day 2

I'm not having a good day. I'm always mildly discontent (depressed doesn't seem like the correct word any more) yet optimistic. I have sporadic moments of extreme happiness, often helped along by alcohol -though not always- but they never last. I also have periods of days or sometimes weeks where I do feel legitimately depressed and have a lot of trouble getting out of bed and going about my day.  I've been in this cycle for a very, very long time and see no end to it. Over the past couple of years I've stopped thinking so much about my mental health and focused more on the circumstances of my life, I figured that if my life was better overall my happiness would kind of just fall in to place.  This is definitely true to a point, and I guess I won't know the rest for sure until the day comes when I'm content with my life, which is very difficult to imagine ever happening. I've wondered that many times, am I even capable of true happiness? Is anyone?  I do know I'm able to sustain levels of happiness that are much higher than my current state. In the past I always relied on myself to cheer me up, I guess I hadn't realized how much I was relying on someone else to make everything feel OK, to make the day to day crap feel worth it. I'm in this raw state of trying to heal my body and my heart, and everything outside feels so harsh. I am pure work in progress. As usual, I'm optimistic yet afraid. This new year could be really, really great for me, and as much of a new start as I could hope for, or I could remain stuck. I'm relying very heavily on this possibility of a change of jobs, if it doesn't happen I need a major overhaul in strategy. Either way I can't wait anymore, I need more change.

I'm always so reluctant to say these things out loud, whenever I feel like this and try to express anything it seems to scare people. I guess it sounds darker than it feels. I can't stand when people worry about me, there's never anything to worry about, it always passes. I've come to accept it more or less, I'm no longer that kid who's fascinated by her own mental illness and actually thinks there is some way out of it waiting to be found.  I think there is a LOT I can do to improve the quality of my life and my well being, which I am working on, but this will always be with me in some way.  And it's probably good for me to be getting this all out of my system, the past 2 or 3 weeks have brought a major flood of emotion when I hadn't been feeling much other than a vague anxiety for months. I knew this time would come, and I think I needed this.