“There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, ‘There, now, hang on, you’ll get over it.’ Sadness is more or less a head cold—with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.” (Barbara Kingsolver, The Bean Trees)

Oh, friends, I am so sick of this topic. SO SICK OF IT.

 

Hey, I’ve got a great life.

I’ve got two amazing kids.

I’ve got a job I love that pays me enough to pay all my bills and buy an occasional martini.

I’ve got a significant other who is smart as a freaking whip and utterly hilarious.

I’ve got probably the best dad in the world.

I’ve got brothers and sisters who are obnoxious as hell and love me to pieces.

 

The death of my mom was 30 years ago. The death of my sister was sixteen years ago. The traumatic death of my brother was seven years ago. My divorce was six years ago. I have talked in therapy AD NAUSEUM about all of these things.

I help teach coping skills to my patients. I know to “check the facts” and to practice mindfulness and to embrace affirmations and to recognize cognitive distortions and blah, blah, blah.

So how do I end up in this black hole again? And again and again and again?

This blog is disjointed because my thoughts are disjointed.

I had what is traditionally one of my favorite days of the year today: going Christmas shopping on one of my “get ready for Christmas!” vacation days and this year I was excited to share it with one of my favorite people in the world, G. But do you know what happens when depression is dragging me—D R A G G I N G M E—into that abysmal pit? I’m a miserable fucking human being to be around.

If you know me at all, you’re used to happy, funny, silly, goofy, positive Jen. And even in the throes of depression, I can muster that for store lines and cashiers and Facebook and casual acquaintances. You know who gets screwed in the deal? People who actually love me. People who really matter. People who don’t deserve my utter bullshit.

Have you ever spent time with someone who is depressed? We are MISERABLE to be around! I take everything, EVERYTHING, completely personally. I become desperate for compliments and positive reinforcement. I become disgustingly needy. I become lazy. SOOOO lazy. I can’t get off the couch. Dinners become fast food and cans of soup. Showers are infrequent. Sweatpants go on and never come off.

This illness is MADDENING. I can’t understand it. I don’t know why it happens to me again and again. I practice positive thinking! I practice gratitude! I don’t sweat the small stuff! I have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to be depressed about! How in the world do I combat something whose source is a complete mystery to me?! I cannot logic myself out of this one because logic dictates that I should be feeling great. Okay, maybe not GREAT, but certainly not hopeless, helpless, overwhelmed. I cannot point to any one thing, or any compilation of things, that can explain this overwhelming, suffocating blackness.

Oh, I apologize for this blog. The utter despair of it all. I started this whole experiment in an attempt to entertain and make people laugh and it’s become something else. It’s taken on its own tone and attitude. It’s become this place where I just dump my soul on the page and hope that maybe something I say makes sense to someone somewhere. That maybe there’s another soul out there saying, “Yes, Jen! I feel that way, too! I’m not alone! You’re not alone!”

Lest you worry about me, I’ll be okay. I’ll get through this. I have an amazing psychiatrist and outstanding therapist. I have a man who is baffled by it all but continues to be patient. I have a family who doesn’t understand me at all but loves me, nonetheless. I have girls who, on the bright side, are developing some understanding of this beast and my processes of working through it. They see the pain and then they get to see the lifting of it. It never lifts as quickly as I’d prefer, but it does and will lift.

I just needed you all to hear it. To know it. To realize that, while I AM usually happy Jen who loves to make you laugh, there’s more to me than just that surface stuff. I’m real. I’m positive and loving and happy and thoughtful; I’m sad and hurting and cruel and thoughtless. All of those things make me who I am. I keep trying to slay this beast. And I’ll keep trying. And I appreciate that you are all along to keep me company and remind me that I’m not alone. Even when it feels very much like I am.