To be wise is to be sad.

It sucks being the smartest person I know. I'm not trying to sound prideful, well maybe a little. But when my life is screwed up, when the chips are down, I don't have anyone to go to. It's lonely at the top. It's fun to be the one person dispensing advice until your the one who needs it. Shoot, it's not even that fun to dispense it. No one takes my advice even when they ask for it.

The terrible thing about wisdom is that it's a mirror, a true unflinching mirror. There is no hiding from it if you want to keep it. Ignorance is bliss which means that wisdom is sorrow.

This is not a poem.

Do you know what I am protecting you from?
I hold back a darkness that could hurt you.
It hurts me for not letting it hurt you.
It's like magma looking for a weak point to erupt through.
I hold it back and can't help but feel offended that no one respects the dam I have built for their own protection.

Where does it come from?

This sadness.

I thought I had it worked out. I went to see a therapist. She gave me a rubber band to put on my wrist and told me to give myself a light snap whenever I think a depressing thought. This exercise is mostly about making one aware of how often they think negatively. Next once your aware I was told to identify the thought itself and evaluate it. The goal being to dismiss the thoughts that groundlessly depressing and self imposed.

So I did. I was skeptical but I tried it. It helped. Or at least it seemed to.

For no reason that I could identify my depression seethed back up. When I first started the rubber band therapy I noticed a decline in it. My brain was able to sort of heal itself with it's own thinking.
"Hey, your thinking sad thoughts," it'd say. "Lets' not do that anymore."

But then it just stopped working and I don't know why.

Happiness is not a choice.

So I was reading a blog of a friend of mine. At the bottom of it there was this quote.


"Happiness is a choice, not an event. Success is a goal, not a gift or a right. Victims have no power, people who act have plenty."


I want to focus on the first sentence. There rest of the quote seems true enough, although the victim part may raise my ire. While I also don't think happiness is an event, or at least I don't think that it is, I don't think it's a choice either. At least not for me.


If happiness is a choice why would anyone choose anything but happiness? The fact that there are people who are sad disproves the "choice" aspect of emotions. You feel what you feel. There are a variety of things that cause you to feel what you feel. To some degree you can decide what your response to stimuli is. But there is so much that is beyond a persons ability to do so.


Case in point, me. My brain, or emotions, or both make me feel sad. It's not a simple matter of saying to my self "My brain is inexplicably trying to make me depressed. But I will be happy instead." It doesn't work that way. At least not for me. Maybe "normal" people can out think their melancholy. In that case happiness really is a choice for them. And I can can kind of see how that can work. I've out thought myself away from happiness. I was taking Prozac and it seemed like they were taking the edge off the sadness. As soon as I realized this any good they did stopped working. So I don't know. Maybe that's not quite the same thing.


So then I thought if happiness is not a choice what is it? That's when it hit me.


Happiness is not a choice it's a medical condition.

I'm not choosing to be depressed it's a medical condition. Depression is recognized as such so wouldn't the inverse of it likewise be a medical condition. Makes sense to me. Although it is kind of sad once you think about it. Happy people are not really happy they're healthy. Depressed people are not really sad their sick.


Do I really think this?


I don't know.

But I will say this. Happiness is not a choice. At least not entirely

Long time no see.

I feel bad for not posting in such a long time. But there isn't too much happening to me that's worth mentioning. I'm feeling bad, but it's a dull kind of feeling. Like when the tv gets left on static and it just kind of drones into your skull. It's more annoying than painful but still I'm tired of feeling this way. Where is the off switch.

Heal?

It was some tv spot trying to raise awareness for Depression. The parting line stated that Depression is curable. They said I could be healed, so why do I not believe them. It is truly odd because I have often said that I believe that there is a way to be relieved of Depression. I don't know what it is or when it will come but somewhere, deep down I believe it. So when I saw this ad it puzzled me that my first instinctual reaction was to doubt it. It's like I have these two very conflicting internal responses. One full of hope, the other full of fear. It is not a pleasant mix.

So what do I make of this?

"Thanks for noticing me."

I was with some people the other day and someone called me Eeyore, you know the sad donkey from Winnie the Pooh. I guess I had just said something bemoaning myself. I attempt to avoid this and I try so very hard not to whine. Sometimes though, when all you have is a raincloud over your head you forget that other people have sunshine, and you forget that they can't see your own personal storm centered above you. The last thing I want to do is let my rain cloud overwhelm their bright day. But like I said I must have said something, I slipped up I guess. I made some offhand depressing comment about myself and was called Eeyore because of it.

Now I have been called Eeyore in the past and it never bothered me. This time it did. For awhile I couldn't figure out why. In the past it had been friends and family that called me that. I had always taken it as a term of endearment. It was their way of recognizing me as sad yet still lovable. This time, however, I was offended. And it wasn't just because I had been called a depressing stuffed ass. Although that was part of it. Even though this comment had been made in jest I couldn't help feeling that the person was also saying "Here comes this guy, a walking rain cloud." I also got the impression that the person was insinuating that I was trying to be an "Eeyore" on purpose. Now to be fair I must acknowledge that being depressed does not exactly give one a healthy mindset with which to process the interactions one has with the world. For the depressed person slights feel like insults, and insults can be devastating.

Bad or Broken?

I attended a wedding recently. One of my closest friends was getting hitched, I was a groomsman. Weddings are interesting things. There was for me, of course, the inescapable and rather cliche feeling of jealously. Seeing someone else so happy reminded me of how unhappy I was. Seeing two people so much in love that they brightened the room whenever they saw each other only made me feel darker. Oh I suppose I was happy enough for them the day of the actual wedding. In fact I remember enjoying myself more than I thought I would. It was the before and after periods that got me down.

It's not so much that I'm love sick. (Although I am and have been ever since I got dumped on the swing set by the girl I liked back in the first grade.) It was more the general fact that others were happy when I was not. I wonder if that makes me a bad person. Yet even now I'm not sure if I care whether I'm a bad person or not... Maybe that fact right there makes me a bad person. Or perhaps it just makes me a broken person... I don't know.

Tactical retreat

Circumstances have culminated into a situation where I find that I must back pedal a bit in my life. This is not fun. It's one of those instances where I have to take two steps back if I ever want to move forward ever again in my life. The tricky part is that there is no guarantee that I won't get stuck back there as opposed to being stuck up here. If I'm going to be stuck it might as well be further up the track than further back. But here I go anyway. The scary thing is that I know me. I know that I am very likely to get mired down no matter what I do. I know what I must do. I know all the things I could do to make my life better. But doing them is another matter. This morning I had the option of waking up and getting to work on my goals. But I slept in. I succumb to laziness far to easily. If I can't accomplish a task in one day I will often put it off indefinitely.

So that's why I'm afraid of moving backwards. Here's why I need to despite my fears. I am running out of resources. Resources of the financial, and emotional variety. I have no room to go onwards with my life. I'm living paycheck to paycheck, literally and metaphorically. So I am taking a page from military generals and I am sounding a tactical retreat. I'm stuck in a battle that I'm losing and cannot win. It is not over, not yet. So I am withdrawing in the hopes that I can rally.

My mood matches my situation. I am feeling really down right now. Down where I just don't care anymore. It's been a while since I have felt like this. For several months I have been feeling both depressed and motivated. It was an odd concoction but it got me doing things. I was trying at least. Now the motivation is gone and I just feel apathetic. This recent turn in my depression doesn't really seem to be brought on by anything in particular. I used to think that my depression was triggered by situations. Now I'm not so sure. Situations can definitely affect my depression. Bad things can worsen it, good things can pull me out even if it's only briefly.

So that's where I'm at right now.

Reasonless thoughts

Feeling really sad for no reason at all. That's one of the things I hate about depression. Because then you try to find the things your mad at, or things that are making you sad. I can't help but want to pin the blame on something. Because my mind refuses to accept that the pain is all coming from my head. Maybe it's doing it on purpose, but to be honest I think it's to disjointed to pull off a cohesive attack on me. But who knows maybe I've been underestimating my brain all this time. Whatever the case may be if I'm not careful I'll start blaming people and things that are completely innocent.

At times like these I feel full. And that's a terrible thing.

Life is like a banquet. Emotions, feelings, and memories are the food. The heart is the stomach, and mine is full. Full of the bad things, the pain, the fear, the dashed hopes, filled with weariness. I'm full with no room left for anything good. My heart is full to bursting, full of everything that's bad.

I'm lost

There is a moment of profoundness in the movie "Lilo and Stitch." Stitch is a psychotic alien who is mistaken as dog by Lilo who adopts him, and cares for him. In return Stitch nearly ruins Lilo's life. You can't blame him really, he is only doing what he knows to do. So anyway the point I'm getting to is Stitch is on stuck here on earth, abandoned by the universe. He is surrounded by a human family that inexplicably love him without condition, a concept that is as alien to him as he is to them. There is a book that Lilo had read him him about a little lost duck. One night he goes outside and looks up at the sky and like the little duck cries upward "I'm lost."

I feel like that a lot of the time. I am surrounded by people and things but I feel so alone, and not just alone but lost as well. To be lost suggest that I used to belong. Somehow I have gotten dislodged from that place and have ended up on my own. Everything reminds me that I'm strange, that I don't match up. Even the people around me that are kind and try to help baffle me. Maybe for me, like it was for Stitch, a sense of belonging will come after hard work and sacrifice. I just wish life could be wrapped up as easily as it is in a Disney cartoon.

Today was supposed to be a good day.

I could almost feel it as I woke up. Despite the queasy stomach ache that I have never had before I could feel that today was going to be good. Not because it was going to be good to me but because I was going to plow through it all and make it good. I was wrong.

It was not so much what happened as a combination of things that didn't happen. Yesterday was a good day and that was surprising. I went to the gym, hung out with a friend and had a good time. Coming off of that high and into today I thought things were looking up. Work was ok, and I was having a good text conversation with another friend. Things seemed promising. Without going into specifics it just felt like everything... just kinda left me hanging. It wasn't even big stuff. I feel like a stupid house of cards sometimes. Just the slightest of things can ruin me. Which is odd because serious challenges brings out my resolve. I got a speeding ticket one day and I felt great because it gave me a opportunity to handle a concrete issue. It is the doldrums, not the storm, that destroys me. Someone can say or do the wrong thing and I'm crushed. I know it's not fair to hold other people accountable for my happiness. Yet I don't know how realistic to is to absolve everyone of responsibility regarding my emotional well being. People can be rude, mean, and cruel. To think that this shouldn't have an effect on a person is naive.


People have told me that no one can make me feel anything that I don't want. People have said to me that no one can force me to do anything. They claim that I always have a choice in deciding how I react. I disagree. People can force their wills on others, to a degree, no matter how a person may resist. I've been told that I have to be the bigger man. That really doesn't make sense to me. Growing up was a rather tortuous experience for me. Some have said that even though I suffered great pains back then I can overcome them now and lead a rich, full, and happy life. They even go so far to say that it is my obligation to those around me to do this. I'm going to use a metaphor here to hopefully explain why this feels so absurd to me. Imagine running in a marathon. At the start of the race some one purposely trips you and then slams their foot down on your leg and ankle. That person is never caught, they run on with the rest of the race. Now your told that even though your the victim here you need to get up and run. Even though your leg, the part of you that allows you to run, had been injured. This injury makes the act of just standing painful, walking becomes a nightmare, and trying run is unimaginable. And your not just being told to run, no! Your being told you have to catch up to the rest of the runners. You have to finish. You have to win!


That's what it feels like to me.


How can I be happy when the part of me that feels is broken. It's not even my fault yet I'm the one that has to deal with it. Someone said in reference to this, "So what if your childhood was bad. There's nothing you can do about it now. All you can do is make the rest of your life good." Well that sounds, nice in a pick yourself up by the bootstraps kind of way. They said "Well what do you want? What could make it better?" Their assuming that nothing could fix things. Well there wrong. I want a free pass on the next twenty years of my life. That's right. The first twenty or so where unnecessarily hard. So it's only fair I get a free ride for the next twenty. Even then it may not fix anything. But at least then there would be balance, there would be justice. I know that this isn't a realistic possibility. But I'm a little sick of hearing "The victim must pay for what the victimizer did." Which goes hand in hand with statements like "We're tired of listening to you, tired of you being gloomy. Cheer up or go away. You must like being sad otherwise you'd shake yourself out of this depression."

Now I don't mean to sound to terribly sad. Even here on this blog. My blog, and I'm still afraid to show all of what I feel. I'm afraid because of who might see. Afraid of who might mock. Afraid that those kind souls that do listen and console might get tired listening and consoling.

To those of you out there, you know who you are, I thank you. I just wanted to take some time to say it. I am so grateful for your words. For those who may just be reading I thank you as well. I hope that some good comes of it. Now I want to say that in writing this I am not asking to be cheered up. Please don't try. Just knowing you listen is far more comforting. This was just a bad day that was supposed to be a good day. It will pass. I write this because it helps to get it off my chest.

Please die ana.

There is a song by silverchair called Ana's Song (Open Fire). It's about the lead singer, Daniel Johns' struggle with anorexia nervosa. I remember watching the music video years ago. Something in it has been preying on my mind and I thought I'd share.

You can watch it here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdF98W-ON3Q

At about the 1:53 mark the person pushing Daniel in the wheelchair stops and walks away. We see that it's Daniel leaving himself in the wheelchair to go join the band. I love the subtle look the two exchange. I think the imagery is very apt. It's hard for me to pin down exactly what I want to highlight with this video, but here it goes.

I look at the whole pushing your self in the wheelchair like this. The person in the chair represents all the weaknesses and fears. It's the sick part in me that keeps me from climbing those stairs I talked about in my other post. The person pushing the chair is all the strong parts. The hope, the love, the power, that I possess. That person is unable to climb said stairs because their pushing the weak and fearful around in the wheelchair. To separate means leaving one behind. No matter how feeble and miserable that guy in the wheelchair is it's still me. Losing him would be like losing an arm. Yet I want nothing more than to be rid of him. To feel the sun like other people, not just the cold. To live instead of dying everyday. Deep down the guy in the wheelchair wants that to. He wants to be free of his awful existence. He longs to be the person capable of pushing wheelchairs. Yet he hates them at the same time. When Daniel leaves himself in the wheelchair and he looks back as if to say "Where I go now you cannot, or will not follow." And Daniel in the chair seems looks back at him with unspeakable longing. Well at least that's what I see.

But I think some of the lyrics in the song are very telling also. He sings about how terrible the sickness is yet still sings "But I need you now somehow." I know I feel that way about my depression. I want to be rid of it yet... I still need it. It's all I've ever known. I fear that it's all I will ever know.

Yet Hope, like some terrible itch I just can't scratch, rears it's ugly head. It keeps me going, keeps me believing. If it manages to deliver on it's promise then I will sing it's praises until the day is worn out. But as of right now I'm still waiting, still hoping.

Trying not to speak

I am sometimes afraid that I burden people with my sadness. I don't not wish to. I feel like sometimes I tend to drag every conversation towards my depression. I try to avoid it, I try to engage others in their lives as opposed to my woes. I think I sound like a broken record sometimes. But it's difficult because I wake up every day and I have to work myself up to normal. And when I say normal I mean normal for me, which in reality is barely functioning. That's my normal. The days when I just get by are my good days. This is where I live everyday. So because of this it's hard for me to talk about anything else.

Pursuit of Happiness

Most free countries in the world make the promise of providing their citizens with Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. I think the wording is interesting. We all have Life, and hopefully we are all ensured that Life. Liberty is sometimes tricky to dispense but I think there's quite a lot of it in the world. A fact of which I am very grateful for. But that last item on the list...
It reads as the Pursuit of Happiness because happiness can't be guaranteed by anyone or any government.

Frankly it's a little frustrating that happiness has to be pursued. I'd much rather it was handed out in large quantities. I wish happiness would come looking for me than me looking for it. It's much better at hide and go seek than I am.

Faces

As I was walking around today listening to people talking and thinking about conversations I had herd in the past. I had this thought about my own social skills. It's not that I'm socially awkward, it's just that I'm not socially adept. There's a difference. I have seen people who are completely unskilled at interacting with others. When these people are unaware of their own inability it's even worse. I like to think of myself as possessing some social skill, I'm just really, really, rusty with them. I just get nervous talking to people face to face. I'm so afraid of saying something dumb. With writing or texting I am so much better. I can think about what I want to say, and there's all the time in the world to word it right. That and I don't have to watch the person react to what I've said. They read it or they don't. I don't have to agonize as I watch their faces.



I read about a psychological study where they took pictures of peoples faces and showed them two different sets of of people. One set was depressed the other set wasn't. The pictures showed people with varying degrees of emotions. Specifically the people shown were either smiling or had their faces in a relaxed or unsmiling state. The subjects in the study were asked to identify the emotional state of the people pictured. The depressed individuals often would identify the people with relaxed faces as angry, mad, or upset. "So what," you might ask, "it's just sad people looking at the world and thinking it's sad". Well let me explain. Imagine you live your life in a constant state of misery. Now putting aside for the moment the whole "what causes depression" issue. Continue to imagine that while living in sadness you look out at the world and all you see are angry faces looking at you. Even though it's just people acting normal, for some reason your brain interprets it as cruelty. Think about everyone you know glaring at you all the time. Unless people happen to be beaming bright smiles you think their mad at you. I know I've gone up to people who are just being themselves and I've thought, "Wow they look ticked off. I'm going to have to work them up from that and into happiness just to talk to them." For a depressed guy with rusty social skills that's like taking up mountain climbing and trying to go up Everest for your first climb.



Now even though people probably aren't really that negative that's kind of how it feels. The perception of reality is that person's reality. This is not me blaming my problems on everyone else. I'm not asking for the whole world to always smile at me. That's not fair and I know it. I write this once again in the hope that it might help others come to a better understanding of people who suffer with depression. Now I go out there in the world. I try to talk to people, I try to keep myself happy and not take things personally. Some days I get through life in an amazing fashion. (Amazing for me is like normal for everyone else.) Other days I just get overwhelmed. For all those out there who know people with depression please just try and be understanding. It will make a world of difference.

Loss

I am filled with hope and fear. Two contradictory emotions. But that's my life right now. There is a song that I have been listening to a lot lately. "There's a light up ahead." by Further seems forever. The title is really self explanatory. I like the acoustic version, it just aches with longing. You see right now I don't know if there is a light up ahead. So it's nice to hear people say that there is. I listen to the song at night as I walk and I imagine emerging from the darkness into some glorious light. I can only dream what it would be like.

There was one time in my life when I was happy. It was wonderful. However the circumstances that created that situation are unrecreatable. So the happiness that I once had now only exists in my memory where it haunts me. It is that which I once had but I am now without. It seems almost cruel that I was ever allowed happiness, because now I know what I'm missing. Before I remembered thinking that I wasn't that depressed. It seemed that while, yes I was sad, I wasn't that much worse off than anyone else. Then I got to see how the other side lived. It wasn't all kicks and giggles, it had it's hard times. But it was bliss compared to life before.

And now it is gone.

Ache

I'm feeling very conflicted right now. There are many things I feel or don't feel. I cant go into them all now, there are to many. Wish I could change the world, wish I could change myself. But that's my issue, my problem. I'm feeling so much and so little. Is this how it feels to come back from depression. If so, then is the cure worse than the disease.

It's a scary thing to do. As odd as it sounds it is absolutely petrifying to give up ones misery. It has been all I have known. There are no promises that something better will take it's place. No promises that the hurt won't compound and shatter me. They say the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. Dare I shake hands with the unknown? Dare I not?

I walk through life going through motions. Now that I'm trying stop feeling sad I'm not sure I feel anything. I don't know which would be worse. The pain or the nothing. I am a little angry that those seem to be my only options. When life's options where handed out I must have been in the back of the line.

Again I don't mean to complain. I fear that thats how I sound sometimes. It is not my intention. This blog is meant to be about the things that slosh around my head. There are fates much worse than mine. There are fates much better than mine. But who wants to believe in fate anyway.

At the stair case looking up.

Imagine if you will your walking with a friend. This friend just happens to be in a wheel chair. You come to a flight of stairs. Do you bound up the stairs and look back expecting your friend to be right behind you? No of course you don't. You find a ramp for your friend. You would never expect the person to get up out of the wheel chair and walk up the stairs. Now I know it's not the same thing but depression is like this. Except it is not as understood as it should be. While people suffering from mental afflictions may not have physical troubles there are emotional stair cases we just can't walk up. Yet people think we should. When someone says "Why don't you just get over it." It irritates me. You wouldn't say "Just get out of you chair and walk up the stairs." to a handicapped person.

Now as I said I know there are differences. Don't try to extend my metaphor to far here. The point I'm getting at is that depression makes certain things difficult, sometimes impossible. I believe with time and work these problems can be overcome. But the key words in that sentence are time and work. If you have someone in your life suffering with depression don't abandon them at the bottom of a stair case. Give them some time, help them, give them a chance.

At least that's what I think.

Out of key

Well I went speed dating the other day. I don't really know how to feel about it. It seems as though I should feel something.

I saw the new Bond movie and was really disappointed. You can only coast off of the previous movie's success for so long.

I started jogging. So far it's not doing much for me.

There was an episode of family guy where Peter gets drunk and becomes a piano prodigy. There's one scene where he's wasted and starts to play a song but it's off key. Lois comes out and pushes him an inch or two and then hes on key. He was playing all the right notes he was just out of position a little bit, and was to drunk to realize it. I kinda feel that way right now. Not the drunk thing. I mean I feel like I'm playing all the right notes but I'm out of position and so everything is off key. I'm going through the right motions but I'm not getting the proper result.