Not Right

[thessalian]

Turns out cholten99 thought he'd removed all the names from my buddylist last night. Well, he hadn't. I now have. I still don't get why he didn't just sign me off Trillian and sign himself on. This strikes me as not right and kind of stupid, as he would have had all his contacts with far fewer keystrokes. But frankly, I'm not in the mood to argue, be pissed off or in fact much care.

If all I'm going to get when I'm in this kind of state is "serves you right for reading books about depressed people", why am I even bothering? Should I not have moods? That seems to make things easier. I know how I sound; it's a valid question. A couple of friends of mine have established in their own lives that it pays to not have moods of any description. I've been the advocate of "let yourself feel; no one's going to hold it against you" for several years now. So you have to act in a certain way -- watch or read certain things, be in certain moodlets without crossing the boundaries into an actual mood, know exactly what someone means by a certain statement or at least have the bullheadedness to ask but not expect the same courtesy in return -- in order to maintain a certain relationship status quo. This strikes me as very much not right.

I know it's just the mood. I know this mood; it's a very old one. I don't know why it's back, but I don't think I care. I just want it to stop. This is supposed to be over. Depression cannot just come back; it can't. Well, I don't know, maybe it can. Every time it's got bad for me -- really bad -- it's been just after trying to break away from my mother. Every time I make the break, this feeling of being not right just swamps me. It's like I'm not allowed to do anything she doesn't approve of, and if I do, I'm just wrong, or there's no point to me. I never really thought about it like that before, never looked for a pattern to the bad times, but there's a certain logic to it. First comes the fear; then the feeling of freedom; then this.

Did my mother actually condition me to be this way -- to see myself as so worthless without her that I'd go the way I did three years ago? Am I really that screwed up? I can't really be that screwed up, can I?

You only need therapy if you can't see the problem yourself. I keep telling myself that, because I can't afford therapy. If that is the problem, then it needs to be worked on. And if cholten99 makes one more crack about 'Prozac Nation' being the one true source of all my depression at the moment, he is getting a smack in the mouth. It isn't fair. ethangilchrist suggested that book to me while I was in the darkest times of my life and when I was finally able to read it, it actually helped me. I wasn't alone. Someone else knew what it was like and I wasn't just some worthless freak who'd been in a mental hospital. Roger E Moore's writing a serial Dariafic on the PPMB that covers, at this stage of it, depression and how it affects the sufferers. There's nothing in the world like knowing you're not alone.

The problem is, I feel alone at the moment. He doesn't know how to relate to me. He avoids his own emotions, so how can he be expected to deal with mine? I can't blame him per se, but that doesn't make me feel any better. I can't tell him what's wrong -- up until five minutes ago, I didn't know. All I knew was that I was off my food, indulging in long, punishing walks and staring at the ceiling. And the response I got to that was ... well, let's not beat it into the ground. He'll never press and never push, and that's okay. I don't think I'd want him to. With a little luck and a lot of toughness on my part, he'll never have cause to regret not pushing.

I think it'll happen. I'm told I'm tough.

Comments

[ethangilchrist.livejournal.com]

I've gotten flack for recommending that book to people before. Usually from people who've never been where that book is from (metaphorically speaking of course). It's one of the very few things that pisses me off and simply want to get it to even more people. I've never been told that it didn't help. I have been told it's a difficult read but that's something I tell people from the start. Ah well. Here's to finding things out there that actually do speak to us. *raises a glass...*

[happypickle.livejournal.com]

It's definitely much nicer to be happy or at least not sad - but down moods are a part of life too, for most/all of us... and not being able to express them to a loved one sucks. Hopefully you'll find a way, even if just by getting him to read your LJ :)