Triumphant Return

A friend commented to me the other day that I didn't really write much here any more, and I realized that she's right. Partly it's easier to facebook, and twitter, but there's a bigger reason.

The problem is that the things going on in my personal life are just not the kind of thing you blog about. Or, rather, not the kind of thing I blog about. Because I've been uncomfortable with, you know, feelings and stuff, and I also reject the idea of blog as journal. AND I needed a little time to put this whole thing into perspective. Nonetheless, I will try to describe without being cheesy. You may want to skip the rest of this if you're not into feelings and processing and personal self-development.

OK. So, you know that I got laid off last June and spent the summer unemployed. You may also know that a couple of important relationships ended rather abruptly during that period of unemployment.

As far as I can tell, these events, in combination with a probable genetic inheritance and a rather heavy load of personal baggage from traumatic life experiences, blah blah blah, left me what you might call despondent.

Wearing-elastic-waist-pants, not-getting-haircuts, eating-junk-food-and-watching-WE blue, if you know what I mean.

I was (barely, luckily) able to get my shit together and get an excellent job, and this development made me realize how weird and out of balance the rest of my life was. I was a stranger in my own life, disconnected from my feelings and my body, anxious beyond all reasoning. I'd been in therapy for a year, and was making progress but still feeling generally bad. And with winter coming on, I was a little scared.

So I started taking medication.

Friends, if I had known how much better medication would make me feel, I would have started it a decade ago. I have been morally opposed to medication in the past, arguing that the same effect could be had by a combination of exercise, good nutrition, plenty of sunshine, and solid emotional support.

My problem was that I couldn't get to any of those things because I was too damn depressed. I couldn't drag myself off the couch, couldn't afford the healthiest food (or summon the energy to cook it), the days were closing in, and I was such a mess that I couldn't really sustain a friendship.

When the meds started to kick in it was like waking up in the night and seeing the grey windows that announce that dawn is imminent. And then I started exercising, and seeing a holistic doctor, and taking my vitamins, and suddenly it was full mid-morning summer sunlight.

If this is how people usually feel, I think I've been depressed for over a decade.

NEXT POST: More processing and feelings.