Falling Off The Edge With You, It Was Too Good to Be True

I've been thinking a lot more in the past couple of weeks than I have in a long while. c. I learned a few things and all it really took was refusing to let my anxiety/cluster-B shit/chronic illness ruin my life.

I take a good amount of pride in my sense of self-awareness and understanding of my own emotions and actions, but I still struggle with my relationships with other people. I don't understand why they seem to like me, and if they do, I'll need to constantly be reassured of it, because I don't have any goddamn sense of object permanence. 

Now that I know people really do enjoy having me around, I've been trying to figure out why that is. I've concluded that it's something my mom calls "Social Worker Face," which somehow prompts everyone within a 50 foot radius to compulsively tell me all of their problems, concerns, and innermost secrets. I've had countless friends tell me they feel that they can open up to me, and that I'm a great person to talk to, that I'm a good listener. I think that's pretty true, but honestly, I think a lot of people have trouble expressing their issues to their friends or family because most people are really just waiting for their turn to speak. Alternately, they might tend to derail the conversation to relay a similar experience of their own, and then the person trying to talk about their problems is left with no real path towards resolution.

I'll only give advice if I'm a hundred percent confident it's the right course of action for that person to take, and even then, I'll make sure it's not something I couldn't see myself doing. What I've learned, and what I think a lot of people forget when acting as your friends' de facto therapist, is that nobody really wants your advice anyway. A lot of the time, people just want to talk, and they want you to listen. That's enough, for most people. 

Maybe that's not the best reason for people to like you, but I think it's good enough for me. I'd rather people like me for my willingness to help them figure out their problems than, say, my money or willingness to sell them Adderall. That said, I'm not going to go ahead and imply that I would ever want to become a therapist of any sort.

Something about helping other people make sense of their issues makes it easier for me to deal with my own shit. That's not to say I don't still have some anxiety. Fortunately, it's become a lot more manageable in the past few weeks. I had an important medical procedure that's hopefully going to finally put an end to my heart troubles, resolved my student loan nightmare, reconnected with a lot of friends and family, done some traveling, and conquered what is arguably my biggest fear.

Oh, yeah, about that last one: Maria Sych rode in a fucking airplane. By herself.

I have, arguably, the most severe panic disorder anyone has ever had in the history of panic disorders, and airplanes terrify the hell out of me. That's my number one. Until recently, there is no way you'd be able to get me on one, especially not by myself. But last Friday, with the help of a little Ativan, a phone call to my mom (and apparently a number of my female relatives, via speakerphone), and fervent prayers to Holy Mother Kim Kardashian and Blessed Baby North West, I dragged my ass onto a 717 and flew to the East Coast. 

And it honestly wasn't terrible. I mean, I did have to distract myself by verbally berating the Vineyard Vines-clad frat boy from Wisconsin sitting next to me (I can't really help my compulsion to be mean to white males, especially when I first meet them, and especially when they're wearing Vineyard Vines, but it's worse when I'm nervous). I also had pop an additional Ativan halfway through the flight, and consequently the rest of the night is a blur, but it all went swimmingly. I did it! 

And I'm so, so glad I did. I haven't seen Lucas since the Island, and I had an absolutely amazing time hanging out with him around New Jersey (even though I talked shit about the strip malls and freeways the entire time), and NYC for a minute. I spent way too much money, tripped and fell into a river, and cried way too much, but it was easily the happiest I've been in awhile.

Which lead me to another important realization, one that I've been afraid of for a long while. I don't really like change, and I have a hard time being away from home, which contrasts with the fact that I move house every six months, but I think it's about time I permanently got the fuck away from Mount Pleasant. I'm a lot less anxious when I'm away from this town, and the more I travel to other places, the more I understand I'm past this point in my life. 

I need almost everything to be different. Living life the way I have hasn't really gotten me anywhere nice, so I'm reevaluating my usual protocols. I'm fine with whatever happens. 

I don't know, maybe it was conquering one of my biggest phobias and understanding that I'm capable of living through everything that's come so close to ruining my life, but I ain't scare of no things. Sometimes, when I'm on the verge of panic, I resign myself to the worst case scenario: that I might die. Is that so terrifying? I'm not really that significant. You aren't, none of us are. It's nothing to be depressed about, if that's what you think I might be getting at. I think it's freeing. Do whatever you want, because we're all speeding towards the same void.

I completely understand that this post is hardly cohesive, and it sounds a little grandiose, but I think my main sentiment is that I got up off the couch after weeks of being horribly depressed, when I did, I learned one or two pretty important things.

Here's a shitty panorama of New York. I'm ready for a camera that's not an iPhone, ya dig?

Breathe It In, Just Follow Me Right To The End: A Rant About Neurodivergence

I cringed when I typed the word "neurodivergence" in the title, because it sounds like a quintessential tumblr epithet, but I digress. Anyway, I'm gonna write about this even though it's not one of those things you're really supposed to talk about. In the vein of my earlier blog posts, I'm not going to try to sound eloquent or pretentious, either. This is some stream of consciousness bullshit.

I thought this would be over by now. I've had a lot of people tell me I'd grow out of everything that's wrong with me, and that everything I won't grow out of can be easily fixed. 

I'm fine with being Sad Forever. I can cope with that. I don't care. I'm past that. It's the fear and instability that I won't tolerate anymore, because it's ruining my life.

I guess maybe I've had it a little too easy, because I never expected to struggle as much as I have. Like any privileged millenial, I found it absurd (and still do, sometimes) that I should have to carry on with my problems, and that no matter how much money or therapy I throw at them, they're still here. Growing up and making it in the Real World meant that I had to learn how to put some effort into solving this shit for myself. I can't have someone do it for me, and I can't always take a pill.

There's nothing that I've put as much work into as my mental health, but it's also the most difficult, taxing journey I've ever been on. No matter how much progress I think I've made, I can't leave the house without anti-anxiety medication (if I can bring myself to leave at all), certain people give me catastrophic panic attacks, I have extreme problems with my interpersonal relationships, I tend to get myself into situations that aren't easy to get out of because I have little self control, I constantly question reality, I have horrifying nightmares of things I've been through and things I've seen, I frequently consider the merits of walking into traffic, and I don't trust anyone, because you can never know for sure what they will do to you. I am always early, I am never late, I avoid certain places and I double-check everything. I don't make eye contact, I constantly overthink everything, and I am terrified that everyone's going to leave me. But I'm not really afraid of anything but myself, and that's the worst. 

No matter how hard I've tried, the things I've mentioned still happen and I'm doing my best to live with them. According to everyone I've spoken to, I'm in control of this, and this can be managed if I Just Try These Techniques. That works pretty well until you have a psychotic episode or you're faced with your absolute worst phobia.

I don't really know what you could say about it, or what I could say about it, that hasn't been said before. I just don't want anyone to ever think that mental illness is any sort of desirable, enigmatic, colorful aspect of someone's personality or that it's anything easy to deal with. 

Though I think that perception is slowly fading. A lot more people nowadays are aware of different mental illnesses, and people are realizing that if it's something they're suffering from, they're not alone. Feeling isolated is unbearable. Although, something I think is far worse is how invalidating people can be when you open up to them about what you're struggling with, something that can be incredibly hard to do.

So I urge you to be kind to people who do make that jump, and to try and understand them. Chances are they are working tirelessly to attain some semblance of sanity, a better quality of life, to maybe just make it through the day. I would give, quite literally, everything I have to not feel this way, and when I'm feeling it I want to be able to talk about it. I want people to be able to understand, not give me the laundry-list of cliched reassurances. Of course it's all in my head, and no, I can't snap out of it. Sure, it could be worse, but does something have to be the absolute worst-case scenario for me to feel shitty about it?

My goal isn't to be happy. That'd just be a positive externality. I'm interested in feeling entirely safe, functional, and stable. I've looked for this in a million different places, jobs, medications, experiences, and perhaps most dangerously, in other people. I know that achieving some sort of real, lasting stability is something that comes from me and me alone. It's probably going to take forever to get there. I haven't seen my last panic attack, and I know that I'm gonna probably ruin something major in my life again at some point. I just have to accept that that's going to happen.

I'm working on breathing, as deep as I can, and remembering everything that truly is, instead of what it might be.