Make me feel...

There is nothing wrong; things are going fine  However, I am finding that infrequently, I wake up and I am instantly saddened.  The kind of sad that makes you feel like you don't exist, despair.

I am certain it is another amazing facet of my ongoing battle with depression, but it makes it hard to communicate with the outside world.  It makes me feel like I am slowly disappearing.

You cannot explain these things to people who have never dealt with it.  Most think you are being dramatic, or that you are just looking for sympathy.  Anyone who has been afflicted knows that this is untrue, but nevertheless, that is what people assume.

Perhaps my meds need to be increased, or perhaps it's the veritable lack of sunshine in the valley from October through March.  Who knows?!  In any event, it makes pulling oneself together in pursuit of going to work or accomplishing tasks quite difficult.  It makes the idea of being sociable mind-numbing and paralyzing.  It makes the normal, healthy human interactions that are part of our existence sometimes unbearable.

My grandmother and my father believe that anti-depressants and behavioral meds are for fictional illnesses, for the most part.  My dad has begun to come around, but my grandma still seems to believe that we can control these things -- which are really quite out of our control.  Why would I choose to feel this way?  Why would I choose to exist in a world where everything is difficult and depressing?  It's not logical.  Nevertheless, I know she means well and it is just due to the time frame she grew up in.

Perhaps it's an affliction of being a vulnerable artist type?  As much as I try to understand what plagues me, it becomes further convoluted, further distorted, further lost.  Maybe it is just this lonely, depressing time of year?  Maybe the weight of everything that has happened during the winter months of past years makes it too much for my soul to bear (read: Fallujah in 2004-2005 and Casey's lengthy disappearance because of such) .  I wish I could understand it. 

The only light in such a state of darkness is to have a partner who will be patient as you navigate these shades of grey.  Without him, I am not sure I would be able to make it.  Not to mention having a best friend who is impossibly amazing and holds that self-analyzing mirror in my face to force me to realize.  With these two, I know I can get through anything, even this unexplainable, intermittent crippling depression.

I have been blessed to know some of the most amazing people in the world.  I am sure of this.  I say this with absolute certainty; my friends are the most amazing people I have ever known.  It is unequivocal, unwavering.  I am steadfast in this.  I don't know how it is possible, but I just know that my friends, all of them, are the best people in the world.  They are kind, funny, cynical when necessary, normal, amazing people.

I say this because over lunch today, as I lamented about how I felt today like interacting with other human beings seemed impossibly difficult, Tiffany lamented with me.  She made me feel like I was not so different than the average folks and like those days when the weight of the world feels like it is on my shoulders, like the sky is coming down around me for no earthly reason, that it is just okay.   It will pass and I will return to my normal state again, whatever that may be.

When you're in the midst of it, it is hard to see an end to it.  That is compounded when the episode is brought on by absolutely nothing conceivable, simply waking up that day or looking out at another overcast and rainy afternoon. I am looking for ways to make my internal sun shine.