depression

“Even the darkest night will end…

~ Bon Steele ~ Leave a comment

…and the sun will rise.”
– Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

I read a lot, you guys. Like, pretty well constantly having some sort of written word in front of my face. Books, games, blogs, backs of cereal boxes.

A lot.

One of the people that  I read about has the loveliest, most lyrical voice I have heard in a long while. She writes eloquently about her life, her depression, and her work to feel her way along in the world. It’s beyond moving.
Maybe it is especially so for me, as I see echoes of my younger self in her words. It could also be just that the work is stunning.

She wrote something this morning that grabbed my heart and shook it. Shook it like a terrier with a rat, to be frank. She spoke how her anxiety and depression were tearing her up, shredding her, exhausting her, making her feel worthless and unwanted; made her feel without hope.

I wish I could capture what she said, and I don’t want to link her without her permission (I’ve been recently told that that is not kosher). But, I wanted to put here the response I wrote.
It may be terrible poetry – but it is, one hopes, empathetic verse.

It’s not always like this.
There isn’t always a pile of unopened mail
there isn’t always laundry organized and still waiting.
Mundane tasks left behind while we sit and wonder
About all the work we have left undone.
You do good things.
But, better…
You are good.
You are worth every bit
of work and hope and love.
It isn’t about earning someone’s trust
and love and acceptance.
Fuck that. It’s
Remembering that you are loved and accepted and trusted.
Sometimes we forget
Sometimes we crumble
Sometimes we hover too long in one spot
Forgetting that we can strafe right, left, criss-cross
Zoom, soar, and dart.

——-

I am not, as you can see, much of a poetess. But I, like most writers, feel things especially hard. You’re having an emotion? Here, have it in spades. Have it in hundreds! (Quoth the brain).

Anywho, reading your words today gave me (as the kids say) all the feels. I sincerely hope that as you read people’s words back to your own, you can see the care and acceptance.

I hope these words find you better, find you safe, find you happy.

Having cast your own words out into the internet; a bottled message in a digital sea, if you will forgive the conceit, please accept this response as the outstretched hand that it is meant to be. 

Soooo, Shake Your Shimmy

~ Bon Steele ~ 2 Comments

Between being sick and some personal issues, depression has been knocking on the door.

I woke up this morning and decided that I needed to sing this song* to myself. It’s like my normal self is singing to what my friend Rowan calls Traitor Brain. It’s that part of yourself that tells you the lies that anxiety and depression live on.

Sister, you’ve been on my mind
Sister, we’re two of a kind
So, sister, I’m keepin’ my eye on you.

I betcha think I don’t know nothin’
But singin’ the blues, oh, sister,
Have I got news for you, I’m something,
I hope you think that you’re something too

Scufflin’, I been up that lonesome road
And I seen alot of suns going down
Oh, but trust me,
No-o low life’s gonna run me around.

So let me tell you something Sister,
Remember your name, No twister
Gonna steal your stuff away, my sister,
We sho’ ain’t got a whole lot of time,
So-o-o shake your shimmy Sister,
‘Cause honey the ‘Shug’ is feelin’ fine.

___
ETA:  This does not mean that I can sing depression away. Doesn’t work like that. What it does mean is that a flutter of light appeared at the same moment that depression started to rear its terrible head.

* – Link included if you want to sing along.
Original song sung by Tata Vega

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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.