Usually, I don’t battle my depression unless there’s some sort of situation that I could’ve avoided. When it doesn’t turn out in a way I could’ve planned a little better and the people who I care about most (who the situation will affect most) don’t bother to listen to me, I get depressed. I get depressed because the same people who I call myself trying to save always end up letting the situation handle them instead of handling the situation like it should be handled. I try to state my idea but they won’t listen, I try to get my idea heard after the situation has taken its effect but they just brush me off (or try to find flaws in my plan to make themselves look better, saying how my plan wouldn’t have worked out), and I just seem to feel frustrated and pissed off once people ignore me, what I was trying to tell them and then they’d have the audacity to keep talking about the situation and how they could have resolved it. I feel like it’s a lack of respect for me because I’m the youngest in our group and because I lack the physical or materialistic resources to make the situation clearer or they feel like I don’t have the proper experience to help them. However, I disagree because I do have experience – life experience and the resource that I do have is my brain – a powerful analytical mind.

Recently, I took a self-test for depression (which I noticed in a local magazine); the test asked nine questions, which I’ll get to later and answer in a form of sentences and paragraphs based on the reason why I feel the way I do. I answered ‘yes’ to seven of the nine questions and ‘no’ but there are some maybes in two of the questions. The results say that if I answer ‘yes’ to even one of the questions that I may be depressed but based on my results, I might as well be severely depressed.

When I’m depressed, I have little interest or pleasure in doing things I’d normally enjoy. I’d feel down, depressed, and hopeless. I don’t know, I just feel like I can’t enjoy what I normally do because when I’m depressed I always feel like it requires too much out of me as though things have gotten heavier on my back in the literal sense even if it isn’t so in reality. I’d feel down because I can dwell on the things I can’t change because it’d cause some more physical problems to appear that shows how stressed I am (including a monthly period that lasts all month unless this is endometriosis) but I’m not quite sure because I haven’t been to the doctor yet and I can’t afford to go because I don’t have insurance or Medicaid, so I’ll try getting assistance one of these days but until than, there’s more to be done. I feel like I’m hopeless – I mean, I feel like no one wants to make me happy and it’s not even within my reach to make myself happy because I just don’t have the resources (money, transportation, jobs, etc.) to do so therefore I feel stuck in a rut.
I sometimes have trouble falling or staying asleep including sleeping too much when I’m depressed as well. I know, it’s hard to explain but I’ll try; I have trouble sleeping or staying sleep because for some reason, I feel like I can solve the problem so I’ll find ways to try to defeat the situation or other times, I feel like I’ll try to defeat the depression by occupying myself with my outlets – writing ideas, poetry , stories, etc. but it never seems to work because it all comes at the wrong time. Other times I sleep when I’m in a deeper depression and when I have no interest or pleasure in things I’d normally enjoy; I just feel as though sleep will bring me greater ease than stressing myself out with writing or even worrying about a problem’s solution that has just passed me by.

Sometimes I’d even have a poor appetite or I’d overeat, and again, this one is one may be hard to explain. If you’ve read my experiences, you’ve read the one that said, ‘I Sometimes Forget to Eat’ and for me, it’s true. I sometimes get caught up in my own activities or don’t want to be bothered with the hassle of fixing me something to eat – and that is essential for my survival as a person. Other times I overeat (but not intentionally) which reminds me of another experience ‘I Eat When I’m Bored and to Bury My Feelings’ because I don’t even notice it much until my husband brings it to my attention. When it’s bought to my attention, I usually stop but it’s hard to control even after the fact. I just don’t know what to do – I know I need help, I want it, but nobody even wants to try to get me the help I need and they don’t want to work with me on getting the help that they might need and to help us all grow as people or to grow together even when they claim we’ll be together forever and talk about how much we are to one another. I mean, my husband is always there wanting me to be even if something were to happen to him but he’s not even trying to set the foundation and he’s not trying to prevent something from happening but there was something that he told me directly out of his mouth, “If something were to happen to me, I don’t want you not knowing what to do or how to take care of business if something were to happen to me.” He meant as far as making plans for his burial and communicating to his family. How dare he?!

They’re just not walking the walk but they’re just talking the talk which frustrates me. I guess I need to do some confrontation as well because no one will know unless I’m honest about it. They want to go around worrying about the wrong thing but never want to do anything to prevent it from happening.

During my depression, I recall feeling badly about myself, that I am a failure or have let my family down. I remember recently feeling like this; it was a few months after I first joined E.P. I began the experience group, “I Need to Work On Me,” so when I began working on me through the group, I couldn’t even finish one of the first parts of the very first exercise – to write down twenty of my greatest accomplishments (to this day, there are only around six of them) but I still have more of my life I want to live and more that I hope to accomplish. However, despite that fact, I still feel like a failure and I’ve let those closest to me down.

For some reason, all my life I have battled milder depression than what I have now because I’ve always considered myself a failure even if it was one thing that I wasn’t good at and I’ve always felt like I’ve let my family down because they were people that just couldn’t let go of a few of the mistakes I’ve made, kept focusing or zooming in on past mistakes, and they hardly encouraged me to do better or tried to help me do better which always made me feel like I’ve let them down.
This question was one of the maybes, so I guess I can say that sometimes I’d get scatterbrained (my mind is everywhere, feeling cluttered all at once) when I’m depressed – like I can’t concentrate on reading or watching TV especially if there’s nothing good to watch. I beat myself up on the fact that there must be something better to do but there never is because we always run out of resources that should be for leisure time or for us to take care of what really needs to be taken care of.

During my depression, I often feel like I’m speaking and moving slowly that others could’ve noticed. Sometimes I do find myself feeling fidgety and restless and that I have been moving around a lot more usual. I usually talk fast (a speech impediment picked up from my father and all of his kids; linked to nervousness) but when I’m depressed I slow down. I feel fidgety like my work is never done when I’m depressed; it’s like I spend most of my time thinking of what I can’t change. The next morning, I feel restless because it’s like I’ve moved around more than I’ve had to or more than I usually do – almost like nothing was accomplished despite how much I’ve tried.
Sometimes during my depression, I feel like a burden to everyone around me because they’re always worrying about me or how I’m going to fare out when they’re taking care of their business like I’m a little girl or something. They talk about me or around me as though I’m not there and I’m sick of it. I go deeper into the depression when this happens; leading me to have thoughts that I’d be better off far away from people, other times it goes deeper and I feel like everyone would be better off if I was dead.

A bigger hold on my depression stemmed from three years ago Hurricane Katrina – both during and after. When we left for the storm, we didn’t call up or visit any family members and tell them where we were going or where we’d end up. Early the morning of the storm, we left around six in the morning to see where my sister -in-law’s friends were going to be headed. We followed them out of the city to Donaldson, Louisiana and then by the end of the day headed out to Baton Rouge. During this time period, we stayed with a couple that one of my bro-in-law knew from one of his friends in New Orleans. The whole thing made me feel uncomfortable because I don’t like staying with people I don’t know (I don’t even like living with people that I do know) plus to top it off, the house was filled with the woman’s family. I mean, people were everywhere, they watched what you did, how you acted – those situations always leave me feeling withdrawn and nervous.

After Hurricane Katrina, there were some bumps in the roads because after it happened, we had no place to go but to settle out of town. When we did settle in Houston, TX, it seemed like the city was taking all the money that was supposed to help us (as the victims of the hurricane) against us. The city’s people weren’t ready to welcome or to have us to live in their city but the city’s officials took us in, anyway, for the money and this caused friction amongst the Houstonians and the evacuees.

They’d act like we were the ones starting fights at public schools or the ones who bought up the crime rate to their city. Not to mention the fact that we got repeated evacuation notices in what seemed like every two months since we had moved into our apartment. FEMA was supposed to be paying our rent for a few months, then they’d change it to a percentage of the rent would be paid but it seemed like we had problems almost immediately after moving in or around Houston which pissed me off; it seemed like after like every three months we were getting evacuation notices or letters informing us we owe money for certain expenses we knew nothing of or had even been responsible for, and yet we had expenses to pay to the apartment complex. After being dismissed from the apartment complex (them stating they can no longer accept FEMA, CLC, HUD, or DHAP payments) we learned that they were pocketing money through this various and miscellaneous expenses.

After the hurricane, my husband went without a job for almost three years and oftentimes we both went without our own food in our refrigerator. He’d have to go around the corner to ask his brother and sister-in-law for plates of food and spare groceries just so we can survive up until he found a way to make money out here in Houston – he began participating in clinical studies sometime in mid-2006. The studies tested medications for around two weeks and compensated the participants with a few hundred to one or two-thousand dollars.
However, as soon as we got the money, it has always slipped right out of our hands just as fast as we got it – and no goals were accomplished. Sometimes I’d be to blame, other times my husband would be to blame or the both of us would be to blame. We each had needs and wants that had to be accomplished before and when he finished the studies, so some of the money escaped us in these exact ways. The same exact thing happened this time when Hurricane Ike hit Houston – we needed supplies, food to eat, ice to keep us cool, and just hurricane supplies to help us survive which was where September’s money went instead of getting us out of this house plus soon after everything was closed or just to busy to take care of business, so we couldn’t do what we needed to even if we wanted to.

That’s not the only thing I’m depressed about, though. I just feel as though a lot of things have changed in myself and in my family. I always feel like something is wrong with me and it seems deeper than depression, sometimes I feel too vulnerable with or around the wrong people, and I’m constantly asking myself why I am feeling this sort of way. I have no friends (I look at others who have friendships that have lasted from childhood throughout there lives) and I have no real friends at all. I am genuinely grateful for my online friends who see me just as who I really am. Sometimes it’d be fun to have the same conversations I have online in real life with someone who shares my likes, dislikes, my loves, my hates, philosophies, my pet peeves, etc. but that just doesn’t exist but the world just wouldn’t align me with  people like that unless it were online and no place out.
Currently, even though we don’t have many responsibilities to worry about, I’m depressed because I’m tired of being under other people and what they have. I’m tired of them monitoring what I’m doing , asking me questions about what I plan to do (to get out of their face), and it all just makes me feel like I’m stuck in their world so I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m tired of being exposed in someone else’s house, looking in their company’s face, being someone who I’m not, going to sleep when they decide to settle down, wake up when they feel like waking up, babysitting when I don’t feel like it or when I’m not asked if I want to or not, and it’s a lot to take in plus so many other issues that have me in a depressive state.

Now, all eyes are on me and I can’t even dwell in my depression like I usually do and I can’t work on fixing it. It seems like no one has the patience to stand by us for the period of time we need to accomplish these goals again.
I’m not sure what kind of help I can get to deal with my depression except for my outlets especially since I’m against anti-depressants. I want to seek someone to talk to about this like a therapist or a counselor but I just can’t afford it. I’ve heard of going to churches but I don’t belong to any nor do I even believe in the messages that they teach. I’m at the end of my rope so if anyone knows what I can do based on these situations, please let me know.

Since Hurricane Katrina, things in my life haven’t returned to normal as it was pre-Hurricane Katrina. In fact, it feels as though things have gotten worse. The living from piddle to post, the financial struggles, the living with depression, & a social anxiety has definitely taken a hold on me. I just feel as though I want things to go back to normal. I also feel like there’s no way out of this predicament. I am sometimes a optimistic, positive, and helpful person but I feel down sometimes. I just want to get better. Financially-wise, I don’t know if that is even possible, though.

0 Comments

Leave a reply

© 2024 WebTribes Inc. | find your tribe

Log in with your credentials

or    

Forgot your details?

Create Account