The D-Word. Depression. Such Fear, Much Loathing, How Hyped, So Pathetic.
I’m having a mini-bout of it at the moment, mostly triggered by outside events, namely money/job worries, and the damned annoying thing is that the depression makes fixing the problem harder.
Start job hunting, depressed, can’t write well, send applications, don’t get interview, depressed.
I’d like to think that most people probably never even notice. I maintain a facade of cheerfulness. The happy blogger saying hello to people and smiling away. I worked in sales for a decade, you learn to fake a smile.
When not triggered by an outside event, it just appears, a lesion on the mind that drains away the motivation and drive. You want to push people away, ignore them, be mean to them — even though in the back of the mind a mote of happiness whispers that you’ll be worse off afterwards.
Being friendly when depressed is just so much hard work. All that effort to sound interested in other people’s banal lives. Gods, they do bleat on, and expect me to join in their silly little conversations. Oh do go away.
Of course, when the depression fades away, you look back on your behaviour and cringe and wonder why people put up with you.
I’ve had bouts of depression for many years, probably most of my adult life, although I cannot explicitly recall it ever being a childhood problem.
I am actually quite good at dealing with it. My doctor would love to get me to see a shrink, but frankly, unless they are going to write a large cheque and find me a life-partner, I can’t really see the point. I know what is wrong. I know in a lot of detail, as there is no greater expert on the causes and cures for depression than someone who suffers from it.
Cogito ergo sum.
I’ve told doctors to leave me alone, to not mention it in consultations for other issues. In fact, the biggest trigger of depression is a doctor wanting to talk about it.
Let sleeping dragons lie I say.
I don’t talk about it, because its too small, too insignificant. I hear about celebs baring their souls in tabloid newspapers with tales of wanting to commit suicide and I think that’s not me. I am not that person. I am not suicidal ergo, I can’t be depressed.
OK, I have considered ending it a few times, mostly when money/life was nearly intolerable, but the lethargy when depressed overcomes the necessary planning to commit suicide. Got to tidy the home first, make sure the paperwork is in order, no embarrassing things left lying around. So much hassle. Crawl back into the mental shell and just get on with life. Easier, less effort.
So my depression is faux-depression, it’s not real, it’s not big and clever like the big and clever people get. They shop at the Waitrose of depression, and I am scratching around at the Tesco Value end of the medical books.
It’s not even a decent depression. How pathetic is that? He can’t do depression properly. What a loser.
All I usually need to do is go out for a walk. A nice walk at lunchtime, fix a smile on my face and force myself to think optimistic thoughts about an unlikely happy future.
And by the time I get back to my desk, usually after buying lunch, the mood has faded away.
Sometimes it takes longer to fight off. Maybe once or twice a year I’ll lose half a day or more to a serious collapse of energy as the scaly arms of lethargy wrap themselves around once more.
The old man of the sea is back and he ain’t letting go.
Just shake him off people will say, but he clings on ever tighter with every cheery greeting. How dare they be so happy when I am this glum!
I don’t crawl into a ball and hide. There’s just enough to get a semblance of activity going on and maintaining the pretence so that the worse someone might think is to tell me to smile, it might never happen.
And I add them to the list of people that need to die painfully. Scaphism.
That mental image usually cheers me up though.
Talking of images, I wanted a stock photo for this blog piece, and not a single one of them was correct. So many people with heads in hands. I never hold my head in my hands. Depression may be a mental thing, but it doesn’t affect the head — it affects the entire body.
I am feeling somewhat introspective at the moment. A new year, a new career hopefully. A new lots of things, hopefully. There’s a fairly major anniversary in my life later this year, which has triggered some deep thinking in recent months.
Sadly thinking doesn’t mean activity — otherwise I would be the most active person alive. Activity is hard. Very hard. Must try to get out more. Meet people. Be sociable.
It’s just such damn hard work at times.
