Where I’m at right now

Deep breath.

This is not an easy post for me to make or write, but there are some things people need to know. This past year has been a huge struggle, bigger than anyone will probably ever know.

A good friend of mine recently told me my shift in writing here has turned extremely personal. That is due, in part, to finally taking care of my mental health issues with a professional instead of doing it on my own.

By working on these issues, it has become harder to mask my inner turmoil. People at work ask if I’m okay. I’m not, but I am, and I will be. That’s the important part.

I’ve written before about my struggles. I sought counseling twenty-eight years ago and, while it was somewhat helpful (Yay! I didn’t kill myself), it never got to the underlying issues of what was truly wrong or how to fix it. So, I walked alone in life, kept it all tucked inside.

Last November, that changed. I’ve written about the day when I knew I had to reach out or watch my life unravel. Instead of falling apart, I took the pieces that have been hanging by threads for decades and began to mend them. It has been a struggle. The past thirty days have been difficult as I repair the damage inflicted upon me. For the past two weeks I have gathered these threads together and held them tightly as I started to seriously reevaluate what I need to do so that I can, quite literally, actually walk out of my house each day.

For all of 2018, I have been dealing with things long-buried that have risen to the surface. By dealing with the multitude of trauma in my life, I have had to work on my anxiety and C-PTSD. I’m not going to go into detail other than to say that, in addition to being introverted, my mental health issues have made me a fundamentally different person than the persona I must put on each day outside my home. It affects every single part of who I am and some days, it is crippling.

If you don’t want to understand, quite frankly, fuck off. I don’t need the judgment, the gossip, and the disingenuous comments of people who think I should just get over it.

So, why am I writing this? You probably want to respond with messages of encouragement and other nice things. That’s okay. You might not understand. That’s okay, too. Explaining trauma to people is complex and sometimes overwhelming. People who have not experienced it have a hard time comprehending. That’s okay. What I want people to understand is that while I work through this – and I have no idea how long this will take – there are going to be some really bad days for me, some of which are difficult to control.

Right now, I’m in a rough patch. I say and do stupid shit. Sometimes, I don’t know why. You don’t know why either. It is what it is and I won’t apologize for trying to get better.

Call it mental strength, mental fortitude, being strong, whatever, but I have to live with this every day. I get by most of the time, but there are some things that have happened recently that makes me question what I need to do next with my life and my career.

First, I finished my book. Yay. Now, I have the monumental feat of trying to get it published. Friends have provided advice, offered support, and offered confidence it will be published. The reality is this will be difficult to do. I know this and I must overcome my anxiety every single time I write a query letter or proposal.

Second, I was betrayed by someone I trusted this year. It cut deeper than I’d like to admit. It brings up the issue of trust of other human beings, which I have little of due to past trauma, and it has caused flashbacks in ways I wasn’t prepared for.

It has made the ability to make plans with other people more difficult than it already is. I require an insane amount of preparation to text or call someone. It sounds simple. Pick up the phone. Dial or type some words. It’s not. I rehearse everything that is going to be said and everything that could be said before I ever touch the phone. After the conversation, my mind works through the conversation for ways I could have done better as well as the “oh shit, should I have said that,” moments.

Know that when you call or text and I say, “Hey, I was planning on calling you,” it is an honest response. It was not an excuse of being lazy or forgetfulness. I was planning. I just hadn’t gotten to that stage where I could yet.

Now, because of what happened, this is all the more harder. I have to start again from scratch and work on trusting and being with people. Trust me, when you say, “If you need to talk, let me know,” or something similar, I really do want to reach out. I’m just not good at that yet.

Third, I lost someone I cared about to suicide this year. I can’t predict the moments when my mind is going to say, “Hey, remember that time when Geoffrey said…” or “Remember when you and Geoffrey did…” It fucking hurts every time.

Fourth, I do not know what will happen with my job at the Star-Herald. As Lee Enterprises has taken up management of all BH Media newspapers, changes are coming. We have been assured the editorial department will be untouched for at least the next six months, but what about after? What about the other people I work with? We have already seen some changes, such as, “You will report on this topic,” because that is what Lee wants. We must do things the Lee way, but no one is quite sure what that is.

Do I keep a job where I get to write, which I love to do, but am dictated at what I am allowed to write about? Do I keep a job where I will be constantly measured by how well my story does and how many hits it gets online? At what point will I break and say, “No. My integrity is worth more.” I’m trying to determine the answer to that right now.

I need my job for my health insurance. Surely, there are other low-paid jobs that offer insurance and don’t require dressing up like a girl on a daily basis. But do I need to do that? I don’t know. We simply do not have the information necessary to make an informed decision about what my job will look like in six months or a year. I don’t know what the expectations of my job are anymore other than you will do more with less and for no more money. This is overwhelming for me.

I have just begun this journey in my mind to determine what I need to do next with my life. It is not going to be easy. I don’t want people to worry about me. I truly will be fine. I always manage to somehow find a way to survive, to walk out that door to another day. It’s just really hard right now.

For the near future, I will be writing more blog posts. I have some partially written. I’m not going to share them all on Facebook. Some will be deeply personal. Some will be political. Some will be like the columns I used to write for the paper.

I’m still here.

I’m still struggling.

Some days are shit.

This is me.

It’s all I know.

I’ll repair the threads.

It’s what I do.