Warning: Depression Rant Ahead
No yarny goodness today, people! If you want a cheery post, I suggest you go elsewhere! Also, if you are of a nervous disposition or are offended by bad (or as I like to call it, vigorously emphatic) language.
I am so VERY FUCKING SICK of being depressed all the time. I was thinking about trying to get back to 'normal' the other day, and I realised that I have no idea what 'normal' is. I know 'normal' is different for everyone, but I don't know what normal should feel like for me. I don't know what it is or how to get there. It's all very well to try and fight the depression, but shouldn't I know what I'm fighting for?? Shouldn't I have a goal that's better defined than 'not too depressed'?
All this leads, of course, to me questioning my entire identity. If so much of me is made up of depression and anxiety and stress and self loathing - what's left? Would I recognise it if I saw it?
Maybe this is why I'm having so much trouble fighting the depression - I'm fighting for a return to health that I'm not sure I ever had.
I want to get OUT from under this thing, but I don't know how - I don't know how not to be depressed any more. Which is, let's face it, terribly depressing. Is the sum total of my life going to be "Fat and Depressed"?
And why the arseing hell am I dutifully taking my meds for if they're not helping? Lord knows I can be this depressed without chemical aid. Nope, don't need meds to be depressed!
Please don't think this is a request for reassurances or pats on the head - I need to get this off my chest. It's a new line of thinking for me and one I think I need to explore a bit further.
I am so VERY FUCKING SICK of being depressed all the time. I was thinking about trying to get back to 'normal' the other day, and I realised that I have no idea what 'normal' is. I know 'normal' is different for everyone, but I don't know what normal should feel like for me. I don't know what it is or how to get there. It's all very well to try and fight the depression, but shouldn't I know what I'm fighting for?? Shouldn't I have a goal that's better defined than 'not too depressed'?
All this leads, of course, to me questioning my entire identity. If so much of me is made up of depression and anxiety and stress and self loathing - what's left? Would I recognise it if I saw it?
Maybe this is why I'm having so much trouble fighting the depression - I'm fighting for a return to health that I'm not sure I ever had.
I want to get OUT from under this thing, but I don't know how - I don't know how not to be depressed any more. Which is, let's face it, terribly depressing. Is the sum total of my life going to be "Fat and Depressed"?
And why the arseing hell am I dutifully taking my meds for if they're not helping? Lord knows I can be this depressed without chemical aid. Nope, don't need meds to be depressed!
Please don't think this is a request for reassurances or pats on the head - I need to get this off my chest. It's a new line of thinking for me and one I think I need to explore a bit further.
posted by Peevish | 9:09 AM
10 Comments:
*hug* I can totally relate....
hang in there. christy from rainbow chills just wrote something similar. daylight savings begins this weekend. i hope that helps. but getting it off your chest must surely help a bit. take care. and we are listening.
Hope the venting helped - and the exploration leads to something good.
Hang in there. Good health is definitely worth fighting for, even when it's hard, sometimes, to remember what it feels like.
Reassuring you and patting you on the head anyway. We won't go into what my persona has turned out to be.
Hope getting it it there a bit helped too.
Wow, you sound just like me. The whole spending so much of your life depressed that you think that's just a fundamental part of who you are, just like me. Wow.
I know I don't know you or anything, but I got your page from the Harlot's about coming to NY a day after the launch. That sucks hard. But if you're up to it, I'd totally be down for lunch and a yarn crawl when you do arrive, as I'll be there for a few days.
I don't know if this will help you, but I think that talking about depression is something that needs to be done. It shouldn't be ignored and since I can relate my experience, I WILL! :)
For myself, I know I had to hit bottom to really be motivated. Otherwise it was really easy to just stay depressed. It was comforting. Black and dark and lonely, but comforting because I knew it.
I sort of liked the dark and morbid me and I was afraid that if I got happy, the dark and morbid me would go away and I would be some happy zombie like all the other happy zombies out there. I didn't want to be an automaton, so I resisted going to therapy and did things I knew would keep me unhappy and didn't do things that would help me be happy. But I had a really great therapist, and she asked me to describe something that I thought was beautiful. Something without any association to me except that it was beautiful. So I chose Calla Lilies. And I got some silk Callas and put them at the foot of my bed, so that every morning I would wake up and see something beautiful in this world that was worth getting out of bed for. Some days I would stare at them for a while before I got out of bed and some days just seeing them made me smile. But eventually I could get out of bed without them.
They helped me make a conscious choice to be happy or at least THINK happy at least once every day. Being happier got easier and easier as I started seeing things differently and dealing with the issues that caused the depression in the first place.
I don't want to sound discouraging, but if you're anything like me, this will actually be encouraging. The darkness never fully goes away. There's always a residue of depression lurking. But really it does make the happy times contrast so much more. And once you've been suicidal it fundamentally changes something in your being. Once you've been the point where you were willing to take YOUR OWN LIFE, nothing is quite as bad ever again. It's almost there as a security blanket, knowing that you could just end it all if things get worse than you can imagine them getting.
Coming out of depression is like a second adolescence sometimes. You have to re-define who you are. YOu have to figure it out. But the beautiful thing is that it's not about "finding" who you are. It's about making yourself into who you want to be. If you can get through the sadness and the deep overwhelming nothing of depression, then you can make yourself whoever you want to be.
*hug*
Venting is good for the soul sometimes. *hug*
You've raised really good questions there. If you have a happy moment, write it down. You don't need to share it with us, just with yourself for later on. Do you do CBT? Is your treatment looking at changing thought patterns and helping build a new you? It is hard to break an entrenched way of being when your head chemicals aren't cooperating. I wish I could do more to help.
You are more to us than just "fat and depressed." And you are allowed to swear cos this is important ;-)
Hug. I know what you are going through.
You know, I had the same fears when I started therapy. What would I be if I dealt with my past and let go of my anger? Would all of me collapse? What would be left of me without the dysfunction?
But I found out, and you will too, I know you will, that there is a person under the bad that is fabulous. You are SO much more than "Fat and Depressed". You're smart, funny, resilient, determined, kind, friendly, creative, gifted when it comes to lace knitting, and the fact that you keep fighting instead of just giving in and letting yourself just stay miserable... that tells me that above all you're a strong woman who KNOWS that she's way more than just a two word description.
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