#275: "I've gotten really good at being depressed"

When she sent this over, Christina said she didn’t think it was “fitting with the times” right now, since things are opening up and feeling “lighter/brighter”. That may be so, and in the same moment I have the opposing thought that there are likely still many beings working through this same experience she describes… but perhaps can’t find the words to express it. What I find remarkable is her thought of consciously accessing the same mental mechanism that allows thoughts to pass in their own time, and speeding it up, manually. It’s my hope that sharing these kinds of “shameful” thoughts, and working to find ways forward, together, continues to move more mainstream.

- Corey

“I’VE GOTTEN REALLY GOOD AT BEING DEPRESSED.”

I came across this line, my own writing, from a couple years ago. Writing that I kept private, for fear of shame, guilt, permission. Maybe even actualization. 

I look at these words now, from my then-future self, and realize how important it was for me to make the observation. To write those words. Then. Now. Every day.

….

“

I’ve gotten really good at being depressed. 

I woke up this morning in an all-too familiar state: a blanket heavy with regrets weighing over me, the endless tail-chase of what I could have said and what would have been, playing on repeat in my mind. 

The sun peeled its long fingers through the crack between my curtains and cast a crescent moon across one side of my face. I wanted to move. I wanted to get up and open the curtains, let the sun bathe me in better light, better energy. But I also wanted to move - slowly to the other side of the bed, and pull the covers over my face. Eclipse myself from the world. 

Neither, was I able to do.

Instead I laid perfectly still, eyes glued to the white paint on the ceiling, while the thoughts inside my mind chased in endless, addictive circles. It struck me how many impossibilities I was able to create without moving a single bone. 

So how did I find myself thinking I am good at this?

After about 30 minutes, maybe more, something finally lifted me out of bed. I pulled apart the curtains with arms that felt like led and let the sun, still patiently waiting, pour over me. I walked to the bathroom and filled my mouth with the taste of mint and bubbles.

”

…

Then I stopped writing.

I believe I may have started this then-journaling by saying “I’ve gotten good at being depressed,” because I’ve gotten good at simply observing my depression. The moments it grips me, the moments it lets go. I have found a way to realize that my depression is not me. And to trust that whether minutes, hours, days… the sunlight… the flavor of toothpaste… something, will eventually shake its hold on me. That it’s hard to “let go” of my depressing thoughts, the way I’m often told to. But that I can actually let them go on their own, the way they would have anyway, the way they always do.