One of the things that I’ve been doing to help myself deal with this depression bullshit, is filter what I’m exposed to in life. At the height of my illness, some 12 years ago now, I was around negative people.
Primarily, my partner at the time.
Having spent nearly three years doped up to my eyeballs on anti-depressants (I seriously can’t recall much of that, it’s a bit disturbing…), I remember having a rare moment of clarity. I woke up and told him it’s over. I told him to go away. I told him to leave me alone.
It was a rare moment of realising that a good chunk of the negativity I was trying to deal with was coming from him. Which was a shame, because in theory, he was a really nice bloke. But the bad points outweighed the good.
I’ve learned a lot about that filter now. It’s taken me maybe another 8 years since then to get closer to my goal(s), but I understand far more that I cannot afford to let the negativity of life outweigh the positive. Hardly bloody rocket science, but it’s far easier said than done.
What, for example, do you do when there are people whom you adore, but you find yourself wondering if they are any good for you? What do you do when you want, so badly, to see all their wonderful positive points (of which there are many, I am sure), but more and more you find yourself fighting a barrage of negativity? What do you do when quite selfishly, you don’t want to cut them out, because you think they are awesomely awesome, but you want to maintain your sanity? Where is that balance?
I know I have so much more to understand of others and of myself. I know it’s not just about them. I know I need to find (and maintain) my own balance too.
But conflict. How do you deal with conflict?
It could be so easy to say “well person A has fucked me off more times than made me laugh, so they need to go. Person B, however, has been full on fucking awesome and rarely has a bad thing to do or say, so they can stay.”
Is it even fair for me to say that? (I don’t think it is.) Surely there needs to be balance of some sort, even balance of conflict?
There are people whom I adore, and want around a whole lot (more), but I don’t understand them. I don’t understand how to be around them, I don’t understand how to react to them and that fills me with conflict. Really, I shouldn’t even be stressing about it. I should just let nature take it’s course. But what if nature doesn’t take the course I want? What if, something I want so badly to work, is just destined to fail? How am I supposed to deal with that? Am I setting myself up for an inevitable fail, and should I just cut my losses before people get hurt?
Because people always get hurt. Always. It’s like, some kind of Sinister Law Of Sod, or something. And my instinct is to say something like “well, I can see there are maybe teeny tiny bad points, and a whole fuck ton of good points, but y’know, I’m kinda tired of hurting so I’mma just end it now and spare us all the inevitable hideous heartache.” It sounds like chicken shit, but you know deep down part of it makes sense.
I should learn to deal. Sometimes, I should probably learn to man up. Grow a pair. Toughen up. (Be more like a bloke? Umm…) Stop clinging so desperately onto the incredibly wonderful, heart-soaring, grinning from ear to ear like a mental loon moments and look at the shit that is coming at the same time. Open my eyes and be real. But sometimes I just can’t decide on that balance. Or I can’t see it. Or I can’t figure it out.
Or I can’t admit to being too chicken shit to admit what might be staring me in the face.
Damn you Channel 4.
