So in the midst of a conversation this weekend with friends while hanging out, it came up that I am half a chapter away from finishing the first draft of my book. So I found myself in the middle of that night unble to sleep with my brain spiraling into a dark place. A dark place in terms of the fact that I wasn’t having happy thoughts, but not a dark place in terms my ability to cope or a spike in my depression. (No need to roll out the cavalry.)

The thoughts that were swirling in my head and making me anxious were all things I’ve thought about before, but they’ve always been in pieces, never as a whole. So I haven’t had to deal with all of it and the picture it paints. I’ve never put the story of these thoughts together into a comprehensive narrative because the blog doesn’t feel as tangible to me as the book (I have mentioned this before I think,) so it didn’t force me to have to think about all of it together. But now the book is almost done so my brain forced me to see the entire picture.

Yeah, so that was a lot of words, many of them pretentiously long. But here’s the punchline:

While I get stressed and nervous about putting my book out into the world because I worry that people I don’t know won’t care and won’t read it, what actually stresses me out the most is knowing that quite a lot of the people I do know and that I love and that say they love me won’t read it either. And I know this to be true because I know that there are quite a lot of those people who don’t read this blog either, and if reading something that’s less than a chapter in length every now and again isn’t something you can do then there is no hope that you will buy and read an actual book.

I generally feel invisible. I’m at the center of a large part of our friends’ group because I’m usually the one planning stuff and reaching out, tho if I am being honest not as much in the last couple of years. But even before my mean girl brain screwed with me, no one really reciprocated that in the last at least 6 years, and no one ever reached out just to say hey what’s up? This is a very similar thing that happens with part of my family and most of my hubby’s family. It’s like I’m only seen when I MAKE them see me. It really screws with my head.

And because that was not enough stress for the weekend, add the fact that someone else I really care about posted something essentially saying that people who talk about their issues on blogs, social media etc. are just attention seekers and they don’t get why anyone would do this. They accused people who do it of thinking they are “special and unique” even though they are not either of those things.

I won’t say this for 100%, but I’m pretty sure they know I have this blog and I’m writing the book so….. WTF?

But as I always do in these kind of situations, I tried to take a step back and not make assumptions about the information (or lack there of) that they had to work with on the subject. So instead of getting mad I chose instead to focus on their “why would anyone do this” and focus on education as a better approach. (And I do not say “education” in a patronizing way at all – I mean that I decided to take them saying that as a request for information.) So I wrote a pretty long, heartfelt, reply explaining the reasons I blog and reasons I know others do. Honestly I made myself super vulnerable, in a lot of ways even more vulnerable than writing this blog and what the book will mean. I talked about the positives to having that stuff out there because then others know they aren’t alone. I pointed out that especially with mental health issues, feeling “special and unique” is certainly something that happens, but it is NOT a positive thing. You feel like you’re the only one who’s so screwed up, you feel alone and pathetic and broken. So having as much of this stuff out there is actually the opposite of being about being special and unique, it’s about realizing you aren’t. It’s about building a community of people like you so you don’t feel quite as broken. I ended by saying that there are always going to be things about people that we don’t understand but we need to approach those things with empathy and not judgement.

Their response? I wasn’t judgemental.

….. Okay, ummmm…. but again, I try and not make assumptions so I come at it from the perspective of how I felt reading their post. I even caged my response to say I’m sure it wasn’t their intent but it felt “a little tiny bit judgy.” (Even though it felt/was judgy as hell.)

Their response? None of that empathy I asked for, that’s for sure. I was basically treated to a reworded version of their original post and told what I felt was wrong. Period, end of response. No “I didn’t mean to make you feel that way” let alone an “I’m sorry I made you feel that way, it was never my intention. I may still not understand but I appreciate your thoughts.” And the icing on this really shitty cake was that people started piling on and agreeing with them.

I told my husband today that I want to find every one of those bastards that have written books or given lectures/courses on “crucial conversations” that say that if you use “I feel” statements instead of “I think” or just making statements like they are facts, the conversations are more productive because no one can attack your feelings and say they are wrong – I want to find them and punch them in the face. Because that is total bullshit.

Honestly I’ve had this done to me MANY times, this dismissal of my feeling (even by one of the people who gives said talks.) But this one…. maybe it’s because I was already in a negative headspace, maybe it’s because their opinion and validation means a lot to me, but it totally wrecked me. It wormed it’s way into my brain and threw gasoline on the tiny little fire always burning in the back of my head that says my feelings are unimportant, wrong, a nuisance. Basically it magnified the thoughts that pretty much everyone with depression has – it gave a bullhorn to the brain weasels.

I managed to fall asleep but when I woke up (I was alone, hubby had already gotten up) I didn’t feel broken, I felt shattered. Every self doubt, every feeling that I’m not worthy of love and empathy was SCREAMING in my head. I cried for over an hour. When I finally did see my hubby, well as I’ve said many a time – thank gods for him. He held me and calmed me and made the weasels much quieter and the fire much smaller.

And I am proud of myself because even in that horrible terrible place I was in laying in my bed, I was able to care enough about myself and be kind enough to myself to know I needed to disengage from the conversation for my own wellbeing. I deleted all my comments so I didn’t have to keep getting beaten down, so I don’t have to see all the things that hurt so much and affect my mental health in such a negative way.

I am feeling better now (have I mentioned thank gods for my hubby) because once I was able to calm down I forced myself to step back and think. I was able to come to the realization that the only issue with me was that I cared too much about someone who clearly didn’t care that much about me. That I had fooled myself into thinking they cared as much as I did. And I needed to STOP doing that. Just as I was being kind to myself in deleting all my comments, I needed to be kind enough to myself to say – enough is enough. Do not invest anymore of your emotional bandwidth on this person. It’s not an “I hate them” or “I’m never talking to them again” kind of thing – it’s just about not letting myself expect something from them I’m never going to get.

So yay for me!

But I know the whole book reading thing is still REALLY gonna fuck with me. *sigh*