Damn, Damn, Damn Depression!

I'm sunk in the stupid pit again. Why? Hell if I know. And it's not just depression, although that is an overriding emotion. I'm crabby and antisocial. I'm terrifically stressed and anxious, to the tune of taking an extra 1 mg of Xanax each of the last two days. (So far today I haven't taken any extra.) I took a four-hour nap yesterday and still slept for 9.5 hours last night … and still didn't want to get up this morning.

I'm really tired of being "the sick one", the one people have to ask "how are you doing today?" I have no idea what I'm doing wrong or what I'm not doing right that keeps dumping me back into this debilitating space. "Functional" might as well be at the top of the highest glacier on Mt. Rainier, it seems to impossible to reach.

You can't get there from here.

I'm trying. But I've been sleeping so late (thanks to this great melatonin-based supplement my psych recommended) that I feel if I don't get up NOW then the day is fucking OVER, so I haven't been journaling or trying to meditate or visualize. And when I do try to meditate or visualize, I haven't been able to achieve the levels I was at back before I tried the Abilify (which I've been off of all this month).

In therapy yesterday, Michele asked why I feel I have to get up and start my day as soon as I wake up. What will happen if I put it off for another half an hour while I journal or meditate or something? If I stay in bed even later, I feel as if the entire day is over, wasted. I feel like a complete failure for the day. I feel judged and judging.

We also talked about writing. And drawing. About how I used to do them all the time virtually every day, from the time I was quite young. How somewhere in my 20s, I stopped doing them much and they became fraught with difficulties and issues. And yet, I need to do them. Writing and drawing are parts of me that need attention. When I do them I feel better. I feel like myself.


Somewhere along the line, I think that many people who follow a creative path get the message from other people that once you are an "adult" you have to be responsible and that these creative things — art, writing, music, singing, whatever — are childish toys to be put away. Adulthood is when you buckle down and live your life like everyone else. And if you don't, well being different comes with a number of prices. Acceptance is one of them.

All my life I've struggled with the two major sides of my nature: the desire to please others and be loved, and the desire to be my quirky, unique self. Too often the people-pleasing side has won out, as much as I've wanted the other side to.

I'm probably the poster child for "what happens when you spend your life trying to please others rather than being yourself." Unfortunately, in the past I have also been the poster child for "what happens when you are yourself and don't try to fit in." Neither place is a fun place to be.

It's kind of funny, in a sad way, that I am now surrounded by people who don't judge me (or don't judge me much) and who support me or would support me in following my creative aspects and living my life differently than others do, yet it takes only one person (in the latest instance, a friend I care about very much who is very conservative about lifestyle and work style) to show disappointment about what I'm doing or how I'm doing it or to suggest I'm not good at what I do to crumple my currently fragile confidence and self esteem.

This fragility doesn't say much for my supposed strength some people keep telling me I have.

I feel I've wasted all this unemployment time, fretting and worrying and feeing lousy and depressed and anxious when I could have written a bucketful of novels and short stories. Yes, I know it's not healthy. I know I'm supposed to let go of the past and regrets and live in the present and look toward the future. But I don't. I rarely have. When I remember to, I try. I don't even know what I need to get me there.

Saying "first world problems" only makes me feel worse. Pointing out that other people have it worse only makes me feel worse. I try to have the right attitude, but haven't yet been successful.

I've been happy in the past. I remember working 6-7 days a week, 12-14 hours a day, eating all my meals out, not having the time to clean my house or take care of my yard, but I was happy and confident and doing great. I had a great capacity for joy. Of course, that is also the time period when I paid money to a big-deal matchmaking service and had only one date the entire year of my membership — that didn't do my self-image any good. But I was still happy in all the other spheres of my life.

A lot of experts say that you need to climb out of this pit by yourself, that having someone help you and lead you by the hand and gently put you into the situations you need won't solve anything and will simply still leave you the same as you were when you were in the pit. But I don't know. I want someone to help me lift myself out of this sticky, dark pit. I want someone to give me a (small) list of volunteer opportunities and how to contact the volunteer coordinators. I want someone to hold my hand, and sometimes tug on it gently, and help me maintain my balance as I go up ladders and across rope bridges and along busy highways as I fight my way back into my life and my self. It's too much to ask. It's too much to hope for.

I know what I want in my life to be happy: writing, drawing and painting, enough money so I can live comfortably enough and save for what I need and want, physical activity I enjoy, my own home, a cat or two, music, books, tea, yarn, the occasional massage. I don't need excitement and adventure or expensive things. The only traveling I really need is to see friends who don't live nearby. And the beach; I really do need to visit the beach on the real ocean. Whether the money comes from a job or two or a gift or winning the lottery doesn't matter. Having enough money is what matters. Not having to always worry about money matters. Being independent matters.

It just feels so difficult, and some days completely impossible, to get there. I know I have hope, even when it doesn't feel like it, because I keep going to therapy and taking my meds. I know happiness exists because I see it in other people and I have experienced it myself. I just feel hamstrung by the depression and the anxiety and too many years of being overwhelmed by them. Is it even possible to get out from under them at this point? Or are they things that just keep getting worse over time, like arthritis, with no way to get better?

I feel a need, but I don't know what for. It seems that if that need is filled, I'll be able to move, to do, to get better. But first I have to figure out what I need and then how to fill that need.

Some days I have a little control over the level of my mood and my actions (my ability to act). Most days I have little or none. "Just do it" really doesn't work for me. If it did, I wouldn't be stuck in this place. I'm not trying to be difficult or resistant. I really and truly want to be well.

I just don't know how to get there.