"depression and loneliness track me down....they come upon me all silent and menacing like Pinkerton Dectectives and they flank me--Depression on my left, Loneliness on my right. They don't need to show me their badges. I know these guys very well. We've been playing a cat-and-mouse game for years now......Then they frisk me. They empty my pockets of any joy I have been carrying there. Depression even confiscates my identity; but he always does that. Then loneliness starts interrogating me, which i dread because it always goes on for hours....He asks why i cant keep a relationship going, why I ruined my marriage, why I messed things up with every man I have ever been with. He asks why I cant get my act together. Depression has a firm hand on my shoulder and Loneliness harangues me with his interrogation. I don't even bother eating; I don't want them watching me. I don't want to let them up the stairs to my apartment either, but I know Depression, and he's got a billy club, so there's no stopping him from coming in if he decided that he wants to. "It's not fair for you to come here....I paid you off already." But he just gives me that dark smile, settles into my favorite chair, puts his feet on the table and lights a cigar, filling the place with his awful smoke. Loneliness watches and sighs, climbs into my bed and pulls the covers over himself...He's going to make me sleep with him again tonight, I just know it."
this is an excerpt from Eat, Pray, and Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and probably the best description of depression that i have heard put into words.
We all wear masks, we have the mask that we put on to go to the grocery store, to church, and even the one we take off to spend time with the people that we really trust.
I feel as though i am the dancing chicken with everyone staring, waiting and watching for the performance. Then when i come home, i am so exhausted from the depression that has taken over my life lately, i don't have anything else to give. My house is a wreck, my animals begging for a minute, my husband asking me to just drag myself out of bed to go through a drive thru for dinner.
The only thing that is making me motivate myself forward is the abundance of homework with looming deadlines. The adrenaline giving me a spurt of energy to get the job completed. I am hoping that i can squeak by this semester with a 4.0 even though i don't really deserve it so that i can make it on my the honor roll at NSU.
The good news is that i have stopped the hemorrhaging of money that i had been spending and the pendulum has swung to the other side of now i hoard my money. Only spending it on doctors visits and medicine.
My weight is still at its highest, ice cream still being one of the staples of my diet, but at least now it is only when i have the energy to get out of bed to go out and buy it, because eating what is in the fridge seems like one of the seven deadly sins plus i would have to tackle the kitchen sink full of dishes.
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