Mental health month
Mental health awareness can eat my ass.
We are aware.
Help us.
Send tweet.
-- @caitdissociates (on Twitter)
Trigger warning for descriptions of abuse, suicide mention later in the post.
Recently I've been leaning towards "I don't have a personality disorder." I think part of this is an attempt to make myself feel better about not trying to get a diagnosis. Part of it is also that I want to understand myself, and the fewer things I have going on in my brain, the easier that is.
I'm also hating myself a lot for not having motivation or energy to do things. This = not good. What do?
Just as living alone has taught me I'm not fully an introvert, spending all of my alone time with someone else has taught me I'm not fully an extrovert. I'm not giving you affection not because I don't like you but because I'm dealing with the delayed effects of being overstimulated, because the amount of shit in my head often blocks the connection between feeling and doing, because I'm tired -- no, more than that, fatigued -- and you have so much energy. It sucks that my schedule is so full that I need almost all of my spare moments to recharge, and it sucks that I find it more difficult to recharge when I'm with one person who expects a lot from me as opposed to a group of people who have lower expectations of me, but this is the body and the mind and the self I inhabit, and I have to work with it.
I'm playing a game on my phone while we watch a movie because I'd rather do that than fidget uncontrollably, because I think it's more comfortable to cuddle someone who's sitting still. It's the same reason why I like to eat popcorn when I see movies in theaters, the same reason why I scroll through social media while listening to podcasts, the same reason why I have to turn my phone off if I want to get any work done. Multitasking is a skill that everyone wants . . . until it becomes a habit we can't break.
If my laundry isn't sorted, my anxiety spikes. Just a little. It doesn't matter how it's folded, but if one towel goes into the machine with a bunch of clothes and underwear, my brain short circuits. Does not compute.
It's possible for me to feel very deep emotions, but I don't think I've loved someone romantically in over a year. (If that was romantic love. If not, then it's been over a year and a half.) I hate the social expectation that two people who are extremely compatible are of course going to be in a romantic relationship. I want friends who I can trust with my entire self, who I can fall back into without looking because I know they'll catch me, and I want friends who feel the same about me. I love cuddles -- I need cuddles -- but my desire for touch stops there. Sex is difficult and messy and I need control. Don't touch me in public without my consent. Why haven't we normalized setting ground rules for touch in every relationship? Because heteronormativity, men own women, I forgot.
Sometimes, with someone new, I experiment. Sometimes it feels good. Often, I just gasp because I'm surprised or because I genuinely can't breathe. And once I've given part of myself, it's that much more difficult to take it back. Definitely my responsibility for giving, for initiating, for doing things when I don't fully know whether I want to do them. Definitely my responsibility for not knowing myself better, for not predicting my behavioral and emotional patterns better.
Do you understand what my depression means? I can't be "on" 24/7. I can't shower every day; sometimes I can't shower for a week. Everything compounds everything, so as soon as I let one thing slip, everything else topples down. I work well under time pressure; I don't like leaving things to the last minute, but I will almost always get the job done. My mind is sick, there is something chemically different about it, and if you expect me to be "normal," you're in for a fun surprise.
Do you understand what my anxiety means? I've known my parents are visiting soon for the past month, and I've been unable to clean my apartment. Lying in my bed all weekend, unable to face the dirty dishes, the trash, the laundry. I worry about how people see me, replaying interactions in my head for days, weeks, years after. They hate me. No they don't. Yes, they do.
Do you know what my PTSD does to me? I want to sleep in your arms, I really do, but if I have a nightmare, I need to wake up alone, the way I have for as long as I can remember. If I wake up with someone else in my bed, I'm in a hotel room in Atlanta and my dad has just hit me to wake me up. I stand, face against the wall, trembling and knowing I have to stop because if I move he'll hit me again and knowing I can't stop because I'm cold and aching and probably crying, I don't remember. And I justify everything he did even if I can't remember why he did it because I was not a well-behaved child, I did not listen, I pushed.
I am trying to take responsibility for my actions, for my self, for how I treat others. I don't ask you to allow me time, because capitalism has commodified time, and we are not going to reverse the effects of climate change. I don't ask for your understanding, because I have just explained myself, and I sure as hell don't need your awareness, because awareness won't stop me from ending my life if I really want to. I don't know if there's anything anyone can do to help, honestly. I need a therapist. This is not news.