It has been a whirlwind of a month! Since I last posted! On my blog! So much going on and okay yes, I’m stalling. Ugh, I’M SORRY I abandoned you. Again. But srsly, life has been especially lifey, what with a spectacular SWAN Day event this year (seriously, we women got the SHIT celebrated out of us, yo) and the overwhelming debut of Frankly Scarlett comedy at the Cabaret downtown. That was the biggest audience I have ever seen in that space. It made me feel special and tingly, like how Jareth the Goblin King did when I was 7.
Dance, codpiece, dance!
It’s all been so wonderful and delightful and uplifting and inspiring, especially because both events centered around women and how generally fucking awesome we are. So I think this is a perfect time to grab you by the bootstraps and drag you into the doldrums to talk about depression.
I CAN HAZ TRANZISHUN?
I suffered pretty bad depression my senior year of college. I’ll get into the details at another time, but what you need to know now is that I stopped going to classes. I withdrew from my regular activities. I slept all day and stayed up all night. The only things that kept me going that year were a poetry class I actually attended and my a cappella group. Only my closest pals really knew how bad it was.
After the effects faded and my symptoms became less frequent, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that something about it stuck with me for good. My highs were still high, but my lows suddenly seemed lower and heavier. Things that didn’t bother me before could now ruffle my feathers to the max. I caught myself throwing balls-to-the-wall tantrums over completely inane bullshit.
What do you mean there’s no more milk?
I JUST POURED MY CEREAAAAAAAAAWAHAHAAA
One of my worst blow-ups ever totally came out of nowhere. Joe and I had just left our (then) apartment and were walking down the steps in front of the building. I had been sifting through my handbag for about 10 seconds looking for my cell phone when OMFG WHERE IS MY PHONE I KNOW I PUT IT IN HERE AND NOW I CAN’T FIND IT NOBODY GOES ANYWHERE UNTIL I FIND IT SO BRB I’M JUST GONNA FLIP MY PURSE OVER REAL QUICK HERE AND SHAKE THE CONTENTS VIOLENTLY ONTO THE SIDEWALK PLEASE DON’T HELP ME OR TOUCH ME OR LOOK AT ME BECAUSE I AM A MONSTER.
My pal Lauren and I affectionately recall that incident to remind us of the simpler, more miserable times. It’s not the only bad eruption I’ve had — just one of the more memorable ones.
When I was still living with my parents after college, I got home from a haircut and used a hand mirror to look at the back of it in the larger bathroom mirror. Upon the realization that it was not at ALL what I requested and I had wasted my hard-earned (and at the time, scarce) dough on it, I proceeded to slam the hand mirror on the floor, diva style. Despite mom’s pleas to clean it up, the pieces of that broken mirror stayed on my bathroom floor for at least a week.
In which case the bad luck is 7 years of
“finding” shards of glass with your feet.
As I grow older, it feels like I’m growing out of this. Or maybe I’m just getting used to it. Oh, who am I kidding? You’re gonna have to ask my husband if you really want an accurate answer. After all, you wouldn’t want to upset me.
I’d love to hear about your last tantrum. I can’t possibly be alone in this, right? RIGHT?
Girl, this is a post I can really relate to right now! I was in THE WORST mood yesterday. Since I have been taking special care to eat healthy and exercise and generally not be a total slob, I feel my “I’m-mad-at-inanimate-objects-and-fuck-everything” tantrums have decreased noticably, which is nice. But oh lord, yesterday my whiney baby-ness was at an all-time high. I am stressed about money and had a really irritating, passive aggressive fight with someone and it triggered my most irrational qualities. For example, I was ramming around the apartment cleaning and I picked up a pile of clothes in the bathroom, and my hair straightener cord was wound up in the clothes. So I walked to my bedroom carrying these clothes with my straightener trailing behind me and it sent me into a total rage for some reason. WHAT THE FUCK STRAIGHTENER, WHY THE FUCK WOULD I WANT YOU TO BE IN FUCKING BEDROOM I USE YOU IN THE BATHROOM ONLY GODDAMIT YOU’RE WASTING MY TIME. (My tantrums, like yours, always appear in all caps.)
That was the highlight of the tantrum…other comments that went through my head were “fucking dust. why the fuck is it so fucking dusty in here all the time?” and “jesus fucking fuck, 1500 milligrams of salt a day is like NOTHING HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO EAT ANYTHING WHEN IT DOESN’T TASTE GOOD.”
Thank you for posting about this hilarious topic, Addi. It definitely helps me to feel less silly knowing that I can laugh at how irrational I can be at times.
BRB, adding this to the list of reasons we are the same person.
Sorry to hear that you had a bad day, but I can TOTALLY relate. Inanimate objects are so fucking smug, amirite?
I should also mention (in addition to me going on and on about myself up there) that I definitely went through a depressive state in college. We look back on our tantrums and feel ridiculous for freaking out so much, but sometimes I think it’s ok to just freak out. If you’re not murdering someone or causing personal harm and if you think going apeshit on a mirror will help squelch some frustration, I say go for it.
You are SO SELFISH, taking up all that space on MY BLOG! Eyeroll. (You know I LOVE your comments.)
I agree, as long as I’m not hurting myself, there’s nothing wrong with it. I think I have to be careful though, because sometimes Joe gets caught in the crossfire and that’s not fair to him. So I think the rules are 1. Just don’t hurt yourself. 2. Just don’t hurt someone else. 3. Read rules 1 & 2 first.
First off…welcome back. We missed ya! Second…please explain that gif…I am loving it and wishing it were about an hour longer…but do not know what it is from…even with your reference. Third…thanks for sharing about your depression and the struggles you’ve had. You are a strong, independent, funny, smart girl but it’s honest for you to bring it out there that you have your down days/times of your life, have your vulnerabilities. I relate to a lot of what you are saying…especially in regards to how I boil over with my husband versus other people. For me…it’s all about control. I know it’s like catching rain with a holed out bucket, but I do think if I can control enough stuff… I will be okay or my life will be better because of it. But that is ridic and I know it. But it doesn’t stop me from doing it a lot. When my flight got cancelled to L.A. I was FLIPPING OUT!!! I mean you would have thought a family member had died. But it all went back to that control and that this THING had happened TO ME that I had no control over. That seems to be the times that I flip the most. What about you?
That gif is from Labyrinth! Jareth the Goblin King? David Bowie? My first love? COME ON. It’s from during the song “Magic Dance.”
Ams, it is so hard for me to imagine you that upset. You have apparently done a bang-up job at controlling yourself in front of all others, even if you do tend to let loose more around Josh. I find it comforting to know that you struggle with the same thing. Not that I WANT you to be upset, but you know what I mean.
I find that for me it’s about my expectations. If they aren’t met, I tend to hulk out. Since I’m disclosing all the ways in which I am a walking stereotype today, I might as well add that if I’m PMS-ing, it’s ten times worse. Ashley’s story above is a great example. Don’t get mad at the hair straightener. IT CANNOT HEAR YOU. But for some reason, my mind tells me that throwing shit around or destroying it will make me feel better. I suppose I should feel guilty when I say it DOES make me feel better (unless I break something, then I feel like a jackass and just want to curl up in a ball and cry).
I definitely went through this in my teens and early 20s. It was exhausting. I remember feeling the anger come over me as plainly as a headache or stomachache might, and it wouldn’t go away until I exploded. I didn’t know how else to deal with it.
The closer I got to 30, the better it got, and now the blow-ups are pretty rare (hormones are usually the culprits, the lousy whores). BUT! BUT! Guess who explodes in the exact same irrational manner when the littlest things go wrong? My daughter. Awesome. Sorry about that DNA, kid.
I do think I’ve gotten better, but I doubt it will ever totally go away. The hormones are DEF a factor, which sucks balls. You say you didn’t know how else to deal with it, and I think there’s something to that. When I feel that building up, how else do I rid myself of it, if not through cathartic blow-ups? I’m curious if you have found another method for relieving that pressure because I’d love to try it.
Here’s to hoping that with Sadie it’s mostly an age thing right now! Good thing you’ve already decided to lock her in her room until she’s 22.
Oh, man, it’s so nice to know I’m not alone in this. I don’t throw tantrum’s per se, but I certainly have moments where my well-controlled depression comes back to bite me in the ass. I have a friend who assures me that I am one of her “less crazy” friends, but maybe I just hide it well around her. My family are the lucky ones who get to see the real crazy come out.
It’s ugly, for sure. And you are far from alone in it!
Oh depression. I know thee well. I, too, have tantrums which include throwing objects against walls and screaming into pillows. Some days I’m ok. Some days, my brain gets too full to absorb life. I am forced to retreat which is probably in everyone’s best interests. The highs are minimal and the lows are pretty dark. Thank you, baby Jeebus for Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Buspar, Neurontin, Trazadone and the occasional Xanax. It’s quite a cocktail but it keeps me from committing crimes.
I’ve never tried screaming into pillows. Does that work for you?
It doesn’t help but it isn’t as loud. I’d rather not frighten my children.
i yell at inanimate objects and call them horrible names all the time. frankly, i don’t think it’s all that bad. if yr phone or something is acting up and you yell at it and call it horrible names, no big deal. if you did that to a person, it’d be an issue. a phone isn’t going to get upset by being called a piece of sh*t or whatever, but a person could be damaged by that. i think we’ve kinda gotten on board this “anger is bad” kick, but in truth i don’t think it’s all that bad. we just need constructive ways to deal with it. i dunno, that’s just my take on it.
Yeah, I think the key is not hurting yourself or others. Honestly, though, when I lash out in front of Joe, there is an embarrassment factor for sure (once I come back to reality, anyway). But I agree, anger itself is a natural, honest feeling. Just maybe misguided when it’s aimed at inanimate objects. 😉
I don’t get mad at inanimate objects, I get even with inanimate objects. Then I get even evener. I even. Evening!
Remember when I used to slam the lid of the piano when I was feeling irritable? And _that_ was the _good_ part of your senior year!
Oh man, and your piano slamming was the cherry on top!
Just reading this now, for some reason I missed it.
You are the person who probably knows my depression crap best, other than maybe my parents. There’s nothing more to say, other than the other side of that story we like to reminisce on is that after we bring that up, we bring up my weird freak-out before SWAN a few years ago. It’s irrational, though at the time it seems like the most rational thing ever. God, at least we’re more able to recognize it than we ever have been before!
And can I just say I love you for talking about this! I hope you weren’t having a low day and that’s what triggered this post!
I don’t remember what triggered it, actually. I think it had just been on my mind, so the post flowed out of me at the time.
I’m glad we have each other to live through those moments together, and to laugh at later.