You would think a person would know such a thing. Doesn’t “depressed” mean miserable? In emotional pain? Actively feeling bad and wallowing? The emotional version of how your thumb feels after you hit it with a hammer?
Not always, I think. For me depression usually looks more like sitting around the house, not doing much – and even when I realize I am just sitting around, not doing much, I still can’t seem to rise up out of it and go do stuff. And I don’t even mean heroic stuff, like go accomplish great things. I mean like go to a meeting. Or go get what I need to hang that new artwork. Or sweep the floors. Or buy a new plant for the empty pot that I’ve been looking at for weeks.
Sometimes I just can’t seem to find the energy to go and engage with life at all. The last two mornings I said I would go to the 9:30 meeting, because every time I go I am glad I did. And I know I have been falling into this pattern of not getting out, not doing stuff, being depressed. It becomes a feedback loop that makes me more depressed and makes leaving the house harder.
And then, both mornings, I decided not to go to the meeting. This morning, I even told myself that old story that I’ll go to the 6 p.m. instead.
What is the problem here? What is it within me that wants to withhold me from the world? Is it a protector self, keeping me from harm? Is it self-loathing, convinced the world will scorn me? Is it just a mental fog created by so many thoughts and inputs that I can’t work through them all and just get so overwhelmed I shut down?
I see it in so many aspects of my life: I take Spanish classes but don’t try to speak with people on the street. I go to the gym but don’t work too hard or take challenging classes. I spend my mornings seeking comfort in my living room with the heater, telling myself it’s too cold to go out. I wish I could lose weight but keep eating the same way. I read spiritual books but spend only a few minutes in completely scattered “meditation” per day. I go to meetings, but I don’t work the steps or take service positions. I rest in resentment and despair that so few people reach out to me, and then I almost never reach out to them.
I would say I am stuck, but that implies that something happened to me. And maybe it did. Maybe depression happened to me, the same way that addiction happened to me. Or maybe it’s my “fault,” and I just need to try harder. Maybe, if I can find just the slightest spark of energy to get out there, to try and do, I can get some positive momentum.
But right now, I sit here writing about this stuff instead of going to a meeting, or sweeping the floor, or hanging that artwork, or reaching out to people. I want to go and do, but I am isolated and inactive. I want to connect, but I choose to stay closed. I want to leave, but I stay.
I guess I am depressed – not forever, just for now. I just don’t know what to do about it.