le D word

From my former blog All My Little Words on March 6, 2009 but has since been removed.


"Either you reach a higher point today, or you exercise your strength in order to be able to climb higher tomorrow." ~Nietzsche


Depression = Downer


So, the thing is, you see, nothing ever changes. My thirst for it never dwindles. It never stops pendulously dangling in front of me, the prize that is, goading me, deriding me in vain to get up. "What's wrong with you? Why don't you just get out of bed? C'mon! Tackle this day in front of you," it says. I have no idea why. The only thing I do know is that I just can't do much.


The prize, ultimately, is a life fulfilled. The prize is accomplishing anything on my 101, which really is only 39. The prize, in the simplest sense, would be to function. So why can't I do just that when, really, it's all I want?


I've exhausted my friends with my theories of my paucities, blaming much of it on familial history. To be honest, I've exhausted the idea that all this is to blamed on my upbringing. I've assiduously analyzed it, and while there's only so much to be said and I've said all there is to say, opacity proceeds.


I've become a pathological liar. I lie to friends and family. I tell them I'm pursuing a job hunt, going to the gym, working on a better me, when honestly I'm encased in my bed. I'm not particularly sad, not overwhelmed with sorrow or pain from the lesions of my youth, at least not consciously. It's just that I'm stapled here. (There are exceptions but more on that later.) I accomplish little, and so I lie. I lie because I feel like their support is fragile, like they'll give up on tiresome old me. Mostly that support is what helps me achieve what little I do. So I've lost touch with a lot of people; my aunt, my sister, friends, people I just don't want to lie to anymore. People I don't want giving up on me but who I believe are unable to put up with me, or it. So many people have their preconceived notions and prescriptions for someone like me. Do this, read this, watch this, eat this, drink this, and think this. There's a lot of think this. I've tried changing my thought patterns, it works for a week, but I always end up back where I started: in bed.


I'm not doing what I set out for myself because it's just too hard. Too hard and too much. I'm awful at explaining it, partly because I try to intellectualize it all the time, when it's so unimaginably, almost implausibly, simple. It kind of answers everything. But it is not something I like admitting to myself, because it wreaks of defeat. It is le D word. It is at the crux of it, reader.


I've never really respected depression. Possibly because I resent people around me who have it and haven't dealt with it accordingly or respected it. I resent it, contest the thought of it and am properly vexed by it. This aversion to depression is ubiquitous. Just the other night I was having dinner with my sister and she resisted the idea of my being on antidepressants for an extended period of time. She too believes depression is a cop-out. For whatever reason I was not blessed with the ability to shrug it off and work away my sorrows. Sister, who won't be reading this, what if taking more of it helps me accomplish things? What it helps me keep a job? Or graduate university? What if the little white pills helps me live normally without lying to everyone to let them think I'm living normally?


I've always rebuked myself for my shortcomings. "Why can't I just be like everyone else? How come it's taken me almost a decade to get a degree? How come I feel the innate drive of the keenest go-getter but never get past the preliminaries? What the fuck is wrong with me?"



Another reason for which I've negated this perpetual wet blanket is because, fleetingly, I can be the happiest, fun-est person around. I can make you laugh. I can be real girly and such a flibbertigibbet. I can passionately ramble on in jest about a celebrity I call my boyfriend and get really excited about things. Dogs, a good song, a new friend. I also seem to have the energy to make it to many movies and will almost always be game for a good catch up with a friend. None of this offers the slightest inkling of depression. It's not that through those moments I am actually sad and just being duplicitous, I am happy in those moments. It's the rest of the time that I feel handicapped... Interesting D trivia: Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller, Robin Williams and Jim Carrey all suffer from depression. These are people that make people happy for a living. I can sympathize.


I've been antagonized by le dark D for as long as I can remember, but alas, I might as well give in to it. It's not like I have a better alternative; everything's amiss and I just keep beating myself up for not being able to hop on the progress-happy bandwagon, so why not?


That's all I have to say about that.



3 comments:

  1. From someone who has also experienced the ugliness that is “le D” first hand, it is so clear you wrote this in the depths of what I call ‘recessions.’ It hurts to read your words because they send me back into the depths with you. But at the exact same time, not being in a recession right now, I can’t quite explain the full experience. I just know that every time I slide back down, it’s like seeing an old friend. Something is so frighteningly comfortable about that overwhelming sense of despair. To know that this is your world. Yours alone. But when you’re out, fully out of the hole, the thought of falling down deep is terrifying; you never want to be there ever again. However, if you’re just on the edge, peering over into the hole, it’s like something in the very depths of your being is pulling and taunting, reminding you of how comfortable and almost joyous the ride down can be. This, unfortunately, is where I am right now.

    This is the battle we deal with everyday. And it is such a lonely battle. No matter how much those around you love you and support you, they will just never fully comprehend. And I think that is the most painful part, not being able to share what is going on inside your head and inside your soul. To see the pain reflected in the eyes of your loved ones and not be able to do anything about it. Or to see the doubt on the faces of non-believers. I recently had a very ugly recession and when I was about halfway down my slide of despair, struggling with the desire to let go and the knowledge that I needed to climb, a part of me wanted to let go just to prove to those around me that I wasn’t just a weakling cop-out avoiding my responsibilities. I wanted so desperately for everyone to see me miserable so that they would know how real it is. I thought that if they could see the true ugliness of depression they would realize that no one volunteers for this; no one says “oh ya, paralyzed from stress and despair, sign me up for that!” But alas, when I did let go I only alienated my friends and screwed myself out of job opportunities, volunteer experiences, and the potential to get good grades.

    My biggest supporter is my mom. I’ve been battling depression since I was in junior high, when suicide was such a wonderful fantasy. It was absolutely terrifying for her back then, but through the years of therapy and medication and heartfelt discussions, she has come to understand the battle. And I am SO thankful for that. However, the one critique I continually discern from her is that depression has caused me to become completely self-absorbed. I hate it, but it’s true. We live this continual battle with ourselves and have to be so delicate and so careful not to peer too far over that edge that we become consumed with it. That was (and is) my favourite part of being on medication. Not only do you gain the ability to accomplish those small daily tasks that we find so daunting, but you can actually get outside of your head for once and start living a semi-normal life. No longer consumed with the worry and tension of what is going to happen to you, you can actually start to see those around you and see their struggles. And in fact, being someone who has survived innumerous inner battles grants you an insight into others. You know what it is like to succumb to ultimate despair, but you also know what it is like to come out on top and be a conqueror.

    You and I, my dear friend, are blessed in a strange wicked way. We have experienced the full range of human emotions without any outside influence. We are the ultimate empathizers. This is our gift. And our curse.

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  2. I would also like to say, re-reading what you wrote makes me want to take a year off from life. I would love nothing more than for you and I to move to the middle of rural Quebec, find a farm to work and board at, and just work, eat, play guitar, and speak french. Can you imagine how healthy that would be? To spend a year doing nothing but indulging in self-improvement? That is my new fantasy for life.

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  3. I found your blog today and wanted to say hello. It's so strange that I found your blog right now. I was just talking with a person in my life that suffers from depression. It has got to be the hardest thing in the world. I just wanted to say that you will be in my prayers.( I hope that is okay.)

    Donna

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