Kat Uhstrauphik

At the airport today I picked up the Hyperbole and a Half book. When I read about her depression and anxiety, it hits a little too close to home. I don't know if I'm losing control of my bipolar or what. I feel like I'm rapid cycling lately. My ups and downs are too close together. I'm either excited or  really sad. There isn't much in between, and it can change literally from moment to moment. The smallest things set me off. I want to cry at any moment. 

Let's start with the positive. I have a lot to be thankful for. I completed my first year of teaching, and I am officially a certified teacher in Texas. I got accepted to grad school in the fall. I'll be doing UHV's online MS in Publishing. Somewhat of a dream come true. Also, my parents have decided to move very close to me and be my support for a little while. These are all great things, and I'm very happy about them.
Nonetheless, my overwhelming negativity helps me find things to feel sad about, and that's what I dwell on.
I have determined that my greatest character flaw (if I have to choose just one) is envy. I look at the lives of others, and I want what they have. I want to have their fun. I want to have their money. I want to have their awesome jobs. I want to have their happiness. Of course this is very flawed. Their lives are not mine and never will be. I have what I have, and it is up to me to make it something enviable. So hard to actually do! I feel defeated so easily. I feel overwhelmed so easily. One thing may be going right, but I can come up with 10 more that are going wrong.

As I said, I'm set to start grad school this fall, but I don't know what I'm doing. It's online, so I have to be very disciplined. I'm not good at self-motivation. In fact, I find it difficult to get out of bed at least 50% of the time. I also have to figure out how to financially support myself while I'm taking classes. It's probably not that difficult for a lot of people, but I get overwhelmed so easily. I can't imagine juggling school and a full-time job. Do I try teaching? Do I get a regular 9-5? Do I try to find something more part-time? I feel like I've become too set in life to go back to being a student. I need to simplify my life. I've accumulated so many expenses, but I don't even know how to begin cutting back. I want things. I'm materialistic. Buying movies and records and comics makes me happy. Is that wrong of me? I know I should find happiness in friends and family, but sometimes I feel like I don't have any real friends, except a choice few. I'm lonely most of the time. I feel isolated. It's probably self-inflicted, but it's a real feeling nonetheless.

I'm drowning. I'm drowning in my doubts. I'm drowning in my things. I want to simplify my life, but I don't know how. Even simplifying costs money. A lot of the process is getting rid of things. I know I have too much clothing, too many papers, too many knickknacks, too much stuff. I hold on to anything with a sentimental value, but I can't keep my entire life's experiences. I fear regretting letting go of the wrong thing though. How much of my life is motivated by fear?! Every time a new opportunity comes along, I get scared and mess it up before starts so I won't want to deal with what I assume to be impending failure. That's a side note. On top of cleaning out my stuff, I also need to get more functional things. I don't have money. I don't have an income after July. I feel trapped. First world problems, right?

I think I'm going to have to write another post. This one is too erratic.

I've been trying to get my life started for years now. I'm like a perpetual New Year's Resolution. Today is the day it all changes! And then it all stops because something comes up, life gets stressful, I get depressed; take your pick. So here are my excuses, reasons, and determinations.



For those of you who don't know, I am bipolar with "generalized anxiety." Basically I get horribly, devastatingly depressed or completely high on life. But an overcrowded grocery store or the possibility of an awkward social interaction will set me off into a paralyzing panic attack that usually leads back into depression.
It's an exhausting cycle. It probably wears on my friends more than it does on me. To those on the outside it seems like I'm being dramatic or "pessimistic." No. It is the end of the world as far as I'm considered, and no, I can't just stop crying, get dressed, and get my mind off of everything. I do try though. I see no hope in the future. I see no prospects. There is a reason why nothing good will never happen in my life, and you can't convince me otherwise.

I'm in an impossibly situation at work. I teach 7th grade English Language Arts to ESL and ELL (English Language Learners) students at a Title 1 (very low income) school that is very poorly run. My students have not been raised. Their parents are hardly parents--many because they are so busy working to provide a life for their kids that they can't be there to parent, while others just suck at parenting. These kids have been failed their entire academic careers--and by that I mean that they have been moved along from one grade to the next without ever being held accountable for learning anything. My 7th graders are around 3rd - 5th grade reading and writing levels. It's very sad. Even though they came into my class far below grade level, I'm expected to work miracles and bring them up to grade level in just a few months. Not going to happen, but I'm the one who is penalized, even if they do make progress because it will never be enough to make the administration look good. On top of the academic problems, the entire school suffers from horrendous discipline issues. Students are violent, sexually inappropriate, absolutely disrespectful, and destructive. Needless to say, they is an extremely stressful and emotionally draining work environment. [And to add to the stress, whether or not I get my full teaching certificate lies in the hands of a principal who has shown that she doesn't actually like teachers, especially me.]

I am tired ALL THE TIME, whether it be emotionally or physically. I have no social energy outside of work. Therefore, I don't go out much. I feel isolated, but if I were to go out, I would be such a "downer." People don't want to hear about my problems. My problems don't change. They're boring. However, I am getting better at leaving those problems at work and pretending that none of it exists when I'm at home. It's really hard to not think about it though when people ask how you're doing. Should I be honest? I look like death, so saying "fine" probably wouldn't be believable.

My eating habits are terrible too. It's hard enough for me to go to the grocery store on a good day. It's so much worse on a bad day. And then to have to cook? You're kidding, right? I have neither the energy nor the self-worth to want to cook for myself. Fast food it is!

You can probably guess that I've gained quite a bit of weight over the school year. And of course the weight gain is DEPRESSING! I hate the way I look. Not that I'm obese or hideous, but I'm not what I want. I'm not asking to have a model body, but I would like to be back where I was a year ago. I looked damn good. I was almost happy too.

So what does this all mean?

• Work is terribly stressful
• I'm tired all the time
• I eat poorly
• I don't exercise
• I don't see people
• I'm "fat" (by my own standards)
• I'm tired of feeling miserable

What  do I want?

• Job satisfaction
• Writing/editing/publishing of some sort
• Working from home or in a very low-stress office
• Making a decent wage with benefits
• Health
• Back in shape and at my "fighting weight" if you will
• Eating well (this definitely affects my mental wellness)
• Energy
• Socializing
• Going out from time to time with friends
• Maybe even meet new people
• Go to shows (I miss out on so many because I'm too depressed to go out)
• Network
• Spiritual wellness
• Becoming Orthodox (yes, that's something I'm pursuing, and yes it is intimidating)
• Understanding that I am not in control of my present, past, or future, and I have to be OK with it
• Mental wellness
• Not feel miserable
• Not drown in pessimism
• Get back to a place where I can function in society and see a future

What am I going to do to make these things happen?

As far as work goes, I am where I am right now. That isn't going to change, but there is an end in sight. My goal is simply to do my best at work and forget about it when I'm home. In the mean time I'll be applying for teaching jobs elsewhere and work on my writing/editing portfolio for a future career change. I'm hoping that I can land some freelance work here and there until it can become something consistent and real.
Health is habit. It takes 21 days to develop a habit. So for the next 21 days I'm going to make habitual health my priority: prep foods the day before, exercise at least once a day, sleep enough, and generally take care of myself. Hopefully after 21 days, I won't have to make such a concerted effort and it will have become a normal part of my routine.
These two things should lead to better mental wellness and the ability to socialize again. Baby steps though.  No need to jump into the deep end. I am going to make plans with one person at a time and go from there.

Today is Day One. I've been eating well, prepping food for the week, exercised, have plans to see a friend, and I'm writing for the sake of writing. Let's see where this all leads. Maybe nowhere. Maybe it will help me truly break through this very real but invisible wall that has always been just ahead of me as I try to progress in any way.

Suddenly my depression feels like a farce. It may be real, but it is truly eclipsed by sadness. Does that make sense? Absolutely.
I'm not good at feeling things. Depression is a flux of feeling a hopeless, empty pit of numbness and overwhelming, negative emotions.
Earlier this week, a dear friend truly went to a better place. After years of dealing with cancer (Fuck Cancer), he let go of the suffering and passed in his sleep. As soon as I heard, I dropped everything and rushed to my newly widowed friend's side. When I received the call, I wailed like a fool, and then promptly felt nothing.  Probably a good thing because it allowed me to be a relief for those being hit by a semi-truck of emotions. At least, I like to think I was helpful. I couldn't feel anything though. It wasn't real. He nearly instantly began being erased from my memories. I would rather have broken down into a pool of tears and unbearable pain than lose my memories of him. I really, truly hope the tears come soon. My eyes leak from time-to-time, but no real crying. I have to wonder if I would feel anything if I wasn't already depressed. I don't think there's an answer for that.
I'm being taught many lessons right now. It sucks. I'm learning that I can't do anything on my own. I have to give up and let my God be in control. (I don't care if you're not religious at all, I'm allowed to have a belief in a Heavenly Father without being judged.)
I'm being taught that I can't hold on to what happens at work. I'm really bad about this. I dwell on the negative, soul sucking of an experience each day is, and it only makes it worse. It greatly decreases my quality of life.
I'm learning that I have to let go of myself and understand that other people are far more important than I. This isn't to say that I'm not important, but I have to remember that sometimes other people just matter more. It can't be about me.
With my werewolf dying, I am floating in a sea of confusion. Am I allowed to feel like this actually affects me? I feel guilty making this about me at all. I want it to be about me. Not that it isn't about anyone else, but I want myself to deserve comfort. The truth is, I feel selfish to elicit comfort. I am overwhelmed with confused guilt. I wasn't the best friend that I could have been to my dear werewolf. He deserved more from me.
He was amazing. He was a complete buffoon, and he was beyond special. He was an idiot and so smart. He lacked most social skills, but he loved so well.

I don't know what I'm saying. I don't know what else to say. I should have touched his face.

Hopefully he won't mind me posting this:
A wonderful person in my life recently lost his father in a similar fashion as I lost my werewolf. I never met his father, but I know him slightly through some select writings of his that I am privileged to have read. He wrote this poem shortly before he passed, and though he wrote it with his own experience in mind, he unknowingly wrote it for my werewolf:

On a seemingly early Demise

On the wings of an angel I rode to my death
How bad can the landing be
It seemed yet a bit early,
But the timing worked better,
And actually tamed the beast. 

As many of you know, I'm going through a prolonged bout of depression right now. There are several factors involved, but a lot of it is probably just that I'm due for a chemical lull.

Work is wearing on me. I teach 7th graders, 7th graders who bursting with apathy, 7th graders who have never learned to respect anyone including themselves, 7th graders who have been forgotten by the educational system and seen only as their failing STAAR scores. We must improve their scores! We must get them passing! Well, here's the problem with that:
I can't teach someone who refuses to learn. I can't teach someone is already planning on dropping out of school when he or she turns 16. I can't teach someone who thinks that one can live off a minimum wage salary and whose highest goal is working in fast food. I can't teach someone who wants to be a lawyer, but can't spell "lawyer" and doesn't understand the correlation between the ability to be successful in higher learning and being successful in elementary secondary education.
We have so many programs, initiatives, incentives, policies, etc., etc. And yet, we fail to make the essential accommodations that would absolutely revolutionize these children's learning experiences. Instead of having so many interventionists who only get those who are already too far behind to catch up, we should be hiring full time teachers who can teach an entire class. I should not be teaching 30 students at once by myself--30 failing students. I should be teaching 15 students, so that I can dedicate time to each and every one of them. I shouldn't have to keep the child in my room is being disruptive and even hostile toward me or other students because it makes the administration look good. That student needs to leave. That student needs to be in counseling and alternative schooling. That student is selfishly taking away the time and opportunity of those students who not only have a chance but also want one.
I can't reward my students when they step up and do well because to them it isn't a reward. Their sense of entitlement is so out of control, that even those who do no work and outward proclaim their apathy, feel like the reward is what they should be getting on a daily basis just because. It's not a reward when we're giving them what they expect to receive without them having to put in any effort.
I can't teach students who do not understand consequences, or cause and effect in general.
I can't teach students who have no love or stability in their homes and act out in my classroom to get the negative attention they think they crave when I have a dozen of them doing it at the same time. 
District, stop wasting your money and my time on sending me to trainings that can't logistically be implemented in my classroom. Put that money toward the salary of another teacher who can take half my students, so we can give them all the attention they crave and actually need.

I enjoy my Fridays because I spend Friday night unwinding, relaxing, sleeping, maybe even doing something with friends. I try to enjoy Saturday, but by Saturday night I'm starting to think about Sunday. I think about Sunday because when I wake up Sunday morning, I am already filled with anxious dread. I am filled with anxious dread because in less than 24 hours I will be standing in my classroom, staring into the blank faces of my students, not knowing what to do as I'm being used as an emotional punching bag.
Live in the moment, take each day one at a time. No. The reality that this is my life for nine months is overwhelming. The reality that no matter how low I am, no matter how emotionally drained I am, I have to wake up and invest what I don't even have in myself in 120 children.
Don't think about it. Stop worrying so much. No. I can't allow myself to fail, but I have yet to find even a glimmer of a possibility of success.

I started seeing a therapist. She's great. I like her a lot. I felt more hopeful after one session. But then Sunday came again, and I lost that hope. She can't change my job. She can't give me other opportunities. She can't make anyone else care. I know that life isn't supposed to be easy. It never has been. I have paid more dues in my short life thus far than many people pay in their entire lifetimes.
I have the gift of a loving family, but they're so far away. If I could just see my brothers or my sisters-in-law or my niece or my nephews or my parents, maybe I could relax. Maybe I could feel their support. But we can't see each other. They live their daily lives, and I am not a part of them. They have their own struggles anyway, and it would be unfair to burden them with mine.

I have nothing to hold on to. I have a dream of going to Sweden/Norway this coming summer. I keep reminding myself that I have to keep this job to pay for that trip. I have to trudge through every day so I can get away. My wanderlust is the only thing driving me, but I don't know if it's enough. I don't know if it's tangible enough. I dream about having an adventure in another part of the world, but even then, I know I'll be doing it alone. Even then, I don't have any proof that it can or will happen. When I think about it, I don't go anywhere. I end up back in my bed, curled up in misery.

I would like to begin this post with a nod to Hyperbole and a Half. This is probably the greatest graphic description of depression you could possible find.
Now then (what a funny idiom), I created this blog with many grand schemes in mind. Today my scheme has become a chronicling of two things: the complete failure of the American education system and my navigation of a horrible bout of depression. The first is definitely having an effect on the latter.

Depression by echok (devantart.com)

Let's begin with depression. I'm diagnosed bipolar with "generalized anxiety," meaning that I seize up and have panic attacks at inopportune times. Bipolar often takes effect in adolescence. I believe it did for me, but I wouldn't accept a diagnosis until my hormones chilled out a bit. I think many teenagers are misdiagnosed because their brain chemistry is going through such rapid change, and sometimes it just takes longer to learn how to cope with these changes. You hit your late teens/early twenties and suddenly you're sane again. This was not my case. Instead I fell into some pretty deep depression.
What sucks the most about depression is that being depressed is depressing. What do I mean by this? Because my depression is generally caused by a chemical imbalance, indeed environmental factors definitely contributing, generally it's a feeling that may come and go as it pleases. The absolute impotence is depressing in itself. It seems stupid to be depressed, especially when people ask, "Why are you depressed?" I don't have a real answer other than, "I just am." How invalidating.
Being depressed is like being thrown into the Sarlac pit. Unless you're Boba Fett, you don't have much of a chance of escaping. At least it seems that way. The utterly hopeless feeling of isolation, which is often unintentionally purposeful (yes, that sentence makes sense when you're depressed), can have the gravitational force of Jupiter (which is also my planet if you're into that sort of thing). Your well-meaning friends who deal with either none or the mildest form of depression will try to cheer you up and tell you how there's so much to live for, and that's wonderful of them. But it's completely ineffective. No matter what, I truly can only see the negative side of things, and people who don't have first-hand experience with this get tired of your complaining and negativity--even those who really care. God bless those people, even when they give up.
Now, what I find to be most exhausting about depression is the constant, obsessive thoughts of how to end it. I don't advocate suicide for myself. I think it is selfish. Even when I feel like no one in the universe gives a damn about me, I know that I would devastate quite a few people if I prematurely left this world. Nonetheless, it's still tempting to just not wake up.
Still, I trudge on, doing my best to function. The older I get, the more responsibilities I have, and I can't in good conscience abandon them no matter how alluring the thought may be. All I want to do is sink into my bed, wrapped in my favorite quilt, listen to depressing music, and fade into nothingness. I don't have that option. I throw fits and push people away, then I quickly regret my behavior and long for them to come back to me, to comfort me, hug me for as long as they can and tell me that I'm stronger than I feel.
This is simply an introduction to the Sharknado of Negativity that is my life at the moment. I'll continue to update as I receive more epiphanies of self-awareness, but let's sum this all up for now.
True depression--not just feeling sad in passing--is a dangerous, self-destructive, self-sabotaging way to live. However, there's little-to-no choice involved. My brain decided to deprive me of dopamine, amongst other chemicals, and I can either give in or tough it out. Luckily, I'm a relatively self-aware individual, and I have the capacity to reach out when I need to instead of being reduced to crying for attention (which is not a shameful act; it just sucks to get that low). By the way, another inconvenience of depression is that you cry a lot, sometimes for no reason at all. You just have to.
Thank you, Val, for feeling the abyss with me and helping me be OK with it enough to get comfortable and ride it out instead of pressing the eject button.
Please, feel free to comment. I encourage it, actually. Maybe this is helpful for you who are going through this or for you who have to see someone else suffer.


"Fuck you; thank you; I love you all." (Streetlight Manifesto)

I don't know what the purpose of this blog is anymore. I guess I simply use it as an outlet when I need one. Maybe it will spark someone's interest. Maybe it will go unnoticed. I'm OK with either.

I'm no poet; that's for sure, but sometimes we have to express ourselves in a specific medium in order to do our hearts justice.