Everybody's Talking About It, So Why Don't We?

Here's the thing about dealing with Depression: if you've been dealing with it for long enough (and twenty years is plenty long enough, thanks) you start to recognize the "It's Coming" symptoms.  If you're really lucky, you've also learned to maybe brace yourself a bit for the inevitable.  Knowing that It's Coming means you recognize Depression when it shows up, and recognizing Depression when it shows up is a large part of not falling for the whole, "This is just the way life is, and the way it is, is empty and pointless," shtick that Depression likes to bring along.

For me the warning signs are a combination of factors. First I start to feel more sensitive to things- not emotionally, mind you. Physically. Lights are brighter, sounds are louder, my body feels like it has some low-grade tingly adrenaline running through it at all times, especially through my stomach, and my feet, bizarrely enough. This leads into a bit of a manic period, which isn't so bad. I'm on, and shit gets done, especially Creative Shit. But then it starts to leach away- everything does, but the clearest indicator is the loss of body heat.  I become cold. Always cold. That's how I know that Depression is on the doorstep, if not already inside.

It's inside today. I woke up and there it was, crouched in my chest and making itself comfortable in the over-crowded chambers of my heart. I greeted it with the sort of resigned familiarity that you reserve for particularly unwanted- yet unavoidable- house guests, and then I went back to sleep because dealing with Depression is Exhausting.

That's what I was thinking to myself later, as I was brushing my teeth; I know the things I need to do to battle my Depression, but gods damn it, I get so tired of it. It's so much easier just to give up and give in and stay in bed and sleep until it goes away again. Isn't this just making it worse? my brain whines.  Wouldn't succumbing to the Depression be so much easier than this constant trying?

Obviously it would be. But I've already set up my Auto-Pilot Program, and by gods I'm going to keep running it. Show up at Work, do the Things, send the Emails.  Smile when you talk and make Jokes and go through the fucking motions.

I resent every moment of it. I have every right to be Depressed, sulks my brain, and it's just bullshit that I'm not allowing myself to wallow.

No, I say right back, in that voice that sounds suspiciously like my mother's. I have a right to be sad. I do not have a right to derail my life, not while other people count on me. And they do.

Some lessons take root deeper than others. Deeper than Depression can reach, down past the brain and the blood and the heart and the bones, down into whatever it is that will be inside of me for as long as there is a me.  Sometimes my ability/tendency to shut off my emotions in favor of logic is a frightening thing to me, because it makes me feel less human than the people around me.  Other times I think it's the only thing that allows me to continue functioning, especially in the face of Depression, which overwhelms so many other aspects of my Self.

Anyway there's no real point to this entry- it's just me processing things with words, as I do.  And this too, shall pass.

It always does.