By Losing Myself, I Found Myself
I’m going to be honest here. I’m not in the mood to be eloquent in my speech; there’s no room for eloquence when dejection is knocking at my door. I’m going to type out my thoughts exactly how they come to me and that’s how I’ll present them to you.
Originally, I was going to wait until next week to finish writing this, but something prompted me to finish it today. So here it is:
I’ve been super pissed off the past week or so – at Steemit (or so I thought). How unfair it all is around here, I was telling myself! I’ll never get to the level of {insert username of some arbitrary Steemit user who regularly makes hundreds of dollars per post regardless of the quality of the content}, so why continue trying my heart out? Why not post memes for a few easy pennies or quit altogether?
I placed the blame for my tone-deaf, destructive emotions on Steemit instead of looking within. I thought I knew better. I’ve struggled with depression for most of my life and thought I’d overcome it once and for all this time, but apparently not.
What I realized was that it was really myself that I had an issue with. I’m great at finding distractions and turning them into excuses. I’m also great at finding reasons to quit when something doesn’t please me or immediately go the way I want. I need to stop being that way.
I don’t know if depression has a cure, at least for me. The only semi-successful treatment so far has been to acknowledge the lack of a cure, and instead, self-manage it – that is, corral it and extract gems from it after I calm myself down. Talk therapy doesn’t help much and medication doesn’t help me at all. When I do the exact opposite of what experts tell me to do and instead listen to my inner voice, I start to thrive again.
Fortunately, I think I’m beginning to understand how to use my depression to find the motivation to work toward what I want as well as feeling gratitude for what I already have. Turning negatives into positives is really helping me to move forward. Rather than dwelling on what's wrong with me, I'm beginning to recognize what's right with me.
Going back to my original question: Why continue trying my heart out? Well, for starters…for myself. I write posts that have been nudged into existence by my innate desire to improve, create, dream, appreciate, and most importantly -- be myself. Why would I want to stop those streams of consciousness? They help me and, maybe in some small way, they will help someone else.
While I believe it is true that unfairness resides here, I really feel I shouldn’t be focusing on it; I’m in no mental state to do so. There are people here fighting the good fight – and I commend them for it. However, I personally have bigger fish to fry; i.e., continuing to fight the demons that keep popping up in my head rather than continuing to resent upvote circle jerks that don’t include me.
Instead of ending this on a thankless note, I would like to say thank you to Steemit for being my sounding board and giving me the opportunity to at least make a few cents or bucks in exchange for my time and effort – but mostly, thank you to the few of you who actually read my posts.
I realize I’m not an easy person to understand at times, but that’s what makes me…me.
Both photos are from pixabay.com
I struggled with the same thoughts at some points too, I came to the conclusion that I had to write one way or another and that I'd rather share it because it could help someone else. I found that dealing with depression and addiction are actually quite similar for me personally: Do I have a problem? If no, then what am I wasting time thinking about. If yes, then can I do anything about it? If yes, do something, if no, then there's no point worry about something I can't change. I'm glad you shared this and I wish you the best on your journey. :) Hopefully some of this resonates and helps you and as far as steemit goes, it's going to take time and effort from a lot of people to change the centralization of power, but we can only control what we control. :)
Yes, your words are a big help; they sound a lot like a flow chart actually! Thank you, @clayboyn. :)
I realize Steemit is still very new and not perfect (and probably will never be perfect because nothing is), but I'm here for the long haul. I plan to sit tight and keep doing what I do.
shout it all out, girl! Right into this device! =)
there's only fight worth fighting - with yourself. For the sake of inner peace.
Once the agreement between all sides is reached - then united they stand.
Occasionally, people that like you for being you appear around.
That's how it works ;)
@stuffy, you're so goofy :)))
Life's too simple and short to take it serious =)
I prefer to have fun rather than being sad
It's always good to write for an audience and to help others out, but you should write for you- more than anyone else. I'm glad that you are working on improving yourself. I can identify with using depression as a means to push yourself further. Being in a sucky state of mind makes me want to do as much as I can, so it's not that way anymore. I hope that you continue posting and writing on Steemit, because frankly- I liked your post and I'm sure a lot of other people did too c:
Thank you, @shello! I will be doing my best to write more on Steemit because I don't think I'm writing frequently enough.
Thank you for sharing and baring your soul.....I feel your strength to overcome, by looking within. I totally resonated...I'm also a Cali-girl that transplanted myself in New England. Beautiful post! I had a rough Steem-week last week as well......riding the waves right alongside ya!
Thank you for reading @kimmydee2! What brought you to New England?
With such a large influx of new users lately, it's going to be tough standing out from the crowd - keep at it!
I grew up in small town, Whittier and moved to even smaller Visalia after high school. The crime and cost of living was getting to me. I came to NH to visit a friend from high school that moved here and just fell in love with the place. I am 10 minutes from the beach, but live in the woods. I returned home from my visit, made arrangements to move, packed my things, and came back here. That was five years ago and haven't looked back. I fly home for visits and mom loves to come see us! Five years and I still feel like I'm on vaca :)
I don't pass by Whittier much since I live in the south bay area, but it doesn't seem like a small town to me. I came from Colorado 6 years ago, so maybe that affected my perception of it? I can see how the crime and cost of living gets to you; I feel the same.
I always tell people I came from a small town in LA....they look at me funny too. Many of the residents that first bought there still own the homes they bought in the 1950's, then they are passed down through the family. Many of my HS friends still live there.
Right, back when a simple 2 bedroom house didn't cost half a million dollars. :D
Yep, this is why they are stuck in them.....you sell and can't afford to move anywhere. Keep trying to get mom to sell and move here ;)
Hi cali-girl, thank you for an honest post! I think you have a really good way with words and I do believe that you will do great on steemit one day! Have you heard of voiceshares? It's a steemit project for people batteling depression and people who want to help. Do check it out if it's new to you! We also have our own discord, feel free to join in :) You can also tag your posts with voiceshares when you write about depression. Thanks for your honest words and keep being great :)
Hi @mialinnea! I wasn't familiar with voiceshares until now, so thanks for letting me know about it. I changed one of my tags for this post to #voiceshares :)
Not to be a nag but I'm sure you know exercise helps with the moods. Whenever I'm in a really bad mood I usually realize -oh shite I haven't exercised in two weeks der. But yes, very hard to get motivated to write when there is little reward and/or no readers. :-)
Oh yes, I know! I exercise 3 times a week on average. Today is a scheduled day actually. :)
Thanks for checking out my posts recently btw! Glad to meet you!
Much bigger fish :)
I'm so thankful when someone starts embracing what's right with themselves, it's inspiring! As a lifelong struggler with depression it makes my heart happy when someone listens to their intuition & starts to thrive.
If you enjoy books I believe that 'Loving What Is' by Byron Katie is an invaluable tool for inner peace.
Also, if you ever watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer there's a Halloween episode where a Fear demon gets summoned. He's all RAWR & snarly & the camera pans back & he's actual scale with the illustration in the book. When battling my inner demons I like to occasionally picture them that way, so I can squash them, easily. They're certainly not bigger & more powerful than I am!
I'm totally dating myself making a 15 year plus TV reference, but it fits!
I have Byron Katie's Loving What Is in audiobook format and for whatever reason have never listened to it. Maybe now is the time... The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle helped me a lot in the past.
I like the Buffy video; my demons are not as strong as I am. Thanks :D
After thinking about it deeply, I don't think there is any unfairness on steemit. I understand the perceived unfairness, especially when some mediocre content gets a ridiculously high payout. It's frustrating. The more I look into it, the more I see why my inability to pull off the very same thing is largely because of inaction on my part. When I first heard about bitcoin, they were a couple cents for one. I told myself I didn't have enough money to invest. and I didn't. I was working landscaping for 9 dollars an hour and had a lot of bills. I probably could have thrown 50 dollars at it though. When I got a better job, I told myself that bitcoin was already 200 dollars. That I missed the boat. When I joined steemit a year ago, I didn't post much. I didn't network. I didn't have any bitcoin, so I couldn't buy any steem when it went down from $3.00 to $0.30. (I kick myself everyday for these decisions) If I wasn't so late to the party, my upvote would be worth $40 too. I probably wouldn't see anything wrong with up voting friends and family, even if the content was lacking. Someone would probably think I was conducting myself unfairly as well.
Oh yes, I definitely agree with you. The problem is (for me anyway) when I'm in one of my depressive fits, I don't accurately judge much of anything (including what is deemed fair or not) because I feel everything and everyone is against me. It's something I'm trying to overcome. It's a slow process and I'm very open in these journal types of posts, exposing a multitude of flaws in my thinking.
BTW - back in 2009 my ex and I were mining Bitcoins and he lost or threw away the hard drive that the coins were on when we moved. I think there were at least 50 or so... Haha.......tons of regrets there. :)
Frankly, sometimes I feel the same way too and I just gave myself a break from Steemit because I felt that no one really take the time to read or view my post. But after about 12 days, I came back to Steemit and I'm actually refreshed and was ready to start Steemit again.
I wrote a new post and posted a photo, read posts I like and I actually found the motivation in doing Steemit again. And it brought me to here, your post. :)
Nice to have you back! Thanks for stopping by. :)
yea! I'm so glad to be back and making new friends here on Steemit.