I have been chronicling my journey through my depression in the hopes of creating understanding on what goes through the depressed mind WHILE someone goes through it. I am also using it in addition to my sleeping pill, since talking about the depression drains me so much and I crash out HARD. This current battle has been the hardest one yet, but also the one with the most revelations.
The battle I’m in is still fierce. I win some days, I lose others, but I wake up determined to fight. As my mind sits locked up in the tower Depression Me has put me in, I continue to work at finding the way out. It is such an exhausting process and I see why people drop out of the race. It can be overwhelming. The insurance, finding the right therapist, and change, so much change. It feels to be all at once, but my concept of time has been impacted by both the pandemic and my disease.
In the last week I have spoken to doctors and therapists; I’ve done intake phone calls and answered pages and pages of questions about myself. I have been trying to read and participating in 10-minute meditations (I haven’t done a great job at these, but I figure if I try something will take). Through all this, Depression me will peek over my shoulder to see what I’m doing and tries to convince me of how undeserving I am of being happy; how this is just who I am and I’ll never succeed; how I’m not really sick, how lazy…and on and on and on. It fights to squash the work I’m doing, the calls I’m making, the people I’m speaking to. I have to space out my phone appointments because the sheer effort of being present for them is utterly exhausting. I tend to have to lay down or check out for an hour or so to regroup and be able to think again.
My conversations with my therapist help lift the weight I carry. In one of our chats we discussed ADHD. I was given a number to call AND I DID! Guess what? Guess who has two thumbs and has been confirmed to have ADHD? You guessed it! THIS GIRL! I started reading about it, much to Depression Me’s chagrin, and IT ALL MADE SENSE. My past, my previous relationships, school, my constant need to be working on a million projects, my inability to remember things, all of it. I felt a huge sense of relief. I’m not really lazy or dumb, there’s a reason why I’ve been impulsive in the past, there’s a reason why I have to ask people to repeat themselves, there’s a reason I don’t understand what they’re saying! I have been battling another disease I was unaware I had! I started to cry out of relief. There was an explanation for it all!
I’m waiting to start treatment and further delve into this. I really wish I could get some medicine before I return to work on Monday — but it’s a process. A slow one that I grow impatient with and at the same time understand. Depression Me is not pleased that I feel a sense of strength as a result of my revelation. And you know what I did? I found a mallet in my dark tower and swung at the wall, giving way to a small crack and a tiny ray of light. Depression Me was so stunned it loosened its grip for a spell. Just enough time for me to buy paints, an easel, some brushes, and sign up for a painting class. After Depression Me came to and saw what I had done it came down with all its might. “You haven’t painted in YEARS. This is going to be a disaster, you’re going to fail at this too! It’s going to end up being another thing you will never finish. And if you do finish this class, you will never be able to do it again.” I just looked at her and pointed to the crack in the tower my mallet had created. You’re too late. It’s done. Depression Me squinted her eyes and said, “We’ll see. You might just have to cancel.” I squinted my eyes back at her and said, “We’ll see.”
I am arming myself with what information I can understand/read about ADHD and, once I recover from the exertion of this swing, I will pick that mallet up again and take another. This revelation has given me strength, for now, understanding, a certain degree of peace. Depression Me doesn’t want me to hit “Publish” on this piece, but I haven’t done much listening to her today. So my last act of defiance on this will be to hit publish this for the world to see (and edit it tomorrow).
