Trying

That is me last week.  Having one of those "feeling sorry for myself" weeks.  Why?  Simple.......I let people get under my skin.  Most of the times I can control it, but sometimes I actually hurt.  This week it has been hurt.  I have mentioned before my poor social skills.  When I am around people I love or people I trust I can talk for years.  Unfortunately, I live in a place where there are people who have hurt me and talked negatively about me in the past.  Sadly, I still hear occasional thoughts thrown out there about me and I never know if they were really said or not...........yet they at times get under my skin.  After all I am human.

That being said, today is a new day.  This week I have had one heck of a nasty cold since Sunday.  So I have been stuck at home missing my scheduled runs the past few days.  Two days of a fever and one day of laryngitis make this mom miserable.  I finished my 20 page essay on teen pregnancy and finished two other assignments that are due this week.  So the cold did bring me one good thing, the ability to get caught up on my work.  It also brought me one other good thing.  I have had the chance to sit down and write in my thought journal a bit more.  I often write in this when I come home from running because it is when my mind is most clear and I have had a chance to work through all the things that run through my head.  So this week I have just written in it my journal to work through the feelings that sit on my shoulders.

Being someone who suffered from years of depression in the past it is not like it just goes away.  Sure I have not taken medicine for it in over 5 years now, but there are still times that dark cloud looms over me. That has been the case this past week and a half.  The fact I had so much on my plate assignment wise had me feeling a bit overwhelmed, add on to that some neighborhood chatter I get to hear and you see someone who is not ready to deal.  It was like being thrown into the dark cloud that had it's arms open waiting.  I even ran over 30 miles last week, but that did not help me work through the thoughts.  So I started writing in my thought journal and working through the feelings.  It made a huge difference.

You see I live in an area where I am kind of the outsider, part of it is my own doing and part of it is the chatting of others.  The most frustrating part of it is that the chatting is from people who assume they know me, but have honestly never taken the chance to get to know me.  So really it is just talk, but there are times when I hear about it from those who do care about me and do stand up for me.  Most of the time it does not bother me, but one occasion it slams me into a wall and hurts.  That was recently.  I do thank God for the small group of wonderful people who are my friends in my neighborhood though.  They always cheer me up, even when they do not realize it.  This is a big step for me to write about this one my blog, but I guess in essence I am looking for advice.  How do you deal with gossip?  How do you deal with people who talk about you?  How do you deal with those weeks that are not so smiley?