Can I just say that I do not celebrate my mental illness? I own it. I accept it. I abhor it. I understand it. I know that I would not be who I am without depression and anxiety (and whatever else my brain expresses through various neurotransmitters or lack thereof.) I went to college for psychology. I wanted to be a clinical psychologist and start my own practice. I grew up with a repeating pattern wallpaper in my room with the characters from Peanuts, Lucy in her ‘the doctor is in’ lemonade stand, and Charlie Brown, seeking advice for five cents. I’m not sure if this influenced my decision, you know, that one you have to make before you turn 18, whether to go to college or not. I decided I wanted to go to school for another 6-8 years at least, to break into the field and then get my doctorate. Thought I was a lot more motivated and passionate about it than I was. Friends always said I gave them great advice. I like giving people an insight into other perspectives, and I enjoy the same. But I wonder what I would have become if not for my depression and anxiety.
I don’t hide the fact that I was suicidally depressed from the age of 12 (a year you will hear about a lot in this blog, so please don’t be too weirded out) up until the age of 28. I went through a transformation. One you’ll read about in another entry. Suffice to stay, the self-destruct button in my brain is no longer there, constantly nagging at me to push it. I did a lot of stupid shit for most of my life because I didn’t have the desire to live past a certain age. I figured when it got to that point that I didn’t want to be around any longer, I’d just choose to leave. Hunter S. Thompson, Robin Williams, they chose to keep themselves from falling into a point of no return. So I made a lot of terrible choices. They led me terrible places.
I’d like to think I’m well past all of that. Another time, mostly forgotten save the people who remember me from the days of Yahoo Chat. Oh yes, I’m one of those people. But if there’s anything I’ve learned it’s that I wouldn’t be where I am now if it weren’t for where I’ve been. All of my choices, good or bad, everything out of my control, has led me to where I am now. Frankly, it’s fucking fantastic. Except for the anxiety and to a lesser extent, depression. There are still so many things I could be doing, or doing better, if not for the crippling and constant fear of failure. I’m a perfectionist and a procrastinater. In the few months that I was able to afford to see a therapist last year, I learned that a lot of perfectionists are. We get so caught up in the details of and wanting something to be perfect that we have a difficult time even getting started. That’s one reason I feel like learning programming has been such a challenge for me.
But I still want to be and do and see all the things. I feel like I have so much of myself to share with the world. I don’t know why I feel like I need to share myself. I’ve always been a very giving person. Which is why I’m a submissive. I can also be incredibly selfish, but I’m working on that. I’m a work in progress. My husband James is a big reason for that. He makes me want to be a better person. I’m more motivated now that I ever have been. I just went through another rebirth in my life. Like the phoenix, every few years I am reborn from the ashes of my former self. Big life changes affect me, dramatically sometimes. “Always learning, always growing” is one of my mantras. The people who cease to learn and grow, they are the ones I pity more than those who overcome adversity. Because it is on the other side of a challenge that we learn from it. Those who face no challenges, no adversity don’t continuously evolve into a better version of themselves.
I sometimes fear that if I lost my anxiety, I wouldn’t have enough fear to motivate me. That I would just be content with the bare minimum and not worry about trying to do better. Because I’m also really fucking lazy. I acknowledge that. I am flawed in a lot of different ways. For example, nearly every sentence begins with the letter “I.” Clearly I’m conceited and not a very good writer. People have told me they enjoy my writing, however, which is why I decided to write this blog. I enjoy writing about my weird life and as long as people enjoy reading about it, I’ll continue to do so.
Introspective Perception 