When you have the blues. All.The.Time.

Courtesy: Hyperbole and a Half
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html

When you suffer with depression it sucks.

Don’t take my word for it. You can read about it here and here and here.

Mine often looks like this:

Day 1: (Snuggling in) Maybe I’ll just stay in bed today. Because life is so hard and the bed is so soft. I can read a book!

Day 2: (Wrapping myself in blanket, burrito-like) Bed. Because bed, dammit. Get this book away from me. I can’t actually concentrate long enough to read a paragraph. (Binge watches police procedurals on the InterWebs)

Day 3: (Sobbing) I wish I could get up and do things. But why? My life is meaningless anyway.

Day 4: (Googling suicide methods) Why am I even alive? I am a waste of God’s resources. I’ve ruined my children’s lives. Even my pets would be better off without me. I should be dead. I don’t even deserve this bed.

Ect etc.

It’s embarrassing to admit this aloud. In our society everyone’s expected to be alert, high-functioning, happy and excited about life. When you’re not, people tell you to snap out of it.

If I could have snapped out of it, I’d have done it when I was a child and drank insecticide hoping to kill myself. Or when I was in my 20s, doing everything I possibly could to either contract HIV, destroy my liver or get murdered in a hole somewhere by a random stranger.

At the government psychiatric clinic I attend (because a private psychiatrist costs upwards of $400/hour and antidepressant and antianxietal medication can cost more than $30/day) I met lady a few weeks ago. She was pretty and vivacious and eventually we got to talking about our mutual condition. Yet even she was telling me to get over it.

(Also, side note: Could we make T&T mental health clinics less like death, please? Sweating in a warm, crowded waiting area for three hours in order to see a doctor for five minutes isn’t exactly uplifting. And if the hospital or health centre is out of the medication—as it usually is—how is the depressed [or bipolar or psychotic, whatever] person going to bestir herself to get to a pharmacy to get the medication for herself? There should be a social worker in this equation.)

Look, if I could drag myself out of it, I would. Do you think I enjoy feeling hopeless, helpless and powerless? Do you think I like planning my own death, imagining my family members happening upon my lifeless body after I’ve done the deed? No, no I do not. I’m so much better when I’m happy and out of bed. When I’m not feeling depressed, I’m fabulously funny, smart, and cool. I am fantastically productive and work from sunup to sundown. Just ask my friends. (Wait. I haven’t seen them in months because I guess they’re tired of coming to my house to drag me out of bed.)

This is not one of those days when I’m fabulously funny, smart or cool. This is one of those days when I look back on last week’s terror and tears and wish earnestly for healing. I’m not Googling suicide today. Not at the moment, anyway. But there’s a police procedural on the Internet with my name on it…

Before you ask, yes, I take my meds. Yes, I meditate. Yes, I try to get in my green leafy veg, B vitamins and Omega-3s. (OKAY, I ADMIT I don’t exercise much—but if I can’t get out of bed, how likely is it I’ll get any exercise?)

I’m going back to bed.

Pass me the blanket and turn off the light on your way out.