May Has Been a Dirty Whore

May has been a dirty whore, and I don’t mean a person named May, I mean the month. It’s been a timesuck of anxiety and stress for no reason other than just because, which isn’t really a reason at all in case you were curious.

It started out great. I was high off of Listen To Your Mother and Mom 2.0 and being around my people, eagerly planning the summer with the kids and thinking of zoo trips and pool days and vacation and then BAM! One tiny little thing after another, and some big things, too, came rolling in and then I couldn’t really breathe.

Crazy frequent tantrums due to the Screw You Twos and 5 year old attitude and huge life decisions are all manageable in isolation but when they hit at once things get a little nuts, even if some of them are self-imposed.

What’s weird is that I’m largely happy most of the time and excited about what’s happening in our lives and how my kids are growing and changing and becoming these amazing little people. There is so much good in my life that it’s hard to understand being depressed, even for me, and I’m living it.

But anxiety and depression are secret monsters, laying dormant until poked a little and then I get gutpunched and I’m down for the count until the shock passes or I tap out and give up. I had a lot of those moments last month.

Anxiety and depression don’t make much sense, you know, so it’s sort of impossible and a waste of time to look for any ONE reason as to why they crop up periodically and creep into the corners of my brain. I just know that they do and they make life–living–difficult.

Instead of wanting to leave my house, I just want to curl up in the corner of my couch and stay there. Chaos and clutter reign free and seem to grow worse by the day but I lack any motivation to get up and fix it. I just want it all to disappear, to be swept up into a pile and tossed out like trash. Poof! Gone! And my mind will be clear again.

I’ve wanted to come here and bitch about it all and unleash the pent-up anxiety and rage in an attempt to clear my head and purge those feelings but people don’t like it when you’re angry. It feels like it’s not okay to be vulnerable and the truth is that I’ve been far too vulnerable to deal with the sort of reaction that comes when I try to get real about where I am and what I’m going through.

This anxiety spiral happened last May too, for different reasons then, reasons I still don’t really understand, and began a crazy stretch of negativity and angst that lasted me well into July. Then Daddy died and since I see a pattern where my mood deteriorates in the spring when it should be getting better, I’m determined not to let history repeat itself.

I just can’t seem to ditch my old, unsupportive “friends,” Anxiety and Depression, for good, even with medication and therapy. It’s always a work in progress, I guess. Three steps forward, two steps back.

I want to wipe the slate clean and just be done with it. But I’m trying.

So, peace out, May. You jerk. Don’t let the door hit you.