Where I've Been

It’s been a month since I last updated this site. I didn’t mean for a month to go by, but then again, no one ever plans on things going wrong. I took a break from writing on this blog due to a few factors. There’s the normal “it’s cold and gray and that makes me not feel motivated” feeling that I get every year. This year, I also had a few unexpected events and stressors in my personal life that gave me zero motivation to do anything. The combination of these factors made me feel incredibly depressed for a number of weeks. To be perfectly honest, I still feel somewhat depressed, but I believe it's getting better.

Rather than gloss over the way I’ve been feeling, or pretending that I didn’t go on an unexpected hiatus, I want to talk about it. The situation, while far from ideal, gives me a reason to talk a bit more about my mental health, and mental health in general. Because depression is a bad word to some people. Others think it's synonymous with “sadness” which we all know is not the case. Going outside isn’t going to cure my depression. Telling me i need to eat organic won’t “fix” me either. I put fix in quotation marks because I don’t like words like that because “fix” implies something is broken or wrong. Depression isn’t unnatural. It’s one of the most common mental illnesses in the adult population.

When I began feeling this way, I pulled back from doing things I enjoyed. That’s one of the more well-known symptoms of depression, loss of interest in things that you used to enjoy. At one point, I spent an entire day on Youtube watching video after video about the latest drama in the make-up community because I couldn’t do anything else. I can’t really pinpoint where the turning point was for me or what made me realize I needed to make some changes, but it was around this time. So, instead of pulling back from everything, I took a step back and re-evaluated. Was I trying to deal with too much at once? Where could I make changes? What were small things I could do that made me feel like I’d accomplished something? It’s a slow process, it’s still ongoing and I doubt there will be an end date, but I’m getting better. I’m feeling better and that’s what matters to me.

I’m not a psychologist or therapist. I’m aware of the fact that I’m not qualified, at all, to give advice about dealing with depression. Everyone’s different, what works for everyone is different. There’s a reason why some people who are diagnosed with depression decide to take antidepressants while others choose to see a therapist and still others do neither. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. I started writing this post mostly because I wanted to talk about what I’ve been going through. I apologize if that seems selfish.

A Few Ways to Handle Stress

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

Would you like to know what one of my least favorite sentences of all time is? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s any variation of the sentence “you don’t need to stress about that”. At best, it sounds like an empty platitude I hear because the person doesn’t know what else to say. At worst, its entirely dismissive of what I’m feeling and shows no interest in being helpful. Stress is part of being human, everyone experiences it. It’s the feeling of a situation demanding more from you believe you’re able to provide.

So, today, instead of telling you why you shouldn’t stress, I’d like to name a few ways I deal with stress. These are tactics and activities that work for me, and I hope they work for you. I know not everyone reacts to stress the same way. These aren’t in any particular order as they’ve all worked for me, albeit in different situations.

• Yoga-  This is an activity that I do when I feel stressed but can’t immediately figure out what the cause is. Often time, there are several factors causing me to stress out and this helps me clear my mind of everything and focus on just breathing and yoga poses. You don’t necessarily even need to do yoga poses. There have been times where I just sit on my yoga mat and do some breathing exercises as a way to calm down.
• Walk away- Let’s say you’re stressed about a school assignment or project at work. Sometimes, you just need to walk away and be away from your work for a little bit. Take a walk around the block. Go eat some lunch or a snack (away from your computer). Switch to a completely different task for a little bit, just to take some time away from the project you’re getting stressed about.
• Make Art- Sometimes, you just need to get creative. Not everyone can draw or paint, but anyone can color. Studies have shown that coloring can reduce anxiety levels, meaning its ideal for stress reduction. Adult coloring books have become popular for a reason, they cause you to focus on a single activity, coloring, which has effects similar to meditating.
• Blog (or write) about it- Sometimes, I find myself getting stressed because I feel like I don’t have an outlet to talk about things that I’m feeling. I get stressed, I feel like I can’t discuss my stress and that causes me more stress. Part of the reason why I started blogging was to deal with my stress. There are a number of posts that I’ve written that I didn’t publish because I just needed to get all of my frustrations and feelings out. This has also helped me figure out what things seem to be stressing me out on a regular basis
• Get physical- Sometimes, stress is from restless energy we have. Or our minds overthinking things. One thing I started doing when I was looking for jobs was going for runs or going to the gym. The exercise tired me out, which let me get out a lot of the frustration I was feeling that was causing me stress. It doesn’t need to be vigorous exercise, just enough to tire you out a little bit and release some pent-up energy.
• Take A Nap- Sometimes, I stress about thing I can’t control in the slightest. And sometimes, the things I stress about are of the Wait-and-See variety. Or other tactics don’t prove useful in this case. So, I take a nap, or at least try to. Even if I don’t actually manage to fall asleep, laying there, in the dark without my phone or computer in front of me helps me unwind. Sometimes, saying “I’m going to bed, I’ll finish this tomorrow” is the best thing you can do for your own mental health.

Those are a handful of stress-relieving techniques I use. Not every technique fits every situation and the effectiveness varies depending on what exactly the problem is and how much it's upsetting me. Still, at least one has worked every time I've needed to relieve some stress. Since I've started dealing with stress instead of trying to ignore it or power through it, I've found myself happier as a whole.

That's how I deal with stress, how do you handle it?

Why Is It So Hard to Know Yourself?

Photo by Doug Robichaud on Unsplash

Why Is It So Hard to Know Yourself?

I was talking to a friend recently. I'd told her a few months ago that I had decided to start online dating again, but I hadn't mentioned it in a while. It came up in conversation recently, and she asked me how it was going, if I'd met someone new, if I'd stopped looking, etc. My answer probably sounded a little strange to her (but I also overthink things) because I said I'd pressed pause on dating for a little bit, as I was dealing with some personal stuff.

My personal stuff wasn't anything bad or serious. I just realized that I needed to figure out who I am now. To be clear, I haven't gone through some major life change recently or anything. The closest major thing I can think of that happened was getting my first "real" job, and that was almost a year ago.

Still, recently I've been trying to figure out who I am. Because I'm a real adult now. And not only am I a real adult, but I'm having to think about things differently. I'm learning to do things for myself, like dealing with car problems myself instead of calling my dad in a panic. Or signing up for, and completing the necessary paperwork, to get health insurance or start a 401k. Needing to do these things for myself for the first time is an interesting and eye-opening experience. I don't know anything about investments or who I want my beneficiaries to be.

Anyway, I'm getting off-topic. I've been taking some time to figure out who I am now. The fact that I needed to do that made me start thinking. Why is it so hard to know yourself? Why is it so hard for anyone to know themselves? I think I might've found the answer, or at least, an answer.

It's so hard for us to know ourselves because we don't like change. As humans, we change throughout our life. At 25, I'm not the same person I was at 16. When I turn 35, I won't be the person I am now. That's natural, it's human nature. But in our ability to change comes a contradiction. We don't like change, we often don't want things to change. Change is scary. At the same time, we know its inevitable. We know change is how we grow. We just don't want to admit it. Some of our reluctance comes from fear of the unknown. Entering a new stage in your life means new challenges, gaining new perspectives. Some reluctance comes from regrets. Opportunities we didn't take full advantage of when we could have. Chances we didn't take.  Behaviors we aren't proud of. It's a well-known trend that most of us find old journal entries or old photos and cringe at the clothes we used to wear or the dreams we used to have. We don't want to move from where we currently are, but we don't want to be stuck there either.

We're always changing. Always evolving, Always learning. This is why I dread being asked "tell me about yourself" because I don't fully know who I am. I don't know if I ever will.

I apologize if this is a little too heavy or too philosophical for some, but I needed to get it off my chest.

Anyone Else Have a Weird Job?

So, I get asked basically the same question on every first date and every time I run into someone after not seeing them for over two months. What do you do for work?/Where do you work? It’s an understandable question. Given that I’m no longer in school, I clearly must have a job. The problem isn’t the question itself, its in me not knowing exactly how to answer it.

For some people, that question is easy. I ask what they do and they say “teacher” or “nurse” or “police officer”, etc. For others, it involves a little more information “I work at a nonprofit”, “I work in marketing”, “I work in a research lab”. The average person knows what that means or can guess. For me, I need to either choose between giving an answer that’s not entirely true, or needing to spend the next few minutes explaining further in depth. Because not only do most people not like to think about the industry I work in, but most don’t know that companies like mine exist.

Let me back track a bit and explain: I work in the operations and commissions department at a brokerage general agency for life insurance. I’m guessing most of you have no idea what that means. If you don’t, that’s fine. I’m not going to explain it, because knowing what it is isn’t important to the point I’m trying to make.

Here’s the problem with the “what do you do” question for me: explaining what a brokerage general agency is confuses a lot of people. They either hear “I work for an insurance company” or they hear “I sell insurance”. Neither of which is true. I sometimes try explaining it again, other times I just say “kinda” and move on.

Thinking about the way that conversation usually goes got me thinking about how many other people are in the same situation. I’m sure there are plenty of jobs that not everyone knows exist. It’s either in such a specific field that only others in the same field would know about it, or its not an industry most people interact with on a daily basis. How many weird or hard-to-explain jobs are out there that I don’t know about?

Anyone else have a job other people wouldn’t know about?