The Fragility of Depression

With gray clouds comes darkness.

Before the rains arrived, I was living some of the best, most productive days I’ve experienced in a long time. It felt as though I really was climbing out of my hole and about to feel the sunshine on my face.

Just a day or so ago I even flirted with my therapist to a point she was laughing and distracted from our session. (It was innocent and I explained myself beforehand so she would not receive it as incorrect behavior.) When I was genuinely happy in life, I lived in a constant state of sarcasm, wit, and flirtation. I was quick to talk myself into or out of trouble… But that was just who I was. I was good at being that person.

I was managing responsibilities of the house better than I had in a long time. I was productive and felt good about being so. I was starting to let go of the ideas of being more than what I have been and accepting what I have become. My anxiety was at its lowest. Even my therapist could tell the change in me.

Then, just as the waves rise, they fall. The hyperactivity wore off as the climate changed and the aches and pains returned. To be honest, they were always there, I was just able to ignore them from the mania I was enjoying.

I woke up with my arms and shoulders in extreme pain. My knees felt as though they wanted to lock up and not allow me to move without fear of falling. I felt overwhelmed with the amount of work left to do with the house and clutter I have surrounding me every day.

Weeks ago, I had given or thrown away trash bags full of plastic and glass containers my s/o had collected. I did so with her blessing and agreements we had. Most went to her sister. Even with all of it gone, we still kept an enormous stockpile.

Last night I walked into the kitchen to see a stack of plastics on the counter she had brought in from her sister’s house. She said they were lids she needed as well as a brand new package of plastics that were in the lot I had given away…We still have a huge set of plastics that have never been unboxed and there she was bringing in more for us not to use, but to take up space we don’t have.

When I saw the stack of plastic on the counter, I wanted to cry. It broke my spirit and generated feelings of hopelessness.

I’ve been working for weeks, if not months, to manage what we have, organize everything so we know what we have, and ultimately reduce what we are drowning in.

If there ever comes a time where I have cleared our home enough to use the other 50% of the house that’s currently unavailable due to stuff, the family will ban together to fill it again because that’s how they live… Surrounded by stuff they’ll never use. Stockpiling themselves into a suffocated existence.

Am I overreacting? I can’t tell. To go from such happiness to such depression so quickly makes it difficult to analyze and understand.

There’s even a part of me that’s just sad that I fell so far from the happiness I just had into this abyss I now write from.

The fragility of depression forever reminding me of its presence.