Hurt: Johnny and Trent

Johnny Cash

Nine Inch Nails

Same song. Different performers. Trent Reznor (NIN) wrote it.

I feel a bit like this lately, and it’s the longest funk I have been in to date. I am seriously considering seeking professional help. It isn’t as if I haven’t considered it before because I am proud or because I think people who see psychiatrists are somehow weak. And it isn’t as if I am afraid. I don’t go to the shrink because I have an extremely low opinion of most of them. From what I have seen my many mentally ill friends go through with their medications, their counseling, and their general states of well-being, I just don’t trust the “professionals” who offer their psychiatric services. I also think, in a mostly irrational way, that if I can articulate my pain/disillusionment and think critically about it, then I must not have a problem. Somehow I have come to believe that to need a psychiatrist means that you can’t cognitively decipher your own messed-up thoughts, feelings, desires.

Don’t think I am harmful or dangerous to myself or others. I am not. I am simply sad. I simply feel trapped and like I am unable to see a happy ending to my life. I can rationally say that this feeling probably stems from mental exhaustion or from getting close to the end of my PhD program, but in less rational moments, I have nightmares, anxiety, insomnia, and, as a result, I can be quite thin-skinned and moody.

TIME PASSES: THE NEXT MORNING

See the thing is I think I feel guilty for feeling this way because I really have nothing to be sad about. Well, at least there is nothing happening right now for me to be sad about. I think there are many things from my past that I still haven’t completely processed, that I need to process. But still those things pale in comparison to those other things that are going on around me: people who have lost children, countries devastated by hurricanes, people losing their jobs after many years, and people who are in unfulfilling relationships. My life compares well to others, but to me it feels as if I am simultaneously grateful for this life of mine and ungrateful for the opportunities that cause so much stress. However, this morning I feel more hopeful than I did last night.

Just when I thought I wouldn’t come out of the funk, I feel a little better today.  With the exception of my dissertation proposal revision, I have accomplished everything I needed to this week. I have a lifeguarding class all weekend this weekend (6-10 tonight, 8-2 on Saturday and Sunday), but I feel confident that I will have time to finish me proposal and get it to Debbie by Sunday night. We meet again on Wednesday morning. Luckily, I have everything planned for the next couple of weeks for both my Burris students and my BSU students.

Today is a better day. Abs and I play racquetball this afternoon, so it can’t be bad, right?

*

I am thankful for meaningful moments in whatever shape they come.

Food: banana, juice, poptart, 3 donut holes, seven layer burrito, nachos, Puerto Vegetarian C, chips and salsa, 1/2 of a Negro Modelo, decaf tall soy latte

Exercise: ran 5 miles, walked the dogs 1 mile