Thursday, April 30, 2015

Depression

 I grew up around Seattle, or as I like to think of it, the crying man’s San Francisco. Most people I know deal with depression in some form. It’s super common. Sometimes I feel too depressed to leave the house. I just feel lethargic and I want to lay on the couch and close my eyes and do nothing but nap and eat, which is not as awesome as it sounds. I think I’m like a cat in an ill fitting human suit.


I go through ups and downs that seem to last anywhere from a few weeks to years. In college I was very very depressed, but I had to cut it out because it was totally cutting into my drinking alone time. I think I may be in a downward slump now. I haven’t gone on a date in five months, which is a long time for me. I just haven’t felt interested or motivated to put in any effort, really in anything except comedy. And even that: performance arts, though it used to enthrall and thrill me, is losing its allure.

I think of depression like a classic I-Pod, because any time I tell someone I have it, they’re like “Still?” and "I got over that in high school." For me, being depressed isn't so much about wearing all black, listening to the Cure, and rolling eyes with dark eyeliner: though that is a very fortuitous coincidence. Being depressed is more of a state of lethargy and listlessness.

I read an article that being depressed is very linked to overly worrying, which leads to intense dreams, which leads to less REM sleep, which leads to oversleeping, and slothlike behavior. But it's okay, because sloths are adorable, right?



I don't know if I always had depression. I remember being ambitious, motivated, driven, completley in love with school and work and personal growth. I struggled with intense anxiety my entire life but never depression. I used to get these intense panic attacks. I felt constricted by my anxiety like a hand was gripping my heart inside my chest. Whenever I was about to talk to someone who I admired and craved the respect from, it felt as if the hand was tightening around my heart. My anxiety felt constricting. I was in a glass clear box, and when pressure was applied, the walls and ceiling are slowly getting closer together incrementally much like the walls and ceiling in the trash compactor scene in the first Star Wars. At times this can result in disrupted breathing, heart racing, and restlessness. I believe my anxiety was the beginning seed which my depression sprouted from.

It was probably when I was around 18 when I started really experiencing depression. I started crying a lot, and having problems connecting with people. In college I was experiencing a lot of changes, gaining a sense of confidence, which conflicted with my 18 years of thourougly cultivated low self esteem. I had an intense guilt for existing, but I didn't deserve it. When I was younger I was nervous, anxious, and guilty about taking or taking up space. I shouldn't feel guilty for existing, because, it's totally the fault of the mad scientists that created me. The emerging of confidence mixed with the hot bubbling anxiety may have led to depression. When I got out of college, I lost a lot of my enthusiasm for constantly striving to better myself. Also I had my first real relationship end, which brought up a lot of abandonment issues, but now even those have left me. Now, unless I busy myself with an intense project, I struggle to get out of bed. For me, the best way to stave off depression is to throw myself into a project and to work on keeping up with my to do lists.

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