It has been just over a year since I recognized in myself that I was depressed. When I wrote about it back then, I can remember (and re-read) that I did not think of it as "classic" depression because I was functioning, even if just barely. I could get to work, see my friends, care for myself and my children, and get my bills paid. I had a new house, a job that, if not liked, at least I did not hate, and had been hanging out with a guy that was okay to date, though it was soon to be ending. I could sleep. I was not binging. I did not call out sick. I was alone, and walking through mud daily, but too depressed to know that I was depressed, so I kept functioning.
I have recently had to answer that for myself, the *big* question about why it is (or in my twisted depressed thoughts, isn't) okay to be alone. I didn't even know what alone meant. It equated so congruently with *lonely* that I could not breathe. My kids were away for the weekend, and I needed to call a friend within 2 minutes of them driving away. They would fall asleep, and my couch, and more to the point, my bed, would feel huge and empty. I hate to admit some of the more desperate things. I once slept on the floor of my daughter's room because my room felt overwhelming and scary. I once took my sleeping son out of his bed and brought him into my room, just so I had someone next to me to hear breathing. That was not alone. That was lonely. Depressive all-consuming lonely. Bordering on psychosis. It was bad.
Depression is a strange beast. It comes in various forms, at least it does for me. Last year in January my depression looked like a halfway decorated Christmas tree I did not have the energy to take down. In April, that same depression looked like a whole bunch of blog posts and complaints about my ex. In August it was a sunburn because I was too tired to walk back to the car to get the umbrella. It kicked my butt in a hundred different ways on an everyday, small, immeasurable scale to where I didn't even know I was getting better.
And I have been getting better. It has been a fucking lot of work, and (as you can see) I have been cussing about it a fucking lot. But I know. How? Little things like having an actual conversation with my mom that did not involve one of us walking out angry at the end (well, technically the middle, since we used to never get to the end). It has actually opened the door to other non-angry conversations, imagine that. I have been able to pinpoint my menstrual cycle and how it effects my mood. When before I would have just curled up in a ball every 4 weeks or so, and cried, blamed it on being on my period, yelled at my kids and ate chocolate for 4 days, I can now *feel* my mood shift, and know what to do to get through it. I still eat chocolate (duh) but now I can also relax enough to acknowledge that my temporary bad mood will pass, and to not make decisions right then. I make it to work, but I also allow myself to be sick when I am. In my pre-acknowledgement world, I would go to work even when I was sick because staying at home sucked.
So having learned this, and as I keep expanding my arsenal of tools in finding myself and getting self-esteem back in place (if I ever had it, but that is a different train of thought) I want to reach more people. I want other people out there to know that they are not alone, or don't have to be in that strange way I defined it. And alone is a strange beast, too.
It is not bad anymore. I have learned the difference. It has changed the way I see depression, and how having a place to talk changes the view, changes the very basic definitions of words. Alone is not so scary anymore. It has come around to mean resilient. It means unafraid. It means ope to happiness. I will write more about this side of it soon, today, I just want you to know you are not alone. How can I help you?
