The Not-So-Great Depression
Sunday, 25 September 2005
Not such sweet sorrow…
Depression is a warm, suffocating blanket. It smothers the will into won’t, and the can into can’t. It protects the soul from the bitterness of promise, concealing one from life while the non-sequitur of truth admonishes hope for hoping. A fire burns under the blanket, and the fuel is the ego. Faith has no place under the blanket.
Doubt is the beacon of the lost soul, assuring the comfort of certainty – certain loss or failure. It warms the spirit to know, if even the tragic.
Depression is an answer in controlled burn, the question that ravages the spirit is fed positively doubtful bits of the ego: I am ugly; I am worthless; I am unwanted. The avid hunger of unanswered questions is unquestionably neurochemical, the answers pyrotechnic. It burns, yet feels somehow good. To douse the fire entirely is to destroy its sick warmth.
I listened to the radio yesterday. Hoping to hear one of an entire playlist of depressing, melancholy tunes. The airwaves are a sea of tragedy and lifeboats, hostile waters and happy islands. Each listener seeks to chart their own course as they cruise up and down the channels. I sought to sink.
Even the upbeat songs, if old and meaningful enough, made me feel that searing pain of melancholic despair: I am old and meaningless, I thought. What a rush.
My father suffered depression, though in those times, it was treated more like a personality type rather than a condition. I touched on this in “Entering No Son’s Land”, but spared a direct assault on the subject. Depression runs in our family, I believe, and may have had dominance in our history. It has certainly dominated over my past.
Many people seem unable to get caught up in depression while others seem willingly trapped – some even making a home for themselves in the fires of hell. This selective inescapability is eerily similar to addiction, suggesting the two may well be joined at the hip.
I suffer insomnia. It took decades and many failed remedies to find that large doses of protein right before bedtime worked miracles. Raw = good. It takes a few weeks to set in, which is quite fitting, since most antidepressants now on the market take similar periods to reach “desired levels”. To sleep I must change my chemistry. To end my depression I must change my chemistry. Is depression a waking sleep?
I need to take a long drive.
Doubt is the beacon of the lost soul, assuring the comfort of certainty – certain loss or failure. It warms the spirit to know, if even the tragic.
Depression is an answer in controlled burn, the question that ravages the spirit is fed positively doubtful bits of the ego: I am ugly; I am worthless; I am unwanted. The avid hunger of unanswered questions is unquestionably neurochemical, the answers pyrotechnic. It burns, yet feels somehow good. To douse the fire entirely is to destroy its sick warmth.
I listened to the radio yesterday. Hoping to hear one of an entire playlist of depressing, melancholy tunes. The airwaves are a sea of tragedy and lifeboats, hostile waters and happy islands. Each listener seeks to chart their own course as they cruise up and down the channels. I sought to sink.
Even the upbeat songs, if old and meaningful enough, made me feel that searing pain of melancholic despair: I am old and meaningless, I thought. What a rush.
My father suffered depression, though in those times, it was treated more like a personality type rather than a condition. I touched on this in “Entering No Son’s Land”, but spared a direct assault on the subject. Depression runs in our family, I believe, and may have had dominance in our history. It has certainly dominated over my past.
Many people seem unable to get caught up in depression while others seem willingly trapped – some even making a home for themselves in the fires of hell. This selective inescapability is eerily similar to addiction, suggesting the two may well be joined at the hip.
I suffer insomnia. It took decades and many failed remedies to find that large doses of protein right before bedtime worked miracles. Raw = good. It takes a few weeks to set in, which is quite fitting, since most antidepressants now on the market take similar periods to reach “desired levels”. To sleep I must change my chemistry. To end my depression I must change my chemistry. Is depression a waking sleep?
I need to take a long drive.
