Walking through Thunderstorms

I can remember when I started to feel anxiety back in childhood.

In a crowded room, I always felt so overwhelmed that I started to cry. If I felt like I couldn’t do something right the first time, I cried. Even in my 30’s, if I feel like I don’t have the ability or can’t comprehend such a monumental task ahead of me, I cry.

I have been a huge crybaby since childhood and that is likely to not change anytime soon. Emotions and the feelings of inadequacy ran and still run rampant. I can only compare it to wading and walking through storms every time it happens. Either I came out dry or I got completely soaked in the feeling while everything else got soaked with me.

There’s no place in the world where there isn’t a cloud or a way to say what the weather will be like. You can look for the warning signs and know if a cold front is coming through or if you’re expect a derecho. You know it’s coming as it builds and either you know how to cope or you know you’ll end up exploding.

If they can put a category to hurricanes, thunderstorms and tornadoes, why can’t I put my depression into these categories?

I see all the time ‘mild, moderate and severe’ for depression or ‘general’ for anxiety but it may as well be like Mild, Hot and Spicy sauce from Taco Bell. It describes only a little bit of your suffering for the time you choose on purpose because for you, the pleasure of having it in the moment means a full belly and the pain would pass.

I know absolutely Spicy Depression would be painful but you make your choice on what you put on top of that anxiety burrito leading to the gut of regret and self-admonishment.

You can’t make the weather change… but it’s predictable.

You already know what’s going to come because you can look at the date on the calendar and know that the dread is coming. It’s knowing you’ve got to take a flight across the country but you’re afraid of flying and now you have to try to reorganize your life to prepare for it. It’s seeing partly cloudy skies knowing today is going to be cooler but that comes with it’s own problems. Like a sunburn in Maine on a cloudy day.

I can categorize these feelings into storms. I know exactly how catastrophic these feelings and anxieties can get because once you’ve been through one storm, you get the gist of how it’s supposed to go. However, you may not be able to handle them all the time.

Sometimes, you come unprepared for the fallout.

I will put a disclaimer here though that I am NOT a medical professional. I am merely putting a sense of meaning to just how drastic and diverse the feelings of depression and anxiety can be for myself or others. I’m giving them a new face that maybe everyone can see and understand.

Partly Cloudy But No Rain

Depression has no clear linear shape and size just like clouds can be.

You can put a scientific name to them as much as you want for scale but when you’re underneath them, you can’t really tell. To them, when they’re above you they’re large grey and white blobs. It’s the easiest days next to the clear ones. Sometimes it’s just the thin whisps that are there and you may not feel it at all.

It hangs above your head, sometimes it feels good but sometimes annoying and cold as the wind blows them through. It doesn’t disrupt your life and your choices, but you always feel like it’s there hanging over your head. Days like that I feel happy but still inwardly tired. Sometimes the mood may change depending on what could happen but it’s liveable. You don’t have to survive the heavier emotions that day and it’s the better days to function like a person. There’s nothing else to really weigh you down but yourself.

The Drizzle

Looking outside and seeing a drizzle is a reminder that a nap might feel good for now because you feel a little more tired than the days with no rain. The exhaustion is more visible. It’s present once you walk outside, leaving everything a little glossy but not soaked. It’s damp and the damp makes it slightly uncomfortable the more you trudge through it. You can function with only a little caution but you’re aware that it could get worse. A drizzle always come before a big storm. At least, that’s what the anxiety says and it sounds like a little rumble of thunder ways off.

Often you look at something and you feel a little sad. It’s that stack of books you don’t really have the energy to read or a few dishes in the sink. You’ll put them off for another partly cloudy day but today you just tend to take care of the basic needs of yourself or your family. Sometimes that’s just enough.

The Passable Storm

It’s harder today. It’s feeling that sting like you are remembering all the things you aren’t good at that makes you wish you could do so much better. I always cry a little these days because since I’m stuck with just the white nose of the rain and the thunder, I feel more stuck inside of myself. It’s okay to go out but going out feels overwhelming and the prospect of absorbing the rain more is a miserable thought. Especially if you know that you actually have to DO something to function.

Passing storms can go on for days without showers or three square meals. Sometimes just a snack and dinner is enough.

More often then not, you get that second gust of wind that makes you want to be productive if only to get rid of some of the dead weights in your life because you realize one of those flaws you have is your ability to spend, spend, spend.

And then you spend some more to buy those organizers to organize all the extra crap you bought from the last passing storm.

There’s always going to be a low rumble of anxiety because in the end, while you feel sad, the anxiety makes you still want to do things to rectify it.

Severe Thunderstorm

It’s the kind of rain that the umbrella collapses under and so do you back into bed. These tend to be the days where all the personal demons like to come out to play. It’s the darker clouds and much louder rumbles outside.

It’s not feeling like the best wife possible because the apartment’s a mess and you can’t cook very well.

It’s feeling like you’ve wasted your parents time and money because you weren’t absolutely the best. (Sorry guys, not a medical professional.) It’s that uncomfortable sting of static because someone else is on the high ground all the time but it’s not you.

It’s that last job that sucked the self-worth out of you until it feels like the only worth you have is just being an emotional sack of spicy depression. It ruined you because they tried to colonize your life and force a culture of a constant burnout until that old, unfulfilled you was gone. A model employee but no soul. Even just getting rid of the papers and free things they give you just doesn’t seem to be enough.

All that collective weight rumbles and rattles around you. At the same time, you want someone to help but in your mind and mine, it feels like being absolute burden.

All you want is someone to hold the umbrella for you or help get the wet clothes off. You want someone to read your mind and get you exactly what you need yet it feels so far out of reach. Your help is on the other side of a flooded road and to reach out is to get swept off your feet.

The Microburst

You saw all the warning signs. You knew it was coming.

It’s the anniversary of something you went through and now the grief has formed hail in the storm. It varies in size, sometimes it’s pebbles and others it’s baseballs.

It’s smashing the makeup before your wedding.

It’s feeling like you want to light everything on fire and start from scratch.

It’s feeling like there’s a call that you want to answer but it would devastate those who love and care about you that the depression and anxiety don’t seem to hear.

It’s in your area, it feels like a tornado is tearing through everything you either physically or mentally hold dear. It doesn’t just affect you but it affects the social world around you. I’m at the most volitile I’ve have ever been and it’s when everything goes from zero to sixty so quickly it makes everyone else’s heads spin.

You can’t even describe it to anyone because again, it feels like above the wind no one would hear you. I could absolutely say ‘tornado’ but a tornado tears through a long line causes more damage to more than just you. This is just focused on you and the small but immediate sphere around you. Anything outside of that sphere is fine but anything close feels and looks damaged.

It’s at that point when I know that if I want to prevent the damage path from extending to others, that I know I need help.

So how do I not get wet? How do I prepare for these times?

You can’t walk anywhere without finding umbrellas, raincoats, boots and all the necessary gear for walking around in wet conditions.

These can take different forms too. I was on medication like Zoloft for years and that served as a method of providing at least a raincoat for these moods. It made the tumultuous days that could be a Microburst turn more into a Drizzle. It took the steam out of the anxiety and the depression. It made me function but you still can feel it. It’s just not as dominating.

Therapy played a big way in how to handle relationships and situations that may be triggering the major parts of my anxieties. It took that feeling of being backed in a corner and realizing…the corner’s A LOT bigger than I think it is. I can walk around and move more freely away from what bothers me.

There are times where you can’t and that is when you have to dig your heels in to establish those healthy boundaries. A wise therapist once told me that you don’t have to make everything a fight but learning to walk away from toxic behaviors and boundary-pushers can remove wind out of the sails.

Being in my 30’s now, I’ve learned that you can either keep fighting or you can walk. There is no sense of letting something ruin your peace. There’s no reason to let someone or something turn a drizzle into an outright microburst.

Outside of therapy and medicine, I have learned to enjoy my peace and my hobbies in whatever way would piss someone else off for sure.

You can do what you need to function but you can also take time to turn off. I don’t have to live in a constant existence of I have to do something on someone else’s time. My time is my own now.

I have also found that now that in my 30’s, the most important relationships are the ones that I have allowed trust into my life. There will always be come and go relationships in your 20’s but by now, I have the best people around me. Particularly because if one of us is stuck, then we’re not afraid to band together to provide an ounce of help until the cup runs over.

So, what are my best words of advice now that you’ve read this far?

1) There are days that will be dry and comfortable but once in a while don’t let something turn your dry days into derechos.

2) It’s okay to walk away. It’s better than letting them toss your ship around and make a good day into a bad one.

3) You can function but you can enjoy things too. Do what you can to function minimally on the bad days but absolutely make sure you take a few precious hours to focus on yourself to turn them into better ones.

4) Get help when you need it. In your 30’s, your surrounded by other adults who either care or don’t but if you find yourself feeling like you can’t get out of the pond, ask for a lifesaver.