Unmasking My Media - The Person Behind the Picture

Well well well, it's been a while.

What a better way to get back into this blog than with this: unmasking my media. How about unmasking my daily life?

I've written about this before but it seems like a timely manner to write about it again because of this whole event put on by LMU (great idea by the way - thanks for the invite LindsLuLu).

As far as I can tell, the idea of this whole "Unmask My Social Media" event is to combat the stigma that comes with mental illness and to bring to light the reality of how serious of an issue this is. This event hits close to home for me because as you may or may not know, I've been struggling with clinical depression for as long as I can remember (just kidding - I remember vividly being diagnosed sophomore year of high school after coming home crying everyday and not being able to explain why).

So, in order to truly bring light to this very real issue, I'm going to tell you my story. To begin, I'll leave you with unflattering images that I normally wouldn't post anywhere (the original minimum action requested for this event).

However - in typical Julie fashion - I'm going to go past the original ask in order to unmask my perfectly posed/candid pictures captioned with just the right amount of wit and charm. It may seem like everything is just fine and dandy all the time because I'm good at hiding things. But, I'm going to let you behind the mask that I've been wearing for quite a long time now and that I know a lot of other people hide behind as well.

Just like everyone else, I like to pretend like I have my life together and that everything is just peachy. Well, kind of... I'm very open to admitting how sh*tty life an be sometimes but at the same time, I've very recently realized that I've been masking not how crazy life's circumstances can be, but how terrible I've been feeling...

Day by day I go through the motions - all of this while being in some sort of haze that feels like an out of body experience. I am watching my life go by, all being acted out by someone who looks like me but isn't really me at all.

I go through the motions of my everyday life just because. I feel no purpose or motivation to do anything. I just do because I do. I wake up early to go to the gym, get ready for work, interact with the people around me just enough to fit in, do my work well enough to get by, come home and go to sleep. I get through each day without feeling one way or another about any of it.

I am constantly exhausted and never want to do anything but sleep. I'm positive that I could sleep 20 hours a day and still fall asleep if I got in bed.

Hell, even food doesn't bring me any joy anymore. Not even ice cream can really bring a smile to my face - and that's when you know it's bad for me. I have absolutely zero sense of an appetite and nothing ever sounds good but eat at socially appropriate times because it's what you're supposed to do. Half the time I feel like I'm going to vomit but I eat just to maintain some sense of normalcy.

Everything I do is just because I think I'm supposed to. I put in minimal effort into everything - just enough so that no one gets concerned. I participate in social functions/hang out with friends just enough so that no one bugs me about it. However, whenever I'm with people - even with my closest friends - it's still hard. I put a smile on and say the right things because I feel like I should when in all reality I still have that out of body feeling where I see my life passing me by.

This black cloud of depression constantly hanging over my head makes me feel like I'm a burden to others and that no one really cares about me. I know that's not true and I feel pathetic saying it (I swear I'm not fishing for compliments) but this is my truth at the moment. I don't really let people in because I feel like they don't care - when in reality, I'm not giving them the chance to care because I keep everyone at arm's length.

I feel like I'm completely alone in this world with no purpose (but I swear to you all that I'm not suicidal). I'm so afraid of wasting my life away and letting "the best years of my life" pass me by but I struggle with doing anything about it because I lack any sense of desire or motivation to do anything.

I feel selfish thinking this way because I know that others have struggles way beyond my little head games. But then, I remember what someone (I wish I remembered who) challenged me with a few years ago: who are we to compare our battles to someone else's? No one is living your life and you should not diminish your struggles because they are yours and they are valid.

So friends, with that being said, I give you the reality of a truly screwed up brain with chemical imbalances that not even meds have been able to fix.

I tell you this not to make you feel sorry for me but to truly unmask my media and remind you that the world isn't always perfectly edited pictures with well-thought out captions. 1 in 5 adults struggle with mental illnesses so I am here to be a voice for those silently struggling and bring light to what is truly a daily battle.

"Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you find nothing about. Be kind. Always."

Sincerely yours,
Just Another Original

The Right Way to Adult

To any and all who care -

Exactly one year ago today on May 9, 2015, I graduated college... Honestly, that makes me want to vomit. That means that I can no longer say "oh I graduated in May" or have the excuse of being fresh out of college. I think I am now what you'd call an adult?

In this past year, I saw friends move away, donated my hair, moved back home with my parents, spent six months in a depressing state of unemployment, moved out of my childhood home, lost some weight and gained it right back, landed a full-time job with benefits and all, lived on my friends' floor (no, not their couch - legitimately their floor), started paying my own bills, moved in with a friend from college, had some fun, shed some tears, and somehow became an "adult".

Anyways, after a year in this so-called real world - one of the hardest years of my life - I've learned a few things. However, I'll spare you the list and leave you with the hardest but most valuable lesson I learned: there is no "right" way to adult.

Anyone who knows me will probably nod to themselves in agreement when I say that I like to do things "right" - as in I don't particularly like doing things wrong or doing the wrong thing. I have always been a rule-follower, over-achiever, do-gooder, etc. I always thought that that was how you were supposed to do life.

Growing up, it was pretty easy to do the "right" thing because there were always rules in place, things you are supposed to do, etc. However, I quickly learned that the real world doesn't quite work like that...

I have always been a huge people-watcher but during this past year of post-grad life, I did exponentially more of it in the form of observing, question-asking, and mental note-taking on how people live in this so called real world. All of this was done in the hopes that I would figure out what the "right" way to do things was. I wanted to know how you are supposed to get a job, what job you are supposed to get, how you are supposed to budget, where you are supposed to live, how you are supposed to interact with others - I was basically like a newborn baby learning how to live all over again.

I would ask my parents for advice, observe what my peers were doing, talk to people who had graduated before me, ask co-workers about their lives - hell, I even went to Google with a few questions - all in hopes to be pointed into some general direction of how I was supposed to live.

Nevertheless, all these observations and questions did was leave me even more confused than I was before. Without fail, every single source always had a different answer. There was not a single time that I asked a question and got the same response from multiple sources.

Some people live at home while others share a room in a tiny apartment with friends. Some people pay their own bills while others live off of their parents' money. Some people go out to eat for every meal of the day while others pack a lunch and cook for themselves at home. Some people wake up to exercise at 5 am everyday while others don't even own a pair of tennis shoes. Some people go to grad school while others travel. Some people love their job while others feel like they still haven't found their purpose.

For a long time, this really frustrated me and quite honestly made me very depressed. I was lost because I didn't know the "right" way to adult (which by the way has become a verb in my post-grad life - ask any other post-grad and I think they will say the same thing). I wanted a rule book and set of directions for how to live life. I was desperate to do life right and succeed in the real world.

However, after finally moving out of my parents house, getting a full-time job, and paying bills on my own (yes that is a milestone worth noting), I started to realize that I was living/adult-ing without that rule book or set of directions. As terrifying as that realization was for me, it was also kind of liberating.

After recognizing that life goes on regardless of whether you are doing life "right" or not, I started to breathe a little easier. I realized that there has never been and will never be a "right" way to adult or live. Everyone is just doing what they think is "right" - doing what they can to get by and enjoy whatever they can in this crazy thing called life.

Johanna de Silento truly said it best when she said that "the only way to fail at life is to abstain."

For better or worse, everyone is just kind of winging it and it's up to us to either let it terrify us or thrill us. Personally, I'm working on finding the thrill in it and I suggest that you do too.

Sincerely Yours,
Just Another Original