I can see the sun rise from my bed. I can see the sun set. Other than to walk to the toilet, or feed the cat, I don't want to leave my bed. I don't want to listen to the radio. I don't want to watch TV. I don't want to talk to anyone on the phone, I don't want the sun to rise again.
I don't want anything. I've just stopped caring. There's no joy, no despair, no nothing. Just pain from my new bladder infection. I don't feel anything. I feel like one of Eliot's Hollow men- stuffed with straw, but not alive.
I don't exist. I don't care.
The cat hasn't left my side in several days. Her new thing is to lick my hair, I haven't washed it in three weeks. I haven't bathed in about 10 days. I guess it smells good to her, or she likes the texture. I don't know. I don't like it, but I can't do anything about it. She only leaves my side to bite me to feed her, water her, change her box. I make myself a cup of coffee, I want to eat but I don't care. I do it strictly out of boredom. I'm craving sugar but I don't have anything sweet.
I've had depressions before. I've had depressions where I couldn't move, But never, ever one where I feel like I just don't care about anyone or anything. Never one where I just don't feel anything. I've felt numb before, gotten that way through alcohol or just overwhelmed by everything, I could shut myself off and power down. It's Never like this.
I worked hard to get this blog started, it's always been my baby. When I started it, I promised I would try to explain what it's like to be bipolar- to get inside my head and really try to explain the dirty side of it. I can't write now. I can't do anything, other than sleep. It's like this is an abortion. I don't want it to die, it scares me as less people visit. I don't post every other day. I can't write. I just don't care.
Last month I got an email from someone who found the blog and said I helped them through a bad patch. It made me happy- that I was able to help someone. It gave me a kind of purpose to keep on going. The only way we can get better is to help and be helped.
Today is a good day because I got out of bed and fed the cat. I had a cup of coffee, some toast and a cigarette. The rain we have been getting had stopped and I could see the sun trying to peek out through the clouds.
Then I went back to bed. I feel like crying but my tear ducts are dry. I have nothing to cry about. Clutching my stuffed panda bear to me, I curl up in a fetal position and feel like praying for the world to end.
Only I'm an atheist. I stopped believing in G-d when I saw things in a mental hospital. Humans don't do this to other humans. During WW II my father, 18 years old at the time was a medic assigned to help civilians at a concentration camp, after VE day. Somehow seeing that inhumanity made my father's faith stronger. Is it wrong to me to say I am jealous of my father? Or is it because not only did I *see* the dark side, I was a victim at the same time, unlike my father? He has nightmares about what he saw in the war- I have nightmares of ECT treatments and psychiatric drugs that destroyed my body, and my soul.
There's the rub. His soul stayed intact, mine was devoured. If you don't have a soul, you cannot believe in G-d. I don't believe in the kindness of strangers. I don't believe in goodness or kindness-or the other side evil. None of it exists. I don't exist. All there is here is the cat, and me, lying in bed, unable to move, watching sunrise and sunset. When my life is over it won't be measured by coffee spoons like Prufrock, it will be measured by scoops of cat shit.
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18 comments:
My thought are with you. You are not alone. Much of what you have so beautifully written is familiar, from the numbness to the poetry. Hard times. Hugs, Med x
Thanks Med. I took the first positive step by writing today. My thoughts are with you and those across the pond.
Hi Susan,
I hope that this time passes quickly. I know exactly what you are talking about, and I hope that you find a way to get past it. Depression is a horrible weight to carry around. Best wishes to you.
I am there. I am in the same spot. I don't care about anything and I see no goodness anywhere and I just want it all to end. Thanks for posting, as difficult as it may have been. I understand feeling nothing.
oh susan I have been there that vacant empty void. it seems as if it the sum total, but is not. eventually i determined that i can think wtf i want, to a greater degree than i felt i could. and it was what i felt, that alone, how i felt is what determined everything else?! no fucking wonder i couldn't move!--i was paralyzed with fear, and had no sense of worth--because of a part of reality-which is ultimately , only part of human experience. so i started teaching myself how to talk to myself, if that makes any sense--wasn't my idea! but shortly after learning about this, I met this chick who was into affirmations. If she heard anyone say negative, she would insist you say something positive, or more accurate. the premise is it is not the feeling depressed that knocks ya on your ass, it's what the heck we do, think, act all of it--anyway, i can't say anything that is going to fix anything, but I find that my feelings are not all of what is going on with me and only truly were in as much as i allowed that to be my perception--to a large degree---frozen by fear, and well whatever it is for a person--and it is always the existential stuff we haven't find a way to be--well to just be with it, as it is. i have to have something else, and for me it is my faith. even that tho is drastically different than it once was---but I still have that need. what is fucked up is how my ptsd was triggered and it's much worse than it was--but someday, (i hope soon) i will be not so on alert, but...it is as if my son has a fucking target on him. i shit you not---it is horrifying how things clicked into place last summer, about how even worse---and the realization that I had that thing in my gut, that sense of present danger for years because fo what they did to my boy. i hadn't been able to even breathe for christ's sake and didn't even know it any more! it had been so long....it was the day my brother and I went to see the weasel, i mean attorney. the day i first posted to my blog. he came to check on me a couple days later and I remember standing in my yard telling him i could actually breathe--that i realized that as much as i've said i had no idea how much i had been choking back. susan call me anytime--or send me a message and i'll call you--anytime. i got pissed at g-d once i didn't stay mad, and i don't think g-d has anything to do with people being less than fully human, and connected. truly, someone left a bag of idiots open ;-)
In times like those, I have to remind myself what it feels like to be manic and blissful and on top of the world. Sometimes, it makes me feel like the suffering is worth it.
And then I gently count the one blessing that keeps me from drowning, and that is that I am an ultra-rapid cycler....and that my sorrows are perpetually short-lived.
This does not seem to be the case with you. However, I know you have a blessing to count.
Stay strong, and good luck.
In the fictional Red Dwarf , remember Lister "rehabilitating the planet" storyline goes like "Due to the Earth being moved near the system's sun its ice age melted in a single night - which led to Lister being the only human ever to sleep through a melting ice age. After nearly being corroded to death by acid rain Lister finds himself in a landscape made up of green glass bottles - the remains of humanity's garbage. Lister finds himself in Mount Rushmore in the American state of South Dakota. Lister is continually "attacked" by the Earth in the forms of earthquakes, oil rain, and lighting, and the paranoid part of his mind begins to suspect that the planet is desperate to keep humans, the ones who so hurt it, off its surface. Lister is sparred after he swears to try and make it all right again and, with the help of giant cockroaches, start rehabilitating the planet for the next thirty seven years."
I love the planet earth and find a purpose in cleaning up garbage in public parks. This is exercise.
Exercise leads to my appetite-hunger for the energy I spend. Exercise like walking helps our bowels move, if your bowels have no out-put, there can be no (new food)input. Exercise also helps your body sleep at night.
You have gone off track and it will take time to get back into a healthy routine. Only you can do it. If you cant take care of yourself, you will lose your freedom in a forced hospitalization.
Hello Susan. I know exactly how you feel. I also think alot about how we humans do not deserve this world. I hate when the news show how a bear killed a human, but what about us killing and stealing their rightful place in this world? How are so many animals now extinct because of the selfishness of humans. I can't bear the thought of people killing animals for their mear pleasure. My heart hurts and I just wish I was not here to witness this circus of humans.
Sorry, as you may see, I am not in a good place either, but trying my best to get out of it.
Susan, take care and I hope you get better soon.
Linda
http://anotherdepressionvictim.blogspot.com
Sending love and hugs to you my dearest Susan.
Oh, Susan... *hugs*
I have felt the way you describe feeling.
Littlewolf
Read the name of your blog. Read it again. Please listen to it. You are going through hell, but you must keep going. This too shall pass. You've heard it a million times, but it is the truth. Your writing on this blog has helped countless people, your life will not measured in cat poop scooped but in blog entries written that have saved people you have never met. Please, be kind to yourself. Baby yourself. Treat yourself gently. Watch Harry Potter movies and be mindless, even if only for a few minutes. You will get through this. I am thinking of you and knowing that it is only a matter of time (that big unknown of how long!!) before you are on the upswing again.
Susan,
Thank you for helping those along the way with your blog.
I hope these words bring you some comfort -
http://www.kaleidoscopes.co.za/html/callonlove.html
Duane
Susan,
Aye, the rub, as Anne Sexton put it in a letter. I know about Eliot's coffee spoons. I used to have a boring job hwen I was younger and battling depression, and I would write, over and over agian, "My life is measured out in coffee spoons". I know depression....the emptiness, the apathy, the numbness, the lack of clarity of thought, the void, the pain, the suffering - all of it. And th wishing that it would end forever.
But it will end, Susan. It will. These lines have helped me through such times: "A lively, understandable spirit once entertained you. It will come again. Be still. Wait."
You will feel again, Susan. I don't believe in G-d either, but I do believe in resilience, and perseverence. You will feel whole again. Just find whatever hope you can inside you, and hold onto it, hold onto it with all your might. Don't give up on yourself. Don't cheat yourself out of your future happiness. You can make it through this.
Sometimes it helps to take baby steps. Taking a shower, getting dressed, making something to eat. And then, sure, you can go back to bed. But at least you will have done something that day, something more than you did the day before. The next day, maybe go out and get the mail. The next day, maybe eat three meals. Baby steps, but you will eventually be back to functioning your normal way, when you feel better. Try playing uplifting music, when you're in bed. This can really help life your mood. And reach out for help. Call a crisis line if you need to. Talk to someone. Write when you can.
You WILL make it through this, Susan.
I know how you feel. Although I am functioning, I am very depressed. I keep wanting to end it all. I don't have anyone to talk to, no friends, no lover, even my son has abandoned me. Thank goodness for your cat (I have one too)--at least it is helping you get out of bed. You are helping us all with your excellent writing of the state you are in. I don't think they have even begun to understand what depression really is.
Wish I had the magic words that would pull you up and out of the darkness you're in, but all I can say is I've been there, I understand and I hope things get better for your soon. Please take care of you!
Hi Susan. Trust me, those feelings you describe are now all too familiar. After months of non acceptance, I am fighting to get out of depression. Just keep going.
http://path-to-recovery.blogspot.com/
I've suffered from depression for as long as I can recall. I can tell you for sure you DO have a soul. A soul that will live forever. God does exist & He created everyone for a plan & a purpose. The purpose wasn't to hurt other humans. That's our own nature, & yes it's called sin, & it's our own choice. If God had His way He would not want anyone to hurt anyone- "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." (Matthew 7:12). But He allows free thought & a free choice to accept & love Him & the sacrifice of His Son Jesus, or not accept it. The end results for our eternal souls are our own responsibility, as is our behavior while we're alive. I can tell you for sure He exists, He created you, He loves you, & He wants you to be with Him forever in His kingdom someday, in a world where there will be no more depression. "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."
(Revelation 21:4)
Be encouraged; you are loved.
I cried to read this and learn that I'm not alone. I literally do not leave my bed all day. My escape is through video games but even that is a chore to focus on... I don't feel motivated to do anything. I have been on several medications and nothing is working. I believe, my soul is withering and subconsciously, I'm just waiting to die. To read this...made me feel less hateful of myself, less guilty because I was afraid that perhaps this was just me. Know that your words, your writing are things of comfort and beauty. Thank you for sharing this...sincerely
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