TO FEEL OR NOT TO FEEL

I used to have a friend, a self righteous and arrogant little bastard he was, who thought he knew everything. And one day, when I dared to mention the deep, prolonged and sometimes totally spontaneous spells of depression I can go into, he spoke the words that anyone who's ever suffered genuine depression or a depressive mental illness of any kind, will prickle at the very whisper of - 'Depression doesn't exist, it's all in the mind. Everyone gets fed up and that's all it is, some people just feel sorry for themselves. Get over it.'

CUNT.

For as long as I can remember, I've had these crippling cycles of feeling completely worthless and incapable of achieving anything, where everything appears negative, I can barely move, my energy levels plummet and I honestly feel like I'd rather be dead than alive. There are times when it's all I can do to get dressed in the morning and force myself through a day of work, to come home and spend most of the evening in tears over something I can't even explain. I'm snappy, irritable, nasty, hysterical, tired, ugly and always guilt ridden for the people who have to be around me. Nothing appeases me, as much as I want it to. And right there is the sign that it's not something I am enjoying. I'm not brooding for some masochistic pleasure, I don't enjoy resenting the day I was born and I don't feel good about making everyone else's life a misery. In fact, hating myself for not being able to control these spells, serves as further fuel for a never ending cycle that is sometimes so consuming and powerful, I can hardly breathe.

Get yourself some waterproof, love...

'Go on pills!' The doctor says. 'Don't go on pills!' My Mum says.
After breaking down in the doctor's room, I say that I have hit rock bottom and am willing to try anything to make this life more bearable. So six months ago, after failed psychotherapy, I succumbed to the pills and took them for three months. What a time in my life that was. Initially, I felt nothing. (All good, the doc said. This means they're not having a placebo effect!) After two or three weeks, I started to feel an almost serene calmness washing over me. This didn't last very long and I can only put it down to the fact that it was such a drastic change from my previous mood swings. The calmness quickly gave way to an even plateau, neither positive nor negative, whereby I hardly even felt at all. I could have been some purposeless android, with no reaction to anything other than indifference. I didn't care about anything. I had gone from crying almost every day, to not even being able to squeeze a tear out over The Green Mile. I was merely existing, although on the positive side, I was sleeping all night, which had become a rarity. It probably came as a welcome break for my husband, who had a well earned respite from my ups and downs, but sadly for him it soon became apparent that I had lost interest in sex as well as everything else. We were going for weeks without so much as a kiss and I didn't care. I wouldn't have cared if I'd never had sex again. I developed the weirdest twitches and involuntary spasms, it sounds funny now, but it wasn't funny when I kept randomly biting my own tongue. Then the pains started. First in my legs, then in my arms and shoulders - muscle cramps that meant at times I could hardly walk or pull back the bed covers. I spent two weeks in agony, taking painkillers, wondering how I had pulled all these muscles, until I eventually saw the doctor and he told me it was a side effect of the medication. Under his instructions I weaned myself off them and I started to feel again. I regained my glorious self gradually and it seemed blissful at first. It felt therapeutic to cry, amazing to have an orgasm, satisfying to lose my temper. Then the cycle began again and I'm back where I was before.



The doctor is still waiting for me to go back for a new type of medication but I am not exactly banging his door down. Frankly, I'm scared of losing myself again. I can't decide what's worse, feeling like I want to die, or not caring whether I live or die. I do know that when I'm myself, I am capable of reaching the very pinnacle of euphoria, all be it for a short time. I have bouts of imagination and inspiration that have resulted in some of the things I am proudest of. But when I start to go down, these achievements mean jack shit. As far as I am concerned, I am useless and not even worth the oxygen that I breathe. And when I suffer, everyone else suffers with me.

Writing is one of the hardest things to do when I go into a downward spiral, it's an emotionally draining thing at the best of times. Often, I just don't have what it takes in my heart to make it seem sincere, and without sincerity, what's the point?

Thankfully I have a lot of friends who understand me. They suffer as well and I value their honesty and acceptance of me. No-one who's normal likes a weirdo, a mental case, a crazy, a pill popper, a psycho or at the very least a miserable bitch or bastard. But we love each other and if there's nothing else we understand it's that we don't choose to be like this.

For MB, CD, JH, IP, ML, KM and SM x