Despite the internal debate raging in my head about the worth of writing this, here I am. I’m in the sandbox, as my friend Pat Walsh called it once, which is a euphemistic way of saying I suffer from severe depression and right now I am in a long downswing. I can’t really begin to tell you how long I’ve been dealing with it because I don’t know, but it’s certainly been for the past 6 or 7 years now. I’ve been up and down in that period, I’ve been on various meds and I’ve had 5 different therapists. Also in that time I’ve grown very tired of saying, and believing, that I thought I’d turned it around. Invariably a month or so later the sudden upswing fades and I head downward. Like an addict, except without any kind of temptation involved, just one day I realize that at some point I’ve fallen into the hole again.
One of the strangest things about it is the way that, whatever state I happen to be in at any given time, the other state doesn’t seem real. When I feel up it seems like the down periods are all just whining and moping or not even genuine. When I’m down it feels like THAT is my genuine state and my up periods are merely a pretense I put up when I have to be able to get by in any interaction with other people.
I should clarify that ‘up’ is an extremely relative term. For me the past couple of years it just means ‘able to go out in public’ or ‘able to accomplish small tasks,’ while ‘down’ has worsened lately to bouts of sudden, abject terror or finding myself on the floor crying uncontrollably (both of which usually come about with no trigger whatsoever). In between those states I tend to be kind of level, though on the low end. I have a lot of trouble with focus and concentration and there are days that pass where I honestly don’t really understand how I got to midnight from noon. Not that I black out, but that I just couldn’t really tell you how in the world I passed 12 hours that day.
Anyway. I’m typing all this because I know I’ve become an even bigger hermit than, well, the other times I’ve been a hermit. I’ve switched meds around, which is a process that tends to take about 3 weeks or so for me to know how it’s going to affect me (this is the start of week 2, in case you’re curious). I’ve also started seeing a new therapist, after about a year without one, I think. In the first session I mentioned being tired of telling people I was doing better only to then not be and she told me I shouldn’t concern myself with more than just ‘right now I feel okay.’ So the past few weeks I’ve just tried to accomplish what I can in the moments when I feel okay. This is one of them.
I realize I’ve cut nearly everyone out of my life lately, and while the urge to try to explain comes frequently, this is the first time I’ve felt up to actually trying. Possibly more to the point, it’s a rare moment where I think anyone will actually give a damn (it’s not you, it’s me, don’t take it personally). This isn’t about trying to get anyone to prop me up or garner some pats on the back, which is why I’ll be leaving the comments off. It’s about the fact that if you’re reading this you deserve more than an unexplained disappearance. “I am in here,” as the book says. I’m just trying to find my way back out.
It seems hollow and disingenuous to say I’m sorry for having gone quiet, but I am. I hope that everyone reading is doing okay.
(Hey, this is “future-Paul, circa 2012.” Would you like to know where all of the above led? Read on…)