I didn't intend to start off this thing with such an intensely personal post, in all honesty, even though that's what blogs are about: we shout our thoughts into the vastness of cyberspace figuring someone, somewhere might give a flying monkey's ass about what we have to say. Usually those thoughts are triggered by something, whether it's something as mundane as "GO LOCAL SPORTS TEAM!"/"I had a great poop this morning"/"Hey lookit what I just read", or something more substantive such as an unexpected spiritual occurrence, epiphany, or massively important life event.
For me, it was the realization that I have, in fact, fallen into a depression.
This is not an uncommon occurrence for me. I was diagnosed with depression and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) after the death of my father some six years ago, and the consensus is that his extended illness and death are what finally kicked the depression into gear for me. It really was no surprise given that he suffered severely for many, many years with bipolar depression that he self-medicated but allowed to go untreated nearly until it was too late. Dad was majorly suicidal. He wasn't truly happy for a very long time, and suicide was his go-to plan. Toward the end of his life, when his illnesses had finally gotten the best of him, he would try again ... but he was surrounded by a number of loving people, and, quite frankly, his "attempts" were, well, pretty hilarious because his grip on reality was nowhere to be found.
I digress. This is about me, not Dad.
Since I was diagnosed and began treatment, my mental health overall has gotten better -- the fact that I'd been working on a lot of the underlying issues for a long time prior to therapy helped -- but I still fall into these pits periodically. Sometimes I see it on my own and try to make changes; but more often than not, it takes someone or something else to point out to me that my behavior is off. This time, it was Marc noting that I've been seeming distant, for lack of better shorthand. Disengaged. When he said it, there went the lightbulb, because that was how I've been feeling for the last week and a half or so: disengaged from everything. Separate. Angry. Sad. Like nothing I did really truly mattered, and no one I knew really truly cared about my welfare and that I was all alone. My dreams have been angry. In waking life, I've allowed myself to withdraw into Tony Stark mode: snarky, argumentative and fully immersed in what's going on in my own head to the detriment of everyone around me, and to myself. In dreams, I'm struggling to come to grips with a need for a deeper connection to family that will never really be able to be fulfilled, as well as to the people I love.
This morning, I'm still feeling sad and disengaged and angry, but two words are lodged in my brain that weren't there before: "Depression Lies." I have WHil WHeaton to thank for that, as I'd gone back and read this post of his from a couple weeks ago: http://wilwheaton.net/2012/09/depression-lies/. My depression tells me that no one really wants me to be integrated into their lives, and that I'm supposed to go it alone as much as I can. I need look no further than my left hand to find evidence to the contrary, let alone photos and kind words and good memories, but depression has a way of twisting even the most positive things into something other than what they are. It whispers, coldly, that the evidence is false, always has been too, and puts a chill on my soul. It suggests that maybe everyone would be better off if they didn't have me around, that maybe I should "go somewhere else". It seduces with the comfortableness of anger, martyrdom and self-pity. But it's a big, fat, stinking liar from Liarsburg that slips into my heart when I'm not looking, and the gods know I haven't been looking.
What does depression offer, really? It is comfortable, I will say that. I guess I've gotten used to it over the years. I spent a lot of time isolated and alone when I was coming up for a lot of reasons, so I know what that feels like. It's much, much easier to stay in my shell and listen to what it says. I don't have to make any effort that way, I can just be pissed off because no one else is saving me from myself. It's the warm, calm, soothing Lethe, drifting through my heart and slowly taking me with it into the convenient complacency of forgetfulness. The problem comes in when the water starts to get cold, and I'm suddenly very far away from what my heart still vaguely remembers: love, friendship, serenity, the truths of my life.
The water's gotten cold, and once again Mnemosyne calls. My heart is still confused by it all, because it's hard to hear Her over the believable lies. At least I know they're lies now, and that's something.
One of the wonderful things about the Intarwebs is that there are lots of folks out there who feel more comfortable sharing their experiences and telling their stories. It's one of the things I've always appreciated about the Rooms, but the global nature of the 'net takes the experience from limited face-to-face contact to the connection of many like-minded individuals saying, "Here's what happened to me. Here's what I'm going through. Here's what helps." It's a lot easier to find something to connect to and hold on.
So, here's what happened to me. Here's what I'm going through. Here's what helps: remembering that depression does, in fact, lie, and lie loudly and strongly.
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Monday, October 8, 2012
Requisite Introductory Post, Nuts and Bolts
Well, it's a good question, really. Why the hell are you reading this?
Probably because you're a friend of mine, and, for some reason, a glutton for punishment. Or, you stumbled onto this somehow, and, well, same thing. In any case, here we are.
I'll be tinkering with this off and on for a while, I expect, as I've found that sometimes FB is too limiting for the stream-of-consciousness rants/questions/existential explorations that surface in the turbulent stream (well, some days, admittedly, it's more like a sewer runoff) that is my mind -- and that, for whatever reason, people find these things interesting, or at least a way to pass the time.
If you know me, but don't know me well, or if you don't really know me at all, you're in for -- gods, how do I say this without sounding like everyone and their dog when they start a blog? Well, you're in for something. I don't know what, for two reasons: a) I don't know how you perceive things and b) I don't know what this is going to turn out to be yet, if anything.
If you know me at all, though, you probably know that I've got an opinion on a lot of things, and that I can be kind of a mouthy broad. I'm bitchy, self-deprecating, seeking and sad by turns, like the rest of you. What you may not understand about me is that when I'm bitchy, particularly about some sort of major issue, it's generally because I'm sad about said issue. We'll talk more about that, I'm sure.
In a nutshell, though: I'm a mid-to-late-thirtysomething (today), happily married to my best friend (who understands me better than I understand myself), with a career that I love and that I take very seriously. I have been described as well-educated, which I suppose is true since I have a piece of paper telling me I'm a Master of Arts, well-read, and well-spoken. As far as I'm concerned, most of what I know is a list of what I don't know but would probably like to at some point; I've read a lot of things about a lot of things; and I'm lucky if I can tell a story or answer a simple question without turning into Grandpa Simpson. Look at how long this post is, for pity's sake.
I live with -- I refuse, since I'm having a decent day so far, to say "suffer with," but talk to me later -- a number of autoimmune disorders and the dubious gifts of my forebears. My primary demon at the moment is how I accept the limits these place on me without giving in completely: I'm a woman, after all, raised in an "empowering" environment; I was a very bright kid, to boot, so this precocious girl-child was taught from an early age that there are no limits as to what she can do. Reality has taught me that, well, when your legs forget how to work stairs and your fingers forget how to hold an object, that can be kind of limiting. Letting these limits define me is right out, as this vessel is but temporary, but allowing them to somehow circumscribe my world is a necessity.
My mental, emotional and spiritual journeys have taken me to some terribly interesting places, and have proven to me that I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what self-excavation and the exploration of the Other will reveal. I'm some flavor of polytheist, though I can't quite tell you whether it's vanilla or rocky road. I just know that there's Something Bigger Than Us out there, that It takes interest in us on occasion, and presents Itself to us in a wide variety of, ah, interesting ways. I most vehemently do not, however, believe that Deity tells us that one form of Itself is the "correct" one to believe in; that Deity would have us killing, maiming, or torturing each other (physically, emotionally or mentally) over how It presents Itself; and that we are all of us, everywhere in the Universe, children of Deity. We are, as so aptly stated by the Minbari and many other fictional and non-fictional entities, made of the stuff of stars.
Seriously, go look it up: there's a pretty finite amount of "stuff" in the Universe from which to draw. Some of it's in pretty much everything, which leads to a logical, if elemental (ha) conclusion: everything is connected.
So, ah, I suppose those are the main things about me to get out of the way. You're welcome to ask about anything else, if you're so inclined. You should know that I'm highly opinionated, if you don't already know that; and that, while I try to be diplomatic, I'm often too tired to bother and wind up being, well, blunt. I also like commas. And semicolons. Oh, and coffee. I like coffee a lot.
Actually, let me clarify something: I take life very seriously, which is why I often seem to not take anything seriously at all.
Probably because you're a friend of mine, and, for some reason, a glutton for punishment. Or, you stumbled onto this somehow, and, well, same thing. In any case, here we are.
I'll be tinkering with this off and on for a while, I expect, as I've found that sometimes FB is too limiting for the stream-of-consciousness rants/questions/existential explorations that surface in the turbulent stream (well, some days, admittedly, it's more like a sewer runoff) that is my mind -- and that, for whatever reason, people find these things interesting, or at least a way to pass the time.
If you know me, but don't know me well, or if you don't really know me at all, you're in for -- gods, how do I say this without sounding like everyone and their dog when they start a blog? Well, you're in for something. I don't know what, for two reasons: a) I don't know how you perceive things and b) I don't know what this is going to turn out to be yet, if anything.
If you know me at all, though, you probably know that I've got an opinion on a lot of things, and that I can be kind of a mouthy broad. I'm bitchy, self-deprecating, seeking and sad by turns, like the rest of you. What you may not understand about me is that when I'm bitchy, particularly about some sort of major issue, it's generally because I'm sad about said issue. We'll talk more about that, I'm sure.
In a nutshell, though: I'm a mid-to-late-thirtysomething (today), happily married to my best friend (who understands me better than I understand myself), with a career that I love and that I take very seriously. I have been described as well-educated, which I suppose is true since I have a piece of paper telling me I'm a Master of Arts, well-read, and well-spoken. As far as I'm concerned, most of what I know is a list of what I don't know but would probably like to at some point; I've read a lot of things about a lot of things; and I'm lucky if I can tell a story or answer a simple question without turning into Grandpa Simpson. Look at how long this post is, for pity's sake.
I live with -- I refuse, since I'm having a decent day so far, to say "suffer with," but talk to me later -- a number of autoimmune disorders and the dubious gifts of my forebears. My primary demon at the moment is how I accept the limits these place on me without giving in completely: I'm a woman, after all, raised in an "empowering" environment; I was a very bright kid, to boot, so this precocious girl-child was taught from an early age that there are no limits as to what she can do. Reality has taught me that, well, when your legs forget how to work stairs and your fingers forget how to hold an object, that can be kind of limiting. Letting these limits define me is right out, as this vessel is but temporary, but allowing them to somehow circumscribe my world is a necessity.
My mental, emotional and spiritual journeys have taken me to some terribly interesting places, and have proven to me that I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what self-excavation and the exploration of the Other will reveal. I'm some flavor of polytheist, though I can't quite tell you whether it's vanilla or rocky road. I just know that there's Something Bigger Than Us out there, that It takes interest in us on occasion, and presents Itself to us in a wide variety of, ah, interesting ways. I most vehemently do not, however, believe that Deity tells us that one form of Itself is the "correct" one to believe in; that Deity would have us killing, maiming, or torturing each other (physically, emotionally or mentally) over how It presents Itself; and that we are all of us, everywhere in the Universe, children of Deity. We are, as so aptly stated by the Minbari and many other fictional and non-fictional entities, made of the stuff of stars.
Seriously, go look it up: there's a pretty finite amount of "stuff" in the Universe from which to draw. Some of it's in pretty much everything, which leads to a logical, if elemental (ha) conclusion: everything is connected.
So, ah, I suppose those are the main things about me to get out of the way. You're welcome to ask about anything else, if you're so inclined. You should know that I'm highly opinionated, if you don't already know that; and that, while I try to be diplomatic, I'm often too tired to bother and wind up being, well, blunt. I also like commas. And semicolons. Oh, and coffee. I like coffee a lot.
Actually, let me clarify something: I take life very seriously, which is why I often seem to not take anything seriously at all.
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