Monday, September 27, 2010

Rinse and Repeat.

So for the past five weeks I have been keeping myself busy with my Australia blog, and even though I have had tendencies to post on here about my struggles with adapting to a completely new way of life, I have digressed, saying my sadness is related to adjusting. I don’t know if that’s 100% the case.

There have only been a couple major episodes since I’ve been here, one being about the major discomfort I feel about living with people who really don’t know me. I love my in-laws, but they don’t know me-they only know what my husband or myself says. Ask my mom, ask my husband: unless you live with someone who has a mental disorder, it’s hard to tell how bad it really gets. I’ve been on my own since I was 20. Making my own food. Sleeping in. Doing laundry when I feel like it. Watching what I want. Coming and going as I please. There was a time that I moved back in with my parents that I had to adjust, but it was minimal because a) I was working full-time, b) I was spending 75% of my time at my best friend’s house, and c) My mom understands me…for the most part.

The second episode was this last week, when my husband and I did our first full grocery shop. I had a list of maybe twenty items on it, and literally fifteen of the twenty items don’t exist in Australia. Being depressed and not having a lot to look forward to, food has been my only comfort for the longest time, and I don’t eat about 80% of the Australian “staple” foods. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I rarely gamble. I don’t cut myself or spend obscene amounts of money. I don’t do…well, anything, I guess. So when I have an opportunity to smile at writing something that makes me feel better or eating a beef dip, I relish the moment. Food is now something I fear rather than love.

I get served food now. I have never been okay with eating around strangers. I feel like they stare at me (that could be related to my weight or my anxiety…or both) and judge what I do or don’t eat. One thing I tell every human being that has ever eaten my mom’s food is whether or not it was great, you tell my mom it was GREAT-because my mom will hold that shit against you for years. So having to tell someone I don’t like something they have served me is equal to breaking up with someone or telling them something they don’t want to hear. I’m serious. It’s extremely uncomfortable for me. This last week my husband was at work and my in-laws roasted lamb. I have only tried two small bites of lamb in my whole life. I asked my mother-in-law if it would be okay if I just tried a small slice and she said no problem (she’s awesome and non-judgemental, by the way). I took a bite and held back throwing up. Not because it was bad. Not because of anything that was wrong with the food at all-I knew once I put that piece in my mouth my mother-in-law, consciously or not, was watching me to see how I liked the lamb. My brain was screaming at me IT’S LAMB IT’S LAMB IT’S LAMB IT’S LAMB and I managed to swallow it. I apologized and said, “I just don’t think I can hack lamb”. My father-in-law (who is not as awesome and non-judgemental-it’s just his way) looked at me and said, “it’s just meat”. I wish it were that simple. I couldn’t eat the rest of the night.

I used to think I was alone. Now, being so far away from…everything, I truly am alone. I tell myself I should have never married my husband. Again, not for anything he has done, it’s for the massive causality he endures regularly for being married to me. I really don’t think I will ever have kids (or I should say “raise kids”). Our life will always be atypical because of my episodes. I may be fine for five years, then one day *BAM* I’ll stop getting out of bed. It’s an unliveable life.

I’m really distraught because in my twenties, the outlook was good-I could always work at another job, move somewhere far away, start over-but now, at thirty, I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. At all. I had hoped that a new NEW! start in a new country would be the answer, but I can’t apply myself to do anything. Even if I never worked again and my husband supported us-what the hell kind of live would I live? Waking up at 4pm every day and eating macaroni and cheese for dinner? I would be my dad. I’m just like my dad. Except, unlike him, I’m aware of the path that is coming for me. I don’t know what do do about it.

It’s been 10 months since my major depressive episode has began-by far longer than any other period in my life. Just like when you’re overweight for a really long time, you have a hard time picturing yourself any other way. I don’t remember what it feels like to be happy.