As part of my continuing efforts to write my way out of depression and force by brain to rewire itself for positivity by sheer force of will, tonight I am going to remind myself that my life is quite nice sometimes.

I need this reminder because I have been going through some heavy emotional turbulence lately and I am a little scared. The pathways for both joy and sadness have never been more open, and the ride gets rockier every day.

I know that, with time, this will all even out and when the storm breaks, I will be a stronger and more solid person, and therefore much happier than a weaker, wetter me.

But you have to survive today to get to tomorrow, and the razor’s edge seems to be cutting me very deeply lately. I feel like I am in more danger now than I was when I was more depressed and less functional.

Certain thoughts pass rapidly through my mind like the light from a passing car’s headlights shining in a bedroom window. They go fast because I suppress them (hard!) the moment I recognize them. These thoughts are not wanted or welcome and I am too damned angry at my depression to permit them the slightest purchase, so they just pass through my mind like clouds through the sky.

Nevertheless, it has me scared. To be afraid of yourself is a special kind of hell, even at this low a level. Turns out the exit from dysthymic depression is a very scary ride.

But it’s not always like that. That is what I need to remind myself of constantly. The numbness of depression can make it seem like all of life is a uniform useless unsatisfying gray, totally blotting out the reality that some of the time life is quite nice, actually.

Logically speaking, we all know that there are times in our lives which are more pleasant than others. Even in a fairly flatlined life like mine, there are times when I am quite happy, as well as times when I am… the opposite.

Invariably, these happy times are when I am hanging out with my friends. I love my friends and we get along incredibly well. Our social times together are quite precious to me. They are my happiest moments in any given week. They are, in fact, the closest thing to joy that this numb and frozen heart of mine can experience, at least within present limits.

Who knows, my bus pass might arrive any day now and that might unlock a whole new world for me. But for now, my socialization is with my friends, and I am fine with that.

We hang out, watch videos, eat snacks, and chat. We enjoy one another’s company. It is pretty darn awesome.

My favorite day is Sunday, because that is the day we can do the full evening. A meal out, then I spend time with Felicity as I shop for my weekly supplies, then back to the apartment for video watching and hanging out.

I enjoy this evening so much that when it ends, I always feel a little sad, like a miniature version of post-Xmas blues. Oh no, a whole week before this happens again? Waaah.

That leaves my alone time, which is copious and burdensome. Partly that is my fault as I do not seem to have enough momentum to break my cycle of spending all day playing video games on my tablet. And while that kills time, it also kills my life and my soul. It is junk food, pleasure without nutrition, and worst of all, it encourages me to just lay in bed all day.

The tablet has actually made my life even more inactive. I don’t even have to get out of bed to waste my time and my life any more. Before the tablet, I at least had to get up and sit at the computer.

Not any more! Thanks to a miracle of modern technology, I can spend all day in bed and not even get bored!

Frustrated, lonely, and depressed, sure. Bot not bored! Never bored. Not with so many toys.

But even my alone times are not uniformly bad. Some days are better than others. Every day seems to have a period when I feel incredibly bad lately, usually between 4 pm and 7 pm. It’s like having a headache throughout your entire body, and it makes me want to scream and break things.

I don’t, of course. But I want to.

But that is not what my whole life is like. There are times in every day when I am, if not exactly blissful, at least fairly untroubled and relaxed.

When I am writing my blog entry, for example. The act of writing relaxes a tightly cramped muscle inside me, presumably from a backlog of words that need to come out of me. My urge to express myself is very strong.

So usually, unless I am having a VERY bad day, I am fairly happy while I am blogging. It makes me feel awake and alive and like something I do matters and has purpose.

All that, and catharsis too? That’s a pretty decent deal.

I am also fairly content when I am eating a meal and watching stuff on Netflix. Feeding my face and my mind at the same time creates a fairly decent island of stability in the tumultuous waters of my mind, leaving very few mental CPU cycles left over for the cancerous self-digestion that is neurosis

So really, it is just a matter of getting through the day’s rough patch as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Convincing myself to get up and move around more would help, but it can’t be forced. If I try to force the mechanism, the whole system shuts down.

I have to coax myself instead. Come on, just do this, and then see if you feel like doing more.

Like I am my own kindly physiotherapist.

Be the parent I never had, I guess.

But… then they will have gotten away with it!