Mad World

"For me, writing is a process that allows me to work through both the good and bad things in life, to find comfort and understanding in the lessons we have learned."

I wrote that sentence in 2011, during a different time, in what now seems like a different life. The largest upheaval of my adult life, being laid off and under water on a mortgage during the Great Recession, leaving our home and friends behind to move to another state further away from family, was more than two years prior. A rental with a smelly air handling system and an unreasonable property management company, along with Cindy in the hospital for too many scary days during the previous year, was starting to fade. Those storms had been weathered. Relative calm was once again upon us. New home, new city, stable work, stable health; the future looked steady and promising. I was able to process the events of the past, put them into nice and tidy little boxes, work through the positive and negative, learn my lessons, feel a relative comfort, and just be.

Change, as I have said many times, is the only constant in the universe. Two years later I was out of work again due to a plant closure. It wasn't a surprise, so there was lots of time to plan and figure out the next steps. We persevered, moved closer to family, found our place in the sun and life moved on. More little boxes, more separating out good from bad, more lessons learned.

 

My father passed away. I change jobs after a painful 16 months working for a company that wrote the book on micromanagement. We did some remodeling on my childhood home to ready it for being a rental, and for the first time in over fifty years someone who wasn’t my family moved into that house. Another round of boxes, some comfort and understanding, more lessons acknowledged.

After an eight-year relationship, Laura's boyfriend breaks up with her, eventually moving back to Wisconsin. He had been living with us the entire time, moved from Medford to Bellingham and then to Santa Barbara, so it is difficult for everyone. The evil overlord at work is removed and change is in the wind. Renovating my grandparent's house turns out to be more of a challenge than anticipated and takes forever. Once again it is boxes and lessons.

We move into my grandparent's house on the day most of the US declares COVID-19 a pandemic, turning everyone's world upside down. Some think it will be short, history says otherwise. Masks, social distancing, isolation, friends die. Our cat Maggie, the last tenuous thread to Medford, has to be put down. More little boxes, less understanding, lessons that feel more like punishment than satisfaction.

Unhappiness and frustration in my job and the inability to find new employment take their toll. Receiving an undeserved verbal written warning for something out of my control pushes me to the brink. Laura's dog has to be put down. I keep my door closed at work to avoid interaction with people. I feel alone and forlorn and as if my life is unraveling. I search for a psychiatrist and a therapist, but 18 months of the pandemic has resulted in their short supply. I think I have hit rock bottom but that was just a ledge in the hole I was in and digging deeper with every moment. Another ledge, another, and another; eventually I struck bedrock in the deepest pit of despair I had ever encountered.

No little boxes to hold anything this time, no understanding, no comfort, no lessons. All the other little boxes have fallen off the shelf, opened and emptied their contents on me. Every mistake, every bad decision, every failure in my life came back to bury me.

And with those mistakes came overwhelming feelings of guilt. Shame. Self-condemnation. Humiliation.

I punished myself for past mistakes, as if I could somehow correct all the wrong things I had done. I walked through each day chained to my past, holding on to hurts and grudges, the negative emotions gnawing away at any joy and satisfaction in life.

I know myself and I live with myself every day. I can't forgive what I've done. Pain and guilt are things we carry with us, things that make us who we are. Losing them means I lose myself. But I am already lost, so deep in the rabbit hole of everything I have done wrong and didn't learn and never will that I am drowning in feelings. I need them to stop so I can catch my breath.

The consequences of my behavior cause me angst, fear and paranoid thoughts. An ex-boss once told me I was useless, and I begin to think they were right. I have been fooling everyone for a long time. I am barely capable of doing my job or maintaining my composure. I have a crisis of confidence every time I do something. I have a trusted employee check my work for mistakes. Getting to the office is draining and overwhelming.

I'm already taking medication for my depression but it doesn't seem to even touch what I am going through. I start taking more and it numbs me to the point where I can go through the motions of life without feeling the weight of the past on my shoulders every waking moment. It is a small step but it is forward, not back.

Silence is deadly when it comes to the past. I eventually find a therapist so I can work to free myself from the bondage of holding it all in, to talk about what’s tearing me apart inside. Forgiveness starts with being honest and vulnerable about who I was, who I am.

The numbness eventually wears thin and the emotions break free again. I vacillate between feeling better and worse, between forgiving myself and punishing myself, between good days and bad days. It is a journey, and the road is long.

We live in a less than perfect world and I am an imperfect person, continuing to make mistakes in life. I have hurt and will hurt people, even if I don't mean to. I have regrets and will have more. I have faults and bad habits. The list goes on.

Imperfection is in some way essential to all that we know in life. I must accept me for who I am and move forward. The past is unchangeable; I can't fix all my mistakes. I want to feel better. I need to forgive myself for my trespasses.

I live my life overshadowed by my weaknesses and are swallowed by them. I need to learn to focus on the positive aspects of my life, my strengths, my being. I need to change my mindset and overall outlook. Thought and reflection, in a positive sense, still eludes me. Everyone has their own faults; why are mine my overall focus? I need to come to terms with both my weaknesses and strong points. To keep the see-saw even and not let it swing one way or another. To gain balance.