Lighter

Yesterday it seemed like all the light in the world had dwindled down to a tiny spark.  I felt hopeless and isolated.  This morning, I woke up alone, face swollen from crying.  I had fallen asleep next to my computer and when I saw it sitting there, I remembered what I posted last night.  My stomach turned a little at the thought.

At first I didn't want to check my email or my blog because I was a little scared about what I would find but morbid curiosity got the better of me.  I often live under the false assumption that others will judge me as I judge myself, so you can imagine what I was expecting to find in my comments section.  But that is not what I found.

What I found was a mirror.  And then another one.  And another.  And soon the tiny spark was reflected back at me and it seemed to grow brighter.

Though I haven't yet found my own light switch, all the mirrors have made it bright enough to at least start looking.

Thank you.

For me, depression is like going deeper and deeper underground.  You start out sinking and when you're in the thick of it, you feel the heavy, musty earth weighing down on you, the claustrophobia of being buried alive seems real and palpable.  You are tempted to just stop moving forward because the pit seems endless and you are so exhausted.  But once there is a little bit of light cast for you, you see that you aren't in an infinite hole at all -  just a tunnel.  And if you keep moving, the soil on top of you will get less and less heavy and soon you'll be able to breathe again.

One sign that it's getting lighter is that I start being able to see the good things again.  I still feel the heaviness, but the darkness has lifted a little.

I become very creative when I'm sad.  I immerse myself in a task to the exclusion of everything else because it makes me feel like I'm going somewhere even when I'm stuck.  When my mind is occupied with making something, I can think about my problems in the periphery which prevents me from falling too far into them.  I mentioned in my post yesterday that I was planning another (and hopefully final) redesign of my blog.  It started out as a symptom of my frustration and restlessness, but it actually ended up being something that I'm almost proud of.  I'm still feeling a little too self-critical to post a link to it right now, but I promise that I'll show it to you in the future.  Possibly tomorrow.

Another upside to this whole thing is that it has forced me to dig inside myself to find answers.  I have not found any answers and maybe I never will, but I did find a lot of promising leads and I sharpened my excavation skills for future ventures.

Anyway, I promise that I will be funny again someday - probably sooner than I think.  And I wanted to thank you for your advice and kind words and emails and for sharing this pain with me.  Though I would never wish this upon anyone, knowing that I'm not bearing the weight alone makes it feel not so heavy.

And it will keep getting lighter.