Depression, it cannot be seen on or in a person. You can’t look at a person and label them as depressed. One might be able to see sadness but sadness and depression is not the same.
I don’t talk about it to anyone. I never have. It’s mine and mine alone. It has been that way since I was a teen and it will be until I die, but I do and have written about it. As I discussed with my niece via text, writing and exposing yourself (even if to an imaginary crowd) is soul cleansing.
As The Bloggess says, “depression lies.” Your mind/emotions betray you. They tell you that you’re feeling this way and they make you believe it.
In reality, your mind is big fat liar.
This week was overwhelming to me emotionally/mentally. I don’t know what triggered “the darkness” (what I call it when I am going through a bout of depression), but all I know is that I wanted to do one of two things every day this week.
- Sit in the hottest shower I could stand and cry
- Crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head, and cry myself to sleep
- Drown my tears in a bottle of
Instead of sitting in the shower and crying, I sat in the shower and meditated. Trying to find the moment where “the darkness” seeped in, but I couldn’t find it. I tried running to see if it would manifest itself there. I tried strength-training workouts, lifting my muscles as a way of lifting my senses. Sometimes, I have to remind myself I will never know what triggers “that standing on the edge and looking over into a dark chasm.”
All I know is that I cannot succumb to it. I have to force myself do things that make me feel good like working out, writing, laughter with friends and co-workers even if inside I want to run and hide. I’ve learned that doing the three things above don’t really help me in getting through the darkness. Though, I will admit, a good solid cry every now and then does feel great, but this wasn’t one of those times it was going to feel great.
I couldn’t pinpoint the moment, but I can tell you what my brain was like all week. One giant roller coaster of white noise. Some will read this and think, “you’re just PMSing” and I can tell you this, when I am PMSing this is how I feel/think: I want candy (preferably Reese Cups by the bag) and bloat like a puffer fish…and that is pretty much it.
Monday – overwhelming sense of dread and anxiety. This is how Chicken Little must have felt when he thought the sky was falling down and the world was going to end.
Tuesday – everything angered me and I felt like the world was pushing my buttons to just piss me off more (at least I was able to recognize this and instead of lashing out, I kept a hold of my tongue)
Wednesday – an overwhelming sense of sadness and pain in my heart. I could have filled the driest of reservoirs with the tears I wanted to shed but I fought them back and ran from them
Thursday – high-low as I call it – one moment feeling happy, one moment something triggered tears hugging my lashes, one moment I’m so worried my stomach is in knots, one moment I’m so exhausted I just wanted to put my head on my desk and sleep and it went on like this all day. Days like this are exhausting.
Friday – same as Thursday…Hi-Lo
Saturday – it started out great. I had a great text exchange with my Scorpio Sistah from Another Mister, Julie. Then somewhere in the day, I started to feel transparent/invisible. I could have stepped out in front of a bus and it would have driven right through me. Then somewhere around evening, a headache just made me feel even worse. Then a feeling of hope and awe as I had a text exchange with my niece, Riley.
Sunday – I had to muster the energy to get out of bed to go cover a work event. Even after 8 hours of solid sleep, it felt like I had only been asleep for an hour. I also just didn’t “feel good.” After the event, I came home and crawled into bed and either slept or just stared out the window while in bed. Days like this are the pits for me. I would rather have a hi-lo day than a day of feeling like I am nothing. The day was made worse (if that was possible) with some bad news about a relative.
I don’t know what tomorrow may bring. Next week could be rainbows and unicorns and it could be that way for days, weeks, months, but I always know somewhere down the road that no matter how bright and shiny it is, there is a dark cloud hanging out, waiting for me. More often than not, I have great periods of bright and shiny, but when the dark clouds hit, sometimes they make it really hard to remember that.
In the end, that’s all I can do this for myself is to remember like Bono sings, “You’ve got stuck in a moment and now you can’t get out of it…it’s just a moment this time will pass.”