In the last months of 2022 and the first couple of 2023, I had one of the worst episodes of depression that I can recall. During that time I mostly quit putting out writing because it was dark and really not great. This one borders on both, but I’m trying to get back to just putting out the things that come to me, regardless of tone and topic.
03/16/23
It's easy to surmise that the reasons you don't hear from someone are myriad and remote from their truth. That perhaps the thing you're looking for simply dried, fell off the tree, and the tree grew barren. Immediately, without recourse. The truth is always deeper. Always.
I am depressed. Or is it, I have depression? Semantics? I have depression seems to be the trend so we can go with it if that's what's "right".
The truth, it seems, cares little for definitions. It only plummets, deeper, blacker.
If you've been concerned that the quips and the snarks, once almost a daily have gone away, worry only some. Words have come, but their content has been deemed by my editors (me) to be harsh, and futile, and not worth sharing, as despite what the above may appear to be, I committed long ago to only share if there was a positive. Something to help. Something with a light. That this bulb appear to be but a pinhole camera, an elementary school project into an aging man's soul is no matter. There's light. And we will grasp for it.
//
As I said above, I've started many many posts over the last 6-8 weeks. None have gotten this far. Bleakness. It's a thing. The calming affect of writing, in absentia. The posts, 80-400 words, broken, pieces of despair. The days spent largely alone. One day. I sat and tried to describe it.
"...My specific thread of depression is a rolling conundrum of wanting to be alone while knowing it's terrible for me and serves to only exacerbate my depression.
It's about needing desperately to talk to someone about it but not being able to talk to anyone because you're tired of being the subject matter. Of being the thing you talk about with others.
And so in order to not burden others you get more quiet. To where it affects everyone because you're trying extra hard not to talk at all. This makes people angry at you for not talking to them. So you do your best to just go away and isolate yourself.
Currently I'm in the last seat in the furthest quietest corner of a coffee shop. A stranger to everyone. It's weirdly calming..."
This. Is what one slice of depression looks like. A pie left better uneaten.
//
I share this today though because there is that pinhole camera. A black piece of construction paper. A hole. A view of the outside world living lives. "You have been the light before." I say.
The light today brought by a realization that they chose the 100th book of the Oprah Book Club. A realization that you. Write. That there's some who read. Who'll remember it. Who'll read it again.
A smirk hits the corner of your mouth as you know that these writings aren't this year's Summer Reading. That most of the time 50 year old white guys aren't the ones who Oprah calls to say, "We've chosen your book." Of knowing you have no book. Of knowing that these stories haven't ever tried to be that. That they've always just been loose. Memories. And feelings. And working through.
A small smirk and a short tingle signaling potential for a better day.
#hugsandhifives
A smirk; I can see it. Thank you for your writing.
Awesome, thanks Pat for the view into depression—it’s tough from the outside to know what’s going on. Don’t isolate! And you’re not a burden!!