Source: trauma.blog.yorku.ca
Tonight I’m having a really bad night. I don’t know why. I feel myself sinking deeper and further into depression. I’ve been so down lately. I hate this feeling and I hate myself for feeling it.
I talk to my best friend, she’s great. Always there for me, understanding. She tries to be practical, to help me see that there are ups and downs, and that’s okay. It’s important to remember when you’re down that an up is just around the corner. Problem is when you’re down it’s the ups you don’t believe in.
It’s hard to talk about depression with people who haven’t experienced it. I feel like a loser. Debbie downer. Suck it up and move on right? But I can’t. It overwhelms me, it swallows me whole, it ravishes me. There were times in the past when all I could think about was the end. It was bad. Now I know it’s just a thought and not something I would follow through on. I’m not sure what changed. Maybe it was the medication who knows. But now I feel myself falling into this pit again.
I tell myself I’m in a rut. It’s a phase, a hole I can climb out of. But it feels so overpowering and I feel helpless. I can’t talk about it much, I feel like I just bring other people down, I burden them, weigh them down with my issues, my problems, my self-centered weakness. I know it’s not true, but I know it in my mind not in my heart. I have all the sympathy in the world for people who go through this–I know what it feels like. But somehow I can’t extend any sympathy to myself. I can’t change how it makes me feel.
I don’t ever want to cry in front of someone, or call them crying, or reach out and allow myself to be supported by someone else. I take responsibility for myself. I want to be strong, and to fix anything that’s bothering me. It’s just hard to not blame myself, to not feel down on myself, be hard on myself. I really am not happy with my job right now. I hate it, I’m bored, it’s not fulfilling. But one thing I hate more is complaining–I can’t stand it when people complain about things they have the power to change. And a job is just such a thing. So I don’t want to feel down because my life feels unfulfilled.
I want to take initiative, find something I enjoy, find a job that I like, knowing that nothing is perfect. Find my passion–keep writing. It’s just when I’m down like this I want to change and do these things but I can’t bring myself out of this darkness to do it. So I hide away. I isolate myself so others don’t have to be burdened by me, and my sadness. I guess I’d rather be lonely than a burden.
It’s just hard because there’s a part of me that firmly asserts: this is not me. This is not who I am. Well, who is it then? I don’t know, it’s like I’m a puppet on a string and Depression controls my moves, overrides what I might choose for myself. I am not a pessimist. I am independent, I am strong, I believe in achieving things for yourself, fighting for what you want, being good to other people, working hard.
This isn’t me, but somehow, something stops me from being who I am. Or who I feel I am when the sun shines through and the strings are cut loose.
Unlearning the Fear 