Tag: depression

Miserable as usual, thank you

5 Comments

I wonder why people ask you how you are when they aren’t really interested in an honest answer. Perhaps it’s just a means of initiating casual conversation, but even I can think of a dozen other ways of achieving that without creating an opportunity to open up that can of worms. Whatever their rationale though, I wish people would ponder for an instant whether they’re ready for an actual answer before they fire that question my way—I’m sick and tired of having to argue my case.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to regular readers, but I almost revel in my perennial state of misery. By design and circumstance, being miserable is what I perceive as normalcy—it’s a fundamental part of who I am. Judging from the way I only want what I can’t have, and drop things the instant they come within my grasp, it’s almost as if I were striving to maintain my misery.

This however is exactly the sort of thing that’s too complicated to explain when confronted by someone’s casual “How are you?” Just what am I supposed to say to that? I’m miserable as usual? I’m miserable and wretched as expected, but I am perfectly fine with that? I’m sure you don’t want to know?

What?

Cognitive dissonance

2 Comments

Maybe it’s having too much time on my hands, or maybe it’s just my ultra-negative world view, but whatever the case may be, I know what’s coming next: My downward spiral.

I’m reverting to a very dark place, where I’m justifying antagonising everyone in my life. I’m perceiving reality through a warped “you’re either with me, or against me” mentality—where everyone just happens to be standing in my way. I’ve managed to completely justify every self-destructive action culminating in my sorry existence by transferring every last morsel of responsibility to others—making them the enemy, deserving of my rage.

This is not going to end well.

On the flip side however, observe how my disappointing life serves as a textbook example of cognitive dissonance. Consider the disparity between the following true statements:

  1. I believe I am a upstanding and kindhearted individual, sensitive and generous to the world around me.
  2. I am perpetually woebegone.

In an attempt to reduce dissonance, I plainly conclude that the world must be rife with malice. Moreover, why should I then be courteous toward it?

The non-story so far

3 Comments

As if it even needs to be stated, I’m an extremely negative person. Sitting outside the doctor’s office last afternoon waiting for my test results, I was envisioning one horrible scenario after the next—complete with how I intended on breaking the news in this journal. After all, so much of my blood had been taken and subjected to such broad scrutiny, surely something horrible would crop up. And when it did, I’d be ready with my truly twisted take on things for the next day’s story.

But nothing did.

As she was reading out the charts and explaining to me what was going on, every one of my numbers—each characterising one of 20–25 different tests—landed smack in the middle of acceptable ranges for humans. It’s as if someone took an average of the highs and lows for each of these parameters and reported them as my score.

Fucking great.

I’m assuming I ought to be pleased by this outcome, but I’m not. Now I can’t even blame my state on… failing kidneys or something as dire. I guess it’s time to resort to Plan B: intense, mind-altering chemicals.

Pens and needles

The pen in my hand stares nervously at me, anxiously awaiting what I have to say. Its cap bears the words “Dr. Me,” beautifully engraved in the most elegant of font-faces, and is emblematic of the love and excitement in the heart of the woman who painstakingly created it for me on the day I successfully defended my thesis. This pen, as did everything else in this room, watched aghast as I coolly shooed her away, declaring that I don’t care about anything in this world… including her. The most unfortunate thing here is that in a state such as mine, nothing really does matter; even if a part of me knows that it should.

Like the drunk finding himself alone on the street in a pool of his own vomit, it often takes hitting rock bottom to realise that it’s high time you did something about your life.

And last morn, I finally did.

I worked up the nerve to go and talk to a professional about what I’ve been like for the past few years, and how things have progressed to a stage far more serious than anything I can just “snap out of.” As you’re reading this, two large vials of my blood are being subjected to a battery of tests, aiming to implicate any physical issues that I might have, along-with or bolstering my psychological problems. Diabetes, kidney damage, anaemia, hormonal imbalances… all the usual suspects linked with this sort of affair are being carefully investigated.

Over the following days and weeks, through intense conversations and lab-work, I hope to have a better grasp of what I’m dealing with so I can begin to cope, and eventually, start caring again.

Perhaps then, this pen won’t be as nervous when I pick it up.