Delineation

I feel like I need to describe why I write...especially why I bare my soul for anyone on the planet to stumble upon.

I could make it all private, and I have, but it serves no purpose. Shit, more people know more about the swine flu in one day then they'll ever in their lives understand about mental health.

The point is to make it known what spins around in the head of a depressive. It's something you always are, and something you always have, and it's deadlier than what a lot of people think are deadly ailments. It touches and hurts more lives than any number could justifiably put a finger on.

I hope, foolishly probably, that this makes it a little bit clearer as to what exactly I go through. I'm not showing you my journal -- so this is all you're gettin'.

I haven't had a bad day in a really long time, and when I do, it's always prompted by thinking about last spring/summer, or when I see myself falling back into the similar patterns that swept me into everything in the first place. After I got out of the hospital for the second time, I really don't have a fucking clue who I was. It doesn't feel like any other part of my life when I look back at that phase -- from late May to the day I left, really, until around the holidays.

Before everything, I was a closed book to all but a few people on this planet. I went to work and never talked about life outside of work...if I did it was self-deprecating. I don't think anyone I worked with at Community Service even knew what town I lived in.

But I never talked to ANYBODY with real depth. There are a few people, and they know who they are. But even then, the days when I was in the mood to "talk" were few and far between, and many times prompted but what was minor depressive episodes -- I just had no idea that's what it was, because it washed away in a day or two.

Meanwhile, these grandiose thoughts and manias ran through me all of the time, and I was so detached, that I just let it rumble around and settle. I was a dickhead at times, I fought, and blamed everyone outside of myself for my problems. Then, I also knew myself on a deeper level than I think a lot of people did. I LOVE to travel, love writing and reading, I love being around people, and I just like smiling and laughing and having fun. Even when I didn't like myself (let's say 2006-2008), I always tried to be good to others -- sadly, the ones I was closest to are the ones I wasn't that great to.

I lost a huge part of that because of the "supposed to" living stuff. But the "supposed to" was like a ghost. I saw everyone else doing these things, and that's their path. I do see some of those people who are incredibly unhappy, and I pray that their path to happiness is realized eventually. People absolutely did articulate to me that I "should" get a job that's more like a career, with benefits. Or, "man, you and Kristin have been together forever, shouldn't you be buying a ring." But fuck me, it doesn't matter NOW what was said to me, but man did it take a mental toll, along with every thing else that was bouncing in my head. The collapse was inevitable now that I look back at it.

Other people is my huge concern heading into what's now July 1st. I know I am super prepared, but, if there is any chance of "it" happening again, I want to make sure that I am over, over, over prepared for everything that's waiting when I get home. The events of the past week have shown me that my expectations to come back to everybody being transformed is so silly. I know shitty days will come when I am home, but I know how to battle through them now.

EVERYONE has shitty days, and most of the time they are unprompted. The ego wants to attach blame to someone, or something else so that shield deflects and possibility that the problem is inward. My main culprit is usually the weather. It bares a lot of my burden -- but that's so easy. What about the clouds, or the cold temperature affects the way we think, the way he treat other people, and how we are in tune with ourselves? It absolutely doesn't.

But people let it because it's easier to say "fuck, the weather is so shitty here that I am miserable." Really? Is THAT why you're miserable, or are you miserable because you're miserable? You hear it all the time...even in Florida. NOBODY IS EVER HAPPY WITH THEIR WEATHER. It's been gorgeous here for weeks now, but, the news is about the drought, or the bugs, or the impending humidity, or that it's TOO hot.