Life is such a weird monstery thing. It's almost three in the afternoon, and I have yet to shower or dress. I feel flat. Not just flat, but pushed down. Down in the woolly mammoth of a stomach depression.
I even pushed myself to get things done today. Still sick, but doing. I organized my huge pink shelf in the dining room, and tidied my desk, setting up everything I need for the new things I want to make. I have been wanting to do this for months, and it looks great, but I feel 'meh' about it.
The weird thing is, depression doesn't just affect my feelings. It affects my mood and thoughts. There is a difference for me between feelings. Some feelings are fleeting and I can choose to hold on and experience them or not, but for me the feelings of depression dig deep, they permeate me, they recede into me.
I have been shuffling around the house in my slippers. Little things like peeing seem to take too much effort. Taking a shower sounds like torture. I walk through the hallway thinking "how does anyone do this?!?!", "how do people live without feeling like shit all the time? without wanting to kill themselves?".
I have depression, and it fucks with me. I hate it. I remind myself that the last several nights I've had horrible sleep, and that I have been sick for seven weeks, but still...depression is a bitch, and it's here, and it may not go away for a while.
I just have to live in the tiny moments. In the dog pats, and husband talks, in washing the dishes while looking at all the buds on our lemon tree outside. Even if I don't feel anything, even if I feel the worst, life keeps shuffling forward, in slippers or heals, life is here. I hate it but I've had a few days where I love it, and those days were nice.
I want to bring you tea and muffins. A lot.
ReplyDeletexo
Kim, you are so freakin' sweet! I would love to have muffins and tea with you! That would be so awesome!
Deletexx, C
"I hate it but I've had a few days where I love it, and those days were nice." I wish I didn't understand this line or this entire post so very, very well. Depression is a monster. It's a parasite that lives inside you and hollows out your insides and makes you feel sick and weak and whispers things that bounce around the blank edges and curves inside your now-empty yet stuffed with cotton skull. I remember several points, but one in particular that was especially awful, where I was too depressed to even speak. I just didn't have the energy, didn't see the point, and it's like all my words were just lost, buried, siphoned out of me in the night as I slept restlessly. The worst part of it was that I was enrolled in a Bible college that specializes in literature evangelism and we were on a working trip that required me to knock on doors (yes, like a Mormon or Jehovah's Witness) and try to sell the people who answered Christian books. Talking. So much talking. 8+ hours a day of talking, and I was too depressed to speak. I cried a lot, in between houses.
ReplyDeleteNow, though… it doesn't hit me as badly or for as long, or even as frequently. I've got my thyroid disease more under control and treated which helps, I did a HELL of a lot of work in therapy and support groups and on my own to face and process through some of the abuse I endured for most of my life in one form or another, I got into and stayed in a healthy relationship (married the guy!) and I got on an antidepressant that helps regulate some of the ups and downs for me, smooths out the roller coaster as it were. Of course, now I have the incessant pain and the chronic illness shit and the whole "I'm disabled at 26 and my future, hopes, dreams, and goals have all been taken from me and shattered" thing to deal with but still…
I don't know why, but the depression isn't as volatile as it once was and I'm so very grateful. I wish the same for you, a smoothing of the roller coaster and a brightening of your days, a love for yourself that blooms steadily within you. I think that was a big part of the "turning point" for me (I feel like if I call it that, or say that it happened, I'm totally gonna jinx myself and just completely crash. Ugh.), was learning to hate myself less and start to "love" myself… i.e. see myself as having the same value as the other people in the world instead of mysteriously having lesser value and being less attractive and intelligent and funny and any other adjective you can think of than anyone else for no reason whatsoever. Maybe because I was abused so long that I began to actually believe the message that I wasn't worth cherishing or loving. Obviously I'm not worth much, if anything, because I was treated in such a way and told such things as to shatter my concept of self. Too bad that's a total lie, but you don't know that when you're growing up and formulating your worldview.
I wish you the best of… well… not luck, but fortune perhaps?