncomfortably vulnerable, like even the slightest hint of rejection will break me.
So, bear with me. The following may or may not make any rational sense.
If I think back in time, I can probably identify several event triggers that unfolded in the last couple of weeks.
The first was a re-alignment of some personal relationships. Suffice to say, there's nothing like a difficult season of life to show you–with blinding clarity–who your real friends are. It's a blessing in disguise, I guess. My depression/burnout has efficiently knocked out all the artificial props holding up certain friendships. It's been eye-opening to see who remains.
But I still struggle not to take it personally. It feels dangerously close to rejection.
My sister remains. My husband remains. A few, precious souls remain. And there have been the unexpected blossoming and/or deepening of new friendships. All in all, this season of my life has renewed and strengthened my relationships.
So why do I weep for the one who has drifted away?
"Oh, Elizabeth," my sister gently reminded me. "Don't you remember? This is how she's always treated you."
"It is?" I asked, all choked up. "But I've always been there for her!"
"Exactly," my sister said. "You're always giving. And she's always taking."
It's an uncomfortable truth I haven't wanted to acknowledge. This whole past year has been full of uncomfortable truths. Lucky me.
And then there was the writing rejection. It was a fairly significant project that seemed like it was going to take off. Lots of good feedback, lots of momentum, a solid editorial contact. And then? Fizzle.
I hate rejection. It makes me doubt myself to the very core. It makes me wonder if I'm delusional. Like maybe I actually suck at writing. Like maybe all those published articles were just flukes.
Rationally, I know I'm a decent writer. But every time I get a rejection, I feel just awful. Sometimes I think I'm too sensitive a soul to swim in the heavily competitive waters of published writers. I take rejection too personally.
The final trigger, the one that sent me over the edge, happened last week when I re-arranged my entire schedule to make a doctor's appointment. I don't know if doctors realize this, but it takes a Herculean effort for a mother of five to go see her doctor alone. I got there, signed in was promptly informed that they didn't take my insurance.
WHAT?! I called to confirm they took my insurance.
Nope. Sorry.
It was the last straw. And I totally, completely lost it.
My eyesight blurred, my heart-rate skyrocketed and I had to excuse myself to the hallway where I tried to control a full-blown panic attack. I was shaking and hyperventilating. It was just a follow-up appointment, easily rescheduled. But I felt sick with rejection and panic.
It took a huge effort of willpower to walk back in and calmly reschedule my appointment. I cried all the way home. Even while I was losing it, the rational side of my brain was standing outside myself tsk-tsking: Holy crap, woman. Pull yourself together! It's probably just a data entry error.
Turns out, the insurance company had committed a data entry mistake. I was covered.
I wasn't going to die alone and abandoned, after all.
See? This is what's weird. A friendship changes and/or drifts apart and I immediately think I'm a total loser and I'm never going to have a normal social life. I get a writing rejection and instead of shaking it off, I instantly think I'm the worst writer in the world. My insurance gets denied and I assume I'm going to die of some terrible, undiagnosed disease. Alone. Abandoned.
It makes no sense. I mean, my irrational thought processes would be downright hilarious if they weren't so damn terrifying.
My best guess is that the root cause of my panic lies in a deeply embedded pattern of all-or-nothing thinking. These thoughts are rigid, harsh and inflexible. Everything is either black or white, wrong or right, good or bad.
I mean, this kind of thinking works well in crisis situations when you have to drastically eliminate extraneous information and focus only on life-saving CPR or something. But it's no way to live everyday life.
But Crisis Mode is my default setting. It's where my mind goes when I think I'm starting to see emerging patterns of rejection/impending doom/getting left behind at the Rapture. Heh.
The problem is that our bodies aren't meant to live in Crisis Mode. For one thing, it's exhausting. After the flurry of crisis comes the crash of depression.
So, that's where I'm at right now. The Crisis Mode has dwindled away. I feel safe again. I'm just….sad.
You know, it's extremely difficult for me to write about this because I still feel twinges of mortification like: if I were a "real" Christian, I wouldn't have these problems.
The thing is, I'm fully functional. I'm able to take care of my children and my obligations. I'm even able to "keep a happy face." This little funk isn't entirely debilitating. It just feels like recurring beads of sadness running through the necklace of my days.
And by the end of each day I'm very, very, very tired.
There. I wrote it. I'm even keeping comments open.
Be gentle with me, loves.
