A Quick One, While She's Away.

Reflecting on my mental health and it's consequences.

I started rewatching Bojack Horseman from the very beginning yesterday, as I do, once every couple weeks. It started as me playing Season 1 while I put some laundry away and changed my sheets, because it really helps me to get tasks done while something I’ve seen a million times plays in the background. But when Season 2 started, I actually sat down to watch it and pay attention. 

When it got to episode 10, “Yes And” we see Diane staying in Bojack’s house post- Cordovia because she’s lying to Mr. Peanutbutter about where she is.  While she’s there she’s negative, drinking herself to sleep and laying around for two months and some change. Obviously, if you have common sense, you recognize this as a depressive episode but eventually she does drag Bojack down with her. 

I’m not going to use this time to defend Diane, even though I would like to because you really wouldn’t believe the amount of people who blame Diane for his relationship with Wanda ending and even go as far as to blame her for what happens with Penny the next episode. 

But like I said, not here to defend her. 

Watching that episode had me reflecting on myself, my mental health and my behavior last year. 

This is really difficult to write– one, because I don’t really talk about personal stuff, especially not on such a scale and two, it’s not something I have addressed with myself yet.. I just opened this document and started writing. 

Recently, I have found myself alone. I have unfortunately fallen out with close friends of mine that I still truly love and adore. And while all of the problems that existed in our friendships are not all my fault, I have started to think about my part in them. 

I think I could confidently say I’ve felt depression all throughout my childhood to now, even though I couldn’t identify it then. This feeling of sadness and emptiness followed me around like an imaginary friend. But I have never felt it to the extent that I felt it last year. 

I was gone, I was not a person. Happy things made me feel sad, sad things made me feel sad, really mundane things that would regularly be an annoyance made me angry. I was constantly complaining, I constantly felt pressure from everything, even things that had nothing to do with me – especially things that had nothing to do with me. I’ve never felt more like a victim than I did last year. At the time, I felt like I was constantly screaming out for people to see me, even when it wasn’t my time to be seen. 

And even though I know why I was acting that way, and can pinpoint almost every single extenuating circumstance that was making me so depressed.. That must have been really exhausting to be around. 

Recently, I’ve entered a new era in my life – employment(it’s okay, you can laugh), and it’s really helped me to lengths that I didn’t even know it could. I’m not making nearly enough money but when I’m working I feel like I have purpose and I can do something. Especially because I’m doing something that I’ve always loved, which is teaching. 

I was unemployed for over a year. I felt like such a waste of space, and I didn’t realize that a lot of my feelings of worthlessness were connected to me not having a job because I’ve always been a person that needed something to do. 

Anyway, now that I am feeling better, I’m feeling so much more social, I feel so much more productive, I feel lighter than I ever have been. But when I look around me, the people that I would’ve shared that with are not there. 

Whoever I was last year, was so deep in my shit that I couldn’t even see. I didn’t think about anyone else’s feelings and I didn’t even care. I don’t even remember half of it. And I wouldn’t necessarily blame myself 100% for some of my relationships ending, but I know for sure that the me that I am right now would handle all those situations differently and that keeps me up at night. 

I’m thankful that I am alive enough now to want to feel the love and adoration for the people in my life again, and to feel the desire to make amends – if they let me. 

But I saw a tweet yesterday that ordinarily would just be a joke, but it terrified me. 

ely kreimendahl @ElyKreimendahl

I always think my feelings are SO COMPLICATED but then Spring happens and I’m like oh no wait I’m fine

Because what if what I was going through was just seasonal depression and what if it comes back when it gets cold again? What if the second I feel sad, lonely, or when summer comes and I don’t have a job again I start to sink back in? What if I sink back in because there’s just a chemical imbalance in my brain that I can’t fight? 

I don’t have a diagnosis, I don’t have medication, I don’t have a therapist. 

The exhaustion that I was feeling just in January was debilitating, I didn’t even have the energy to sob. My handwriting in my journal is so bad because I scribbled the majority of it in the dark because I couldn’t even get out of bed to turn my light on. And I feel so good right now that I feel like if this gets taken away from me again, it might be harder to get back here.. Especially if the reason I feel good is because of outside circumstances that are not permanent. 

I relate to Diane Nyugen in a lot of ways, as you all probably know because I won’t stop talking about it. But as much as I hate to admit it, I relate to Bojack too–  especially in my ability to feel sorry for myself. Feeling depressed to me hurts so good because it’s comfortable. There’s nothing to expect, you just do this until you die. 

But finally feeling happy hurts so good because it’s terrifying, you have so much to lose, anything could change and any moment and you have to fight to hold onto this feeling. 

The thing I admire most about Diane is her ability to keep going, no matter how terrible she felt she was always fighting for something more. And I want to be like that. 

So while my depression is “gone” I will remember it, and remember what it did to me. And maybe now I’ll read this if I need to. 

But while I’m happy I’m going to enjoy it, I’m not going to live in fear. So if it starts to slip away I know for sure that I’ll want to do whatever it takes to get it back. 

“Life’s a bitch and then you die, right?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes life’s a bitch and then you keep living.”