I guess I have been denying it for quite some time now. Making excuses. Hormones. Work interfering with time with Dave. Not working enough hours so I get "bored". It's just me being an "overthinker". Excuse after excuse just to avoid admitting I have depression. I don't like to say "I am depressed" because even after all of these years, it still feels like that is saying "I am sad" and that just doesn't touch the tip of what depression is.
But the truth is probably just that I suffer with depression. And suffer is truly the best description. Depression sucks. It is so many things and unless you "suffer" with it, you just don't get that.
I'm not always sad, but again that isn't all that depression is. I love my life here in California, with the man I love doing a job that doesn't suck my soul from me, one I can even say I enjoy (with the exception of the new moron that was hired a couple months back).
I have a good life. Hell, I really believe I have a great life. I have everything I want. When I step outside of my head, my life looks perfect.
But I am depressed.
What does that mean?
It means when I stop, when I am alone, I have thoughts that don't coincide with what I just wrote. I feel....I feel trapped. Trapped inside a shell of myself. Stuck inside, antsy to get out. It doesn't make sense when I say it, it doesn't make sense when I write it. But that's how I feel. And the only escape is to be doing something that occupies my brain or to sleep.
I have noticed that I have been sleeping more lately. Not because I am tired. But to escape. I can't fall asleep at night until hours of playing solitaire finally make my eyes weary. I typically have been sleeping 8 hours (which is kinda low for me, based on my past depressive times) but once I get up, if I don't have to work or if Dave isn't here, I just want to go back to sleep. Sometimes I convince myself to do something....housework, run, work out, but more and more I have been losing that battle and sleep is winning or rather, depression is winning. I think about going to the animal shelter and volunteering and come up with a million reasons why that won't make me feel better.
I actually reached out to a therapist during one of my sad days but I didn't follow through and probably won't--talking isn't going to help me. I know what to do and I am perfectly capable of being happy and depressed, I don't know if that's a talent unique to me. I think all my years of therapy may help and my coping mechanisms keep the depression at bay a bit so I can feel my happiness, feel gratitude, enjoy what I have. But lately I have been thinking that the chemical imbalance is winning and therapy or coping mechanisms just won't help that. And you know medication is absolutely not an option.
As much as I hate this antsy, stuck in my body feeling, medication was worse. I lost so much of my life, so many memories. I was too busy not feeling anything and sleeping. I know I could probably find an antidepressant that wouldn't make me sleep 20 hours a day but I do not want to go back to not living just to escape these bad days. One of the only regrets I have is missing so much during my son's youngest years because I wasn't really "there".
I don't have an answer, I don't know what to do. I guess I will just keep slogging (is that a word? because it feels really appropriate) along, hoping one day these damn chemicals will get their act together and stop trying to fuck up my happy life.
I will use natural solutions to boost my serotonin. I will run more and I will eat more chocolate. I won't let depression win, but some days it feels like it's a battle with no end.
All I can really do is remind myself that contrary to what my head is trying to convince me...I am HAPPY! Most of the time it's that easy. Just shut it down. But sometimes the persuasiveness of the dark hole tempts me and draws me in. I wonder what it is like to not have any idea what this blog is about. To read this and think Holy shit, she is crazy! If you feel that way...I sure hope you appreciate your quiet mind.
Sometimes my depression expresses itself as anxiety. I have been denying that too. Trying to blame the occasional heart palpitation on perhaps my thyroid dose being a little too high or blaming it on the perimenopause. I think I have been quick to blame perimenopause because that has an end in sight...but as I am reaching 10 years, I am starting to consider the possibility this is just my life and how it will always be and THAT can be depressing! I suppose of all the diseases in the world, depression is far from the worst and I can be thankful that I don't even have it that bad, but again...there are days when telling myself that isn't enough.
Writing it all out sometimes helps...unfortunately today wasn't one of those times. Dave will be home soon and he can help me ignore, avoid and try to deny my depression a voice for now.
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