Depression Talk

My mother and I have become addicted to ER on DVD, so addicted that we are going to cancel all the fancy channels on our satellite dish because really, why bother watching TLC when we could drool over Dr. Kovac and Dr. Benton? I mean, really. I’m sure there are hotties on What Not To Wear, but in the long run, our time is much better spent oggling people who aren’t gay.

There have been several scenes from this season that have struck nothing but pure, unadulterated terror into my heart. I’ve watched Abby’s mother be restrained, sedated, carried hither and yon. She suffers from Bipolar disorder and Abby has lived her life wondering what will happen to her mother next. In the episode we watched last night, she had holed up in a motel in Oklahoma, refusing to leave.

This is part of the problem with being Insane, even though at this point, I am completely sane. What if I lose it again?

No matter where I go, or what I do, I will always be a person who is Insane. I have to wonder sometimes, what if I turn out like that? What if, as time goes on, I’m the type of person who ends up screaming and flailing her arms in a hospital emergency room, with doctors surrounding her and demanding Haldol from the nurses?

I’ve never been at that point. At one point hospitalization was discussed, but it was my choice. I chose to go home and have my family care for me until I was better. But what if I had no family? What if I had no mother, no father, no Dixie-Dawg to comfort me and make me better? What then?

My biggest fear is losing my mind past the point where I will be aware that my mind is lost. And this is the problem with being me: No matter where I go or what I do, no matter what is happening in my life at the time, there will always be that fear. That pit of your stomach fear that the Insanity will come up out of nowhere and wrestle me into Its grips. That I will have to fight a battle that I can not win.

This fear does not overwhelm me on a daily basis. This fear does not control me, or interfere with my ability to live my life.

But it is always there, in the back of my mind, and sometiems I really wonder what I would do if it came out and jumped up from behind the curtains at me one more time.