Feeling like a nuisance around other people
(I wrote this when I was suffering from depression around 15 months into my recovery from a severe nervous breakdown)
One thing I’ve learned during the recovery from my nervous breakdown is that it all becomes a bit of an inconvenience to people.
Some people (family) are frustrated and I understand that. They’re in a position where they can’t do anything to help and they can’t relate to who I am at the moment. They’re just having to wait for me to get better and to hopefully go back to being the person they knew before, fingers crossed. They want me to recover – of course they do – but they don’t feel comfortable asking probing questions for fear of getting into a deep, emotional conversation.
From my perspective, I’m a nuisance to them. I’ve always been the life and soul of the party, the one who makes everyone laugh, the clumsy one who everyone rolls their eyes at, the one who’s carefree and leaves at the drop of a hat to do something more exciting. All they see these days is a straight face, a tired expression and a sad pair of eyes, if I can keep my eyes open long enough to show how I’m feeling.
I feel as if I’m sitting in a room full of people, screaming inside because everyone’s avoiding the elephant in the room.
In the past couple of days, I’ve had to remind the people I thought understood, that I am, in fact, recovering from a serious nervous breakdown and that might well be the reason for my lack of interest in their lives and my general inability to hold much of a conversation. They actually seemed surprised and not a little bit annoyed, as if they were thinking, ‘that was ages ago – surely she’s over it by now!’
Which made me feel like a nuisance.
It’s gone on too long now, you see. I’m not as upbeat and bubbly as I used to be. I’m not the good laugh I usually am. I’m not as supportive because I don’t have the capacity to care. I don’t seem as interested, because my brain has enough to cope with without dealing with more input. And this has gone on too long. They’ve started to lose interest. They don’t want to talk about my recovery. They’ve stopped asking after me because I won’t lie and say, ‘I’m fine’, and at the end of the day it’s a bit awkward to be met with, ‘actually, I’m seriously struggling at the moment’ when you just want a bit of smalltalk.
Which makes me feel like a nuisance.
I had to remind a friend tonight that I’m still recovering from a nervous breakdown, after she was confused as to why I was ‘working on keeping stress levels low’. It seemed that she’d forgotten that I’d had a breakdown at all. It seemed that she thought I was putting it on, that I sounded perfectly normal to her so I must be okay. Well, that’s because she only hears from me on days when I’m able to do more than sob and actively avoid sounds that cut through my brain like a chainsaw. I desperately wanted to talk about it but she didn’t hang around long enough.
Which made me feel like a nuisance.
People don’t realise that if I’m in touch with them today it means I’m having a good day after weeks of being barely able to function, even though I’ve explained this to them, over and over. When I tell them I’m seriously depressed they seem surprised that I’m struggling and don’t want to delve deeper. After all, I’m usually the positive, happy one, aren’t I, so I’m bound to be okay deep down?
Surely I’m back to normal really.
Surely I’ve had enough time to get over it.
Surely I’m back to planning dreams and adventures.
Well, no. Not yet. I’m suffocating in a brain fog the likes of which I’ve never imagined. I’m drowning in depression the likes of which I’ve never experienced. I’m not back to normal at all. I haven’t had enough time to get over it and am nowhere near thinking about – let alone planning – my dreams and adventures.
I’ve never felt so misunderstood in my entire life and I’ve had a lifetime of being misunderstood.
It’s my mission after this has passed to bring awareness to what it’s actually like behind the scenes when someone, who is recovering from a nervous breakdown, tells you, ‘I’m fine’.
If they’re depressed, they’re not fine.
If they’re stressed, they’re not fine.
If they’re broken, they’re not fine.
They’re anything but fine.
