03 May 2007

Mind The Gap

In a fairly stupid chick lit book, I read a great bit of wisdom. It went something like this...

If you could dump all your problems out on the floor in a big room full of people doing the same, you'd scurry to pick yours back up when you saw what everyone else's problems were like.

I was watching a TV show about transgendered teens and thinking that when I think my life is very fucked up, I've got nothing on these kids.

Many of these kids seem to know, from a very early age, that something's wrong, that they're trapped, somehow, in the wrong gender. And they self-mutilate, or become addicted to abusive substances, or try to commit suicide in attempts to escape where they feel 'trapped'.

I have no "right" to be depressed. None. I grew up in a very supportive, loving family, went to 'good' schools, have a university degree, am employed, happily married, have a home, friends, siblings, parents. No great tragedy, except the death of my cousin in 2005, has ever been visited upon me. I feel incredibly guilty for feeling so despondent. I'm alive, after all, am I not?

The fact that I feel like my head is going to explode, or that I am at a crossroads ("should I stay or should I go now" ~ The Clash) or that I have a lot of trouble getting out of bed is unchanged for all that feeling that I ought not to be depressed. I think that the anti-depressants that I'm taking are helping, because I'm not actively suicidal, but that's not exactly a ringing endorsement, is it?

Some days are better than others. It seems to make no difference at all when I take the meds, timewise, but I think one of the reasons I was so down on Sunday is that I might have forgotten to take the pill that day. I can't really remember, and that's pretty darn scary. DH and I went to breakfast, and then came home and I laid around a lot and moped. I'd gotten up in a black, foul, miserable mood. I hardly stirred off the couch most of the day.

The new week started at work on Monday, and I've felt somewhat better this week. This marks week #3 on the meds, and Dr. Hottie suggested that after two weeks I'd 'feel better.' And I do, sort of. My first appointment with the therapist is next week, two days after a big meeting at work.

It is work that is most of the problem, I think. I'm pretty sure that the job is threatening my mental health. But that uncertainty, that I'm just not sure, is awful to carry around every day.

What I was struck by, watching that TV show, is the enormous disparity between the transgendered kids and me. How yeah, they've got issues, and I'm just not HAPPY. Whaaaaaa. Whaaaaa. Whaaa.

If I could just flip a switch, make it right, I would. If only there was a magic wand. Only my experience with other family members being depressed assures me that I will come out of this, that it will get better, that one day, in the hopefully not too distant future, I'll see a sunrise and smile again.

In much more positive news, a new episode of Supernatural airs tonight, episode 2.20, What Is and What Should Never Be. I'm looking forward to what looks like a very Dean-centric episode. I'll probably post any fangirl squeeing that I intend to do over on MySpace.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm there with you on that. "How dare I be miserable?"

But just because you shouldn't, doesn't mean you can't or won't. It is a sad, sad world we live in, and yet, we're living in a couple of the greatest countries in the world. So, one must ask the question "when will my brain chemistry realize this?!"

Lucy Arin said...

Or at least two of the richest countries in the world, in terms of people not wanting for much. I'm not crazy 'bout America, in the traditional Yank rah-rah sense. Never been a patriotic sorta girl.

I know, intellectually, that the depression is a chemical imbalance in my brain, I do. And an imbalance that I'm going to get under control, soon.

Thank whatever PTB that there are meds to treat it!