Depression that will probably go away soon, but is currently still here

That's excellent news!

I'm hella glad you'll be getting your meds, too, omg. It's. This sounds like things are turning out really well, all things considered, and just. I'm really, really happy to hear it.

 

Today was okay. It started kinda terribly (mood drop again), and I slept for most of it, but I felt okay after I woke up around 4 pm. My family went out to dinner and then we went shopping for a birthday gift for my sister's friend (the gift ended up being "things for a spa day" and it was my idea; I'm pleased with myself). I found a shirt I really liked (it was yellow! my favorite color! and it didn't look ugly, which is all I can really ask for of yellow clothing) and some nail polish. The nail polish is for Forest, who is experimenting with painting his nails and I got it because one of the five colors was very close to a color he showed me a while back as really really liking, and I think the purple and silver will also go over well.

My sister, who is 11, said something to the effect of, "Don't let [Forest] paint his nails; it'll make him gay." Gotta love that casual sexism and homophobia that steeps my family. On the other hand, when I told her that neither Forest nor I are straight anyway (most of our acquaintances think Forest is gay, actually, and were surprised when we started dating, and I like to joke that I'm his beard), she did immediately jump to bi and accepted that as a real orientation, so ??? idk, she's 11, I guess it went okay. (About half an hour later, she told me agender and non-binary genders are "retarded" and wow, I did not expect that to hurt as much as it did. Definitely not coming out anytime soon.)

My mom looked pretty pissed the entire time. It's not like I ever explicitly came out to her, but I did have a girlfriend that she knew about, so I'm not sure what else she thought my response to "you don't want your boyfriend to be gay!" would be.

Actually, that might just be a function of her being mad at me again. I think she's mad I slept all day? Because I think she sees me sleeping all day as a function of laziness and me just using this as a vacation from school, rather than a symptom of depression.

Today was also the first day back on my meds! And I go into php tomorrow. I'm also gonna skype Forest tomorrow and do math homework with him, since I haven't actually done any yet.

Also! I got an email from the AC saying the roommate change request had been approved and that when I returned I would be given a list of options of where to go. I'm so glad that went through without mediation, and it's probably because of my therapist. I also contacted the RA and am having her remove my Important Binder of Legal Things and the three textbooks I left behind and give them to Forest, who will be driving to my house Saturday to give them to me. (Things to consider: he's not spending the night this weekend, but he will be spending the night for four days over new year's. Where is he going to sleep, if not my room, with my aunt staying here indefinitely? Idk, but I've got two months to figure it out.)

I think I'm gonna drop one of my classes because I'm not doing well in it and I know I'm not doing well in it and I don't think I can recover from missing two weeks in the three weeks that will be remaining of the semester. I'm gonna email the professor about it first, though.

Anyway, kinda looking forward to tomorrow.

 

Good luck! I hope today goes well! :)

 

Today has been interesting. Had two super emotional conversations, one good, one idk.

One, came out to my sister as agender/non-binary. She thinks I'm a transman, like my dad. On the one hand, no, on the other, at least you don't think I'm cis anymore? Not that anyone has ever been surprised by my coming out so far though.

Two. Directly asked my mother if she loved me. Got a lecture about how all I have is asperger's and adhd.

She did say that she fucked up when she was trying to make me not have asperger's because all she did was teach me to hate myself, so. That was something. That was an acknowledgement I have wanted for a very long time.

It's really really hard, sometimes, to believe that my mother loves me, because the whole "taught me to hate myself" is pretty true, plus she says shit like, "people with mental illnesses are unlovable" and "you don't have adhd, you're just lazy and want a medical excuse to not have to fix that."

I think she is potentially latching onto the ASD diagnosis she refused to let me get as a child as an explanation for why things are so fucked up now. It's. It's whatever. Interesting she's acknowledging the adhd as real though. And she wasn't mad that I was going to therapy when I was going to therapy, I was just a "difficult child."

I ... I am never going to get what I want from my mother.

Rationally, I've known this for awhile. Working towards making peace with this has been a major topic of therapy for the last year for me. But every time something happens that makes it so obvious, it's like I'm relearning this all over again. My mom is never going to love me the way I want her too, with hugs and without the lecturing about how everything I believe is wrong. It's just not going to happen. We might get closer to her acknowledging that things she did to me as a child fundamentally hurt me, even if that wasn't the intention, like we did today, but she can't change how she treats me.

She literally thinks I'm emotionally a five year old and that I'm "socially retarded" (which. I don't really disagree with that last part). She thinks I'm depressed because I don't know how to adult. She thinks treating my depression is "just a bandaid."

I kinda just want to sit and cry though, because literally all I wanted was refutation of the idea that my mother doesn't love me, and maybe a hug (because I am basically the only physical person in my family, and that means I am always touch starved). I wanted to know that she wanted me, and that I wasn't some disaster she regretted having since she "never wanted children anyway." Instead, I got, "you aren't depressed but I can't fix it and you're killing me because I love you."

But my sister has a party for her soccer team, and since I'm here I'm trying to be more involved with family life, so I guess I'll cry later. I'll talk to Dove and Forest. And it'll be okay, even if it isn't right now.

 

Today needs to fucking end. Holy shit. Am I mad? Am I hurt? Who knows! Not me.

The party: I knew like four people, parties are not my thing, it was okay for like the first hour and then I became increasingly Done and it took forever, and that was such a spoon drain, like holy shit.

Then after I had like maybe an hour to regroup my dad wanted to talk and like. I'd talked to my sister today, I'd talked to my mom today, sure, why not! Plus I'd been meaning to talk to him and just hadn't gotten around to it, so. Time to rip off the bandaid.

The conversation was okayish, but honestly the content of that doesn't fucking matter. Because it ended on him telling me my reason for killing myself Saturday was lazy and stupid and then fucking laughing.

To be fair, the laugh may have been because we're both shit at social things, and I tend to laugh and smile when I'm uncomfortable, and so I hope to god that's why he laughed. (I do actually tell people when we're having conversations about Serious Shit irl that I may start smiling and it's not because I'm happy necessarily, it's because I'm really really uncomfortable. So there's precedent in me for the behavior.)

I'm finding a bunch of how-to articles in the vein of "what to do when your child is depressed." And then emailing them. And possibly printing some off and giving those to them in person.

I'm titling the email "I Cannot Deal With Your Inability To Handle This Appropriately," subtitled: "You're My Parents; Teaching You This Is NOT MY FUCKING JOB." Forest has suggested the alternate title: "You Have No Fucking Clue What You're Doing So Here Goddammit." I may use that instead.

Like, okay. My parents seriously fucked up handling my depression in high school. There's no way around that. But I actively wasn't talking to them, and they never even noticed my suicide attempt (it's not like I got very far), so like. Okay. Strike one, here's round two.

THEY ARE POSSIBLY HANDLING IT WORSE????? WHAT?

Look, man. You get one chance to try again. I am not so stupid as to give you indefinite second chances. Figure your shit out, because I cannot handle your inability to handle this appropriately on top of trying to figure out how to, like, actually want to be alive and enjoy myself.

Articles. Email. Going to fucking bed.

 

Heck. Hopefully tomorrow will be much better, Idiomie.

Definitely feeling you on the 'family not grokking that depression is a thing and not failure to adult'.

 

I wasn't able to do the email last night because our internet decided to spaz out. So I ended up doing it about half an hour ago. The madness has passed, both in that I'm no longer angry and no longer apparently nuts, because I can't believe I actually sent them that email, with a paragraph about how they needed to reach out and ask for help and advice, because I couldn't manage trying to teach them about depression while trying to recover.

So this is one of the things I've been working on in therapy, where I will do something that I think will make someone mad (who am I kidding, I know it'll make them mad; I talked to my sister about it before sending, and while she thought it was a good idea, she also told me to lay low for a few hours), I immediately catastrophize that they will hate me, and never want to speak to me, and that I'm inherently unlovable for doing whatever I did.

Okay, writing it out made me feel better and a little silly for feeling like this, but the point still stands. This is why I hate conflict and anything that can be read as "fighting back." I feel this way about Dove sometimes, and she knows this and goes out of her way to make it clear that she can be angry with me and still love me!

Still. Not gonna leave my room anytime soon.

 

Ariel started texting my right after this, and the opening text seemed like her threatening me again. (She was talking about being told stuff by the RA about our room change; I spoke to the AC today, who is above the RA, so anything she would try to threaten me with is things I already know and I know there's nothing she can threaten me with. This did little to stem the anxiety though.)

Forest has something going down with a friend that sounds concerning but obviously I can't deal with that.

And there was the email I sent to my parents.

Wound up taking a hot shower to calm down, I feel slightly better. (I want to make tea, but all my tea is in the room I share(d) with Ariel.) It turned out the texts were actually just fairly polite requests to move furniture. (Are they polite because I can't read social cues and so can't tell they're threatening beyond feeling slightly threatened or are they actually polite? Who knows.) Nothing has come of the email I sent and I may venture downstairs. I hate being home because I really want to cuddle someone and there is no one here I can do that with. :/ Oh well. Sitting on the couch in the family room while reading my textbook will do.

In other news, my professors have finally started replying to the emails I sent. I have a bunch of quizzes and an exam to make up the day after I get back, followed by a presentation in Spanish in my Spanish class the day after that. So much to do, but I think it's probably manageable. Deep breaths.

 

My parents finally responded to the email. We've agreed that communicating via text or email is probably best for this. (It's mostly because of me. I can't handle the stress of doing this face to face.) I was asked to send a follow up email with the key points of what I want them to get out of the articles, because they will "probably get very different things" out of them.

??? Most of these have key points like listen, don't lecture (looking at you, Mom) or provide a non-judgmental environment when communicating (Dad). Or there are the three articles about comorbidity between autism and depression (basically, why having autism doesn't somehow magically rule out that I'm depressed?? which is something both of my parents put forth yesterday as "the real reason" I'm struggling). I'm gonna do it, and I'm glad it didn't get dismissed out of hand or treated with anger or scorn (it was a very ... confrontational email, tbh), but I really am curious to know how they're reading it to not get those messages. Both of those are lifted as being section titles from two different articles? I am a little confused.

But whatever. The email seems to have gone over okay. Not gonna hope for a massive change in behavior as they suddenly realize the error of their ways or whatever, but changes like "doesn't immediately jump to telling me I'm stupid or ridiculous for feeling a certain way" would be nice. And maybe understanding that things like brain fog and trouble sleeping at night and sleeping during the day are all symptoms of my depression, not me being lazy. (The brain fog is maybe asking for too much, but if they could just start to appreciate how much depression fucks with my sleep schedule, that would be great.)

 

I got to explain to a therapist why yes, an autism diagnosis does make sense for me, even though I no longer present in an obvious way. A combination of training to pass very well and being afab tends to garner lots of disbelief.

It kinda makes me feel like I'm lying or making it up, even though she wasn't dismissive at all and was very respectful, she just didn't know a lot about autism because it's not her specialty or something she works with often, which she said herself. And there's all the evidence of basically anyone who knew me between the ages of 4 and 14 saying, "yeah, something was not quite right." It really wasn't until I'd been in cotillion for about three years that I started to act in a way that could be consistently and believably interpreted as "a sorta weird, introverted allistic" rather than "we don't want to say developmentally disabled, but have you considered-" that my parents got a lot.

Got some fallout from the email, I think: a short lecture about how maybe I don't like art therapy because looking at coping skills I don't have makes me uncomfortable, plus a reference to the lecture Sunday. But it was shorter than usual? And dropped much more quickly than usual, which might also be because of the email. (I don't like art therapy because I don't like art therapy. DBT's not really my thing either, but I like CBT and find it useful and while I never feel like I'm making much progress day to day or even week to week, suicide attempt notwithstanding, I'm in a much better place than I was, say, two years ago.) Really, I just wanted to complain about the Art Hippy therapist, who is apparently actually an art therapist, and is also apparently my primary therapist, and how I don't like her because I don't find her sessions useful and I dislike that she tried to corner me into giving a religious or spiritual answer as a way of "healing myself" today. But thanks, Mom, I guess the real reason I don't like art therapy is that writing out "safe coping skills" and taping them onto a whiteboard makes me uncomfortable because I don't have any.

Ehhh. If this is the worst of the fallout, I'm okay. Three days of therapy left, and then I'm back on campus. My meds are finally kicking in. I dropped the one class where the teacher never responded to the email I sent and I don't think I can catch up two weeks of missed work and pass with a good grade. Everything is back to feeling manageable and I no longer feel like my life is spinning out beyond my control, so that's good.

 

Nothing is better than coming downstairs and your baby sister approaches you and very quietly tells you to be careful because Mom is mad and she thinks she made Mom mad and just be careful. (Okay, this is the wrong thread, but like. Is that normal? Is it normal for siblings to have constant quiet private conversation about "Is Mom angry?" every day and for my older younger sister and I to discuss how to be around Mom and the youngest siblings so that if she yells at anyone, it's us? Is it normal that baby sister, who is 11, has mentioned doing the same thing for our brother, who is the youngest of us??? ... It's probably not.)

In other news, though, the email appears to have had it's intended effect? At least on my dad. Jury is still out on my mom, but maybe that's why her lecture wasn't really a lecture today, it just felt like it should have been. My dad and I had a nice conversation, and he said they needed to work on listening more and were trying and that they needed to engage me in more conversations about what I'm doing and how I'm doing and how I'm helping myself get better. And I'm super glad about that. (They also got "should have taken the internet and my phone away from me in high school" which I'm unsurprised by because the buy into the idea that the internet is killing my generation and several of the articles had the theme of "internet bad! only meatspace friends are real!!" so. Okay. We can talk about it and why I disagree. That's okay.)

 

Pros to being on my meds:
- No longer depressed

Cons:
- laughing, all the time, hysterically. why are things so funny?!
- also getting irrationally and disproportionately angry about things
- hOW DID I EVER SIT STILL FOR LONGER THAN 20 MINUTES?!?!?!???

 

It's not normal for that to happen constantly. Everyone has moods that they are not well approached in as a part of just how humans are flawed beings, but it's not healthy to have a relationship where you're constantly walking on eggshells or watching out for a mood.
For example, my mom is easily stressed, and when stressed, won't take anything unexpected well. But that's like... a once in a while concern, maybe twice a month at most. In fact, when it did get to be a nigh-constant mood for her, she went to the doctor, discovered the bad mood was because of health things, and got prescribed stuff to help, and things are much better again now.

 

Yeah, it. My mom has got a problem, and it's pretty well known that she lashes out when she's under a lot of stress, and my mom appears to be under a lot of stress at all times so. :/ She doesn't take being told to get help for it very well though. It's ... whatever.

I'm finally feeling put together in a way I wasn't this time last week, which means we're planning my return to campus next week, and wow, do I not feel prepared. The roommate change was approved, but I don't actually have a new room yet, so I'm returning to the room I share with Ariel and I am. not pleased. Ideally, I will be able to move either Tuesday or Thursday next week, but we'll see.

I sent an email to my advisor, I should be seeing him Thursday. I sent an email to the accommodations guy, should see him ?? next week. I have forgotten what accommodations I wanted, and am also worried about that.

Having a family meeting with Art Hippy and my parents tomorrow. Also just need to have a conversation with my parents and I'm not looking forward to it because I want it to go well, but experience tells me they'll let me talk and then talk over me and retell whatever I said however it makes them feel best. :/

Also Art Hippy just makes me mad, because there's a woman in my group who's a retired flight medic, and who lowkey I think has PTSD although she hasn't talked about it, and she very politely asked for people to not scrape the chairs against the floor. It's not hard to do (it takes a little effort, you have to remember to lift up the chair before backing out, but it isn't hard), but Art Hippy just keeps "forgetting," despite the fact that the woman clearly has a super negative response to this (she nearly flinched out of her chair today, super bad response.) PTSD-y behavior aside, she's also autistic, so it might be a sensory thing, or it might be a sensory and PTSD feeding off of each other thing. Idk, doesn't actually matter, and if she wasn't autistic and potentially PTSD, I'd still argue we should try not to scrape the chairs because hello, has no one here heard of manners, but Art Hippy's utter obliviousness to her [the woman] discomfort and distress when she's a therapist deeply deeply upsets me. If I was doing php for longer than two more days now (if I had, say, at least another week left), I think I would request a different primary therapist. Between this, and the trying to corner me into a religious answer the other day, and the fact that she just doesn't click with me, I wouldn't want her for anything long term.

 

How are things going?

 

Man, I don't even know. Better? I think things are going well, even though I'm mostly feeling kinda overwhelmed. But emotionally, I'm wayyyy more stable, and that counts for a lot.

Yesterday was really great. My dad drove me back to campus, I got my stuff taken to Forest's room, Forest and I went to see a play and had pizza. We also went to bed early because my brain was ready to shut off at like 7 last night and staying up until I think 9 was when we turned in took so much effort. Neither of us slept well, either. :/

Went to my first round of classes since being back. Walked into a class that was taking an exam I had forgotten was that day, told the professor I can't take the exam because missed two weeks of school, and had to walk out. Ah. So much shame right now. Most of my professors are being really chill, though, and working with me, and that's helping ease my anxiety about being back a lot. I've got a test to take tomorrow, and I've got a lot of backlogged homework and assignments due Friday and next Tuesday (we go on break for Thanksgiving the day after), but I think it's manageable. I'm really relieved my professors are being so accommodating and that I'm not having to explain why I had to leave for two weeks, just that I did and I need their help getting everything together.

I also talked to Queer Cat and will be talking to Mama Cat tonight about my suicide attempt because a) they're two of my closest friends on campus and b) they're the people I went out drinking with and it's not obligation exactly, but they're close to me and I want to let them know. Also because I want to make sure that they don't think what happened two weeks ago was their fault. Forest did exactly what I asked, which is didn't tell anybody anything, so Queer Cat was definitely surprised and suspect Mama Cat will be too.

I need to go get a plant that a girl left me from Ariel now. And then I have a meeting with the AC to move forward in the room change process, because no one has replied to emails.

I love my parents, and they are finally trying in a way I can see and measure, but I'm so glad to be back on campus, where my actual support system is. My parents just don't know what they're doing and I'm a lot less angry than I was now that they're trying but sometimes I just don't know how to talk to them or rely on them for these kinds of things. Here, I have my therapist and my psychiatrist and my friends, who are all involved and checking in on me. I feel a lot more secure.

I also got told that "drop out of college and go to the local community college" was apparently a joke. And that my parents will cover all of next semester's tuition because I've spent basically all my money on unexpected medical bills. Idk how I feel about that being a joke, because it definitely didn't feel like one, but it's a relief to not have to worry about the money.

I'm not 100%, but I'm better than I was, and I can see how things will get better if I can just wait a little longer.

 

I kind of meant to post an update Monday: I still have my job! But we're doing holiday hours now, so I work until ten, which is why I didn't do an update Monday (I was so tired).

Other things that happened Monday: So I still struggle with feeling like the break up with Ariel was my fault and that I was stupid for letting her treat me the way she did and also, what if I was actually terrible and the abusive one and now Ariel is hurt and needs someone to talk to but none of our friends will do it because I poisoned them against her. I am particularly distressed by the idea that I was potentially the abusive one, because I didn't grow up with the best model for how to treat loved ones, and that's something I'm terrified of with basically everyone I love.

Forest and I talked about this. (Actually, Forest, Dove and I talked about it, because at one point it went to the group chat.) It turned into sort of an argument because I would not let go of the idea that it was my fault that Ariel treated me poorly and that I was really the one who was terrible. Forest was very, very patient throughout this. The topic was eventually put aside, in favor of my new neurosis, I'm arguing with you, and I'm clearly being stupid, why aren't you mad at me? It's two days later, and I'm still struggling a little to wrap my head around the fact that he isn't mad at me, and doesn't even seem frustrated that I kept repeating the same thing over and over. Also. He doesn't mind me asking if he's angry, or asking if asking if he's angry makes him mad.

It's strange. A good strange? But I feel dumb for having to ask, or for arguing in favor of things that I rationally know aren't true and yet can't stop believing, and keep expecting him to just get fed up. And broaching that mess of anxiety was terrifying, because I didn't want to have a fight about how we aren't having a fight. That would be even dumber.

Dove's advice here was, and I quote, "Then fight!" We had a discussion about healthy arguments, and why disagreeing can be important, and there was the very good example that I'm far less afraid of Dove's reaction to us disagreeing. (Well, yes. Dove, I have history that tells me we can fight and be okay. Forest and I have never had a fight. I have no idea what's going to happen.)

Dove's advice was apparently the impetus my exhausted mind needed to just blurt out that I was scared and why, and I don't really remember what happened after that. I was kinda falling asleep because it was also well after 11pm by then, and I had had a very long day. What I remember was that Forest turned the conversation into math. And somehow that turned into him not being mad at me, and also it being okay.

So I think it went alright. Telling Forest I'm scared because I don't know how he'll react is apparently a thing I can do? And it goes fine. (I'm still working on talking to him when we're discussing something he's really passionate about and frustrated by because eye contact and his tone immediately makes me think he's angry. But he's pretty good about eye contact and I think the talking thing is going okay. It seemed to last night.)

PHP was actually pretty useful in this respect, because we had several sessions on boundaries and interpersonal communication, and while I didn't get many concrete skills to apply or whatever, thinking about it and recognizing that lol, I'm hilariously bad at setting boundaries in close relationships, and at communicating those boundaries, was helpful.

I also hadn't really noticed this, but the extent to which Dove and Forest get along is actually really great. And Forest is the first SO I've had who isn't even a little bit threatened by my relationship with Dove. It's nice. I'm excited for New Year's, because Forest is spending it with me, and all three of us will be at the family New Year's party and I'm just looking forward to having both of them in the same place again.

 

Update: I'm moving out tonight. I'm moving into a temporary room with a girl I can't stay with, and will need to move again within two weeks, but. I'm out of the room Ariel and I shared.

I'm terrified and I don't even know why.

In other news, I met with my major advisor, and we planned my major out (I shouldn't have to take an extra semester because of this and last semester!!), and then we talked about what happened. My advisor and I have talked before about my depression - he's really easy to talk to and suffers from (has it managed? usually uses past tense) depression himself. When he asked if I was okay, I didn't feel like lying, so I told him about the suicide attempt and why I went home.

It was good. It was really good. It turned into a pep talk, but the kind I can actually stomach. And the last 20 minutes of our meeting where basically him reminding me that I'm actually a brilliant student, which I don't feel but. It's nice to hear. It's reassuring, that he doesn't think I'm a fuck up.

 

Just had my meeting with the disability services and academic accommodations guy. It went better than I expected. I am getting accommodations!

I get a break during class, and can request modified coursework and due dates. I also get modified coursework for when I'm fiddling with meds and dosages, which is great, because I'm doing that next semester.

 

weird *fun* facts about depression: most people attempt suicide when they are getting better. why? increased energy, but still have hopeless outlook. they haven't caught up to each other, basically.
so... a weird little point to bolster the "you Are getting better"

Also, on points of: New weird brain things, it's hella important to remember that good stress is still stress, and stress fucks with our ability to cope. this seems like it's been a really stressful few months, and I wouldn't be surprised if you were feeling that