jmtorres: the cover of the Joni Mitchell best-of CD "Hits," featuring two batter cars and a woman lying on the ground. (wry emo)
jmtorres ([personal profile] jmtorres) wrote2010-11-18 09:08 pm

my depression is worn and familiar

A couple of weeks ago, I told [personal profile] niqaeli, partly surprised and partly not, that getting out of school for the rest of the semester hadn't cured my depression--but I was not heavy of heart when I said it, for all that it was true. It took me longer to identify this part of it, but what did go away when I called it quits on the school was guilt. It's interesting that guilt is not endemic to the depression, it's a secondary feature: when I fail at school because of my depression, I have guilt. I do not have guilt purely for having depression, I do not feel like a failure as a human being, except when I manage to redefine human being to mean student as apparently occurs some of the time.

So: I have lethargy of spirit and of body, I have insomnia, I have depression. Right now it's just a weight I carry, not a wall I hit. I go to work and eat and anything I do beyond that in any given day counts as a bonus. I maintain.
verity: buffy embraces the mid 90s shades (Default)

[personal profile] verity 2010-11-20 04:34 am (UTC)(link)
Same here, yo.

It took me a while to get out of the maintaining, but dropping some of the guilt burden helped a lot.