depression – thingspeoplelookup.com

Word nerd alert: Journey is a band, not a quest/mission/odyssey

Today…today was just a bad day at the office. A crappier Monday than usual. So on my calendar this week is one subject that will be the equal of my salty mood.

The overuse of the word “journey.”

I love the English language.

No, I love it. That’s why I seriously don’t love it when a word is appropriated to the point of meaninglessness.

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Though certainly not the only instance, but one of the more recent examples, is use of the word “disrupt” to describe anything that might merely unsettle an industry. In the essential sense of the word, this in and of itself is not necessarily wrong.

But the word to entered into our collective conscious thanks to Harvard business professor Clayton Christensen, who used the word as as a matter of wholesale industry change: what product or service will come along, like cheap steel rebar, to disrupt an industry to the point of changing it completely?

Now Zion Williamson is a disruptive basketball talent. Billie Eillish is a disruptive musical talent. Tesla is a disruptive car. I don’t know, I don’t see Tesla turning the auto industry on its head. It’s merely another category.

We work. We’re not on a quest for fire

Hard work is hard and the change that comes from it is incremental. But it’s not necessarily a journey. Journey implies a terminus. You hit your goal and you’re done.

I don’t think so. Not for any of you.

So cooking journeys and learning journeys and fitness journeys…well, there is no terminus to the fitness “journey” I’m on, I can tell you that.

The great work you do never stops. You cook better, you learn more, you get stronger and healthier – mentally and physically – the harder you try. You just get better and better at what you do and I love you for it.

So my friends, you’re not on a journey. That’s a band. A great band. You just keep being your best you.

You’re welcome.

To dwell or not to dwell

Today is July 3 which, in the U.S., has nearly the same holiday feel as July 4. And yet, with all the gains I feel like I’ve made in just, what, eight days? It doesn’t feel like a holiday to me. It feels like I felt nine days ago.

There’s every reason for me to feel fine:

My migraines have improved
My mood has improved
My workouts have been better
My employer, recently merged, is still pretty terrible, but a little less terrible

But today, I feel:

Unbearably ugly
Out of shape
Uninteresting
Exhausted

The challenge today, or always

One wonders whether spending time spitting this out is a good idea. I’ve read that suppression, the ability to say screw it, is really what serves a person’s mental health. Obviously I’m not so good at that.

There is a particular condition on which I’ve ruminated my whole, 5-foot life, and that’s not being a six-foot supermodel. Having a regular figure. Starving myself to a ludicrous figure. Eating my way back to a spherical figure. Returning to a regular figure.

I don’t know if this is way of seeing is particular to women worldwide, or handed down to some of us no matter where we are. Or both.

More recently, on a day in which my head felt like Pangaea splitting apart, I couldn’t stop myself; I ate about 2000 kcals worth of cookies. Fatty, sugary, chunky and huge, they were, and I’d already eaten the day’s food – about 1400 high-fat, low-carb kcals.

Problem or solution

And the next day, I felt amazing. Two-and-a-half pounds heavier, thanks glycogen! but great. As in, my head felt great. My heart felt great.

I spent some time with a number of different calorie calculators. How are the results derived? I gave some thought to just how intense my workouts are really. Are 80 handstands considered intense? Which is to say, are 1400 kcals a day enough?

Probably not. But I feel no worth except at my boniest, my tiniest, my most unsustainable.

I don’t know why I care

I’ve long since given up on dating, but there is still in the back of my mind a reminder that I’m still in fact nobody without a mate, riches, unfathomable thinness.

I could let the mate go. The riches, eh, could still happen. The appropriate thinness?

1700 kcals is what I decided to try. Could I achieve a worthy thinness If I’m not cannibalizing my own body for energy? Can I wait more than another two days to find out?

What about my migraines? The extra kcals could be one of the keys to recovery. For years I’ve labored under the idea that X calories were allowed at Y age.

I honestly do not know if I can let myself eat more, heal my head, and risk weight gain. I already can’t stop staring at these extra two pounds. How pathetic – how first world? – is that?

How pathetic am I?

Update: posting as pain relief

Until today, it was the most popular post in my (five-day) blogging career. “Posting as pain relief” resonated with a lot of you, and still grows in readership bit by bit. This was unexpected. It was truthful in a way that I can’t say to anyone live.

But I have some good news.

Yesterday afternoon found me on errands, including stops at shops where I could kit out my new workout space. The shop with the plush rug. The used sports equipment shop for 20-lb. dumbbells. The Salvation Army for some kind of slick plates that would make better gliders than the ones I’ve got.

While in the Salvation Army, I passed by the furniture, giving it a dreamy look. It was in good shape, all of it. Mine is…not so great. Cats with claws will do what they do and there’s not much you can do until they’re gone.

My mind went dark. Shouldn’t I, at an age I’m not telling you but which is old enough I should likely be looking elsewhere at furniture, not look longingly at used stuff?

I felt the familiar feelings of failure. Of pointlessness and worthlessness and the real question of whether my future was worth attempting. Instantly, from the brain stem or the amygdala or wherever that starts, my blood was pumped with it.

But a funny thing happened at Sam’s Club. Just down the road a piece from the Salvation Army, I found a fair parking spot on a busy Saturday. It was sunny and hot, at least for the upper Midwest. I didn’t move for a moment. Full of bad feeling, of sighs, a slow heartbeat, I simply told myself to stop.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that this would be the first time in my life that organically, truly out of the blue, I dismissed my failures – “failures” – and acknowledged instead my accomplishments, all of which came thanks to an early resilience and the distinct impression that six-year-old me could be Alexis Carrington one day.

joan-collins-alexis-carrington-Cd7cff848ad9f26ccde1cd0e3050f3148 — *Without a doubt.*

All of this, thanks to blogging. It’s a correlation, and maybe a weak one, I don’t know. But I’ve had a lot of therapy and I’ve never had revelations anywhere, but especially not at Sam’s Club before. And if this is happening at Sam’s Club, it’s probably best not to think too hard about correlation vs. causation.

Thank you, all

There’s a hole in the heart that’s truly hard to fill, if it ever does. I think writing is one way to start. Your feedback doesn’t hurt! I’ll take it anytime. And will keep you posted as my health changes with a regular writing practice. It’s an interesting experiment, this, and look forward to sharing it with you.

Weakness as strength. Strength as weakness.

Hilary Mantel is the fantastic author of Wolf Hall and Bringing Up the Bodies. If you’re into historical fiction and good writing, pick these up.

She’s also the author of a memoir I’ve not read, Giving Up the Ghost. It includes a quote called out by the Times, one that struck me and I’m not yet sure why:

“I used to think that autobiography was a form of weakness, and perhaps I still do. But I also think that, if you’re weak, it’s childish to pretend to be strong.”

If you’re weak, it’s childish to pretend to be strong.

The greatest power, is in not needing it. There’s a quite confidence one can effect when you’ve got nothing to prove.

But there’s a difference between believing unfailingly in one’s competencies, and using them as a cover for what is an existential weakness. Am I being childish by closing off my weakness to my local world?

I don’t mind telling you. Here’s my weakness: Part of me is eternally six. Easily hurt. Prideful. Resilient, never not sad, but could make people laugh even then. Here’s the key: little me is in control a lot and I feel like I can’t help it. It might be childish to pretend otherwise. But is this something you can say out loud in America?

Hours and hours

strong-little-girl I work out for hours at a time. It’s contemplative, meditative, painful. I can’t imagine working out for a normal amount of time; it wouldn’t seem enough. Today’s workout made me realize that this is another cover, and it’s not just for my vanity. The pain feels familiar. It feels like weakness. It is weakness. Nobody works out for hours if they don’t have to.

What am I covering for? Am I taking myself back to my young painful life? Am I desperately trying to give my six-year-old the muscle she needs? I don’t know. I’m open to your thoughts.

We’ll be back after these messages

There’s a lot in Mantel’s quote to unpack. It deserves more than one post; it deserves a conversation. Please leave your thoughts in the comments. We’ll talk again soon.

Posting as pain relief

I have a confession. I have migraines and depression. And I let them win.

I started this blog two years ago under the advisement of a friend, a dear, dear friend, who was convinced that it would help me feel better on all fronts. That the positive feedback – or any feedback – would make a difference in both mood and pain.

But I let them win. I have forever. I have talent and dreams. What a failure I am.

I’ve posted all of five times, I think. I managed one last night, one I thought was pretty fun. It’s not bad. So I wanted to start an editorial calendar today but could not imagine what my worthless self would talk about. Anxiety filled my throat with acid and shortened breath.

4f91aee3ecad04ee3500003d-750-563 — I’m not looking for sympathy. Just feel like this a lot and wondering if posting would help me lift my head…from time to time.

That one post seemed to change a little something, though, because here I am.

I am wondering what you, my two or three dear readers, think about my friend’s theory. Do you think that regularly posting something, anything, can help fill that hole in your heart? You know, the one you can shrink but never quite sew closed. I can always find a way to slip backwards into that hole. It’s like I want to.

Do you think posting about something, anything, might keep me upright?

Do you think that over time my migraines, caused primarily by stress and sadness, might alleviate a little bit? If posting something, anything, would help alleviate that stress and sadness, I would take a bit. Any of you who have chronic migraines or other pain, I know, would take a bit.

Your thoughts and experiences would be invaluable if you’re up for sharing. In the meantime I will do my best to continue posting about the fascinating and useless things I find while cleaning my closet. Maybe some boxing, too.

Thank you all. Thank you so much.