Struggle Bus Incorporated

The other day I wrote an entire post about validation and depression and just feeling invisible… and then with a swipe of my finger the browser refreshed and I lost the entire thing. Honestly, It seemed way too fitting so instead of attempting to rewrite the whole thing I took a step back and figured in a few days time I might be able to write something else.

The last few weeks have been really tough for me. I’m sure I could try to pinpoint the exact moment that the depression set in, but honestly I think it’s just a combination of so many things. I’ve been having a hard time with the whole self-promotion please read my book thing. I just don’t have it in me to constantly throw my work in people’s faces. It gets exhausting and I needed to take a significant step back from it. Not just because it felt against character, but also because the more I promoted the more I felt as though people were simply ignoring it. That then led to more depression which made me want to reach out for more validation and repeat until curled up in the shower crying.

Since I was very young I’ve always had to fight for attention. This caused me, as an adult, to not just speak louder than everyone else, but to also repeat myself constantly. If we’re having a face to face conversation and I say something that’s not acknowledged, I assume that the person didn’t hear me so I repeat it louder and louder until it’s acknowledged. This is more common in a group setting, obviously, but it’s hard to break out of that habit. I’ve found that when it comes to trying to get people’s attention to buy the book or read the blog or just pay attention to anything I have to say that doesn’t involve a picture of the cats that I tend to fall back on that behavior. The more I talk, the more invisible I feel.

So how to combat this? How do you overcome this ingrained feeling of pay attention to me?

Honestly, I still don’t know. When it gets really bad, I post some cryptic message on social media and disappear for a while. Unfortunately, those seem to be the posts that get people’s attention. All that does is just reinforce the behavior so when things get bad again, I post more cryptic things for just a small feeling of validation and the cycle starts over. This is obviously a horrible plan and gets me absolutely nowhere. Yes staying off of social media is good and healthy, but sometimes I feel as though I’m doing it for the wrong reasons. Let’s be honest, though, we’ve all done that… right?

So what now?

Again, I don’t know. My depression continues (and the weather isn’t helping), my sleep schedule is completely fucked up, and I just have so many things that are making me feel shitty right now. I keep trying to look forward to Spring in the hopes that once the weather improves (which means open windows!) that my mood will increase. However, inching towards Spring also means inching closer to the 1-year mark of this whole insane time period. Every day is a balancing act and some days - ok, most days - the losing side wins.

Once again, I can’t find a positive way to end this post and I apologize for that. I try my best to always spin whatever I’m writing about so that someone else reading this feeling the way I do can gain something from it, but maybe it’s ok to leave it as is. Maybe it’s more relatable that way. So many of us are struggling right now for one reason or another. It’s not a competition to see who’s struggling more or who’s going through more than someone else. We’re all human beings and working through a wide variety of shit on any given day… the current climate just adds to that.

So all aboard the struggle bus. We may not be going through the same things, but maybe we can suffer together.

- Danielle