Entry tags:
scan with darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones
I have three separate posts half-written, all offering possibly pretentious analysis of things - fanfic, feminism, what have you. Your eagle reader's eyes will have noted that, of course, I have not posted any of them. I have not posted much. Can I, will I, post at all? Apparently I can if I access the perfect confluence of empty stomach, fanfic-reading trance and insufficiency of caffeine which permits the flow of consciousness necessary to talk about depression. Bugger it, let's talk about depression.
The problem is that I don't usually talk about depression. I've been medicated it for around two years now, and while I have down periods mostly I function fairly well, am even reasonably contented at times. The leaden, shuffling grey of those few months of fatigue immediately after coming out of hospital has mostly passed. I'd rather believe that it's passed; if I'm occasionally unhappy, I haven't wanted to make a thing of it. I'd thought it was getting better. I have no idea why the monster should suddenly have chosen a few days of leave from work as the moment to spring out and drag me into the dark alley for a quick kicking about the head, but there you have it. I have spent the last four days stumbling through a sort of lead-weighted black cloud in which I do nothing, eat very little, god, I don't even drink tea, you know it's bad, hover on the edge of tears, achieve nothing whatsoever. I have interesting things I need to do, but I can't make myself do them. If prodded to movement by an actual obligation, like a meeting or a role-playing game, I go forth and imitate the action of a human being. I'm quite good at that. I even temporarily convince myself. It terrifies me, because it says that maybe the grey has been there for a while, concealed by distracting imitation, and the clear space has simply revealed it.
It's difficult to describe this state, because it deadens - why make the effort to understand or quantify it, it won't make any difference. Why am I sad? Is this grief, loss, pain, loneliness? What do I need to do to make it better? Who the hell knows? I think it would probably help a great deal if I could even put a name to it, but no, it's the classic Lovecraftian nameless dread. It feeds on itself. Not savagely, but with a slow, relentless mumbling of blunted teeth. It's a black hole. Everything is swallowed up. You're left with nothing to work with.
It'll pass. It has before. Something will shift, there will be a tilt and trickle in the brain chemistry and I'll slowly emerge into something like colour and life. I'm lucky; a lot of people have it a lot worse. But this is the worst it's been for me for a while, and this post is, I think, about anger as much as anything else. Fuck this. If I can't pin down what it is or how to fix it, at least I'll bloody well assert that it exists; I nail this fog to the wall in this small way, at least. At least feels like I'm doing something. Hi, it's me, I'm depressed. Bear with me.
(This post, incidentally, was initially friends-locked in the interests of my mother's mental health. She worries. I unlocked it when I'd emerged from the depression and told her about it. Subject line comes from Gerard Manley Hopkins, Carrion Comfort. It's less comforting to atheists).
The problem is that I don't usually talk about depression. I've been medicated it for around two years now, and while I have down periods mostly I function fairly well, am even reasonably contented at times. The leaden, shuffling grey of those few months of fatigue immediately after coming out of hospital has mostly passed. I'd rather believe that it's passed; if I'm occasionally unhappy, I haven't wanted to make a thing of it. I'd thought it was getting better. I have no idea why the monster should suddenly have chosen a few days of leave from work as the moment to spring out and drag me into the dark alley for a quick kicking about the head, but there you have it. I have spent the last four days stumbling through a sort of lead-weighted black cloud in which I do nothing, eat very little, god, I don't even drink tea, you know it's bad, hover on the edge of tears, achieve nothing whatsoever. I have interesting things I need to do, but I can't make myself do them. If prodded to movement by an actual obligation, like a meeting or a role-playing game, I go forth and imitate the action of a human being. I'm quite good at that. I even temporarily convince myself. It terrifies me, because it says that maybe the grey has been there for a while, concealed by distracting imitation, and the clear space has simply revealed it.
It's difficult to describe this state, because it deadens - why make the effort to understand or quantify it, it won't make any difference. Why am I sad? Is this grief, loss, pain, loneliness? What do I need to do to make it better? Who the hell knows? I think it would probably help a great deal if I could even put a name to it, but no, it's the classic Lovecraftian nameless dread. It feeds on itself. Not savagely, but with a slow, relentless mumbling of blunted teeth. It's a black hole. Everything is swallowed up. You're left with nothing to work with.
It'll pass. It has before. Something will shift, there will be a tilt and trickle in the brain chemistry and I'll slowly emerge into something like colour and life. I'm lucky; a lot of people have it a lot worse. But this is the worst it's been for me for a while, and this post is, I think, about anger as much as anything else. Fuck this. If I can't pin down what it is or how to fix it, at least I'll bloody well assert that it exists; I nail this fog to the wall in this small way, at least. At least feels like I'm doing something. Hi, it's me, I'm depressed. Bear with me.
(This post, incidentally, was initially friends-locked in the interests of my mother's mental health. She worries. I unlocked it when I'd emerged from the depression and told her about it. Subject line comes from Gerard Manley Hopkins, Carrion Comfort. It's less comforting to atheists).