Month: October 2014

Halp, halp. I’m being depressed.

~ Bon Steele ~ 3 Comments

Flippant title is not meant to be insulting. I was just amused by the rhyme and how it fit in with my current mental situation.
Thanks,
-The Mgmt

I read a really interesting article yesterday. It had to do with how people who are struggling with mental illness(es) often lead dual lives. A photographer, who also suffers from depression, is doing a beautiful series called “Dualities” that seeks to show the inner and outer faces of what living without endless spoons is truly like.

I thought about this article for a long time. I don’t know that  I would classify myself as having a mental illness, per se. I am easily overwhelmed and I suffer a form of social anxiety with large crowds or unknowns. I get hysterically furious if I am startled and it takes a good bit to calm down from hearing people bark at me in anger. But never have I been given The Diagnosis(tm, pat pending) from doctors or therapii1.

I wondered what my portraits would like, if she did them. I think that they would look something like this.

LEFT:

BON_has a sad again
The house has become chaos, the chaos overwhelms, and things pile up but there is no energy to do them, even getting out of bed is a chore to be dreaded. Crying takes too much energy, better to just hobbit-up and pretend that everything is OK.

RIGHT:

close up
Everything is sparkly and gay and full of laughter. Wit and energy bubble up and crash over everything, leaving a mirth residue and completed writings. Eventually it all gets away from center and wholesome energy becomes chaos and then we precede to LEFT, again.
It isn’t always this bad, but it can be if I am not careful. Prolonged stress and/or illness make it worse. Not writing makes even more hideous.I have  been in a place of no writing, no exercising, no time to de-stress. This, I truly believe, is part of what caused my usually kickass immune system to seek companionship with a flu; sort of like a belligerent and lonely drunk picking fights in a bar.
I’ll get back to working on it. Strangely enough, the enforced rest has done wonders for the stress. I’m still a little freaked, but everything doesn’t seem so fucking LOOMING as it has been.

My mental place is what it is, and I am working on it as I can.

1 – “Therapii” is the plural form, of course.