I love myself and all I got was this stupid t-shirt

A note for readers: this post contains frank discussion of depression, including references to religious trauma and suicidal ideation. It’s not all doom and gloom, but please take care if you’re struggling.

For as long as I have had depression, I have been trying to put it into words, to explain myself and how I was feeling to others and to myself. When I was young and had little understanding of mental illness and even less understanding of myself as a person who could be mentally ill, I suffered the effects of depression without being able to name them. I was very religious as a teen, and I believed that the brain fog, the lack of pleasure I felt in my day to day life, the mask of carefree ease and maturity that hid an overwhelmed and discouraged kid, were all symptoms of a broken relationship with God. 

Last summer, as I helped my parents move out of the house I grew up in, I found all of the journals from my youth. I found my prayer journal, a thick volume with hundreds of pages of handwritten notes to God written in the middle of the night, begging Him to accept me and forgive me, pleading with Him to help me understand what I was doing wrong and let me feel like myself again. As time progressed and I received a diagnosis in college, I stopped thinking that I was out of favor with God and began thinking that I was just broken - simply a few wire connections short of a normally functioning human being. 

I’m charming and personable, I have a good mind, an education, a great family, a solid work ethic, but I began to believe that all of these things were a waste because I am fundamentally dysfunctional. I’m like a cool, sexy muscle car with square wheels  - everything going for me, a great conversation piece, but destined to go nowhere. For years, I felt like accepting this assessment of myself was self love. I believed that by rejecting ambition and letting go of any dreams of success I had, I was being realistic and self-aware. I was accepting my limitations instead of living in delusion. Whenever anyone asked me about the future, I’d shrug and say “I just want to be happy,” as if I had any clue what that looks like. 

It’s only been within the past couple of years that I have moved into a true place of loving myself. Self love is one of those things that is vitally important, constantly talked about, but still feels lofty and out of reach much of the time. There’s this idea that when you finally love yourself, you’ll suddenly just attract people and opportunities. You’ll never struggle to drink enough water or cry because you got toothpaste on your favorite shirt and you can’t deal with one more fucking thing. Eating healthy will be second nature and in no time at all, you will become an ageless, enlightened beauty with poise and talent - you’ll be an elf in Middle Earth and life force will flow through your every pore. 

I’m sorry to tell you, dear reader, that this is not my experience. I love myself, and I still really struggle with depression. I love myself, and my life is still a complete mess. And yet, I believe that learning to love myself was worth my time.

When people ask me how I'm doing, I say "I'm okay, struggling a bit, but I'm okay." Most of the people in my life know me well enough to understand that this vague response refers to my depression. Everyone, mercifully, is too polite to ask for specifics, but I've been thinking a lot lately about how I would answer if someone really wanted to know.

"Oh, you're struggling? What do you mean?"

What do I mean? I mean that today when I woke up, the sun was streaming into my windows and my beloved cat, Spooky, stretched out on his back to capture as much of the sunlight on his belly as he could, and looked at me, purring, and I looked back at him and I felt nothing. I pet his belly and told him he was my sweet baby anyway. I mean that I stared into the fridge for several minutes and despite being very hungry, I almost didn't eat. The eggs and toast I made didn't taste like anything, and neither did the leftover cherry pie I had for dessert, though the Diet Coke I drank afterwards tingled pleasantly on my tongue. 

After a year of middling success as a freelancer, money and prospects have dried up and I need health insurance, so I'm looking for a job. I apply to at least 10 jobs every week, and most of the time I hear nothing, but today I got a few form rejections for positions I was really qualified for. I shrugged, deleting them from my inbox and my memory. 

Right now, I'm drinking a Snapple iced tea and the fact under the cap says that bloodhounds can track a human by smell for up to 130 miles. I think I will remember that longer than I'll remember the names of any of the companies I have applied to this month. 

My planner and journals haven't been opened or written in for a couple of weeks. I'm bored of myself and my thoughts, there is very little to fill my days, and it's the dead of winter in Maine, so I barely leave the house. I dread conversations most of the time, knowing I have nothing to contribute unless my conversation partner has something they need to talk about. 

I laugh, but it doesn't reach my belly. I smile and talk animatedly, but inside I feel television static. I'm doing my best to keep up with my chores, with my emails, with the things I need to do to keep life going while I feel like a shadow of myself. Sometimes the mask slips and someone asks if I’m okay. Sometimes I want to scream. Sometimes I think about the fact that I wouldn’t need to look for a job or take the trash out or pay bills if I were dead. That thought doesn’t take root for long, because there are too many people I love and movies I’m looking forward to, and because I’ve already had this argument with myself more times than I can count.

a picture I took in the middle of the night when I realized the lights outside my window give me three shadows.

When I say that I love myself, I mean I love every version of myself. I love the daydreaming child in leopard print who could never find easter eggs because she was too busy looking at the clouds. I love the serious, hard-working teenager who listened to AC/DC constantly because it made her feel subversive. I even love the numb wretch I am right now, doing everything she can to keep the ship afloat during the storm. 

But most of all, I love the woman I will be. My future self deserves to look back on this time in her life and remember all the simple pleasures it offers. She deserves to remember the soft, curly fur on Spooky’s belly warmed by sunlight. She deserves to know that when he was a baby, her nephew looked like springtime and loved to be chased around his playroom. She should have fond memories of living with her brother as an adult, of what it’s like to watch anime with him while his son naps on his chest. She should remember exploring the many thrift stores of Maine with her sister in law, joking with her loudly enough to disturb a group of French Canadian tourists. She should remember nights spent chatting online with friends who have never made her feel like she’s too much or not enough. 

I love myself enough to know that someday, future Sammi will look back at present Sammi and thank her for participating in life even though she didn’t feel like it. So, every day, I do my best for her, because she’s worth dreaming about and fighting for. I don’t know what lies ahead for me or how many more times I’ll feel like life has knocked me down, but I’m not willing to stay down anymore, and that makes a world of difference.