Straying from the regularly scheduled programming.. Something is not right. Inside my head. Something ain’t right. I’ve always been pretty aware of my body and what type of sickness I might be coming down with when it happens. I’m aware of my body, how it works, and it’s health. So when I say somethings not right, I mean it. I mean I feel some sort of change happening, and usually its not for the better. This apply’s to my mental health as well. Depression like alot other illness builds up slowly, wears you down slowly, so in the beginning you don’t really notice, or push it off on being tired, poor diet, lack of sleep. etc. Then when you realize you have some sort of problem that Tylenol and rest won’t fix, you actually have a much bigger problem than you’re aware of. The tip of the iceberg if you will. 10% above water that everybody can see, but 90% under water that even you don’t see. Having said that, I’ll say, in my head, something isn’t right. the last few days, a change has been occurring, but I don’t know yet where it’s going. As usual it will be a surprise, and wear me down further yet. I will say, I feel; tired, worn out. No motivation. Anxious, agitated, and angry. Very angry. All at the same time. These are not revolving feelings, these are all at once, simultaneously all day long feelings. I believe my depression is trying to kill me. Either by wearing out my brain past its point of function, or wearing out my body. One way or another, it seems out to get me. It wants to separate me, from people in my life, things, life, even myself. The parts of my past I’m still lucky enough to remember don’t feel like me anymore. I have no connection. (I have no connection to anybody which is a real shock-more on this later).
The body does not feel past pleasure, pain, or happiness, We all remember that we felt them at the time, but the feeling itself is long gone now. That’s whats happening to me; I’m loosing my connection to myself. Alot of my memories of me, of my life have no feelings anymore, I just remember them all as events that happened and nothing more. I’m losing me. My lights are on but nobody is home. I used to be a thinker, a problem solver, pretty level headed, and pretty smart. that seems to be fading away. or getting buried somewhere in my brain where I can’t find it. The last few days there has been very little thinking. Inside my head is “static”, or white noise if you will. Can’t focus or concentrate, and have even started having trouble maintaining conversations because I tend to forget what the topic is during mid talk. My wife is my freaking angel because she now serves as alot of my memory. My feeling and thoughts are not in the present time with the rest of us. My brain is processing thoughts and feeling of (bad) events that took place about 20 years ago. I can’t trust my thoughts or feelings because they’re not accurately representing current conditions and current events. Again, I have to lean on my wife. Even if I could get my head straight enough to make a decision, the information at hand cannot be trusted, so the decision will likely be a bad one. There’s generally a 10 -15 minute gap of time between someone asking me a question, and me being able to get my brain to spit our some sort of answer. And I try not to answer without my wife close by. She has become my voice of reason, my reality check, my anchor, my life saver really.
I forget many of the conversations my wife and I have and as a result, we have them several times. Each time they are new to me, but imagine how tiring and aggravating that would be for your spouse. My wife though, who is working very hard to keep me grounded and get me “back” simply reminds me we’ve already discussed it, and then talks about it with me again anyway.
I have a few doctor appoints lined up for the next week to work for more answers. My depression is not going away or even lightening up. I don’t ever get a break from it. It is relentless. It even gets me while I sleep;nightmares. Bad nightmares. Before depression I was an occasional dreamer. Smooth, easy, fun dreams. Now its nightmares. Nightmares that scare me so bad I have to turn on every light in the house to get my bearings. Some nights they leave such an impression in my head, I leave a light on to sleep with. My depression has made me afraid of the dark, suddenly I’m 4 years old again, having very grown up nightmares. The adult bogeyman is alot more frightening than the childhood bogeyman was.
I strayed from continuing my story today, because I felt the need to get all of the above off my chest. This is pretty much how every day goes for me now, and has for several weeks. The weeks before that were entirely different problems, as were the weeks before that. My depression is not letting up. Its relentless. It’s evolving, changing, growing.
That’s another thing my wife does now too, she carries all of our hope. Hope that I’ll stop getting worse soon, and start getting better. Hope that from somewhere, the strength will keep coming to us somehow, so that we can continue to live to fight another day.