25/02/2008

Things that happen while I'm busy being depressed...

After spending most of my time since around late October/early November in what can only be described as a deep, dark hole of quiet despair, I have finally begun to rediscover the brighter sides of life.

This has also led to a series of discoveries about myself, to which I will get back in a little while.

The thing about my depressions is - I need them to feel good. It may seem like a cliché that in order to feel good, you sometimes need to feel bad. But in my case this couldn't be more true.

Ever since I was a child I've been curious about the world, fascinated by it, frightened by it, enamoured by it and tried to learn as much as I can about it. This may seem like a perfectly normal thing, and I guess to some extent it is. The thing about me, though, is that I have a tendency of not processing all these new and exciting things as I go about my daily business. Instead I gather the information in my head, much like a sponge absorbing water.

The thing about a sponge is, it can only absorb so much water until it's reached the point of complete saturation. Now, the healthy thing for a sponge to do might be to just stop absorbing. Or perhaps to squeeze some of the water out in order to make room for some other kind of water. But not this sponge!

No, this sponge is a sponge that instead of shedding water or stop absorbing gets what can only be described as growing pains. When I was younger it used to manifest itself as me getting a terrible stomach ache, which had me doubled over for about a week or so, and which disappeared on it's own accord without any rational, medical explanation.

Nowadays it leads to a depression which usually comes about every year or two, and which usually lasts about a month.

But every time I've been suffering from these growing pains, the strangest thing has happened - I've actually grown! Not physically, but mentally and emotionally. So instead of loosing the excess water this sponge just keeps getting bigger and bigger... =)

But growing is never easy and it usually comes at a price.

I had in fact been feeling almost too good about myself for more than two years, apart from some minor sadnesses, so I was a little worried that this growth spurt would be particularly bad. But as time passed and no depression came I started thinking that maybe, just maybe, I had finally grown enough to be able to grow just a little at a time.

But, boy, was I wrong! Instead I've been living in this pitch black hole of despair for several months - much longer than usual.

I can't say it hasn't been hell.

But as I'm finally beginning to feel this darkness dissipate I can see that it hasn't been to no avail. But I can also see it's taken a high toll on me - especially physically.

I've always been skinny, but as I happened to see myself naked in a full size mirror the other day I was chocked and appalled at how much weight I've seem to lost over the past few months. I know I haven't been eating enough - I just haven't had any appetite. But I didn't realize it had been this bad. Since I'm usually not depressed - and therefor suffering from a lack in appetite - for more than a month at a time I've never actually realised just what effect a more long term depression could have on me...

It seems my body can take long periods of eating like two grown men and long periods of barely eating at all without me actually gaining or loosing any weight to speak of. But it also seems there comes a point when my body reaches critical mass (or rather lack thereof, as it were) and starts burning calories like mad. I've heard others describe this phenomenon before - I just never thought it would actually happen to me.

So the thing I'm gonna do now is try to regain my weight and hope it also leads (which seems rather likely) to me feeling more energetic. The good news is - I love food! (I just keep forgetting this whenever I'm depressed).

And now for the discoveries;

(To be continued in the next post...)