Crikey! A lot of posts!
I’m grateful for all the good wishes. Thank you.
I’m feeling much better today, for no obvious reason. I often struggle with weekends — I’m not sure why as I always look forward to them and the break from work that they offer. Perhaps they too often end up being disappointing, or I feel to tired to take advantage of them. I take Wednesdays off, too, and those are much better.
I’ve given up on therapy. I’ve had a lot of it. I first went to see a therapist when I was at university, over thirty years ago. Since then I’ve had more therapists than I can remember or count. Almost entirely uniformly the experiences were at best neutral and ineffective and at worst counterproductive. One therapist fired me because she said I was too needy. Another therapist I fired because she said I was too aggressive and it made her feel uncomfortable.
When I lived in the US I had gold-plated health insurance that paid for me to see a therapist twice a week, every week for three years. What a colossal waste of time and money that was. He was one of those “listening” types. I just wittered on about my week, while he nodded sagely, and that was that. Occasionally he might try to get me to talk about my childhood, but I was having none of that, so I batted his enquiries away.
To be honest, I don’t think I believe in therapy. Not in my case. What happened to me as a young child was life-changing and irreversible and it broke me and I will never be fixed. Before any of you get traumatised by that, I should say that I’ve pretty much made my peace with it. I’m kinda proud that I’m as successfully functioning as I am, all things considered.
(Also, if you make me revisit my childhood abuse, which is apparently an essential part of the process, it just gives me grotesque, terrifying nightmares. So, no thanks.)
And I reject drugs of all forms. I’ve never so much as taken a single drag of a spliff. I mean, I’ll take a paracetamol without hesitation, and I live on antihistamines. But anything that messes with your head is pretty much out for me. I’m surprisingly puritanical even about alcohol. (I bought the premium plus drinks package for my upcoming cruises, but that’s because I want to drink well, not because I want to drink a lot.) Oh, I did once try to kill myself by inhaling deeply on a cigar, lol. I don’t recommend it. Unless you like coughing. (It was a long time ago. Stop worrying. I also threw myself down a flight of stairs. A long time ago. I hit the ceiling when I jumped and just ended up with a slightly bloody head. I’m really not very good at this stuff.)
No, the way I tend to navigate my depression is by moaning about it. Hence this thread. It seems to help to write it out and publish it somewhere. On occasion I’ve written a Facebook post. But no-one uses Facebook any more. And it’s easier to moan at strangers — I’m talking about you people — than people who actually know me. Then it’s kinda awkward.
At the same time, I also write threads like this from time to time because I think it’s a social good. People should be no more be ashamed of mental health problems than they are of having cancer.
All this being said, my “low mood” recently was not really anything to do with childhood trauma, and everything to do with the situation I currently find myself in. COVID sucks. I don’t know if you’ve noticed.
So far as my longer-standing issues are concerned, I will say this. Brace yourselves.
Childhood abuse imposes a lifetime of suffering on its victims. You never get over it and it messes you up a lot. So, you know, try to avoid abusing children if you can. I won’t define “childhood abuse” here, because the term covers a range of sins. But if you’ve got kids, try to be nice to them. And if you know kids, try not to be mean to them.
Separate from that, but related to it: one thing that also imposes a lifetime of suffering on its victims is bigotry. The homophobia I suffered — mostly as a child, but still today as an adult, and almost entirely passively inflicted — has caused me misery on a level I don’t suppose you can imagine unless you’ve been a victim of something similar, too. We really need to stop being mean to each other. Homophobia is still a thing. So is racism — how is that true? Why are people still racist? Did they not get the memo? Did they not read it? Are they just really, really stupid? It’s such a toxic stain on society.
Anyhoo, thanks again for the comments and support. Though, I hope you’ll forgive me if I post this meme that I saw on one of my social media feeds this morning.
I’m never looking to be fixed. In part because I don’t think I can be. But yelling into the void helps and, for some reason, it helps more if you know people can hear your screams.
