Depression trying to pull me back?

It's summer.  I just finished my first year of university; a pretty successful year, considering I was out of high school for eight years before I finally went back.  I got straight A's, and no one else was really surprised that I was getting such good marks, for whatever reason, I was.  I expected there to be a significant learning curve.  After being out of any type of a formal learning environment for almost a decade, I figured it would take a while before I could start getting those good marks that I had in high school.  But I didn't.  Somehow, I did amazing, and even got some impressive kudos from my teachers.  But I worked my balls off, and I was exhausted by the end of each semester.  But I was so damn proud.

So now, I have four months off for summer holidays before I start my second year.  So I should be having fun and relaxing and enjoying myself and be happy.

But I'm not.  I know I should be, which only makes me feel even more guilty.  

I know that one of the main reasons that I have been feeling this way is that I haven't yet found a full-time summer job.  When I was in school, I was working part-time at my super crappy job that I hate with everything in me and would quit on the spot if I didn't need the money, and having a monthly living allowance from my student loans.  And that was enough for us to live comfortably.  We didn't have a lot of spending money or anything, but our bills were paid and that's good.  

But now, it's a month and a half into my summer break, and I still haven't found another job.  Now job-hunting and all the stresses that go along with it are completely consuming my life.  It's all I think about.  I wake up in the morning and before I even get out of bed I am on my phone checking the postings on Craigslist.  Even right now, just saying that and being on the computer, I feel like I should be searching the job bank, Monster.ca, any search engines, anything.  I feel just so guilty for any time that I am not spending trying to find a job.  I can't relax, but I can't do anything because I am so tired and depressed and discouraged.  

So now I am only working the same amount of hours at my old job, but I don't have that extra monthly income.  Our bills are paid, but it's really tight, and our grocery bills are pretty fucking skimpy, and we're trying to scrape the money together to buy laundry detergent and stuff like that.  I've applied at over forty places, gotten three interviews but still no job.  I've gotten desperate enough that I even applied at Tim Hortons; the reason that this is the lowest of the low for me is because my first job was at a Tim Hortons (in a completely different city,  mind you), and at this job, I was sexually harassed.  I'll probably explain in more detail another time, if you're curious, but let's just say the police were involved and I couldn't go back in there for two years afterward.  

And I couldn't even get a job there.  It was one of the places I was interviewed and I didn't get a call back.  I even had what I thought was the best interview I have ever had, and then I think I went and sabotaged myself and fucked it up, so I'm not gonna get that job either.  

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME?  How can I not get a job anywhere?  My friends and family keep saying that it's because I'm overqualified; maybe it's true, but you also know how people who love you want to say things to make you feel better, even if it is a lie?  That's kinda how I feel about it.  And all of this rejection is starting to get me down and my already low self-esteem is in a fight that it can't seem to win.  

The stresses of being in school, having deadlines and assignments and tests and such, I can handle.  But real-world stresses like money and finding a job are altogether different, and something I have such a hard time dealing with.  I've never been good at all that real-world living things like paying bills and credit and whathaveyou.  People tell me that I'm really smart all the time, and I think, sure, I'm book-smart, but I'm real-world-stupid.  That's what it comes down to.  Oh, ha, and let's not forget pretty much socially inept.  Asking me to start a conversation with someone I don't know is the same as asking my husband (who is not good at math) to solve an algebra equation.  For me, it really is that difficult.  I feel like there are these walls that I am trying to push through to just to get to the point when I can say hello, and then to actually say it is another set of barriers.  And it's like their rubbery, so that I push and push and push, and I feel I'm getting closer, and sometimes I can break through them, but other times something happens and I just end up getting bounced back.  

Now, I can feel the depression creeping in, it's started so slowly that I didn't even notice, until one day I'm thinking, Huh.  I'm really depressed.  That fast, and so inconspicuously my depression and anxiety have quickly tried to get their claws back in to me, and I can feel the scratches and I'm bleeding and losing the ability to fight back.  I am tired all the time, I don't sleep well, I feel like crying a lot, I don't want to leave the house, people I love are starting to irritate me and it seems an effort to be happy around them, even though I miss them a lot, and I just don't feel like doing anything, but I feel so fucking guilty for everything that I think I'm supposed to be doing.  And I kinda feel like my husband is in denial about it.  Even though I went to therapy, I don't think he realizes that just because I did, I'm all of a sudden 100% better and cured, and now I won't ever get depressed again.  And I'm afraid to tell him, too.  I'm afraid I'll be disappointing him.  

Wow.  So, this post has just gone off on complete tangents, and I have no idea where the hell I am trying to go with anything at all.  I just know I have a bunch of shit I needed to write down, and everything is all so tangled and it's hard to keep my emotions and experiences and memories separate.  Just a bit of separation, at least in regard to my emotions, isn't working out so well. 

Phobia and trust.

I'm afraid, really afraid, of bees and wasps.  Terrified.  I think it could even be called a phobia.  And I always have been, and likely always will be.  Just the thought of being close to one makes my heart race.  Seeing pictures of them makes my breath catch and it feels as though my stomach is trying to escape my body.  I once had one land on my hand while I was walking to work and I nearly lost my mind.  For the rest of the day, just thinking about the incident made me physically shudder; I could feel a ghost of its little legs on my wrist.  Just writing this makes me feel nauseated and nervous, like I need to twitch or shake my whole body to get rid of all the invisible bees and wasps that could be crawling on my in another universe.

So you can imagine how I might react if I was in a vehicle and there was one on the window next to me.  On the inside of the window.  Augh.  And the other day, that is just what happened.

I'd had a horrific day at work (A JOB I HATE).  I was already tired, moody and on-edge.  My husband came to pick me up; I got in and shut the door when I noticed a bee (or wasp, I'm not sure) sitting on the top of the passenger-side window.

Oh, it's just on the outside. I wasn't entirely comfortable with that, but it wasn't enough to make me freak out.  I kept staring at it anyway, as though I couldn't look away, and to assure myself it was on the other side of the window.  No, it's NOT ON THE OUTSIDE, IT'S ONTHEINSIDE!!  I just plain lost it.  I screamed and started scrambling away, trying to get in the back seat somehow without having to get closer to it.  Once I was perched on the center console I started crying.  My husband kept telling me to sit down, that it was just a tiny bee, and he would get it.  But I couldn't.  I had to get away, there is no way that I could just sit down, get even an inch closer to the bee when it was already close enough to get me.

Then he got mad.  "Just SIT DOWN!"  I thought he was mad I was on the center console, so I tried harder to push myself into the back; however, the rules of physics obviously evaded me, because there was no way I could have fit in the tiny crevice between driver and passenger seats.  NoIcan'tIcan't.  I was utterly overcome with terror, and all I wanted in the whole world, all that went through my mind, was to be as far away from it as I could.  Pleasedon'tmakeme...please.


He growled, got out of the car, came around, opened my door, swatted the bee away, got back in the car.  I was still crying; he was still mad, I could tell.  But he asked if I was alright, but then started to tell me how he was sorry for getting mad but: I couldn't freak out like that, I needed to stay calm, "I know you've never been stung and I want to keep it that way", he was going to handle it, I was overreacting -- but I was so scared, sometimes I can't help it -- "yes you can, you just don't".  For the most part, I didn't answer; I didn't look at him, tried to stop crying, waited for him to just say "its okay" and comfort me.  And as always, whenever he is "talking to me", he kept repeating the same things over again.  I mentioned his fear of spiders, and how I understand how they freak him out, etc.

But then he said "but I guess I trust you enough...(something else I don't remember exactly)..."

Trust..........TRUST.  Reallly?  This is where I stopped talking completely.  Didn't look at him.  Kept my arms folded, kept my eyes straight ahead and unfocused.  When did this become a trust issue, would you like to tell me that?  If I just trusted you enough, I would suddenly not have this phobia, and I could sit back and just listen to you all the time.  


There was little else but one thought going through my mind, one thought controlling my actions and reactions: get away get as far away as possible get away NOW.  


That phrase, those few words, they hurt and made me angrier at him than I have been in a long time.  I don't get angry, or show that I am angry, at people very often.  And I suppose I didn't then, either.  But you'll have to excuse me if my trust is not completely rock-solid when I have trusted you in the past and you've let me down.  You can't just start over and expect to get all of my trust again and get mad when it isn't there.. you've got to fucking earn it back.

Maybe I'm the one who won't let go of what happened so long ago, holding grudges, just can't forgive and forget, keeps thinking about the negatives instead of the positives, I don't know.  I just don't.

All I know is I'm frustrated with him telling me how I should react, how I should handle my feelings and emotions.  Just when I'm starting to realize that I am a very emotional person, and although I don't want to have the destructive spirals anymore, I still want to be in touch with my emotions, and my emotional nature is something I am starting to embrace, or I at least want to.  And he always makes me feel as though that my emotions are something I need to rationalize and control, and that they are wrong.

But as always, I doubt myself.  Maybe he is right.  Maybe I do need to trust him more.  Maybe I am just not trying to control my (IRRATIONAL) fears.  Or am I allowed to be afraid, and not have to control them just because it's what he things is right, just to make him happy?  Again, maybe he's right, if I just control myself better I will be able to handle it, I will be happier?

I don't know.  But I'm still upset, and I don't know what that means.