Random things today

A few random things today.

Well, I was going through my youtube subscriptions and came across a video Melanie Murphy did about her depression and how she deals with it. From there there was a short that looked interesting called "Short Film:Fireflies (a short film about depression). I'm not going to link it here and there is a major suicide trigger warning, but if you're interested give it a google.
I watched about 3 minutes of the video and I had had enough. It's a great video, don't get me wrong, but reliving the emotions about the time when I was suicidal is hard, and seeing someone else go through it...even acting...is hard to handle.
It starts by showing a father knocking on his daughters apartment door, and when she doesn't answer multiple times he finds a spare key and lets himself in, then it fades to her suicide note video. This is where it gets hard. Hearing the things that the woman went through, and knowing how real this all is. How raw and how hurtful. It just makes it hard to even hear. People without depression NEED to hear it. NEED to know how bad this issue really is. NEED to know that this isn't something that we can control and it is very real. No matter who you are or where you come from.
Luckily for myself, I'm on a medication that works about 90% of the time. I have my bad days, I have insecurities, but with the medication I can actually work on those issues as if I am a person without a mental illness. Some days I can't, but on good days I can. Things do get better and by doing what needs to be done we can work on bettering ourselves. I got lucky in that I have a wonderful support system in place. I didn't always, but now I do.

I feel like I am saying some of the same stuff over and over. Sorry if I end up repeating previous blogs.

Anyway back to the video; does anyone else have that issue? Where reading or seeing things about it just brings back that rush of feelings and threatens to overwhelm you? I was able to stop it as soon as I could feel that wave coming, but the fact that it was there so openly is a little troubling. Sometimes I wonder if I have just buried these issues and not dealt with them.
I think that is a bit ridiculous to assume though. At some point you have to just let go of the issues, There is no point in resurrecting the past, rehashing it over, and over, and over. If that happens enough I don't think it would help, if anything it would hinder the healing process.
Speaking of the healing process... I had a very amazing break-though this week. (can you tell I keep leaving and coming back to this blog post. SQUIRREL!)
So I've always been kind of a negative Nancy, Always assuming the worst, ignoring the good and focusing on the bad. We all do it, nothing wrong with it, until it takes over your entire way of thinking. One of my very close friends, one whose opinion honestly means more to me than almost anyone, told me that my internal filters, or my way of supposing bad things to be more true than good things, blind out the good things that are said. 6 months ago this would have flung me into a depression. This would have made me hate myself to a ridiculous level. I would beat myself up internally. "why are you so negative, fuck, you can't do anything right, see you're just that negative person you've always been. even he thinks you're a fucking failure" and the self hate would just get worse and worse until I exploded. It would be horrid and honestly probably threaten my relationship with my best friend. though, I think I would have told him about it being an issue and worked through it... either way...
Luckily for me, I am working on myself. I have improved my self image to a point that is actually pretty scary. I looked in the mirror the other day and thought "hot damn I look good" I cannot tell you any time in my life that I have ever done that. I've forced myself to point out good things, but something good has never just popped into my head like that. So, since I've been working on myself and trying to make myself into the person I want to be; I took this for exactly what my friend meant (he did explain more later, but I know what he meant anyway). He wants to see me whole, not always assuming the worst, not always getting upset about things before knowing the situation. Just all these things that are comfortable to me, these behaviors that I fall back on because they are known behaviors. It reminds me of Anita Blake, how her first reaction is always anger, because anger is familiar, it's a home inside her mind.
Part of changing myself was getting on medication. Amanda off of medication is horrible. I mean the depression is just so so so bad, it overtakes and overshadows everything. It is NOT who I really am. On medication, I feel like I am so much closer to the person I have always been inside. The fact that the depression is mostly held back means that I can work on issues like being negative. I can focus on other things.  instead of having these feelings come up unbidden, I can say "no. fuck this. Why are you even upset? stop this,"
I have found that when attempting to change your way of thinking it actually helps to speak to yourself out loud. it reinforces what is being said to that part of your brain. Weird trick, but it works.

Anyway this post is getting long and rambly. hope everyone is having a good day!