What am I worth?

Lady Ultrasound's Avatar

I occupy this very odd interstitial space between hope and hopelessness. (Whoever thought frame of mind was like the thin edge along the top of a cliff, scissors-sharp, perilous, definitive? Sometimes I even straddle the edge-- or to put it more rightly, shuttle back and forth between the two.) Yesterday was dismal: all was futility. I lay in bed and, for the second day in a row, binge-watched clips from The Sopranos on YouTube. But today I am awake and have some sense of the haze lifting.

There are a number of discrete sources of my dismal outlook, tiny black beads of self-loathing erupting from the surface of a roiling skin. Naturally right now they are mostly about my fertility. My fears that my husband and I have ransomed our financial future (and present) for a procedure that may not, and in my heart of hearts I believe will not, work. And all the negative associations brought up by visiting my fertility doctor. And all the negative associations brought up by the daily regimen of medications.


But the emotional cataclysm is pulling into itself everything else, so that everywhere I turn my inner eye, I land upon something disturbing and further evidence of my worthlessness. My weight, for one. The fact that I quit my job. The fact that I have nothing meaningful to do for 3 months, and therefore risk spending 3 months watching The Sopranos on YouTube. The fact that I am literally- literally!- unable to motivate myself to exercise and have not done so in 6 days. And what stings in all these things is not the things themselves, but rather the significance I attribute to them. For they are all signs and signals of a moral failing, a certain worthlessness as a human being. My quitting my job and inability to accomplish anything are both signs that I have thrown away all my potential and talent. Even the most glorious accomplishments in the past evaporate in the chill air of each new day, and no matter what good I may have once done, today I am stranded in the Now of an island of worthlessness, waste, genetic offal.

Yet still, this morning I awoke and felt some shred of life quickening inside me. I won't call it hope; it is not positive thinking. But perhaps a slight absence of moral anguish.

I suspect one factor contributing to a slightly improved outlook is my spending time last night Googling "Lupron side effects." I found posts on online forums exactly articulating my experience, which includes depression and hopelessness. And it helped put my feelings into context, or at least help me separate myself from them enough to get the distance required to examine them properly. Because I have been feeling utterly "not myself," even granting that my usual self is depressed and anxiety-ridden. These past 2 weeks have been incalculably worse.

It is possible, indeed, that my inability to do anything except binge watch The Sopranos and sleep and eat (4 meals in one day-- all carbs, no vegetables) can be attributed to more than just my inveterate and deathless moral failings.

For admittedly, I just tapered off Lexapro.

And admittedly, I have not created any life for myself this summer beyond fertility treatments.

And admittedly, Lupron probably has some effect on my emotions.

And admittedly, it is natural to feel ambivalent about ending my job.

And admittedly, I'm alone in my house right now.

Which is all simply to say, perhaps I should cut myself some slack.

It's hard. I totter. Even having written those words, I instinctively (no! perhaps hormonally?) wish to counter it with a catalogue of my deficiencies and failings. I weigh 165 pounds! That's 20 more than I did at my wedding, and probably 10 more than I did last year! Mirror horror! I literally (I do not exaggerate) can no longer fit into any clothes except one pair of pants and skirts with elastic bands! I haven't read a book in a week even though I have literally absolutely nothing to do and have chosen instead to emotionally abuse myself by watching The Sopranos on YouTube! I can't even bring myself to return to writing Morning Pages through The Artist's Way, the only method I've ever found for clawing my way toward some sense of efficacy and self-worth!

Yet now the breeze blows again, a leaf falls, the sun moves an inch. My weight shifts onto the other leg, to the other side of the ridge. This may just all be the feelings of a moment! I'm in a trough- hold on! This is the drugs speaking, not me! Feel these feelings, but attribute no meaning or significance to them! Take action (exercise! eat right!) to right myself, and sure enough, I'll feel better! These feelings will not last forever! This, too, shall pass! I will feel good/happy/strong again! Listen to the voice inside that reviles the depression devil and clutches at the tattered scabs of self-worth!

Ah, that word, self-worth. The value one places on oneself. One's worth, one's merit, the amount one would be paid in exchange for the self.

How much do I value myself?

How can I increase my price?