Okay, truth time. I’m depressed. There, I said it. I try to keep positive as much as I can, especially with my writings, but the illness has completely overwhelmed me. This is not something that just happened; I’ve been fighting it for a while now. Truth be told, I’ve been struggling with this ever since I was in the hospital the first week of September. I’ve tried to do all the right things. I get out and walk every day for exercise. I have been taking my medications religiously. I’ve cut out the drinking. I’ve worked with my Doctor to make adjustments to my medications. Maybe it’s all helped to keep it from being worse than it is, but it hasn’t stopped the downward spiral.

I have a lot of valid reasons to be depressed. I missed two weeks of work as a result of being hospitalized, and as I’m paid by the hour it had a huge impact on my finances. I also lost my health insurance the first of September, and am having to pay for my medications out of pocket. I spent over $500 in September alone, and I still have more to refill. My LP tank apparently had a leak in it and I lost over a quarter of my gas, and had to pay for the repair and to refill the tank. I’m so far behind on my budget I’ve had my cable disconnected for non-payment, which means I have nothing to do in the evening except for sit and fret about everything. I’m totally unmotivated at work and in spite of the fact that the amount of work has finally picked up. I can’t focus and am behind on everything there too. The time of year is always hard, and we’ve had rain and gloomy dark days for over a week. And it’s been cold; I hate being cold.

All of the circumstances and environment could be enough to make anyone depressed. But the truth is, I would be depressed even if everything was going fine. Many of the external issues are actually caused by my mood instead of the other way around. And I’ve had plenty of times where I’ve been able to deal with many more problems with a positive attitude. Which came first, the problems or the depression? To me it’s clear; none of the issues I’m dealing with are insurmountable if I had the energy and positive mood to respond to them.

Regardless of the cause, my life is absolutely miserable now. I have no energy at all. I dread going to work every day, and spend the majority of my day staring at my computer or out the window at the gray sky. Without doing any significant work the days are exceptionally long, and it seems like I’m never going to finish. I have a tendency to become obsessive about things when I’m depressed, and this time is no exception. I’m so lonely I am checking my email every couple of minutes to see if I’ve heard anything at all from anybody. As I sit and stare I refresh my screen over and over, hoping for some contact and always disappointed that there’s nothing there. When the workday is finally over I rush for home, then have nothing to do when I get there. I wander back and forth around my little house, still obsessively checking my email, sitting in my chair dozing and stepping outside for a smoke. I’m constantly back and forth, and trying not to think about the bad things my depression is forcing on me. My appetite is completely gone, and I’ve lost a significant amount of weight. I can’t even keep my jeans on they’ve become so loose, and I’ve had to go back into the pair I bought the last time I was depressed that I had to buy in the boys department. My waist has shrunk so much I’m below the smallest mens’ sizes. Not wanting to eat I’ve stopped cooking altogether; forcing down a microwave dinner if I eat at all. Weekends are especially hard; I’m much more aware of being alone and the loneliness is unbearable. I end up sleeping as much as I possibly can, and when I can’t I’ll sit in front of my computer staring the same as I do at work.

So I dread my job. I’m miserable at night. Weekends are absolute hell. I’m living a pretty empty existence with nothing to look forward to. I know it’s the depression that’s making it so difficult, but understanding doesn’t take away the suffering. As my therapist says; insight isn’t healing. I know that eventually this will pass. I have noticed a slight improvement since my last medicine change, and can hope that over time it will bring me back to a good place. It has to.

I do always try to be positive and upbeat with my writings. It helps me to keep things in perspective and organizes my thinking and focus on the good things. I try to do all the constructive things the best that I can that are supposed to help, I reach out to the few friends I have and force myself to appear happy so they won’t know I’m so miserable.

I will get through this. Experience has taught me that depressions aren’t the end of the world and eventually things will get better. I try to hold on to this knowledge as a way of getting through each day. Even though remaining positive isn’t possible, I know that it will be again and all I have to do is believe that it’ll be better; because it will. It always has.