There are many folks out there who do not really understand depression. They are the lucky ones. And there are a lot of folks who are depressed and don't understand it.
Depression and I know each other well. Fortunately, this year it's more of a sparring match than the deep depression it was a couple of years ago. But I have been considering depression and it's effect on me and thought I'd take a moment to describe it, or at least how it appears to me.
Depression is an insidious foe. Rarely does it hit like a ton of bricks, possibly because it knows I'd shake it off and fight. No, it is more like the sinking of the sun, a gradual process whereby the sky imperceptably changes color until the bright blue has given way to a darker blue. Unless you focus on something ovehead, a planet or star that is slowly beginning to shine brightly, you might not notice it until the sky was inky black. In many ways, depression for me is like boiling a frog, slowly turning up the heat so the frog doesn't recognize his danger. That's where I was in 2002 when M broke up with me. I found myself then in a deep, dark abyss, not put there by the loss of M but I was so tied up in mourning the relationship that I didn't realize where I was headed until I was in the pit.
And that, my friends, is a hard pit to dig out of. Especially so for me. Generally even the folks close to me don't know when I am getting depressed, they don't know until I suddenly pull away, distant; with the fragile mask I wear that shows the "me" everyone knows too stressed from the strain of holding back my fears and sadness and anger and other emotions that it cracks and I find I cannot show that mask for more hours than I absolutely have to in order to function and draw down my paycheck. But, what is it like inside that pit?
Stifling is the first word that comes to mind. Stifling and close, hard to move, hard to function, hard to breath, hard to think. My brain feels like it is filled with molasses not blood and things that should make sense do not. As a general rule, I am not a gregarious individual. I prefer my books and silence to groups of people but I still like interaction with folks, one on one or one on two. I feel safe there. In larger groups I don't feel as safe for lots of reasons, as I am not the most socially gifted individual on the planet and I will misread folks and it becomes easy to make a faux pas. But when depression settles in it is as though a curtain is drawn between myself and even my closest friends. Intellectually I know they love me, care about me, are worried about me, but the slowness of thinking causes me to try to block them out.
The other thing about being in the pit of depression is that it isn't as totally dark as one might think. There are times during the day when the mask is on and I am on top of my game, but that just makes the depression all the greater when it comes rushing in and I sit with my cracked mask in one hand and my head held in the other. And that's not the only thing, at least not for me. Because I have known and seen my darker side. I have experienced my Hyde to the normal Jekyll that most people know me as. And I can tell you that what exists inside me is something that I will burden very few people with, though I am going to need to do that in the future when I find the person I can truly trust with both my heart and soul. And I neither relish the prospect of showing them who I really am nor the result of that.
But there is a reason I write this post now. Because I know the symptoms of my depression and can and do fight them when they come up. I known that, while it may be a struggle to deal with depression in an early stage, it is far easier to struggle there then to have to pull myself up, grasping, clawing, slipping down two inches for every three I climb up the side of the pit to get out.
I have suceeded against my depression and have made an oath that it will never drag me down to that spot again. And I know that some of the folks who read this journal are sometimes worried by what I've recently written. I am documenting things for me as much as putting them out there for you all to read. And both my personal diary and some very specific friends only entries for folks whom are concerned and need to know things.
There are many folks out there who do not really understand depression. They are the lucky ones. And there are a lot of folks who are depressed and don't understand it.
Depression and I know each other well. Fortunately, this year it's more of a sparring match than the deep depression it was a couple of years ago. But I have been considering depression and it's effect on me and thought I'd take a moment to describe it, or at least how it appears to me.
Depression is an insidious foe. Rarely does it hit like a ton of bricks, possibly because it knows I'd shake it off and fight. No, it is more like the sinking of the sun, a gradual process whereby the sky imperceptably changes color until the bright blue has given way to a darker blue. Unless you focus on something ovehead, a planet or star that is slowly beginning to shine brightly, you might not notice it until the sky was inky black. In many ways, depression for me is like boiling a frog, slowly turning up the heat so the frog doesn't recognize his danger. That's where I was in 2002 when M broke up with me. I found myself then in a deep, dark abyss, not put there by the loss of M but I was so tied up in mourning the relationship that I didn't realize where I was headed until I was in the pit.
And that, my friends, is a hard pit to dig out of. Especially so for me. Generally even the folks close to me don't know when I am getting depressed, they don't know until I suddenly pull away, distant; with the fragile mask I wear that shows the "me" everyone knows too stressed from the strain of holding back my fears and sadness and anger and other emotions that it cracks and I find I cannot show that mask for more hours than I absolutely have to in order to function and draw down my paycheck. But, what is it like inside that pit?
Stifling is the first word that comes to mind. Stifling and close, hard to move, hard to function, hard to breath, hard to think. My brain feels like it is filled with molasses not blood and things that should make sense do not. As a general rule, I am not a gregarious individual. I prefer my books and silence to groups of people but I still like interaction with folks, one on one or one on two. I feel safe there. In larger groups I don't feel as safe for lots of reasons, as I am not the most socially gifted individual on the planet and I will misread folks and it becomes easy to make a faux pas. But when depression settles in it is as though a curtain is drawn between myself and even my closest friends. Intellectually I know they love me, care about me, are worried about me, but the slowness of thinking causes me to try to block them out.
The other thing about being in the pit of depression is that it isn't as totally dark as one might think. There are times during the day when the mask is on and I am on top of my game, but that just makes the depression all the greater when it comes rushing in and I sit with my cracked mask in one hand and my head held in the other. And that's not the only thing, at least not for me. Because I have known and seen my darker side. I have experienced my Hyde to the normal Jekyll that most people know me as. And I can tell you that what exists inside me is something that I will burden very few people with, though I am going to need to do that in the future when I find the person I can truly trust with both my heart and soul. And I neither relish the prospect of showing them who I really am nor the result of that.
But there is a reason I write this post now. Because I know the symptoms of my depression and can and do fight them when they come up. I known that, while it may be a struggle to deal with depression in an early stage, it is far easier to struggle there then to have to pull myself up, grasping, clawing, slipping down two inches for every three I climb up the side of the pit to get out.
I have suceeded against my depression and have made an oath that it will never drag me down to that spot again. And I know that some of the folks who read this journal are sometimes worried by what I've recently written. I am documenting things for me as much as putting them out there for you all to read. And both my personal diary and some very specific friends only entries for folks whom are concerned and need to know things.