Extreme Fortune Telling

I have taken quite a pause in my writing lately. Sometimes I worry this cyclical activity followed by utter inactivity might render my influence null and void. But I press on, because I really am doing this for my personal manifestation of my life purpose, and not what the world’s response to that action.

I was in therapy the other day discussing the pros and cons of having a prison wedding, when my therapist sat up a little straighter and hesitated. I took notice of this because he doesn’t typically hesitate ever when in conversation with me. We have become cool like that over the last decade of weekly sessions.

He fumbled over his words trying to explain that he didn’t know how to say something, but he felt as though I was certainly capable of thinking about life and future with….

I finished his thought, “catastrophic fortune telling?” He laughed quietly and responded, “I was going to say flights of fantasy, but yes that too.” It is one or the other. My mind operates as though I am some extremely dramatic fortune teller. Death and doom, or luck and love! It will all work out perfect, or it is going to be the worst possible outcome.

This is why I can’t call myself an optimist. Or a pessimist. But I am definitely not a realist. Well, am I?

I take life as it comes and often don’t think there is anything that can realistically happen to improve it. When I am not depressed (which is less often than most), I have this amazing capacity for hope. Tack on the surreal experience of depersonalization/dissociation, and there you have it. A hopeful, apathetic dreamer.

Recognizing this in yourself really brings about a lot of deep thinking. Is it really such a bad thing? I am not really a worrier because I have hope for the best case scenario. I am not a manic lunatic because I assume the tragedy is what is likely to occur. Maybe I am closer to being a realist, when everything averages out.

So let’s take a step back and stop this never ending monologue of introspection. A lot is changing in my life right now. I spent a good two weeks letting myself decompress meaning I slept all the time and didn’t take my eight different medicines to keep me sane and uninflamed. This was followed by two weeks hating myself for missing my medicine, being chronically exhausted with incredible joint pain.

In the midst of all this, I managed to function and successfully interview and accept an offer of employment with a new company. I am really very excited about this new opportunity in my life, and feel the leadership of the company are real people with very personable approaches to the work environment.

So, I got back on the wagon, took my meds religiously, and started feeling better. But not tip top, resulting in my rheumatologist changing my treatment to biologics, which are injections of very expensive meds that will wipe out my immune system. Yay me! I never quite understood this whole kill the immune system to deal with autoimmune disorders cure.

So, I am finishing up my current job, taking a second vacation to the beach (part two will be much better!), and starting fresh the week after Thanksgiving with my new job. Hoping and believing the best will come from the med change and job change and life choice change…. And staring at the possibilities of failure too.

I think I am swinging on the pendulum of life and it is ever so gently slowing down to where I am supposed to be. We’re pretty dang close! Or maybe that is a flight of fantasy!

Extreme Fortune Telling

Hit the Snooze button

***Trigger warning: suicidal ideation***

Everyone says I am depressed. I go to my weekly therapy and my therapist listens to me talk ten minutes straight how life is going and then says “Sound like you are really depressed.” I send off a video message to my best girlfriends who live in different states. The reply comes back and says “I don’t know but it sounds like you are depressed right now. Go sit outside and soak up that vitamin D.”

How am I missing this? I am a self-proclaimed expert in the self awareness arena. I know depression. Very well. I think it must be that I have never in my life been depressed when a desire to sleep forever is not part of it. Yes, I am talking about suicidal thoughts. I don’t have any of them.

This surprises me a lot. Everything that I know about the disease that is called depression lends to the progressive nature of suicidal ideation. I am at the stage of this disease that a minor bout of depression invokes the full ideation gameplan.

Before I go further, I need to reiterate that I have done A LOT of therapy on this topic, and it is a solid agreement with myself, a promise, that I will not entertain any of these wild thoughts that come about due to depression. So we are all good there.

It is just I have never had every physical and emotional symptom of depression without the desire to not be alive. It almost messes with my head. It is a sneaky tactic of my enemy, depression. The alarm didn’t go off or in my stupor, I hit the snooze button instead of deploying the arsenal of coping mechanisms.

So where does it leave me now? Where do I go from here? Now that I am convinced by my trusted friends and professionals that I am depressed, what is the next step? I mean, have you ever heard of a depressed person who has a solid sense of joy? I am grateful constantly, but the emotions don’t match.

I know…. This doesn’t make much sense. I don’t understand it. I am in love. I am grieving a loss. I laugh every day. I have no motivation. I perform well at work. Sometimes I sleep all through the day. I am textbook confused.

I have decided it is okay and safe for me to just continue. To be sad and grateful. To be sleepy and productive. I will feel what I need to feel when I need to feel it.

It is okay for me to hit snooze right now. Slow down, make the problems wait just a bit longer. When I do wake up, I know I have everything I need to shake off the depression.

Hit the Snooze button