the right ones

Before my ther­a­pist starts talk­ing, he has this habit of repeat­ed­ly purs­ing his lips when try­ing to find the right words. It always makes me won­der if I have any habits too, and whether some­one could do a rea­son­able impres­sion of me by mim­ic­k­ing some man­ner­ism I’m unaware of. The only thing I can think of is this par­tic­u­lar way of clear­ing my throat out loud that Bronwen used to tease me about, some­thing I’ve since real­ized that I picked up from my dad.

The ses­sions are get­ting abstract and philo­soph­i­cal, a sign that they’re focus­ing less on details and issues and more on root caus­es. He’s been chal­leng­ing my think­ing, but he always does it in a gen­tle and encour­ag­ing way by let­ting me explore ideas myself, giv­ing me a lit­tle nudge in the right direc­tion if I need it. Most impor­tant­ly, he always makes it clear that I’m the one in con­trol, that I make my own deci­sions, and that he won’t judge me whether he thinks they’re healthy or not.

The thing I’ve learned most recent­ly is that some peo­ple are sim­ply nev­er meant to fill a cer­tain role in your life. Getting upset at them for not being more is like get­ting upset at your cat for not being able to play LittleBigPlanet with you. It’s a hard real­i­ty to come to terms with; not only am I faced with the sud­den real­iza­tion that some peo­ple aren’t who I want or need them to be, it means they’ll like­ly nev­er be that as well.

But that’s the way the world is, and I’m learn­ing to let go, and to not hold every­one to the same stan­dards I hold myself to. The best I can do is con­nect with the right peo­ple, the ones who can be what I need because that’s who they are, not because they’ve tried to change for my sake.

secret wedding

Lisa and Rolf got mar­ried on the fifth anniver­sary of their first date. It’s a fun lit­tle secret they’re keep­ing from peo­ple (includ­ing their par­ents), and as the actu­al wed­ding will be a non-tra­di­tion­al cel­e­bra­tion in August, the paper­work was done in advance. I was hon­oured to be the only one to know, as well as their pho­tog­ra­ph­er, and on Sunday we did the engage­ment pho­tos, fol­lowed by a quick stop at the offi­ciant’s house to sign and wit­ness1, then a trip out to Denny’s for break­fast. Denny’s holds a spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance for them, as it was where Rolf took Lisa after he pro­posed, and ever since, they try to eat at a local Denny’s when­ev­er they trav­el.

It’s been a long time since I had a project to work on, and to see how well the pho­tos came out has been a delight.

couch in the woods

In the back­yard.

Continue read­ing “secret wed­ding”…

  1. The paper­work was about 20 min­utes, and the actu­al “cer­e­mo­ny” only took about four sec­onds. [↩]

better living through chemistry

I can’t pin­point the exact moment I start­ed to feel bet­ter, which is a very pecu­liar feel­ing in itself. There has­n’t been any event to which I can attribute the fact that I’m not so anx­ious about how scary the future is any­more, or how I’m not depressed about every­thing that’s hap­pened. The only vari­able has been the med­ica­tion, which means it’s work­ing.

The side-effect that still affects me most is the insom­nia. I sleep for two hours, do some­thing mind­less for two hours, then go back to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat. I don’t feel rest­ed until night, at which point I’m soon ready to sleep again. It’s wreak­ing hav­oc with my moti­va­tion — not to men­tion my col­i­tis — which is why I haven’t start­ed rebuild­ing my life yet. For now, I try to do one thing every day that will make me hap­py, so I can say it was a good day. Baby steps.

But I’ve also lost all inspi­ra­tion, and I’m left won­der­ing if this is anoth­er effect of selec­tive sero­tonin reup­take inhi­bi­tion. When I walk the streets, it feels like a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent world from what I knew.

I used to pick up my gui­tar through­out the day and noo­dle. I used to car­ry my cam­era with me every­where in case some­thing caught my eye. I used to write almost every day. Creativity was a dri­ving force in my life, and a huge part of how I used to define myself. Now I nev­er feel like cre­at­ing. I used to be ter­ri­fied of going on med­ica­tion for this exact rea­son, but I’ve dis­cov­ered that the med­ica­tion makes it all okay. It’s like Cipralex is both the cause and the cure.

At least I can go out­side now. I can face the world, and start fix­ing what needs to be fixed.

the tide you swim against will carry you back home

How quick­ly my world fell apart. How sud­den­ly things have changed, nev­er to be the same again. No one blames me for being unable to cope when so much has hap­pened all at once.

When diag­nos­ing the sever­i­ty of your mood, the pro­fes­sion­als always ask if you have a plan. Even the two cops who show up at your door at mid­night cause your friends fear the worst will pose the ques­tion. I guess a plan is the sign that you’re in imme­di­ate dan­ger, and I had three.

It means I get to be self­ish now. I get to do what I need to sur­vive. I get to think of myself for once in my life.

Even if my friends have nev­er been through this, even if they don’t under­stand, they still care, and they prove it to me with every lin­ger­ing hug, every meal they leave me, every call to ask how I’m feel­ing, every mes­sage left to let them know if there’s any­thing they can do, every reminder that they don’t want to lose me spo­ken through tears from those I’ve nev­er seen cry.

I used to have noth­ing but guilt for wor­ry­ing them, but now I under­stand that guilt is the last thing they want me to feel. They only want me to be okay. They’ve done so much to make me believe this, and that’s exact­ly what I need right now.

morbid self-attention

My life has tak­en anoth­er turn again. The days can go on with reg­u­lar­i­ty over and over, one day indis­tin­guish­able from the next. A long con­tin­u­ous chain.

—Taxi Driver

Time los­es all mean­ing when you can’t sleep more than two hours in a row, and every­thing else becomes mean­ing­less along with it. Some days I can’t eat, exer­cise, or face the world. All I can do is won­der when it’ll all end, and fight every thought that tells me to give up.

They said the med­ica­tion may make me feel worse before I start feel­ing bet­ter. This is how I dis­cov­er rock bot­tom is always rel­a­tive. A strange lit­tle hole I find myself in, where the days grow brighter with the chang­ing of sea­sons, insom­nia means I nev­er miss a sun­rise or sun­set, and I have noth­ing but free time, but none of it mat­ters.