A few months ago, I started a piece on my phone's notepad app and it began with the line 'I don't think I'm depressed anymore.' I never really got past that sentence, even though the concept was zipping around my brain and I knew what I wanted to say. The words were there, but the words weren't...there.
It was supposed to be about how deeply I identified as sad, how long I linked my very definition with my diagnosis, and how it felt to lose that. It was supposed to be an optimistic bit of fluff with a chipper tone of 'You know what, you can do it!' But months have passed and the note has sat on my phone, turning from a to-do to a mocking reminder of brighter days and greener pastures. And unlike my sad sorry attempt at putting my feelings to words, my mood itself has been anything but stagnant. So maybe that's why I'm writing now.
No one ever really writes when they're happy, do they? It's not just me? Sometimes I think it's the serotonin. When it's gone, I fill up with words and thoughts and they make me ill and the only way to get better is to write them down and - very millennial coming up - post them on the internet. Hyperlink my feelings with my Instagram. Swipe up to read my tragedy. Pay attention!!, I'm sad. That sort of thing.
It's been almost two years since I've touched this site, and I'll take that as a good sign for my mental health. Two years of being okay is a record! Give me a shiny star to stick on my forehead and an award for getting so far. Now take away my chips for falling off the wagon and hopping back on to the Self Pity Express.
Sometimes I feel like I have a big rubber band tied across my waist, anchored on its opposite end to the Totem of My Low Points. The physical manifestation of how my head is broken. It feels like no matter how far I go, I'll always spring back to Point Zero. Like Sisyphus, stuck forever on a loop and doomed to a lifetime of never learning. Thankfully, unlike our tragic Greek hero, my loop does allow me to experience some of the good shit, some of those sweet emotions, that high-highs of happiness. For that, I'm thankful. For the past two years, I'm thankful. But right now, I'm scared that the plowing forward period is done and now it's time to spring back to my resting point of sad sad sadness and low low loneliness.
Or
Maybe I'm not sad, because this whole piece has been pretty shit so far. Bad writing, good mental well-being? At least I'm still being productive. I'm going to school and working my jobs and feeding my cats and sometimes even remembering to feed myself (when I can afford it, but that's another thing). Maybe the rubber band is loosening. Maybe if I run against it enough times, I can get far enough away to reach the limit of its tensile strength and SNAP I'm free. Or maybe I can just get so fat it no longer fits around me. Or maybe when I'm at my lowest and it's at its loosest I can just slip it off and stop playing this dumb game of mental cat and mouse. How many times have I used the word 'maybe' in this, again? How many maybes can a person have before they run out of uncertainty and finally know what the fuck is going on?
This has been cathartic. Talk to you again soon. Or not. I don't know which one I want.
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