Sunshine and Lollipops

Here’s a word I have trouble saying. Depression. It’s a horrible word to describe a horrible illness. One that I have long standing personal ties with, it’s a word that destroyed my father and my family and its one that I’ve thus far refused to admit applies to me.
But it does and I have to.
Depression can feel like fighting a losing battle. It’s like a recurring nightmare that you’re powerless to wake up from. Not only that but it’s a nightmare that you know is coming. If I may continue the nightmare metaphor a line longer, you know that when you go to bed you’re going to have the nightmare and it’s going to be bad but you can’t keep yourself awake forever and you know that too.
In non metaphorical terms that means that I know when its coming and I can’t stop it even though I try. Knowing that its coming can make it worse too. Once you get that sinking feeling you can’t not think about it. Its like playing “The Game” (sorry to any long term “Game” sufferers out there) its almost self perpetuating. It starts with a single thought, some trigger, and then the mental gears are in motion. I can slow it down by keeping myself distracted. Sometimes I try meditation and mental exercises to meet it head on and deflect it but that takes real effort. I cant always muster a defence. I’ve just come off the back of a really long and miserable fucking couple of weeks. To anyone who was watching me this past ten days or so they may not have suspected anything was wrong. I went to work, I talked, I laughed and I did the shit that I had to do. But I also stayed in bed for 12 hours a day, not because I’m lazy like I allow everyone to think, but because I didn’t see any reason to get up. I talked and laughed with friends and co-workers, but it’s the bits in between when I’m not talking or cracking wise that are significant because all that other stuff was just a screen. That’s me on auto pilot, survival mode, just getting through it. And no one notices. If they do then they don’t say anything. At one point I would have been proud that I put on such a convincing act but now I wish I hadn’t learnt these coping skills because it’s got to the point now where I don’t know how to turn them off and be honest with another person face to face about how I’m feeling. But then what am I supposed to do, burst in to tears in the middle of the office? There’s been close days I can’t deny.
“But Dave, why don’t you just cheer up!?” If you’ve ever said anything like this to someone then I hope you lose your legs in a car crash and spend the rest of your life shitting in a bag. Trying to fight depression is like trying to throw a punch under water. Intense effort, zero result. The only course of action I have is to wait it out. That’s what keeps me going, the fact that I’ve been in these states before so many times and eventually they ease off. It doesn’t go away entirely, not ever, but it fades in to the background so that it doesn’t own me anymore.
I know that I’m not alone in all this. There are so many people who feel the exact things that I feel on a regular basis but not everyone will or can admit it, and even fewer can express it. Even all this I’ve written feels woefully inadequate. I feel like my piddling little episodes are doing a disservice to all the real sufferers out there. The people whose lives have been taken over by an illness that they cant understand.
I’ve seen first hand what depression can really do to a life. What it can take from you. I know I’m not there but I’ve felt its shadow and my God I know the fear of it and I think that’s what drove me to writing these blogs. Even if no one is really reading this at least it’s out of my head where it can’t do any more damage.

Taking Responsibility

Someone told me recently that I beat myself up too much, and that got me thinking about responsibility and blame. There is a fine line between taking responsibility for your actions and the situation they have led you to and blaming yourself for being in that situation. Blame is an aspect of self pity which leads to self hate. Many times I have looked at my life and remembered some poor choice I made and thought “You idiot. Why did you do that? You’re a fuck up. You’re a fool…” and so on. Rather than simply acknowledge my actions and move on, self pity takes a hold and we go in to a spiral. It’s a common occurrence for me and I’m sure everyone does it sometimes.
There are some people who do not blame themselves for their actions nor do they take responsibility of any kind. People who think that everything bad that happens to them is somehow someone else’s fault. My brother is one of these people. All my life I’ve watched him complain about everything bad in his life but somehow none of it is ever his fault. He’ll lash out and blame anyone but himself. Whereas I tend to blame myself too much. I try not to play the blame game; I try to take an impartial view. When something crappy happens my intellectual view is this - Really our lives are a combination of choices. The choices that we make and the choices that other people make and how those choices intersect. Nothing is entirely our fault but we are never entirely without responsibility either, so just admit your part in it all, learn what you can and move on. Easy. That’s the theory anyway, but when I try applying that mentality in real life somehow it doesn’t quite come off like I’d hope. It stops me from getting angry at other people and the world at large but it can’t stop me from getting angry at myself. I can forgive the universe for randomly screwing me over but I can’t forgive myself for my perceived inadequacies and weaknesses. I'll have to work on it.