Depression Diaries

I keep having this thought that *one day* I will blog about all of this. One day, when I feel better and I'm not confused or hurting and it makes some organised sense and I can share how it got better and give hope to others. You know what, though? I've read articles like that, but none that say, "I HAVE depression." Like, *right now,* I'm wading through the stinking debilitating mess of it - because depression is rude like that. Like pain, it can be dulled, but it refuses to be ignored. I suspect that if I write about this and post it in public, people will want to either console me or silently judge me for over sharing personal information. I'm not trying to get consolation and, for once, I find myself not caring if anyone judges me. I want to have a record of how frustrating depression is, and maybe I need to write that in the middle of it, because I can't not feel what it is like.

Right now I'm trying to stop my anxious thoughts shooting miles ahead of myself, drawing wrong conclusions along the way. Jay has to go away for work in a few days - 'I'd run away from me too,' are my thoughts about that. He's been tied up in work most of this week. He must not want to be near me. (I realise that this is not true, he tells me the truth of how he feels about me. I find it hard to accept his guaranteed love.) It is stressful to live with me these days. I withdraw from him. I know I'm doing it. I can't not do it.

My empty (decaf) coffee cup sits beside me - decaf by necessity rather than choice. It sits next to a pile of scrunched up tissues from my latest anxiety moment when I couldn't stop panic bubbling up and my heart pounding, my face flushing and tears effortlessly gushing. Gasping air to calm myself, covering my face, embarrassed and wanting to be alone but simultaneously wanting to be comforted...that's the confusing reality. I want to be better. I don't know how to be better.

I look at my body in disgust and wish I had've had the self control to not eat the seven peanut m&ms I just ate (yes, I counted them to make sure I wasn't eating too many - knowing full well 1 was too many.) I catalogue what I've eaten today, wondering when jay will be back so I can run my 2 miles. I've been running two miles every day this week. My tablets have increased my weight suddenly and rudely and I'm angry about that. Stupid medication. 

Must fight the medication. Maybe I'll just not take it. It hasn't made that much difference anyway. Sure, I'm not hurting myself or willing myself not alive anymore, but aside from that, it is NO GOOD because it made me fat and, if anything, I am *more* anxious now. I wouldn't want me. I feel disgusting and embarrassed of myself.

I think about how people still think today that depression is all in your head and how I should snap out if it. I half believe it and judge myself so very harshly for not doing just that. Catch a grip and stop going on about yourself. Think of others for once, will you? And so I think. I think about frustrating and frightening things happening to people all around the world, like little Febrina who just had her 4th birthday. She is a few months older than Sophia, but her birthday means she is too old to have the privilege of sitting in an air conditioned room for a few hours a day. Instead, she has to get used to 40C heat in a frightening and unsafe detention centre tent on a water ration, indefinitely. I think about my brave friend, a wonderful mother who battled cancer, and is still recovering from its unfair attack. I think about my dad, living with all the pain and frustrations of going blind... "What have you got to be depressed about?" I try to jolt myself out of it with shame, but that response appears to be broken. Comparative studies just make me feel sad. Sad for those people. Sad for myself. Sad for the future of everything and everyone. I am cynical. I am pessimistic. I just *know* everything will eventually go to crap. Time passes through me and I wait for these feelings to diffuse and fade as it goes. 

One day I'll write the 'feeling better' blog. Today is the 'it will get better' blog, because despite myself, I find a hope anchored in rescue. Hope for laughter without fear of the future. Hope for a better end.