I woke up most mornings between 5:30 and 6:30 in the morning, at least an hour before my alarm. My limbs felt heavy. My apartment was clean in the dirt sense but untidy in the clean clothes all over chairs and throw pillows where they shouldn’t be sense. I had a thousand creative project ideas running through my mind: a novel mapped out on my wall, a four page document full of essay ideas, a long form-nonfiction book partially formed. I wrote none of them. I sat in bed and listened to podcasts and tried to cry and my head felt too heavy for my neck to hold up and getting in the shower felt an impossible task. I made it to pilates as much as I could and returned texts sporadically and made lists of every single thing I could think of that I have done wrong in my entire life. Did you know I was a shitty friend when I was nine? I discounted all of the things I have done well. The villain always gives candy to babies.
That is how I spent most of the months of February and March this year. I was depressed- I am depressed- and while I knew the cloud would lift, I was unable to find the willpower to do my work. And I have the greatest job in the world. One that is flexible and involves doing my very favorite thing. It is fulfilling and fun and allows me human connection and I completely neglected it. I spent all day at my computer, contemplating this. Promising myself I would do better. Trying to cry but always unable. I wrote shit paragraphs and then deleted them. I knew I was at risk of losing everything that I have built and I did not care. I also felt vaguely fine. Even when I am horrifically depressed, ordering take out three times a day and watching my bank balance deplete at an unsustainable rate, I am still an optimistic, perky, outgoing person. Is that a response to a childhood spent pretending? Or is my character? Does it matter which one?
Depression never feels like overwhelming sadness. It feels numb. I am a body, floating through the world. Unable to control my thoughts, unable to will my desires to become actions. I stew in my regrets, convince myself it is fine to give up on everything as I have made so many mistakes. Depression feels like karma.