Tag Archives: understand

Doing Well vs. Having Energy

Today I have done well.

I did not have much energy at all.

But overall, this is a good thing.  At least in the mental illness category.  I felt better, and did not have to work as hard to keep going.  I didn’t accomplish much at all… I had so little energy to work with.

What I have learned, is that I have not simplified my life enough.  So far… not nearly close.  There is still too much input, for my ability to manage it.  I use the word “manage” specifically, because that is what I have to do.  And the more complex my day becomes, there is less I have left for actual real world activities. <—see how I avoided the word “things”?

I need a smaller world.

I need more people within my smaller envelop.

But I have so many other things to deal with, that I can not overcome them enough to have the energy to do what I wish for.  An impartial observer might wonder why this would be any real problem at all – just do it.  Things look pretty good when you are on the outside. 

All those ideas belong in the world of the “normal”.  I am not normal.  Ask anyone.  Seriously.  Ask anyone.

So if I am not normal, why would people treat me as if I am… and why would I be subject the the same concepts about what is an acceptable amount anxiety?  Is it fair to judge me, or treat me, as if I am “normal”, when you would have a hard time finding people who know me who would say I am? And there are millions of other “me”s out there.

We hide so well, even our spouses have a hard time finding us.  We learn from a very early age to never let the world see how we really feel, and what we really think.  And never talk about what goes thru your mind.  The World is a place to be hidden from.

When is Understanding Enough?

One of the most difficult tasks someone with severe depression, and debilitating anxiety has, is to try to explain what is does, to other people.  Everyone who has suffered from depression, knows that others do not know what it is.  This is one experience we all share.

Most people have never really been depressed.  Certainly not the debilitating depression that some of us feel.  I can not know what is was like to grow up as a Black man in the South, in the `50s.  I can learn about it, and sort of come to understand it… maybe.  But only someone who has been there would know what it is like… and only that person could determine how well I understood it.

The worst problems are with people who think they understand, but do not.  They think they understand what it feels like, and what it does to you.  But listening to them proves they do not.

So they try their plans, and in their ignorance, they make things worse.  They make the worst possible suggestions, and have totally unrealistic expectations.  They think they know how things should work… so they act on that basis.  And it actually conflicts with what is really happening – making the situation destructive.

Isolation results.  You can’t even try to explain things to these people because they will inadvertently apply their wrong thinking, and push things in the wrong direction.  So we learn to not even try to explain.  Things work better with less communication, because communication can not exist without understanding.

It is not their fault.  How can they understand something so far outside their existence.  But if they are smart, and learned, it can be very difficult for them to accept it is something they do not get.  And if they are so very sure they understand, there is not point trying to explain anything to them.

Some people will not learn.