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It’s about to get honest in here. As this is Mental Health Week (CMHA needs help with its website, I can’t find a decent link to include anywhere), I thought I’d share some of my mental health stories. I’m actually in a “down” period right now.  Which is why I’m only blogging on the second day of Mental Health Week (thanks to V. for reminding me via Facebook!) as lately I have not really been paying attention to anything other than the colour of my navel lint. But for today’s post I’m going to focus on happiness, and how I’m trying to be happy and not just look happy.

I spend a lot of time telling myself that I’m happy and have no reason to be sad. Which isn’t true at all, but I’m good at lying to myself. I’m also good at lying to my family, friends, and complete and utter strangers. I’m good at blaming one situation on another, with telling others that I’m alright when I’m not, and avoiding unhappiness instead of confronting it.

The photo I’ve included with this post is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. I even labeled it “Me looking happy (with dishes)” when I originally uploaded it to Flickr.

When I posted this photo, I told everyone I was finally happy.  And I was. Kind of. I’d just “done my dishes” for the first time in the four months since I’d been dumped. And if I’m being honest here (which I am), I’ll tell you the reason why I said “done my dishes”. They were mostly done. I had hidden a few grungy plastic containers under my sink. Which my Mom found when they visited the following July. I was embarrassed and reminded of my manufactured happiness.

So in this photo I’m looking happy. Not being happy.

Shortly after this photo was taken, the dishes situation at my house returned to catastrophic. Discussions with my therapists (that’s right, in the plural! At one point I had three mental health professionals trying to figure me out!) brought out the fact that the cleanliness of my apartment was an indicator of how happy I was in my heart. But I wasn’t cleaning up or making any effort to clean up either.

That was three years ago, just about to the day.

This period in my life was defined by the fact that I was freshly single, in a job where I was being overworked, under appreciated, and emotionally abused on a regular basis, and barely making ends meet in a lonely apartment that was too expensive.  Eventually I was “promoted” (not once, but twice!) via an acting position at the job I hated. With the “promotions” I was able to live more comfortably and I wasn’t as lonely thanks to a lovely pair of kittens. I even played with the idea of dating a few people, then I thought I was dating someone but really wasn’t. And then I pined after a boy I couldn’t have.

I learned that I didn’t like being single, but I eventually came to terms with it. I learned that I loved living with cats. I learned that I was in a job that was stealing my life away.

That was about one year ago, give or take a month.

My dear friend V. would scrutinize the boys I’d fallen in love with. I was very thankful for this as some of my choices were not so great. She’d reassure me every time my heart was broken that I just had to be patient. That he was out there.

But this was hard to hear. I was unhappy in my job and I thought that if I found a boyfriend that he could move in with me and that would solve my money issues as everything would be split in half. Talk about romance eh? Every day that passed without finding “the one” was another day wasted. Even though I should have been evaluating what I was doing every day in my cubicle and why my money situation was the way that it was. But that’s another story for another day. I blamed my unhappiness on not having a boyfriend and ignored the fact that I was unhappy at work.

But he was out there.

Meeting Joe and him living in another city made me explore my comfort zone. I had always assumed that since I had a good public service job that anyone I met (in Ottawa or not) would want to move in with me in my snazzy downtown apartment with the 40 foot balcony.  I had no idea that I’d fall in love with someone who would make me reconsider all of the things I thought were given and that boyfriends were more than just someone to pay half of the bills. I didn’t know I’d find the balls to take a year of personal leave from the public service to sort things out and follow my heart to Toronto.

This past year has been transformative.

I’m writing this as I sit at my desk wearing a t-shirt and the best pair of shorts (in my move to Toronto I threw out my old grey pair of shorts, but today would have been a good day to wear them) I could find. Well, at least that’s what I’m telling you.  Money is tight as I’m being stubborn about finding a job, so we’re back to living off ramen noodle and hot dogs. I’m only sort of kidding. Joe likes vegetables so we eat lots of those too. My desk is a disaster area. There may or may not be dirty dishes in the vicinity, but I’m not going to say for sure as my desk is in the kitchen so dirty dishes are allowed. And they are from yesterday, so it’s not like they have been there that long anyhow. I’m upset right now that I can’t hang my shelves where I want to as I’m having trouble finding a place I can reliably screw them to the wall. This means that everything I wanted to put on the shelves and on the walls is still not unpacked. Laundry is being done on an “as needed” basis, and since I never need to leave the apartment I bet you can tell where this is going.

I’ve transformed from a well-paid public servant to a self-employed writer who has a hard time getting out of bed.

But I’m closer to being happy than I’ve ever been. Joe is more supportive of me than I could have ever imagined a partner could be. He tells me everything is going to be alright when I’m crying in bed telling him about my feelings of guilt, worthlessness and impending sense of doom. He understands that I’ve had a terrible time at work for the past four years and that I’m a little gun shy and that I don’t want to get hurt again. I’m trying my best to reach out to my support networks and tell them how I really feel, as opposed to how I think they want me to feel. I’m rewarded by emails and phone calls from family and friends making sure I’m alright. And I tell them I’m sad, but not as sad as I’ve been before. I appreciate their gentle nudges about finding a job. I appreciate everything more.

So I’m not happy today, but thanks to my support circles I’ve been able to take risks that will make it more likely that I will be happier tomorrow.

(P.S. Because I was being honest and telling you all that I want to be a writer, I proof-read this a bajillion times. But because it’s late and lets face it I’m feeling depressed, we’re just going to press publish. Viva the imperfections of blogging!)

As part of my website rehab, I plan on republishing old posts with updates. Though this post hardly counts as one from ages ago (as it’s only two months old), it still at least half applies. I’m not feeling sick, but I’m still in a space where I’m milling about and trying to figuring things out. However, I’m much better than I was at the time of writing this post. Probably because Joe is the best and understands that my mood swings aren’t personal attacks on him and has just learned to ride the waves. I’ll need to take him surfing someday on some blue-ish green waves.

Originally posted February 2010.

It’s been a rough couple of weeks. The hardest part has been staying positive. As for the most part I know it’s going to be alright, but sometimes it’s hard to believe yourself when everything seems to be going completely as not planned. So not only have I been a bit depressed (blue), I’ve been feeling under the weather (green around the gills).

Financially things were stressful (I have a blog post all queued up on that in general), an expected check or four didn’t arrive at all. He and I got to spend Valentine’s Day weekend eating cake (which was awesome) because that’s what I had the ingredients in the house to make. When I ran out of icing sugar I tried making a frosting that used flour as a thickener, quite good and much less sweet. I’ll blog about that too.

These few weeks of freedom from work were supposed to be stress free and time to recharge. I had it all planned out, I had enough money saved to be able to make it for a while without having to stress out about finding work. Instead I stressed out about having to find money for groceries. Plus I was PMSing. And PMS for me brings hormones galore and headaches and insomnia and….

Bless Him.

I’m supposed to be done a scarf for my Dad and socks for my Mom (Christmas presents no less!), but I’ve not had the ability to concentrate. And then I start feeling guilty about all of the things I’m not doing and then…gosh.

So why am I telling the wild world of the Internet this? Because we all have down days. I want to be as open and honest here on my blog about mental health issues and it wouldn’t be fair to any of us if I always painted a rosy picture. Will I go into detail about the panic attacks? Probably not, but if you want to know about them you can ask and I’ll find a way to talk to you. Because everything isn’t always bright and sunny and full of sweetness and light.

Sometimes things things are blue-ish green.