Depression Talk

I feel really well lately, I feel as though I’m on top of my game and ready to take on the new challenges that my crazy job sends my way each and every day.

I drove into the city on Saturday evening, a trip that was sort of spur of the moment, but one that I needed nonetheless. I drove down the main streets of the city, looking at all the sights there are to see in the fresh six o’clock darkness now that the time has changed.

And I was overcome by how absolutely awful I felt last year at this very time.

I spent most of my time last year sitting on my balcony, drinking whatever my drink of the week was. I spent that time praying to God and to Orion, who’s belt I could see clearly almost every night. I thought that if I sent enough thoughts up to the two of them, I might be saved eventually.

I stayed at my good friend Mal’s house this weekend, and we did one of our favorite types of nights: Fat Kids Night. We ate copious amounts of food, drank Cosmopolitans, and watched bad television.

Fat Kids Night is a tradition that Mal and I started when I couldn’t face leaving the house, when I couldn’t put on clothing or makeup or face people. We would gather up supplies and sit at her house or mine, chain smoking and watching horror movies. And I said to Mal, as we both looked up at the hunter, Dude, do you know what a place I was in last year?

And she said, Yeah, And it’s really good to see you eating and laughing and being normal. Because last year, there were a number of times when Mal would create these dishes of home cooked food that were just so wonderful, and I just stared at the plate and cried.

I don’t know what caused me to spiral into that dark place last year, I don’t know why all of a sudden, I became this desperately unhappy person who people mostly just wanted to run away from. It scares me, that I became that person, because nothing terrifies me more than that. Nothing is scarier than thinking I could go back to living that way again, to feeling those feelings again.

I spend a vast majority of my time when I’m thinking about being insane worrying that it will become me again. And recently, I’m taking steps to avoid it, because I don’t think I can take it again, and I don’t think the people around me can take it again, either.