fragments
“Love you,” I say, as he turns to go.
“Take care,” he replies. The door closes and he doesn’t look back.
I wonder if he ever will. If he ever does, I will always know that I don’t deserve it. That it will be his gift, nothing I can earn.
:::
Despite the fact that I’m medicated I still have days when I’m more down than up. Days where I am caught in the facts of what I’ve become, what is so far from what I meant to be. I have days when I can only focus on what I’ve done wrong and where I’ve failed, and this is one of them. Does that mean that something is still wrong? I don’t know anymore.
:::
People offer me things: their time, a hug, babysitting, food. I stumble over what to say, then. I fluster, telling them that they shouldn’t, or that they don’t have to, or asking if they’re sure that they want to give that to me, or that I don’t really need it. That I don’t need them.
I hear myself talking and all the while in my mind there is a battle: one side saying that it’s okay, that no one would offer if they didn’t want to; the other saying that I don’t deserve it and they’re offering because they feel sorry for me, because I’ve somehow projected a need. That they’re offering because they know, deep down, that I’m broken. Needy. A taker.
I try to show the world that I’m okay but it’s not listening anymore. The more people I tell, the more I open up, the more everyone knows I’m lying. That my happy face isn’t mine. I hate it. I want people to think that I am happy and okay. People keep reaching out but I don’t want their hands – I simaltaneously grasp and push away. I just want it to be okay, to not need all that’s offered. I am so grateful, but I hate every reminder. I want to go back to pretending.
(Even writing that sentence I am thinking how stupid this all sounds. Woe is me, to have people who want to help).
It’s not that I don’t love everyone who wants to help, who wants to make it okay. It’s that I never wanted to be this person who needed it so badly.
:::
Even when it’s all okay… I know I won’t deserve it. He knows it and I do too.
Filed under: PPD, me | 5 Comments
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I so know what you mean about the happy face. Its the worst. Here’s the thing though – I feel BETTER when I try to act happy….and I wonder if acting happy isn’t helping me get to happy. I don’t know. I can’t make sense tonight.
Beth, you DO deserve it. No matter how much you think you don’t, you do. If you look for the negative, you will find it. Take baby steps to STOP looking for it. I’m rooting for you!
I am terrible at asking or accepting help. I want to be independent. But, then I know I should accept the help because it would help… It is a hard battle!
People who need people are the luckiest. Trite, but true. The world would be a very lonely place if you never needed to reach out to anyone for support, for a hug, for a break. Very lonely, indeed. When you don’t need people they tend to float away after a while. It’s human nature, to need and to be needed. It’s why we have family. And friends.
So, let them be your family, your friends, which by it’s very nature implies that they will be there for you when you need them. Even if you don’t realize that you do.
It’s a hard balance to strike that is for sure. But there will be those days again where you are more up than down. You’ll get there. Depression and anxiety is lonely and so hard to describe to anyone else. Take the help when you can . . . But most of all take it one moment at a time.