“Reasons I Drink”
These are the reasons I drink
The reasons I tell everybody I’m fine even though I am not
These are the reasons I overdo it
I have been working since I can remember, since I was single digits
Now, even though I’ve been busted
I don’t know where to draw the line ’cause that groove has gotten so deep
And nothing can give reprieve like they do
Nothing can give a break for this soldier like they do
With anxiety and depression, my brain is usually focusing on a few dozen issues at any given time. This takes brain power away from my conscious mind, which is why I often forget words, names, or even faces.
Imagine having a computer with 3 browsers running and each browser has 10 to 15 windows open. No matter how fast your computer is, that amount of activity is going to slow things down. Now imagine that your computer is 10 years old. Your computer is begging you to slow down and read a book.
I often feel like an idiot when I forget words or names. It happens most often in group settings. That makes it so much more fun. Over the years I have worked to become more outgoing and personable, yet it’s hard to tell stories and jokes when your brain forgets basic words or names.
With an additional note, if you don’t think people with depression should drink alcohol, you should stop reading here. 🙂
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Seriously, if you are going to judge, stop reading.
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With alcohol, the forgetfulness gets worse. After 2 to 3 drinks my memory gets worse and my recollection of the night is spotty at best. It seems that the one way to get my brain to calm down and stop yelling also makes my brain stop and hammer time. Potayto. Potahto I guess. At least the latter lets me have fun.
I won’t post a lot of memes, but this one was too good not to post. It’s sad how often we hear people say that the person didn’t look depressed. Suicidal people don’t have to look down or sad.
If someone tells you that they suffer from depression, don’t use their outward appearance as a gauge on how they are doing. We have had a lifetime to practice looking like nothing is wrong and that the world is rosy. Our laughter is often louder and more frequent. Talk to your friends.
It’s funny. I can spend weeks building myself up and getting myself into a positive minds space. I can meditate, take meds regularly, talk to my doctor, and focus on good news. It’s a lot of work, but worth it.
It’s not funny that weeks of hard work can be destroyed by a single encounter with a person or a negative experience. And now I have to get back up and start climbing that hill again. Maybe someday I’ll reach to top of the mountain.
Then again, maybe Charlie Brown will finally kick the football.
*Edit: I posted this from my phone so I fixed a few words and corrected some grammar.
**Update: My brain bounced back really fast today. I put on some Cyndi and walked outside from one store to another. I kept listening to music for the rest of the business day with my headphones on, and voila, I was back in my great mind space.
I am functional in many ways. I have been most of my life. I’m a functional alcoholic. For most of my life I had functional depression. I was great in school and at the top of my class. I was going to be a nuclear engineer. When that didn’t work out, I went into retail. I worked my way up the ladder over the years and was very successful in my stores.
Nobody really knew what was happening in my head. I was moody or sad. I was emotional or distant. I was shy or unfriendly. But in reality, I was suffering from depression. People couldn’t tell because I was so good at masking it and I was successful.
That all changed a few years ago. My walls starting crumbling faster than I could rebuild them. My success was starting to falter. My skills were becoming dull. My bed and my bottle were becoming my sanctuaries. All of the tricks that I learned in my life to mask and deal with my depression were failing me. I was failing. My career was failing. This was a new dimension that I had never dealt with.
I now know that my depression worsened. I was no longer suffering from functional depression. I was becoming less functional in everything. I was suffering from MDD (major depressive disorder). I was trapped in the walls of my mind that my depression built. Instead of my containing it, it was now the key master. I was the one being contained. My cage was a fiery pit while my body continued on throughout the day. People noticed that something was different, but my depression was able to fool even the best ones.
I ended up in therapy because the idea of being on medication for my whole life was too much to fathom. I was young. I didn’t want to be involved with anything until death. Well, except my husband of course. So I did therapy. It helped. I became functioning again, but not for long. After a couple of years, my walls keeping me prisoner were thicker, taller, and stronger than ever. I needed help and I couldn’t talk my way out of it this time. I couldn’t snark or schmooze my way past this gatekeeper.
Drugs have helped, of course, but I don’t know if I will ever get back to being fully functional again. I think the MDD is here to stay this time. I think I have a new companion for life, but at least I have my husband as well. I guess you could say that we are in a thruple, for better or worse.
Hopefully for better.
Anger. The hot, bitter, heart racing emotion. Red faced, ear blowing steam, bug-eyed emotion. It’s an important emotion because it can motivate us. It’s a dangerous emotion because it can destroy us. What we do with it determines what it does to us.
My depression makes me many things, but deep down, I have a burning anger inside of me. Like a volcano that sleeps for centuries, my anger can hide in plain site. But like that volcano, when it erupts, it’s a disaster and people get hurt. My insides explode and spill out onto anyone and anything in their path. And when it’s done, it goes back to sleep like nothing happened. But it did. It destroyed the beautiful world that was around us.
Like volcanoes, nature too can be sleepy or destructive. It can create trees that give us our air or plants that feed our bodies. I can blow winds hard enough to throw trees that weigh tons or soft enough to blow the hair from my eyes. When volcanoes erupt, nature sleeps, but slowly wakes. The destruction isn’t permanent because nature will always come back and reclaim this planet. It just takes time.
My anger bursts out of me at times and hurts those around me. When it goes back to sleep, I feel the devastation around me like burnt soil. I also know, however, that my nature will rise up and fix what it can, when it can. It won’t be right away and it might not be the same again, but my nature will always come back to rebuild me. And that is where my hope comes from.
Hope’ is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all. ~Emily Dickinson
Belief is a big part of our lives. We can choose to believe or not believe, but does it actually change what is? If I don’t believe the sky is blue, does that make it not? Let’s be honest. You want to argue that point, but the reality is that the sky is not blue. It is perceived as blue because other wavelengths are stronger and pass through the atmosphere. So, is the sky blue?
When someone tells me they have cancer, I can’t imagine what that must be like. Does it hurt everywhere? All of the time? Can they sleep? Are they supposed to avoid certain foods or activities? I don’t know, so I ask questions so that I can know. The same is true for diabetes, broken bones, and many other ailments.
I have MDD (major depressive disorder). I often refer to it as depression. Just like people don’t list the medical name of their cancer, I don’t say I have MDD. For me, it’s easier and it sounds less scary to say depression. The down side, though, is that people think they know what it’s like. They know that eating better will help me. That smiling will make it better. Faking it until you make it. They don’t ask questions, but they think they know, so their belief in MDD is not there. Their sky really is blue.
The other night I couldn’t sleep. My brain was busy running every angle of a scenario through my head. I didn’t have the ability to relax my brain until this was solved.
What was this critical scenario that my brain was trying to decipher? Well, I’m glad you asked. If I was sent to prison for 9 months, how would I go about choosing my alliances in order to stay safe. Obviously I couldn’t defend myself.
Would I go for the toughest guy in prison and sleep with him no matter the appearance? If so, how does one determine which guy is the toughest.
Would I hold out for a really tough guy that might also be at least a bit attractive? This could make it a bit easier to deal with the need to pimp myself out for protection.
And what if I chose wrong or made a bad alliance. How does one recover from that. What if the toughest guy is a Nazi or White Supremacist. Are morals allowed in prison?
These are the kinds of things that keep me up all night and make it difficult to focus during the day. Depression isn’t just sadness or issues with emotions. Depression twists your subconscious into such tight knots that it can take your conscious brain ages to undo it.
Depression sucks.
“Like a drum baby, don’t stop beating”.
You love me for who I am.
You love me for me.
Do you know who you are loving?
Do you know the depths to which I sink every day?
Do you know the levels of schmazy that I go through?
You love me for me.
Do you know where my brain takes me?
Do you know where my mind drags me through?
Do you know where every laugh, every noise, takes me?
You love me for me.
Do you know me?
I don’t have the energy that I used to. It’s not because I’m older, although I’m sure that plays a part. It’s not because I’m lazy. I am just exhausted. I think the medication is making me tired, as well as the depression itself.
This frustrates me because as I sit in my new(ish) job, I am gaining weight. I want to join a gym to knock off at least a few of the pounds, but I need to save my energy for more important things like grocery shopping, cooking and the like.
My doctor put me on yet another medication. This should kick-start the other medication into controlling my depression better. We’ll see I guess. So far it has helped my focus, but not my energy level. Every three to four hours I start yawning considerably and I feel like I could fall asleep standing up. I actually fell asleep on the bus home, which I do not like doing.
Caffeine helps, but too much puts me to sleep as well. That is one of the weird quirks with my body. I have never heard of anyone that gets sleepy from too much caffeine. Maybe I overdid it when I was younger and trying to finish one more level on whatever game it was that I was playing, keeping myself up all night with Jolt cola.
Who knows. I know that I am tired.
Confessions from Depression 