Misconceptions

My boss knows I've been having some issues, he knows I've been suicidal a lot this year. And he's sympathetic, for the most part. But something he said when we had a little chat last week really emphasized how he (and entirely too many other people) views depression.

Because he said, "[Working] is better for you than, I don't know, sitting around feeling sorry for yourself all day." And I think that's how a lot of people view depression. I think that's why a lot of people don't see it as a real disease, why a lot of people have no sympathy for the depressed. So let me tell you a little bit about what depression is really like, for me, and for many others.

Well, for me, mostly. Not all depressions are similar, and some change hour to hour, minute to minute. But here is how mine usually goes.

Think of the most tired you've ever been. Maybe you spent a hard day at work or at play; maybe you wore out your brain or your body. Think about how you can't even imagine doing one more thing that day. Think of how heavy your limbs are, how impossible it is to concentrate because you're just so very exhausted. But then you go to bed and when you wake up in the morning, you feel all better. That's how I feel all day, every day. Except when I wake up (if I've slept), I don't feel better. I feel just as exhausted and apathetic at the beginning of my day as somebody who climbed mountains all day feels at the end of theirs.

It has nothing to do with feeling sorry for myself. It really has nothing to do with feeling sad (most of the time. Depressions, as I've said, vary.). Depression for me is bone-deep weariness, the lack of energy to do anything or even to feel anything. I'm not sitting around being sad all day. I'm staring at the wall because the effort required to read a book or play a video game is too much for me. Every day that I do manage to get up and get dressed in my uniform and make it to work, through work, and back from work is a major accomplishment for me. And people don't understand that, because for the "average" person, holding down a job is baseline. It's the least you can do. Their day starts at the end of their shift; my shift is my entire day, not because I'm working 12 hours a day, but because the effort I make to find the energy to just be able to function at work is astronomical. I come home as tired as if I'd spent my whole shift running laps because every little thing that "normal" people do without thinking is something I have to work to accomplish.

So yeah, boss, working is better for me than sitting around feeling sorry for myself. If only that was what I was doing.

I've Promised to Live...What is Living?

The darkness around me presses
But I've sworn off seeking death
And I know that makes you happy
But I still don't want to live

So now what shall I do?
I spend more time staring at my feet
Than placing them in front of each other

Or staring at my mouse
Or Facebook
Or a chat box
Or my phone
Just staring, mind you
Doing nothing
Nothing at all

I have hundreds of books on paper
And thousands more kept in bytes
Yet I read a few words and I'm done
And the next time I read the same ones

Like this poem my life has no rhythm
No purpose, no plan
It's just words

Yet for some reason
I keep right on speaking
Though I know my words pain
Those who care

At least I know now for sure
I'm not alone in this world
And unless something unthinkable happens
Never more will I ever be

But your love, however loving
However infinite it may be
Cannot fill the void in my soul
The space where my heart used to be

I cannot say that I love you
Although I wish that I could
But I don't love myself
So there's no seed
From which my love for others could grow

But I choose to act as though
I felt something other than pain
I choose to treat you, my dear ones
As though my heart overflowed

I've done all I can think of
Or been asked to
I've sought help, taken pills
Been locked away

And yet here and now I feel nothing
But the same things I felt last year
And all the years before that

I don't feel any better
Nothing's helping
How long must this horror go on?
I'm not waiting for magical cures
I've done all that I can
And some that I didn't know I could

In general my eyes stay dry
Teardrops are alien things
But right now my eyes are leaking
And my head aches with the pain that I've shed

What can I say now?
What else can I add to these words?
I can't change the past but
Neither, it seems
Can I change now
Or anything at all

The world spins ever on and on
And we, unbidden, follow in its wake
And wonder when the motion ends
And we fly off to worlds unknown