R U OK

Fighting Through My Depression

I’m not an expert on this subject matter, except through my own experience in dealing with my own depression. I consider myself a moderate depressive, it comes and goes. I offer no answers or cure-all. The following is simply my insight with a bit of humor and hope thrown in.

I don’t know anything. Well, I know a little about a lot. No I don’t, who am I kidding! I know so little, I may as well not even exist. Most of the time I find that my opinions are lacking substance, are challenged and left blowing in the wind after I blather about something I have no ability or authority to speak of. I often ask, to myself, after having my opinions torn apart, ‘What just happened here?’ I take it on the chin and return to my cave. There, I can cry in silence and try to make sense of it all. In the end, nothing really matters. We are just specs of dust, floating on a spec of dust, swirling around bigger specs of dust and, ..well, hey! Hello Depression!

No, I am not beating myself up. Yes, I can sometimes drop into a depressive funk, but I am not alone. Everyone I know has a depressive side and we all walk among the living. My wish in life is to be happy and content, which I can be most of the time. I don’t need much, just let me write my thoughts, tell my stories and I can die happily. I now think Depression is a normal process humans go through for reasons to numerous to mention. One reason being that it’s a way to gain a perspective of our feebleness to adapt to our surroundings. It’s an like an ocean that challenges us to look deeper into ourselves, and sadly some of us die from diving too deep and seeing things we ought not to see, as we are not prepared to handle our imagination at these times. Most of it isn’t even Real to begin with. Our mind is playing a trick on us and we tend to let it have its way.

The Sixth Sense?

I’m starting to think that depression is the elusive sixth sense we’ve been looking for and we have trouble taming the beast. I’ve come to think it is there to let us know that we are more than we know. Hidden behind all the influences throughout our lives that we have been, and are being, subjugated to is the Real Me/You. In a way, we are caged in by society standards and influences through the many belief systems that we are born into. Can we live up to the expectations? Can we escape the belief systems without retribution?

We are told and reminded of the rules of our culture throughout life. The people who remind us of our place in society are the Grammar Police through to our religious elders, politicians and just about everybody else. They tend to like everything in a box, stacked and orderly. This is an example of how far humans have forgotten their true purpose. And that purpose is ……(wait for it!..)…. Hell if I know! What?!?! Did you think I was going to enlighten you with some profound words?!! God-dammit, I’m not Jesus!

I have to stop overreacting.

Have you ever wanted to say something but can never put your thoughts together in a coherent manner. That’s me in a nutshell. My thinking process can at times be an amalgamation of puzzle pieces, from several other sets of puzzles, all contained in one box — sitting, neglected, on a shelf, in my head. Take my thoughts out and try putting them together only ends in frustration with me thinking, ‘These pieces aren’t even part of this puzzle!!’ I recognize this as one of my trigger points. It’s as if there is a blockage in my frontal lobe. The wiring is jumbled a bit and not flowing cohesively. Sometimes it feels like a wall. It’s like a neon sign brightly flashing the words, “Coming Soon! Depression!!”

Scary Monsters and Super Freaks

Okay, that was going off on a tangent. Admittedly, I let my mind wonder without a leash most of the time. Filters? I only use them with my camera. To be honest, I am an ongoing self editor with most of my thoughts. This process can lead me to dark places where I battle my imaginary monsters. I can only defeat them with humor. Laughter is my floating apparatus which keeps me afloat in my personal turbulent waters. The monsters exist in ‘my mind’ only. When I recognize I’m heading towards the depressive state of mind, I start swimming to my shore. It is hard as hell at times and I lose a lot of energy. My body starts to feel weak. My mind is putty. I will do my best to divert my attention to get me back to where I want to be. I’m not always successful and long for night so I can just go to bed. If you’ve ever traveled on a long flight to a different time zone, it’s similar to that feeling.

For me, being aware of my trigger points is winning half the battle. I’ve become seasoned to recognize my depression as it sets in and then prepare to overcome it. It’s not easy and being persistent is key. It’s too easy to give in and wallow in self defeat, I tell myself. Usually my thoughts are scattered during the onslaught. My personal way to settle my mind is through meditation. I don’t mean to offend but, I’m not airy fairy by any means and, I don’t have crystals laying around helping me to align my Chakras. I do what works for me. If you find crystals and aligning your Chakras works for you, by all means keep doing it. Beating depression is extremely personal and if you find something that works for you, keep it going.

A second way for me to circumvent my depression is through my writing. I’m not the best writer, especially with my punctuation. Still, it’s my diversion and constructive to my thinking processes. I free write as much as possible, then edit, then edit some more, then give up on editing because it’s a skill I’m extremely lazy at. I even champion lazy editors and would gladly have a beer with them on a whim. Thinking of editing, I don’t know how I’m going to end this post. I think it will be ongoing in my future posts.

Depression ain’t a river in Egypt

… but it does flow through many peoples lives the world over. It has high tides and low tides. Sometimes it swells like a King Tide, and that is when some people drown in it. I’m not an expert with all the things that comes with it, but damn if I won’t stop to help someone if I recognize it in them. Sometimes, just being there in the background is enough to get one through. Hell, what do I know. I really don’t know. Still that won’t keep me from making the effort to recognize when I’m heading down that road and pause to reflect on how to best handle it or help someone being swallowed by it.

In ending, I’m okay. On the scale of depression I would place myself somewhere in the middle or lower middle. I once went to edge, looked and crawled back to a safer place. I’m much better now. I love life and accept all its challenges, knowing I am stronger and more resilient than at first thought. I tell myself it is just a phase and it will pass. I force myself to keep busy either writing, play drums and reading about my favorite subjects. Anything to distract my mind until I recover. I consider myself normal.

How are you? Are you okay? Would you like to talk about it? I don’t have any answers but I will listen if you like.