my depression really is my biggest enemy. i hate how it will always find a way to pull me back under when i've just gotten used to feeling my lungs full of air again. the fact that my period is on its way is not helping. i always talk about how much of a cancerian i am; how emotional i am, how much i cry and how easily it comes. but in reality i actually have a pretty decent control over myself. but it's times like this, when i find myself awake at the witching hours and when the world is quiet and asleep, that it knocks me on my ass and all balance i had goes flying out the window.
i woke up at 1am because one of my neighbours had food delivered, and i could hear her talking to the delivery guy. his card machine was dead and he was asking her to let him in so it could charge enough to allow her to pay. naturally, she says no, and naturally he doesn't let up. he sounded nice enough, but she was firm. what woman in her right mind would let a stranger into her apartment at 1am? i don't know why he couldn't understand that. he was pleaded her to understand his case, which i get - he brought her food and she should pay for it. but dude is it really worth potentially going viral online because you were trying to get into a young woman's apartment in the middle of the night? she ended up closing the door on him and he left, and i backed away from where i was stood at my closed door. honestly i don't even think she was being that loud, i think it was my feminine instinct that woke me up. either way, it was enough to fully wake me up and now i'm on the couch, marvel's black widow movie playing in another window as i write this.
i went back to bed and just scrolled on my phone for about an hour before deciding to come out to the living room. my boyfriend's been sound asleep in what is now our bed since around 10pm. that man could sleep through a meteor hitting the earth and sometimes that concerns me, but it's nice sometimes. like tonight, when i got stuck in the instagram algorithm on my phone which was feeding me sad shit for that 60 minutes. the crying came way too easily (again, i attribute that to the hormones but still). it's been a while since i had a good cry - not counting the silent muffled sobbing i stifled for two hours while at the movie theatre a couple weeks ago. it gave me a migraine and caused me to break a no-vomit streak of at least 2 years when we got home. that was crazy, i've never cried so hard that it made me puke before. but it was over a movie, so i don't count it for much.
my emotions have been running high all day, and now that i've gathered myself i'm stuck in my thoughts about how shitty it is to be depressed. don't get me wrong, i'm actually very content with my life and how i've been doing - some might say i've been doing the best i ever have, actually. i've got a great job (albeit it's not something i'm in love with, but it's easy and flexible and my boss is lovely), i'm pretty healthy despite how badly i eat and how little exercise i do, i've been an official Girlfriend for a month and he's perfect in every way, and he's moved in which has cut expenses in half which has eased SO much anxiety and stress. like, i'm at a good point in my life now and i know it's only going to get better over the next few months. i was literally so disgustingly happy about my situation today that i teared up earlier just thinking about how happy i am. but fuck man, just give it a few hours and let the moon tag in and suddenly i'm reminded of the medication i take every day just to be able to function, how scared i am to be alone, how much i just want to be loved as much as i love, how i feel like i have no one to talk to, how much i feel like the therapy friend, how much i hate my apartment and want to be living in my own house with a yard and more space and a nice kitchen and a big bedroom, how much i dread going to my 9-5 job in a field i'm not passionate about. i feel disgusting all of the time. i hate how i look, i hate my hair, i hate that i'm plain, i hate how i don't look as feminine as i'd like to, i hate that i'm not good at putting makeup on so i never feel pretty, i hate how much i hate myself, i hate that i lie everyday when i'm around other people because i seem so confident in myself. i tell myself i am confident, that i don't care what other people think and that i'll do whatever i feel like because i'm the only person that truly matters, but really i couldn't be bothered. i don't care. about any of it. about anything. but like, i do. i do so much. that what makes depression so difficult for me, i think. that it's both. i care, but i don't. because caring takes so much energy, and i'm so exhausted. so yeah, i don't care about how i look when i leave the house, i don't care that i don't wear makeup to work or do my hair. i don't care that i literally get ready in 5 minutes then leave the house. but then i get there and i realize i do care. i catch a glimpse of myself in the shitty little mirror by the door in the back room and i see how tired i am. i see every little flaw: the acne, the scars from the acne that i picked at, the dark bags under my eyes from never getting a good enough sleep, the baby hairs that are too long to actually be baby hairs but stopped growing when i was a teenager and now they're the stupidest length and i can't do anything about it, the fact that the enamel on my teeth wore away when i was younger and not taking proper care of my teeth so now it looks like they have little ridges along the bottom edge. i take it all in within the span of 5 seconds before i go up front to start my day and stare at the clock until i can go home and sit in bed and fall asleep until dinner, eat, then go back to bed. i know people say routine is good for depression but sometimes i feel like it made it worse.
but that routine changed big time when i met him. we met in january, the day after i got back from vancouver was our first date. we'd matched on tinder because romance is dead these days, or at least i thought. i don't want to get into that right now because that's not where my mind's at. where my mind is at is that fact that he moved in after we'd only known each other a few months, and been official for a couple of weeks. and i'm stoked about that, don't get me wrong. i wouldn't have asked him to move in or even had the thought if i didn't feel comfortable or ready for that. it worked out perfectly in so many ways. but my routine's changed. and i'm more aware of my habits and how much i don't do now that i have another person sharing the space. i'm so hyperaware of how deflated i feel all of the time, of how many things i say i want to do but don't ever do. it's so much easier to ignore those things when there's no one around. but even though he hasn't ever said anything, i'm constantly thinking about it. it's so incredibly hard for me to not go straight to bed the second i come through the door every day. but then he's home and i forget about how exhausted i am, how much i just want the day to end so tomorrow can start and then end and the cycle can continue. but that's just it - having him here forces me to not let that happen. and as much as i just want to be in bed, i want to be with him more. i've never had anything have a stronger grip on me than my mental illness. even past relationships, my depression was a huge issue. when i think about the only other person i felt strongly like this for, he used my depression against me. made me feel bad for being so exhausted all of the time. "it feels like you choose sleep over me" he said. i'll never forget that. and that was after a long enough time where he knew that was not how it was. i've always felt like a horse walking towards a carrot that's held out in front of them but they never get it. i don't even know what the metaphorical carrot would be in this instance, but i feel like a zombie everyday, moving forward just enough to stay alive but it ends there. not happy, not sad, just alive. numb. exhausted.
but now this man lives with me. this man who walks through the door and immediately is the only thing on my mind. as soon as i see him i just want to love him and do everything i can to make him smile. he breaks through the cloud so easily and nothing has ever done that before. i remember finally finding a medication that didn't make me feel worse, and that was the closest to happy i had ever felt since i was a child. but that wasn't happy, that was just neutral. i wouldn't say numb, i've been on medication that's made me feel numb and this prescription doesn't do that. numb is worse than being unmedicated. but this medication alleviates everything enough where i'm neutral enough to make logical choices, but it's still a struggle. and as soon as i have no accountability or responsibility, i let the neutral take over. which actually kinda feels like being numb a little bit, but at this point it just means letting my most overwhelming feeling take hold, and what i feel the most constant is tired. which is still true. if he's not present i'm exhausted. but if he is, what i feel doesn't matter. because he's my favourite person and everything he does makes life so interesting and exciting and his laugh is the most beautiful sound and the way he talks about the things and people he loves is so captivating and the way his lips feel against mine is like what it felt like to see fireworks over the castle at Disneyland for the first time when I was 3 and his hands around my waist and on my hips make me feel so safe and when he looks at me I can actually see and feel that he does love me like he says and i feel at home. i thought i'd been home before in other people, but i never was. i didn't know what home felt like. but now i do.
my sister told me once that my apartment doesn't feel like it's my home. because she knows this isn't my home, it's just a temporary space that i live with my cats and my things. and she was right, and i think that was something i always felt but never could find the words for, or even really fully understand. but she said it and she was right. it feels more like a home now, but it's still not my home. it never will be; i don't want it to be. but i've found someone who's showing me what home should feel like. and now at least i have an idea of the direction i need to go in to build one. and he wants to do that with me, and i with him. i never imagined this would happen right now, that i would find my person so quickly and so randomly, but everything happens for a reason. he's been a huge shift in my routine, but it wasn't a good routine. and it needed shifting. even if i didn't want it to shift. i'm still exhausted, and at this point i don't know if there will ever be a point where i'm not, but if that's the case, at least this person feels like home. and at home i have a big comfy bed and i'm safe to sleep as much as i need. and he'll be there when i wake up to give me a kiss and a coffee. and that's so much more than i ever expected to have right now.
3:52am // april 16th 2023