It’s been a rough few weeks.

This week was no exception.

I’ve been agitated.

I’ve been depressed.

I can’t help but think that a psychosis episode is around the corner.

I’m “due” for one, even though I hate saying that.

But it’s true.

It’s been a few months since I’ve had one.

Or maybe this is a depressive episode.

But I’m due for an arthritic flare too. 

It’s been about five months since I’ve had one of those.

I’m overdue for all of them.

Damnit.

I have my next vein ablation in like a week and a half, on the 15th, it’s on a Tuesday.

Thank fuck.

My right leg is fucking killing me.

The muscle relaxer is helping, but obviously it’s not a cure all.

At least I can move my foot under my knee now while I sit.

I wasn’t able to do that before the muscle relaxer, my leg was way too stiff.

I’ve been trying to reach out to people online and finally in person this week.

I’ve been spending time this week at my counseling office, in the art room with some of the other folks that hang out there, and with the art and group leader/instructor.

It’s been nice because I can take Bruce and we can get out of the apartment for a while.

We can spend some time around humans and not just by ourselves like we always do.

I’ve been finding it extremely difficult to be around folks that aren’t working on themselves hardcore.

So when I hang out there, I’m around like minded people that just want to be healthier and happier mentally.

And they’re all putting the work into themselves.

And I gotta say, it’s fucking awesome and refreshing.

I was talking about something I’m going through the other day and everyone was putting in their opinion and they were so helpful and healthy, and they were all giving me great coping strategies and options.

Like, I’ve never been surrounded by people who cared so much about my mental well being.

And they know me and I know them because we do a life skills class together, and group.

Well, it was my second group meeting this last week, but I want to go to more.

I will go to more.

I’ve been going to the life skills class for a while now, about a year or so.

It’s just one of the healthiest things I’ve been involved with in a long time.

And I just love that Bruce can come with me and everyone loves him there, and he loves going there too.

He howls a ton every time I ask him if he wants to go with me, before we leave the house.

Before I decided to spend time at my counseling office, I was really getting in my head again.

That’s why I feel like a psychotic episode is around the corner.

I’m still in my head about a couple of things that I don’t feel like sharing today.

But I will share a couple of other things that I’m obsessing about.

Some way less embarrassing things.

The sadness.

I’ve been so sad this week.

It started Sunday, really.

And that’s how this shit always starts, I just wake up one day in a fucking mood.

I’ve been lucky the duloxetine they put me on several months ago now has been keeping my depression at bay very well for a while now.

But I think everything has come crashing down this last week and the week before.

I think everything has just been compounding on itself and it’s not relenting.

And besides, I’m still learning what feelings feel like, if that makes sense.

The main thing is I’ve been pushing away some frustration and sadness that is Bruce coming to the eventual end of his life, reaching out and failing online and that is losing another friend.

I know I just need to deal with it all.

Mainly Brucie.

But it’s hard because part of this deals with a friend, and I have very few friends right now.

I know I need to let this friend go, but I don’t want to lose anyone right now.

It’s just all around a fucking difficult situation.

It’s a shituation, if you will.

And I don’t know where to start, but I know it needs to end.

And it’s making me really sad and mad.

And I’ve been pushing my feelings aside for the last few months.

And I’ve been in my head about it which never ends up good for me.

I just have to focus on myself and let the rest go.

And with Bruce all of this river bacteria we’ve been dealing with the past few months, and the antibiotics, and the multiple  trips to the vet, and the expenses, and then that fucking  insecticide scare we had last week – it’s just been so fucking stressful.

I know he’s 11 in a few weeks, and he’s getting to the end of his life span soon, and I don’t want to think about it and it’s extremely painful to even write about.

So I’ll switch the subject again.

To top it all off, I’ve been getting reamed into all week.

I’ve been trying to reach out more online this week because I’ve just been straight up lonely lately.

And all three times I tried to reach out this week I was met with people railing into me, hard.

I even talked about it in therapy.

What am I doing?

Am I wording things strangely?

(I think so)

But I would look at the comments and not see anything super wrong with them.

The other folks are just assholes I think.

This one group, a PTSD meme group, I commented on a toxic positivity post.

It said to call your depression something like overcoming obstacles or something absurd like that.

I commented that there’s nothing wrong with being depressed and it’s nothing to be ashamed of or feel guilty about and I said casually with no punctuation, don’t make me leave the group.

And I meant it in a finger waving type joking way, it’s a meme group, I was being sarcastic, ya know?

I’m not gonna leave the entire group over a meme, that’s silly.

Someone had posted under my original toxic positivity statement the “100” emoji, like, right away.

And then a moderator, someone from admin in this PTSD group remember, just railed into me like an hour later.

Leave the fucking group then, you’re being a fucking victim, you’re playing fucking victim, I used to be like you until I stopped blaming everything around me, you definitely need to leave this fucking group, blah blah blah and on and on in two different paragraphs.

I just said back “wow”.

I almost said that I was just being sarcastic, but I could tell it wasn’t worth it.

Because then she railed another paragraph into me and my character, telling me to leave the fucking group and quit blaming other people for my shortcomings.

When that wasn’t the point I was making.

I merely said depression is nothing to be ashamed of.

She was talking like she thinks she knows everything about me.

I deleted my two, I thought innocent comments, and I then reported the group to fb and left the group.

I continued to ugly cry for the next thirty minutes to an hour. 

That bitch has no idea who I am, what I go through and how much I have worked on not being the “victim” anymore.

And there’s no talking to her, she wasn’t talking, she was right and that was that. 

I was so paranoid for a day or two after that she was going to hack my fb page and I was going to have to start over again with it.

This is why I hate commenting sometimes. 

Unless you write an entire paragraph totally explaining your view, emojis to the wall, it’s so easy to get misinterpreted.

So maybe it IS me that’s in the wrong with some of these comments and trying to reach out.

Maybe I’m not noticing what I’m saying still.

Maybe I’m bad at this.

I used to be really bad at this.

I say what’s on my mind and I don’t hold back usually.

But lately I’ve been trying to think more before I speak and I think I’ve been doing a lot better but I obviously still need to work on it, like a lot, a lot.

Because that’s not the only time something like that happened last week, that was just the worst one.

All of that makes me not want to reach out online.

So I’m stopping for now.

I have a couple of safe spaces on fb, so I’ll post there and only there.

I’ve just been so fucking sad the past couple of weeks.

It’s been engulfing.

I’ve cried every day for over two weeks.

So I think I am in a depression episode, even though my duloxetine (antidepressant) works so well, it can’t always stop my darkness from creeping up.

– Keren