To All The Jackass Skeptics

Over the last few weeks, I have bumped into a couple of co-workers while I've been out shopping.  Every single one of them made some type of comment relating to how I'm looking well/good etc. They all know that I'm off work on disability due to mental illness.  Whether or not they're thinking it, I took their comments to mean, "You look good...why are you still off work?".

First off, I never go out in public looking raggedly scraggedly.  My hair is done, my make-up is on and I'm dressed appropriately (no stretch pants, leggings or sweats for this girl).  I like to look the best that I can.  Just because I look put together physically doesn't mean that I'm put together mentally.  I know that some of my co-workers/higher ups doubt the existence of mental illness and think it's all just laziness.  Let me say here and now it is the furthest thing from laziness.

What those co-workers can't see are the days when I'm struggling just to make it through to bedtime without hurting my children.  Not because they've been acting up, but because my fucked up brain thinks awful thoughts towards them.  And when these thoughts come, it is rapidly followed by guilt, anxiety and shame.  What sort of mother has thoughts of wanting to hurt her children on a regular basis? What kind of mother is afraid to hold scissors or knives when her children are within a 10 foot radius because all she can picture is slicing their vocal cords? Not a normal one, I can tell you that.  Or a good one.

Besides images of hurting my children, I also deal fear of contamination...outside germs versus inside germs.  So there's all that irrational bullshit filling my mind all day.  Even when I'm within the safety of my house, there is still the ongoing battle of Joel's germs vs the rest of the house.  And I constantly worry that I'm damaging Miss K's relationship with him because I'm terrified of her touching him and getting drool on her.

On top of that, I deal with the unpredictable mood swings.  I don't know from one day to the next whether I'm going to be motivated and full of energy or whether I'm going to tell the world to go fuck itself and I hide in bed all day. And, again, there's all the guilt and anxiety that follows the depressive episodes because I worry about the strain it puts on Mike to have to look after all three kids.

What my co-workers don't know is that maybe the previous night I struggled with wanting to down every single pill in the house but instead I held my baby boy and cried and fought off the bad thoughts.  Or maybe one night I actually did take all my pills and curled up on Miss K's bed as she slept and prayed that my world would end peacefully and that Mike would forgive me.

They know absolutely nothing about me or my issues.  All they see is that I'm looking well and I'm out shopping so I must be capable of handling a full time job again.  To that I say, "Fuck you and your naivety about mental illness".

Maybe I'm reading too much into their comments and my over-anxious brain is scrambling to stop myself from trying to explain how I'm able to be out in public.  But then I think, "It's none of their damn business.  I know I'm justified to be on disability and the 25 board members who voted on that think the same thing.  Some days, I just wish I could stand on a soap box in the middle of the hallway at work and lecture these jackasses on what it's really like to live what I do.  Mike has commented more than once, "How do you possibly have room in your mind to think anything else when it's crammed full of all these other worries and anxiety?".  I honestly don't know how I accomplish what I do on the "good" days.

My nightly sedatives have kicked in full force and I feel as though I'm rambling.  I really, really wish that I was able to blog more often, but it's been a struggle, these last couple of months.  I hit a super low point at the end of December that resulted in my second hospital stay in a year and a half (you can fill in  the blanks on that one) and I am struggling to come back from that...the guilt and the shame that inevitably follow something like that.  I've been on so many fucking meds these last few months, I've lost count of how many pills I take in a day.  You'd think I'm a senior citizen what with my timed meds that need to be taken at different points in the day.  But, I've also come to realize that my brain needs help...both pharmaceutically and therapy-wise.

I wish the skeptics could read this.  Maybe it would open their narrow minds just a little.

Rant over and out.