When I was a teenager I used to have bouts of sheer misery. Days or weeks that would go by where I couldn't sleep, couldn't smile, could not pull myself out of the deep dark funk. Usually these gloomy periods were due to some sort of rejection, by a boy, a teacher, or a school play director. I took everything so very personally. That has always been my nature. A "no", a sneer, a shrug of the shoulders was always an indication of what I lacked. It was representative of what I wasn't, what I was too much of, or what my ugly, evil core deserved.
Along the way I grew up and experienced these sinister feelings of self loathing less. I like to think it is because I matured and grew more self confident, but in reality it may be simply because as life went on I experienced less rejection. In college I got the guy, a faithful boyfriend who stood by me through it all, I got the friends, the grades and the attention I craved.
I got married, got the jobs, the house and the life that I wanted. It made it easy to push away the ugly feelings, the despair, the self-loathing.
But it is so precarious. My happiness due so much to outside circumstance and affirmation. A small slight and I find myself sliding back into the dreary dungeon of depression. When I couldn't easily conceive, I blamed my body for it's incompetence and hated it endlessly. When a friendship fails, I always blame myself for my lack of charisma, when someone ways no, it is always, always because I'm not enough.
I am a relatively intelligent woman. So when will I ever be able to push this nonsense away? When will I ever stop internalizing every no, every mistake, every failure? I should know better. I should stop feeling it so damn much. Yet, at almost 39, I often feel it just as deeply and painfully as I did in adolescence.
When, when will I ever learn?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Maybe never, 'cause you're human, and not perfect. ;-)
ReplyDeleteFunny - a friend of mine and I were just talking about this yesterday. We are almost in our 40's. When will we learn to just get over ourselves and stop obsessing and focusing and devoting/wasting time and attention and emotion to the things that - honestly - don't matter? We are smart chicks. We are moms and we run businesses. We have successful marriages. Yet we still can't pull ourselves together.
ReplyDeleteMaybe next year.
Do you identify these feelings as depression? Sorry to get really personal, but most of what you have written I can identify with. (have always taken everything really personally, been sad for no real reason, had particularly bitter feelings about certain issues/people, major internalization of my feelings, thinking I wasn't good enough, etc.) Depression, if you have it, doesn't go away permanently...I have always suffered from it and I know I will always have bouts that come and go. You just have to keep doing what you are doing -- be self-aware, realize your feelings are, as you say, 'nonsense' -- because you are AWESOME, gorgeous, and have an amazing life!!!!! -- and do things that make you happy (work out, write out your feelings, spend time only with those that make you feel good, etc, etc.) I am sure as you look back on when things seemed dark - they always, always get better! Much love!!!
ReplyDelete