I Am Simply Me
By John
One day, in late September, I found myself sitting on the edge of my bed for 30 minutes wondering why I couldn’t put my clothes on.
I had been depressed before. But I had never in my life found myself so unable to do such simple, mindless tasks such as ‘putting my clothes on’.
I needed help.
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I don’t feel like writing this article.
Truth is, I haven’t felt much like writing for the past ten years.
There was a time in my life, when I wrote every single day. Amazingly, as you can tell by this gifted prose, there was even a time when I was paid to write by a large publication.
Those days are gone.
They’ve been gone for quite some time. I don’t harbor any regrets, nor feel the pangs of loss; I just slowly lost the want to write.
In these last four years, I slowly lost the want to do anything.
The activities that I enjoyed: acting, running, writing, baking…all of them seemed to take a backseat to an incessant need for comfort.
Comfort. What a loaded word. Comfort for me could mean safety, it could mean control, it could mean peace. For me, it was probably a blend of all three.
Comfort began to slowly devolve from peaceful solitude to something more solitary.
And therein lies the rub of my existence; the thin line between ‘the solitude’ and ‘the solitary’.
Solitude is peace. Solitude is reflection. Solitude can be a form of prayer or meditation.
Solitary is loneliness. Solitary is confinement. Solitary is a room where I can’t escape.
So in 2023, I moved from the solitude of comfort…to the solitary exclusion of being too comfortable.
Trust me, I tried everything. Running more, eating right, getting out in the sun, drinking more water; nothing seemed to remove me from the feeling of impending death.
“What’s the point?” would be my mission statement. “Let’s just stay in” would be my motto.
My depression moves from a form of laziness to a cascade of narcissism.
Not narcissism in the way you’re thinking; there was no posing in front of mirrors like a Greek god. But narcissism where the world talks about you (even though nobody is talking about you).
The talking got so loud in my head that I needed to see a doctor. These weren’t actual words being uttered in my head, but thoughts of other people talking behind my back; an almost perverse level of paranoia.
Since October, I’ve been on Escitalopram. Since then, I’ve been calmer, less obsessive, and the world no longer talks about me (they never were).
I’m not a champion of prescribed mental health meds. I feel that if there’s a natural way to move past your demons, you should move in that direction. But for this guy, the change via using the meds was nearly immediate.
The area where I didn’t realize I needed the most help was in anxiety.
I didn’t have the slightest idea how anxiety was shaping and ruling my life. Escitalopram lessened the vibrations of anxiety that held down so many interactions.
What I found pre-October 2023 is that it wasn’t necessarily how I interacted with others as much as it was how I carried the weight of reactions. For instance, if somebody said something that may be reflective of my job, I would absorb the absolute weight of that emotion.
This can be good or bad. Any feeling: love, passion, embarrassment, anger, nervousness, happiness; if I felt it, I processed it at a level of 11 of 10.
Think of the levels from Spinal Tap. Your emotions go to 10? Well, mine quite regularly found a way to 11.
And what an exhausting way to live!
The new medication doesn’t take away joy, happiness, nervousness, embarrassment, etc; it just lessens the weight that I pulled with each feeling. A true emotional toll of existence that made the smallest tasks tough to do.
So, if I need to mow the lawn, clean the toilets, do the dishes, wash my clothes…any of those tasks became tough to manage prior to October.
What I had to learn is that I wasn’t NOT doing these tasks because I was lazy. I was not doing these tasks because the emotional weight I carried throughout the day exhausted my mind. My head would simply not let me rehabilitate long enough to do simple tasks.
Since October, I find myself able to do daily tasks. I’m able to enter a space with people and not feel like the world is talking about me. And the smallest events no longer create an emotional reaction worthy of a three-act drama.
I am simply me; the daily person I always wanted to be.
Now, am I writing every day? God, no. Have I started working on my monologues to re-start my acting career? Jesus Christ, no. Did I finish my Robert Caro books on LBJ that I started three months ago? Lord in the heavens, no!
But I am more regular in my emotions, my interactions, and my peace.
May you find yours as we trudge our way to happy destiny.
Disclaimer: Guest blog posts do not necessarily reflect the views of Sad Times or Sad Times LLC.
