I slip into a funk

I slip into a funk

Become unwilling to act

Determined it is futile

Destructive thinking

Guilt self loathing at the forefront

(It’s always there but

Sometimes in the background

A constant muted melody)

And I only pull out when I get fed up

Tell myself to get with it

Stop wallowing

But I hate the act of standing up

I know I will wear out

And do so before I’ve barely moved

Three steps, when I need a mile

So I resist the getting up

But at least for those few steps

I might have hope

But the up and down exhausts

Hope raised and then descent

Tired tired

I’m always tired

Screen

I have been cheated out of life. I live behind a screen and watch others move about and work and build and live lives of activity and productivity and achievement and consistency and even happiness. I sit behind this screen alone and surrounded by piles of projects dreamed, wood rotted before the seed even produced a sapling.

The screen seems so fragile sometimes; it is semi-translucent so I think it is thin and flimsy and should shred at the slightest brushing of my hand. But it thick as life, the life I should be living, and even my words cannot penetrate the distance through.

Re-dreaming

Monday night I wrote a list of all my dreams. A list of all I wish had happened and would happen in my life. A list of who I wish I was.

The divide between that list and my reality is like a thick constrictor squeezing the fragile stem of potential until hope falls off petal by petal and all that's left is a torn and bleeding headless stick wallowing in the dirt.

I need to look at my list of dreams not for practical ways of how to achieve or replace them as the CBT-ers would have me do, but to meet them deep and raw; to grieve them so I can let them go; to mourn them so I can move to a new field and not feel like I'm settling.

And while I am running naked into the dreams, before the goodbyes, I must uncover where their roots lie; if there are wounds out of which they have grown, drawing their life from the raw pain and not allowing it to mend, then I must tenderly chop the trunks, and dig up all the roots, and pack up the hole; filled.

Then when the grass sprouts new there, the longing will have left, and I can move to other fields with hope, energized and motivated, and full,

Eager and smiling.

The Bipolar II Conundrum, per PT

Psychology Today has an article that relates to the guilt I've expressed in several of my recent blog posts. It asks where the line of personal responsibility is and suggests that it's harder to discern with bipolar type II. This is addressed solely in the context of hypomania though, and I'd be interested to hear it discussed in terms of depression and/or mixed states.

Acceptably Flawed

It was encouraging in a way when my therapist recently referred to me as disabled. It legitimizes my struggle to work, to be productive, and relieved some of my crazy anxiety about all that. On the other hand, it reinforces the idea that I am not normal, that I am fundamentally flawed as I have always feared.

I guess the task here is to reassess what flawed means and to reassess what success means; what acceptable, what worth is. So the hope is not in me meeting a certain notion of worthiness, of success, of productivity, of acceptability—but to reconfigure what I mean deep-seated worth to be. A reconfiguring where I fit completely inside. It is not a shift of convenience, you know, redefining laziness or apathy as success, but somehow finding a different currency of worth all together.

Motivation

I am not self disciplined or self motivated. I act best under pressure (not too much pressure mind you). Why when I'm doing well can I not start to build, start to create a life, move towards that something I feel cheated of in depression?

Why can't I sit down and do job research. Brainstorm answers to potential interview questions. Buy an interview suit. Prepare a resume.

Why can't I stand up and wash the dishes. And go to the grocery store. And cook. And wash the dishes again.

Why can't I organize my closet. And then the spare bedroom. And the garage.

Why can't I play the guitar every day, and not merely on rare whim as distraction from routine or guilt?

Because, if I start to do one of these things, I am afraid I will get depressed.

Yup, I think that's it. I'm afraid it will depress me. Doing something routine, like chores, just because I "have to"; or skilled, like learning guitar, but only because it's the scheduled time to do it; or scary but life changing, like job searching, which needs a systematic approach--doing these things edges me towards depression. It makes me feel

Lonely,

Unalive

Bored, and

Empty.

Is that strange?

Atrophy

The funk is sudden death repeated
Good days are atrophy
Where can I invigorate?

I haven't posted in a while. That's because I'm feeling pretty good. Not too much to say. Something positive happened this weekend. I was in a social situation that usually provokes an enormous amount of jealousy which, to date, always lapses into depression within a few days. But this time it didn't. I allowed myself to actual feel during the situation, to hurt, and to cry, in front of others, and it was a release.

On the downside, I can't get over this damn fatigue. I get so little done. I just don't have the energy.

Guilt and Indulgence

Andrew Solomon in The Noonday Demon (which I have only just begun reading) says "Neither blame nor indulge yourself." I do both of those very well. I sometimes wonder if it's easier in a way for non-cycling depression in that you have time to fully recover and build a life, rather than crash, recover, crash, recover with little opportunity to build anything.

I ran across the following quote on the Internet. I do not know the context but the quote seems very relevant: "To dwell in this desert and make it bloom requires that we indulge in neither guilt nor vainglorious fantasizing, but struggle to know ourselves as we are."

And I suppose that type of true knowledge, one that fully embraces all that one is capable of and contentedly leaves behind everything else, leads neither to frenetic activity nor guilt-clad passivity, but instead to fully engaged activity born out of identity and dwelling in the instance of this moment, and this, and this, and this.

crawling productivity

It seems that I can only focus on one thing at a time; only have one main goal for the day, or one main focus for a week. It seems like a "normal" person could work on all of the following within a week:

research career options
work on blog
house hunt
make gift for a friend
exercise and eat healthy
clean house, pay bills, etc.

But for me, it seems usually I can only focus on one of those things at a time. If I try to take small bites of each, I just can't focus, I can't switch gears fast enough. I end up focusing on just one thing for 1 or 2 or 3 weeks instead of slowly building each one up. The problem is everything else falls by the wayside while I focus on the one thing. Not to mention, the amount I actually get accomplished in 2 weeks seems to me just 2 days' worth. This is not in my depressed state, per say. It's my normal, which I don't think is normal.
Part of it is because I do hit depressive funks every few weeks, and it always takes time to climb out of those, so my concentration and interests shift a lot.

I . . . feel . . . so . . . slow