Fight the Fight

A lot of time has been spent today thinking about ‘the fight’. Meaning, fighting to not allow the depression constantly put a pause on my life and my happiness/potential happiness. ( I put a slash there cause I'm not quite there) And the energy it takes for me to put up ‘the fight’. Here are my main points of question and thoughts

I break down approx every 6/8 weeks but hide it from everyone.
Then I spend a fair amount of time pretending to be ok, prob around %50 of my time.
Pretending to be ok means - At worst, I pretend to be non suicidal, not numb, not on the verge of tears, and most of all not saying/thinking ‘ I don’t give a good goddamned shit about what your saying’ to everything everyone says, AND everything that I think about. At Best, this pretending means i feel funny/odd ranging to sometimes very fake, about interacting with life and people. I feel exsausted by it too, just tired from living. In this state I function at least – I get out of bed, shower, work, talk, but I don’t do anything that requires feeling decent about myself, I don’t do anything that really matters to me. (write music/sing. Have a meaningful convo with someone. Workout, make plans) I also don’t eat well, and/or I overeat/ eat food like it’s a drug when I'm in this state.

Then I spend somewhere around 30-45% of my time, actually feeling pretty fine. Not really happy or inspired or excited, but decent. I give pushes in this state. I try to do things where I need to feel good about myself. I fail a lot, but I try in this state.
I get really truly happy or filled up with love/live or inspired about 5% of the time. Its rare, and people who are really close to me usually comment on how odd it is.

So…Should I stop pretending that I’m ok ? – (to a certain extend. I wont actually tell everyone I don’t give a good goddamn, but I will ‘come out’ and tell maybe my closest friends and fam the truth) in order to
a) be and feel more authentic?
b) possibly become the slightly more outwardly dysfunctional person in the ‘name of’ (hope of) become the more functional person in future ?
Meaning…maybe I could/would finally take that sick leave my therapist has been saying I should, and then I could do 6 or 8 weeks..(or months..?)..of more intensive therapies. Build some kind of a foundation. ..? Make some kind of progress to where I have a better handle and actual real coping mechanisms/activities … ?
and c) solicit the apparently uber important (often highlighted in books and by ‘experts’) thing called ‘support’ or a support system/network. I'm pretty doubtful of this since I feel that you can’t know what its like for me, unless you suffer yourself. My sister and mom who know I have episodes and I'm medicated, but don’t know to the extent or severity I suffer, have asked me questions and say things that they really truly believe are helpful, relevant or supportive. I generally want to bash my head into a wall, or scream at them in reply. (this is highly contributed by the fact that they are family - and that we were never super close, also that I am uncomfortable to talk about depression with people who i know, and I become more unreasonable and impatient than I normally would about anything else)

My next thought is..I was born to fight this condition. Its all I can to. I have to wait until my %35-40 block of feeling decent comes and use it to the best of my ability to overcome my depression and to also take steps towards making my life better. Ill break down for you what those 2 things look like.

‘Overcoming Depression’ Or maybe it should be called controlling or treating it.
- Working out Every.Single. Day. I get a ‘lift’ from my dark when I do this.
Doing some form of Cardio, more on the intense side, at least 4 times a week. I actually get a high from this, I feel the best I ever ever feel Mentally and Emotionally when I do this.
- Go to therapy at least once a week. Lots of talking, guidance, direction and reflection
- Practice Mindfull meditation at least once a day. Should be doing it 3 times a day eventually
- Practice a self love mantra. Basically think about why I do or should love myself, ( have a written mantra) Look at baby pics of me…create a self love feeling.
- Practice being present to critical and negative thoughts, and detach my self from them. So actively think of them as just thoughts or feelings, and not truth.
- Research, learn and oversome the binge eating/ emotional eating.

These seem pretty easy/not impossible, yet I haven’t done one of those things for at least 2 weeks..some of them 6 weeks. Resisting is an understatement.

‘Make my life better’ Do things for myself, make plans, make goals etc
- Think about going back to school. I work a deadend job that means nothing to me. I cant advance and/or get another job cause I have no education in my field. Simple right? Go back to school. I check into school and feel hopeless and overwhelmed. I don’t have the money. I cant manage full time school, I don’t do well in school.lots and lots of reasons/doubts.
- Sing. Write.Record. Practice. Reach out to that dozen of great producers that want to work with me. Finish a song. Find ways to get $ to get an album done. Explore where I can perform. Reach out to the dozen of musicians who have shown that they want to jam/write with me.
- Share myself. Write something. Volunteer for one of the many causes I care about. Go out! (huge..im a hermit) mingle with people and learn to enjoy some sort of social scene.
- Organize, clean, make your home one you can enjoy

I haven’t done the first 2 things in months.
I half ass the second 2 things.

I have a dialogue running in my head (one of a few) where I am feeling bad about being and feeling relatively ok today. It goes like this:

‘Remember how you felt on the weekend?, remember how it built up for weeks before that and you knew you were going to lose it all again, sometime soon?’ ‘

yes I remember, I always remember. And every time the dark comes back I hate myself for all the moments I didn’t remember.’

‘Well That’s real, and it’s never going away. Why are you pretending to be ok? ‘
I know but I start to figure I should just make the most of whatever time I do have. That precious time where I can breath and I don’t feel like I'm pretending entirely’

‘ but Monday and Tuesday the weekend had sobered you up to the truth, so you felt pretty numb to most things…now its Thursday and yesterday you started to smile here and there, and think about what you do like about your life. Like your boyfriend, and your cat, and your hair..this morning for about 6 minutes you LIKED your hair. What a shithead you are, your so full of crap. You and I both know you hate your hair, you hate your hair yourself and your life.’

‘I didn’t today’

‘yea, well you will again, and you know it always comes sooner than you think it will.

This is pretty annoying but its also nothing compared to the dialogue when I actually try to do something I really want to do. A lot of the times music, recording, or writing a song. Or it could just be cooking, or cleaning, or helping my grandma. Anything where I want a good result. That dialogue goes like this:

‘ok concentrate, relax. Now go ahead and start singing..’

‘ you sound like shit. Your tone deaf, you cant even hear all the notes your hitting that are wrong.

‘its ok let go Jessica. Shutup dark’

‘You are pathetic. Listen to yourself during this playback – you sound mediocre at best.’

This self considers, listens, compares herself to the better singers and realizes she is mediocre. ‘ ok fine, I’m mediocre, but I enjoy this. This isn’t about being the best, its just about me doing what I want to do. so Shutup already’

Alrite keep going, you and I both know your goin to give up within 20 minutes…go ahead prove me right.

I get stuck on a line, or cant find the right words, or don’t feel right about a chord and I get agitated.

‘see you do suck’

‘ok fine I suck, I'm not stopping though, I'm still going to try’

‘cool, but now that you’re a lil frustrated you know that your ideas are going to start disappearing and your stomach is starting to turn. You start feeling your body hate itself and you start screwing up the notes that just 2 minutes ago you were hitting perfectly.

'having this debate with myself is retarded, i dont want to quit again

you will in about 10 mins…I always know you better than this fake side does.’


Ok this isn't exactly how it is, like i feel like this is kind of condensed. There is more dialouge and lots of times its 3 and 4 thoughts at a time, but this sums it up pretty well. Its exausting, and its embarressing. Like i get embarressed and feel shameful in the moment. (even tho no one is aware of it but me) The fact that I cant just commit to doing something - let go of the doubts and just do it, is pathetic.
I CANT - and thats pityfull.