Apparently I am a smart kid. My parents, teachers, and a succession of bosses who fired me, have all told me this repeatedly. This hasn’t stopped me from dropping out of uni on 3 successive occasions, enjoying The House Bunny way more than I should, and spraining my left foot five times in one year. Neither has this stopped me from infrequently going mental.
Now when I say mental, I don’t mean having a barney and smashing a few plates up (though that is fun and I recommend it to anyone who is a bit cross about something, cheap plates only though). I mean mental as in suffering from mental illness. Over my life I’ve taken Prozac, Paxil, Xanax, and Valium, and had so many others prescribed that I forget their names. I’ve been diagnosed with everything from a psychotic episode, through generalised anxiety, to “I guess you’re just in the doldrums hey?”. None of the labels or meds really made much of a permanent difference, and so yet again I have found myself being struck down by a case of the summer blues.
When I was younger and more often out of a relationship than in one I was convinced that once the right person came along I’d be able to shake myself out of these ‘doldrums’ and get it together. Surely I could sort myself back out with the love and support of someone great. Often being with someone was enough to drag me into a happier frame of mind for a while but soon enough I’d sink back into a mire of sadness once the honeymoon was over.
Being depressed, or otherwise unwell, makes for a shitty relationship especially if the whole thing was shakey in the first place. Who wants to unload their many and varied neuroses on someone else and drag them down with you? And if you do will they love you? Will they understand? Will they even care? But keeping everything to yourself makes you secretive, grumpy, and prone to crying fits. Well, it does that to me: results may vary.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been sliding slowly into a miserable frame of mind, and feeling more and more pathetic about it. The same things run through my head over and over: I have somewhere to live, two pretty goldfish, a wonderful boyfriend who I’m madly in love with, a huge project that I’m excited to work on, the sun is shining, my friends are brilliant… and yet none of it helps.
On Friday I was sent on some bizarre course by the job centre, and my advisor said that I seemed unmotivated. She started to tell me to let joy into my life, and that all I needed to do was see the happiness around me and choose to make it part of me. Walking out of her office into the glorious sunshine I felt like I had the heaviest boots ever, my soul felt leaden and I had to breathe slowly to stop myself from crying. All her The Secret-esque talk had done was make me feel even more stupid and pathetic for not letting myself be happy.
On Sunday evening after crying my eyes out over my faulty MacBook charger I took stock. Sure I’ve got so many things to be thankful for, and life could be so so much worse. The people around me: my friends, family, pets, and boyfriend, are wonderful, without them things would be so much worse, but, and there’s a huge but, it’s ok to feel like this. It’s not a choice I made, after all why on earth would I choose to be depressed? That totally defies logic! Rather than being a way of life I chose for myself this is something that happens, and with time and the right strategies it will be something that I can deal with more effectively, without resorting to lying in bed watching Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) all day.
And so really what I wanted to say all the way through this rambling, narcissistic post is that I think I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. There are, maybe, some of you out there who are down in the dumps or worse and hope that being with someone else will sort you right out, or those of you who found someone and are cross at themselves for being unable to shake off a mood that’s been hanging around for so long. All I have to offer is something incredibly cheesy: you’re not alone; I’m there with you, listening to miserable songs, and feeling blue even though I have every reason to be happy. And maybe one day I’ll be a smart enough kid to pull myself up by my bootstraps and get it together forever.
Photos from Model Love and Matt Caplin
7 Comments
Somehow Facebook stumbling I got to this page… oh, you so could be me. I never got blogs before! But what you are describing is so accurate. That leaden soul into the glorious sunshine… such a familiar feeling. You’ve brightened my day just by expressing reality so wonderfully. Thank you so much darling. Love this font by the way.
Thank you for this post. Life is not always fluffy clouds and sugar cubes. Depression gets cast as being so damn artistic (and while, granted, it does land us on the couch, writing, collaging, search for life on the planet…), people don’t understand that the darkness beneath an artists skin seperates them from so much of life’s beauty. Know that we are all treding these streets together…threading between eachother, creating lace.
xo
I think you’re being incredibly smart right now. You’re admitting you feel bad and taking ownership of your depression instead of taking it out on yourself or other people (although Job Centre lady sounds like she could do a with a dose to shut her up) and you’re not taking on more than you can handle.
I had to go to tonnes of therapy to learn do those things and start getting better. You’re several steps further ahead already. If your anxiety is an issue at the mo, contact Anxiety UK and see if you can get a cheap therapist through them. It’s about £20 to join up and about £5 to see a therapist each week, which might be more than you can afford, but compared to waiting on the NHS, it’s well worth it!
Good luck!
there was a time when i chased down unhappiness. after all, which of my idols had not experienced some devastation and created something beautiful from the ruins of their depression? soon it became me, and i became it: now, i wouldn’t have it any other way.
to me, the possibility of creating something beautiful (and the euphoria that comes with succeeding) is far better than living in a constant state of happiness. like a seed in the dark, i enjoy my perennial happiness.
p.s. thank you for using my photograph x
I love this post! And it’s good to hear that people (other than myself) feel like that too. Thanks.
Ah, this brings back Prozac fueled memories of my miserable years… In my experience, depression never goes away completely. Just gets easier to cope with when you get your life sorted out and don’t have to worry about your future so much anymore.
Great post! Spot on, and you are definitely not alone.