"I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can....".....Continued

For me, life on life’s terms has always felt like a punishment.  One which I could only avoid or change if I did all the right things.  Or if I could change myself to be the right kind of person…smarter, prettier, or simply ‘better’. (Whatever that means) Hence, the feeling that “I’m dancing as fast as I can”.  I’m trying. Why can’t you see that?  Why isn’t it better?  Why aren’t the problems solved?  Why?  And then I am down.  And I stop even trying. And I don’t want to get out of bed.  Or to leave the house.  Or to even leave my room.  Or to take a shower.  Or to interact with other human beings.  I am angry and short-tempered.  And I start thinking about how much better it would be if I could just turn it all off. Maybe if I died.  Maybe if I had the courage to kill myself. Maybe I should…and so the depression goes...and I am miserable.

Now, there is always stress out there.  We all struggle at one time or another.  But it doesn’t strike me as quite ‘normal’ that I live in that struggle.  And that my thinking patterns are this…tortured.  When I take an outsiders look at the way I think, I am stunned.  How come I feel this way?  Did my Mom teach me this?  Or did she raise me to be this way?  Given the fact that things weren’t exactly ‘normal’ in my house, I am sure there was some environmental influence.  But for it to intensely influence the remainder of my life in spite of efforts to change it, I believe it can only be the biochemical depression.  Along with the fact that when I take medication, I live a smoother life, this is what I believe is confirmation of the depression.  How about you?  What do you think?  Can you recognize some of these same patterns?  How does depression work in your life...in your mind?

Amazingly, I think that writing has done a lot to help me work through some of these thought patterns.  That might be because I am seeing it in black and white. (The fact that I write it so easily indicates that I really do think this way.) Finally, when I use my tools and explore it in these essays…I learn that I can influence my depression.  So the answer to my initial observation is:  Life will occur.  Sometimes it will be rougher than at other times.  It doesn’t happen because I am a bad person.  Or not worthy.  It simply happens.  And with support, and my own strength, I will survive.  And today, that is exactly how it is.  I don’t have to dance faster.  And neither do you.