Tag: mental health

I’ll never be the same.

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If you have a mental illness- whether it be depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, or borderline personality disorder, you know how disconnected you can sometimes feel to the “normal” world around you. What may seem like an everyday task to most is a mountain climb for us. Our interpersonal experiences are harder to manage, and our internal conflicts are more complex. Its a lifestyle that cannot be understood through explanation alone. You must live it in order to comprehend how it affects a person.

I’ve been dealing with depression and anxiety for literally as long as I can remember. My first experience with mental illness was with separation anxiety that manifested itself as night terrors and bed wetting. Funny. I wish an occasional night terror was all I had to deal with nowadays (although the bed wetting I do not miss).

This phobia…this unshakable fear that persistently looms over me like a lightning storm waiting to strike me down…it’s affected me in ways that I never thought possible, even from mental illness. I’m barely a person anymore. I’ve gotten better, yes, but if this recovery was Mount Everest, I would still be able to see base camp behind me. All of the things I used to love to spend my time on have been replaced with me trying to figure out ways to avoid being triggered. I’ve had the most drastic and irrational ideas run through my mind without me realizing just how outlandish they were until later when I would mentally kick myself for being so crazy. I feel like I’m losing my mind.

And if people didn’t understand my trials before…wow. There aren’t enough words to describe how tired I am of hearing people tell me to just get over it. A fear of bugs is not that bad, right? Everyone’s scared of something, right? Snakes, frogs, bees, what have you. That’s true, only, this isn’t a fear. I wouldn’t even consider a fear and  phobia similar, knowing what I know now. They’re completely different. A phobia engulfs your entire life in worry and vulnerability. Does your fear of snakes do that? Or do you just get a little tense around tall grass? See the difference?

I keep telling myself that it HAS to end sometime. It HAS to get better. There HAS to be a light at the end of the tunnel. there just has to, because honestly? I can’t live this way knowing it will never get better. This is just no life for anyone. I have basically zero independence and my functioning level is nonexistent. I rely on others for everything because I’m too terrified to be by myself, even for a few minutes. Everything is out of control.

Even if it does get better, even if I reach full recovery, I’ll never be the same as I was before I developed this phobia. I’ll never see that girl again. I guess that’s okay, I didn’t like her much anyway. But she definitely beats the girl I am now. Hopefully future me will blow them both out of the water. I want her to be vibrant and bubbly. I want her to go on road trips and jump out of airplanes. I want her to wear cute dresses and make up, instead of baggy tshirts and frumpy jeans. I hope she makes new friends in new places all the time. I hope she chops her hair off and gets tattoos on a whim because life is short. I hope she’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of. But most importantly, I hope she finds all of the happiness she’s missed out on her entire life.

And as fast as it came, it’s gone.

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So, I saw my first in-house stink bug today. Summer is over already, and so is my safe season. The invasion is upon us. For many, this would be a major nuisance at worst and a non-issue at best…but for those of us living with entomophobia, it means the beginning of a long, long, (long)…long, long next few months. I knew this day was coming. I even knew it was coming sooner rather than later. But was I prepared for it? Not in the least.

I was sitting on the couch next to OJ watching netflix when I happened to glance over to the kitchen (as I often do. Another symptom of my phobia- I can’t sit still without darting my eyes around my surroundings every few minutes) and I see it. The tiny manifestation of pure evil is crawling on the bay window, like it freaking pays rent, the bastard. Surprisingly, I didn’t scream, I didn’t cry out. All I could muster was a pathetic little “oh….shit”.

Of course, OJ new exactly what was happening as soon as he heard me say that. Without missing a beat, he goes to the kitchen, takes a paper towel, and ends the creature’s miserable reign.

And again, like clock work, he says to me, “You okay? Wanna talk about it?” I didn’t wanna talk about it, I never do. What do I say? I mean, everything that was previously going on in my mind has evacuated, and all that’s left is intense, skin-crawling anxiety. I don’t really have thoughts after I see a bug, even though one of the best cures for phobias is mindfulness. All I can muster is, “That’s a bummer.” Tears begin streaming down my face.

All of the sudden, OJ turns into Mel Gibson in Braveheart, feeding me a pep-talk filled with the mantras that I’ve heard time and time again. Fear gives small things big shadows, your fear can’t hurt you, your fear is not real, etc. etc. and I’m sitting there, all but comatose. I can’t process what he is saying. Hell, I can barely process how I’m feeling.

By the way, how I’m feeling? I’m feeling like ripping every inch of my skin off. I’m feeling like stuffing myself into a box and sealing it up until next summer when I can feel safe again. I’m feeling like taking a shower that’s so hot it leaves blisters. That’s how I’m feeling.

All because of a stupid little bug.
Remember this the next time you wanna make fun of someone with a phobia, no matter what it is of, no matter how stupid it may seem to you. They’re real and they suck major ass.

Here’s to a short fall.
xoxo TMM