I’m pretty depressed today, But it’s no big deal. There is no problem or lack of pleasure.
It’s just the weather.
That songs sums it up perfectly. I haven’t stopped feeling the depression. It’s still there and as unpleasant as ever, like a dark cloud hanging over my head and soaking me to the bone with a cold and unclean rain.
But it’s just the weather. I dion’t take it personally or let it shape my view of reality. Reality hasn’t change. My brain chemicals have changed.
And as we have established ibeyond doubt n these pages, they don’t know what the fuck they are talking about.
So I don’t take the depression personally any more than I take the weather personally. The fact that it’s raining in my life right now is as meaningless to who and what I am as whether or not it’s raining out.
In that sense. it has very little to do with me. At best, we’re partners in circumstance.
It will pass. It always passes. Depression would tell me otherwise – it would have me believe that nothing gets any better ever even thought that is demonstrably untrue and completely aburd on the face of it.
It’s like having a cold and thinking that cold will last forever. Obviously not. You’ve had colds before and you got over those. You have not had a cold your entire life. Most of the time you have not had a cold. And this cold, like the others, will go away.
It’s the same for depressive episodes for me now. Sooner or later I will feel better and in the meantime, I will do what I can to weather the storm.
Apparently, it’s air imagery night.
I told you that to tell you this : what I want to talk about tonight is giving myself permission to stay out of the rain. Learning to accept that there are good days and bad day and thus forgive myself for the days in which I do nothing productive because those are the days when it is an acccomplishment just to make it to bedtime.
It’s a matter of emotional organization, really. Right now, I always ache to get things done and the warm wet whirlwind within never stops churning out ideas and nternal speeched and insights and all the other wonderful things that my mind produces all the time that I am awake.
It might happen in my sleep too, but if so. I don’t remember it.
But a fair bit of the time, I am suffering from depression, and therefore can be forgiven for not getting anything done because I am quite ill.
In fact, I know that berating myself for my lack of productivity only makes things worse. Maybe that’s the point. I don’t know.
And no matter what I tell myself, without giving myself that vital permission, and with the pain of unexpression burning as hotly as ever, as well as the twin fires of dreams and ambitions, plus the long deep yearning to be part of society like a grownup, my bad wiring interprets all that pain as being justified by how bad I suck and I take it out on myself in the usual fashion.
In reality, it’s just a bunch of unfulfilled desires that, in a healthier person, would do what they are supposed to do and drive me to fulfill them.
It’s like being hungry and instead of eating you just sit there hating yourself for being hungry and using it as proof that you suck at life.
That’s how insane depression is…. it turns natural healthy instincts and drives into reasons to hate yourself.
Yet another little naptime. I do feel a lot better now, so there’s that.
So how do I give myself that oh so important permission to have bad days?
For starters, telling my dreams and ambitions to cool it.
Yes, I know how badly I want to finally be able to support myself and feel like I am a vital and living part of the world and not just some dead skin that refuses to shed. I know how frustrating it can be when you want something really bad and it feels like it’s almost within reach but you never actually get it.
Yes, I know it’s very tempting to take that frustration out on myself. But that shit’s got to STOP. The cost is too high. The pain is too much.
And I know how hard this will be given how long I have been waiting, but it is time to learn to be patient. Waiting is fullness. There is no point in tearing myself apart being I can’t have what I want, especiallhy when the main reason I can’t have what I want is that I keep tearing myself up.
Funny how that works out.
So patience it is. I will wait patiently for the rain to stop or at least fade to mere sprinkles and get as much done as I can before the next storm comes.
That’s a hard thing for me to accept. My inner fire rorars higher abd bristles with offended pride at the idea that I must live such a furtive and dismal life. I would much rather be able to finally be able to go at life, hammer and tongs, and kick some ass and grow sharp elbows with which to shove my way through the madding throng and take my place on life’s big stage.
But I am sick. And it’s not going away any time soon. Better to accept that fact than to constantly be burning myself in effigy. Better to get over it and get on with my life.
This isn’t a bad dream. This is my life. And I am not going to suddenly snap out of it one day. I’m not going to give my head a shake and says “Wait, the idea is to NOT be sad!” and then the whole thing will be over.
Not going to happen. No more denial. I am a very sick man and that imposes some harsh limits on my life and they are here to stay, at least for now.
I hereby own my ilness.
And thus, I set myself free.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.