In which I write.

The Bloggess could not have written this at a better time. It was just the kick in the ass I needed tonight.

I don’t talk about suffering from depression a lot. There are like 10,000 reasons for this but it’s mostly because people just don’t get it. If you suffer from it, or live with somebody who does, you probably get it. And no, you aren’t “so depressed” that the item you wanted wasn’t on sale. You had a reaction, you were sad, but you are most certainly not depressed.

Ben and I have been going to biweekly couples counseling sessions and one thing that keeps coming up is My Depression. It’s not something that ever fully goes away. Medicine can help, exercise can help, counseling can help, but when a bout of depression decides to creep into your head and completely take over your thoughts and feelings and daily life, all those things just can’t knock it the fuck out of there.

So when the counselor asks me how I cope, I tell her how I used to write. A lot. About funny things, about sad things, about life, about depression, about everything. But then after awhile I just kind of felt like I was echoing the same words that had already been said over and over and over. I used sarcastic humor a lot when I wrote about this stuff because it was natural and easy and a way to cope but it started to feel forced. I’d have to think of a way to make it seem funny that for three nights in a row I didn’t get any sleep at all because I was scared that I’d die in my sleep and the fear of not waking up the next day made my heart pound so hard I thought that’s what was going to kill me and holy shit it’s just a panic attack and the entire world is asleep and I want to stand outside in the middle of the street and scream fuck you all for not understanding how scared I am.

It’s hard to turn that into a joke. Because it’s not really that funny.

So one day I went to write and I sat there with my hands poised over the keyboard ready to type and… nothing happened. I’d try to force it, I’d try to just GET. WORDS. ON. THE PAGE and then I’d delete it because it’s bland and horrible and not funny at all and 90% of the people reading it would just think that I had legitimately lost my goddamn mind.

So the counselor tells me to write. And I just can’t express to her or Ben how much I wish that were possible. I WISH I could just sit down and write. I also wish that I could explain what it feels like to want to get all this shit out of my head and the very real physical pain it causes to sit there while nothing happens. The thought of sitting down to write and then nothing happening is frustrating and infuriating and PAINFUL. It hurts.

It took me almost a week to actually sit down and do it. This is it. I guess it’s going to take time. Like, I’m training to run a 5K on July 4th and realistically I didn’t give myself enough time but I was needing a kick in the ass to actually get out there and train. I’ve had to really push myself out of my comfort zone. I’ve been sore and tired and I’ve wanted to give up but my ridiculous stubborness to kick this 5K’s ass is the same thing I need to do with writing. It’s going to be uncomfortable, it’s going to be hard, it’s going to cause me pain, but the end result will hopefully be a better me than when I’m NOT doing it.

5 thoughts on “In which I write.

  1. I was going to write a post here about how I feel the same way and experience exactly the same issues regarding my writing, wrote it, and deleted it all because it was pointless and awful and shit.

    Case in point?

  2. i tooooootally get it with the blogger’s block. when i went through the split back in 2006/2007 i really stopped blogging like i used to… mostly for privacy, and it just felt like so many things were happening and affecting lives that i didn’t want to have it out in the open, and when i post things on the interwebz, i just have this rule of it being out there for whomever.

    I found my enjoyment for blogging again by getting a specific subject that didn’t have to dive into my personal life hurdles, and that was with fitness. but even that has been suffering from my lack of posting lately, I’m overwhelmed and it seems on the bottom of priorities even though I know it is important to and for me.

    It makes me sad to read about your struggle with depression. I want to just put on my bio-suit, a la Inner Space, shrink and surf into your brain and kick the depression’s ass!!!

  3. I totally get it. It was incredibly hard for me to write out what I have gone through recently, and I have deleted, or just not posted alot of it, but it also seriously helped me, no matter how boring or forced the entries were. But I totally get that inability to force it. It makes you feel better to write, but it makes you feel worse to force it. So WTF do you do?

  4. I more than understand. I don’t blog, don’t write, don’t draw, don’t anything. I don’t a lot of things. When my depression is at a peak I’m overly codependent and lazy. I look around and hate what I see because the house is a mess or there’s editing to do or whatever homework assignment. I just want go back to my room, close the for, and turn off the light. But then, I get depressed that I want to do that because I know logically how unhealthy that is.

    You always hear “When you’re ready to help yourself” bullshit. I’ve been ready. I’ve done counseling, I’ve done therapeutic drugs, tried alternative homeopathic remedies and I see the doctor regularly. But here I am still…

    I get it. I know how not- in-control everything feels and rarely does anyone understand that you really do try our that you know those anxious irrational thoughts are illogical.

    I did once find a drug that helped. I was happy. Was even working out with Julie and some on my own too… But my heart apparently didn’t like it. Took 4 or 5 months for my blood pressure to go back to normal.

    Fuck depression.

  5. My reply is kind of all over the place and with typos but that’s what happens when you respond via PDA and get interrupted by your cat who keeps ripping his scab off on your bed. Sorry about that! =P

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