The Waiting Game

Time is the ultimate equalizer. The wonders of nature and man will be ground to dust, and that dust will fade into the universal uniformity of heat death over trillions of years, according to the current eschatological theories. Time wipes everything clean.

The boughts of anxiety I have been experiencing for the past few weeks have largely subsided. Some of this is due to coping techniques I learned, but I think that most of it can be traced to confronting some of the social circumstances causing the anxiety and working through my feelings.

Left in the fading trail of anxiety is minor depression. The fact is, even once you accept a shitty situation, it still sucks. I am more hopeful than frightened, however. Depression is something familiar to me, and I can more accurately assess it. This seems to be more situational (like the anxiety), rather than the chronic variety that has plagued me in the past (and probably in the future).

What gives me hope? The passage of time.

If you sit back and do nothing, most problems will not solve themselves; however, when you actually put effort into working on yourself and dealing with the problems, time has a nice way of helping you out. It may be difficult to find anything beyond temporary relief from a single therapy session, but when you add up several weeks, the culmilative effect can be surprising.

Like all things, my current state will pass. For that, I am thankful, even if I sometimes look upon my works and despair.

Feels

It normally takes me a while to discuss my mental issues out in the open.

When I was younger, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease and immediately began telling everyone I knew about it in all the gory details (including showing people pictures of the inside of my small intestine). Part of me actually thought it was cool, but in retrospect it is clear that this oversharing was a defense mechanism that made me feel better about something that was very scary at the time.

The thing about mental illness is that there is a stigma attached to it. People tend to view depression as something you can “pull yourself out of,” despite the fact that if someone died from cancer, no one in their right mind would argue that “they just did not fight hard enough.” (Maria Bamford demonstrates this much better than I ever could.)

So, despite a part of me wanting to be open about my depression, I tend to hold back until I know someone better. There is something inappropriate about explaining the time I entered acute group therapy on a first date, for example. Additionally, most people on the street do not need to know about my late nights listening to Coldplay’s “The Scientist” on repeat.

But sometimes, not being open about struggles can cause problems. Keeping things bottled up and suppressing emotions is not healthy. And so, I find myself writing a far too revealing blog post.

When my mental illness was officially diagnosed at the end of high school, the prognosis was depression and anxiety; however, almost all of the symptoms I have been able to consciously notice have been depression related. While anxiety was a problem, it usually manifested itself as clenching my jaw, rather than my heart racing. The only time I have ever had a panic attack was when I tried to get on a (small) rollercoaster and collapsed in the queue. That probably deserves an entire post of its own, though.

Recently, however, I have been experiencing bouts of anxiousness that I only can only compare to how it felt to live away from home for the first time. Those went away eventually, and I came to view the college I was attending as a genuine second home that I miss to this day.

It is entirely possible that the main culprit this time around is the same as before; I recently enrolled in a four-year university for the first time in five years and there is a lot riding on my academic performance. To say that it is the only source of anxiety would be short-sighted, though.

I am not very skilled at making friends. I have always been introverted and shy and self-conscious (some of which was the result of mental illness rather than an inciting factor). Moving to a city for the first time, I naively expected things to be easier this time around. While there are more like-minded folks around Pittsburgh than in the wilds of Pennsyltucky, my social skills have not improved much in a half a decade. Yes, I am more confident in who I am, but I am still very much a loner at times and just plain do not mesh that well with most people.

I am completely okay with that, provided I can find a close-knit group of people to take the place of the dozens of friends a more social person would acquire. And you know what? I have found some of them, already.

So what is the problem? Not to play coy, but I am only comfortable divulging a certain amount publically. But the heart of the matter may be that I am afraid of easily losing that which I gained.

I used to always get the impression that people disliked me. To be fair, I can be very annoying, as so many people in elementary school explained by creating clubs at recess with the sole purpose of excluding me. As my sense of self has matured in the past decade, and as I received treatment for my mental health issues, this has been reduced greatly. But now, it seems that somewhere in the deep recesses of my heart, that fear is alive and well.

This past week, I have been feeling anxiety come over me at an unprecedented rate. At its worst, I was feeling it every few minutes. This has since subsided, thanks in large part to the help of the campus counseling center (those people are doing God’s work). But even as I write this, I wonder what the people I have come to know will think of this confession, and if it will lower their view of me. It is a silly concern, but at the moment, an unshakable one.

I feel guilty whining about it. I know people that struggle with anxiety issues far worse than this. To them, I fear, this rambling post may seem trivial. But it is all very unfamiliar to me and as a result, scary.

I will probably regret posting something this revealing for so many people to read, but I am a firm believer that you regret the things you do not do more than the things you do. Plus, this is super cathartic. And maybe it will make someone else going through something feel less alone.

Or maybe this is just me oversharing again to feel a little less scared.

On Why I Have Not Been Writing Blog Posts Very Often

It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact reason(s) why. This will be a short, muse-y post wherein I prattle on about the topic in an attempt to coax some understanding from myself.

I have gone through creatively stagnant periods before—that is nothing new. While suffering from a bout of depression, I not only found it difficult to write, but I even stopped doodling (which I normally do compulsively while in a class). I got over it, thanks in large part to therapy, and am actually being somewhat productive now when it comes to writing. But somehow I lost interest in my blog for a while.

I periodically come across things that I could blog about, but never get around to actually writing about them. I suspect laziness combined with procrastination (caused by perfectionism?).

Maybe I will tackle some of those topics in the near future.

Something about blog posts this short makes me feel bad(ly?).

Oh, and in good news, I have been published online by the fine people at Apparent Mag!

‘Tis the Season

Because I apparently cannot stand to see myself genuinely happy, I have become worried that I am too materialistic this Christmas. The thing that excites me most is the gifts I will be receiving, not the prospect of seeing family members, not the religious elements. This troubles me. I would like to think of myself as someone who values the intangible, the abstract, and the qualitative in people and things. Instead, I feel like a spoiled child waiting for their pony. (Only my pony has a ten inch touchscreen.)

There are, of course, a few reasons why I should not feel this way. I think I am actually looking forward to giving gifts, for example.

But is that still a focus on the material aspects of the celebration?

Another contributing factor is that I have not personally given any money to charities this year. There will be donations as part of my Christmas gifts, but I have yet to actually take cash out of my own pocket. Part of this is due to my mixed feelings about the Salvation Army, to which I would usually toss my pocket change.

I do not really know where I am going with this post, but writing it was a useful exercise to make myself feel better about my desire for MOAR PRESENTS this year.

Reasons to be Thankful

I meant to get this out by Thanksgiving, but the fantastic thing about blogging is that there are no deadlines. Random things I am thankful for this year, in no particular order:

• My friends and family
• My right to publicly disagree with my government
• Being a white 18-34 year old male in America

While I am sure that there are many other specific things I should be mindful of, these things came to mind the quickest. Mainly, I kept coming back to the privileges I have compared to most other people in the world.

This year, my big ticket item to receive for Christmas may be a tablet. But I am on the fence about it. On the one hand, it would be a pleasure to receive something that can so frivolously be used purely for my delight; on the other, I feel a little guilty about receiving something like that when money spent on me could be used to help other people instead.

My family normally makes donations to charities around Christmas. My favorite is a catalog in which you can order animals for families that depend on sustenance farming. I know that even if I receive my shiny, expensive gizmo, we will donate, but what haunts me is the idea that I alone could be preventing us from doing more.

This probably one of those times when my assessment of the situation is skewed. I have a nasty tendency to create obstacles when I have a chance to be happy. The fact is that I am normally okay with getting presents. It is difficult to determine where the line is between what is reasonable and what is selfish, between what is a sensible concern and what is overkill.

I should be thankful that my livelihood does not depend on the outcome, but what if someone else’s does? Why is it so difficult for me to just be thankful that we can afford such luxuries?

Come to Philly for the Crack

I should be sleeping. I have to be awake for class tonight. But alas, I am out of melatonin. Since I am unable to sleep, I figure I can kill two birds with one stone by also being unable to write.

I have struggled to find something appropriate to blog about the past few days. It would make the most sense to talk about work, but it is my wish that this blog be something more than just a record of my spiraling occupational neurosis.

While at work, I did come across something that may be worth sharing anyway: I find Philadelphia accents indicate a constant orneriness. To me, it is as if the speaker is about to have an angry outburst at any moment.

There was a portly gentleman from Philadelphia in town for the university’s homecoming. While eating breakfast, he asked for me to change the channel on the breakfast area television to weather. Something about the way he said it made me feel like he was in a bad mood. I turned the channel from the usual (CNN’s Early Start) to The Weather Channel.

“No,” he continued, “I want to see the weather for here.”

His tone seemed to belie a certain impatience. I was flummoxed (it had been a long night for me). Eventually it was made clear that he wanted the local weather, but not before I felt like he was on the verge of getting mad.

Of course, he could have just been frustrated. One of several incidents that kept me busy that night was his toilet clogging. The plunger remained elusive, so the best I could do for him was to instruct him to use the public restroom. When you also consider how long it took me to realize that he wanted a local channel on, you have a recipe for an irritable guest. But to me, he seemed to be teetering on the edge of an unearned eruption.

After this, he asked to change the channel again. With my permission, he began tuning the TV to something else. He settled on a screening of Major League on HBO. The movie has some saucy elements, and HBO is the one channel we are never supposed to have on for precisely that reason. Yet, I did not say anything. I was afraid of upsetting the precarious balance of emotions within the man.

I know, I know, this makes me look bad. He had an excuse to be a little upset. Taking this into account, one might draw the conclusion that I simply do not like people from Philadelphia. This is not true. I love It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and my godfather is from the city of brotherly love.

Just like how I'm not racist because of my black friend.

I maintain that even taking into account the circumstances, there was a rising inflection in his voice. It practically sounded like he was looking for a reason to get into an argument. I do not know how else to describe the effect his accent had on me.

Looking back, I am probably overanalyzing everything about this frankly unremarkable situation. And it is kind of boring. But dammit, I got a blog post out of it.

The Looming Threat

I tend to feel inadequate at my job. I try my best to be courteous and nice, but always worry that I am not productive enough. One of my more pessimistic musings is that my niceness will serve only to make it a more uncomfortable conversation when I am eventually fired.

My boss tells me otherwise. It is possible that she is just being polite when I ask about my performance (she is an extraordinarily positive person), but it is more possible that I am just being down on myself.

Oh yeah, about my boss… I kind of maybe sort of broke her finger today.

She came in to relieve me of my nightly duties at seven this morning, and after some pleasantries were exchanged, she requested my assistance. In the process of emptying the dirty rags into the washing machine, the plastic garbage can that we pile the rags into got its mouth wedged in the industrial washer’s opening. It took some minutes of struggling, but with a loud pop, I removed the garbage can.

Immediately following this, my manager let out a sound of distress. I looked at her as she reacted to pain, eyes wide, for several seconds. Eventually she was freed. Though I could not see it from my point of view, her finger had gotten caught between the plastic and the metal.

When she showed me her finger, there was a deep indentation. No skin was broken, but I was nearly sickened by the mark, wincing as I imagined the pain. She has reported that she is okay and applied ice to her injury. She did admit, however, that her finger may be broken.

I apologized as best as I could, but I still feel bad about the accident. Hopefully everything will be alright—by the time I left, she was already in her signature good mood—but while reflecting dwelling on the incident, I could not help but think about how much I might be screwing up. This is a specter that haunts me. Sometimes when I am being self-deprecating I am aware of how ridiculous it is, but other times it more difficult to tell what is real.

I really should try to turn this worrying into something constructive and channel it into better workplace performance.