Won't you take me to Funkytown. Depression sucks.

It has happened.  I am officially in a "funk".  For anyone that hasn't experienced this let me do my best to describe it to you:

You can't seem to stop crying, and when you do, you don't feel any better, you just feel like crying some more.  Getting out of bed is a legit struggle. What's the point?  Eating is pointless too since you feel like barfing.  Personal hygiene is completely overlooked.  Who cares if you smell.  Life sucks anyway.  You have no friends so what does it matter?  Nobody likes me.  I miss my mom.  Nobody cares about me.  Why do I need anyone to care about me?  What's wrong with me?  Why do I care who cares about me???  Why can't I be more independent?  Why am I so needy?  No wonder nobody likes me, I'm so needy!  Let's cry some more.  Now I have a headache.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat.

Seriously, it's awful.  Plus there's the shame that comes with it.  The guilt because I know my life could be SO MUCH WORSE so I shouldn't feel so badly.  But I do.  I can't help it.  I feel bad.  I feel sad.  I feel lonely and anxious and scared.  Scared that I will never feel better.  Yes, I have so much going for me.  I have my health.  A house, food (even though I don't want any), transportation, a full head of hair, a husband, a beautiful, healthy daughter, supportive family members and 326 facebook friends (please note I just looked that up and didn't just know the number off the top of my head).  I am grateful for all of these things, yet I am still too sad to function today.

There are some things going on in my life that I'm not going to share here (maybe in another post at some point), but none of them would seem major enough to warrant this type of response from my emotional being.  My point is this: we can't always control our emotions (actually I can NEVER control mine).  We can't always psych ourselves up when our psyche is down (oh, that's a good one!).  For those of you that HAVE experienced this before I'm here to tell you that you are not alone.   It doesn't make you weak, or pathetic, or broken.  And for the fortunate ones who have no idea what I'm referring to, I implore you to please be kind to anyone you know who may be going through this.  They can't help it.  Honestly, if they could they would.  Nobody WANTS to lay in bed in a pool of their own tears, drool, and sweat while contemplating never standing up again.

How I wish I had suggestions for how to get out of Funkytown.  In my past experiences the dread and hopelessness have usually passed on their own after a few days.  Sometimes pharmaceutical intervention has been required.  Mostly what's helped is knowing that I have to get up to take care of my little girl.  I'm usually able to get back into the swing of things because I'm solely responsible for the well-being of another human being.  Then it's just a matter of faking it 'til I make it.  Today I have nothing to do until I pick her up from camp at 4:30.  I had planned on being productive.  Doing laundry, cleaning the house, organizing closets.  But that's not going to happen.  I feel another big cry coming on. 

It's only been 5 years...

since my last post.  Not much has changed.  Ha.  I kid.  LOTS has changed, but I don't want to get into that now.  I'm back because I've recently figured out that I use facebook as a blog.  Although that works well for me I'm aware that it doesn't work well for many of the 300+ "friends" I have on there.  I figured I'd get back to actual blogging so I don't feel so guilty about putting all my shit out there on social media.  The fact that I carry any guilt over that is a totally separate issue that I may, or may not, address in another blog post.  BUT today I'm on here to post about attention.  As I've been thinking about it a lot recently.  I've often been referred to as an "attention whore", which I'm pretty sure isn't meant as a compliment.  Facebook is an attention whore's wet dream.  I put something up there, hundreds of people see it and respond.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat and so on...god, I freaking love it!  However, sometimes I'll read someone else's post and think "ugh, they are just crying out for attention" and purposefully ignore the post (if that's such a thing).  Apparenlty, I'm a hypocritical attention whore.  Now that I'm more self-aware I am committed to paying attention to those who need it as I have benefited from the kind souls who give me the attention I am ever-craving.  Here is what I posted on facebook today (before I started to blog again):

As a society, why do we have such a negative response to someone wanting attention? Even worse should they "need" it. We are taught that we should ignore children's attempts at getting our attention because we don't want to encourage them to keep trying to get it? How often have you heard a parent dismiss a child's cries with "He is only doing it to get attention". Well, what the fuck does that tell you????? Does anyone else realize how ridiculous that is? By the time we get to adulthood we view people who crave attention as desperate and pathetic. How sad.
Why not encourage people to reach out when they feel like they could use some extra attention? And why not gladly give it to them instead of rolling our eyes and making them feel badly for wanting it? In this day and age it's virtually effortless to do so. A few words of encouragement, an emoticon, even a simple click of a mouse to "like" a post can go a long way to help fill a void in someone's life.
I don't want to feel ashamed that I feel good when people pay attention to me and I am committed to providing attention to anyone who shows me that they need it.

Good, right?  Someday I'm hoping some shit I wrote will go viral.  I have lots of good stuff to say and I'm looking forward to having the "appropriate" place to say it.