Pain Sponge
I am a sponge that soaks up other people’s pain. I saw a post online saying that lawyers are paid to take on other people’s anxiety. That is very true. The thing is, I’m only adjacent and can’t help most people who ask. I take on their anxiety but more so their overall hurt, of the problem and of me not fixing it.
I stopped taking psychiatric medication months ago when I was in a very different head space, before I left my ex boyfriend and began to turn my life around. Now it’s catching up with me and I need help again. I never believed I had bipolar disorder when I was diagnosed with it as a teenager, but now that I am an adult and have nothing in my system to mask the symptoms, it seems very plausible. I’ve begun tracking my moods by day, as my excuse for not getting treatment in the past was that “I have no idea how long my episodes last for”. It’s not that I don’t know, just that I need to track it; hard to do when you are actively experiencing the symptoms that make it difficult to function but I need to try my hardest.
Trying your hardest though, what does it mean? I don’t know what it feels like to not try your hardest and maybe that’s part of the problem. When I am up the try is built in and the world radiates from my skin. When I am down, it takes so much to get out of bed and do the things I have to do. Depression reminds me of resistance bands at the gym, plus negative mental talk.
I’m in front of the pale brick building again. I have that run away feeling, hearing the train sound that it is headed for the airport, I want to run and jump aboard. I will run this weekend to my hometown with a dear friend of mine, a couple hours out of the city. What I need is support and a change of scenery, not to skip work and cry in an airport with no ticket.
I couldn’t do it today. I asked for a “mental health day” (unpaid) and when I returned home, I found a court summons: respondent’s request for hearing. Show’s not over, folks.