broken
wednesday, september 4, 2002


it's been a long time since i've been depressed. i mean really, deeply, darkly, depressed. but i feel it edging up on me, creeping it's way in where it doesn't belong and isn't wanted. i'm fighting it, but feel myself losing ground almost moment by moment. i don't like it, i don't like being in that place, i don't like how i feel or think or am when i'm in that place. so i fight it. but sometimes it seems like i'm fighting to keep myself just above it all.

i've always been a somewhat resilient person. less so as a child, but i became more so as an adult. i don't hold on to anger or grudges long, usually. if i do, it took a lot of something to get me there. in one person's case it was abuse, another was just plain manipulative, and another was a user. that's the only 3 i can think of off the top of my head that remain on my grudge list. another person, a relative of my ex, is rapidly achieving the distinction.

i try to bounce back from the bad. holding onto it is often more harmful for the person doing the holding than the other person. and if there's events beyond your control, well, holding onto the bad certainly won't help much less change it. so, i do what i can to adjust, pick up, and move on.

but sometimes, i just can't seem to find the energy or the will to bounce. i get tired. i get dragged down. it starts there. sometimes all i need to do is change habits and i'm fine, even if i eventually go back later to whatever i stopped doing. somehow i almost always manage to pick myself up and get back to where i need to be. i don't fall into the dark.

if these dark moments happened more frequently, i might be able to figure out exactly what triggers them. but that means being in that dark place even more than i am now. no thanks.

someone will say it's the amount of stress i've been under lately, but that doesn't work as an explanation either. i've been under worse stress and still managed to not hit my dark space.. granted, the last month hasn't been easy with a damaged friendship probably lost for good - especially since we view friendship so different, my writing being given some of the worst comments its gotten in a long while, our financial situation, and the failure of the sub teaching thing. someone may think it's part of that hormonal thing, and i grant that may be a possibility. but i have weathered that in the past as well.

i'm sliding down this slope. i'm tired and can't sleep. i want to write, but i don't want to write. i want to cry . . . a lot. but. most of all, i just want to pick myself up before i fall into the darkness.

i want to feel ok again, instead of feeling so very broken.