I have a complicated relationship with change.

Being a depressive, I have a tendency to instinctively fight it. A lot of us depressed people feel like we are just barely keeping our heads above the deep dark water of total insanity, and people in that position are going to react very poorly to anything that rocks the boat even the tiniest bit.

So we cling. Odds are, our situation is nowhere near as precarious as we think it is. But chemical imbalances are notoriously impervious to logic and common sense, so we have these feelings anyway. Therapy can reduce them over time, both the kind you get from a therapist and the kind you do on your own, but at no moment can you simply wish the bad chemicals away.

You know they’re wrong. But it doesn’t matter.

So no matter how progressive our politics and no matter how open and innovative our mind, our emotions are extremely conservative and they are always, always the one in charge.

There are no Vulcans.

On the other hand, I deeply desire change. Yes, at the same time I am resisting it. I both long for and deeply fear transformation. I want to transform and become a new butterfly instead of a very old caterpillar. But a deep part of me does not trust what it cannot control or predict, and it is always there saying, “But what if it goes wrong? What if you turn into something you don’t like? What if you become a bad person, or one that is even less happy?”

And so, I resist. And the butterfly within me grows and grows, constantly seeking the light, but trapped in the walls of my internal prison, and so the growth pressure increases with no end in sight.

And that pressure causes pain. A deep down pain of the soul. As deep as bone cancer, and as fundamental to one’s being. A pain we can neither see nor acknowledge because to do so would be to see that the real problem is one of suppressed growth, and that would tend to suggest that we need to stop clinging and let transformation happen, and our entire personalities have been rearranged by the illness to stop that very thing from happening.

We must cling. Clinging is everything. Sane or not, we feel like we are dangling over the cliff of oblivion, and only by clinging to our tenuous perch with all the strength we have can we escape the unthinkable annihilation below.

This is what accounts for our often paradoxical and irrational ways. We hate our lives but resist all change. We hate ourselves and yet suppress the slightest amount of internal growth. We blame ourselves for everything yet take responsibility for nothing.

We’re really fucked up.

As I grow stronger, I become more open to the idea of transformation. My progress thus far has been slow and gradual. It has to be in order to not set off my fears of change and the ground shifting beneath my feet. As I recover, the pace of change increases and my sense of danger decreases. But it still takes a long time.

A big spiritual transformation would sure speed things along nicely. But it doesn’t seem to be something I can generate on my own. It takes something external to get things moving, whether it’s events in my actual life or something from a movie or a YouTube video that slips through my defenses and unlocks another room full of suppressed emotion and outmoded thought.

And that only happens at very specific moments, when the stars are aligned, my shell is at its thinnest, and the right thing happens at the right time. It’s a one in a million shot, and so it doesn’t happen all that often.

But the stronger I get, the more I am willing to lower the odds and maybe let those big things happen to me more often. While they are rarely pleasant, I always feel a whole lot better after, and for a while, the growth pressure is abated.

And my burden gets just a little lighter.

And part of me really wants to throw open the floodgates and release the floodwaters from all sides, and let there be thunder and lightning and fire and war on my inner seas, and at the end, when seas are silent, I will become whatever’s left.

Really tempted to link that Peter Gabriel song again. Not going to do it.

But I guess I am still too afraid of unpredictable outcomes to push the button. The problem is a profound lack of faith. I can’t just tell myself that everything will be all right. I lost the ability to believe that when I was very young. For good an definitely ill, I learned that there is nobody out there whom I can trust to protect me or support me or even just tell me that everything is going to be alright.

There’s just me, and there are some things you just can’t do for yourself. Normal people seem to have a sense that somehow, it’s not all them. That they can act on emotion all the time without worrying about not knowing where it leads.

They didn’t have to learn existentialism when they were elementary school.

But I can’t do that trick. I can’t convince myself that everything will be all right without solid evidence to support that conclusion. I have the deep paranoia that says things will only be okay if you make them be okay, and otherwise, the cold and thoughtless world will crush you the moment you let your guard down.

It’s a hell of a way to live. No wonder I can’t sleep right.

I’m not sure opening the floodgates is something you can choose to do in the first place. The whole idea might be hopelessly naive. But if it is possible, someday, I will get there, and push that button firmly and decisively.

Because really, what have I got to lose?

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.