Depression
What do I write about when I don’t know what to write about?
Something I never wanted to know about!
Depression might just be a diagnosis of one’s environment, as the same makes for this undesirable condition of the human experience.
But the environment is made up by external and very real internal factors. Job, home, social configuration, seasonal darkness, Weltschmerz, all has a powerful feedback loop through our brain.
We navigate the weird waves of life towards pliable surf, to tickle the mind favourably.
Only sometimes, something so bad goes on long enough, that a terrible sadness introduces itself and suddenly, things that were fun aren’t any more.
Energy is sparse, mornings are muddy, breath is short, discipline is broken, masks are slipping. Sleeping is joyless, purpose is foggy, chores are mountains, focus ungovernable.
When right feels wrong, is wrong still wrong?
All my life I have been un-, sub- and very consciously deducing the underlying structures of what we do and what we don’t.
Religion helped with an undisputable foundation for why we do things, good education and a curiosity-friendly home made finding rules and constants easier, so I could even navigate many of life’s oceans.
What I did was trying to answer the same practical question over and over: How can I be a good child, pupil, friend, apprentice, colleague, traveller, listener, photographer, tenant, representative, driver, customer, uncle, host, writer and so many more roles you might have seen me take on and showing more or less understanding of why I am that then.
Recently, more roles came up: An autistic person, a therapy client, a depressed person, a non-working person.
This is indubitably a life-changing process, one that is way overdue and no less critical, but I notice my old way of thinking here as well.
Ultimately, I am asking myself today: How I can be a good depressed person?
So, what does a good depressed person do?
Ah yes, they look for help. Ah yes, they struggle. Ah yes, they need time. Ah yes, they change habits. Ah yes, they get better, of course. Ah, yes, share their transformative journey to help others.
And who helps me look for help, should I struggle? And who gives me the time to change my many habits? And who can tell me that I have got better eventually?
Maybe one day I will tell others of a place inside ourselves, where the answers lie.
As much as my mind revolves around the autistic way of shaping a unique world view, as much I introduced outside elements to it in order to be a good human in every way.
What exactly is left when that outside clutter cracks, melts away and disintegrates?
What do you do with that?
Am I honoured to find out?
