Chapter 30: The Bad Days are Rough

Photo by Gadiel Lazcano on Unsplash

Being mentally ill while being homeless makes being homeless so much harder. I was diagnosed with autism, ADHD, major depressive disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder about a year ago after dealing with the symptoms of those conditions my whole life. I’ve gone through phases where I feel one of the following things:

1. I am the greatest human being on the planet.
2. Everything and everyone makes me angry and I hate it all.
3. I wish I and everyone around me would just die.

I wish I could say number 1 is the one I spend most of my time in, but it’s really number 2. Number 3 occurs less so, but it’s very powerful and can derail any momentum I’ve built up while being at number 1. It’s those days that make me doubt whether I can achieve what I want to in life.

Being homeless compounds the issues that come with being in these three phases. My survival depends on me being able to function day to day, and to string together several days or weeks of increased progress. However, my efforts can be slowed once I enter phase number 2, where everything starts irritating me. My focus goes from maintaining momentum to being distracted by things that anger me.

Once that anger builds to a point, I slip into phase number 3. It usually involves a catalyst that becomes the breaking point. Once that breaking point is reached, I fall into doubt, I worry about failure, and I find myself worrying about my near future. I then spiral, and spend anywhere from a day to three days wallowing in self pity and depression.

It’s a predictable cycle, but the transitions from one to the other aren’t. I wish I could figure out what would make me snap or what would make me feel hopeless before it happened so I could avoid them. But I don’t have control over the universe. I simply have to recognize when it’s happening and change my behavior accordingly.

Changing that behavior is very difficult. It’s cathartic to get angry and rant and yell at people and the world. It’s also soothing to let the depression cover me like a warm blanket. Fighting those behaviors only seems to exacerbate them. So I let the feelings pass and hope that tomorrow is a better day.

This is the main reason why it takes me so long to accomplish anything. I have my drive interrupted and I have to start at square one once I’m back on track. It’s a cycle that gets old fast. I never feel like I make any progress in anything. This feeling causes me to question whether anything is worth doing at all. I can barely function to survive, much less accomplish something.

This is my reality and I have to accept it. The problems arises when the people and world around me refuses to accept it. In fact, society tells me that I’m worthless because I don’t accomplish anything. This only makes the anger and depression worse.

Perhaps one day, I’ll be able to string together enough good days to actually do something with my life. Until then, I have to fight the battle in my head and hopefully come out the other side.