Wish I Believed The Sign

Perhaps I write too much about the Depression Monster.  Perhaps not.  I do it because I know I’m not the only one who has one.  I do it because I’m trying to be honest.  I do it because I want people who don’t have one to understand that it is possible to be pretty functional in the world and still carry a monster around.  Sometimes I do it because I am tired of carrying it by myself.

Of course, I second-guess the process.  Yesterday I saw a link to an article about how depressed people use language differently.  It’s how I write, too, although my passing-as-a-not-crazy-person editor often changes things before I let the words out into the world.

Coping sometimes feels like a constant effort to lie to myself long enough to get to the next moment and the next after that.  Sometimes I do it without even knowing.  When it was August, my least favorite month, I kept telling myself that it was just August tradition, that it would get better in September.  I was wrong.

The Depression Monster is stealing my sleep.  When it can’t actually prevent me from sleeping, it gives me nightmares.  I’m not talking about my run-of-the-mill anxiety dreams about parking lots and tests, but full-on car crashes, explosions, shootings, rapes, and murders.  Then I’m tired, so I struggle to choose foods that are good for me.  I debate the pros and cons of exercise; exercise often helps, but also makes me more tired and sometimes it feels like calculus in involved.  Everything goes slower, which I find frustrating.  When I am frustrated, I get crabby, which makes for fraught conversations with the people who love me.  And, of course, I am accomplishing less than usual, so I get to feel like I’m failing even more than usual.  It’s not a pretty picture.

I’m fighting that bastard.  Really, I am.  I’m breathing, aren’t I?  I’m showered.  I made my bed.  I went for a walk (Cricket gets the credit for that one, actually, because she doesn’t give me much of a choice) so minimum exercise has happened and it was outside.  I’m doing chores.  I’m showing up to work.  I’m both making a quilt and telling the monster that it is all right that there is quilt mess all over the table because I’m making something beautiful.

I don’t think I need suggestions.  I mean, I’ve been doing this for a long time now.  I’ve read all the lists and I do the things, even down to drinking the damn water (I’ve said many times that my personal indicator that the Almighty They don’t have a clue is when a list includes “drink plenty of water.”  It means that they’re down to suggesting things that won’t hurt, but probably aren’t going to solve anything by themselves.).  I might need a hug or two or ten.  And if you see the Depression Monster wandering around, kill that thing dead.