Keeping busy

I’ve been so busy over the past three days that I’ve no idea how I’d have managed if I had a job.

(Answer: I wouldn’t have done half the things that I was busy with.)

I went to a writer’s meet on Tuesday, what with NaNoWriMo coming up. I love how writers are all a bit crazy. All the ones I’ve met, anyway. I have to admit that although it was nice to meet them all, after a while I kind of saturated. I have trouble in group conversations, where everyone’s talking at once, and there were about ten of us. I lost track very quickly.

Yesterday was spent organising things and making things. My social life is picking up, which is definitely a good thing because I have a tendency to isolate myself when depressed, and get depressed when isolated for too long, which I think probably everyone does. It’s not good. There comes a time when you have to pick the friend you’d hate to see the least and organise a meeting, and stop caring whether you burst into tears in front of them.

I’m getting addicted to crochet, but it’s probably just another phase. I go through creative phases. In winter it tends to be writing, music is more a summery hobby, and drawing generally comes in between. Occasionally I get impassioned about something else – it was translation a while back – before I do so much of it that it tires me out, and then I stop. It’s very easy to do too much of something when you’re jobless. You have all the time you want in which to do it.

Then came today. Today I had voluntary work, and there was a woman coming in from an Oxfam in another town to show me how it’s done – though I’ve been managing on my own for the past month. She was a huge help, and she did teach me loads of stuff, and she was a really nice person, but my head was so full up with information, and we worked so hard this afternoon, and for much longer than usual, that right now I fucking hate her. It’s not her fault. I’m sure I’ll be greatful when I go back next week and know better what to do. But my head is like an achy, hot brick.

Honey came home shattered too, the Drama at his workplace would be popcorn-esque if he wasn’t on the brink of another nervous breakdown about once a week. Usually him feeling like shit automatically puts me in Nurse Mode, which gives me the impression that I’m alright (inevitably descending into a teary gloom a day or two after his recovery), but today it didn’t work. I didn’t have the energy, and after ten minutes listening to him talk about his problems at work, I just started crying. Him listening to me didn’t help much either because I’m still feeling shit. There’s a little girl in my head crying from exhaustion and I should probably listen to her.

Jobhunting

When I first got here, I was convinced that by October, I’d have a job. One that would make use of my two years of studies, even if it wasn’t exactly what I wanted. I thought that if I really tried hard enough, if I made my CV prettier and did my research on the company to put in my cover letter, if I showed up in person, well dressed and smiling, I’d have to land a job, because everyone had told me that here they care more about your motivation and competence than your qualifications.

I was wrong, obviously. How incredibly naïve – you’d think I’d never been unemployed before. Granted, the first time I had no qualifications at all, and the second time I’d graduated right when the economy crashed. But seriously, you didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?

Well, I did. And I also thought – ha! – that if I didn’t get a job doing that, I’d settle for the first thing that came along that wasn’t factory work (nearly fainted the last time I tried that), burger flipping (catalyst of my first depression, I was out for a year afterwards) and babysitting (five years of that was enough to make me not want kids and I want to want kids. I need at least a year out of that).

And I’d probably even do babysitting again if I wasn’t depressed. But it’s probably not a good idea for a depressed person to look after a child.

Unfortunately, people here *do* care about qualifications. They mostly care about whether or not your qualification has a their-country equivalent, which mine does not. So I tried to at least find an office job, but who knew office work could be so complicated? Sometimes they ask for a Master’s degree for a three-month contract. The fuck?

It got to the point where even reading the job offers put me in tears. So I started therapy.

I was very, very proud of the fact that I managed to hold on for a little over a minute before bursting into tears. And that I managed to speak through them. I talked about the first time I’d been depressed and how it was linked to working at Mc D’s, and then being unemployed; I talked about how since then I felt like I’d lost about 20 IQ points because I just couldn’t concentrate and my short-term memory seemed defective; I talked about how fleeting my attention span had always been, and how I was never quite there, present, because of the grey veil of thoughts that was permanently there between me and my senses, and how I sometimes managed to break through it but only for a few seconds, and how it had gotten ten times thicker since I’d been depressed.

He was very good. He asked all the right questions, and although it all seemed muddled up and there was too much to say and not enough words to say it, he gently drew them out of me. He explained that he was a cognitive therapist, and what that meant, and I said that was what I needed. No freudian analysis for me, thanks. And towards the end of the session, I stopped crying, because – lo! – I didn’t need to any more.

He gave me an exercise to do for next time, and a significant discount on his rate since I’m unemployed and not allowed the dole, and when I left I realised that I was there. As in, There. Present. Not 100%, my mind was still working behind my senses, but my senses seemed to come first. It was amazing. And it lasted for the rest of the day.

I had the inevitable backlash on Saturday, but that’s ok. The mere knowledge – based on recent experience – that my brain is capable of letting the walls down for a whole ten hours is enough to give me hope. And if I can finally get rid of this grey state, then I’ll be able to work. At anything. I just know it. If I can allow myself to be happy all the time, then I can take whatever life throws at me, knowing that whatever it is, one day it’ll get better.

Depression, part 1

Depression, part 1

This is Allie’s blog, Hyperbole And A Half. She’s awesome. She also knows what depression is like and manages to talk about her experience in a way that is funny. I’m going to shamelessly copy her idea She inspires me to do the same so that more depressed people can understand that even though we’re depressed, we can still have a sense of humour, and the humour helps. Yeah.

Mornings

I am like a bear coming out of hibernation with eyes too blurry to tell the difference between friend and food. Coffee makes the bear jittery, but no happier or more discerning. You have been warned.

You have to start somewhere

…which is why I’m just going to jump right into this blogging thing (again), this time, without thinking about it too much.

Mayri Grace is not my real name. I’m nowhere near as American as that. But it’s the only name you’re getting because I’m fucking tired of having nowhere to put all the crazy shit that runs screaming through my head on a daily basis. Sometimes the shit screaming with joy, or panic, or just to troll me. The point is, it’s screaming, and if I let it out then it can scream on the net instead of in my head.

So the first screaming shit that is now shoving all the rest out of the way is the fact that – yay! – I just started therapy. And that is because – yay! – I’m depressed. Again. Having no job and no dole obviously isn’t helping, but the fact that I just up and changed country, career and long-term relationship in the last year probably has something to do with it as well. I’ve changed country before, but this is the first time I’ve done it on my own. And by that I mean without my family, because even though I’m with my partner and he’s the main reason I’m in this particular country in the first place, it does feel very disorientating without my dysfunctional-but-loving parents behind me. I am still very much a child.

The second screaming shit oozing it’s way to the front of my mind (I’m having some cute mental images, and now so are you) is of how pretty the sunset is outside my window, because despite being clinically depressed, some small, undistracted part of my brain is still capable of appreciating beauty. Which is good, right? It means I’m not that far gone yet. I did promise myself after last time that I’d never, ever let myself go down that hole again, and if I did I’d get help immediately. And I have. Not immediately, but I didn’t wait till I was suicidal either, which is a vast improvement, believe me.

My therapist says I just need to build my self esteem again. “Again”, like I ever had any in the first place. Actually that’s not entirely true: I know myself to be a good person because I am empathetic (or just pathetic LOLOLOL) by nature and that incites me to be good. But I don’t feel there’s any merit it being a good person by nature. I have a friend who is a good person not by nature, but by choice, and he is far more worthy of respect than I am. It’s easy for me. He has to make an effort, and he’s still a better person than I’ll ever be.

But yeah, self esteem must be nice. I’m pretty sure that if I was outside of myself, I’d really like me. And I’d be upset to see me in this state. Which is why I don’t tell people about it. But the point is I’m NOT outside of myself, I’m me, and being me is frustrating because I have expectations of myself that I don’t have for others, because my brain has double standards that benefit everyone but me.

My partner called from work and now I’ve lost track of what I was saying. That’s enough for a first post anyway. I think I’m going to crochet little sushi finger puppets.