When Depression Knocks

When Depression Knocks

This post is not meant to diagnose, treat, or save you from mental illness, if you or someone you love is in danger, please get help. You can text HOME to 741741 to be connected with a crisis counselor. I personally have. You can also call or text 988 for suicide and crisis help.
http://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts

As always, and per the disclaimer, this post is not meant to treat or diagnose anyone. It is however, a vision of how mental illness looks for me. Depression is the ugly, the worst, the lowest. It is the part of mental illness that is least shared, because it has so much negative. Who wants to shed light on something so negative? Who wants to give attention to something that makes people feel disgusting and low. People want to be uplifted, to hear story’s of overcoming and happy times. Not many want to listen to someone “belly ache” about a condition that most people find as “lazy”. I can say first hand that it is not the case. I can tell you that no matter how hard I try, I am crippled in my mind. I am doing a lot of things to stay positive and in this blog I have always tried to shed a positive light on what you can try to help your mental illness. But the truth is, sometimes, you just have to be. You just feel like you have to sit with your feelings.

Depression often comes knocking hard on my door. I will be trucking along at life, feeling like I am accomplishing things and then BAM, that quickly I feel useless, gross and incapable. Sometimes it’s a trigger, and this time it is. I was just feeling like I might beat this round of depression, I was doing things, facing my fears, blogging, journaling, planning my days, and even starting to cook and clean again. It came out of no where, this time, it was a dog that bit me. Literally. I am seriously not one to place a lot of blame on one particular event, but PTSD has taught me that one event can alter everything. One day you are not afraid of dogs, the next day you are terrified of your cat running past you too quickly. I can’t say that I am only worse because of this dog bite, but it has taken me back to my deep depression. Without the full use of my arm I feel like I can not get much done, and then, I turn to why try.

Now, I have been put through the wringer of pain medication that made me sick, a tetanus shot that gave me splitting headaches, and a new medication regimen again from my doctor. every few minutes I feel like crying and I feel frozen in any attempt to complete a task. Everything seems to be rushing down over me. I feel like my entire house is dirty and there is no way it will ever be clean. So why try? I feel like there is no point to anything. Why should I care if the clothes are clean or the dishes are done? What does it matter, what does matter? If I feel too sick to simply accomplish one single task, then what am I good for? What is the point? Is this really all we are made to do is task after task until we die? Why do things that used to bring me joy and gratification, like cleaning, all of a sudden feel like mountains that I am unable to climb? Why can I sit frozen for hours? It’s not for lack of trying because believe me, inside I am fighting for my life. I am giving everything I have to just stay here in this moment, to not want to leave this earth. Some days, it takes all of the tools I have to just be. To focus on myself, my breathing, my emotions. I have to remind myself that I am a person. I have to distract myself in any way possible from the surmounting pressure that I find myself under. Why and how can I care about everything and nothing at the same time. Yeah you can put labels on it, I have OCD so I want things in my life to be in order, to a fault. Yes, I have depression so it makes me feel like tasks are huge hurdles that I will never leap over. But just labeling it and giving it a name doesn’t always shed light on the why. Chemicals and brain reactions and all that yes. But as I sit here after just trying to do a simple task like cleaning the kitchen and ending up in tears, I have to wonder: why?

I know in this post I may seem to be rambling, that is because for me, this post is a coping skill. Getting all of the trauma out of my head and typing it into the blog is helping. For one thing, it is keeping me hear; breathing and thinking. It’s also allowing me an outlet for my emotions. And thirdly, the stoking of the keys, the fast typing that I have not had in over a week is gratifying to me. I love the clacking of the keys, the way they reveal words that are in my mind faster than I can think them. I love the way this keyboard glows my favorite color. I lie feeling like someday, someone may read this and it may help them cope too. Because thats what it’s all about: finding a way to cope. If doom scrolling is your thing and it keeps you here, you are doing it. If all you want to do is knit, read, draw, color, or watch tv thats okay too. Those are all coping skills. Yes to some people they are seen as negative lazy behaviors, but in order to survive you have to pay that no mind. You have to find a way to stay alive, even if all you want to do is crawl into a bawl and cry and sleep. Thats the depression. Some people may be able to overcome it easier than others, but you shouldn’t let that discourage you.

Sometimes all I can do is sit, I want to be motivated, I want to go to the gym or for a walk or clean my house or run around with my kids. There is something in me that makes this impossible. There is something holding me back. There is something that hurts inside me There is something I cannot always control. I can’t even express how deeply I feel right now. All I can do is to continue to type on this keyboard and even that is starting to hurt my arm, starting to ache my dog bite. I have to just believe I can get through this. I have to cope. I’m off to find another way to get through this day.

-A Manic Monday