this is…

There’s a great many things I’ve learned these numerous months on leave from work. These discoveries are paving my road of recovery, and I can feel that I’m on the mend. But my greatest test is still to come — the great hurdle of overcoming my life-long pain of social anxiety. Unpacking it is a great burden, but at the same time, liberating.

I have rarely felt comfortable around people, even those who feel closest to me. I’m easily disappointed in social situations, and force myself to be interested in someone else when in reality I’m focusing so much on trying the make the encounter a pleasant one. It’s as if my whole being has been made up by what I have been told to do and be. Now it’s made up of what I imagine people are telling me to do and be. When I’m not being told, I don’t know what to do with myself. I function alone. It has always been my modi operandi for as long as I can remember. Come to think of it, it pretty much sums up how my family interacts.

I was watched Sesame Street last week, and they posed a social problem for children — where each child insisted that their game was the best and started arguing about it. And my immediate reaction was panic. I didn’t know the answer to that simple social dilemma. Another lesson came on in the next episode, kids wanting to play two different games and arguing about it. And again I paniced. I didn’t know the answer. Actually, I did have an answer, but it was a poor one — play my game alone without them. That’s pretty much sums up my answer to every social dilemma that I face. If you don’t what to do it with me, I’m on my own.

Countering it, when it’s the only life I’ve known, feels impossible most of the time. Paddy, my psychologist, told me at the end of my last session, “Do what you want to do.” It’s a phrase that mystifies me. What is that? I really don’t know. And yet, that phrase puts peace in my soul. Do what I want to do? Is that really allowed? And exactly what is that anyway? I know why he said it. It’s the right thing to do at this point of my recovery. But I only know what it means, not what it is.

I’ve discovered now for a couple of years that I sincerely have no idea what I love. After some painstaking search, playing the piano is the only answer I have so far. My true voice, and my release. And with that one discovery, I have learned discipline and decisiveness. I discovered that there are people that I do not want to associate with, and that I don’t need to be afraid to actively seek out friendships that would be life-giving.

I am on a road of recovery. I am thankful that my feet have finally found that path. I can handle a long journey, as long as I am allowed to go slow and look around. I am looking for my loves. Let’s start with a new blog “What I Love” and see where this takes me. And hopefully, eventually, I will find the courage to see a friend.

A Major Depressive Episode is a period of at least two weeks of severe mood disruption accompanied by a variety of other symptoms. Briefly, the person must have a severely depressed mood most of the day nearly every day, or a marked lack of interest or pleasure in almost all activities, or both.

To count as a true episode, at least four of the following must also be present:

• Significant change in appetite (decrease or increase; or significant change in weight that isn’t the result of a deliberate dieting attempt).
• Insomnia or excessive sleep.
• A speeding up or slowing down of movements nearly every day.
• Fatigue or loss of energy.
• Feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt.
• Impaired concentration or decision-making ability
• Recurrent thoughts of death (such as suicidal thoughts or a wish for death – not just a fear of dying).

I cut and pasted this to describe what it is that I’m going through. I think there is general accuracy in the average person to experience a number of these symptoms from time to time. What I have discovered is an ongoing presence of four to five of these symptoms in everyday living since childhood, with all the symptoms present when a full-blown depressive episode comes upon me. In fact, it’s amazing how accurate absolutely every symptom describes my day-to-day life at the moment, particularly the first few months of my episode since March 2011. I could write a tome on every symptom translating it into what it happening in me every day.

I’m pleased to say, I’m not in the same place as I was when I first took my leave from work. But I’m still far from functioning. I finally hired a cleaner who came today to give my home a full cleaning. The rush of guilt and relief was too much to bear that it actually forced me to leave my apartment twice… which is a good thing I suppose since I haven’t left my apartment for about five days straight now. I can finally watch a brand new TV show that I’ve never seen, and actually follow the storyline. A brand-new movie is still a little challenging, but when my mind is in the right place, I can do it. Otherwise, I watch an hour at a time.

Many times in a day, I zone out. I don’t even know what I’m thinking. I just stare into nothing and disappear. It’s only just in the last couple of months I realized that I was doing that. My doctor asked me what it is that I do every day, and my answers didn’t seem to fill the day up appropriately. Now I think I know why.

When I met other people with the same or similar mood disorders, I really began to understand. There is such an intolerance for depression in society, and I can see how each person i saw couldn’t be fixed by people saying “Cheer up, and don’t take yourself so seriously.” or “Think positive and you’ll be okay.” I can see how that it’s not that simple. It’s time that I took this seriously and looked at it. It’s liberating to recognize for what it is. People who do not suffer from mood disorders can’t possible ever understand what it is like to have dehabilitating anxiety hang around all the time. I am proud of myself for having been able to overcome much of that and find success in my education and my career without even realizing how severe the condition was. Hopefully in recognizing it, my attempts to cope will be much more accurate, since it is very likely that I will suffer this condition the rest of my life.

Okay, time to sign off and go have a good cry. Apparently, life must move on today.

Dear Friends,

It has been a long time since I’ve had the capacity or courage to update this blog. I feel obligated to give some explanation about my absence from community and social contact, but have struggled until now to do so. This is perhaps my 100th attempt, far from perfect, but as honest as I am able at this moment in this fragile state.

Since this past March (2011), I have been on leave from work, having experienced traumatic internal stress, and shortly thereafter diagnosed with major depressive disorder. It is only recently that I have come to terms with this as a mental illness, and not some simple passing of emotion. It is hard to believe that it has been over a year now that I spent almost every day in tears – sometimes over something simple, and sometimes over nothing. Only in the last couple of months has my head cleared and I have just begun see past the overwhelming mess that has defined my world. I see now that this is far deeper and more severe than just simple grieving over the passing of my dad last year. I made attempts since that day to bring my personal life back to “normal,” but I see now that my inability to cope with social interactions (both within and outside of work) was stemming from my lack of willingness to deal with the internal issues that only now I am becoming aware of. There is no simple solution. Major changes in my personal life must take place if I am to continue functioning as a productive member of the community. That’s a hard pill to swallow at a time in my life when change feels like the worst enemy of all.

Since childhood, it has always been my natural response to retreat from people when I am scared of them. (Wow… there, i said it.) In this modern world, that means seldom on email, never on facebook, no cellphone, and phone messages are checked once every other month by my last check. None of them deliberate. But nonetheless I have had the room to see what is really going on. Kinda late in life, but finally being done. I have had a chance to recognize just how difficult it has always been for me to befriend and attach to people. With almost no discretion, I cling to every breathing person, spilling to them my inner most precious thoughts, whether they have earned my trust or not. It is a reality of myself that I have needed to recognize for a very long time. So the process of rebuilding or re-assessing past friendships is not a simple task for me, and I plead of you to give me room and time to figure it out. Agree with this or not. It is just my request.

I have always had the ability to best express myself in written words, and so this part of the journey back, this written correspondence to you. One bright light is that this past week for just a small moment, for the first time perhaps in many, many years, I actually felt the feeling of loneliness. And I realized that the feeling was not altogether foreign to me at all… just a long time overdue. Sounds odd to me to say it, but I hope it comes back again soon.

Putting myself in your shoes and reading back on this post, I can only judge me for being incredibly selfish and disrespectful to everyone with whom I have formed relationships. Many of you may be reading this with great disapproval. Some of you are probably psycho-analyzing me. Some of you may just be saddened by this news. Some may be sensing hope as you read between the lines. And even some of you are just rolling your eyes. All of these responses (in fact, any response), to be truthful, scare me right now. Even as I think of you all by name and face, it throws me into a panic. It’s just too overwhelming at the moment. I just can’t deal. It just isnt’t the right time to insert myself back in. You have the right to your response, whatever it might be. I just plead for you to find it somewhere to also find compassion, even if you disapprove, and ask for some room for understanding. That request seems incredibly selfish on my part, but there it is.

For the record: Yes, I’m getting help. No, I’m not suicidal.

For those of you who pray, pray this: that I know love as it truly is, and not how I want it to be.

(While I realize this is a public forum that I am using, there is really no need to widely link or distribute this post as “news on Somi.” I ask that you use your discretion. I believe that those who are meant to read this will stumble upon it. Thank you.)

With the press of the “publish” button I am finally committing to these words. Please be gentle.

I went to the doctor’s office on Friday. With my regular physician away, they put me in a different room than usual to see in the stand-in doctor. I sat in this room and noticed a plaque on the wall. It was a quote by Chuck Swindoll on the importance of attitude in life. I read it and thought to myself, “This sounds familiar.”

And then it hit me. When we were planning the memorial service, Mom handed me a hand-written piece of scrap paper with Dad’s writing of this very same quote. He had visited our doctor while he had “C” and saw this quote on the wall. It struck him so hard, that he found any piece of paper he could find and quickly copied it.

And when I put the two pieces together, the emotions inevitably came. I was sitting in the very same room that Dad was when he was sick. And the room filled with his presence to the point where I couldn’t breathe. And for the first time in 2 weeks, the tears came flooding in just before the young doctor came into the room. Dad sat here in this same place, but in a different time – only a short few months ago. And suddenly, I missed him terribly.

This comes on the heels of a hellish week at work. Our one and only degree advisor resigned the last day of the conference in Philly. With a month full of student appointments, and no other degree advisor on duty, I, the supervisor, suddenly had to rise above my difficult circumstances and find a solution – fast. And with so much to engage back in at work, and with people I have to work with, it was just all too much for me to handle.

And I realized why I missed Dad. He always thought highly of my accomplishments. In a time now when I feel incredibly small and incapable, I realize that I felt like I could conquer anything when Dad was teaching me. He made me into a good student. He was proud that I picked up tennis with such ease and always gave me such focused attention to help me define my stroke. He was proud that I could drive a stick shift, and not be handi-capped by just automatic transmission. When I chose and bought my first car and had to park it outside in the snow, Dad made a point of starting the heater and scraping the windows every morning before I went to work.

Dad loved me, in his own way. And I miss it terribly.

The joys, the woes, the highs, the lows.

I find that the extremes of life have not really stretched beyond what has been before. Rather, I tend to move to those extremes more readily without the ability to look back at its counter-side. One moment I’m completely joking and laughing, and the very next, I sink deep into sadness. It takes about one to five minutes for the emotion pendulum to make its full swing.

It is the inbetween that I long for, the balance that allows me to both understand the extremes without necessarily having to go there myself. It is those extremes that allow me to gather the information I need to make my everyday decisions – what to wear, what to eat, how to drive, and so on. And it is those extremes that I see but do not touch that allow me to find ways to interact with those whom I encounter.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not afraid to visit the extremes. But in my present state, I am just afraid of going there and losing myself so much, that I have little ability to return to the centre. The moment something gets a little stressful, I am overwhelmed with anxiety and pain, and the fear of failing or disappointing someone takes over completely.

The cure? It’s simple. And it’s not new. Practice, practice, practice. I will not learn while standing away from the problem. Rather, each encounter with my inability to cope with emotions is a moment to choose courage and decide that I will not allow myself to simple fall into despair. It is counter to my natural inclination, and that is entirely what I need to do.

This is my prayer, that self-control would find its way into my moments of loss and bewilderment. There is nothing too big that cannot be conquered by love… even this. And there are many who do love me. I know this well.