6.6 Shame

Let's do this. On Sunday, I woke up and immediately wanted to go back to bed. So I went back to bed. I woke up a few hours later and wasn't feeling sleepy anymore, but couldn't bring myself to get up. I tried, ate some leftover pizza, made some coffee that I wouldn't drink. At least after the pizza I moved to the couch. My couch faces a window that takes up the entire wall of my place. I watched as the sun slowly went down.

I had a lot of things to do that day, but none of them got done. I shouldn't be telling you this. I should be hiding this. It's bad for business. What would people think if they knew that every once in a while, I just completely shut down? I've talked about this before, but mostly in the past tense. Does this ever go away or am I going to be ninety-three (if I last this long) and fall into days where my thoughts go so off the rails that I can't get out of bed? By then, I'll probably have other reasons not to get out of bed.

I’m shaming myself over the inability to get out of bed. I’d say I’m a functional depressive. If there was something pressing that needed to happen on Sunday, I would’ve made it work somehow. The truth of the situation is I’m embarrassed that people will find out about this.

I shame myself, but is there a larger problem at work?

Fuck this.

I’ve been trying to write this entry all week. Started on Tuesday and have come back to it everyday since. I’ve been unable to write more then the above. My original point was to talk about how the idea of being depressed is perceived as a negative thing. It’s so engrained in general society that it trickles down to individuals thinking they cannot show this weakness. But is it really a weakness? We value strength and being strong and confident, but I just can’t fake this kind of thing. If I don’t feel confident, I’m not confident.

By focusing on the problem of shaming and mental illness as a whole was a way to write around what I needed to say. What I needed to say is that at certain times, everything seems to happen all at once and it becomes too much. I feel that I’m able to retain a lot of information in my head, but if it gets overloaded, although I usually keep going, a few times a year I completely short circuit. Everyone processes information differently and I’m always a little bit behind. I need to turn things over in my head. In order to bring my full self to what I’m doing, I need to look at all the angles. The problem with this is a lot of tangental material floating around up there that causes the overloading. I’m aware of this and keep it in check most of the time. Sometimes not.

Even after all this time, I’m still afraid that I’m displaying weakness. I started thinking about work, about money, about family situations, about personal relationships. My thoughts went into a downward spiral but once I pulled myself out, I found that there was nothing wrong. Actually, everything was pretty good. When I’m in a downward spiral, I can intellectually tell myself that everything is pretty good, but the thoughts that pushed me towards the depressive state can be strong. And those thoughts become the reality.

I won’t wake up tomorrow and feel no more shame when thinking these thoughts. Maybe I need to accept that this is a part of my persona and with every time I go down, I will find a few more pieces that help me understand why it happens. The bounce back times are getting shorter, so perhaps I am learning something. Talking about it and not being ashamed is one of the reasons.