Happy Birthday to Mum

Today would have been Mum's birthday. Today sucks right now...

Master of Repression

I know that the public at large has been waiting with baited breath for me to post. What's it been, like a month or so?

Over the last month I've been buried in school work, busy as ever but accomplishing little. I've finally realized that I'm not dealing with my Mum's death or my relationship issues or everyday stress well at all. The depression that took hold of me when my breakup took place & deepened as my Mum lost her cancer battle will not let go of my psyche. I've resisted the urge to just retreat to my bed in bad sweatpants & messy hair & spend hours watching bad daytime TV, but just barely. I've decided it's time to get help.

So my stepfather, who's an executive at the hospital & well connected with all things medicine, referred me to a mental health facility connected with the hospital. They offer sliding scale fees for uninsured poor students like yours truly. Unfortunately, they had no appointments until late December, & I'm fairly sure by then I will be hiding in the bed. It took 2 days of leaving voice mails for me to find this out. They referred me somewhere else, who had an even longer wait. Depressed people tend to be a little on the irritable & frustrated side anyway, so getting the run around was extremely irritating. I finally got a counseling center to see me next Friday - hopefully they won't suck. I met with a woman from the hospital employee services division today (thanks to stepdad for getting me in), and I will have a follow up with her after my visit to the counseling center in case I need someone or something else.

After my whine session with the counselor @ employee services today, I realized something. My whole life, everyone has always said how "strong" I am because shit happens & I always pick up the pieces and move on in amazing fashion. I just keep going, throwing myself into work or classes or social activities or whatever. Maybe it's not that I'm strong or resilient, I've just become very skilled at the art of repressing emotions & burying them deep. The counselor made the comment that a lot of times friends & family will advise that you should "keep busy & get your mind off of it" when trying times arise, but sometimes pouring yourself into activities just enables you to forget temporarily. I've spent years & years doing this, & now that I've been dealt such a traumatic blow, I guess I've come to my breaking point. The week after Mum died, I was so ridiculously down that I was desperate to return to my normal life just to get my mind off of my troubles - the less I had to do, the more sad I got, & the more it kept hitting me that I was not emotionally strong enough to deal with it. I kept begging G-d to make the pain go away. So I buried myself back into school & work & whatever, and everyone who didn't know how sad I really was kept saying how well I was dealing with it. Actually, I haven't at all.

So how in the hell I'm going to deal with all this w/o using my crutch of a busy life is beyond me. As I begin the journey through therapy, I'm sure I'll have plenty to blog about, so you won't have to hold your breath as long for posts.