Keep on Being a Person

//Keep on Being a Person

Keep on Being a Person

Lately, I’ve had trouble being a person. I know that sounds weird, but it’s the truth. I wake up in the morning and I don’t want to get out of bed. Yeah, I’d say I’m depressed. Sure, I am dealing with a lot of life shit at the moment. And I am doing all right considering all the fuckery that I’m coping with. However, I still feel like things are out of my control. I’m trying to focus on this moment instead of harping on the bad stuff. Bad is a judgment, but I guess what I’m referring to is the uncomfortable feeling that I’m experiencing. I’m feeling a lot of anger underneath the depression. (By the way, if you want to actually see how fucking angry you are, you can take an anger quiz and learn about it). I want to be “okay.” But I also recognize that to feel better I have to feel my feelings. The truth is I hate my feelings because they are making me feel like I am not a functional person. I want to be a functional person. Despite feeling like I am not a person, I continue to do things and live my life like a zombie. It sucks, but life has to go on. So I’m walking through the day crying a lot and feeling angry and resentful at my current life circumstances.

So what helps?

What helps me during this time is remembering that there are (in fact) people who care about my well-being. I have friends that (despite my efforts to push them away) continue to check on me and make sure I’m doing okay. That is meaningful to me and I value those friendships. I do worry that I am going to exhaust my friends by “complaining” or they will get tired of me feeling depressed or angry. The other thing that helps me a lot is to stay in this moment. I can’t control the future as much as I would like to. That isn’t something that we can do as human beings. That would be an awesome superpower, by the way. If I could touch a book in a bookstore and all of a sudden my future was written in a way that I liked. My story was the way I wanted it to be and I could enjoy happiness. Back to what helps me: making gratitude lists, being in the moment, feeling my feelings, and continuing to move through this pain by living my life.

Another thing that helps me is acceptance. I accept that my heart is broken right now. I accept that I am angry about that. I accept that I am sad about that too. I accept that this is the place I am in and I am still a great person. People make mistakes and if we can manage to forgive them if they hurt us, that’s a huge life accomplishment.

I’m feeling lazy. I don’t want to include an image with this blog post, but I think I’m going to push myself to do that so that I can feel a little bit of hope.

Here’s the ocean; enjoy it!

By | 2017-07-20T17:41:16+00:00 July 20th, 2017|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Keep on Being a Person

About the Author:

Sarah Fader is the CEO and Founder of Stigma Fighters, a non-profit organization that encourages individuals with mental illness to share their personal stories. She has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Quartz, Psychology Today, The Huffington Post, HuffPost Live, and Good Day New York.