november 28 etc
Yesterday's post was a doozy but also a low-key big moment for me. I don't really write much about struggling with depression and anxiety and things of that type for reasons including that I was really turned off 12-15 years ago when everyone was selling their trauma to magazines and blogs for dispiritingly small amounts of money. I didn't disapprove. People can talk about whatever they want and should be allowed to sell anything they own if they want to. Thing is, because of this the public conversation about mental health grew to be focused on talking about things a little bit —— but not doing anything to change the societal underpinnings and structures that lead to mental illness or, really, any kind of struggle.
It was so disingenuous. Corporations assured us that they understood mental health was health and were interested in promoting and fostering a healthy, inclusive culture —— but it was never serious.
I once told a manager person at an ad agency I worked at that I was struggling with an assignment because I was having anxiety attacks at work and she asked if I did yoga. That same company didn't let me go home the day my friend died. They let me sob in my office instead. I got zero work done but I sure was there. Later that night I went to the gym and lifted so heavy I probably tore something and then I drank a million drinks at Disgraceland back when that place existed.
I guess all I'm saying is that I lived most of my life feeling ashamed for being different, for being broken, for being too emotional, for having dreams and goals that were unrecognizable and incoherent to my friends and family and I'm just not anymore.
I carried it for so long. I may as well have been holding a brick of yellow cake uranium because shame does things to a person and they're not good things, and so one day I said fuck it, quit drinking, started taking my health seriously, started pulling at some threads to figure out some stuff that felt important and some other stuff that was only important to me. I got honest with myself, sure, but I also gave myself the kind of grace I had saved up and spent on others my whole life and I got better.
Five, ten, fifteen years ago I would never have written about struggling with depression because I would have feared the judgment and scorn of others. Nowadays I wouldn't even notice it because my veins are made of gold.
🌲 gonna
🌼 go
🌱 touch zzzzzzzzzz
🌳 grass zzzzzzzzzz
🌷 zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Be good to yourself.
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