I’m flapping on and off rock bottom like an octopus in the depths of the sea. To spare the imagery, I’m just not doing well at all. In not doing well at all I have successfully managed to make my relationship with my boyfriend, my family and my friends weird - go figure! I have a ton of personal issues, physical health concerns, problems with hallucinations and just the overwhelming feeling that I’m being crushed by one of those big-ass crushers you get in the Crash Bandicoot games. In short, I’m trapped in a depressive episode still - it’s been about a year now.
I manage to surprise myself a lot about what my low moments are - I don’t actually think ‘rock bottom’ is a place. There’s no security of ‘well this is it, only up from here!’. I think it’s like falling for eternity, except you stop on the way down a few times so you can stop and think ‘wow this is awful’ but then you fall some more and some more.
Despite the eternal pit that is my bipolar disorder at the moment, and the fact that I can’t deal with just about anything, the thing I’m struggling most with is depression guilt. I am holding back from talking to people (and this blog) because I feel an overwhelming sense of guilt. Sometimes when I’m desperate I’ll post something super pitiful then people message with ‘oh my god babe, I’m here for you’ and all I feel is shame and guilt that I dragged someone into my mess. The people who have somehow survived my attempts to push them away beg me to open up, and then I do because I feel bad that I’m torturing them by not opening up, and then… they get even more concerned about me. So all that happens from opening up is I’m left feeling guilty that I’ve used someone as an emotional crutch and they’re feeling hungover from it and they’re unable to work or sleep or (insert important human activities here) because of me.
Let’s call a spade a spade here - when someone is mentally ill and comes to you for support it is a burden. Wait! Don’t close the blog yet, hear me out. Any human being who has a regular dose of empathy in their soul will be stirred when they hear the extent of people’s problems or when they can’t figure out how to untangle someone’s matted emotional wellbeing. It’s honestly normal to feel a bit shit when someone tells you they are a bit shit. Not all of us have the tools to compartmentalise someone’s trauma and lock it away to avoid it perversing our own mental state. With years of battling off the black dog on one foot and the psychadelic kitten on the other (there’s not an iconic symbol for mania so I vote this), I reckon I’m up there in the Billboard Hot 100 of ‘people with a high degree of emotional intelligence’ - but even I crumble when I pick up the emotional baggage of another.
Knowing all that I know, this is exactly why I feel guilty. My blood type is empath and even when I’m in the dark unable to see clarity in anything - I still hold compassion for others, and it makes me feel awful. I truly want to close everyone out of my life, because I don’t like what I’m doing to other people. Mental illness is interesting because you can’t physically catch it, but let’s be honest to someone who is already vulnerable (be it a person who has history with mental health problems or someone who is highly sensitive) poor mental health is straight up infectious. I can live with the fact that I’m stuck and hopeless (I think), but I am struggling because I’m in a life where people want to love me and change me and I have to watch them become emotionally wrecked in the process.
So this is why I can’t talk about things, well until now. My logic in blogging is that it makes me feel like the explosions are diluted because it’s not a conversation directed to someone. Maybe a stray bit of shrapnel will find its way to a few people, but nobody takes the brunt of my mess here.
Does what I’ve said make sense?
