Sorry to anyone that faithfully follows or looks forward to my new poems (is there anyone like that?), as I haven’t been really “with it” since I last had a spate of inspiration. Since then I have kinda swung into a depressive state and my productivity all around is a bit lacking.
Anyone with major depression or bipolar disorder (I or II) will know what I mean. It was strange, I could tell something was up. I found myself unable to really focus or complete tasks straight through without brain-dead periods mixed in. That’s when I first noticed something was changing.
I was working, sitting my computer entering some data, nothing complicated really, just data entry and found that I had stopped typing and I was just staring at the screen and not thinking about anything. And it was a struggle, like shaking out a cramp, to get myself to refocus. This was a few days ago. I had also been struggling staying with something at home, I would jump from video game to video game, to housework, to just standing there lost as to what to do–very unlike me except when I am in a funk.
I didn’t feel overly depressed at the time, nor for the rest of that day, but I had also noted my memory had gone to shit. I missed two doctor appointments in one week. Totally spaced them, reminder calls and everything. My reaction wasn’t, “Oh no, I missed my appointment”. It was more like, “Yeah….figures…..” and I didn’t really care at all. The emotional reaction was one more of relief. Because I didn’t to have deal with it. *sigh*
Then yesterday about mid-day, WHAM, I am suddenly a breath away from crying for reason. Just had an over-riding desire to cry….nothing happened, nothing was said. Things are work were mellow. Things at home were great. Just suddenly I felt a deep sense of sadness and heaviness that I think had been building for some time and I just wasn’t allowing myself to feel it.
I think, also, that I have learned how to compensate during depressive or hypomanic states. That is, I think I have built up mechanisms to help myself deny I wasn’t feeling right. Either I lied to myself and tried to say I was tired or whatever, but I found ways to not ‘be depressed’. A couple years ago that was alcohol, now I am starting to notice how I “feel” at any given moment and it’s tough when depressed. These also included making sure others don’t see my depression.
So, I want to apologize that I haven’t posted any poetry lately, I will try to get that ball rolling again. I have been working on some songs that will be on my A Feat Aslant page before long. It’s really some interesting experimental stuff, kinda dark, but that’s to be expected right now.
Thanks for reading.
~smiling1541
