Tied Together with a Smile

So, January, we meet again.  Damn.  This time of year has historically been really tough for me.  My poor tired neurotransmitters need more sunlight, there is the post-holiday letdown, there's something in the water, I don't know, but the first two or three months of the year usually herald a period of alternating mainly between anxiety, depression, and just plan frustration and hopelessness.  Nice, huh?  Every time I've bottomed out with the ED, it's happened around February (not to imply that I bottom out *every* February, though).

Anyway, I've felt that creeping in on me over the past 4 days or so.  I will get in the car to drive somewhere and find myself crying for no identifiable reason.  Waking up in the morning feels like a big weight on my chest, and it's hard to get up even after I've been lying awake since the earliest hours of the morning.  I slip into a state of definite detachment when I amp up my already overdone workouts, completely dissociated from pain and/or logic about what I'm probably doing to my joints, heart, etc.  I do friendly banter with my family like the golden daughter I'm supposed to be.  I do my work and fire back responses, drafts, and documents to my adviser as fast as possible, to be the assiduous and stable worker that I'm supposed to be.  I tap out witty, cheerful text messages to my M. to be the entertaining, confident, no worries girlfriend that I want to be . . . when I actually feel like my head is about to explode from loneliness because I can't tell him what's wrong.  Because I don't know what's wrong.  I want desperately to talk to someone, to tell them that *something is not right*, just to get it off my chest....but I can't figure it out myself, much less articulate it, which makes for very ineffective reaching out habits, as you might imagine.  But every time I paint on a big fake smile, it feels like it comes closer and closer to choking me.

I think part of what has me so stressed is thinking about moving back to my university town in a few months.  Now I'm *not* worried about the moving back out on my own part.  That part I can't wait for.  The past 6 months have been really challenging because, after 5 years of living solo, I was really set in my ways and used to having my own space. The all of the sudden I'm sharing a kitchen with 4 other people and a bathroom with my two teenage brothers. Culture shock...

The issue is more of one to getting onto a schedule that includes and hinges on other people.  Over the past few months, I've been working entirely from home in between trips to my field site.  Which means I've totally dictated my own schedule and routines.  Which would be nice, if it weren't a perfect opportunity to structure my day around exercise and food rituals.  So the thought of going back to active engagement at my university, where there are places I'm expected to be at times I may not be able to choose, is pretty stressful.  I've handled it before and I'll handle it again, but the anticipation of that loss of freedom is always a big downer.  I can feel the dread building in my chest whenever I think about it, even though  in reality I'm not free now.  So many nights I go to bed wishing I had spent my day differently, but feeling completely powerless to change anything.

Also, my adviser has been a bit distant any way less friendly than usual this week.  He's under an enormous amount of stress due to some important professional milestones coming up, but I am rarely able to view it that objectively.  I just assume that any email with a tone that is less than overtly positive means he's unhappy with me.  And one of the things MOST likely to cause me an anxiety attack is thinking that someone is mad at me or unhappy with me for something, so it has bee a really rough week in that regard.

It occurred to me today that this is the first winter in 5 years that I have not been in therapy, which could explain my bout of "I need someone to talk to but don't know how to ask for it."  Before, there was someone that was paid to sit their ass in a chair and listen to my braindump every week.  Now I don't have that, and it's useless to try to find a new therapist right now when I'm planning to move in about 4 months.

It's not like I have no one to talk to.  I do, indeed, have friends.  Good ones.  They don't live nearby, but that doesn't matter as much in the era of the reign of Facebook.  I have an amazingly insightful and caring boyfriend that really wants to be there for me.  I have a solid family that loves me no matter what. I have the coolest dog EVER, and he happens to be both an excellent listener and a hopeless clown that can always get me to laugh.  But I'm still so heart-numbingly lonely right now, and I don't know why.

I'm really starting to drag, past my bedtime, please excuse any incoherence in this post.

Not really sure of the graceful, natural way to wrap this up.  I know that this is a seasonal pattern for me and a lot of it will be solved just with time, but damn if it's not rough while it lasts.

I know posting song lyrics is kind of cliche, but the refrain from Taylor Swift's song "Tied Together with a Smile" sort of hits home for me right now:
Hold on baby you're losing it
The water's high, and you're jumping in to it 
And letting go, and no one knows
That you cry, but you don't tell anyone
That you might not be the golden one
And you're tied together with a smile, but you're coming undone . . .