In a strange way, I had fallen in love with my depression. I loved it because it was all I had. I thought depression was the part of my character that made me worthwhile. I thought so little of myself, felt that I had such scant offerings to give to the world, that the one thing that justified my existence at all was my pain.
Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation (1994)
This…. This feels like me.
Kinda. In a squinted-eye way… Like when you don’t have your glasses on and are trying to imagine what the squiggles on the sign mean.
I’ve been on the cusp of major depression more than once. There has always been a reason to pull back, though. Like a dog. When I was in a vicious cycle, calling myself useless, ashamed that I wasn’t even walking my dog often enough, he didn’t judge. If I got up and walked him, he was cheerful. No shame or judgment about yesterdays failings, just what was or wasn’t done now.
I’ve always known that they only way out of the pit it to climb out myself. I haven’t always known how, though. Say… with cleaning. You can tell me all day that I need to clean more. But how do I remember what needs to be done when? How do I remember how to motivate myself, how do I think to vacuum before I am ashamed of it?
It is so much more difficult than it seems. Because the goal involves making it look easy!
