Ive been depressed most of my life. Pardon the clique but depression is like an old friend I know all too well. Im not always down emotionally. It is more like a mathematical sine wave with it highs and lows. I slip in out of what is a normal state and what is a depressive state. I would say I weave in and out of a depressive state three or four times a month with each episode typically lasting between one and four days, seven at most. When Im in a normal state, past depression episodes seem imaginary. This leads to me believe I do not have a depression problem. It also leads me to believe that I will not slip into a depression again. Oddly enough though, I will see depression lurking around the next corner and I will try my best to not go in that direction. Some times I will out run it but most times it catches me.
When Im depressed I have the classic descriptors of most depressed people, life drained of joy, hopelessness and sadness. Im sure everybodys depression is different but for me colors drain from objects where black and white takes their place. It is the black and white as in the un-color cinema photography from the early twentieth century. Similar to black and white reruns of yester years television shows. The colors are there but they are muted and they have no meaning.
Another part of depression for me is cyclical-ness. Nothing changes. It is all non linear. It is the same thing over and over in day to day and year to year routines. Feelings and moods are recycled. Thoughts and ideas are recycled. All the books, movies, newspapers, magazines and any other media seem unoriginal and reused from what has already been said and done, very post modern. This all turns into a perpetual state of boredom.
Boredom is its own hell where sadness fills the void. The sadness is full of despair, a deep welling up inside and wanting to cry. That is all that I seem to feel, sadness. The sadness is dark. The sadness is lonely. The sadness rattles my confidence. Otherwise Im emotion less, uncaring and unworthy of love. I do not want to touch nor be touched. If Im able to at all to go through the physical act of making love, I feel nothing, no sensation and no release. I become very anti-social. I go to great lengths to avoid interaction with people. I fear those interactions with vast amounts of internal panic.
Depression is cruel in that it takes the one thing I cherish the most, concentration. I have a passion to read, to analyze and to learn. New insights that help me see life in a different perspective give me a zest for life. I love to broaden my horizons. That is all elusive now. Even listening is a challenge that I can not meet, whether it be in conversation, talk radio or television. I have been reduced to twenty second sound bites. I also become forgetful, missing details where I prided myself of having mastery of. Nothing is of interest. Sleep becomes erratic and irritability levels rise. Im on edge. Im anxious. Anger seeps below the surface.
Ive learned depression is anger directed inward. I know when Im not depressed, Im usually angry. When Im depressed, anger will chase it away. Anger makes me feel like Im in a normal state. Anger seems to be my default emotion. Such power and fury the anger flows forward. Verbal abuse streams forth. Terrible things are said. Curse words are intertwined. Nothing is held back. Words and sentences I do not even mean lash out toward my target. I am in a stance of fight or flight. Either option is not certain until it is chosen. Afterwards Im always sorrowful. Afterwards it all seems imaginary.
I cannot see beyond a depressive episode. When I am in it, life seems forever it will be that way. I try and try but I can not follow another clique and just snap out of it. Depression has a life of its own. I am at its mercy. I have no control no matter how hard I try. Experience has taught me to hold on for the ride. This is a ride where depression teases with me with the desire for death.
Thoughts of not living, wishing to die becomes more frequent. Cowardliness motivates me to think of painless methods of suicide but I dream of more dramatic exits. Cowardliness keeps me from acting. I want to feel something other than sadness. I restrict food severely in an attempt to express the destruction that is occurring inside of me. This is a safer, covert action. My weight begins to drop. Still this is not enough. I have desires to cut the under sides of my forearms, to slash my wrists. This is not to commit suicide but to feel something, to relieve the welling tension inside. The cuts need not be deep. No need to bleed. Mere scratches are all that is needed to inflame the skin outward resulting in a stinging pain. The scratches can be long or short, it does not matter. The stinging will continue for some time afterwards. The stinging interrupts the usual flow of depression. Certainly the heated targeted areas quit warming.
I can recognize when I come out of a deep depressive state. It breaks up in bits and pieces much like a fog. I drift in and out and back again. Sometimes these fluctuations are gradual and other times they are abrupt. Always, once out of depression, it all seemed imaginary. This fools me into thinking this point forward I will be okay. Being okay will only last for a while and then I find myself trying to out run depression again.
There are various depths to my depression. What I have explained so far is mostly a deep depressive state. There also exists a longer lasting but a much shallower state. This state is more of an interspersed form of what is described above but is similar to that of a low grade fever. It hovers over me as an omnipresent cloud draping me in fatigue. My vision is not clear. I can not perceive optimism. I find it difficult discerning my likes and dislikes. I become very indecisive. Motivation becomes lacking. Im functional but with a haunted sense of dread. I want to be alone. My only desire is to do nothing and to stare off into a pessimistic view of myself and world around me
When Im depressed I have the classic descriptors of most depressed people, life drained of joy, hopelessness and sadness. Im sure everybodys depression is different but for me colors drain from objects where black and white takes their place. It is the black and white as in the un-color cinema photography from the early twentieth century. Similar to black and white reruns of yester years television shows. The colors are there but they are muted and they have no meaning.
Another part of depression for me is cyclical-ness. Nothing changes. It is all non linear. It is the same thing over and over in day to day and year to year routines. Feelings and moods are recycled. Thoughts and ideas are recycled. All the books, movies, newspapers, magazines and any other media seem unoriginal and reused from what has already been said and done, very post modern. This all turns into a perpetual state of boredom.
Boredom is its own hell where sadness fills the void. The sadness is full of despair, a deep welling up inside and wanting to cry. That is all that I seem to feel, sadness. The sadness is dark. The sadness is lonely. The sadness rattles my confidence. Otherwise Im emotion less, uncaring and unworthy of love. I do not want to touch nor be touched. If Im able to at all to go through the physical act of making love, I feel nothing, no sensation and no release. I become very anti-social. I go to great lengths to avoid interaction with people. I fear those interactions with vast amounts of internal panic.
Depression is cruel in that it takes the one thing I cherish the most, concentration. I have a passion to read, to analyze and to learn. New insights that help me see life in a different perspective give me a zest for life. I love to broaden my horizons. That is all elusive now. Even listening is a challenge that I can not meet, whether it be in conversation, talk radio or television. I have been reduced to twenty second sound bites. I also become forgetful, missing details where I prided myself of having mastery of. Nothing is of interest. Sleep becomes erratic and irritability levels rise. Im on edge. Im anxious. Anger seeps below the surface.
Ive learned depression is anger directed inward. I know when Im not depressed, Im usually angry. When Im depressed, anger will chase it away. Anger makes me feel like Im in a normal state. Anger seems to be my default emotion. Such power and fury the anger flows forward. Verbal abuse streams forth. Terrible things are said. Curse words are intertwined. Nothing is held back. Words and sentences I do not even mean lash out toward my target. I am in a stance of fight or flight. Either option is not certain until it is chosen. Afterwards Im always sorrowful. Afterwards it all seems imaginary.
I cannot see beyond a depressive episode. When I am in it, life seems forever it will be that way. I try and try but I can not follow another clique and just snap out of it. Depression has a life of its own. I am at its mercy. I have no control no matter how hard I try. Experience has taught me to hold on for the ride. This is a ride where depression teases with me with the desire for death.
Thoughts of not living, wishing to die becomes more frequent. Cowardliness motivates me to think of painless methods of suicide but I dream of more dramatic exits. Cowardliness keeps me from acting. I want to feel something other than sadness. I restrict food severely in an attempt to express the destruction that is occurring inside of me. This is a safer, covert action. My weight begins to drop. Still this is not enough. I have desires to cut the under sides of my forearms, to slash my wrists. This is not to commit suicide but to feel something, to relieve the welling tension inside. The cuts need not be deep. No need to bleed. Mere scratches are all that is needed to inflame the skin outward resulting in a stinging pain. The scratches can be long or short, it does not matter. The stinging will continue for some time afterwards. The stinging interrupts the usual flow of depression. Certainly the heated targeted areas quit warming.
I can recognize when I come out of a deep depressive state. It breaks up in bits and pieces much like a fog. I drift in and out and back again. Sometimes these fluctuations are gradual and other times they are abrupt. Always, once out of depression, it all seemed imaginary. This fools me into thinking this point forward I will be okay. Being okay will only last for a while and then I find myself trying to out run depression again.
There are various depths to my depression. What I have explained so far is mostly a deep depressive state. There also exists a longer lasting but a much shallower state. This state is more of an interspersed form of what is described above but is similar to that of a low grade fever. It hovers over me as an omnipresent cloud draping me in fatigue. My vision is not clear. I can not perceive optimism. I find it difficult discerning my likes and dislikes. I become very indecisive. Motivation becomes lacking. Im functional but with a haunted sense of dread. I want to be alone. My only desire is to do nothing and to stare off into a pessimistic view of myself and world around me




