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torquillI was on my way home when I felt the depression coming on.
It was a familiar one -- the sense of having left friends to go home by myself. Being alone, and lonely, and feeling uncared-for. I've left many places feeling uncomforted and unfulfilled, with it thrown into sharp relief by the brief warmth of friends. So I knew this depression far too well.
There isn't much I can do about it by myself, so I braced myself and waited for it to roll in. After a few minutes, though, all that came over me was almost a wistfulness, and a bit of resignation. My black depression had turned out to be a kind of melancholy. And that's how it stayed the rest of the way home.
It still surprises me when the pain isn't there. Sometimes it still is, just as sharp as ever -- but it's about as often now that it doesn't show up. It was such a large part of me for most of my life that I came to enjoy it, in a way... it fed my sense of the dramatic, a symbol of how badly I'd been treated through no fault of my own, a burden so heavy that it made me heroic to bear it. When it's gone I feel ordinary, and that's faintly distressing. Even if it was a terrible thing, it was still a little bit of magic, something epic. It's like waking up from an old-school fairy tale. I survived -- but the bridge doesn't have a troll under it anymore.
This melancholy is easier to lift myself out of, at least; it's so shallow all I have to think about is activities I enjoy which I could do tomorrow, and it lightens noticeably. I can function, and I think I can even be happy. I may not feel "full" in an emotional sense at the moment, but I no longer have a crippling hole in my core as a result. That's still something I'm getting used to.
We'll see how I feel tomorrow. At least tonight I can go to bed without feeling like I'll cry myself to sleep. I'll just think about the fun things I can do when I wake up.
It was a familiar one -- the sense of having left friends to go home by myself. Being alone, and lonely, and feeling uncared-for. I've left many places feeling uncomforted and unfulfilled, with it thrown into sharp relief by the brief warmth of friends. So I knew this depression far too well.
There isn't much I can do about it by myself, so I braced myself and waited for it to roll in. After a few minutes, though, all that came over me was almost a wistfulness, and a bit of resignation. My black depression had turned out to be a kind of melancholy. And that's how it stayed the rest of the way home.
It still surprises me when the pain isn't there. Sometimes it still is, just as sharp as ever -- but it's about as often now that it doesn't show up. It was such a large part of me for most of my life that I came to enjoy it, in a way... it fed my sense of the dramatic, a symbol of how badly I'd been treated through no fault of my own, a burden so heavy that it made me heroic to bear it. When it's gone I feel ordinary, and that's faintly distressing. Even if it was a terrible thing, it was still a little bit of magic, something epic. It's like waking up from an old-school fairy tale. I survived -- but the bridge doesn't have a troll under it anymore.
This melancholy is easier to lift myself out of, at least; it's so shallow all I have to think about is activities I enjoy which I could do tomorrow, and it lightens noticeably. I can function, and I think I can even be happy. I may not feel "full" in an emotional sense at the moment, but I no longer have a crippling hole in my core as a result. That's still something I'm getting used to.
We'll see how I feel tomorrow. At least tonight I can go to bed without feeling like I'll cry myself to sleep. I'll just think about the fun things I can do when I wake up.
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Date: 2015-08-04 16:31 (UTC)