Not a good week.
I have the sense that articulating these things helps to overcome them. I'm having a really difficult time swimming in the middle of a fairly heavy downturn. I've achieved almost nothing all week, and the reasons for the downturn came at me from about 7 different directions - some huge (the anniversary of my Father's death... fairly unavoidable, as a big, motherload of numbing, poleaxing rubbishness, that one) and others, maybe the 'tipping point' helpers, the little, niggly, stupid, self centred and rather ridiculous reasons all just ganged up on me and once and decided to all start shoving at the same time. It didn't take long before I lost my balance.
In the full, black swamp wallowing of depression, an act which is uniquely selfish but unstoppable, the little child that's inside every adult wants to flop down, refuse to move forward and just cry it all out. The desperate cry for a hug from Mummy is replaced with a keening sense of a loss of intimacy and a welter of feelings of loneliness. I don't mean physical intimacy, I mean regular face to face contact with a handful of people with whom one shares an unspoken bond. With whom you can be entirely yourself. I can mostly cope with not seeing my friends that much, but once I'm headed swampward, the loss of their physical selves in my life threatens to suck out my lifeblood, Dementer-like (the only really good idea JK Rowling had in the whole of the HP books, I think).
Every so often on here I ponder going to the Doc's about chemicals, and although I can count this swamp visit in days on one hand (it started on Monday), I have a concern that there's something underlying this that simply will not go away. Perhaps it actually is time to accept that there's too much riding on my shoulders at the moment. Some of it I've made up, and some of it is the very real pressure of having to earn for the family. There's no point denying that the pressures of the family itself are also playing their part. A loss of intimacy amongst my contemporaries is almost entirely down to not going out. Although I never begrudge the kids because they are entirely amazing and brilliant, it is a self deceiving con trick to try to pretend that the changes that have come because of family have not fundamentally changed my opportunities in many ways. The 'trick' is in recognising it, not ignoring it, but working around those restrictions. A trick which is elusive in the middle of a swamp.
Meanwhile, one very practical upshot of being depressed is a sense of having achieved almost nothing at work since monday, despite having a lot to do. If I can quote Rex from Toy Story: "Now I have guilt!".
Forcing myself to do small, achievable tasks this morning in the hope that small fireworks might light up the dank sky a little and help to illuminate the way out.
