Being Explicit or My Big I Feel, When, I Need Statement

Sadness is not weakness. This might seem obvious to you, but I'm only now starting to wake up to the idea that being sad doesn't make me any more vulnerable than when I'm angry or anxious. Being sad doesn't mean I'm weak. Being sad doesn't mean I need to be fixed. Being sad doesn't make me defective. Sadness is just one aspect of human emotion. Of human experience. Our culture doesn't encourage us to experience (and share, for that matter) anything but positive emotions, and so many of us don't know how to identify sadness, feel it, and deal with it.

Here's the thing, though. I feel sad. I feel sad because my friend is dealing with cancer treatment. I feel sad because I haven't been able to hook up with my best friend. But I have an overarching sadness that is different from the hormonal imbalance thing, and this sadness touches varied parts of my life on a daily basis. I can't always identify how or why, but here's what I DO know:

• My sadness isn't a criticism of you. It might be sometimes, especially if it's a response to something you said or did to me. I can be upset that you didn't call me back, but I don't hate you for it and it doesn't mean I think you're a jerk.
• Expressing my sadness isn't selfish, and even if it is, it might not be in the way you think and honestly, I think it's okay to be selfish sometimes. I still care about you and your struggles. My pain doesn't take away from yours. It's never my intention to do that to any of you. Sometimes I'm a moron and don't think to ask. I'm sorry.
• Allowing myself to experience and then communicate my sadness helps me to discover what I want and need. It's also helping me learn to do the same for you: if I can do that for myself, then I can generalize that skill to my friends and family.
• Being sad doesn't mean I need or expect to be babied or pampered or mocked. Being sad doesn't make me a victim. Crying doesn't mean I can't handle. I can be sad and strong at the same time. My thoughts may sometimes be clouded by melancholy and I might not see clearly enough to find the most direct path to an answer, but I am still clever enough to figure something out.
• I experience all emotions on the spectrum. I am elated, excited, anxious, dreamy, distracted, confused, angry, irritated, thrilled, and more. I am not only sad. Being sad does not negate my other feelings, and it doesn't define me or my interactions with other people. Being sad is confusing, but so is being angry. Anger has been like a tentative, shy friend who is also quick to abandon me. It's complicated.

My first inclination when I feel sad is to fix whatever's causing the problem. I want to confront the problem ASAP because I don't feel good and I want it to stop. Often, though, confronting the problem so hastily reveals that I'm not actually sure how I feel or what's making me feel it. Sometimes the reason seems obvious. For example, someone says a mean thing to me, and it hurts my feelings. I'm a big girl and I'm smart enough to know that people say mean things for a variety of reasons, and many of them have more to do with the other person than with me. But I may still respond without giving a whole lot of consideration to WHY the insult bothered me in the first place, and that's probably the more important issue.

What I'm learning is that I need to stop rushing to solve a problem I don't understand. I don't need to fix everything right now. When asked what's wrong, I need to think before I speak. I cannot be rushed by anyone-- even by those who mean well-- especially when I don't know. I need to spend more time thinking about how I feel and why before I try to fix the problem, and then break that down into as simple terms or concepts as possible. That's probably why writing is so appealing: writing allows me to turn things over in my mind. (Incidentally, walking does that, too.) I've been discovering that what I think is actually the problem, isn't really, it's just a manifestation. A symptom.

Because what results from this rush to diagnose and medicate are a few things that ultimately don't help.

1. I usually land up explaining away how I feel. I'm tired. I'm stressed and anxious. I've got a long work week. All of these explanations are likely to be true on any given day, but not likely the cause of my sadness. It often prevents me from digging further or precludes any future conversations because, hey, we already talked about it.
2. Explaining away my feelings leads other people to dismiss my feelings because it implies that my sadness doesn't mean much to me and therefore does not mean much in general. It belittles and undervalues what I feel. That friends don't respond to text messages isn't a big deal at all, but it DOES bum me out when it happens a lot for no reason. It can make me feel undervalued, taken for granted, pushed aside. So it isn't so much that the unreturned texts bother me, but rather the idea that maybe my friends don't want to hang out with me and I don't know why.
3. After trying to explain away my feelings with stupid excuses, I then feel defensive. Even after I've already implied it's not important! Confusing. And that might even mean that I defend the wrong reason or feeling! And then I later realize that I overlooked important details because I was rushing to a resolution.
4. I'm even sadder and more confused and defensive than before I started. I let myself be soothed without actually feeling better because I feel foolish and I don't want you to feel bad. I'm the one making trouble because generally, our culture says I'm supposed to be happy, I'm not supposed to be sad. I buy into that and I start to feel that my sadness is a nuisance, an inconvenience. I live too much inside my head. I put pressure on myself to act happy.

How could I not? For the majority of my life, my emotional education was severely limited. No one ever taught me how to identify my feelings or what to do about them. I grew up thinking feelings were inconvenient. I denied them, hid them, renamed them. I wasn't sad, I was angry. I wasn't hurt, I was irritated. A happy chid made no noise. A happy child was rewarded with, "Oh, what a nice kid!" while an emotional child was "difficult." Difficult children were seen being scolded and were sent to see the principal. Nice kids got rewards, extras, compliments. It's hard to unlearn those things.

My therapist has been helping me own my feelings and explicitly communicate them in healthy ways. And while I believe her, I still doubt the process and fear trying. So here are my resolutions as of today:

• I will allow myself to feel sadness. I don't have to be soothed, I don't need my problems solved immediately, and I don't need to pretend I'm happy. To that end, I want to learn ways in which I can own my sadness without it becoming toxic to myself and those around me.
• I will not diminish my feelings by explaining them away. It sends the message that even I don't believe in what I'm going through, so why should you, right? I will use my "I feel __ when __. I need __" statements or some variation of them.
• I will start doing my gratitude journals again.
• I will remember that this isn't forever. Just because I can't see the other side, doesn't mean it isn't there. This resolution is harder because it's more a thought exercise than something to do. I will try to stay here in the present moment because when I start to wander to the past or the future, I become even more anxious. Now might be painful, but I can take it.

Here's what I need for you to do (and this is the hardest part for me):

• Allow me to feel sadness without jumping to soothe me or offer me solutions. I know you want to help and I know it sucks seeing someone you love in pain. I know sometimes you just want to take it all away. Sometimes I just need to feel safe to explore how I feel and know that you're open to simply lending support. A hug. A smile. An ear. Patience.
• Ask me how you can help. Your instincts to help have been honed over the years, I don't doubt, and your advice probably isn't bad or wrong. I appreciate your effort, and I know it usually comes from love, but sometimes your well-intended help actually does the opposite.
• Cut me a break. Encourage me. I don't care if you roll your eyes at me as long as I don't have to see it or hear about it. I'm not perfect, and I'm working on stuff I might normally just sweep under the rug. Sweeping under rugs is far more pleasant short-term than pulling that shit out and shining a light on it. Cut me some slack. I'm not perfect. Also, I know you have issues of your own you're dealing with. Just because I voice my feelings I'm not trying to diminish yours. I'm not saying yours doesn't matter. 

In return, here's what I resolve to do for you:

• Cut you a break because you're going through your own shit, and you may not know how to deal with things any better than I do. We can all be confused and struggling and doing our best with what we've got. I can't expect you to always know what to do or say, especially when I know how flawed I am.
• Respect the struggles you're going through. It's again a vague resolution. I might jump to conclusions, for example, about why you did or didn't do something, and I know the world doesn't revolve around me. Your actions aren't determined by me. You've got stuff on your mind, stuff you're worried about, stuff that makes you anxious.

The resolutions that I've made today are a compact I make with myself. Just because you've read this does not mean that you also agree to my I Feel, When, I Need statement(s). According to my therapist, getting what you want isn't the success, it's the asking. My intent is that this blog functions as one big I Feel, When, I Need statement. It is my way of communicating with you, though you might think it's cowardly to write it instead of speak it. You might be right. You might think I'm blaming my friends, my family, my childhood. I'm not trying to. In fact, this is far, far less about you than it is about me.

Some of life's biggest changes often occur in tiny increments-- so tiny that you don't even realize what's going on. I know that I'm where I am in large part because of the decisions I've made. They weren't always the right ones, the wise ones, the best ones. Lots of times I probably took the easy way out. Make too many easy choices, you might find you don't like where you land up. You may find that you have become too mean, too nice, too complacent, too pushy, too bitter, too insecure based on the things you've decided to do/not do, say/not say. I'm just trying to figure myself out.

For more reading, try these links:

Why it's Good to Feel Sad

The Importance of Sadness

Negative Emotions Are Key to Well-Being

How Compassion Meditation Can Improve Your Life

My Homework Assignment

I feel like that Gwen Stefani song because it's 4:30 in the morning and the tears are pouring. It's been a 3 hours of sleep night,and an I gotta wake up in two hours to go to work kind of morning. Do I go back to sleep or do I write? It's not really a choice.

If you're reading this, you're very likely familiar with these posts by now. The ones dated after my surgery. You know I'll whine and probably still feel hopeful. I'll write about how sucky some things are, but that I'm working through and have had bits of joy along the way. It's a recipe. I'm trying to heal and understand.

I found out recently that a dear friend of mine had a malignant tumor in her lung. I was slain. My first thoughts were of her and her family and their fears and their futures. I could envision her. Them. And I could imagine them together, supporting each other and loving each other. But I am sad and worried for them. I am sad and worried for my friend. And if we're all lucky, she'll have the opportunity to fight and flourish because the world isn't yet ready to be without her loving spirit.

And then I felt relief because I really dodged a bullet. Things could have been much worse than they were and that could have been my family huddled together for support and love. Instead, I'm at home, I'm back at work, I'm making plans to do the fun stuff that I missed. I wouldn't say I feel guilty to be in this part of my illness/recovery. I feel lucky.

But it hasn't been without its sacrifices. Luckily, I wasn't planning on having any more children. I'm lucky this happened at this point in my life where I didn't have to make the kind of decision between child-bearing or a hysterectomy. There are pregnant women at work, and I am confronted with this thought every day. They are young and just starting their families. I don't envy them, and I don't regret or feel bad about my decision. I just feel lucky, which seems to me to be a weird feeling to have. Even after all the shit I've been through, I still feel lucky. I feel lucky to have had a partial hysterectomy and to have removed the cancer when what I think I should feel is angry that I had those problems at all. Because though I'm happy to not be bleeding anymore, I still can't tell you that I'm glad I had the surgery. I wish it hadn't been necessary because it's caused so much turmoil for me in its wake.

I could be dramatic and say that I don't know how much more my heart can take, but I'm sure we all know that in the end, I'm tough and will endure. And if you know me at all, you must know that I'm fairly dramatic, so what else would you expect? Maybe this will be the thing that helps me find my voice again. I hate confrontation so much, it makes me so uncomfortable, that I shut my mouth. I don't say what I really mean, I say instead what I don't really mean, and I don't ask for what I want. And right up until 4am this morning, I thought I didn't ask because I didn't deserve, but since then, it's occurred to me for perhaps the first time that I deserve it. I've been afraid that when I ask for what I want from someone and they don't want to or won't give it to me, it meant I wasn't deserving. Only now, only this morning, did I think that maybe the problem isn't internal.  Yes, not asking denied the other person or people the choice, but it also protected me from rejection.

Anyway, my point is that not getting what I ask for makes me feel like I'm not worthy. I put the onus on myself. Today, for at least the last few moments of my morning, I begin to feel that if I don't get what I ask for, if I don't voice what I want, it's not because I'm not worthy. It could be a lot of things, but it isn't because I'm not deserving.

Speaking up, though, when you don't usually, can make life difficult for those who have gotten used to you deferring to them. It can be uncomfortable and I might still be sad and disappointed. And really, I am sad. I am disappointed. Because here are some things in my life that I want:

• Not to be lied to. It's not a confusing or complicated thing. Don't lie to me, don't hide things from me, don't omit the truth. Certainly don't lie to me or hide things from me and then say it's for MY benefit. It's not. I don't prefer the lie or the feeling of being lied to. It breaks my heart. I feel cheated and disrespected and insignificant. Saying the lie is for me makes me feel stupid. Lies aren't comforting or nurturing, they're insulting and hurtful. It's not my fault if you decide to hide the truth from me. Your truth might slay me, but don't deny me the choice, and, shit, it's not like my response ist unusual. Wouldn't most people feel the same way? Wouldn't you?
• To be appreciated as an entirely autonomous human being who has wants and needs. I want you to see this movie with me even if you don't want to. It isn't your sacrifice I'm after, and it isn't that I get off on imposing my will on you. It's the acknowledgment that you know this means a lot to me and that's reason enough to do it. It's also acknowledging that I wouldn't have asked if it didn't mean something to me.
• To be heard. My words to your heart with my intent overriding your interpretation. Because it isn't always about you. Because I pick my words carefully, and I usually pick my battles carefully, too. If I am saying something this way, it's usually deliberate.
• To stop apologizing for or accommodating others so much. I do this thing where I say I want something and then go, "But I know you're busy" or "I know you've already got a lot going on, so you don't have to if you don't want to." Or you cancel on me and I say okay instead of saying, "I'm so bummed about that!" because I don't want you to feel bad. I try to protect your feelings at the expense of my own. That's on me, that's a choice I make, and so this one's something I can do something about.

It's my fault to have fallen into some of these routines that hold me back. It's my choice to have not asked for your time or respect or your honesty. I don't speak up about what I want, especially if it conflicts with what you want. I don't like to ask you to get out of your comfort zone. It's hard for me to ask for anything. It's so hard, in fact, that it was my homework this week. I was supposed to ask for something. One thing. Anything. One thing in one week. I didn't even know where to start. I didn't even know what counted and what didn't, which sounds silly, doesn't it? And then I didn't really know what was supposed to happen after I asked. I hadn't thought about it that far, I guess, because I expected a no and wouldn't know what to do with a yes. How would I measure success? A yes? Actually, I'm pretty certain the success was me asking, never mind the response. The asking helps to break through my anxiety and change my habitual thoughts. Growing up as an observant second oldest of five children taught me not to ask for anything when you should be grateful for what you already have. Asking is a sign of ungratefulness.

Behaviors are reinforced by their consequences, right? I'm tired of feeling like I'm gasping for air. I'm tired of feeling lied to, overridden, not heard. I'm sick of feeling guilty for asking for what I want and being disappointed if I don't get it, especially when the things I'm asking for are simple shit: do what you say you're going to do; mean what you say; give me a break every now and then because I'm not perfect, either. I wish I could resolve here and now to stop crying over other people. Leslie and Merf are probably onto something, and if I asked Mahana, she'd probably agree. Better to know if the investment is misplaced than to keep blindly investing.

It's easy to acknowledge that I need to go back to the gym to strengthen my muscles and to find a healthy weight. I know how to challenge the muscle groups that need my attention. Likewise, I feel like I need to establish new routines and personal rules that will help me be happier in all my relationships. I need to speak up more. I need to stand up for myself. It's like I've been out of the emotional gym for a long time and I need to go back and strengthen my core. I need to stop worrying about other people so much.

Sigh. It is all so much easier in theory than in practice. So I'll tie up this lumbering blog with a few thoughts of gratitude. I'm glad today is Wednesday and I get to talk to Mahana. I'm so lucky and thankful for the many of you who have reached out to me the last day or two. It's heartening that you wouldn't even allow me to censor you, and instead told me how you feel and passed on your thoughts.

I search for strength. I search for peace. I search for a way to calm this anger and feeling of betrayal. I seek balance. I seek to quell this unease, this feeling like I'm missing something pivotal that will eventually reach out and break me. I search for wisdom to know how to help my friend-- to know what to say and do because I'm not a particularly nurturing person. I search for happiness.

Six to Eight Weeks

Perhaps when the doctors say it will take 6-8 weeks to recover from your surgery, they mean more than just your bodily aches and pains. But if that's so, patients (like me) should be informed ahead of time so we can anticipate what's to come. Maybe if I'd been forewarned, I wouldn't be up before 4am on a day I work both jobs, writing because my thoughts won't leave me alone until I put them down on the virtual page.

Let's establish some vocabulary before I move on. "Out of it" is how I'd describe what it was like coming out of surgery. I was exhausted, disoriented, and in pain. But notice that I don't describe what it was like by saying it was painful, and that's mostly because that wasn't the overriding feeling. A week and a half later, I felt healed "enough" to drive, to walk without support, to get out of the house by myself. I felt more discomfort than pain, and I looked forward to completely healing and getting back to normal. Healed "enough" seemed pretty damned good after sleeping upright on the couch for days and worrying if pooping was going to cause some kind of internal damage.

But enough is not enough when you're hormonal, and life gets messier instead of normal-er. Things that don't usually bother you, you obsess over. Being anxious leads to worrying, which then leads to obsession. And then you can't change everything-- sometimes you can't change anything-- which may lead to depression. Or the other way around. I don't know, I'm not a doctor of any kind, but these are things I've heard from doctors. These feelings contributed to my deepening sense of isolation. After all, I reasoned, why would anyone want to hang out with ME if I felt like this all the time? Even today that seems like sound thinking. Nothing irrational about it. It just isn't necessarily TRUE. You can feel like shit and people still want to be around and help you through it, but when you're anxious and sad, it's hard to change your thinking to a positive mindset.

This Friday will make six weeks post-op, and my doctor has assured me that I can return to all normal activities, like swimming. Yay! And guess what? About last week Friday (five weeks post-op), I started to feel-- like, emotionally-- better. I started to feel less obsessive and more in control. Maybe going to see the therapist on Thursday helped (and she really did. I went home and hours later had an epiphany that helped me understand a particular problem I was having), yet it kinda seems bigger than that. The therapist and my PCP both assured me that when my hormones evened out, my emotions would, too, and that's what this feels like. More like me. I couldn't turn the switch off before, and now I can. Usually. Nine times out of ten, which actually sounds like a normal human being, anyway.

So this is to say that the hormonal healing appears to have led to an emotional healing, and that this should have been included in the pre-surgery heads up. In fact, when I'd told the surgeon at my last follow up appointment two weeks ago that I'd been feeling really emotional, he totally ignored me. He didn't even address it. I'd like to think that even if he'd said to me that this was part of the 6-8 week recovery, it would have made a difference because it would have given it a timeline. It would have reassured me that it was normal and it was going to end. If medical professionals, like the surgeons and ob/gyns anticipate this hormonal imbalance in partial hysterectomies, why not plan for it? Why not mention psychological care as part of the surgical follow-up recovery process? Especially since, you know, there'd been a cancer diagnosis, too. Seeing a therapist earlier than five weeks out (especially since I'd starting feeling shitty at two weeks out) might have helped stave off the anxiety and sadness while giving me tools to fight those feelings as they arose. I knew that post-surgery, I'd need to walk and move around in order to heal faster. I didn't know that I should be doing the same with my internal self-care.

I expect that swimming in the ocean will further add peace to my life. It's been a very long time since I could go to the beach without the stress of bleeding, which means it's been a very long time since I actually went swimming. I fantasize about the sensation of being enfolded by the ocean, feeling its pull and push against my body and its caress over every inch of my skin. 

Anyway. I'm getting carried away.

Returning to normal activities will help, I'm sure, as well as continuing the new habits I've adopted per doctor's orders. Time, though fairly reliable, is a hard friend to trust. Of all the things my doctors have told me, of all the articles and blogs I've read, time was rarely if ever mentioned. And that might be because at face value, it doesn't seem like useful advice. That time will heal all wounds sounds trite and suspicious. That my hormones will eventually even out also is not as helpful as giving me a period of time because yes, but WHEN will they even out? When? That is important information when you're feeling sad and anxious and isolated all the time. And I get that you can't provide me with an accurate timeline. Duh. I get that. But you can't see the other side when you're in the midst of it,  yo.

I'm not saying that I think I'm at the end of this emotional healing even though I feel a lot closer to normal than I have in weeks. It's like a bruise you poke at each day-- is it still there? Does it still hurt? Yeah, that's me. All I'm saying is that from where I stand today, expecting that I'd need time to heal emotionally would have done me a world of good if I'd know that from the beginning. Where I stand today, even if I have a ways to go toward getting over all this shit, I have the benefit of hindsight, and that going forward, maybe I can be more patient with myself.

The Thing About Writing or If You Love What You Do

I may not do it all the time, but I think about writing all the time. However obvious this might sound to you, it wasn't to me, and by that I mean that I never noticed I was doing it. Never noticed I was thinking about writing. There was a time way back in the the early 2000s when I blogged nearly every day on MySpace-- I thought about writing all the time. It's like people who take photos with their phones these days of nearly every mundane event that occurs. I was taking snapshots in my head and converting what I saw or felt into words. What words would I use? What emotions or events did I want to replay? Which emotions or events would most accurately relate my emotions or thoughts on the subject?

Stop me if you've heard this story before. Or skip ahead a paragraph or something. In the spring of 2017, I interviewed an English professor who had greatly influenced the way I saw myself as a reader, writer, and student. I'm a little shame to admit that it was he who unveiled this obvious truth, but I'll explain later why I could not see it. He said that people write all the time and don't even know it. People text, email, engage in social media, yet how many actually consider that writing? Why don't more of us consider that writing? And this was in response to the idea that many folks hold that they "can't"write. "I don't know how to spell," "I'm not creative," "I don't even know how to make a sentence." Except, you know what? Spelling doesn't matter, describe what creativity is and where it comes from, and yes, you do! And even if you don't, it doesn't have to matter.

Now, I can point out the lie because I've repeated them to myself over and over again. My favorite excuse for not writing is the I'm not creative one. I know some writers-- like, personally know them-- and they blow my mind! I feel like Bill when he says, "We're totally weak. We can't possibly fight you." I'm totally weak, I can't possibly write like you! It took me long time until I realized so many things about writing, including this truth: not everyone writes like Stephen King. Or Ernest Hemingway. Or Toni Morrison. So why do I expect to write like my friends? Doesn't mean I can't write if I don't write like someone else.

Writing isn't just for entertainment or academia. For me, and probably quite a lot of other people, writing is healing. And if it isn't healing, it's exploration. As Georganne used to say in class, writing is thinking. My way of dealing with stuff is pen to paper or fingertips to keyboard. You have read a few of my blogs since my surgery, but there are so many more that went unpublished. Writing allows me to go down the proverbial rabbit hole. I have an experience and I can explore it from different angles, and then I pull the words I need to express myself and then cull what I don't need in the end. Writing can help give my experience shape when I don't understand it.

When I woke up this morning to say goodbye to Charlie as he left for work, I began to think about what I was going to write about today and then I drifted back to sleep. I can't remember specifically what my thoughts were, but even thinking about writing brought me peace because I knew that writing would bring some measure of peace when I actually got around to doing it. And in my gratitude journal, what I really want to write in there every single day (and maybe I should, right?) is that I'm thankful to have some measure of talent in and understanding of writing because I have no idea how I'd cope without it.

One of these blogs might take at least an hour to compose-- longer if I actually take the time to reread it for errors or editing. Usually, I don't do that, especially lately. During that time, though, and likely ONLY during that time, I feel in command of my life. Like sorting beads by color into different bowls, writing is cathartic. It feels good.

Find Your Words

It hit me today at my post-op appointment. My doctor said, "You're gonna have to come see me every six months, you know, because of that early cancer." And it hit me just a little. I keep thinking that cancer didn't affect my life because it came and went without so much as a hello. It was there and it was gone before I could even think about it because I didn't even know about it till nearly two weeks later. What do I have to think about? To mourn about? What is there for me to contemplate? It came, it went, it's pau.

And it might be pau forever. I might never be affected by this again. The worst of it might just be the inconvenience of seeing my Ob/gyn every six months instead of twelve.

I've lost about fourteen pounds since the surgery. You'd think I'd be ecstatic. My clothes fit better, which is great. I have a decreased appetite and I find less joy in the actual eating of food, so that sucks.

If you recall, Dr. Chelsea prescribed some anti-depressant, but I haven't started those yet. I want to find emotional balance without resorting to drugs. I don't think she prescribed them without thought-- she knows me well enough to remember I won't swallow a pill unless it's really necessary--and I know she wants to see me well again.

Shouldn't I be happy? I'm not bleeding anymore. I wasn't planning on having any more children. I don't feel like a shell of a woman without my uterus. I've lost weight and I feel physically great-- why am I not happy? After Dr. Chelsea described that mini-menopause stuff, I've since read a couple of articles, like this one, about how even a partial hysterectomy can result in menopause-like symptoms. That article I linked to says that "hormones work on feedback loops, the uterus contains many important hormone receptors that communicate with the ovaries. When the uterus and cervix are removed, these receptors are removed, too." So, I believe Dr. Chelsea. That's only one article that has supported what my doctor said, but I believe there's something going on physically with my body that I can't see or feel that is making me an emotional wreck, I just don't know what to do about it.

Dr. Chelsea had me start a gratitude journal (pictured below), which I did with earnest. It's a great exercise. I've done it before. I bought a lovely new journal from the bookstore, some lovely markers, with the intent of making my entries as pretty as possible to encourage a cheerful disposition. I also keep what my sister calls a Fuck You journal or what Lucy calls a mad journal (not ever to be pictured anywhere, ever). It's one in which you might write the nastiest things you can think of about yourself, the world, the people around you. You write things you never want anyone to ever see. If you haven't tried this before, you should. The effects for me are very fleeting, ending as soon as I put down my pen, but so worth it. The key, I think, is to remember that no one should ever read what you write and that you're attempting to purge those negative feelings through writing. It isn't meant to be kept as a record of every junk thing anyone has ever done to you, especially those in your tightest friendship circles.

I don't know that I'm actually depressed. I know things aren't completely normal. What I feel feels real. I'm not making it up, I'm not looking for sympathy, it's not fun for me. I've contacted one therapist today to see about getting some professional help. That makes me hopeful. Even if she can't see me or if we're not a good fit, maybe she can point me in the right direction. Because I hate how I feel, I hate being so sad all the time, I want to be happy again. I want to enjoy my life. I want to feel strong and capable, multi-dimensional, and interesting. I'm beginning to hate myself just a little. And isn't all of this just so attractive?