Tag Archives: fake it to make it

Plastic Bag

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I hate this. I hate it when I can’t stop it. When I know it’s coming and there isn’t anything I can do. I feel like the tears fall silently for no reason and there’s no stopping it. I’m not sad about anything. Nothing is wrong. It’s just me. I’m wrong. I’m broken. I can’t explain it and I can’t win. I never feel good enough. I feel like I’m always suffocating. Like I can’t breathe.

Deep breaths don’t help. I try to breathe deep and slow, but it doesn’t help. The deeper I breathe, the more I feel like I can’t. The more I feel like I’m trying to breathe life into a dead husk. It feels like I’m dead inside.

Deep sadness that I can’t stop, I can’t change. The deep depression that never stops. It doesn’t go away, I just have to live with it. It comes on so fast. It’s like I was fine the second before, and then it just hits me, and it feels like there are worse things than death. Death is a release from the invisible pain.

It hurts. It hurts so much to live. I wish sometimes I could step out and come back when it feels better.

It starts with the muscle aches. The misalignment in my spine, the aching in my jaw, and the headaches. Then it continues onto aches throughout my whole body. Then anxiety, and then the irritability. After that comes nausea. Each step, I know it’s coming. Then it’s like someone hit me. I’m overwhelmed with the feeling of lack of self worth, no energy, and it feels like everyone I know would be better off without me. A waste of space. A mistake. A failure. In the way. A problem.

I feel like a problem with no solution. Broken, with no way to fix me unless I’m totally replaced. I feel like my heart is broken. For no reason, which makes me feel even worse. There is no answer, no solution, and I feel like I have a mental plastic bag over my head and I’m underwater. Like I’m choking on toxic air, and everything is so happy around me, except for me. It’s like I don’t fit in in the world. It feels like I bring down every person who is around me. Like I always come up short. Always making mistakes, creating problems, complicating for everyone else. The tears won’t stop, and I can’t make them stop. I feel like to help everyone else, I have to stay away. Keep my ‘downer’ personality away from the world. I should just hide in a closet until my ‘sunshine self’ comes out again.

I try to put on a happy face and fake it. But it hurts more when I have to try to be ‘stable’. I hate this.I_can__t_Breathe__by_EllyDelice_large

Paranoid

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This quote really describes how I feel right now

Yesterday, I wrote about friendship and about how lonely I am. More and more I am noticing I am intentionally left out or not invited to lunch, to “girl’s night” or just dinner. My husband says it’s because everyone is busy and it’s the summer so people have things to do. Kids are out of school, and everyone is spending family time with each other. Is that true? That hanging out with friends is just not a priority, or is it me? It is because we don’t have kids, so we don’t fit in with this crowd?

I find myself getting ignored, talked over, and being completely forgotten. It’s not only in just one place. It’s at work, it’s with old friends, new friends, at home, in my neighborhood. Am I just blind, and not seeing when some people make an effort?

Again, my husband says that I’m just seeing the bad because I’m ‘in the darkness’ right now. Which is what we call it when I’m having a ‘depression episode’.

Nothing is wrong in my life. No horrible trauma has happened. Normal every day stressors are happening every day, but right now, it feels like every little thing that is going wrong is the end of the world.

For example, my husband asked me today, “You called me to tell me one thing, and now you are freaking out and getting all emotional. What’s wrong – what’s really wrong? Because you are throwing this out of proportion.”

Well, what is wrong…?

Maybe it’s because my neighbor’s sprinkler was flooding our front yard.  A company our neighbor hired went over to talk to them about it and my husband wants to hire them to work on our lawn.

If we hire them, we aren’t going to have any money. We will go bankrupt. We will have to eat ramen and mac and cheese, and we’ll get unhealthy and fat. We’ll have horrible skin and get acne. Then, we can’t afford to feed the animals, and they’ll have to eat normal store-bought food instead of eating raw.

And because we won’t have any money, I will have to get another job and work extra to make more money to make up for all the bills we are skipping. I will have to quit my business and then abandon my dream.

And what about how I feel? My heart won’t stop, I can’t catch my breath, I can’t see straight, and I couldn’t sleep last night because I was crying, and thinking about how no one likes me and really doesn’t want to hang out with me.

What if everyone is just pretending to be nice to me because they are nice people?  Am I that repulsive? Do people really not want to be around me? Well, I think I’m done then. I’m done asking people to hang out. I’m done expecting people to ask me to lunch. I’m done asking if people want to come over and walk their dogs with me or come have a drink. Or watch this stupid Vampire Diaries show, which I have never seen, but I thought it would be fun to do with some friends. I’m done asking people to be friends. I can’t do it anymore.

How do I handle all this? I put on the happy suit and go about my day – hiding my invisible battle. Hiding my feelings and just pretending like everything is ok. Because I have to fake it to make it. Right?

RyderFinally, a paid holiday off. Tomorrow is Independence Day. I’m not looking forward to the kids or the fireworks or the noise. But I am looking forward to no work, no training appointments, and I actually get to do something for myself for once. And I am boarding Ryder – a Great Dane I have been working with. I should really get around to writing an update about him. He is back and forth on progress, but overall, it’s one step forward, ½ step back every single day. Progress is incredibly slow, but he has made significant changes since we started working with him. He is way more balanced. Now that I know more about him since the workshop, I see changes, and I see respect and calm behavior… As soon as he feels he can be disrespectful, he will. Anyway, I will have to write about this later…if anyone cares.