I Miss Me
“I miss me. The old me, the happy me, the bright me, the smiling me, the laughing me, the gone me.” For a while now, I can't put a number on it, maybe months now, maybe a year or longer, I have slowly been losing myself. I can't put a finger on the exact moment when everything in my life started to change, when I began to become so unhappy, or even what caused the shift in my life. I feel like I should be happy, all the things in my life are finally going right, little by little I am reaching the goals I have set for myself and I have no reason to feel unhappy. Someone once told me that I look good on paper and although the context in which this was said doesn't really apply to this situation, I honestly feel like this describes my life right now. In the last three years I have landed my dream job as an Emergency Room RN, I got married in a beautiful ceremony and had the most perfect wedding day, I bought a house, I bought my first car, my honeymoon was amazing and I finally got to go to Disney World. On paper my life looks great, from the outside looking in I look happy and like I have the perfect life, but I don't feel perfect, I don't feel happy, I don't really feel anything at all.........
“I miss me. The old me, the happy me, the bright me, the smiling me, the laughing me, the gone me.” I have been struggling to admit to myself that I may have depression. I have been denying that I have a problem and avoiding any and all treatment. It wasn't until the other day that I started to realize how far from my true self I have actually fallen. It wasn't until my husband told me,"you don't laugh any more, you don't smile anymore, you don't joke around with me anymore, you aren't ever happy anymore," that things really hit me. I feel like with me being a nurse I should have realized this sooner. I feel stupid that it took someone else pointing these things out to me to piece things together. I have been just living my life going through the motions and not feeling any emotions. I had a work friend pull me aside a couple weeks ago and tell me she was concerned for me because she could tell that I was losing an unhealthy amount of weight when I already weight less than I should. It's just now that everything is adding up and I am finally able to admit to myself that I have a problem.
“People think depression is sadness. People think depression is crying. People think depression is dressing in black. But people are wrong. Depression is the constant feeling of being numb. Being numb to emotions, being numb to life. You wake up in the morning just to go back to bed again.” Being a nurse I guess I had this preconceived idea of what depression is and how it presents itself. I tend to always see the extreme cases of depression in which people are suicidal and depressed to the point of wishing to end their life. In no way shape or form am I a danger to myself or others in my current state nor do I feel like this may become a future problem for me, however I can see how others may struggle with those thoughts and feelings. It's hard to wake up each day wishing for things to be better and hoping that today will be the day that you finally feel happiness. I go out of my way to do things that I used to get enjoyment out of on the off chance that it will spark an ember of happiness or self content, when in the end I still feel nothing. My husband has been telling me lately that I am only happy when we are fighting, I go out of my way to start fights over the littlest things, and up until now I have denied it. But he is completely right, I have become numb to all emotions other than anger, so I pick fights, I push him away, I am rude and disrespectful, I do everything I can to start an argument so I can feel something rather than nothing at all.
“I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that.” I have always put everyone else ahead of myself, made sure that everyone else was taken care of before taking care of myself. I am the type of person that will give my friends and family everything that I have even if I have nothing left to give. I give and I give and I give without any regards to the consequences it may have on my well being. I give others second or third chances and attempt to fix relationships that are beyond repair. I allow others to mistreat me or walk all over me rather than standing up for myself. I don't easily forgive or forget anything and bottle up all my emotions until I eventually erupt and punish the wrong person at the wrong time. I have never been one for indulging in anything or pampering myself. At work I skip lunch and hold in the urge to go to the bathroom so that I can make sure my patients are taken care of before myself. I stress myself out over things that are out of my control and have been known to make myself physically ill stressing out over everything and anything.
“Depression exist without you knowing it, even denying it. It is not an illusion. You don’t even know you’re in it. It takes awhile before you realize it.” I honestly have been missing all of the signs and symptoms, living in denial for over a year now. It took my husband telling me that I was different and a friend pointing out my unhealthy amount of weight loss for me to even step away from everything and consider that there may be a problem. I finally took to heart what my friend had said and decided to step on my scale at home and weighted myself in at 117 lbs. She had been right, I have been loosing weight again without trying and without noticing. This weight wouldn't be a problem for some girls but I am almost 6 ft tall and 2-3 years ago I weighted 160 lbs. I have never tried to lose weight, never dieted, and I was actually happier and felt healthier when I was 160 lbs. My whole life I have been underweight and I had felt accomplished and actually liked my body better when I was heavier. Now my mental health is affecting my physical health and recently I have begun to see some more scary signs and symptoms. I have noticed I sleep 24/7 and I don't sleep to avoid anything, I sleep because honestly I am tired. My body just feels tired and weak all the time to the point where on my days off from work all I do is sleep. I have begun to have some dizzy spells when at home because I literally forget to eat or have no appetite. I have begun to feel shaky and tremors at work when going without food for too long. I have had to stop what I'm doing at work and sit down and eat in order to avoid passing out.
So this all brings me back to this quote that you have read many times throughout the article, “I miss me. The old me, the happy me, the bright me, the smiling me, the laughing me, the gone me.” When I saw this quote, everything started to make sense and fall into place. I know now that I have been struggling with depression and need to seek help. I honestly do not even know who I am anymore or who I have become. I am a completely different person from who I have been in the past and who I want to be. I want the old me back, happy me back. I need to start putting myself first and taking care of myself. I have realized I cannot adequately take care of anyone else if I can't even take care of myself. I need to find myself again and indulge in activities that make me happy. I need to be nicer, more compassionate, and a better version of me. I need to stop letting others paint a picture of myself and be the person that I am rather than what they want me to be. I need to decrease stress in my life, start letting things go, and move past everything that keeps bogging me down. I want to go back to being me again and intend to take steps toward getting there starting today.
I know I can't do this by myself and honestly I don't want to. My husband is amazing and I know I don't deserve him sticking by my side after how mean I have been to him lately but no matter how many times I push him away he never leaves. He is everything I have ever needed, wanted, and so much more. I have a great support system to help me out and hope that I can get back to who I used to be. I need everyone to point things out to me like my husband and my work friend had. I need people to tell me when I am being mean or not acting like myself. I need others to remind me to eat and take care of both my mental and physical well being. I need to seek a therapist and finally get treatment for the things I have been putting off dealing with for years and years. Today I start taking baby steps towards a new and happier future. They say step one is always admitting that you have a problem so now that step one is complete I can move forward.
All quotes were taken from https://www.healthyplace.com/insight/quotes/depression-quotes-and-sayings-about-depression/