Dealing with Feels

I had a big, explanatory post planned about my lack of posts, but really, it can be summed up with a few words: I've been dealing with feels.

I've actually been dealing with feels, in varying forms, for the past 6 years or so, mostly just being in denial or trying to rush myself out of feeling whatever it is I was feeling. Clearly, that's not the best way to deal with things. I spent most of 2012 trying unsuccessfully to skip over my break up with Addie. And while I started to feel better by late fall, by mid-December, I started slipping into a miserable place again. After a few days in Sydney, it lifted, and I was able to enjoy myself for the first time in a very long time, but when I got home, my Feelings Monster was waiting for me. As soon as the plane landed, it felt like all my insides just deflated.

Before, I could always point to what was causing my depression--ex boyfriends, lack of career, family problems, not being where I wanted to be, etc. And I always thought it was situational. This time around however, I was slipping into a new, apathetic, nothing is wrong, and nothing is right kind of depression. The "let's do nothing but take xanax and sleep all day and go to work in sweat pants and stop taking showers and get overwhelmed with a to-do list that has more than 2 items on it and break out crying every day uncontrollably and you can't stop it" kind of depression. Basically, I didn't know what was wrong. And everything I knew to do to fix it stopped working. There was a civil war in my head between the side that knew everything is ok, that I'm fantastic, and the side that insisted that I'm a failure and that it'd be easier to hate myself. It was frustrating. And exhausting.

So, in March, I pried myself off my couch and put myself on a therapist's couch. I've seen some wonky therapists before (one would never remember my name, another insisted I wear my hair pulled back off my forehead because it distracted her), but the one I'm seeing now is just worth her weight in gold. I feel like I'm learning more about what causes my Feelings cycles and what I can do to work through them. And while I still have a lot of work to do, I feel like for the first time in a long time, things are getting better, and that I'm learning to look toward the future instead of stalling in my past. 

It's all about finding yourself, and learning how to lift yourself out of the feels shit.

sheeeeeeit.