Nobody puts baillee in the corner

(Note: I wrote this Thursday night/Friday morning and finally finished it today; you can’t rack this one up to time travel. Sorry for the collective sigh I just caused the supporters of the Mandela Effect to let out.)

It’s almost 1:00 in the morning, I have to be up for work in a matter of hours, and I’ve spent the night cleaning out my closet. That sentence may sound totally normal, especially to my anxiety, depression, and insomnia buddies (and MBMBaMbinos.what’s up, you cool babies?). For me, however, this signals the end of the awful funk (or to take off the sugar coating, depression) I’ve been battling for a couple of weeks. 

You see, much like Marshall Mathers himself, my closet has always been the figurative and literal (said like Chris Traeger but used correctly) manifestation of my mental state. I’m usually a rather clean person by nature (and genes, thanks KP), so I tend to tuck my mess away and hide it from the world. The messier my actual closet is, the more cluttered my preverbial one is; the two go hand-in-hand. 

This particular bought was a little brutal, seeing as how the sliding doors of my closet were bowing like the walls of the Byers house when the Demogorgon was trying to break through. The catch is I legitimately couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it, so I kept shoveling things into its already bulging doors, all the while feeling bad but unable to stop. And that, ladies and gentlemen is why my closet is a physial representaion of depression. 

You see, it’s hard to explain to people why sometimes you just can’t BE happy. Yes, I know I have a killer job, an amazing family, great friends, and a dog who is something (but I love him dearly). Unfortunately, depression is like the rumored third Bill and Ted movie; you have no idea when (if ever) it’s going to show up. It can make an appearnace when someone makes a comment in passing that for some reason cuts you to the core. It’s been known to flare up when you do something as simple as spilling your coffee or not being able to get your dog’s leash to hook properly. Living with depression, at least for me, occasionally feels like living with a ticking time bomb. 

Quite frankly, it made me evaluate what people at work actually thought of me, lead to a regrettable night of Straw-ber-ita drunk texting, and made me question a lot of things about myself. I think the worst part of depression is knowing that all of these thoughts are irrational and ungrounded, but you have to prepare yourself for the internal battle royale that is not actually letting yourself rabbit hole. Mostly because it’s so easy to go from goofing up on a tiny thing to seeing youself as a complete and utter failure. 

That’s why, for the first time in my life, I’m actually committing to anti-depressants. I know I said they weren’t for me in the past, but after the last bought or two I’ve struggled with, I’ve started to worry myself a little bit (not in a Papa Roach way, but more in a Linkin Park way). I want to be able to be my genuine, goofy Baillee self 100% of the time, not 85-90% and forcing out the other 10-15%. It’s just finally time to do something else. (By the way, if anyone wants some of those sweet Pro-Pros let me know, and I can give you a sweet deal except not really because it gives me a lot of anxiety, and I’m only working through one mental illness at a time here, thank you.)