I Just Want To Be Okay

“I’m fine.”

This is my mantra.

It’s become almost a joke between my husband and I. The louder I say it, the less likely it’s true. The fact of the matter is, I just want to be okay.

I’ve been with my therapist now for a couple of years and she’s been incredibly helpful. I have a psychiatrist and I take medication. I’m not embarrassed by it. I used to be. I really wish that I thought I was cool for being on it—for caring about myself enough to say “fuck the stigma!” and to put my own health and well-being first but I don’t.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been in therapy. I’ve tried multiple times, some successful and some not, starting in college but I probably should’ve been seeing someone long before even that.

I wish we lived in a society that took mental health seriously. I wish taking care of your psyche was as normalized as taking care of the rest of you. Because it’s about time we face the fact that if our psyches aren’t okay, that shit manifests in our physicals bodies through any number of issues and disorders.

I wish we were given real opportunities to make sure that we were okay and safe in our lives from the time we’re small. Too many people have gone through too much in silence, turned to too many dangerous things to cope, for there not to be a better way of systematically handling our mental health.

I just want to be okay.

What’s okay for me? What do I mean when I say okay?

Well, I’d like the nightmares to stop. I have nightmares 5-7 nights a week and it’s been going on for years. The kicker? I now remember that this is not the first time it’s happened. As a child, this was an issue. Screaming bloody murder until one of my parents heard me was a constant in my life.

Darkness upset me. It could put me in a trance. I felt rhythms in the air. The things going on in my mind in the darkness were so terrifying that I haven’t quite stopped wondering if somethings aren’t caged memories but very real hauntings. Unfortunately, there are enough very real caged memories that I can’t let go of that theory either.

I’d like to let go of everything: the pain, the fear, the wondering. It’s incredibly sticky, though. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t get loose.

• Tire yourself out.
• Meditate.
• Create something.
• Write out what you’d like to dream about.
• Create a safe space in your mind.
• Journal.

THE. LIST. IS. ENDLESS.

NOTHING. HAS. WORKED.

IF. I. KEEP. FUCKING. UP. PUNCTUATION. WILL. THAT. HELP?!

I’d like to get through a day without feeling like I have to cry. Not two. Not three. Nothing flashy like a week. I’d just like to get through one day without feeling like tears are imminent.

“God, Monica. You must be miserable!”

No, not at all. I have very happy moments. I laugh a lot. I like having fun so I try to have fun as often as I can. But, I cry too. Maybe even at the same rate. Sometimes, I’m crying for myself and sometimes, I’m crying for others.

Newsflash: sometimes I cry for no discernible reason.

Books make me cry. Articles make me cry. Documentaries make me cry. Movies make me cry. TV shows make me cry. I’m gonna mention the documentaries again because those tend to be the worst for me. Real people’s stories make me weep openly.

I’d like to have fewer panic attacks. None would be preferable but I would very seriously happily accept fewer. For me, most of the time, panic attacks mean being overwhelmed to the point where I can no longer think clearly. A lot of time my heart rate increases. Sometimes my breathing shortens. Mostly though, it’s the being overwhelmed that defines the experience. Like I’m suffocating in my own thoughts and if I can’t make everything around me slow down, I’ll have no way of getting my mind to stop crowding me.

I don’t necessarily get panic attacks everyday and sometimes, some glorious times, I can go a while without one. But when panic attack season hits, it can REALLY hit. Multiple times a day, multiple days in a row—just a myriad of combinations that add up to a rollercoaster of issues.

I’d like more sunshine days instead of those marred by clouds.

Most days when I wake up, I get a few clean breaths and then storm clouds are on the horizon. Even if I don’t breakdown in tears, it feels like my heart is weeping; like my insides are cloaked in sadness. Maybe memories of nightmares hit, maybe my brain just says “it’s depression time!”

I can still have times throughout the day when I laugh, my husband cracks me up constantly, but there is a grayness that hangs over me anytime that I’m not actively involved in a moment of joy.

The overarching goal of my days is to just (period) stay (period) busy (period), because staying busy means I don’t have time to let my anxiety or depression take over. Generally speaking, the minute I stop to breathe, it’s cloud city.

After a while, it starts to feel like the clouds are literally sitting on my chest. There’s a heaviness there what feels like all the time and because of that, I overcompensate. If I’m around anyone other than my husband or my very best friends, I feel like I have to be “on.” I can’t let my grayness rub off onto anyone else, so I make sure that people walk away from their time with me happier.

And turning that grayness into rainbows is exhausting.

Literally.

I feel physically spent: my muscles are tense; my mind has been on constant alert for opportunities to be insightful or funny or clever; I’m jittery and I feel strung out. And, bonus, I’m now wondering how well I pulled it off. I’ll analyze every minute I can pull from my memory, trying to determine if I made any mistakes, hoping desperately I only remember positive moments.

I always feel especially lucky, if my husband has witnessed my interactions. He will inevitably get the “did I do okay” question and he knows that I need a detailed answer back that proves to me that I did, in fact, do okay.

I’d like my life not to be ruled by guilt and to reserve the words “I’m sorry” for when I’ve done something for which an apology is appropriate.

Truly, my favorite part of getting older is growing accustomed to admitting when I’m wrong without the usual hang ups that go along with that but I have absolutely not been as successful putting my guilty feelings into perspective.

If it’s possible to blame myself, I will. If it’s not possible, I’ll still try.

Over the years I’ve attempted to fix this problem and yet, it’s as if I’ve actually taken courses in how to improve my self-guilting techniques. Growing up Catholic, I was (in my opinion) trained at a very young age to take the blame for any and all situations. I’d say this is true for most Catholics but especially true for females.

Unfortunately, I also think this means that many Catholics (without necessarily realizing it) feel perfectly at ease passing along this expectation of guilt. It becomes not just something that we press upon ourselves but something that we use on other people. Truthfully, I’m pretty sure this is a common problem in many religions but I can only speak to my own experiences, here.

Finally, I’d like my anxiety to chill the f@#! out and let me live my life on my own terms.

• phone calls
• crowded places
• texts
• going to the gym
• messages
• grocery shopping
• emails
• finances
• mail
• social outings
• certain people
• writing this list
• bumping into neighbors
• going to the pool

• write the list
• rearrange the list
• judge the list
• reevaluate the list
• worry about the list
• reconsider the list
• second guess list items
• second guess the list itself
• judge myself based on the list
• freak out

You get the idea.

So, I’ll just keep trying, because I just want to be okay. I’ll keep going to therapy. I’ll keep taking my medication. I’ll keep meditating. I’ll keep doing yoga. I’ll keep moving forward. I’ll keep journaling and writing and creating. I’ll keep busy and I’ll keep laughing.

Bottom line: trying to be okay makes me happier and more fulfilled than giving up and giving in to misery every single day of the week.