I hate posting things from, like, Billy Jo Bob’s Info site, but I found out May is Mental Health Awareness Month, so, to that end: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Depression.
“Some people with depression may be plagued by low self-esteem and feelings of worthlessness, yet function well on a day-to-day basis. Others may not be as affected by negative thinking, but buckle under heavy fatigue and pervasive apathy. Sadness could be considered a defining symptom of depression, but even that’s not always present: A person with depression might be overly irritable or emotionally numb instead of profoundly unhappy … Women with depression tend to have more anxiety than men, report more fatigue and hypersomnia (excessive sleeping), and tend toward lethargy.”
Oh, OK, cool, so it looks like BEING AN ASSHOLE.
THANKS, Science, way to be specific. 🙄
I have this habit of intending to respond to OkCupid messages, but then I forget about it, or I want to wait until I’m at a computer instead of my phone, and then suddenly a week has passed and I think, “Well, if I really wanted to reply, I would’ve made it more of a priority,” so I just delete the message.
When I told my therapist about this, she said, “Hey, maybe don’t do that? You saved those messages for a reason. Either write back or delete them, but letting them sit in your inbox makes them just another to-do item looming in your brain, making you feel like you’re behind on life and bad at being an adult.”
So, um… Can y’all write these dudes back?
Apparently I have hella issues and emotional walls and I think I’m boring so I don’t want to waste anyone’s time? I didn’t know these things about myself — never go to therapy. “I would’ve made it more of priority” sounds far less tragic, like I’m just such a busy, baller boss bitch that I don’t have time for you people and your penises.
But hey, you know what? Frankly I’m doing these men a favor. If I never answer, they’ll never get any of my Crazy on them, and then no one gets hurt. I’ll just continue hiding in my little Singleton cave and never getting laid and letting these feelings deepen and fester until I’m a crazy, old cat lady who dies alone and the cats eat my face. What’s the problem? The cats will be fed!
(Ahem. Why, yes, it has occurred to me that perhaps I should be in therapy twice a week.)
I told an OkCupid guy I’d gone to the Women’s Conference, and he wrote back asking what “the most inspiring takeaway” was.
The honest answers to this question are not suitable for the first few online dating messages.
1. No matter how crippling my imposter syndrome gets, I shouldn’t be afraid to speak, because chances are I’m NOT the stupidest person in a given room. (Though I still don’t believe that.)
2. We can put too much onto the ONE person in our paradigm of monogamous relationships, and it’s to be expected that we get different things from different people. I am not a slut or a bad person for getting those needs met, and I shouldn’t feel bad about it. (Though I still do.)
3. My knee-high black leather boots are better suited for your filthy sexual fantasies than for walking 6 miles at the Convention Center.
I’ve been discussing career goals with a friend, because I’ve been feeling totally stuck in what I’m doing, and I feel seven kinds of shitty** about it, just allllll the self-doubt/loathing, staring down the barrel of a TON of work and thought to figure out what my next move should be, because I have no idea.
Friend’s response:
“I have always thought someone should pay you lots of money just to be you and write what you already write. I don’t know exactly who that should be — Cracked, Bustle, Jezebel, The Mary Sue, various advertisers for your personal blog? — but I very much want it to happen. I know you do too, I just thought you should know that I read a LOT online and I would read all your stuff even if I didn’t know you. Just saying.”
Awwwww! You guys! ❤
I mentioned this predicament to another friend, and SHE complimented my writing, too!
“I know you’re not fishing for compliments, but I LOVE reading you. Anything you write is super smart, quick, and has so much relatable stuff with large dose of humor and humility. You seem like you have a treasure of stories you could write about family, men, and relationships. WRITE!!! For me.”
I was not fishing (nor am I now), but DAMN, I should’ve done this YEARS ago! Ego. Boosted. My friends are like my self-esteem fluffers!
** There actually does exist a chart ranking the seven kinds of shit. The reason I know this is not as disgusting as you might think, but, I mean, possessing that knowledge is really never IDEAL… I’m going to stop talking now.
One of my favorite college professors — who taught me women’s studies but now teaches master’s level writing — just told me I’m a real writer.
Feelin’ pretty preeny right about now. #ExtraSmugSingleton
(Fret not, the crippling self-doubt will be back tomorrow. Hell, probably tonight.)
Right. The OkCupid guy I messaged yesterday looked at my profile last night, and I just noticed he’s “either deleted or disabled his account.”
And the other guy just never answered.
*nod*
Understood. I am a hideous idiot trollbeast. If you need me, I’ll be on a bridge demanding answers to riddles. (Except I’m dumb, so I probably don’t know the answers to riddles.)
Actually, I take that back — I’m clearly not hideous given the number of shady hoodrats and married guys who’ve messaged to offer a one-night-only impotence extravaganza in my vagina. So I’m at least hot enough to put a dick in. So it’s just smart guys who don’t dig me. So I’m just a moron. Excellent.
I know, I KNOW. It’s fine. Let me have my pity party and I’ll be back to self-love tomorrow. I mean, maybe, I don’t know — I probably suck at clairvoyance as well.
I’m pretty good at martinis, though. I’ll get on that when I get home.
I read Self magazine because I applaud the bold, innovative way they’ve cleverly shortened the title from Self-Loathing.
But also, the latest cover model is Kerry Washington, who is my personal Jesus. And in the interview, she says she begins her day by drinking a liter of water with lemon and doing pilates. (Or, after a liter of water, pee-lates, I can only assume.)
Today I was thinking about how I started my morning:
“Well, Self, I swore out loud at the alarm clock and hit ‘snooze’ 86 times. I hoisted myself out of bed angrily and fumbled around naked looking for an outfit, anything that fits because I’m never sure anymore. And then I shoved Lexapro and two types of OTC drugs into my sinus-infection-addled face with a Dixie cup of tap water from the bathroom sink, followed by an enormous vat of coffee, and now I am finally, but still barely, able to face humanity.”
This is why they don’t let me talk to the media. And why Kerry Washington never returns my calls.
Via XOJane: When My Boyfriend Moved Out of Our Apartment, it Felt Like Breaking Up Again
I can absolutely understand this. I was the one who moved out, but I still “see” him — just in my brain, in my phone, on highway billboards, songs, TV characters. When I like someone, I see them in a lot of weird places.
Mercifully, I don’t think his brain operates this way, but if he’d moved out and I was alone in “our” apartment, I think I’d have cried even more, hidden even more.
I don’t like my current apartment, and I’m planning to leave it soon. During my brief attempt at therapy, even the doctor said it sounded like “an easy place to be depressed.” Fucked up, right? What, just a couch and a TV and bare, asylum-white walls didn’t make the cover of “Martha Stewart Living?” Fuck you, it’s minimalist!
It IS an easy place to be depressed, and I wallowed and cried and hated myself and made horrible life choices* and cried some more. I keep faltering/getting set back in taking the next steps in getting a new place, but hopefully soon.
* I did buy a new bed, and sheets. If you’re going to be having ill-advised sex and then spending the next day in bed crying about it, you gotta be comfy.
I’ve seen this floating around Facebook recently, and it annoys the piss out of me.
First, Marilyn Monroe never said that. Google it, asshat — you’re Internetting wrong. “Size 0” wasn’t a thing in Marilyn’s day. That’s a relatively recent instrument of self-loathing.
Second, I don’t think I’m “ugly” because I’m not skinny. Not being skinny is what makes me feel FAT. (Plus, I understand biology — I will never be a size 0. I have boobs and hips, it’s just not meant to be. I usually feel fat because I’m not a size 8.) When I have the “I feel ugly” day, it’s because my face is stupid, my skin has gone rogue, and my hair is disloyal. (See also: Today. Today is actually a Fat/Ugly two-fer, like a Clinique bonus of self-hatred.)
Finally, OK, “society” is ugly. I understand that logically — we have warped and impossible standards of beauty. But is that supposed to make me feel better? You know I have to LIVE in “society” as an ugly fat-ass, right? Thanks, dick, for sharing this bullshit with your fatty-fat-fat Facebook friends in an effort to make us feel like we’re NOT hambeast trolls.
That’s like telling me I shouldn’t be frustrated that I live in Paris and don’t speak French. Sure, I can blame their “society,” but I’m not changing it. C’est la vie. Asshole.
Smug Singleton 