So because I hate this month SO MUCH, here are a bunch of things I really like to take my mind off the fact that it's March, and it will be for like five more days. (Ew.)
1.) Kittens. Do I need to say anything else?
(All three .gifs found at catgifpage.com)
2.) Marvel Entertainment is coming out with a crap-ton of stuff. The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. show is great (when I remember to watch it, that is, and no spoilers please I'm very behind), and there's Iron Man 3, which was just lovely, and Thor 2 which was also pretty sweet, and Cap 2 is coming out in like nine days which I am very very very very VERY excited about, and then Guardians of the Galaxy with SO MANY GREAT ACTORS AND ACTRESSES, and the first set photos from Avengers 2: Age of Ultron were released on like Tuesday (Jeremy Renner and his cute butt yyyyyyyyeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhh which I will silently objectify when I'm not busy drowning in my own tears of happiness because Marvel) and X-Men: Days of Future Past is coming out soon and I'M JUST SO EXCITED ABOUT EVERYTHING AAAAAAAHHHHHH
(aw yeah get it, pictures credit of google images, also Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch!!!!!)
3.) The Fault In Our Stars comes out four days before my twenty-first birthday. And if spending the last few days before I am a true, legal adult drowning in my own tears and kicking and screaming with emotions over a YA novel is not in some way indicative of my entire life thus far, then I really don't know what is.
(credit to google images, and yes they played brother and sister in Divergent, *hums Folgers theme song*)
4.) I am not Catholic, but I hear that Pope Francis is a really, really nice man.
(I forget who made the video but credit to youtube or something idek man)
5.) Every Monday, I get a letter from the Beast, who is having a lovely time in Arizona on his mission. He has grown and changed in unbelievable ways, and I feel truly humbled to have the privilege of being his sister. He has baptized six or seven people and is set to baptize more, and he truly believes what he is teaching with all of his heart. I feel the Spirit so strongly every time he writes to me, and it's so wonderful to hear from him each week.
(credit to my parents for this face and to my webcam for actually working for once)
6.) Whenever I'm sad, I remember that J.K. Rowling gave away so much of her money that she was taken off the Forbes list of richest people or whatever. She gave it to charity and stuff, and also she's a really nice person who says really nice things about people with depression and also that quote about how she regrets putting Ron with Hermione was totally taken out of context so it turns out she's not horrible after all.
7.) I didn't play very much Pokemon as a child. I collected some of the cards when they were popular, but it wasn't really a very strong interest with me. Luckily, I have friends and especially certain lovely cousins who really like Pokemon, and I have gradually appreciated how awesome it is as I have gotten older. Not only do you get like, tiny pixellated magical pets who can do awesome things, but there are some great lessons to be learned as well.
(luxray is best non-legendary pokemon i am not arguing on this because i am right and you know it)
(this is a great message and i haven't even seen the movie where he says this)
8.) I have a backscratcher. So even when life is hard and I don't want to do anything, I can scratch my back with minimal effort.
(Sarah-merican Gothic, a crappy photograph made with a crappy webcam, copyright 2014)
9.) I have a really nice family who sends me things like food and clothes and letters and they call me a lot and tell me they love me and keep me from going insane and help me when I'm feeling very sad which is all the time and make sure I'm happy and safe and well.
(photo credit to my camera, taken the day that the Angel and the Prodigy were baptized, I don't remember who took the picture and I also don't know why I edited silly words on it, it's my family and the temple and the edge of a coat rack in our church building that should be enough for anyone to understand)
10.) This month has been really hard for me, and what's ended up happening to me is that no matter how much I want to get up and go to class, I've been sleeping through my alarms because I'm tired ALL the time and sad and I feel like I'm a terrible human being. News for everyone, right? Not like I've made five million blog posts about it or anything... Anyway, what happened is that I stopped going to some of my morning classes because I just could not handle people or schoolwork or anything, and because depression is crippling and awful it just made me incapable of doing anything and it was like my limbs were made of glass and lead and I could not function. So eventually I got around to emailing one of my professors about missed classes and the possibility of making up work because I am sort of kind of sick because depression is a mental illness that renders me far more incapable of doing anything than a cold ever could. (Ha, a cold. I was going to school with fevers when I was in junior high school.)
Anyway, this professor emailed me back and said that she would try to work something out with me, because I had done all of the work I was capable of doing and she didn't really offer extra credit but she'd had me in two other classes before and she knew I could do the work. I was super grateful.
And then one of my two Russian professors emailed me. (They both teach the same class, which is Russian 202, but they alternate teaching days. The younger teacher, who emailed me, teaches on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and the older teacher, who I also had for Russian 201, teaches on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Anyway.) I hadn't been to class in five days and he was like, "Are you okay? We're kind of worried about you. Do you need any help from us?"
And I just sat at my computer and sobbed for a good half hour.
Let me explain this. I know why I cried. I am usually very vocal with my needs. If I need food, I get some or ask somebody to help me get some. If I need alone time, I shut myself in my room or ask if I can find somewhere to be alone. If I need to go to the bathroom, I go to the bathroom or I ask to go if I am in a situation where I need permission to go.
But with the obvious exception of whining about all of my depression and anxiety problems on this blog, I kind of don't talk about it in person with people. In fact, I have mostly kind of stopped talking to people at all. I talk with my supervisor at work, who I see just about every day. I kind of talk with my roommates sometimes, when I go out in the living room. But I don't talk to them about the depression or the anxiety, because I am very, very afraid of alienating people. I am so scared that people don't care, that they're sick and tired of hearing about my stupid, silly, selfish problems that they will someday cut me off mid-sentence and say, "You know what, Sarah? Nobody cares. Nobody really cares."
And I know there will be people who will tell me, especially after reading this, "You can talk to me about anything, all the time! Here's my cell phone number, send me a message on Facebook or Tumblr or whatever social media thingy we share! Seriously, talk to me!" But if I took you up on that, if I really took anyone up on that, you would come to understand exactly what a mess I am. You would be getting texts and messages every five minutes, from eight in the morning until midnight at night. You would hear every little thing I worry about or am scared about. Because when I feel safe with someone, as inviting me to talk about problems with you will inevitably make me feel, I go the whole hog and drop my filters. And while I have had problems recognizing social cues in the past, I know when someone doesn't want to listen to me anymore, because I've seen that look and heard that tone and understood that message so many times. And I'm not numb to it. I never could be. It hurts me every time it happens. And the thing is that nobody can ever really help me with this, because you have your own lives and you cannot be at my disposal all the time. And trust me, you don't want to be.
So I am not used to people asking if I need help. My mother and father do, because they are kind and because I depend on them for so much. But I'm trying not to burden them as much. That's part of being an adult: shouldering your own burdens.
And when my Russian professor asked if I needed help, I cried about it, because it felt so lovely, so good, to be asked if I needed anything. It felt like somebody cared.
I answered that email, saying I was going through some stuff with my mental health and that I would like to make up any work I had missed if that was possible.
They said that would be fine.
And I went into my Russian class yesterday and the Tuesday-Thursday teacher was there and I waited to talk to her after class and she listened to me talk (and cry) about my problems, and she said simply, "I understand, it's okay, I had very severe post-partum after both of my daughters were born," and then I cried even more because it's easy for people to say they understand, but when someone has depression and they know what it's like, it's just this connection. They know, and you know. You both know.
And I went to see the Monday-Wednesday-Friday teacher after I was done with work, and he told me, "I understand, it's okay, I went to go pick up my meds today," and then I cried a little bit more because he got it, too. And he's not a native English speaker, and neither is the Tuesday-Thursday teacher, and even though I barely speak better English than I do Russian, and even though we were talking about complicated things that they kind of ignore in Russia, they both knew. They got it. They listened, and they were willing to help me.
And it was wonderful.
And then today, the professor I had emailed first about missing classes taught a lecture on Virginia Woolf, and specifically the nature of her mental illnesses and how she committed suicide. And I was paying attention and very keen and I talked to her afterward about making up work and she told me, "I was very aware that you were in the room, and I hope it wasn't hard for you to listen today, I know this can be very sensitive," and I just wanted to cry at her too (though I didn't, aren't you proud) that no, bless you, this was a wonderful lesson, it makes me feel better to know that I am not the only person in the world who has gone between spending days in bed and writing obsessively for hours, but I didn't say that, I only reassured her that I was fine and that she was fine and everything was fine.
So this was a long last number, but you know, I am very, very grateful for kind professors. My father always said, "Professors aren't going to care about you or anything you do. They're going to say, 'Too bad, can't help you.' You'll have to help yourself in college." My dad has been right about a lot of things more often than he's been wrong, but I'm kind of grateful that he was wrong about this one. In my experience, my college professors have all been very kind and understanding, like so: "You know, you all did really well on the first exam, so I'm going to drop the second one and give you all full credit on it. Here, these are my office hours, but if we have to I will meet with you at midnight to make sure I can help you. Here, have five million extra credit opportunities, go to these lectures and have someone sign a paper saying you were there and I'll raise your grade a whole letter. I know I said three missed absences in the syllabus, but I'm not really counting, and I know that this class isn't the only one you're taking. This test is in three weeks, so here are seventeen review sessions with the TAs, I'm posting all of the powerpoint slides from the entire semester, and here's a list of the test questions for you to study, which I will use on the actual test." All of the above are actual things that have happened to me in college, with only slight exaggerations. (Only ten review sessions, instead of seventeen.)
So I know that it was kind of dreary and sad at the end there, but you know, scroll all the way back up to the top for more kittens, because I'm too lazy to find more gifs. I'm glad March is almost over, and I'm glad that even though I am sad and useless and tired, I can still do hard things and people understand if the things I do don't end up being impressive compared to the everyday lives of those who don't have depression.
