I’m depressed. Very depressed. I’m pretty much always
depressed. That’s just my life, that’s how it is. But right now I’m in a more
intense than usual depression. I suspected recently that it would happen, as I
have very little on my schedule for the next few months. But it hit really
quickly. In fact I think it even started before I finished my last gig.
Usually this sort of more intense depressive episode takes
the form of my sitting around and feeling... well, depressed. But also angry,
and resentful, and worthless, and various other negative feelings. I find
myself alone, without any significant connections to other people. And when I
try to reach out, to connect, I am rebuffed. Or, maybe worse, ignored. And the
occasional “I hope you feel better soon” type of comments on Facebook, or
whatever, while I’m sure are well-intentioned, do not help. In fact, they only
underscore the basic problem of a lack of real connection. So then I’m
either angry or resentful at other people for their not wanting to reciprocate
actual friendship. Or I side with them and agree that they shouldn’t want to
spend time with me. Because, really, what do I have to offer anyone? I’m
miserable, bitter, full of complaints, and basically boring. Who would want to
be around that?
Then I think about the past, and how there have been times
when I didn’t feel this way. I used to have friends. I used to have a
girlfriend. We lived together for a few years. I used to enjoy at least some of
my work. And I used to get a lot of pleasure from writing. I used to not be
dangerously broke. (I have way too much free time. These serious depressive
episodes don’t happen when I’m busy.) I think about all that stuff. But I never
can figure out exactly what went wrong. Well, sometimes I’ll focus on something
to blame. But as much as I’d like to be able to blame one person or one event, I
know it can’t have been one life event that caused it to all go wrong. It’s a
lot of things that are probably connected.
Anyway, I sit around and feel bad and hate life. And
basically hate myself. A few years ago it got so bad that I started worrying
for myself. Not that I was going to do something harmful to myself, but that I
might become negligent and just not care enough to be careful. I went on walks
next to busy streets without my glasses and with no ID or anything. Once, while
crossing a bridge, I looked down at the cars going underneath, and wondered
what would happen if I fell. And I thought about death a bit. Not about suicide
– I don’t think I was actually suicidal. It was a little more philosophical.
But I was definitely in a bad place. And I scared myself. The thing is, after I
realized how bad it was, and feeling scared, I think I started acting a little
different, a little healthier. But I can’t remember what I started doing.
Eventually, I had a gig – a show I started rehearsing.
Now my depression is taking a different form. I just want to
sleep. To nap in the afternoons, mainly. I’m not doing much of anything these
days. That’s the biggest danger for me – nothing going on in my life, nothing
to distract me, nothing to take up very much of my time. And unfortunately, for
the past 5 years or so, I’ve had a lot of weeks and months even, with little or
nothing on my calendar. Combined, of course, with my usual lack of people in my
life.
These days, in the mornings I can find a few things to do:
wash dishes from the previous night; watch youtube clips from the previous night's
Late Show, or other youtube channels I subscribe to; maybe read a little bit. But
by early afternoon, I’m just sitting around looking for something on netflix
that won't bore me to death or make me more depressed because it’s about love, or
friendship, or close family relationships, or people coming together to work
toward a goal and bonding through their common struggles. And it’s not easy to
find something that doesn’t fit one of those categories. So I end up napping.
Not every day. So that’s good. Not taking a nap feels like I’ve won a battle.
Not the war, just that day’s battle. When I say I nap, I don’t mean a 15 or 20
minute “power nap.” I actually mean sleeping, restlessly, off and on for 5
hours or so. It’s easy to do that. It’s not satisfying, but it’s easy. And
motivating myself to do anything else takes so much effort. I can’t even really
describe how difficult it is. I’ve never been very good at inventing busy work
to distract myself. I have unfinished plays and musicals that I could be
working on. But, again, the amount of energy that would take seems
insurmountable. I think I’d like to do a photoshoot. It’s been about 2 months
since the last one I did. But I have no one who’s interested (or interested
enough to actually do it). And I might feel the same reluctance to put forth
the energy.
On top of that, my body hurts. I’m out of shape. I know that
exercise would be good for me, just in a general sense, but also specifically
it would help with depression. But I just can’t. Honestly, sometimes I get
winded going up the stairs in my apartment. That sounds like an exaggeration, a
joke, but it really isn’t. So if I do get up the energy to actually do
something, I feel so tired afterwards. And sometimes sore as well. Oh, and
speaking of “getting up the energy...” Yeah, my sex drive seems diminished.
Maybe not the desire to have sex, but the ability to perform. Not that I’m
having sex. I haven’t had sex with another person in a very long time. So long
a time that I sometimes doubt that I would be able to have satisfying sexual
relations with someone. I mean, I might be “satisfied,” but the other person
probably wouldn’t. Or, being so out of shape, I’d probably just end up hurting
myself. How sad is that? Really, that’s pathetic. But I don’t realistically
need to worry about being a bad sexual partner. I don’t have anyone who wants
to just hang out and be friends, much less have sex with me. Just another thing
to be depressed about. I haven’t even had that much sex in my life. Most of my
life I have been single and not sleeping with anyone. And I can easily imagine
never having sex with anyone ever again. Also sad.
So I sort of sleep a lot these days. It’s not great sleep.
Usually there’s a lot of waking up, trying to get comfortable, sometimes just
wondering how long it’ll be before I go back to sleep. You know, that kind of
awful sleep. And unlike my typical more intense depressions, I don’t seem to be
feeling things very deeply. Sometimes the normal depression (a.k.a. feeling
shitty about myself and everything in life) comes for a visit. But it doesn’t
really linger for hours at a time, the way I’m used to. A lot of the time I
just sit here, or lay here, not feeling much of anything. Well, sometimes feeling
very little. Other times feeling sort of helpless, and pointless, and powerless
to do much about it.
It’s just...depressing.
