If it's broken, fix it!

Wow... Has it ever been a long time since I wrote a blog post. Currently I'm at work, and probably shouldn't be doing this, but there is literally nothing to do so I'd rather keep myself busy writing than play computer games.

I did wind up going to Ontario for a week in early July. I was intending to do a blog post about that, but at this moment, I feel like writing about something else. Needless to say, the experience of going to Ontario and meeting various people was amazing and I'm super glad I decided to do it. But again, if I decide to blog about that, it will be later on.

Since I came back from Ontario, I found myself falling once again into a web of depression. It was very painful and I felt like I needed something to change, but I did not know what. I just knew I hated this life I'm in. I hate how expensive it is here to live, I hate that I have literally no more creative work to do at work anymore, that the real estate and rental markets are ridiculously expensive that everyone would have to make triple what they are currently making to make ends meet, and of course the fact that nothing will come of the money laundering issue in our real estate, because it would cause a huge market crash and those who were fortunate enough to purchase a home would lose big time. It upsets me to no end that these criminals are going to get away with it, and it's still likely going on as we speak.

I also found myself once again feeling lonely and isolated. I loved meeting with people and talking and listening to their stories and so forth. It's the first time in a long time that I've felt alive.

The crippling depression persisted enough that I was unable to go to work for several days and even missed a doctor's appointment because the depression hit me so hard I couldn't get out of bed. I just wanted to stay there and sleep. (I finally got an ultimatum from my supervisor that if it happens again, I might as well not come in to work at all. I'm trying hard to get to work everyday now, but I'm still not happy about it.)

It felt like I was regressing back to my teenage years. I would do that all the time. Sleep in whenever I could until mid-afternoon, then get up and watch TV, play CDs or tapes, and hang out with my brother. We would stay up late on Saturday nights to watch Saturday Night Live. Then we'd continue playing music and whatnot.

There were also lots of days I wanted to be alone in my room, hiding away from everyone, even my brother. I'm very close to him, as we are fairly close in age and seem to like a lot of the similar things. But whenever I would feel like I needed to be alone, he'd try to come in, and I'd be blocking the door with my body, angrily trying to keep him out. I felt I needed that alone time because I likely had a bad day, or the depression was really getting to me.

For those unfamiliar with my life story, you can view that under the Mell's Spell and Mell's Hell tabs. Mell's Hell is about my years being bullied in school and how that had a deep impact on my life. It is in fact still impacting my life to this day. I have now realized that those bullies who were particularly rough on me were in fact dealing with a lot of bad stuff at home and that their attacks on me were not necessarily about me at all. I learned to forgive one in particular when I heard his back story. It didn't excuse his behaviour, but realizing it wasn't about me was profoundly impactful. Nevertheless, all those years being excluded, ostracized, and called ugly hurt like Hell (which is why I called it Mell's Hell), but I didn't know how to process that kind of pain.

I wound up locking myself away in my room, blasting whatever music I had at the time. I became obsessed with DC Comics books and various other teenage girl things, like NKOTB. The biggest thing though was that I would dissociate myself from my life and would live in a fantasy world, or Maladaptive Daydreaming which is the technical term for it. It's probably why I resonate so much with The Neverending Story.

I learned as a kid to keep myself closed off, away from people, hide away in my little fortress of solitude (bedroom) and fantasize about various characters from the comic books I became obsessed with. The big problem now is that I seem to have regressed back to that way these days, which is why the depression has hit me hard.

Last Wednesday, I had a session with my therapist. After talking about some things, she brought up an interesting point. She said I learned to cope as a child with all of that in the best way I could figure out at that time. During that time, it most likely worked for me in some way. Today, those same coping mechanisms are doing me more harm than good. It's getting in my way, so she has challenged me to make a note of those coping mechanisms that aren't working anymore, and find a way to change it into something more productive or empowering. Basically, I need human contact in my life. She also wants me to take 5 minutes before I go to bed to write three things I am grateful for after the day is done.

This definitely has me thinking about things. My coping mechanisms I developed as a child that I noted above is not helpful anymore. I can't continue to keep myself locked away in my room (whole apartment these days), refusing human contact, and continuing to daydream my life away. It's not working for me anymore, if it ever did before.

During these past few weeks, I have been stretching myself a little in some ways. I signed on to a writing site called Reedsy. It's a free Marketplace for writers, publishers, graphic designers, etc. to collaborate on projects. What I find particularly interesting is you can sign up for free short courses on various "how to" topics that I struggle with when I do find the itch to write. I feel like I have a book in me somewhere.

I've also been signing up for some of those courses I am seeing on Facebook that offers 90% off. I am going to try to learn how to do app design and perhaps even coding. I know I am not fully enjoying my job anymore, so the idea is to pick up new skills to either find a better paying job where I can be creative again, or do graphic and app design in my spare time as a freelancer to pick up extra income. So I do feel I am trying to figure out this career thing. But so far, that is all I am doing.

I will continue to reflect on these coping mechanisms that are no longer suiting my best interests and try to figure out this thing called human contact. It's hard when you learned at a young age that you can't trust anyone, but I have to learn a new rule. I'm sure there are trustworthy people out there, some of which may actually want to hang out and be friends, but I avoid because of fearing rejection myself, which likely makes them feel rejected, and so on, and so forth.

Anyways, I should probably wrap this entry up now. Thanks for reading, for those who do.