Spiral

If you have ever lived in the fear-shame-hate-disgust tail-chasing spiral that is a seething depression, you know that there are moments of despair.

Moments where you are not sure if you ever lived outside of the spiral, you start to think maybe you were born there. Maybe this is where  you will die. These moments wrap around you like a blanket but with all the comfort of a cactus. Once the needles settle in, the pain becomes normal. You get used to it. And you know that pulling them out would casue pain, whereas sitting where you are is the devil you know.

Sometimes, (if you are lost in the fog that is forgetting who you are), you stare off into space.

This can be one of the only useful things about a depression. Since you are devoid of the ability to track time, you can mosey through the spiral at your own pace. If there is a break in the action, you can always peek through the thinning layers and find yourself thinking about things the way a counselor might lead you to your own answers.

I thought to myself:

I am afraid.

What of? it asks.

Well, of not being good enough.

Good enough for what?

As good as others who have gone before me and who have done what I hope to do.

Why do you think they are better?

Because they got it done.

Maybe they were afraid.

Maybe. But they did it.

How?

Well they had more resources. They did it earlier, it was easier, cheaper.

So? You could make the changes and do the things necessary to make it happen. You are resourceful.

I just never have any time....Wait...well...because I fill it......with things...to busy myself...so I can't attempt this...because I am afraid to fail....

I shut that show down with the practiced hand of someone who knows just how dangerous that line of thinking can be. Its hard to keep pushing yourself up when the other half of you pulls down.

One of my arms rows the boat one direction and the other arm rows the opposite. The spiral stops sometimes, but only because I'm at war with myself. I can see the entire thing in action- I am afraid (fear) I am not good enough (shame) this is impossible (hate) Other people can do this and I can't (disgust). I can't face this kind of change (fear again). And around we go.

The taste of giving in must be what heroin feels like to an addict. It is desirable beyond compare. The reason I do not give in is that I cannot breathe, and I keep pulling up for air. Each time, it takes a bit more away from the grip. The spiral is not won with heroics, it is won with survival. If I could live without breathing, I would still perish.

Who Turned Out The Lights?

I want you to know that I am not well
But apathy is quiet so I cannot tell

I want to climb this hill, to scream and shout
Reclaim what I am (if I ever find out)

Someone has turned out the lights.

I am being  pulled into a well, I am trying to yell
But the words aren't coming and no one can help

There is an emptiness now where my thoughts used to live
There is a stranger living here - one that takes but won't give

Someone has turned out the lights.

I know this is not the way I used to be
I need to do something to make it leave

But now there's no pain, the agony is a memory
The dull is not an ache, more like a quiet melody

Someone has turned out the lights.

I think I like it here in the dark
I'll make it my home and give it my mark

It's more comfortable, really... I like it this way
Now leave the lights off, close the door. Go away

I have turned out the lights.

The Best Job You Can Imagine

One time I wrote here about my horrible job (one of the twenty or so times, really) and to lift my own spirits, I also listed what I thought were among the best jobs. I now realize that I set the bar so very very low, and I am here to rectify that situation.

This blog got its title from the numerous lists I make all the time, and sometimes I bring them here for show and tell. Today is one of those days. Let's not make a list of the best jobs there are. Let's make a list instead of the best jobs you can even fathom. The best there could be. Open your mind to the possibilities of getting paid for...well, anything! That is the measure of success, is it not? To find yourself being compensated for doing that which you find pleasurable. To work and get paid at doing something that you find energizing and fun, or at least being wildly over-paid for something simple and easy.

What if the job did not have to be something found in your high school guidance counselor's guide to getting your life together? What if you could determine what you wanted to do, then get paid for doing it?

Let us have a go at it. In honor of now having a job I do not hate, I'm sure we can come up with something better than mattress tester:

1. Wealth Manager for Leprechauns
2. Unicorn Rancher
3. Puppy Play Date Manager
4. Grass Hill Rolling Quality Control Supervisor
5. Cloud Shape Deciphering Technician
6. Rainbow Construction Foreman
7. Nail Polish Namer
8. Baby Lamb/Hippo/Elephant/Giraffe/Pig Nursery Monitor
9. Travel Photographer (I know, but who doesn't want to do this?)
10. Actor/Actress- my all time (I hate making lasting decisions) favorite. You get to play at being everyone.

Get out your favorite bottle of something lovely and let's dream up new lives...

Dizzy

Lately, an interesting thing has happened. Well to be fair, it started a long time ago. Then it came back. That is really the theme of this situation in the first place.

Like most people, at some points in life, I have experienced deja-vu. I'll be standing at a sink washing my hands, or I will be getting out of a car, looking at a book on a shelf, it makes no difference where I am or what I am doing when it hits. So far so good. Then, sometimes, the deja vu feeling takes on a very strange aura. I feel like I have done this before,  but then the memory of that time comes into focus. I start to see where I was and what I was doing, and I can see it in my mind, it is slipping away and I try to reach out mentally and grasp at it, to get it in my hands so that I can tell why this is making me feel this way and BOOM.

I'll get hit by the freight train of memory and synapse firing that takes me to the floor... I have to let go of trying to figure out what I see in my mind's eye or the swirling rush takes over. Once I let that out of focus and put it out of my mind, I can settle down the spinning room and get my equilibrium again.

The first time this happened was most likely many years ago. I remember a few instances that made me feel awful and one that sent me to a school nurse. But they are distant memories, and it went away for so long. Then about 8 years ago, I went on a vacation. I dreamed about the place we were going to be staying and I saw this wonderful back deck on a house overlooking a beautiful wooded green area. It was a great dream and I was excited for the trip. Then we arrived at the place. I went out to the back door and outside to the deck. Next thing I know I am on the ground. I KNOW in my heart I have been here before, done this before and that this is the exact same as I saw it in my mind. How could that be? I had to let it go and not try to find out, so I could get my footing and go splash off my face.

I felt woozy for a few hours after that. Then it went away. For a few years. It has come back a few times, always dangling some interesting memory in front of my consciousness, never allowing me to grab it. I've talked about this before, and I think I write about it as a way of putting it out there, trying to understand. More than anything I want to know what is on the other side of those shimmering visions that I cannot grab. I would allow any amount of dizziness and spinning to just get it in my hands.

There is a white rabbit that lives in my mind. He beckons me to follow him down the rabbit hole. Why can't I go?