Depression, Workload, and Art
I'm not depressed right now. Well, I'm not over being depressed last year, and aside from tiny black clouds here and there, I'm no longer feeling as depressed as I was this time last year. That being said, I've been writing a new friend about depression and I realized I articulated it quite well. Apologizes to Kynn for reposting this here after posting it as a comment in his LJ, but I feel it's a good articulation of what I was going through then. In e-mails back and forth with my new friend, I've been responding to her, so the cut below is going to be referencing some stuff not otherwise mentioned. It's the heart of what's under the cut that I want to post here because that's what LJs are for; communication:
***
I recently typed out a few e-mails to a friend of mine on Depression, reposted here. Forgive the ranty quality, but this is ME we're talking about here:
***
You know what sucks about being depressed? Part of you hates it when people show concern. You get mad at them and want them to leave you alone. But another part of you feels ignored and unimportant if no one says anything. You think to yourself "Can't you notice how unlike myself I am? Don't you realize I need help?" You don't want to come out to people and say "I need help" but you also don't want them to just blow you off as a friend or otherwise , which is what you feel like if they don't say anything. Another part of you puts on this mask to people of "I'm okay; there's nothing wrong here. Nope. No sirree. Ignore the man behind the curtain." But that man behind the curtain? He's the black cloud which is slowly engulfing you. For my depression, it started with a chemical imbalance and too many changes all at once. I went from working three jobs on top of full time school to doing nothing. The boyfriend I had at the time lived in Canada where I joined him. It's illegal for a US citizen to work in Canada unless a special work visa is applied for which wasn't for us because we were planning on coming down here. I hid it very well from him for a long time, it only really beginning to present itself in the worse stages near the end of our relationship.
The day he broke up with me was the day I began to cry on the floor, building a little nest around me of pillows and tissues. I cried on that floor in that spot for 4 days straight. I didn't eat, I didn't drink water, I didn't even use the bathroom. I just cried and cried and cried. Then, while I was crying, it was like a little part of me woke up and told the rest of me "you can either sit here and keep crying the rest of your life or you can do something about it." I stopped crying, took a shower and cleaned myself up, ate something, used the bathroom, and sat down to find myself a new place, new employment, etc. Everything I needed to survive. Even though the breakup shattered me, it allowed me to re-examine myself mentally and put the pieces back together again.
Snapping out of Depression is a myth. It doesn't happen. In my case, the act of crying (and I mean bawling my heart out) got all of the stress out of me I had been feeling for two years. My chest hurt for 2 weeks after of a broken heart. It took me another 3 or 4 months to start getting back to my old self before I was comfortable telling myself "I'm no longer depressed." Even now, I still fight tiny little black clouds which try to sneak in, but I distract myself with work, and will power.
Depression is a lot about willpower. Before this, my friend (trying to help me) told me I needed to sit down and write a list of everything I love in the world to get out of it. I only got to about 5 things before I tossed the list. After I had moved into the new place and secured new employment and about a week before school started, I restarted that list just to see what I could come up with. I've been adding to it every day since. This isn't to say "list-writing" fixes Depression, but it worked as a good indicator for me to see where I am mentally. It sneaks up on you, so I use this as my mine canary to make sure I get out while the getting's good.
One thing that really did help me after I moved here, was to take a walk every day. It allows you time with your own thoughts, it gets the blood pumping, and it lets you burn off a lot of steam and negativity. If you get angry, jog until you're tired then walk again. And me? I hate jogging. I hate running. I like taking walks because it lets me organize myself.
I'm not expecting you to take any of this as gospel. I wouldn't ask you to. But maybe by sharing my experience with you it might help you to redefine your own.
***
On the big "D."
There are two kinds of friends. There are your real friends and your acquaintances. Your real friends will stick with you no matter what. Your acquaintances don't know what to do when the going gets rough. Acquaintances will leave if they don't like someone you're dating, if you're down and out (like being depressed), or if you drop the ball when you usually don't (sometimes due to things like depression). This isn't to say that the friends you lost didn't care about you, just that their concern was outweighed by their concern for others. Or their ego-centrism, depending upon the person. It hurts even more to think someone is a friend only to learn they're an acquaintance.
Talking about it does help. Articulation of these ambiguous feelings is difficult. In my case, I could only come up with analogies while I was deep in it, not having the right words to describe what I was going through. I would say things like "it's a black cloud" or "it's like swimming in a rip tide, trying to reach the shore, but tiring all the while and panicking that you might not have the strength to reach it." Obviously I wasn't swimming and I'm not surrounded by a black cloud, but the analogies help to define the edges of the sickness.
And it is a sickness. It's like having a very long flu only with few symptoms. Many depressed people don't even know they're there to be honest. You don't want to talk to your friends about it because you feel like that's all you'd talk about. Often your friends don't know what to say. You hope they'll say that perfect thing to make you feel better, but they never seem to. It's not their fault; they just don't empathize with what you're going through. It doesn't mean they don't sympathize. Your friends DO care. They want to help you as much as you want them to help you, but because they don't know how to, everything they say seems to be the wrong thing. It angers you because you've heard "awe come on, cheer up" and "it can't be that bad, is it?" over and over again. You're friends are trying to help. And the best way they can isn't to talk or offer advice, it's to listen. Listening to you talk about it is the only way it's going to get out. Even if all you're saying is "I slept in way too long today and I'm mad at myself for that and I don't know why I'm so tired all the time or why I feel uneasy and unsettled in my daily life" for 3 days, the 4th day, you may not feel so tired, achy, or restless because talking seems to help.
This is going to sound dumb, but I keep a livejournal. I've had it for a long time, but I'll write in it when I'm feeling good or when I'm feeling bad. I'll post when I'm feeling depressed there. Even if no one reads my posts, the act of having it up there and the act of actually writing it out is almost as powerful as talking about it.
I also sing when I'm in the shower. It's #1 on my happy list. Singing makes me feel happy. Laughter is supposedly the best medicine, but it's hard to laugh when you're not in the mood. Rollercoasters, though, do wonders for Depression. They make it easier to laugh because the adrenaline rush you get from them is the opposing chemical to the ones that cause depression. Blood pumping is important. There's a small one that's not too scary at the MoA that I don't think is too expensive. Treating yourself to a roller coaster is great. In fact, I'd say make a day of it. Give yourself the goals of "rollercoaster, ice cream cone, and lego playing." It is hard to feel down when you're playing with legos.
***
Now onto the workload...
I've been spending WAAAAAAAAYYYYY too much time in the shop working on my project due Wednesday (pics of me working on said project below). I also have a page due before midnight tomorrow of colors I haven't even started on yet, tomorrow's advising day so no classes, but I still have to go to the school, and I'm beyond broke because my roomies owe me more money for this month (and one of them for several months past). So I'm forced to work outside of school just to make ends meet. Grr...
Here's some art!
My 4-armed Janis Jopin for Illustration. Acrylic on Canvas.
A pic of one of the wooden hands for my 3D project. They have since been painted and mounted to the sides of the pyramid not yet built, but this is a pic a few days old.
Me working on one of the feet. Also an older pic. All of the feet and hands are now done and painted, but it's a cool pic of me all dusty.
Also He's Dead, Jim.
-glych
***
I recently typed out a few e-mails to a friend of mine on Depression, reposted here. Forgive the ranty quality, but this is ME we're talking about here:
***
You know what sucks about being depressed? Part of you hates it when people show concern. You get mad at them and want them to leave you alone. But another part of you feels ignored and unimportant if no one says anything. You think to yourself "Can't you notice how unlike myself I am? Don't you realize I need help?" You don't want to come out to people and say "I need help" but you also don't want them to just blow you off as a friend or otherwise , which is what you feel like if they don't say anything. Another part of you puts on this mask to people of "I'm okay; there's nothing wrong here. Nope. No sirree. Ignore the man behind the curtain." But that man behind the curtain? He's the black cloud which is slowly engulfing you. For my depression, it started with a chemical imbalance and too many changes all at once. I went from working three jobs on top of full time school to doing nothing. The boyfriend I had at the time lived in Canada where I joined him. It's illegal for a US citizen to work in Canada unless a special work visa is applied for which wasn't for us because we were planning on coming down here. I hid it very well from him for a long time, it only really beginning to present itself in the worse stages near the end of our relationship.
The day he broke up with me was the day I began to cry on the floor, building a little nest around me of pillows and tissues. I cried on that floor in that spot for 4 days straight. I didn't eat, I didn't drink water, I didn't even use the bathroom. I just cried and cried and cried. Then, while I was crying, it was like a little part of me woke up and told the rest of me "you can either sit here and keep crying the rest of your life or you can do something about it." I stopped crying, took a shower and cleaned myself up, ate something, used the bathroom, and sat down to find myself a new place, new employment, etc. Everything I needed to survive. Even though the breakup shattered me, it allowed me to re-examine myself mentally and put the pieces back together again.
Snapping out of Depression is a myth. It doesn't happen. In my case, the act of crying (and I mean bawling my heart out) got all of the stress out of me I had been feeling for two years. My chest hurt for 2 weeks after of a broken heart. It took me another 3 or 4 months to start getting back to my old self before I was comfortable telling myself "I'm no longer depressed." Even now, I still fight tiny little black clouds which try to sneak in, but I distract myself with work, and will power.
Depression is a lot about willpower. Before this, my friend (trying to help me) told me I needed to sit down and write a list of everything I love in the world to get out of it. I only got to about 5 things before I tossed the list. After I had moved into the new place and secured new employment and about a week before school started, I restarted that list just to see what I could come up with. I've been adding to it every day since. This isn't to say "list-writing" fixes Depression, but it worked as a good indicator for me to see where I am mentally. It sneaks up on you, so I use this as my mine canary to make sure I get out while the getting's good.
One thing that really did help me after I moved here, was to take a walk every day. It allows you time with your own thoughts, it gets the blood pumping, and it lets you burn off a lot of steam and negativity. If you get angry, jog until you're tired then walk again. And me? I hate jogging. I hate running. I like taking walks because it lets me organize myself.
I'm not expecting you to take any of this as gospel. I wouldn't ask you to. But maybe by sharing my experience with you it might help you to redefine your own.
***
On the big "D."
There are two kinds of friends. There are your real friends and your acquaintances. Your real friends will stick with you no matter what. Your acquaintances don't know what to do when the going gets rough. Acquaintances will leave if they don't like someone you're dating, if you're down and out (like being depressed), or if you drop the ball when you usually don't (sometimes due to things like depression). This isn't to say that the friends you lost didn't care about you, just that their concern was outweighed by their concern for others. Or their ego-centrism, depending upon the person. It hurts even more to think someone is a friend only to learn they're an acquaintance.
Talking about it does help. Articulation of these ambiguous feelings is difficult. In my case, I could only come up with analogies while I was deep in it, not having the right words to describe what I was going through. I would say things like "it's a black cloud" or "it's like swimming in a rip tide, trying to reach the shore, but tiring all the while and panicking that you might not have the strength to reach it." Obviously I wasn't swimming and I'm not surrounded by a black cloud, but the analogies help to define the edges of the sickness.
And it is a sickness. It's like having a very long flu only with few symptoms. Many depressed people don't even know they're there to be honest. You don't want to talk to your friends about it because you feel like that's all you'd talk about. Often your friends don't know what to say. You hope they'll say that perfect thing to make you feel better, but they never seem to. It's not their fault; they just don't empathize with what you're going through. It doesn't mean they don't sympathize. Your friends DO care. They want to help you as much as you want them to help you, but because they don't know how to, everything they say seems to be the wrong thing. It angers you because you've heard "awe come on, cheer up" and "it can't be that bad, is it?" over and over again. You're friends are trying to help. And the best way they can isn't to talk or offer advice, it's to listen. Listening to you talk about it is the only way it's going to get out. Even if all you're saying is "I slept in way too long today and I'm mad at myself for that and I don't know why I'm so tired all the time or why I feel uneasy and unsettled in my daily life" for 3 days, the 4th day, you may not feel so tired, achy, or restless because talking seems to help.
This is going to sound dumb, but I keep a livejournal. I've had it for a long time, but I'll write in it when I'm feeling good or when I'm feeling bad. I'll post when I'm feeling depressed there. Even if no one reads my posts, the act of having it up there and the act of actually writing it out is almost as powerful as talking about it.
I also sing when I'm in the shower. It's #1 on my happy list. Singing makes me feel happy. Laughter is supposedly the best medicine, but it's hard to laugh when you're not in the mood. Rollercoasters, though, do wonders for Depression. They make it easier to laugh because the adrenaline rush you get from them is the opposing chemical to the ones that cause depression. Blood pumping is important. There's a small one that's not too scary at the MoA that I don't think is too expensive. Treating yourself to a roller coaster is great. In fact, I'd say make a day of it. Give yourself the goals of "rollercoaster, ice cream cone, and lego playing." It is hard to feel down when you're playing with legos.
***
Now onto the workload...
I've been spending WAAAAAAAAYYYYY too much time in the shop working on my project due Wednesday (pics of me working on said project below). I also have a page due before midnight tomorrow of colors I haven't even started on yet, tomorrow's advising day so no classes, but I still have to go to the school, and I'm beyond broke because my roomies owe me more money for this month (and one of them for several months past). So I'm forced to work outside of school just to make ends meet. Grr...
Here's some art!
My 4-armed Janis Jopin for Illustration. Acrylic on Canvas.
A pic of one of the wooden hands for my 3D project. They have since been painted and mounted to the sides of the pyramid not yet built, but this is a pic a few days old.
Me working on one of the feet. Also an older pic. All of the feet and hands are now done and painted, but it's a cool pic of me all dusty.
Also He's Dead, Jim.
-glych