I realized a few weeks ago just exactly how much I am struggling. My house is a mess and I can't find the energy to correct it or care. I miss people, but I feel so anxious each time I'm in a public situation (including work), that I cannot find ways to reconnect in person that make me feel safe. I don't know when I will enjoy being at shows or at a bar or party again. My kids are struggling to get along with each other at home, and with peers at school. There is an anger seething on the surface of everyone, which of course is grief presenting itself with armor. We are sad. We are depressed. We are grieving, and still unable to celebrate and mourn together in the ways that are most healing.
I preach mental health all day, everyday, to anyone who will listen, and of course it has been hardest for me to take my own advice. But in my daily struggles with managing my life, it's really hard to make the time and space for myself, and I need to see this as a fundamentally flawed way to exist. I cannot sustain this anymore. I finally got myself to the doctor last week, and asked for a referral to begin therapy again. I started meds for the first time since I was in my early 20's. I realized that as much as I've been holding it together, I am not functioning well, at home or at work, and I needed to take action to care for myself, truly... not in the vapid, consumerist ways that we talk about self-care, but in the deeper ways, the difficult ways, doing the things we have been avoiding for so long.
So, here I am, fumbling in my anxiety and on my computer on the first day of break. Do I know how to rest? Do I know how to take care? Let's find out.
