seasonal depression
seasonal depression comes around again. yay. it’s fucking KICKING MY ASS!!! okay- not really. not as bad. i was honestly really hoping it wouldn’t happen anyway, since i was just getting over a normal depressive episode but whatever. whatever!!!!!!!!
i would vent to someone but i’ve come to realize i can’t through text. well- i can. but i prefer talking in person, it feels more intimate and like i’m actually being listened to. i feel somewhat ignored sometimes when i text someone how i feel. i would write letters again like i did last time but i can’t bring myself to. i don’t know. but i won’t lie, everything i blog about feels like i’m writing the same things i’m worried about over and over again!!! but whatever.
i feel disconnected to my art. fears and anxieties i’ve had about adult life are getting to me. it’s weird. i made a short comic expressing some of what i felt but drawing tires me out.
about the fears thing- it’s a lot. i’m almost turning 21 but i have friends/loved ones who already are 21 and are discussing about drinking alcohol or smoking or something along the lines of that, either for birthdays or holidays. it’s actually kind of freaking me out, which i did expect to happen. i’m not stopping them from doing so, that’s not my place at all and i want them to have fun. it’s just irrational. i prefer to stay away from any parties or get togethers if alcohol is involved but that was easier when none of us were really of age. now that every is becoming or is of age, it’s going to become increasingly harder to do so. and with it comes a really weird sense of isolation. the same kind of isolation i’ve been dealing with since i was a kid, the kind that comes with being the weird autistic person.
i know that alcohol itself isn’t the problem. it’s a drink people can have fun with and can absolutely be drank in moderation. some people just do it for the sillies and nothing more. but i just have such a deep, deep fear, especially since i do deal with anxiety and depression. it just so happens i am more likely to deal with substance abuse than most other people who don’t deal with this. i don’t ever want alcohol, or any other substance, to ever become a coping mechanism for me, so i find that staying away is the best option. the idea of losing everything i’ve worked for, all the things i did to get to this point, scares me. i don’t want to go back to square one and feel trapped and suffocated all over again.
but there’s also the fact that i’m also scared of loved ones falling into substance abuse as well. i know i’m not the only one who deals with depression or some other shit. i know that there have been others who are prone to addiction. i’m scared that something bad might happen. it fucking freaks me out!!!!!!! i am holding the belief close and deep into my heart that my loved ones know what they are doing and are taking care of themselves. i don’t know if my heart can deal with a bigger spiral and deeper grief over something potentially hurtful. it’s a whole thing.
but with this, and the staying away thing, i don’t really know how to navigate it when it comes to people i love. i get freaked out when i know someone is under the influence, in person or online. especially online since there’s nothing i can do to even help. but if i avoid the person, or they avoid me, the isolation i’m experiencing just grows deeper in my heart. i want to be okay with being uncomfortable over something i cannot control, over something i’m never really going to be used to, but i’m finding it increasingly difficult and frustrating and upsetting while doing so. i don’t want loved ones to force themselves to not talk to me because of my fear, it just makes me feel alone. but i get really anxious and scared when they are under the influence. it’s been like this since i’ve been a kid while going to family parties. gah. it’s a really annoying cycle and i’m just trying to feel it out but it’s hard. i don’t know what my boundaries are. i don’t fully know what i’m okay with. i don’t want my loved ones to treat me like i’m fragile because of my fears. auuuggghh. i don’t know. it feels too big and complicated right now and i’m most likely going to have to start fully navigating this fear within the following years of my life. gaaahhh.
with this depression, and even beyond that, i’ve been feeling increasingly disconnected from my art. i won’t lie, my artwork eventually became deeply intertwined with my mental and emotional state sometime early in high school as a way to cope. but i’ve been okay. at least- more okay than i used to be. i no longer feel like i’m constantly berated or feeling like i’m suffocating. like i’m stuck. like things will never get better. i feel more optimistic for myself (despite my later statements). but i think because of the fact artwork became a coping mechanism for such a traumatizing time, i can’t really draw without a sense of disconnection. it doesn’t feel like me.
which is so weird because like- it’s all me. but i can’t really tap into that emotional state and connection to art unless i’m in a depressive episode. i’ve been trying hard to disconnect the two and find my love for drawing again. i feel so stagnant. but i think a lack of goal is also not helping. i used to want to get better to get to art school or whatever, but now it’s like. i’m not doing that. i’m not really doing anything with my art. and like, sure, i can improve for my own wants. but even that’s difficult.
i’m in a point in my life where i’m just deeply unsure of myself, if you can’t tell. i currently have a job and it can turn into a career if i want to, but i feel unsure about that. i feel unsure about my future. not my shared future, i know what i’m doing with my partner. but my personal one. i don’t know what i’m doing with myself. i don’t know what i want. i do know i don’t want the spotlight on myself, i don’t want a big and flashy life. i don’t have dreams of becoming popular online, or being a self established self employed business, or being an animator. i don’t really want to go back to school. i just don’t know. i can’t see myself doing anything. i just feel like i’m going through the motions right now while also being anxious about everything changing around me in a way i can’t keep up. though truth be told, i never have been able to. i wish i could be okay with it and take people’s advice on that, but i just can’t, not without a feeling of disconnect. my goals and sense of self were ripped away from me during such a turbulent time that i just don’t really have the energy anymore.
i feel like i keep saying and thinking this, but i wish i understood the gravity of how severe and traumatizing the shit i dealt with in middle/high school was and to stop downplaying it like i keep doing. i was literally suicidal throughout most of it and eventually lost sense of myself to be able to even make it out. but i wish it were easier to move on from what happened during my teenaged years. it’s become easier, but i’ve been forced to confront things that i never really had to confront before. not to this extent anyway. like my fear of alcohol. or my lack of goals. my disconnection from art. from myself. my deep fear of loss, if you really think about it.
it’s just hard. i don’t know how i’m going to navigate the lack of personal goals thing (besides the art one) but i’ll get there when i get there, i guess.
the short comic i mentioned earlier touches on feelings of inadequacy and feeling like i’m a burden to others but uuhm… those feelings feel more embarrassing to admit than literally anything else i’ve mentioned here. i do not CARE but admitting to literally anyone that i don’t feel like i’m someone worth being loved or that i feel like i’m a burden/inconvenience to others feels so fucking embarrassing. like i KNOW i should, it’ll help, but auugh…………….
i feel like i’m not good enough. there. i said it. i just sometimes feel like people would eventually find something wrong about me, mostly because i feel like there really is something innately wrong with me. everything i’ve mentioned here feels like it’ll become a problem to the people i love. not because i’m avoiding getting better- nothing like that. but more so because i feel like i’ll just become a burden. it’ll be annoying to deal with. that i’ll be left behind. it always comes back to that, doesn’t it?
i’ve never given myself the same grace i give to others. what i see as understandable in others, i see as an annoyance in myself. i have a hard time giving myself the same patience to myself. it’s so easy to give someone else patience when it comes to dealing with depression or something similar, while i do nothing but get angry with myself over getting even slightly upset over something so small. this isn’t even mentioning the whole thing of feeling like i’m just nothing if i’m not of use to people in some way or another. it sucks that that’s a feeling that lingers and hasn’t fully gone away. i get scared that people would leave if i can’t provide what they want. my irrational line of thinking has got me thinking that people would not care if i disappeared. which is. insane because people WOULD care, my mind just loves trying to convince me otherwise.
there’s a lot of huge feelings i’ve been dealing with. and with the sun going down WAAAY earlier, it sure isn’t helping.
i’ve been trying to make peace with not having a social group and just sort of accepting that i’m a more quieter person. i have friends but not really a friend group. as envious as i still get about others who do have friend groups, the thought about having a friend group doesn’t feel right. it never really did, even when i did have that. despite being an open book, i really just am a quiet person. i prefer being with people i do know and having a deeper, richer relationship rather than not. i’ve been… working on it. i’ve been trying to do things with people i know and cultivate deeper emotional bonds than meet new people. it’s been hard trying to keep that consistency and to know what’s okay to do and what’s not, but i’m trying. sometimes i think about a conversation i had with a friend about this same thing while she gave me a ride home. it’s like- i already knew that. but actually talking about it made it click for some reason.
guh. it’s a lot. i typed a lot. i don’t know how to end this. i really need to start sleeping earlier and getting back into routine to try and combat this depression. i was a little all over the place with this one. wah. thank you for reading.
and for those wondering about the short comic i made that i kept referencing here, here's the link. just uh, trigger warning for slight suicidal ideation on that.