Depression is normal...
Everyone experiences sadness, and at some point depression.
The difference for me is in the movement. Sadness is the type of dread and despair that I can feel and it doesn’t overcome me. It bogs me down, but I can still get out of bed and go to work.
Depression stops me in the tracks.
Depression calls off work, bails on plans with friends, and stares at the ceiling of my room for hours. The way I’ve learned to greet Depression is by asking it what it wants. Oftentimes that is simply silence.
“Feeling the need to be busy the time is a trauma response and fear-based distraction from what you’d be forced to acknowledge and feel if you slowed down.” -(unattributed)
Depression is a gentlemen to me.
Once I give it the time it requires, it bows out gracefully thanking me for my time, attention, and suffering. If I avoid, run away from, or ignore it, Depression get bigger and more imposing in order to get what it came for. I give myself to it and often learn deep wisdom—like poets and lyricists do—so that it doesn’t have to become the masked character from the move “Scream”…consistently in slow, inevitable pursuit.
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