when are you gonna come down? when are you going to land? I should have stayed on the farm, I should have listened to my old man… you know you can’t hold me forever, I didn’t sign up with you, I’m not a present for your friends to open, this boy’s too young to be singing the blues…
Hello there! It’s been a minute. I know I keep saying that, but I really mean to be writing more. If you read my last few posts then you know I’ve been going through some stuff. Nothing serious, just dealing with some heavy shit that’s been eating away at my guts for like, my entire life. And trying to clear it all out, after the fact, has been a bitch, but I’m working through it. I told you I was going to do my best to lighten things up as we move on, so that’s what I’m here to do.
Being inside your own head 24/7 is absolutely exhausting. I recently joined Cerebral and am working on fixing the anti anxiety meds that I’m on. Tweaking them so that they also take the depression down a notch, and you know, help me function. So far, I think it’s working? I put a question mark at the end of that sentence because I’m not really sure yet. I’m still dealing with all the little side effects of upping the dose that I was on. But for the most part, I’m not really numb anymore. I haven’t had to physically peel myself off of the couch in a week or so, so that’s definitely an improvement. I haven’t felt really rage-y. So these little things that I’ve noticed are all steps in the right direction. And the best part is, if I feel like it’s not working, I am actually working with 2 different people on the app who can help me. And that makes me feel a little less alone with the difficult time I was previously having.
Anyway, my husband and I started watching this new show “Kevin Can F*ck Himself” on AMC. We started watching it because Annie Murphy is the lead. You know her as Alexis on Schitt’s Creek, but you absolutely can NOT go into it thinking she will be anything like Alexis because you will miss everything great about this show. I’m not going to get into all of the details because I’m highly recommending that you watch it. Anything I write here won’t do it justice. The show has 2 sides to it. And there is no question, whatsoever, about whether you’ll be able to notice while watching. The short explanation is that she is a sitcom wife who, on the sitcom side of it, gets treated like a typical sitcom wife. All the punchlines revolve around how stupid she is, when in all actuality, her husband is a fucking idiot. But then, the sitcom part goes away, and you see this really dark side of her. The cinematography on it is exquisite. Any recap or review about it talks about how crazy it is that it can go from stage lights and laugh tracks to really dark and creepy so seamlessly.
This isn’t a tv show review blog. I swear. But this show has me thinking. Not about killing my husband like she does. My husband isn’t a fucking idiot, nor does he treat me like one. I literally can’t live without him. What it has me thinking about is the double life that most of us lead. Now, it doesn’t have to be that dramatic, the show is centered around that specific plot, so it works. But most of us do lead a double life. You have the person that you project outward, into the world and the person who you are or feel like on the inside. You have your home life and your work life. You have your lifelong friends and your work or school friends. Some know you better than you know yourself and some of them know what you allow them to know.
Going through the hard parts of depression and anxiety could also be classified as another life that you lead. I get up and go do all of the things I’m supposed to do. I go to my job and I do the work I’m supposed to do. I don’t sit at my desk with signs up that say “don’t talk to me, I’m in a dark head space right now”. I project the person that the people around me need me to be. In the grand scheme of things, I’m there to do a job so I do it to the best of my ability. When I clock out for the day, I can switch that version of myself off and go be the anxious sad sack that I’ve been tucking away all day. I mean, there’s so much more to life than that and you really just have to know that you will get through it. It sucks right now because it’s the thing that is in your face all the time and it’s annoying and messy. I don’t have a very serious case of depression but mental illness runs in my family and it terrifies me. I don’t ever want to get to the point where I can’t cope with it so I scare myself straight and do what I have to do to get out of it. And I know that I’m lucky that I can do that, even if it’s just speaking to someone about fixing the medication I’m on.
It’s all about the dark and light in life. You have to know that in the darkness you absolutely can find the light. But you have to want to find it. And on this fictional show where light and dark are so prominent and literally show how the person is acting on the outside and so drastically feeling on the inside, it really puts things into perspective for me. It makes me grateful that I have people in my corner. That I have people who know the real me and are there for me anyway. Even when I’m so unlovable, they find a way to show me that I’m loved. They break through the dysfunctional mental mess that I’ve created around myself. That is the light in my darkness.
Whoa, pump the breaks. I’m not sure if that was light or dark, but I made it weird in that last paragraph. My bad.
Anyway… go watch this show. You don’t have to be all extra about it like me. You can just watch it like a normal person. At the very least, you’ll be entertained and be like what the actual fuck is going on? Please let me know your thoughts on it if you do. We don’t have to get all psychoanalytical about it. You can just be like “yea, great show, looking forward to seeing this story play out” and I’ll be like “excellent, glad you like it”.
Also, I used Goodbye Yellow Brick Road because this song is always in my head. Metaphorically, it means so many things and makes me feel hopeful about a lot of shit so I’m leaving it here as a reminder. Also, real quick, I started listening to this podcast called No Place Like Home. It’s about how someone stole one of the original pairs of ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz and how the FBI pulled a sting operation 13 years after they were stolen and got them back. So, I’m also going to recommend you listen to that if you’re a Wizard of Oz and/or Judy Garland fan. Ok, ok, no more recommendations for today.
Good night!
so goodbye yellow brick road, where the dogs of society howl… you can’t plant me in your penthouse, I’m going back to my plough, back to the howling old owl in the woods, hunting the horny back toad… oh, I’ve finally decided my future lies beyond the yellow brick road…
Song name: GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD/ Artist: Elton John / Year: 1973
TALKING ON EGGSHELLS 