These scenes jet by my grey matter and remind me that nothing has gone the way I wanted it to go. I never became the master teacher or librarian, and the writing job--freelance, which means, dive at your own risk--is yet undecided. I can give you at least five editors who were not happy with the jobs I turned in and five more who thought I did a credible job. That kinda cancels out to a big fat zero. Zero is my number of Doubt. I doubt that I'm pretty enough, I doubt that I'm talented enough, I doubt that I'm a decent wife. I even doubt that my pets think I'm doing a passable job.
This is what happens when you're oscillating between anxiety and depression. You don't know whether to just sit tight in your chair and worry about things for the rest of the day or crawl back into bed and pray you fall asleep. Either way you can't win.
Actually this response to #anxiety and #depression is a new variety of the Same Old Thing. When I was younger, I had more resilience so I hauled my anxiety and depression around like it was some new kind of backpack. I figured it came with the territory, and one day when I proved I was smart enough and pretty enough and talented enough, I'd lose the backpack or at least stock it with less heavier items, like confidence and a successful career. Well, things haven 't really worked out for the backpack. It's shifted around somewhat, but it's still dragging me down. Now it thinks it's the perfect accessory and I can't go anywhere without it. It accompanies me on vacations and even bumps it up a notch or two should I get a physical problem like a toothache (it's slowly going away, thank god), a cold, or a sinus headache. The backpack has actually taken on a life of its own. Sometimes it does disguises--it masquerades like a new hat or a scarf. But just when you're feeling like it's finally abandoned you and gone on to someone more miserable, it comes back. "I'm baaaaack," it says with a nasty grin. A few days of the backpack and you're willing to trade it for a Ford Focus. At least you can drive that, but with the backpack, all you can do is pick apart your past mistakes and read it the riot act (which is a combination of anger, tears, and outright lethargy). What I'd really like to do with the backpack is chuck it into the river and watch it sink slowly to the bottom. But I've never worked up the courage to do that. My meds help deal with the backpack, but it doesn't like to be messed with. One too many antidepressants, and the backpack explodes with a violent threat to take on new baggage. The truth is the backpack is a bitch, and if it weren't my bitch I'd be tempted to give it away to the first homeless person I saw. Yeah, I'm that nasty--after all half the homeless people are schizophrenic so I don't think they'd even notice that they'd inherited another problem. Does anyone ever notice I'm in the glooms? My husband, all the "unavailable" callers who try to connect with me on the phone, and possibly my older black schnauzer, who's been through my many moods too many times to count. He just looks at me and silently communicates: This too shall pass.
https://www.webmd.com/depression/news/20180425/exercise-your-blues-away
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