SquarePeg Books

*This accidentally went out on October 30. Doh!

Sometimes things in the head just break. I get too stressed out, and *snap*.

Malfunction.

The first time was a surprise.

For the decades that I have persistently dealt with depression, I’d always considered it moderate with occasional bad spikes. I thought I held it together pretty well; I was tough. A merely mild mental issue that was barely worth Modern Medical Science’s time was an inconvenience, sure, but it wasn’t world ending. I could function while dealing with it.

The demands of life grew. Twin toddlers, a traveling spouse, no real money to afford in-home help, and most of the people I knew had jobs, so couldn’t help more than a weekend or so. 

But that’s life. Life just is. It doesn’t ask what you can handle, it just throws stuff at you and says “Deal with it.” 

I can deal with it. I grew up with the mantra of “deal with it.” I can hold it together, and fall to pieces when I’m alone. The Gen X mantra “Life Sucks. Get a helmet.” Problem solved.

It was in the grocery store when it first happened. My kids were in elementary school, and Tuesday mornings are perfect for grocery shopping. Just one item on the to-do list of many.

I don’t know if it came on gradually, but I do know when I noticed it. I was halfway through the shopping list. 

Chicken. I have to get chicken.

And I blank. I stare at the list, written by my own hand, my cart settled in front of me, waiting for the next push. I’m aware I need to get chicken.

How do I get chicken?

It’s a bizarre feeling. I know I’m here to get chicken. I know that I’m supposed to go to the place in the store where there’s chicken, somehow get the chicken, and then do something with the chicken and the cart. The chicken, me, the store, and the cart are related to each other, but I don’t understand how. I don’t even know what chicken is. 

But I must know what it is because I wrote it on the list. 

Where is chicken?

I don’t know.

Why don’t I know? I’ve been coming to this store for years.

Nothing.

I can’t remember what happened next, but I clearly made it home. At the time, I told myself I was just really tired, but it was a lie and I knew it. “Really tired” doesn’t feel like that. “Really tired” doesn’t come with that blank void, and a surge of panic.

It was another year or 2 before a therapist told me it was a Dissociation Event, due to stress or trauma. I may have had other events like that since then, but I don’t remember them. I remember I was having a hard time holding it together at that time: a simple Christmas commercial could send me into a crying jag for a good 30 minutes. A broken knick-knack that didn’t mean anything to me other than it was pretty, could do it, too. The gods forbid I had actual physical difficulty with something like the lawnmower, or trimming a tree branch.

I am a smart, independent woman. I should not have problems with basic shit.

I held it together in public, in front of family.

The summer of 2018 was stressful. My spouse had a stroke. I was bizarrely calm through it all, until they starting throwing around the possibilities like Cadasil (which turned out to not be the problem).

That was when something really shifted in my head. I hadn’t worked in 10 years. I need to get a job, any job, just a part-time job, even. Brandon’s recovery was amazing to his doctors, and that was great, but what did the future look like? What guarantees were there in terms of the kids being raised in a financially stable environment now that Brandon had a stroke before the age of 45? Not a financially awesome environment–just a stable one. 

It took 6 months, but I landed a job. Not too stressful, really. A mail room job. I began cracking the week before I started. I could feel this inevitable cliff inching closer, and had no way to avoid it.

I lasted 4 days at that job before I was dismissed. It was for the best, really. I was barely holding it together, and the work environment was  . . . well, let’s just say it wasn’t positive. By the end of the first day, I was hoping for some tragic car accident that would end all my emotional suffering right there.

I had what can only be called a nervous breakdown. I could get the kids to school and back home, knock out a load of laundry, but that was it. I had nothing left in me except to watch stand-up comedy on youtube, holed up in my room away from everyone.

I bring all this up because the holidays are here.

I always find the holidays stressful, and this year is no exception. Like many others, my husband lost his job on November 1. Like many others, he is questing for another one. Like many others, we have slashed monthly expenses as best as we can. Like many others, I am looking for additional employment, or better employment.

And I am bizarrely calm.

It makes me wonder if my brain will snap like a rubberband being stretched too far, again.

And if it does, when?