You might want to skip the next couple of posts if you only come here for the gaming stuff. I’ll use some fancy title like “Back To Gaming” or some shit like that to let you know it’s safe.
I’ve fought depression basically all my life. I never really knew that I had it (in a clinical sense) until about 10 years ago. I just sort of assumed that what I was feeling was the baseline human experience. When it comes on strong, I can’t really do…anything. The desire to even do the most basic activities that I enjoy evaporates. I love food, but when the funk comes, I can’t bother to eat. This, combined with my type 1 diabetes can lead to some really scary situations.
Well, to a non-depressed person, anyway.
When the funk has arrived, and I’m lying on the floor, twitching in an epileptic seizure from low blood sugars, it just doesn’t seem that important, even after the EMTs have pumped me full of liquid glucose and told me how lucky I am to still be alive.
Thing is, when shit like this happens (and it happens more often than I care to think about), I don’t care about being alive anymore. I don’t usually think about killing myself, or if I do, I realize that it would just be too much work to take my own life.
The last couple of years, the funk hasn’t been too bad. Sure, I’ll feel down, but it’s mostly something I can shake off, or play through, or fake enjoying whatever for a few hours until I’m alone and can go back to being a lump. Until recently.
The funk is coming back. I can feel it in my headmeats. I’ve stopped caring about a lot of things. Not everything, yet, and I’m still trying to fake being a useful adult who’s capable of smiling. Things are conspiring to break me down even further, though. After being out of work for a really, really long time, I finally got a job. Being a dishwasher isn’t glamorous, or sexy, or anything like that, but it’s work, and the pay is okay.
I have a hard time getting my ass out of bed on days I work. Depression makes you feel like nothing is worthwhile, it’s a gremlin that whispers, very convincingly, that you deserve to lose the job and end up living in a cardboard box down by the river. I’m ignoring it right now, but it gets harder every day.
More things that have helped bring this on: I pride myself on my ability to read people and situations well. Sometimes, when my game is on, I can walk into a room and know how everyone feels about everyone else. A few weeks ago, I made the wrong call. I thought that someone I knew was in an entirely different headspace than they were. Nothing bad happened because of it, and I managed to figure out real quick how completely wrong I was, but it shook me, made me doubt my ability to function as a person. Plus, I spent an evening completely faking emotions I wasn’t prepared to deal with.
It’s never fun to be that wrong. It turns out that to a depressed person, or at least to me, it accelerates the depression, and makes the gremlin that much more believable.
Then, this morning, we discovered that the cat had pissed on the beads.
Some background: My partner, EvilBob, is a jeweler by inclination. But working with precious metals and gemstones is expensive, so our home is filled with beads. Beads are also expensive, but less so, and when made into jewelry, they can be very pretty. Working so much with the beads lead to a job at a bead store as a manager. The work weeks are long, and the days off are few. We don’t get to see each other often.
Now, that store is going out of business, and there is no more work after the end of the month. It seems that when a shop is going out of business, there is even more work to do, so we have even less time for each other. The little fucking gremlin tells me that this is yet another indicator of how worthless I am. I try and convince myself otherwise, but the little bastard is persistent, and he’s getting more convincing every day.
The plan as it stands is to look for work while collecting unemployment, and to continue making jewelry for sale, as well as freelancing some web and graphic design. The stress at our home is so thick you could cut it with a gravy spoon. The cat incident brought on a slight breakdown.
There was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t bring myself to get up and help in any way. I sat there, doing nothing, watching the person I love most in the world weep.
Sorry, this keeps rambling. I’m hoping that getting it out into the ether will curb stomp the little fucker that tells me this is pointless. I’ve never tried to talk my way through a bad time. Maybe not bottling this shit up will make it somehow not as bad.
I was going to edit this, later. Try and make it make sense. Fuck that. It won’t ever see the light of day if I do that. Publishing in 3, 2, 1…
I’d love to say something comforting or useful, but I’m not that guy. I do know how you feel though, and I’ve been down that road before (often). Just remember, you’ve got people that would love nothing but to help you. Anyways, keep on truckin’ man. Call me if you want a neutral 3rd party to bitch at/with/to.
I’ve struggled with my depression a lot since I was in high-school, so I understand where you are coming from. There were some…pretty low points in my life. I used to curl up in bed and just weep for no reason, or get out of bed and go clean the house because it was one of the only ways to fend off the anxiety attacks. They’ve gotten better…even though I’m living in Oklahoma and I hate this state…I have an awesome husband who cares about me.
When I was still in CSprings, I bit the bullet and I went into therapy for a few months. It was so hard to make myself go into that office and get the drugs and talk about my feelings. The therapy was ok, the drugs were ok. I mostly self-medicate these days…when it’s a bad day, I know it…I pop two St. Johns Wort and try to fend off the worst of the feelings. When I have insurance again, I’ll likely look at getting back on lexapro, since it DID help.
I don’t talk about deep things very often. When it comes to conversation, I’d rather keep it light-hearted then have to divulge anything meaningful. I learned a long time a go that my problems are worthless, that the things I go through aren’t as important as the things my “friends” go through. Obviously…they weren’t that great of friends.
I’ve got much better friends now, but that still lingers a bit. I have a hell of a time opening up to people, even sometimes opening up to people whom I love dearly. It makes me seem closed off, and it makes me seem like a bad friend. Sometimes I can’t even talk to Colin. I’ll just sit there and stew and cry and be frustrated because I just can’t talk about it. Maybe I just don’t know how to formulate the words that will express my frustration?
Anyway…I understand. And, I love you and I miss you, and I really can’t wait to get home to Missoula.