Thanksgiving Thoughts

I know that Thanksgiving, by name alone, should be a time of giving thanks for what we have.  I am quite thankful for the things that I have.  I could be happier still if I had other things, but I shan't be greedy.  There is one thing in particular I am extremely thankful for, but that's not why I'm here.  I'm here to discuss those things in our lives that we are not thankful for.  The things that we do our best to avoid and never talk about, and why not?  Because some people don't believe in it, or it makes you seem weak and strange?  Well, that's a load of bollocks.

The one thing I'm here to talk about is depression.  While I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, the psychiatrist also said that I showed symptoms of depression.  I thought to myself, "Yeah, I came here for anxiety.  Depression?  I feel fine.  I'm not all mopey and stuff, but whatever."

Now I realize that I don't have it as bad as some people, and depression manifests itself in different ways in different people in different situations.  It's like asking someone how a medication will affect them.  Different body chemistry can cause different reactions to different things.  Like how some people have a lower tolerance to alcohol or other substances, depression and their respective medications affect everyone differently.

“Depression does not always mean
Beautiful girls shattering at the wrists
A glorified, heroic battle for your sanity
Or mothers that never got the chance to say good-bye
Sometimes depression means
Not getting out of bed for three days
Because your feet refuse to believe
That they will not shatter upon impact with the floor

Sometimes depression means
That summoning the willpower
To go downstairs and do the laundry
Is the most impressive thing you accomplish that week

Sometimes depression means
Lying on the floor staring at the ceiling for hours
Because you cannot convince your body
That it is capable of movement

Sometimes depression means
Not being able to write for weeks
Because the only words you have to offer the world
Are trapped and drowning and I swear to God I’m trying

Sometimes depression means
That every single bone in your body aches
But you have to keep going through the motions
Because you are not allowed to call in to work depressed

Sometimes depression means
Ignoring every phone call for an entire month
Because yes, they have the right number
But you’re not the person they’re looking for, not anymore”

I found that on Tumblr the other day.  It's the last part that got me.  "you're not the person they're looking for, not anymore."  I feel like that so much.  Its why I don't keep in touch with people.  It's why I don't have friends.  It's why when people find me on Facebook or see me on the streets and want to 'reconnect', I just have to ignore it and walk away.  I'm not that person anymore.  I doubt I ever will be again.  However, the medications that my doctor gave me, and we went through a list of trial and error, have helped.  I've become more sociable (and that's gotten me in trouble), less inhibited (also trouble) and in general, I've become a more pleasant person.  I've started to find optimism less vomit-inducing and more pleasant.  I've stopped seeing this year as the year to try to kill me and more as the year that tested if I truly wanted what I thought.

Then the question became, what was it that I thought I wanted?  To continue living the existence I had, or something more?  Did I want to be the single father that I had been for the past 7 years with minimal social interaction and only my son and computer for company?  Or did I want to become something else and grow.  Did I dare hope to, as people annoyingly kept telling me, find someone?  I don't know.  I didn't then, and I still don't.  I only know what I feel, and that alone has me worried.

"Finding someone worth waking up with is much more important than finding someone to go to sleep with."

Another quote I ran across.  Lots of wisdom on Tumblr.  That, and porn.  Don't judge me.  I used to get a lot of photographic ideas from there before I gave up on photography.  But every once in a while you'll see one of those sappy little messages that just make you melt a little on the inside.

"I didn't want to fall in love, but then you smiled, and I couldn't resist." and "When two people are happy together, you leave them the fuck alone."

Some aren't as eloquent as others, but you get the idea.  I've become more hopeful lately, and at the same time, that last one gets me.  If two people are happy together, and your idea of happiness gets in the way of that, can you really be happy?  That's where this entire post is going.  My idea of depression isn't slashing my wrists or tying a rope around my neck or sitting in a dark room and listening to The Cure all night.  My depression is the far more devious kind.  It's the kind that I can have with a smile on my face while telling jokes, and then I go home and drink and wish things were different.  If you didn't know me, you wouldn't know how I felt.  Hell, only two or three people in the whole world know how I really feel.

On that note, I leave you with this last quote before I resume drinking and crawling back into bed.

“When I say, ‘I love you,’ it’s not because I want you or because I can’t have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I’ve seen your kindness and your strength. I’ve seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You’re a heck of a person.”