Me: Well, my boss really loves my work and all my clients have all requested my care again…

Dad: It doesn’t matter if your boss or clients like you if it doesn’t translate into a paycheck.

Me: Well, it matters to me.

Dad: Let’s move on.

I think my parents are trying to kill me, psychologically speaking.

And I am 38. I feel like I am 16. No offense to all you 16 year old’s, that was a good year.

Topics that are going to kill me include:

Money

Money

Money

My lack of a full time job

My parents helping me with rent

The idea that if I was working full time I would not be as depressed

My lack of ambition (also known as aggressive job hunting)

There demand for me to ‘check’ in with them every Friday to tell them about my progress

Money

Money

My version of the situation

Their version of the situation

Money

Money

I just can’t believe that one week ago today I felt completely normal. Balanced thinking and emotions, rational thinking. And now today, and over the past three days, I feel like I am actually crumbling in on myself. I actually feel my body closing in on itself. Suffocating and shrinking.

This come down, after feeling completely back to my old self for the last few months, my pre-30’s self, feels almost as if I’m coming down from a drug binge. My back and chest are aching, my jaw hurts, my teeth are aching. My eyes hurt.

I can see why this moment, this fall, is one of the hardest in a person’s cycle of depression or bipolar. I’m sure other people know what this feels like but this is the first time for me. My other depressive periods were gradual. But this one feels as if I fell straight off a cliff.

I’ve been trying to convince myself that I’m just having regular emotions, similar to other people who are not depressed, but when sounds and voices and the whirring of the refridgerator all become so loud that you want to vomit…that’s far from normal. Far, far from normal.

It seems like just yesterday (September 2011) that I had two followers (my friends)!! Now I have a lot more!!

Many thanks to each of you for following and reading www.ilostmy30s.tumblr.com!!

My hope is to continue writing about, and researching, mental health issues, personal stories of people living with mental illness, and new discoveries in the field of psychiatric medicine.

I appreciate all of your letters!

All my best,

Bijou

So, all my life I have people tell me things about myself - unsolicited stuff. Total strangers will tell me things about how I look, how I act, what they think about my career life, relationship life, etc.Teachers have told me I was flaky even though I worked full time while attending college, other teachers told me I would never get accepted into college because I wasn’t disciplined. I got into college.

Of course, it happens all the time in my family, especially with my mom. Anytime I see my mom she will comment on my appearance within 5 minutes. Most recent - we went to breakfast and I was wearing a navy blue dress with thin straps. I wore a nude bra with it. She told me that a navy blue bra would look great with the dress I had. A few months before, when I chopped my hair off, she made a comment about my curls looking  better when they were long. A few weeks ago she asked if my current hair style was still from the same short haircut I had in February.

Strangers have made comments about my body. Men I have been on first dates with have made comments about my weight. They have told me I should wax. I’ve had men “suggest” clothing I should wear. Bosses have made comments about my love life and choices of men. Once, a coworker told me I looked thinner when I wore a specific pair of flip flips.

Now, I don’t really do this. I don’t tell people that their make up is applied poorly or that their jeans are too tight or that their hair color is 4 different shades or their boobs are spilling out of their bra or their skin is dry. Sure, I have made rude comments in my life, but I just don’t believe in giving unsolicited feedback on a person’s appearance. I will tell my family members if they look good or smell good or their hair color is pretty or their make up is pretty.

The other day I was with a client who had an appointment at a beauty salon. The woman who did the facials - who was probably in her 70’s and was very shiny looking - handed me her card and said she could fix my face. I have clear skin. She also said my eyebrows needed to be waxed - which is true - but how did she know I wasn’t growing them out? I told her I was working and I was fine.

So, today I went to a Mother’s Day bbq at my brother’s house. My family was there and my sister-n-law’s family were there. I walked in the door and my sister-n-law’s father said I like your hair sticking straight up in the air like that. I have very curly hair and had just gotten out of the car. Later, he said, no, no, I like your hair, but when did you cut it short? Then, at the end of the evening, I was saying goodbye to everyone, and the same man came up to me and said we - meaning the family - need to help you find a career. I told him I was working and he said well, yes, but we’ve been talking about it and we need to find you a stable career. Now, I had a career for 14 years and no one gave two shits about what I did.

I know a lot of people would tell me to have stronger boundaries…but I feel like there is something else at work, but I can’t figure out what it is. If this has been happening to me since I was little - yes, even in fourth grade my teacher told me I asked stupid questions - is there a greater lesson in it for me?

If you have ever heard the term “psychic vampires” - or people who suck your energy - I am surrounded by them. Surrounded. SURROUNDED.

Sometimes…I wish I could just hold my hand up and zap, zap zap until someone just goes away. : )

Nothing is working. I’ve definetly crashed over the last few days. I have so much anxiety in my body that I feel sick.

All the parts of my life are sort of spinning backwards. My family. My job. My friendships. My dating life. I’m freaking about about getting old. About my parents getting older. About dying. Ugh. I hate this. I just hate being this way.

I’m certainly not the type of person to count days, or do anything long enough to count days, with exception to my sobriety…and now this…my non-depression and anxiety period. 52 days. 52 weird days. I haven’t so much acknowledged each day other than waking up and thinking “wow, I feel good” but today I counted…it seemed important…because the first thought I had today was about suicide.

I’m sort of at a loss from words about it. There was definitely a part of me that thought I was going to be better for good, which is really odd because I am all about the glass being half empty. But as the days went on I really thought I might have an opportunity to never have a “dark thought” again. I’m hesitant to even write about this. I don’t want this to be a “Dear diary” moment…because it is bigger than that - more important than that.

I really think this is the moment - slipping from hope back into suffering - that breaks people down. Makes you realize your life is about this. About depression. About debilitating depression. And if anyone ever says “your illness does not define you” - that statement hammers home the notion that they have never lived like you live. And thank goodness for them…because you wouldn’t wish this on anyone.