I just feel… happy. I’m not very familiar with this feeling. Usually, my breathing is at least a little bit labored and I’m not used to it being easy. On the rare occasions that I do feel happy, it doesn’t usually last very long because I feel anxious about it. (Growing up, if I was ever not terrified, my parents told me that I wasn’t taking life seriously and made sure that my temporary state of calm was replaced by anxiety very quickly. Or if I deigned to laugh, my mother would take me aside and tell me that I was “acting drunk.” Nothing like extreme shame to make me regain my composure!) I really like that suddenly I’m in a place where it’s actually safe for me to get acquainted with occasional happiness. I have felt happy before, but generally whenever I’m lifted from being suicidally depressed, the relief of having escaped that makes me energized and giddy. Now, for the first time in my life, I’m actually going days at a time without even thinking about suicide. This has opened the door for a new type of happiness, which apparently feels like a state of calm. I keep asking myself what I’m not worrying about but should be worrying about that’s allowing me to feel this way. But I think that this might be what safety feels like.
Over the weekend, after I wrote my last entry, I got really excited at the prospect of working as an assistant in a Head Start day care, so I looked online and the local community college actually offers a program to get an “Early Childhood Education Assistant Teacher Certificate.” It’s ten undergraduate credits and the current rate is $252 per credit. I even looked up how much the books would cost and right now it would be less than $200 for the whole program. I already have a PreK-12 teaching certificate and an MEd in TESOL, so I feel like if I went back to school and added this on to my existing certification, it would help to fill in the gaps in my résumé. It’s hard to go back to work after being out of work for years due to health issues, and this would be a reasonably affordable and attainable goal. I’ve had trouble holding a job in the past because my maladaptive perfectionism is so extreme that I work way too hard and always believe that I’m not doing enough, and I have such a serious anxiety issue that I live in terror that my boss is going to fire me, and then one day I skip work to attempt suicide and no matter how many laws are in place to protect people with disabilities, it’s hard to explain that to an employer. Then I despise myself because I grew up with my mom constantly playing right-wing talk radio and I internalized the belief that people who can’t hold down a job are lazy, and lazy people deserve to starve, suffer, and then die. Then the self-hatred makes it even more impossible for me to hold down the next job.
However, that was when I had way less treatment under my belt. Now, I’ve actually made some progress. Unfortunately, I’ve faced the area of going back to work with trepidation. I’ve been terrified to get back into the job market and I’ve just been trying to figure out what job would be the least terrible, all while cursing myself for getting a master’s degree. Most jobs fall into one of two categories: those that are intrinsically rewarding and those that I can hold on to for at least a year. I’ve managed to stick it out in retail for a while because I’m really good at it, but I hate that I’m working for corporate America and any money that the company earns because of me will pretty much go directly to the propagation of extremist Capitalism. My natural habitat is under-funded philanthropic government programs, usually dependent on a grant that may or may not be renewed. If I could work in a Head Start, it would align with my values while not being unattainably difficult (like my other dream jobs, linguist and herpetologist, which would require substantially more to get into). In fact, I might actually be overqualified, but since I also understand the cycle of poverty up close and personal and on a subjective level, maybe I would be a godsend for a few disadvantaged kids and I could make a real difference in their lives. All while being surrounded by children, and children are the most intrinsically rewarding thing I can think of. A social worker here suggested that I could consider taking the classes while I’m here since everything is online now, which was an exciting prospect, but I want to wait until I’m really ready. Besides, this gives me something to look forward to after I’m discharged.
Another thing making me happy is that I have not contacted my immediate family in a while. I was going to over the weekend and just as I was about to finish dialing my sister, a counselor came in. He asked what would happen after I called and I said that I would be miserable for a few days. He replied simply, “Then don’t call your sister.” It made sense, so I didn’t call her, and I felt happy. If my family knew that I was considering taking classes, they would think of a million problems and convince me that it was a horrible idea. Even if they didn’t say anything, just knowing that they knew would suck because I would know what my mom was whispering about me: “She’s still thinking she’s going to actually make something of herself! I don’t want to tell her differently because that would hurt her.” Alternatively, instead of replying with something nasty, sometimes they just don’t respond. This is always framed as being my fault; apparently the fact that they hurt me every time they talk to me is a sign of my being fragile. Never mind that I worked retail through the holidays with no issues and I can manage to be around pretty much anybody but them. They hurt me, then shame me for being too easily hurt, then cast me off, then play the victim. The last time I wrote to my siblings was weeks ago via Facebook messenger and they saw the message but never replied. I wept that they mean so much to me and I mean so little to them. But honestly, if replying like decent people is apparently impossible for them and the only alternative to passive aggressive character assassinations is silence, maybe it’s just as well. I have supportive extended family and supportive friends and it’s telling that my mental health improves this much when my immediate family has no idea what’s going on in my life. Society has a million clichés about the importance of never, ever giving up on family because most people cannot comprehend a family that is so toxic that it actually does more harm than good. I wish I didn’t have to be able to comprehend that. But I can, and I’m finally around a group of people who make me feel pride rather than shame at recognizing that I cannot make my family stop being toxic. I finally have an opportunity to heal.
A final thing that’s making me feel better is that my doctor announced yesterday that he had changed his mind and had decided not to leave the hospital after all. When he announced that he was leaving, I was devastated but not that surprised. I live in a constant state of expecting something awful to happen at any second. But this time something good suddenly happened that I was certain was impossible, and I’m not familiar with something good happening unexpectedly. I don’t remember a time in my life when terrible news like this was ever suddenly reversed. It took a while for me to feel anything. First I was happy on a rational level but numb on an emotional level. Then I got way more dissociated than usual and lost a lot of time. Then I went to bed early and woke up really late, and when I woke up, I felt this unfamiliar ease. It was suddenly easier for me to do the things like ADLs that are usually easy for other people but not me. I gradually realized that I felt like the weight of the world had been taken off my shoulders. Now I recognize that this emotion must be happiness. I think I like happiness. If it keeps making appearances in my life, dropping by from time to time, then maybe life really is worth living.
