Over the past few years, I have come to enjoy telling my story. I don't look for attention, but use my background as a tool for education.
Recently, I have been having great conversations with a woman whose daughter struggles with anxiety and depression. The daughter is a teenager. She's a bright girl, beautiful, and has accomplished so much in her few years on earth. This kid has the potential to do great things in life. However, the mother and daughter struggle in their relationship. The other day the mom said, "I just don't know which girl I'll get when she wakes up." I quickly responded with, "Neither does she." That's the thing about depression and anxiety. We have so many masks that we use to cover up the fragility of our lives, that we can't always remember which mask to put on at the right time. We also don't know which part of our lives will be the focus when we wake up. That's hard. Add that into being a teenager with crazy hormones and life goals and everything else, and well, that's a friggin horror movie! There are so many overachievers out there. We were complimented on our ability to overachieve. We have been taught to go and do until we drop and we'll get praise from those we love. Then we crash. We crash hard. The same people that loved us for being able to do so much are then in shock that we couldn't handle life. They tell us sweetly, "You do too much." But that conflicts with the, "Wow, you're so amazing!" that was stated two days before. So we snap a bit. We feel like we've let them down. We feel like we've let ourselves down. Fragility. Then we're at a loss. What now? We go through these cycles of highs and lows and nobody can guess when the peaks and valleys will hit. If you live with it long enough, you can start to see it. You might feel your body shutting down in the morning. You might have insomnia three days in a row. You might eat your weight in pretzels. There are little tells for what you do consistently when the highs or lows roll through. But usually, they're subtle. If you cannot learn them, you can't expect those around you to learn them either. This is what I tell the people in my life that love someone in the battle. 1- Be there, but don't nag. 2- Don't encourage bad behavior, but don't police them too tightly (unless harm is being done). 3- For every bad that the person is expelling from their system - towards themselves, you, a sibling, whomever - give them a good. "I like your hair." "Remember when you told that joke and I laughed so hard I peed." "Wow, I'm amazed at who you are as a human." 4- Learn that their love language will be inconsistent. One day they may want a hug. The next day they want a random gift. In two weeks, they might need to just sit on the couch with you and watch a movie. Again, they don't always know who they are waking up as, be prepared to love them in the moment that they are in. 5- Try your best to learn their signals (Where did all the snacks go?) And match their moods. 6- Don't try to change them. Usually people battling feel like failures. If you try to change who they are, they believe they are failures deeper in their core. Keep learning. Those of us battling will grade you on a curve.
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AuthorI have a lot to say about a lot of things. Archives
May 2023
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