This Sadness

Today, I am sad. Don't get me wrong, I will laugh. I will function. I will go through the motions of my life. I know that tomorrow will be better. If not, the next day will. But for today, for right now, I am sad.

I could list a million reasons why. I miss deceased relatives, people who were a huge part of my life growing up. I miss deceased friends and classmates, who influenced who I have become. I miss my friend Jenny's dog, who every morning and afternoon greeted me with the joy only a dog can bring. I miss my life with horses. I miss my hometown. Today, I am stuck missing things. I am caught up in remembering things that I have lost along the way.

I am crying my eyes out right now. Less than a half an hour ago, I was on the phone laughing and planning things to come. That is how quick the sadness can come. One small sliver of a memory can trigger it. One word, one thought can change the entire day. Of course, I can battle it and I can win. I can start my day over. If I allow myself to. Sometimes I can't. I am just not always strong enough. Some days, it is better to just cry and let it out.

Living with a disease that causes me to not be capable of controlling my emotions is hard. Sure, medication helps, but it isn't a cure. It isn't foolproof. I still feel. If I took enough to numb all the feelings, I would be a zombie, and I don't choose to live my life that way. So, I cope. I don't always cope well, sometimes I lose it. But, I cope. I don't let it defeat me. If I get knocked down, I will get back up. It may take minutes, or hours, or sometimes days. But I get back up.

My two strongest emotions are sadness and anger. Those are the two that overwhelm me the most. When I am sad, the world is ending and nothing will ever be okay. When I am angry, I yell and scream, or I use nasty tones and mean faces. These two things are the parts of me that I like the least, and yet at the same time are the two most common things that I feel. What I wouldn't give for the two strongest to be joy and love. They are there, there are equally as likely to happen as the others. They just aren't as strong, as passionate.

However, to see me casually on the street you would never think of me as sad or angry. I am so masterful at the art of pretending. I walk the walk, talk the talk, and everyone thinks I am okay. It's like the quote about a smile masking pain. If I wear a mask everyday, how can anyone know what I am really feeling inside? The answer is that they won't. They won't know to check on you because you seem so happy, or so strong.

So, for me, the answer is to tell people. I tell people how I feel. Not everyone, but someone. Now, I write when I am struggling. But I tell someone, because a burden shared is a burden halved. If I tell what is inside of me, I find relief. It won't be permanent relief, but it will get me through. It will calm me. If it doesn't, I tell someone else. I have learned to NEVER let my emotions build inside me. I try not to put on a mask anymore, even though it has been a great strength of mine. Today, I am blatantly honest about where I am at. I am open about my mental health. For me, talking it out helps. I will throw just about anything out there, because I know that it will make it better. It gets it out of my head and heart, and I can process whatever is happening.

So my advice, my wisdom from years of suffering, is to talk. Find a friend, find a therapist, find a dog. Find someone or something that you can verbally express where you are at to, and let it out. If it comes out, it isn't poisoning you on the inside anymore. This post is a perfect example. I was crying when I started, and now I am calmly typing this out in the hopes that someone will read it and it can improve their life. Having someone to relate to, who has a solution to offer, was been one of the best parts of my recovery. I share that knowledge with you not as a person who has all the answers, but as someone who has been in those shoes. Who still, today, is in those shoes.

I am not ashamed of my mental health issues. I embrace them. They make up the mix that is uniquely Jenn. And it turns out that people like me, they value me, they love me. At the worst of my worst, I felt alone and lost. I felt like nobody cared and would be better off if I was gone. Today, I know that is not true. I am not perfect, I may make mistakes, and I may be dead wrong some of the time (okay, disregard that... I want to be always right), but I realize today that I have a place in this world. Today I can understand that the world is a better place because I am in it, flaws and imperfections included. I matter to people. And I strive to make my children into the kind of people who will matter to others. That is the legacy that I will leave behind, my contribution to this world. Children who are kind and giving, that will matter to people and make a difference in some one else's life.

And just like that, the sadness is gone. I am done crying. I sit here, clear headed and calm. That is how life with a mental imbalance can go. In the time it took me to type my racing thoughts out, in less than twenty minutes, my emotions settled themselves down and my thought process cleared. I went from laughing, to crying, to calm within an hour. That is what I deal with every day. But, every day I keep going. And that is the way you cope with internal pain. You keep going. Don't let it eat you up.