I have four officially diagnosed mental illnesses on my charts:
- Dysthymia/Persistent Depressive Disorder
- Depression
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder
- Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
The thing is, I’m what’s unofficially classified as ‘high functioning’, meaning that if don’t signpost my illnesses, it’s unlikely that Joe Schmoe off the street would know they existed. I get up in the morning, I shower, I go to work, I get everything done. I have friends. I have activities. My bills get paid and my car is in full working order.
My ‘public face’ gets quite the workout, let me tell you.
In all honesty, most people who know me on a very basic level have no idea that there’s anything going on with me at all, and some people who know me a bit better and might know that I carry these things around with me don’t necessarily know just how far into me they’ve got their claws.
“Dude, she’s got her shit together. Look at all this stuff she does!”
Yeah, okay, but all that stuff I do? It wears me the fuck out. I can last a workday, sure. I can be perky and efficient. And then I go home and make it about as far as the sofa and just can’t seem to get myself to do much of anything. Because I’m tired. I’m always tired. Life is exhausting.
And you wanna know what makes it worse?
STRESS.
Like most people’s, my job is stressful. Mine, specifically, is stressful due to the fact that we’re a small company and we run a very lean operation. I am in charge of HR functions for the entire company. In addition to that, starting earlier this year, I was allocated a monthly project which used to be an accounting function. It takes over the first 5+ business days of each month and requires me to work a significant amount of overtime to finish it--and take care of everything else I have to do, too. This project is always ‘A-1 Top Priority’, and it has to be accurate and finished on time or else. Accuracy and deadlines are my bread and butter, but this project is monumental insofar as completion time is concerned, and since it’s something that was created ‘in house’, it is very, very manual. Is it difficult? No. But there are so many intricate, moving parts that one little mistake in one place creates a ripple effect which throws everything else off.
In a normal month, there are enough people around to double- and triple-check this stuff, but at the moment, two of the most important ones are out and very busy welcoming little bundles of joy into their lives. Obviously, nobody begrudges them that, and we want them to take the time and enjoy their new small humans. We’re holding the fort as best we can.
But we’re only so many people, and individually we already had the work of one, or two, or three people.
It’s a rough time all around, and I’m not the only one who’s struggling. My symptoms are manifesting physically at this point. I spend most of the day feeling like I’ve got something sitting on my chest. Several times in the last two months during the week of this project, I’ve had actual anxiety attacks. Not big ones--the kind where I sort of leave my body and pace and push myself into walls and flap my hands like I’m trying to shake everything off of them and get tunnel vision and can’t breathe properly--but little ones, where I’ve got the palpitations and the rapid breathing but am still somehow (miraculously) able to focus enough to get stuff done. I just sit there with it. It’s awful.
I do what I can. I drink water. I have a snack. I breathe deeply. I get up and walk around a bit.
It doesn’t always help.
And, because I’m so good at masking it, no one knows unless I point it out with a giant neon sign.
What I’m getting at is this: not all illnesses are visible. The invisible ones are just as valid. I’m struggling right now. It’s hard to tell, but it’s happening. It’s really, really happening. I am not okay. I don’t know when I’m going to be okay. But guess what? I’ll keep getting shit done--because I have to. I’ll keep getting shit done, and then go home and stare at the idiot box and zone out. I’ll keep getting shit done, and then I’ll sleep because I’m exhausted, and it’s easier than trying to sort the feelings out.
But nobody is going to see it.
My friend, I am sorry you're having a hard time. I know it's not an ideal thing to ask, because I know it puts the pressure on you to come up with something, but is there anything I can do to help? Wanna go see a movie? Have a meal?
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