Depression

Hopeless.  I hesitate to talk about how I feel.  So many people have worse circumstances in their lives.  I just sort of have what I guess you would call a predisposition to fall into this well of hopelessness.  Sometimes it seems like there is no light in the world.  Even when, objectively, I can see light all around me, my world seems grey and dark.  I have medications.  I have been taking antidepressants for many years.  And, my medications may soon be changing.  I've been on Luvox and Abilify for years, but I'm about to see a new psychiatrist.  It's humiliating to blame my feelings on a little pill I take, but I know that medications have something to do with my feelings.  I haven't been very compliant.  I haven't always taken my meds as prescribed, but these days I'm doing a lot better with this because . . . Well, in order to see my new counselor and new psychiatrist, I have to take my pills as prescribed.  It's a rule at Families, Inc.  I signed a little treatment plan that said I would take my medications.  So, for the last couple of weeks, I've been careful to try and take every single dose.  I keep forgetting one dose, though.  My old psychiatrist had me on one and a half Luvox twice a day.  I've only been taking one twice a day.  I'm never sure whether I want to take that half a pill twice a day, or just take another whole pill in the middle of the day.  As a result, I'm only taking 2/3 as much Luvox as I have prescribed.  Also, I have an Adderall (if that's how you spell it) that I'm supposed to take 1/4 of a pill twice a day.  I don't have any trouble swallowing these half pills and quarter pills.  They just don't get taken because I am reluctant to put partial pills in my med box.  I need to figure out some other way to work them in.

I slept through a lot of today.  I'm sleeping a whole lot these days.  When I woke up from one nap, I sensed God telling me to call New Life.  I did that, and waited about an hour for them to take my call.  I hung up when it seemed obvious that they weren't going to.  I don't blame them.  I have called them too often, and I didn't have a great question.  There's nothing exciting or new about simple depression.  If you're not suicidal then no one seems to really care.  And, let me make that clear, I'm not suicidal.  The hopelessness that I feel . . . well, how can I put this.  To attempt suicide, ya have to have some hope that suicide or at least a suicide attempt will produce something that you want, whether that is attention or an end to the interminable day-after-hopeless-day that life has become.  I know that attempting suicide would be a way to get some people's attention, but that attention isn't pleasant or good.  My family seems torn whenever I attempt suicide between being helpful and loving and madder than hell.  My sister, who seems to be the family matriarch now, gets mad at me.  I can't blame her for having some negative feelings, but I wish we could talk about her feelings and process through them.  She doesn't have time for that, though.  She's a good person, but we have not traveled the same paths.  She is a pull yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps kind of gal.  She has overcome a lot of obstacles in her life.  But, I don't want to make this about her.  We have a difficult relationship.  I don't know how to explain to my family why I get so hopeless and don't try to fight the depressions.  I do fight it.  I fight it every day, day after day.  I fight it by continuing to get out of bed and trying to be positive.  I rarely talk to anyone about how hopeless I feel.  If I continue to just keep on keeping on, denying the depression a foothold in my plans, then that keeps it at bay to some extent.  My sister is not the only fighter in our family.

Anyway, I have a new young counselor.  Going to see her isn't really helpful yet.  We have to get through some kind of honeymoon phase before we really start to connect.  For a while, all I want to do is tell her things that will impress her and make her think well of me.  The next time I see her, I will address this with her.  I won't see her for two weeks, though.  So, I just keep getting up, going through the motions.

I'm going to study my Bible this evening.  I have all these wonderful Bibles, and I was going to try and study them all at the same time.  I've discovered, though, that picking them up hurts a muscle in my arm that is very sore.  And sometimes having too much scriptural information and insights can perhaps be just as bad as having too little.  I just get frustrated and lost in the mound of material.  I've been thinking that maybe it's best to just study one book at a time, or at least to maybe give each Bible or commentary or whatever an hour before I go on to the next.

There is hope.  I know that.  I am a Christian and eventually I believe that I will go home to meet Jesus in heaven.  I don't believe that He will let me do that early.  I am not in control of some things about my life, and when my life ends is unfortunately not up to me.  That's probably a good thing.  I am a terrible coward.  Jesus deserves better from me.  All He asks is that I love Him, but love for Him brings a number of things with it, like perseverance and mercy.  I love my sister, and my mom and my whole family.  I love my dad, though he gets frustrated with me.  I love my brother, though I don't agree with him about some things.  They are all people just like me, all of us slogging our way through very different lives.  (sigh).  Onward and upward.