Sometimes, at my worst, I feel dead inside. Depression is like being the walking, or rather laying down, dead. My brain doing as little as it can, mindlessly absorbing television or simple computer games or hours upon hours of sleep. It’s not the worst depression can feel for me, it’s better than the times where I feel such a deep horrible complete sense of hoplessness and emotional pain, that I long for total death. Enough about that… I had a good Christmas.

Honestly, I don’t know whether it’s positive or not, that I feel almost that I’m acclimatizing to feeling like crap a lot of the time…

I have good days, which are still ‘limited’ days, but days still where I feel pretty content, or I can get out and about and do things! woo hoo! Or I really enjoy what’s happening before me on the TV screen or computer screen. I was in hospital for a couple of days in december, a few really down days about mid month. But after that had some med adjustments made which seem to have made a difference, with more to come, that makes me feel a bit hopeful. Hope for depressives can be a very scary emotion. Because where hope exists, is the potential to lose more hope. If you’re hoping a certain change or approach, medication, etc, is going to make a positive difference for you, and it doesn’t, or worse yet, causes a negative change, well, feeling extra hopeless IS what depressives are good at.

Given all of that, I’m not just a label, depressive, I’m a whole person, which is good, but often confusing when it feels like the illness takes over me almost completely.

I have to then focus on the positive, work on the joy, on the love, on the beauty in life. As much as that can bring the hurt of hope in. I struggle to do it. Struggling here in front of the computer. Writing a journal entry a daunting task, which is why I haven’t been doing it very often. Not knowing what to say to myself. Not alot of self communication happening on or off screen… which is why I’m so hoping the psychiatrist that is assessing me right now decides to take me on as a patient. I need a professional desperately to guide me through that process. It’s really hard to find a psychiatrist in this city. I’ve been told by one Doctor it’s like ‘winning the lottery’. There are a number of psychotherapists, but they are not covered by medical. If I want someone who is covererd by medical, and I need that, then I have to find a psychiatrist. They can afford to be choosey, it’s odd to think that I’m not only being assessed as a patient, but really being interviwed to see if the Dr. wants what type of patient I’ll be.

If anyone knows of any Vancouver BC psychiatrists not out of town, but reachable by transit from downtown, who have a waiting list, please let me know. Just in case I’m not taken on by this guy.

Depression is also about feeling unable to make choices sometimes, and that often leads to just not doing, should I do or not do. Write an entry, not write, call someone, not call, email, not email. In the indecisiveness, nothing gets done. Even stuff I long to do, gets left behind, because there are all the little steps involved in getting to do them, that involve choices I can’t make. I want to go shopping say, well, what do I wear, ridiculous enough, often prevents me from getting out the door, I mind boggling amount of clothing confronts me. Where in good times, that’s a treasure trove of fun, getting to figure out what I’m in the mood to wear, when looking at it through depressions dark glasses, I turn away in my robe, or house dress, and curl back under the covers.

Bad things lately, nightmares, though might be helpful when I bring them into the psychiatrists office next time.

Beautiful things lately, fog, so thick outside our windows, like living in a cloud.

The christmas tree… I didn’t think I wanted one, until we had one. There is a trend for a lot of people in alternative communities to almost shun christmas as a holiday connected to Christians, or right wing thinking, or just plain ‘conformity’, I know non-pagans, non-wiccans, who chose to call there holiday celebrations solstice, or what have you, basically make it generic. I did that for a number of years, Wolfe and I kind of ignored Christmas, it was something in my mind that was really more for kids, not adults, and rather than exchange gifts we would just go shopping together for something we really wanted and needed. No wrapped packages, no tree, just a bowl full of bobbles or a sprig of evergreens in a bow was all I wanted. This year I realized, after Wolfe and Tanuki conspired to gang up on me and traditionalize a Christmas in our place, tree, presents, turkey and all the trimmings… that I don’t care about conforming or not conforming, childish, or not. That there is something about that tree, in the evening, with it’s little lights, that justs brings years and years of moments of joy throughout my childhood back to me. Rather than focusing on the dark parts, those little lights pull me away to the little light parts…

So fuck it, I couldn’t decide whether to start this entry with Happy Holidays, or Seasons Greetings, or what have you, and turned to a title ‘In and out of the grave’ to reflect on my recent past, but I think what I really wanted to say, was ‘Merry Christmas’. Because it was a Merry Christmas for me, and I hope for you, however you celebrate the longest nights and shortest days of the year, a happy time as well.

XO
Leila

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 28th, 2004 at 2:19 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.