Sunday Scribblings: Depression My Fellow Traveler

Before I begin my own post on fellow travelers, I highly recommend my sister's piece written about her first two dogs. I love it and other readers have, too. It's a gem. You'll find it here. Furthermore, you can find a whole bunch of fine posts on this topic, here, at Sunday Scribblings.

This past week I was walking up to the door to enter our house and I suddenly realized a very familiar companion was at my side.

It was the wish to escape and leave this world.

Please don't call a crisis line on my behalf or send me to the psychiatric ward. This wish to escape is never accompanied by the idea of me doing it to myself.

It's simply a wish to float away, to be free of the oppressive feelings of low self-regard and meaninglessness that start to blanket my thoughts and feelings when another round of depression breaks into my psyche and my heart.

The weird thing is, this feeling of depression and darkness is like an old friend.

As I walked to the door, I smiled and said, "Well, old friend, there you are again. You've been away for a while."

The depression never answers me, but just keeps weighing down.

Sometimes it's hard to know just who is occupying the person that others from the outside recognize as me. But, when a wave of depression hits, I always know who I am and I feel dark feelings and have dark thoughts that are familiar.

The challenge? What do I do with these thoughts and feelings and how do I best interact with my wife and my fellow instructors and my students when I know another invasion is under way?

First of all, stay medicated.

This familiar fellow traveler wants to undermine me in so many ways: it wants me to snap at friends and wax paranoid thoughts to the Deke; it wants me to go to bed, sleep, not exercise, and feel the isolation of sleep; it wants me to procrastinate, to put off grading papers, doing laundry, writing in my blog.

This fellow traveler is very selfish. It wants all my attention and wants to run my life.

It's very hard for me to get out from under its wishes. I have trouble saying "no" to this old familiar companion.

I've slept long hours this past week during the day instead of doing my work. I'm behind already. I was not at my best in the classroom, but managed to make things work.

I did snap at a couple of fellow teachers and had one fellow teacher wonder what had happened to the sweet and reasonable person he usually knows me as.

I just didn't feel like introducing him to my fellow traveler and explaining.

Today, I'm writing. I'll start grading those papers I avoided by sleeping. I'll go out with Snug and see the world, and maybe even photograph it. I'll post a writing assignment on line and other information I'm behind on getting to my students.

I'll call my mother and wish her happy birthday.

I'll start pushing my fellow traveler away, as comfortable as I find it, and travel again along my road less traveled, the road of good cheer and positive action.

I'll invite a new fellow traveler, one who is traveling to help me, not traveling to undermine me and whisper dreadful thoughts in my ear.