Amygdalia's Blog

The spectre of depression

Depression is an insidious disease. It wraps lethargy and gloom around the hidden places inside of you, reaching out tendrils until you’re thoroughly entrapped. Deep chill burrows into bones, while incoherent fog swirls around the parts of your brain usually reserved for rational thought, rendering you incapable of expressing the very reason for your mental immobilization.

For me, winter has always been a harbinger of depression – the chill goes deep within me, and coupled with the long, dark times, the two bring to my mind that deepest and darkest of realities - death.

I fight it before it arrives – going out of my way to make fun and exciting plans to ward off the gloom. I unbury my full spectrum light, to keep the darkness at bay. And yet it finds me, sneaking into my bones when I am otherwise occupied, curling into my psyche while I think I am resting and replenishing my resources.

As I write, buried beneath the warmth of a fleecy blanket, the chill causes my insides to quiver. How far can I bury myself? At what point am I not caring for myself, but enabling the depression to wend its way deeper into my soul?

At what point do I wonder whether the medications that are intended to help lift me from the fog of depression are actually pulling me further downward? Sleep, a blessed and coveted event in my life, becomes the end all and be all. I yearn for the oblivion that it can provide, and yet when I awaken I am no less burdened by the specter of my depression.

Activities that once brought me joy leave a dry and unpleasant taste in my mouth; will I some day feel the desire to pick up a book and read again? No doubt. At times, reading can provide a life line when I feel disconnected, and provide a world in which to live, when my surroundings seem unpalatable. But not today . . . not today.

I huddle beneath a blanket of crimson, hoping to chase the chill away; hoping that I can convince myself to emerge from my fleece cocoon and find a way to live the day.