The Trouble With Being Earnest

Alternate title? The Problem With Amy That Keeps Her From Functioning Productively or That Thing That Lives In My Brain That Tries To Kill Me. Do you have depression? No? Lucky you. Now take your happy ass away from here, for this post at least, because you are not going to "get" this. Still here? Then hang with me for a moment as I meander into the foggy bog that is my September, which gets worse with each passing year of aged, befuddled hell. My life! Welcome to it!

The dark night of the soul. That's what I like to call it. I have a friend who calls it the dark muse. Whatever you call it, it's the "thing" that sucks out all your hopes and dreams and leaves you an empty, bloodless husk that may or may not crawl back into the light when October rolls around. Depression sucks, my chemically imbalanced friends. And it can literally kill you if you let it win. So don't. I raise my bottle of Celexa to you, fellow frumps: Let's get through this shit together.

Just this very day I feel as though I've been burped back into the damp chill of autumn after having slithered and slumped my way through the darkest, most odious valley I've ever known. You don't want details, I won't share them. This isn't group therapy and the little shit, none of it matters in this forum. Getting caught in the bog of the minutiae of your pain - that is the very definition of depression to me. And I choose not to dip my toes into that quicksand till I'm shoved in again involuntarily next time around.

The thing I hate most about depression is the way it robs my words. It takes them right out of my fingers so I can't release them. So they fester inside, infecting all my systems, till my skin is stretched so tight a pin prick will burst me and then every thing spews out in a volcano of choked-on verbiage. Or worse, the infection goes on and on and never comes to a head and my words muddle and disintegrate and form disjointed nonsense that struggles and burns and hurts without meaning. I hate that the most.

What does this mean for the people that love you and watch you struggle? Some days it means that your children are a little quieter around you, a little more docile and trepiditious, a little bit compassionate to your struggle. Some days it means they are much, much worse. A noisy chorus of need banging on attention-seeking drums. Or perhaps they sense your distraction and become furtive, plotting disaster as you lie on the floor in a heap of despair. So you must get up.

And that, in summation, is my plea, my wish, my prayer for me and you and all of us who are the afflicted. The trouble with being earnest is depression. So let's rise up and kick its ass. I am your cheerleader and you can be mine. Let's do this shit together. It's almost October. We fuckin' got this!!